Shower Curtain

I have been living with a few roommates to save money. The situation is not working out so I will be moving at the end of this month into a studio apartment. It will be a bit more expensive but how can you put a price on your sanity? My last roommates were great so I thought I could get lucky again. Nope.

One of my roommates named Hector also felt that things weren't working out so he decided to find a new place too. He moved out today. I could tell because when I walked into our shared bathroom he had taken his shower curtain with him. This presented me with a conundrum. How was I planning to take a shower? Most people would just put "buy a new shower curtain" on their to-do list and forget the whole thing. I saw an opportunity to save money. The cost of buying a new shower curtain is much more expensive than just having a wet floor. Which is free. Plus I'll be the only one using the bathroom for the next two weeks.

Skipping my morning shower was not an option. At least not for two weeks straight. I have a membership at planet fitness so I could opt to shower there for the next few weeks but that seemed pretty inconvenient. I could take a "whores bath" in the sink as my friend Jeff used to call them. Probably not going to work. My Girlfriend also has a shower at her place but she lives in the town over and works during the day. Not practical. I suppose I could take an actual bath because there is a tub but then I would have to sit in what I'm sure is a filthy tub. I am not certain I would emerge cleaner that way.

Then I thought, do I really need a curtain? I could aim the shower head towards the wall and put a towel down on the floor. I bet that will work. I can just get in the shower, get a layer of water on me then turn off the shower, lather up and then turn the faucet back on and rinse off. Should be easy.

I would normally be a bit more concerned about ruining the floor and risking not getting my deposit back but my apartment building has this weird thing where you don't pay a deposit. You buy renters insurance instead then they wave the deposit. Essentially, I'm not going to be getting back a deposit no matter how well I take care of the place. If I really break something obvious they could charge me in addition to my insurance but it would have to be something really bad like throwing the oven off the balcony. Even then, not sure this would raise any eyebrows. 

In the end, my shower experiment was a success. I took an abbreviated shower and the floor did not get any wetter than if I had just stood there and let myself air dry. Of course I'll need to go to Walmart and drop $4 plus tax on a shower curtain and rings in a few weeks anyways but that will be an end of February's problem. 

Free internet!

Who can live without access to the internet? My brother and I tried to go without internet in our apartment and it was horrible. We used to drive to a local coffee shop or the library to get online. The baristas would make a big stink if you came in to soak up the "free" WiFi without buying anything.  Between the two of us we spent hundreds of dollars on coffee at these places. It would have been cheaper to just pay to have it at our place. 

When I lived with my next set of roommates, we had WiFi put in and split the bill three ways. It cost us each about $20 a month. Worth it. Our apartment also had a business center where I could go 24 hours a day and get online if I needed a quiet place to blog. After a year and a half we all went our separate ways so I moved once again.

At my new place I am renting a single room in an apartment. The leasing agent told me that they have google fiber. Each room is equipped with its own router. She also said that they have a plan where you can get free access to the internet. Sounded too good to be true. Especially since everything else about my new apartment was dilapidated.

I contacted the google fiber representative. The options were that I could come to their office in downtown Austin or they could send me a router in the mail. I was pitched hard on the merits of Google high-speed ultra net or whatever they called it. I inquired about the free internet package. I was told that yes, they did have a free package but it was only a glacial 5 mps. I opted for the free package of course and assured her that if I found it too slow I would upgrade.

The Google fiber office was neat. Right when you walk in they have you sit down in front of a demonstration of to connection speeds. One is the free connection where everything is buffering and waiting to load. The other is the High-speed uber fast connection where they are simultaneously playing fortnight, mining bit coins, watching HD video, and sequencing the human genome without any lag. I was again told how smart I would be if I selected the fast internet and how stupid I would be if I selected the slow free internet. The sales person had the live demo to verify their claim right in front of us. Who could refuse?

I decided to be dumb. I again requested the free internet. Finally I was given the equipment and instructions on how to set it up. Just plug it into the wall and log into your account.

When I returned to my room I set it up and created my WiFi network. There were lots of clever WiFi network names in my building already such as porqueFi and FBI Surveillance Van. I decided to name mine after my swimming hobby. It is plenty fast enough for one person and works great for me since I am either surfing the web on my laptop or on watching youtube on my phone. For Free.

 

Almost free lunch

Saturday is my cheat day. The slow carb diet allows one day a week where I can eat anything. It helps me to stay on track during the rest of the week. I may take a day off of my diet but I never take a day off of trying to save money. Today I set out to claim my totally free lunch.

My gig work delivering from restaurants for favor occasionally produces some nice perks in the form of free food. I collect these offers and save them for Saturday. Often the receipt will offer a free burger with purchase of fries and a drink. Those go right in the trash. I want free food day to be completely free.

My first stop was down to my the office of my apartment building for a free coffee. They also have tea and bottle water available to residents and any hobos who happen to saunter in.

 

Armed with two cups of caffeine I set off to Flyrite Chicken. Last week I had to wait in line for an order for more than ten minutes so the manager gave me this token for $5 off my next visit. 

 

I looked at the menu. They had one item listed at $4.99. The original chicken sandwich. I was concerned that I may be required to pay the tax since this was prepared food. Then I remembered that I have a small cup of coins in my car where I stash coins I find on the ground around town. I decided that if I needed it I could dip into my coin collection and still maintain the spirit of free food day. Luckily the clerk said there would be no tax charged on this item. Score.

Dairy Queen was next on my list. After my last favor order there I received this an offer of a free Dilly Bar if I completed a survey. No money exchanged hands and I received my free ice cream. 

Delicious. My next plan is to continue getting punches on my Amy's Ice Cream card until I can take myself and my girlfriend out for free ice cream. Soon.

Dollar theatre

I enjoy going to see movies at a theater. The experience is more immersive. When I try to watch a movie at home it maintains my attention for about 20 minutes before I start checking my phone. Then I end up in some YouTube rabbit hole and forget all about the move.

There are plenty of theaters to choose from here in Austin but my favorite by far is the Lake Creek 7 theater northwest of town. This is a second run theater which means the movie has been out for a while so the tickets are much cheaper. Usually an adult ticket is under $3. The theater business model makes money on concessions anyways so this can be a profitable venture if they can get the film cheap enough. The screening are usually less crowded too. 

It takes about 25 minutes to drive there. As you can see from the map provided below, each of the blue dots is a theater I drive past to get to the discount theater. All of these are closer to my apartment.

I decided to go watch the new Jumanji movie. Jumanji 2: the next level. It started at 10:20 pm. Perfect. I hopped in my car and drove up. The dollar store next door where I usually pick up a snack for the film was closed. I walked into the theater and someone had cleaned the place up. It used to be a dump so I figured it was under new management.

One for Jumanji please.

Sure. That will be $12.

Huh? What happened to the $3 tickets. The clerk told me that they had transitioned to a normal first run theater and was no longer a discount theater. I turned around and walked out.

In the parking lot I decided to weigh my options. I would have wasted an hour with all the driving for nothing if I decided to skip the movie but the only reason I drove up here in the first place was to get a cheap ticket. Had I known the ticket was going to be full price I would not have come in the first place but I was already here.

I reluctantly walked back in to purchase a ticket. I noticed a sign next to the counter. It listed a range of discounts for different groups. Veterans, children, the elderly, and students. I decided that I would attempt to get the student discount. I told that clerk that I just started a 10 week sketch writing class at the ColdTowne Theatre so technically, I was a student. He smirked at my request pointed to the part of the sign where it said, with student ID. Well met. I told him they didn't issue ID's for this program but then I showed him an email which confirmed my spot in the class. He had to get his manager involved but in the end I did end up with the student discount which priced my ticket at $9.74.

There were three people in the theater including me. The woman behind me began cackling like a lunatic at the stupidest jokes during the movie. Next time I'll be staying home alone and streaming something off YouTube.

Car Charger Upgrade.

Six years ago I bought an electronic cigarette in an early attempt to quit smoking. It was trendy. To charge the device it could be hooked up to a USB. I received a wall charger and a car charger. Eventually I quit smoking altogether but I kept the USB car charger. I used the charger to power my iPod in my 98 Lincoln. I would hook one wire up to the tape deck and the other wire up to the power source. Technology.

I started doing deliveries in my car and needed to charge my phone while on the move. Plugging in my phone actually drained my battery. Other drivers were able to charge their phones in their cars, what was the problem? I decided that the Lincoln was old so it must not be putting out the right amount of power and forgot all about it. When I needed to charge my phone I just did it at home.

Recently I bought a new car. I brought my old car charger with me. My new car has a USB slot built right into the dash. It will charge my phone just fine but I filled up a thumb drive with music so I needed to use old car charger for charging my phone. Even with the new vehicle the car charger drained my battery. That makes no sense.  

I looked into it and the E-cigarette car charger has a lower voltage level than a traditional car charger. E-cigarette batteries were blowing up when charged at a higher voltage level so they made this custom one just for their batteries at a lower voltage. When I discovered this I went to dollar tree and picked up a proper charger with a higher voltage for $1.06. It charges the phone just as fast as plugging it into the wall.

I had a suspicion that it was the car charger for years yet I took no action to fix the problem. Why? It is because my default mode is:

Do not spend money.

When you are so focused on not spending money you often make do with things that don't make sense then justify it later with fuzzy logic. You create a habit of saying no. You convince yourself that saving a few dollars is worth having a non-functional phone charger in your car for years when you could spend a dollar to get one that works. The never spend mindset has a cost too. My desire to save money overrode logic and my desire to find an actual solution to this problem. 

The real danger is that you begin to accept the idea of things being good enough or even subpar if you can save a few dollars. Saying no all the time is harmful if it's your default thinking. It spills over into other areas of your life.

I have been losing some weight lately. When I was at my heaviest I told myself, why buy new clothing now? I'm planning on losing some weight so I'll buy some when I get thinner. Now I am a little thinner and some of my shirts and pants are too big. Not huge but they don't quite fit right. I have been telling myself, those are perfectly good shirts, I should wait until I have lost a few more pounds until I buy some new clothing. When I get down to the weight I want, what excuse will I tell myself then? This system is cursing me to constantly wear ill-fitting old clothing. It's easy to talk yourself into anything. Each step seems harmless but taken as a whole the process leads to a bad outcome.

I need to shift my thinking. I have decided that good enough is not good enough. I can still be responsible in my spending and stop fooling myself at the same time. Famous Psychologist Jordan Peterson has a rule in his book "12 rules for life" that says, "treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping." Would I let someone I care about drive around in a car that was breaking down all the time? Of course not. Then why would I let myself do it? I allowed myself to do that for the last couple years. I knew I needed to make a change but I didn't because I thought I could save money. In the end it cost me more to maintain the old car than to buy a new used car. It also cost me a lot in stress and emotional energy.

I want to be able to say yes more. This is my new default mode. How can I afford this? Instead of a no followed with a bunch of logical sounding excuses. 

Drinking for Science.

For the last few weeks I have been looking at an adult Santa costume on Amazon. I want to take a fun holiday picture with my girlfriend and thought a Santa suit would be the perfect addition to make the photo memorable. Even with my free shipping through a prime trial membership the cheapest suit that would fit was priced at $100. The price listed starts at $60 for a medium but when you put in XXXL then it jumps up to $100. They should call it a fat tax. For something this frivolous I thought this was too much to spend. There had to be a way I could get it for a discount.

I have begun to do open mic comedy shows around Austin so I joined the Austin comics Facebook group. One of the other comics posted an opportunity to be involved in a science experiment as a test subject. The pay? A $35 Amazon gift card. They needed test subjects to get drunk in their laboratory so they could test out some eye scanning devices. Sounds like a fun little Friday.

I sent in an email with my information and went in the following Friday. As promised they gave me a product code for a free Lyft ride. The driver showed up and I was on my way. She asked me what I was up to and I explained that I was going to go get drunk for a science experiment. Not sure that she actually believed me but she did get me to the right address.

When I arrived they scanned in a picture of my face and made me an official badge.

After being ushered into the lab area, which was the company breakroom, I was weighed and then given my baseline test. This was to measure my reactions while sober. Then the experimenter instructed to follow a bunch of dots on a screen. When finished I was returned to the lab area and given my first drink. It was 135 ml of Vodka with some orange juice mixed in. This is slightly over 3 standard shots of liquor. I was told to finish my drink within 10 minutes then in 20 more minutes the next test would begin.

Before my next round I took a breathalyzer. .033 was the first reading. Then .07 and finally .099 after my third round. I had become legally drunk in the state of Texas. The experimenter told me that I could stay as long as I wanted and enjoy some snacks. They brought in 6 domino's pizzas for the researchers and other participants. I ate an entire pizza along with some cliff bars and a tea. I was chatting with the staff quite a lot which they undoubtedly perceived as rambling. I was certainly "feeling it" and decided it was time to go home for a nap. When I told the experimenter I was ready to head home she presented me with my Amazon gift card and a post-it note with another Lyft promotion code to pay for my ride home. After a semi-coherent conversation with my Lyft driver I ended up in bed for a nice nap. It was about 7pm.

The next day I put my $35 credit toward the purchase of the adult Santa suit. In the end it cost me about $62. It arrived the very next day. They also have a 100% no questions asked return policy so after the pictures I may decide to return it and save even more but even if I keep it I think it was a good idea. You cannot put a price on fun. This must be a psychological bias but I feel like I got a great deal even though I technically paid full price for this. My enjoyment of the costume has been increased by my feeling that I somehow beat the system, even though that mental asthmatic is illogical and only in my head.

Update (1/1/2020)

I ended up sending the suit back. They issued my a 100% refund but it came in the form a Amazon gift card credit on my account instead of cash. I returned it before Christmas but I would have had the entire month of January to decide. Sweet. 

Free pool.

I've taken up swimming laps for exercise. Back in Michigan I always took swimming for granted since there were so many lakes. We lived on a lake when I was a kid so we went swimming almost every day during the summer. Here is Texas there is plenty of warm weather but no water. Lucky for me there are lots of pools available in Austin run by the city.

Each pool is run a bit differently. Many of them are neighborhood pools that are outdoor unheated pools that anyone can use for free. Some of the pools charge an admission. This is no problem most of the year since there is plenty of places to go for free during warm weather. The problem starts when it gets cold out. 

During the winter the city closes almost all of its pools. There are only 4 open during the winter. 3 of them charge an admission fee of $5. This seems like a small amount until you start swimming 3 times a week. That's $15 a week and $60 a month. My membership to planet fitness is only $10 a month.

There is one pool that does not charge admission called Big Stacy. The reason is that they allow Homeless people to come in and use the showers for free. They receive a government grant that covers their operating expenses because of this. There is usually not a line for a lane since most of the people are not swimming. Last time I waited in line for a shower and a guy came out with his dog. He had given his dog a shower too. There was hair all over the shower and I decided to just dry off and skip it.

One fine day I decided that it was time for my swim. I drove up to Big Stacy only to find that they were closed for the month for routine maintenance. The sign also said that I could go to the Bartholomew Park Pool which would be free for the month to accommodate people such as myself who had become addicted to their swimming fix.

I drove 25 minutes in rough traffic to this pool. When I arrived they were closed. The winter hours were from 1pm to 5pm and it was only 11pm. At this point I had 2 options. Burn two hours at a coffee shop reading and fooling around on the internet or I could drive to another pool and spend $5 on the admission. Going home without a swim was not an option. 

As I drove over to Deep Eddy I began to concoct the story that I would tell the person taking the admission at the desk. I would tell them my tale of woe about how much of a hassle it had been to finally arrive at an open pool and implore them to allow me to enter the pool for free. It was also about 45 degrees out which is unusual for Texas so I was not even certain they would be open. When I arrived I had this elaborate story all worked and put my most persuasive look on out only to find that it was off season so they were not even charging an admission fee. Score!

I successfully swam my laps and felt great afterwards. All it cost me was 4 hours of hassle and a quarter tank of gas. I learned to call ahead so I can avoid swimming through traffic all day.