You Can't Always Gets What You Want???

In one of my previous posts, I described the process I went through to refinish a piece of furniture.  However, my methods have changed somewhat.  Basically I use an orbit sander to buff out all of the scratches that exist in the piece.  After the obvious scratches are done, I just paint it and...BOOM.  DONE.

Ok, it may not be quite that straightforward, but pretty darn so.  Previously, I was gushing over Benjamin Moore's Aura paint, which I still love.  I do not, however, love the $20 price tag for one quart of paint.  Our local Benjamin Moore/Porter Paints was having a Labor Day sale on gallons of paint, so of course, I had to drag Tom there.  Optimus came along too and hung out while I lamented over the colors for our front door and deck and whether or not I wanted to paint it with exterior paint or with completely solid colored stain.  

(Yes, he blends into the couch fairly well)

As it turns out, this is going to be a post not about my adorable nightstand I just painted, but rather about negotiating and how that can have a big impact on what is possible for us to do with our house.  

While the paint guy was having an entirely too lengthy discussion about the different kinds of paint and which are low-VOC and which are No-VOC, I told him about some of my furniture projects.  Instead of the Aura Paint, he recommended Porter Paints line called "Advantage 900" which is supposedly better than the Aura Paint...at least for things that get a lot of wear, such as chairs.  You can also get it in your choice of oil-based or water-based.  Only gallons were on sale, so I expressed how I was disappointed since I don't really have the desire to paint 6 different pieces the same color.  He understood my predicament and told me he could work out a deal with me with the quarts of paint (which was at least $5 cheaper a quart than the Aura).  I picked out 4 colors thinking he might give me a better deal if I bought a larger quantity...so I asked if he could possibly go lower (my brother has been teaching me to ask for things like that.  What's the worst that happens?  They say no?).  He told me the lowest price he could go was $13.97/quart (instead of the $15) and I said, "Ok, I will only go with these 3 today", completely prepared to walk out with the 3.  He said, "Wait a minute.  What is your last color?  I'll just give it to you for free".  So I walked out with an extra quart of purple paint and I paid $13.97 for each of the other quarts.  Free paint plus more fairly discounted paint. 

Lesson Learned: Ask for what you want.  There are some great articles on this site for women Learn Vest, which specifically gives financial advice for females such as credit card rates changing and what prime rate gaps mean, how to understand your salary, graduation checklists, budgeting tools, understanding credit scores and how to improve them and how to save money on fun things like hosting dinner parties, obtaining fashion at a low cost, budgeting for fun things.  Written by women for women.  Recently, they did an article about negotiating, which was eye-opening and inspiring. 

If you are interesting in learning about how to ask for what you want effectively, check out their blog post "How to Complain About Bad Service and Negotiate Effectively", which provides 5 tips to live by as well as giving references to other research being done about the topic.  To find out more about the differences in men and women in effective negotiating, you can check out the webpage for the new book Women Don't Ask; Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.  

Interesting Stats from "Women Don't Ask" Research 

- Women's earnings relative to men's have stagnated at 73.2%. 

- In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel "a great deal of apprehension" about negotiating. 

- Men initiate negotiations about 4 times as often as women. 

- Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car.

- Women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don't. 

Anyway, some interesting food for thought.  

(He's awesome.  Notice how he's "helping".  By "helping", I mean snoring so loud it is interfering with my ability to hear my songs on itunes.)

How Negotiating and Just Plain Asking Has Helped Us: 

- We negotiated for all of our closing costs to be paid for us, which saved several thousand dollars. 

- We keep my brother on our phone plan with AT&T to get better rates.  He gets a corporate rate of 14% off for his plan, so we split the amount saved.  Plus, he calls up the phone company about once a month and asks them to take things off our bill. 

- When we go bargain hunting for furniture, I typically have a certain amount of money in my pocket.  I tell the sellers (usually men) exactly what pieces I want and how much money I want to spend.  Almost always, I walk out with exactly what I want. 

- At one secondhand store in town, I told them I lived close and wanted to buy a few things but couldn't fit them in my car.  Free delivery in their truck immediately...plus they carried the furniture into my house exactly where I wanted it.  Yes, I know there are perks to living in a small town. 

- Craigslist: Posters are frequently frustrated with people who are flaky, don't have cash, have a difficult schedule, etc.  Usually, when I make an offer for something on CL, it is for at least 25% less than they listed it for.  However, my emails generally include, "We have cash on hand and are ready to pick up the item as soon as possible.  Let us know when you are available and we can be there."  More often than not, we get the items for the price we ask for because we cut out that hassle and time wasting part that CL so often provides. 

- When there is a bigger item at a chain store I want to buy, I ask the managers when the next sale is going to be on that item.  Generally, they know and aren't at all apprehensive to share that information. 

Growing up in a very frugal family, I always felt really uncomfortable about negotiating because I was embarrassed.  However, I have come to recognize the definite merits of it and know how it has helped us in our endeavors with this house, even though it has been only 3 months.  

Another cute puppy picture because he just looks like such a sad sack.  He's a happy puppy...really. 

If any of this financial information is at all interesting, leave a comment letting me know and I can include more tips and examples of ways we have cut the costs of our endeavors. 

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns and Roses

P.S.  This post had no pictures.  That wasn't right, so I went back through and included some which may not make complete sense with this post.  Oh well.  They're pretty. 

Currently Listening to "Things I Don't Remember" by Ugly Casanova (as of when pictures got inserted)

Enter the Dishwasher

BOOM! New appliance #1. Of course, there's Optimus, being nosy. Thank you to who ever dropped this brand-new dishwasher at the warehouse leading to a 75% discount for us. Not only does it looks way fancier, but it actually works! All that happened was some minor damage to the stainless on the top left corner of the door, so it wouldn't seal properly. Nothing that a can't be fixed with a rag, a pair of Vise-Grips, and a FUBAR (there will be a future post describing the awesomeness that is this demolition-specific tool...stay tuned).

Installing a dishwasher is not rocket science. It can be a colossal pain if the one currently installed has incredibly short hoses and wires leading to it. It can be really messy if the insulation installed around the original was just shredded packing peanuts that were apparently the only place in this whole house that has had mice in it. It is really gross when two boards are glued with Liquid Nails over the one tiny access hole to the aforementioned way-too-short hoses and wires in the ceiling of the basement under the mouse-infested playground known as the backside of a 20-yr-old dishwasher. You reach your arm into that hole, I'm not doing it. In a related story, I love run-on sentences.

While we're discussing the first of many major installs in this house, I'd like to discuss exactly why I prefer to plan things by how long I "expect it to take," as opposed to how long "it should take." For those of you not familiar with dishwasher installs, it's pretty simple business. There are a grand total of two hoses, three wires, and 5 screws you have to remove to install virtually every dishwasher. If everything goes to plan, then you can just follow these steps:

1. Locate the breaker to the dishwasher circuit and flip it. Turn off the water to the dishwasher, normally a valve under the sink tee'd into the hot water line. Now it is safe to work on it.
2. Open the door and look up to find the two screws attaching the dishwasher to the counter. Remove them. The dishwasher is now free from the counter.
3. Lay down on the floor and look at the panel underneath the door. Remove the two screws on either side of the kick panel. Set the panel and screws aside.
4. Locate the panel with all the warning labels about personal injury and all that with one screw (possibly will just be a bolt) and remove that screw/bolt. The box will pop open.
5. Under this box will be three wires: black, white, and green/copper. There should be wire nuts on the white and black wires, while the ground will be either a bare wire or green and screwed against the frame by a green screw. Loosen this screw, remove the wire nuts, and pull the wires out of the back of the box.
6. Locate the 3/8" NPT brass elbow on the other side. Remove the hose from the brass elbow, then remove the brass elbow.
7. Locate the the plastic, ribbed drain line with some rubber connector. Disconnect the hoses.
8. Pull out the dishwasher.

You still with me? That was a lot longer than I thought it would be when I started writing, but it seems pretty straight forward, right? The installation of the new dishwasher just reverses all of this, which you can do with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. That's it. It should take anyone who's used any tools before about 10 minutes to remove a dishwasher.

Here's where the added time comes in. First, in our house, about 1/3 of the wiring is knob-and-tube (if you don't know what this is, you are not alone, I had to look it up when I first heard about it) with old-style screw-in glass fuses. Gross. Luckily, the modern appliances were rewired on a modern breaker box with standard Romex 3-C wire. Unluckily, the breaker box is an unlabeled rat's nest, so I actually had to trace the wire through the floor, across the basement ceiling, to the breaker box, and inside to the specific breaker it was on (for the record, taking the faceplate off of a live breaker box is really, really not safe...but it is possible to do it safely). Just right there it's taken me 6 minutes to shut off the power when it should have taken me less than 1. That's a 500% delay.

Then, this particular old dishwasher's kick plate had actually rusted itself onto the face, requiring me to get my special prying tools (a flathead screwdriver), my persuading device (hammer or FUBAR), and a rag (to prevent damage to the cabinets in this process). Just getting that off took a few minutes, when it should have just been removing two easily reached screws. Then of course there's the shrapnel left behind by the mice all around the underside of this thing, which I have to clean out prior to reaching my arms under to try and wrestle loose the water line and power wires. It goes on and on from there.

Then you get ready to install the new dishwasher and get almost all the way in and find that naturally, the new dishwasher standard has switched to a 3/4" hose fitting instead of a standard 3/8" NPT, so a specific brass elbow fitting has to be purchased, further delaying the install and requiring another trip. It's always something like that. So what should be a 20 to 30-minute job ends up taking a couple hours, because of stupid, simply unfortunate little annoyances. In the end though, we got a sweet, fully-functioning (and Energy Star) dishwasher. In conclusion, DIY-everything is a huge investment of time and patience, but this house is going to be freaking awesome when we're done with it.

Tom

Currently watching "The Coup" episode of The Office