“From Savings to Snafus: 69 Cost-Cutting Decisions That Went Horribly Wrong!”
Well…. That morning we are awoken by loud banging at our door. My husband jumped out of bed in a splash. There was water POURING out of our garage. It flooded the garage, our bedroom, bathroom and closet. We just moved in a month ago, so we still had a bunch of boxes of stuff in the closet. The closet is huge. It’s like a long room.
Long story short, there were tens of thousands in damages. The warranty company wasn’t going to pay at first because the guy fixed it on the side, not reporting the job to the company. But after my parents got through with them, they paid for all repairs, damage and then some.
Not me, but my father in law. Bought a $600K house with cash. Didn’t want to “waste” $300 on a home inspection before closing. After closing, they found out the house was full of termites from top to bottom. Ended up having to tear down the whole house and build new on the plot.
I am an electronics hobbyist. I’ve had some frugal successes such as building a quadcopter out of PVC (frame cost was about $0.25) but I have also wasted a *lot* of time trying to save money. Here’s some tips:
* Unless it’s an expensive through-hole part it’s not worth desoldering *unless* you’re just trying to practice desoldering. Worth it: Relays, big switches, speakers (‘cuz they’re easy), and rotary encoders.
* The only thing worth buying in bulk are passive components like resistors and capacitors and things that are so cheap it would be stupid to buy just one like buzzers (1 for $3 or 20 for $5). Everything else will sit in a drawer forever while rapidly becoming obsolete. Example: I have four laser diodes because I thought, ” why get one for a dollar when I can get five for five dollars?” Hehe
* You don’t need a ready stock of every size/kind of wire in every color. Ugh, why did I buy like 10 spools of 22awg in 10 different colors when all I really needed was red, black, and ?
* Tools are different: Why did I buy that “As seen on TV” wire stripper for $10 (which i knew would eventually break) when I could have bought the $25 one that will last forever? Get good tools that will last!
