"What are you saving for?" redux

[BUM]

Kudos TH one changing your own oil. Presently I'm down to 4 vehicles not counting lawn tractors, snowblower and a moped. Something always needs an oil change. I'm thinking of trying one of those drill motor pumps that suck the oil out from above. I dont care that some oil remains in the crankcase.

Also I read the API info the oil container per Consumer Reports and have been using Wolf's Head 10W30 by the case from Sam's Club for more than 10 years. But the 2002 SUV does get Castrol or equiv 5W30. Filters are Fram from WalMart and get changed every 3000mi oil change except in the winter. Oil get changed not the filter. Engine wear has never been an problem - ever.

 

[Zipper]

What do you do with the old oil?

 

[unclemick]

One of my doughnut shop buddies is 'semi- retired' and only puts on 50,000 miles per vehicle - swears that he only changes the filter at regular intervals - been using synthetic oil (the same) since it came on the market.

The retired motor pool sargent in the group says the Army got the same presentation from Mobil and passed. In theory, it should work providing no acid build up (constant ph).

They might be getting 'spiked' doughnuts or just pulling my leg.

Could this be true

 

[laurence]

I have a friend who is a BIG 4 wheeling/off roading nut, has a Jeep YJ-7 that he runs synthetic in. Only changes the filter, never changes the oil, just adds a quart. That machine has boulder crawled in death valley while he uploaded GPS nav points. He's never had a problem. So yeah, I guess it's true.

 

[JWV]

My DH does the kitchen work.  Like JG's wife, he saves and reuses  every container that comes into the house.  He washes and reuses all ziplock bags.  He reuses most other plastic bags but doesn't go so far as washing them anymore.  Bread bags get shaken out and reused.  If the bag is borderline, it becomes a dog poop bag.  He has even been know to reuse aluminum foil.  .

Martha, we must have married twins, separated at birth! You've described the man of this house to a T.

Judy
humming *It's so nice to have a man around the house*

 

[gayl]

All right, I'll come clean, we do compulsively save glass jars (salsa, jam, etc.)!  They are really usefull!

Same here for 2 reasons. Can't see buying them and can't see the cost to increase the garbage can from the 20 gallon size for 18.50 month and the regular size for 2x that.

"What are you saving for?"

2 reasons: it enables me to retire earlier than the norm & is easier on the environment. Hopefully I've educated my kids better than the 'extremely frugal' woman educated hers. Those kids sound typical of the 'spend now' generation that may be unable to ever retire debt free. Yes, she was a little extreme but its not easy to single-handedly raise, educate, & launch five kids--

 

[BUM]

We are saving for things that we havn't thought of yet.

 

[BUM]

What do you do with the old oil?

Hi Zipper,

I used to live at the end of a long dirt road. I spread the used oil on the road to keep the dust down using a watering can. Now I drain the oil into a WalMart oil sump container. Alot of it I use. Any surplus goes to the local gas station. BTW, akin to dryer sheets, used motor has a zillion uses. In the fifties it used to be bottled and sold as furniture polish.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

BUM - I use the wolfs head too. Memory serves pennzoil bought the name a while back and what you're basically getting is $20 a case pennzoil for $10.

Oil disposal is really, really easy. Most auto parts stores, oil change and repair places and so forth are required by law in many parts of the country to take used motor oil. Most areas also have hazardous materials dropoff locations as part of their trash collection deals.

I take mine to the auto parts store between me and the supermarket...walk in, drop the milk jugs on the counter and wave at the guy in the back on the way out. Its that easy.

 

[BUM]

Same here TH.... Local recycling etiquette strongly points out that "although the law requires that I accept your used oil, I'm not required to accept your container". I smile and dump my oil directly into the pro-offered bung hole. And take my container(s) home.

 

[P.S.]

What are we saving for? Maybe for just the fun of saving. It's like a hobby. Some people like to smoke, I like to save. Maybe it's a reaction to my early twenties...
BTW, as long as those trees weren't bothered by poison ivy or oak maybe that toilet paper could be salvaged?

 

[Nords]

OK, lemme answer my two weeks' backlog.  Note that this will be a single robust & quality post instead of sixteen short, substandard ripostes. If five stars were good enough for Eisenhower & Nimitz then they're good enough for me too...

I watch TV to the extent that I happen to be sitting next to my spouse while she's going through the VCR recordings (& listening via headphones).  I record 40-50 hours/week and she goes through it in about 10.  I watch Star Trek (or at least I used to, snivel) but usually I'm reading and I only look up at whatever catches my eye.  (E.g., when Teri Hatcher or Eva Longoria are moving around the screen.)  I probably log more computer time than spouse logs in front of the TV so we don't criticize each other's media choices. 

We watch Dr. Phil to appreciate how good our own lives are.  What impresses me about the guy is the family franchise that he's building and his no-nonsense writing style.  And our kid is heartily tired of hearing "Oh, yeah?  How's that workin' for ya?"  I don't I have the attention span to watch his show live, but he's quite entertaining when you have a fast-forward button.  He wouldn't hesitate to make fun of frugality if he thought it'd create publicity, and he's been taking a lot of website abuse from his viewers for "not getting it".  More chutzpah-- which will probably lead to a lot more frugal zealots clamoring to "educate" him on his own show.  Then he can turn around and start ripping into the couples who don't understand where their six-figure debt came from.

It was also entertaining to watch the frugal woman and her daughters when the show came back from commercial breaks-- from the expressions and the shushing motions of the director it was clear that there was some spirited discussion away from the cameras.  Now it's become a family joke-- yesterday we drove by a broken pallet of toilet-paper rolls blowing all over the breakdown lane.  After watching that episode it was hard not to stop, pick them all up, and bring them home.  But I still pick up pennies (and yen and baht coins) off the street.

Just like Martha's husband, we sort plastic bags by size and re-use them.  We don't always rinse them and they're generally only re-used once.  We re-use our paper grocery bags and, when they're about worn out, we fill them with the green waste that we don't compost for the city to pick up & mulch.  Since I've started a compost pile we only throw out one 13-gallon bag of trash every week or two.  The compost pile also supports a very entertaining mongoose family and keeps them out of the macadamia nuts.

As for the oil changes-- as has been pointed out, it's not about the oil changes!  It's about taking the time to notice what else is dripping from the car, whether a tire is going flat, if a CV boot is ruptured, whether the engine or the brakes are misbehaving, or a dozen other things.  An oil change is one of the few ways to force yourself to inspect your car and to make sure that the other maintenance/repairs are getting done (by you or by a mechanic).  Besides I can change two cars' worth of oil in the time it'd take me to drive to the JiffyLube, wait for TH's "mechanic" to get to them, and then check that he didn't leave us with a new oil leak (or a stripped oil-pan bolt). 

I hesitate to re-use even synthetic oil.  Filters will stop a lot of the particulates (metal shavings, dirt, paper towels) but they won't fix the moisture content or the acid breakdown.  The Navy buys some of the world's finest lubricants (or at least the most expensive) and we still spent a lot of time inspecting samples for breakdown.  Didn't take long for it to happen, either, and you should see what 1000 gallons of oil looks (and smells!) like after it's been lubricating a marine engine for a few months.  I change our car oil every six months precisely because we barely drive a couple thousand miles in that time, and barely for more than 30 minutes at a time.  Hawaii oil doesn't go into a landfill-- it's burned at the HPOWER plant along with all the other combustible trash. 

MJ, VoyT-- contact your local elementary school or childcare center about those yogurt containers.  Meat/fish trays and egg cartons are usually great craft supplies, too.  Even cut-down cardboard boxes are good for storage or for containing the paint splatter from a project.

I've learned to lighten up on the fiscal controls a little, but it's good to keep in practice and to demonstrate good habits for our kid.  Besides, as several have pointed out, we might be saving for contingencies that we never anticipated.  I sure hope we'll never need the "savings", but it's nice to have.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Note that this will be a single robust & quality post instead of sixteen short, substandard ripostes. If five stars were good enough for Eisenhower & Nimitz then they're good enough for me too...

Now this is funny! - I only need four stars, because Admiral Zumwalt was the guy I admired most in the Navy, mostly because all the other 'lifers' hated him!

As far as scrimping, my approach is to live fairly high on the hog now that I'm retired. If bad times come, then I'll have somewhere to cut back from. If I cut back now, I'd have no slack to take up if the going got rough!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I watch Star Trek (or at least I used to, snivel)

Bummer huh? It was just getting decent this season.

When gabe starts getting ready to get fussy, he stiffens out his legs and arches his back. This is known as "the captain archer" position. Whats even funnier is my wife now knows whats going on when I yell out "uh oh hon, its captain archer..."

 

[Nords]

Bummer huh?  It was just getting decent this season.

When gabe starts getting ready to get fussy, he stiffens out his legs and arches his back.  This is known as "the captain archer" position.  Whats even funnier is my wife now knows whats going on when I yell out "uh oh hon, its captain archer..."

I've read that Star Trek has been on TV in one form or another for over 18 years. Now they're probably gonna triple the prices of their DVDs.

Ah, yes, the "I'm NOT going in the car seat!!" spasm! Good luck; we never really did solve that problem without brute force...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Its an odd life when you can yell "Hon, we've got captain archer and he's about to become the prince of wails, I think we need to make him into burrito boy" and your wife, who is in the other room, knows exactly what you're talking about.

Yep, this will be the first totally star trek free season since we were young people. The guys running the program for some time now have said that they refuse to cater to the fan base and want the show to be more mainstream. Only problem is the 'fan base' IS the ONLY audience for such a show.

I can see why it ended up getting bagged though. Too many "time travel" episodes, way too much serialization (you couldnt watch one episode and have any idea what was going on), the obligatory 'nazi' episode, rehashing just about every old star trek plotline ever done before, "encountering" alien species by the buttload that werent known until hundreds of years later (lets see...borg, romulans, tholians, gorn...the list goes on), and very little to what I thought would be the best part of the show: coming up with all the technologies and developing all the relationships with other species.

But that cant be it. "The franchise is tired". "TV watchers arent interested in science fiction". Yeah...thats why theres an entire channel devoted to it that does very well :

I wish it had continued to suck this year; I wouldnt have missed it. But its quickly become one of the few shows I look forward to seeing. Bastards!

What does this have to do with saving? Uhh...I was considering saving up some money to 'save the show' until the producers said they didnt care who came up with however much money, it was their show, they were killing it, and that was that. (aka: we're not going to turn it over to someone else with actual creativity and interest in the show that will quickly make us look like morons).

 

[VoyT]

I can see why it ended up getting bagged though.  Too many "time travel" episodes, way too much serialization (you couldnt watch one episode and have any idea what was going on), the obligatory 'nazi' episode, rehashing just about every old star trek plotline ever done before

 

   It was almost a game: Try to figure out which ST show they were stealing from that particular week.  It is unfortunate that Enterprise  didn't begin to turn around until it was too late.
      Sigh. At least there's still Stargate, though I'm not sure how SG1 will fare after the changes. And "Battlestar Galactica" is definitely a bright spot. 

 

[FlowGirl]

I wish it had continued to suck this year; I wouldnt have missed it.  But its quickly become one of the few shows I look forward to seeing.  Bastards!

Yeah, that burns me up too.  I missed most of seasons 2 and 3 because of no access to a TV and didn't give a damn because it seemed like almost every episode I accidently caught was horrible.  Got caught up in it again halfway through this season though and have been super impressed. 

What does this have to do with saving?  Uhh...I was considering saving up some money to 'save the show' until the producers said they didnt care who came up with however much money, it was their show, they were killing it, and that was that.  (aka: we're not going to turn it over to someone else with actual creativity and interest in the show that will quickly make us look like morons).

I wish they would give it a chance through syndication - it worked for Next Gen and DS9.  Considering some of the other crap sci-fi that's out there (my Dad actually watches Andromeda ) it seems like it would be worth a shot.  Oh well.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah, I've been watching stargate atlantis and the new battlestar galactica. Both are excellent shows in my opinion. I've even been re-watching the stargate atlantis shows until the second half of the season starts in august.

Andromeda is one of the worst shows I've ever seen. It was fine the first season, then Kevin Sorbo took over production and it turned into "Hercules in Space". This past season was weird. They pretty much ended the show last year with all the characters being killed, and the ship being destroyed. Then they decided to do it for one more year. Everybody wasnt dead/blown up, they had just been thrown into some alternative universe. Shades of Bobby Ewing, only dumber. That it took them 6 episodes to explain what had happened didnt help. 99% of the action was badly scripted and in a 'wild west' sort of town on a planet in the alternative universe. In other words: cheap.

Stargate Atlantis is a nice spin on the old "stargate' franchise. A cast of characters thats almost identical in character type to the original. Instead of bouncing around the galaxy, this bunch takes a one way trip through a long range stargate to the pegasus galaxy, where they land in the abandoned super high tech city of atlantis. They have to figure out how everything works while being attacked by a vampiristic enemy and looking for help from lots of potential allies/enemies. I like it a lot more than the original SG-1, which just got too campy.

Battlestar Galactica is a remake of the old series from the 70's. Much more character intensive though, and the cylons arent all big metal can types, some of them are flesh and blood and look like regular people. In other words, anyone could be a cylon, programmed to "go off" and kill someone or blow something up. Lots of tension once everyone figures this out and starts suspecting each other. Even the cloned cylons dont know they're robots, have emotions, etc. Some people suspect they might be a clone when they arent, some think they are and they really are. A lot more character interaction and some actually decent acting and a little less physics-defying bad special effects shoot-em-ups.

Not only have Beavis and Butthead scuttled enterprise, Scott Bakula recently revealed that they also threw out plans for an "Enterprise" movie. B&B claim they never had any such plans and do not intend to make any star trek based materials for many years.

I guess the only other good news is the new "Firefly" movie is supposed to be great. Maybe that'll sponsor a restart of that very good series that was screwed up by bad decisions...nothing like running a serialized show all out of sequence to make an audience stop watching because they have no freakin idea whats going on.

I saved absolutely no words in this post. I'm saving up all my hope for more good sci-fi on television!

Whoops...gotta go...I've got captain archer here...

 

[VoyT]

Andromeda is one of the worst shows I've ever seen. It was fine the first season, then Kevin Sorbo took over production and it turned into "Hercules in Space". This past season was weird. They pretty much ended the show last year with all the characters being killed, and the ship being destroyed. Then they decided to do it for one more year. Everybody wasnt dead/blown up, they had just been thrown into some alternative universe.

Oh, gack! Glad I missed all that. I've slowly warmed up to Atlantis ... though I spend part of each ep fervently hoping that Rodney is fed to the wraiths!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well, Andromeda did have some minor saving grace by rolling out a former penthouse pet in a skimpy outfit to prance around as a new cast member.

I dont think that would have done much for you though...

Rodney has enough small unpleasant things happen to him on a regular enough basis to make me happy...

 

[VoyT]

Well, Andromeda did have some minor saving grace by rolling out a former penthouse pet in a skimpy outfit to prance around as a new cast member.

I dont think that would have done much for you though...

Nope, not at all!  Now the fellow who plays Apollo on "Battlestar Galactica" -- he's definitely worth looking at

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Thats what I thought, dang it!

I just watched the 'atlantis' episode (tivo'd from several weeks ago) where rodney finds the 'personal shield' and is a little put off that EVERYONE wants to help him 'test it out' by shooting him with some random weapon or by pushing him off a 3rd story landing to the floor below. Its even more amusing when he discoveres that he cant turn it off and that it stops him from eating or drinking. His constant "....But I'll be dead of starvation or dehydration in 3 days so who cares" comments at the end of everything he says for the rest of the show is worth its weight in gold.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And to cap off this hijack.

I watched the series finale for Enterprise last night.

I have no idea why Braga and Berman, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a show, and close examination of the show itself is no help. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, and completely unfulfilling series finales I've ever seen. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails.

I hated this episode. Hated hated hated hated hated this episode. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

It was easily the very worst episode of any science fiction show I have ever seen, including "Andromeda".

With so many opportunities to close out many promising developments and directions, the show was 100% negative, crapped on everything possible, and then was abruptly ended before the concluding speech.

It was a magnificently and universally horrible ending. Made more so by the fact that I was about 1/4 in the bag when I watched it. Anything that isnt at least modestly entertaining when one has consumed 3 beers really and truly stinks.

I hope to god these two decide not to make any more series or movies of any kind or fashion, and would prefer that the "star trek" franchise remain dead forever rather than be subject to any more of their "efforts".

I hope my ambivalence above does not lead anyone to believe that I may have liked this episode in any small way

 

[laurence]

And to cap off this hijack.

I watched the series finale for Enterprise last night.

I have no idea why Braga and Berman, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a show, and close examination of the show itself is no help. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, and completely unfulfilling series finales I've ever seen. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails.

I hated this episode. Hated hated hated hated hated this episode. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

It was easily the very worst episode of any science fiction show I have ever seen, including "Andromeda".

With so many opportunities to close out many promising developments and directions, the show was 100% negative, crapped on everything possible, and then was abruptly ended before the concluding speech.

It was a magnificently and universally horrible ending. Made more so by the fact that I was about 1/4 in the bag when I watched it. Anything that isnt at least modestly entertaining when one has consumed 3 beers really and truly stinks.

I hope to god these two decide not to make any more series or movies of any kind or fashion, and would prefer that the "star trek" franchise remain dead forever rather than be subject to any more of their "efforts".

I hope my ambivalence above does not lead anyone to believe that I may have liked this episode in any small way

So....it was bad? Big Sci-Fi fan, eagerly anticipated this series, couldn't watch it past the episode where it went "back to the future war" on me and they went all timeline warrior etc. WHATEVER! Babylon 5 was the greatest series ever, but had it's last two seasons squeezed into one and kinda went downhill because of it. When you have a master race Vorlon asking, "will you come with us, we're scared!" at the end, it kind of deflated things.