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Archive for January, 2015

More sales, More Fixes

January 21st, 2015 at 04:18 pm

After some more sales finished this week online, I noticed that my sales for the last 2 months is over $530. If I back out the items sold for the SG-GF, the ebay fees (boooo), and my cost of the items, I am probably netting almost $400. A nice extra paycheck to invest in stocks or in my hobbies, though for the past year that was about $125 for a 90 year old restored train, and maybe another $100 for classic kitchenware I let the SG-GF use when she visits. I need to keep up this pace in the coming year.

And then the last weekend visiting her I picked up a lot of "Cars" movie based toy cars and track for $8. Looking online, I expect I can sell them for maybe $75 if I split it into separate sales. Yeehaw.

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As for fixes, in the past week I replaced my car's brake light switch. It cost $20 for the part online, and maybe 15 minutes of work under my car's dash. With a nice markup for the part, and the labor cost, what would that be, maybe $100 to make the repair at the dealership (not to mention the time and driving there to get it done)?

And then last night I fixed my furnace. Darn thing would only heat for maybe 15 seconds and then cut off. After an hour of cleaning and observing the mechanism in action, I spotted the on the side the listing of the LED indicator light codes (There is a LED on the circuit board inside that was flashing). Turned out the code could apply to a number of problems, but only one made any sense. And it even had next to it the most likely way to fix it. A quick hand sanding of the furnace ignition sensor (oxide buildup) and now I have heat in the house again. While aggravating to figure out, at least now I know what to do if this happens again. And no charge for a repairman to come and look at it.

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And finally I am working on my latest credit card for a $100 bonus. I forget who mentioned the AARP credit card here, but thanks for the info!

That's a "Service Deal Special"???

January 9th, 2015 at 01:49 pm

Over Christmas the SG-GF got both of us replacement cabin air filters for our cars. She had been threatening to get new ones for a while, and she finally did it. Well after looking online for how to do it, I spent about 4 minutes replacing mine, and 2 minutes to replace it in her car. No tools required. She was saying "That's it?" after it was done. Yep, that was it. "They wanted $60 to do that!" Now you know why dealerships are so shiny.

Anyway, today I got an email from the local dealership promoting various "specials" (*cough, cough*). Yeah, they're "special" all right. For $50 they have the special to replace the filter on my car. I checked online, and the filters cost less than $10 each, and I am sure the dealership pays less than I do for the filters. I know they have overhead, but give me a break. Charge me $30-$40 for 5 minutes of work, and then review the car to find other things you recommend to be "fixed" at your "cheap" rates as well? Ugh.