When I was in college, the vast majority of my classes were effectively training for a career in research and scientific data management. Seven years after graduation, though, I find myself drawing instead on the transferrable skills I picked up in other classes: public speaking, writing, leadership, information management, and so on. To put it simply, transferrable skills are those things that you can utilize no matter what specific career path you find yourself on.

Transferrable skills are often left by the wayside in competitive college majors. In order for a computer science major to get a leg up in the post-graduation workplace, for example, it’s often preferable to jam in another programming or algorithms class than it is to insert another public speaking class. Even if the program does require classes on transferrable skills, those classes are often looked down upon as “blow off” classes – ones that have to be finished in order to get down to the real classes within the major.

I believe this is a mistake. As change in this world accelerates, people are spending less and less of their life strapped to one particular career. They have the freedom to choose other avenues – starting a new career, starting their own businesses, and so on. In that environment, transferrable skills become more and more valuable. In fact, a well-polished transferrable skill makes for brilliant resume fodder no matter what your job – communication skills and leadership experience are a plus for almost any post-college job you might apply for.

Obviously, course loads often aren’t very flexible in a college environment, so my recommendation would be for college students to seek out other sources for picking up and mastering transferrable skills – extracurricular activities, internships, and other sources. Beyond college, transferrable skills are useful for everyone to work on at any stage in one’s career

Here are six significant areas of transferrable skill well worth working on, both to improve yourself and to prepare for your future.

Leadership Can you actually lead a team? Can you herd a group of people towards a greater purpose? Are you self-motivated enough to do this? Can you set goals and actually achieve them? Can you plan large projects and push them forward?

How can I get it? Join a community or student organization and take charge of a large project. Later, run for a leadership position within that group. The best way to learn leadership skills is to learn them in the laboratory of life, and organizations provide the perfect opportunity.

Administrative skills Are you able to prioritize the tasks in front of you? Can you analyze information and then describe it in layman’s terms for others to understand? Can you interpret rules and use them effectively?

How can I get it? Get involved in the planning of as many large projects as you can. Project planning teaches you many of the administrative skills you’ll need in life. If there is a large project, volunteer to help with the planning – if there’s already a planner in place, learn everything you can from that planner.

Information management Can you actually research a topic? Can you take a pile of research and use it to answer worthwhile questions? Can you communicate those facts to others? Can you manage a budget and handle financial records? Can you use a wide variety of computer programs?

How can I get it? If there are opportunities to present anywhere around you, take them, even if you aren’t familiar with the topic. Of particular use are topic areas where you’ll have to do some research in order to get the presentation right. Another great avenue is to volunteer to be the secretary or (particularly) the treasurer for a group. Such activities will require you to carefully manage a large amount of information on behalf of a large group.

Creativity Can you come up with interesting ideas of all kinds? Are you good at coming up with marketing ideas? Are you good at formulating the next step in a process? Are you good at creating visually appealing layouts?

How can I get it? Create some websites for groups – and learn how to do it along the way. Whenever there’s an opportunity for brainstorming, get involved and throw out ideas. Creativity is something that is best learned by practice – so practice it.

Interpersonal communications Are you willing to speak in public? Can you communicate your ideas well in writing? Can you lead a conversation? When you communicate with others, do they understand your ideas?

How can I get it? Participate in conversations and meetings instead of just sitting there. Volunteer for any and all public speaking opportunities that come your way. Volunteer for difficult and arduous tasks of documentation – that’s the best way possible to practice writing to communicate information.

Personal development Can you use the experiences in your life as a source for growth and personal change? Do you have a personal moral code that you actually follow? Can you effectively and honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of others (both people and things)? Can you deal with stress?

How can I get it? Don’t shy away from challenges – step up to big projects. Keep a journal and use it to explore what you really think about things, particularly the people around you.

Every moment you spend learning the above skills is a valuable moment. You’ll find yourself returning to these skills time and time again throughout your life – and they’ll provide a surprisingly strong backbone for your career and personal success.

Like many families, the schedule of our family changes drastically during the summer. My wife goes on hiatus from her job for a few months, our children are constantly at home, and I strive to rearrange my own work so that I can spend more time with them. Plus, the weather is beautiful, encouraging us to be outside.

Most summers, we load our summer scheduled down with all kinds of different activities – camping trips, visits to state parks, community festivals, and lots of other things.

But how do you find all of these things. Here are ten resources we use for finding great free/cheap things to do during the summer.

Community Festivals
http://www.festivals.com/
Looking for city-wide festivals in your local community or in neighboring communities? Festivals.com is the best resource I’ve yet found for collecting listings of all of these festivals. While it doesn’t include everything, it does point out lots of interesting activities near your zip code all throughout the summer.

Music Festivals
http://www.festivalfinder.com/
Once you get beyond mega-festivals like Bonnaroo, there are a lot of music festivals all across the country, and many are surprisingly inexpensive (sometimes free). Such festivals are a great way to hear lots of interesting music and meet people who have similar interests.

National Parks
http://www.nps.gov/findapark/
A national parks pass can be one of the best frugal investments around. National parks are wonderful places to explore, camp, hike, and enjoy. The stunning beauty and majesty of nature found within many of the parks is well worth visiting.

State Parks
http://www.stateparks.com/usa.html
If you want a even less expensive and more local alternative to national parks, try finding a great state park near your area. State parks offer very inexpensive camping options and plenty of interesting area to explore and enjoy.

Libraries
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/librarysearch/
Many libraries offer great summer programs of all kinds: reading groups, reading programs for kids, free film nights, and so on. Summertime is a great time to get in touch with the many interesting and free programs available right in your own town at the library.

Community Calendars
http://www.google.com/search?q=community+calendar
Just add your city and state to the above Google query to find the community calendar for your own town. Community calendars are loaded with interesting and enjoyable free events, from community dinners to farmer’s markets in your local area. It’s also worth searching for the community calendars of cities and towns adjacent to where you life.

Craft Fairs
http://www.craftsfaironline.com/region.html
If you enjoy crafting, craft fairs can be incredibly fun ways to spend a day or two. Most craft fairs are free to enter and often provide a way to sell or trade your craft products, as well as pick up interesting and useful supplies and also learn new techniques.

Natural Collections
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/06/25/starting-a-natural-collection/
Summertime is the perfect time to start a natural collection of your own. It gives you a great reason to start exploring the outdoors anywhere and everywhere, doesn’t cost a thing, and can provide the foundation of a lifelong passion. Start a notebook tracking the birds you find. Collect leaves or interesting rocks. Just explore the natural beauty around you.

Minor League Baseball
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com
Most communities of any size have a minor league baseball team in the area – or has one at least somewhere nearby. Minor league baseball games are pure fun – much more frugal and much more laid back than major league games, often with wacky entertainment to boot. Minor league versions of any other sport are similar in their frugal fun, particularly minor league hockey, though it is rarely played in the summer.

Volunteering
http://www.volunteermatch.org/
Want a great free activity that you can spend lots of hours on, enjoy the outdoors, and feel good about yourself afterward? Few things can beat volunteering, and you can usually get the whole family involved.

Whenever I discuss frugal issues, someone usually brings up the argument that you’re better off focusing your energy on earning more money instead. While I certainly appreciate the value of earning more, I argue that spending a dollar less is significantly more valuable than earning a dollar more.

On what facts do I base this unabashed bias towards penny pinching? Two big advantages come right to the forefront.

First, the money you save from cutting spending isn’t taxed – more income is taxed. Taxes always benefit the frugal person. If you save $100 this year on household goods at the department store, your actual cash savings is $105 to $107 – you’re not paying sales taxes on those items. On the flip side, if you’re in the 33% tax bracket, you have to earn $150 in order to bring home that same $100. Every time you take a frugal step, your savings is after taxes – meanwhile, any increases in earnings that you accrue are still yet to be taxed.

A great example of this idea at work is our homemade laundry detergent recipe. I can make a batch of this in fifteen minutes – in other words, four batches an hour. Since each batch equals fifty two loads and each load has a savings of seventeen and three-quarter cents, you can save $36.92 in an hour’s worth of work. If you had used that $36.92 to buy laundry detergent, you would also have to pay 7% sales tax, costing you at total of $39.50.

But that’s just the start! Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’re in the 25% tax bracket. To make back that $39.50, you’d have to increase your income by $49.38. Let’s say you’re making $15 an hour – you’d have to work for three hours and twenty minutes to take home as much as you would from an hour of making homemade laundry detergent.

Second, savings tactics stand alone – you can’t increase your earnings in fifteen minutes. Frugal tactics are immediately effective when it comes to your bottom line. If you spend fifteen minutes making a grocery list and stick to it at the store, that time spent immediately results in more money in your pocket. Meanwhile, if you spend fifteen minutes of your time networking for your career, it earns no immediate dividends (unless you’re lucky enough to immediately make a sale of some sort). Instead, it just contributes a bit more to the stability and long-term potential of your career – not really a big help when you’re trying to make ends meet this month.

Let’s say you’ve got $100 in your checking account, for example, and you have a $90 electricity bill due. You also need laundry detergent to wash your clothes. What do you do? My suggestion would be to get the ingredients for that homemade detergent and spend fifteen minutes making your own detergent. Unless you happen to be a salesman on commission, no amount of networking is going to get your clothes clean.

So what advantage does earning more have over spending less? To put it simply, you can only cut so much spending – while you can always earn more. A career built with passion and focus is like a snowball rolling down the mountain – the income keeps building and building and building.

But it’s a slow build – and it’s one that has to work against the counter-forces of taxes and time, two things that many people simply don’t have in their favor when they’re trying to turn their financial ship around.

I’ll stick to using both tactics, thank you. I’ll work hard to keep that career snowball rolling down the mountain – but I’ll keep making my homemade laundry detergent until you pry the borax from my cold, dead hands.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently. Three readers have written me for advice on expensive hobbies (particularly golf). Here are some thoughts on saving money on hobbies.
Ten Ways That I Save Money Golfing
The Tug of War Between Frugality, Hobbies, and an Emergency Fund
Making Expensive Hobbies More Financially Manageable
Evaluating Your Expenses – Entertainment & Hobbies

And now, some great reader questions!

I was reading your series on buying a house, and I have a question about that. Did you read a particular book or books that you would recommend for someone considering buying a first home? (Or maybe building, I’m picky)
- Chapeau

During our home-buying process, I hit the library pretty hard and looked at a ton of books. Mostly, I’d just make lists of questions that I didn’t know the answer to, then I’d hit the library and seek answers to all of them at once, then repeat a few weeks later.

The most useful all-around book that we found was, surprisingly, Home Buying for Dummies. It consistently had readable answers to most of the questions we came up with. Eventually, my wife purchased a copy of the book and it became quite dog-eared by the time we finally made our move.

My suggestion? Make a big list of questions. Go to the library and look at lots of different home buying books to find answers to your questions. When you find one that really seems to answer things well for you, buy a copy and then don’t be afraid to add notes all over the book. It worked really well for us.

I want to start a Roth for my wife and I through Vanguard but the minimum fund amount is $3000 each so it would be quite a substantial amount of money to buy even two funds for each of us. Do you have any suggestions how to start one through vanguard without so much start up money?
- Bob

Since you’re in a Roth IRA, there’s no tax penalty for switching from fund to fund. Thus, my suggestion would be that each of you start with the Vanguard STAR fund. It’s a well-diversified standalone fund that has only a $1,000 minimum.

Once you’re in that fund, have all of your contributions go there until you’ve built up enough to buy the minimum of whatever funds you want, then sell all of the Vanguard STAR shares and use the proceeds to buy the other funds. Then, change your contributions so that you’re allocating how you like.

This is exactly what I did with my Roth IRA – worked like a charm.

Have you considered reviewing children’s storybooks that deal with money management themes? We already own two (-The Peanut Butter and Jelly Game- and -Stock Market Pie: Grandma Helps Emily Make a Million-), and I’m familiar with a few other titles, like -Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday-.

I know Dave Ramsey has a handful of books aimed at kids, but I haven’t read them yet, and I’d be interested to hear someone else’s opinion of them.
- Jenzer

I’ve seen several books along these lines and they look compelling. I think most of them teach really good lessons in a way that young children can grasp.

So why haven’t I reviewed any? To be frank, I’m waiting until my son and daughter are a bit older – probably a year or so. When they reach that age, I’ll start reading such books to them and see how much the ideas stick in their heads. That, to me, will be the real test of whether or not these books are worthwhile.

I will probably start with some of the Dave Ramsey books, actually.

This won’t work for everyone but I am a 20-something that lives close to home. I just use my mom’s Sam’s card whenever i need to go there. Therefore I don’t pay for it. Not to mention, it is free to her because it is a necessary business expense.
- Ryan

I actually did the same thing when I was in college, more or less. My college was fairly close to a Sam’s Club, so my parents bought a membership and would often fill up their vehicle with Sam’s Club purchases when they came to visit. I kept the other card that came with the membership and went there quite often.

If you have a family member who would also benefit from a membership at a warehouse club, talk to that family member and discuss splitting the cost of the membership. You might find that, though $40 is too much to spend, $20 is a price point you’re willing to pay.

Personally, if you have adequate storage room in your living space, I think most people will get their membership’s worth out of a warehouse club.

If you have a little spare time, do you bother entering competitions, answering surveys, becoming a mystery shopper and the likes to make a little extra money, or is it just a waste of time?
- V

Most of the time, I don’t bother. The time investment is too much for the return – or the chance of a return, in the case of contests and other such things.

That being said, such things can be a simple distraction in the evenings – a way to fill commercial breaks with something largely mindless that can bring in a dollar or two. I usually use that sort of time to bargain hunt, for example.

However, if you’re devoting blocks of time that you could be using elsewhere, things like surveys aren’t worth it, in my opinion.

Whenever you mention watching TV shows or listening to music or watching movies, you always talk about buying them or renting them. Why not just BitTorrent them or use LimeWire?
- Kelly

Because I’m opposed to piracy. Whenever an album or a television show or a movie appears, a lot of people – most of them earning just a typical living wage – are involved in producing that item. They work hard to provide a good piece of entertainment.

Whenever you download a movie or a piece of music or a TV show, you’re telling all of the people that worked on the item that their contributions are worthless to you. That is inherently a lie, since you’re going through the effort of downloading it – if it has no value, you wouldn’t be putting forth the effort.

Yes, I know all about how the RIAA and the MPAA are evil. I also know that most people who use that as an excuse are looking to build a big grey area on the issue so that they can feel justified in their theft.

Having said that, I will say that there are much better solutions to this whole problem than the MPAA/RIAA or the pirates are advocating at this point. If this topic really interests you, I strongly encourage you to read Remix by Lawrence Lessig, which is an extremely levelheaded and intelligent book on copyright in the age of the Internet. His conclusions are really interesting, and I think that adopting some of those conclusions would make all of this a moot point.

How do you catch up on television shows you missed?
- Adam

This somewhat follows from Kelly’s question. I know a lot of people catch up on television shows via BitTorrent and other such services.

Fortunately, though, most of the shows I follow (like Lost, for example) have their episodes up on the web for free viewing. If I want to start a series from scratch, I’ll usually trade for the DVDs of the series, but, quite honestly, there aren’t many series that I would want to devote that much time to.

If a series is actually good enough that I could see myself watching the whole thing all the way through multiple times (a la Lost, probably), I would have no objection to buying or trading for the DVDs. The people that create such compelling work deserve the dollars.

Have you ever played the lottery?
- Chloe

When I was in college, I used to play the lottery fairly often, particularly scratch-offs. I really have no idea why I did this – it was more of a laugh than anything else.

At some point, I realized how much of a waste of money it was. This revelation came well before my ultimate financial meltdown, so it wasn’t a part of my financial turnaround. I just didn’t see the point any more.

If I’m going to “gamble” away my money, I’ll do it in a way where I at least have some control over things, like poker or blackjack. Otherwise, I might as well just agree to hand the casino or lottery commission a dollar and let them hand me back 93 cents over and over and over again.

Why are you always so self-righteous? Why do you look down upon everyone else?
- Tom

Comments on my writing alternate between claims that I’m self-righteous and claims that I’m overly humble. Frankly, I don’t see either one.

I think that any time you comment on someone else’s life, you run an enormous risk of coming off as self-righteous. After all, you’re suggesting to others how they should live their lives, and it often comes from your personal experiences and reflections and learning. In giving that advice, you inherently create an impression that you’re “right” and the person asking the question is “wrong.”

Very rarely is that true. My own life has taught me that you should never, ever judge anything by its cover. Quite often, the questions I receive are from people who are successful in most aspects of their life, likely more successful than I am. They’re asking for thoughts and advice on a certain area – money, careers, and so on – where they don’t feel as confident.

Because I respect the people that write in, I feel obligated to give them my honest answer. I consider it dishonest to sugar-coat things for anyone. So, I get right to the point – I tell them what I know and how I would do things. Quite simply, if I did anything else, it would be pretty insulting to the person who wrote to me asking for that advice.

Most of the posts I write for The Simple Dollar come directly from questions posed by readers. You deserve my honest take on things without sugar coating. To give anything else would be a failure on my part – and it would let you down, too.

If that means I sound self-righteous sometimes, well, that’s something I’m quite willing to take.

My wife was sick with appendicitis in approximately 1998 or 1999, absolutely no later than the year 2000. She was making payments of $10/month on the debt and eventually got it down to around $450. Then the hospital stopped sending monthly statements. So she called and they told her that the debt was forgiven and she no longer was required to make any payments. Again, this was no later than the year 2000.

What do you think?
- Paul

The call came from a collection service. Likely, that collection service just bought your still-existing debt from the hospital (likely for pennies) and is now just fishing to get some return on their investment. I would ignore this collection agency, particularly if you have some sort of written evidence of loan forgiveness. If you do not, you can try contacting the hospital, but likely they no longer have the debt on their books at all.

In any case, it is always useful to get things like this in writing. If an organization forgives your loan, you should ask for some sort of documentation to that effect.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book.

Rich Like Them by Ryan D’Agostino follows in the tradition of The Millionaire Next Door and The Difference: it interviews a large group of millionaires in order to figure out what traits they have in common.

Rich Like Them takes this tactic and runs in a slightly different direction with it. The author, Ryan D’Agostino, identified the fifty richest zip codes in the United States and went to forty nine of them. He quite literally went door to door, knocking on the doors of people in these communities, and asking them if they’d be willing to discuss how they “made it.” Surprisingly, he got a roughly 10% success rate, even including the droves of people that weren’t home or avoided the interview.

The result of these interviews is Rich Like Them – a collection of the advice that D’Agostino collected on this journey. In fact, he codifies all of this advice into five general areas.

One: Open Your Eyes
We’re all almost drowning in opportunities. The problem is that many of us simply don’t see them. We’re either too focused on the specific little thing at hand or simply aren’t keeping our mind open when we’re “off the clock.” Every person you meet and every situation you’re in is an opportunity not only to improve yourself, but to connect to others and open the door to money-making possibilities.

What steps can you take? Build relationships with people – and, even better, try to connect those relationships to each other, because bringing people together in a useful way is one of the best things you can do. Listen to what people are actually saying and doing – and try as hard as you can to keep your own conclusions out of the mix.

Two: Luck Doesn’t Exist
Luck is mostly about preparation. If you have the ability to record great ideas and to take immediate advantage of opportunities that come your way, you’ll seem much more lucky than the guy who never writes anything down and doesn’t have a hefty savings account.

What steps can you take? Write down ideas as soon as they come to you. Have an “opportunity fund” in the bank in cash form that you can use when something great comes along. Surround yourself with people who are doing useful and interesting things.

Three: The Economics of Obsession
Find something you’re passionate about and throw yourself in head first. Become obsessed with what you’re doing. Read everything you can get your hands on. Meet everyone even remotely related to your passion. Try it all. Practice, practice, practice.

What steps can you take? Figure out what you’re truly passionate about, then when you find it, make it central to your life. Surround yourself with people and activities that reinforce that passion. Become so obsessed, in fact, that others sometimes find it almost scary.

Four: The Myth of Risk
Risk is real, but most people use risk as an excuse not to try things. Instead, you should build a safety net for yourself and take that leap sometimes. A risk that others aren’t willing to take is often the source of an incredible opportunity for someone who is passionate and is prepared.

What steps can you take? Make your own life as financially secure as you can. Dig into opportunities and figure out their real risks. Realize that if something is truly in your wheelhouse, you’re likely to face less risk than someone less impassioned.

Five: Humility
Above all, no matter what happens, be humble. Humility takes you far in life – you can mess up and you will. The way you treat others often winds up matching the way they treat you, especially at that key moment when you really need their help.

What steps can you take? Treat everyone well. Don’t complain about the behavior of others – instead, set your own example. Be humble about your accomplishments instead of bragging about them.

The Best Part: Little Points of Wisdom
The part of this book that really stuck with me was the short principles and quotes inserted throughout the book every few pages. I collected these pieces together, simply because I thought they were so incredibly worthwhile:

Don’t forget your goal – even when you’re on vacation
Where others see death, imagine life
When you hear someone say “If only I could…,” you’re hearing an opportunity
Connect the people you meet
Even when you find the sure thing, save some money for a rainy day
Once you connect the dots, follow through
Choose your purpose, and don’t let anyone tell you you’re wrong
Remember: with time comes free money
Watch your pennies, no matter how many you have
Keep your cool – it’s a big part of persevering
Don’t deviate from your planned path to get a quick gain
Perseverance doesn’t take forever
Once you find your calling, persevering is easy
Remember that you can’t do a business transaction with yourself
Prepare to get lucky
Find a driver other than money – it’s usually more lucrative than money alone
Do one thing and do it well
Obsess over whatever job you have
Take your mind off the money – you’ll earn more
Don’t plan a career – plan a life
Obsession makes you work harder
If you look forward to going to work, that’s a good sign
Discover love through immersion
Turn fear into passion
Never stop being a student
Calculate every risk – even the one you live in
Look for your window to go solo
You want autonomy? Let it motivate you
Be cocky when it counts
Don’t worry about what other people think
Reduce risk by believing in yourself
When you fail miserably, rejoice
If you hate your career, um, change it
Sometimes the biggest risk is doing nothing
Never let pride get in the way of profit
Be humble even if you’re as rich as Brooke Astor
Understand your limitations
Don’t be a slave to Plan A – it’ll prevent you from seeing plan B
Don’t be afraid to make less than your spouse
Never feel as if you’re too successful to sweat
Remember that you are not, nor will you ever be, a god or goddess

Good stuff, all around. Somewhere in there is a piece of advice that is probably a life changer for you.

Is Rich Like Them Worth Reading?
Rich Like Them is a spectacular handbook for someone who is a self-starter with an entrepreneurial bent. If you’ve got a strong desire to build your own success, the advice in this book can provide a great foundation.

If that doesn’t sound like you, Rich Like Them doesn’t have as much to offer. Unlike The Millionaire Next Door and The Difference, the focus here is strongly on entrepreneurial behaviors – taking advantage of the opportunities around you.

So, here’s the deal: if you have an entrepreneurial nature, Rich Like Them is an excellent read; if not, I highly recommend giving The Millionaire Next Door and The Difference a read.

When I turned sixteen, I had roughly $1,000 saved up with which to buy a car. Obviously, my biggest concern was what is the cheapest thing that can get me on the road? Reliability wasn’t a concern at all – I mostly wanted it to drive back and forth to school and to some extracurricular activities. I looked at several very low-end cars – many of them for sale by their owner – and carefully examined the pros and cons of each option. Mostly, my worry revolved around which one could provide about 5,000 or so miles of driving at the cheapest price.

In the end, a family friend gave me an old car of theirs as a sixteenth birthday gift. It wasn’t running, but it needed just a few hundred dollars’ worth of repairs to get it on the road again. I used the rest of the money for gas – and even though the car only ran for a few years after that, it served its purpose quite well.

When I purchased my next vehicle, a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck (purchased in 2003 – I spent several years without a vehicle, actually), my biggest concerns were low price and hauling capacity. Given my lifestyle at the time, I had constant need for the ability to haul all sorts of things, and I was mostly concerned about getting that hauling capacity at a low price.

What happened? Without a doubt, I was able to do plenty of hauling with that truck. However, the truck’s reliability has been highly suspect since day one, breaking down along the side of the road several times – and more than a few times, my kids were in the truck with me. A few of those times, the situation wasn’t good – tears and blankets were involved and bad dreams were the result.

Thus, the next time I was involved with a purchase, reliability became a major factor in the purchase, whereas before I wasn’t nearly as concerned about it. I was quite willing to pay more for that reliability because, for me, not stranding my kids along the side of the road is much more important than if it were just me.

Having young children naturally prejudices me towards buying cars with better reliability numbers and cars with lower mileage. I assign more value to those factors because of the current situation in my life. At other stations in my life, the values will be different. For example, if I have a small farm in ten years, the value of hauling capacity will go up substantially for me, while high-mileage reliability will be somewhat less important.

How about this example? A single person focused on their career is likely going to look for different factors in a washing machine than a person with a large family. A large family is going to be more concerned with large load capacity and reliability. A single person won’t need the large load capacity, but may seek quick washes and minimal water use.

It’s easy to run out the numbers on any major purchase and figure out what the best deal would be over the next ten years based solely on those factors. But those numbers rarely tell the whole story.

How much extra is a reliable car worth if you have a sick child at home?

How much extra is a smaller footprint on your washing machine worth if you have a tiny apartment?

How much reliability are you willing to give up to get a car for $1,000?

There is no exact answer to any of these questions because of the uncertainty in life and the varieties of personal experiences and situations.

There’s only one real solution when you’re making a major purchase. Figure out what factors really matter to you, do the research on those factors, and find the best deal with those factors in mind. It may be that your conclusion as to what constitutes the “best deal” differs greatly from someone else’s opinion – but that’s fine.

True frugality is not about finding the cheapest item – it’s about finding the best value for your situation. The trick is to figure out exactly what is valuable to you (and not necessarily to others) – and that’s not always easy. It’s a key part of really finding the best deal when you’re doing the research for a major purchase.

After recent appearances on WHO-TV and KCCI-TV in Des Moines, a number of Des Moines area residents have contacted me with lots of questions about The Simple Dollar and saving money. Many of these folks were really intrigued with the idea and the process of making your own homemade laundry detergent (based on one of my most popular posts) and several requested a “how to” video on the process.

The video below depicts the process of making homemade laundry detergent, much as shown in the earlier post, but with lots of additional little pointers along the way. This process took me about ten minutes all told and produced laundry detergent that saves about $8 per batch over Tide with Bleach Alternative. I’ve extensively annotated the video in various interesting and (sometimes) humorous ways.

Hope you enjoy the video! If you’d like to pass it along to your friends (or are viewing this by email or RSS and can’t see the embedded video above), here’s the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfEJHb5lfds

If you found this video useful, I’d be happy to adapt other “how-to” posts into videos on occasion. Just let me know in the comments.

Although I love cooking interesting and complex meals for my family, the reality of life is that many nights, the time for meal preparation is sandwiched tightly between my work, my son’s soccer game, a community meeting, a promise to draw pictures with my daughter, and a pretty firm eight o’clock bedtime.

The easy solution is to go out for dinner – or, even quicker (and less healthy), order some sort of take-out or delivered food. The problem here is that it can be quite expensive – and I also have little control over the ingredients, which means that I lose some control over the amount of vegetables and other healthy elements that I want my kids to have.

So what’s the solution? For us, it all revolves around finding ways to get healthy (or reasonably so) home-cooked meals on the table quickly.

One of my favorite pieces of Amy Dacyczyn’s Complete Tightwad Gazette is her framework for a simple, quick casserole on page 625:

1 cup main ingredient
1 cup second ingredient
1-2 cups starchy ingredient
1 1/2 cups binder
1/4 cup “goodie”
seasoning
topping

Main ingredient: tuna, cubed chicken, turkey, ham, seafood, etc.
Second ingredient: thinly sliced celery, mushrooms, peas, chopped hard-boiled eggs, etc.
Starchy ingredient: thinly sliced potatoes, cooked noodles, cooked rice, etc.
Binder: cream sauce, sour cream, can of soup, etc.
“Goodie”: pimiento, olives, almonds, water chestnuts, etc.
Topping: cheese, bread crumbs, etc.

The advantage of this recipe structure is the flexibility. All you have to do is have one item in each category that seem to at least reasonably match well in terms of flavor. Cook any uncooked element thoroughly, put all the items in a large pot, and gently cook it over a steady heat, and just ten minutes or so later, you have an original creation on the table – just as healthy or unhealthy as you want it to be.

Here are a few examples of casseroles using this framework that work well for us.

Chicken-Broccoli Casserole
1 cup diced chicken breast, cooked
1 cup broccoli, cooked
2 cups rice, cooked
1 1/2 cups cream of chicken soup (or a healthier substitute)
1/4 cup mushrooms or black olives (purely optional)
pepper to taste
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients except cheese. Cook over medium heat, stirring regularly, until hot. Top with cheese and serve.

Tuna-Potato Salad
1 cup tuna
1 cup chopped hard-boiled eggs
1 1/2 cups diced potatoes, cooked
1 1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup black olives
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup mustard (dijon is fantastic!)

This one is a great light supper served cold on a warm summer evening, and works great on sandwiches. Just mix all of the ingredients together.

Ham, Apples, and Sweet Potato Casserole
1 cup ham, cooked and cubed
2 apples, sliced
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup water
1/8 cup light brown sugar
1/8 cup marshmallows (seriously!)

Combine all ingredients except marshmallows, then spread the marshmallows evenly on top. You can either bake this at 350 for about 30 minutes or cook it over medium heat, covered, on the stovetop.

Reuben Casserole
1 pound corned beef, chopped into small pieces
2 cups sauerkraut
1 1/2 cup rye bread crumbs (just toast four slices rye bread and chop ‘em)
1/4 cup Thousand Island dressing
2 teaspoons melted butter or margarine
1/2 lb. shredded Swiss cheese

Combine all ingredients and cook on the stove top in a covered pan until thoroughly warm!

Some Additional Tips
As you can see, this framework is really flexible, enabling you to turn out all kinds of different things. The best part is that it’s often easy to make these work based entirely on what you happen to have on hand – I’ll often assemble dinner based solely upon what I find in the cupboard or what I picked up on sale at the grocery store last week.

Here are some additional tips to make meals with these casseroles more well-rounded or to shave some additional spending from these dishes.

Many casseroles are best served with a vegetable on the side. Depending on the season, we either steam flash-frozen vegetables or fresh ones, or we make a small, simple salad. Usually, this is steered by what vegetables are on sale that week at the grocery store. In other words, let your grocery store’s flyer take the lead here. Use it not only for an ingredient or two that would fit into these casseroles, but also use it for the vegetables on the side.

Rice is my favorite constant element, so we’ll buy it in bulk. I’d be happy to have long grain rice with every meal if I could, and there are many, many casseroles with this framework that a person can make using rice as the “starchy” ingredient. Because of that, rice is something we’ll always buy in bulk – we can use it in so many things and it’s very flexible.

Spicing is key. Almost any dish will either come out bland or come out spectacular, largely depending on how you spice it. Don’t be afraid to be liberal with the spices when you’re cooking anything. Don’t have any idea how to do this? If you’re just getting started, you really only need ten different spices in your kitchen – here’s a guide to those ten key spices and when/how to use them.

Good luck!