I don’t know why, but tonight I’m inspired to share with you some of the charitable organizations that Matt and I like to support. It’s that time of the year where people start ramping their giving up for the year, and this year proves to be a tough one for non-profits hoping to break even during a recession. Maybe you’re looking for a new place to give back? All of these would be great choices.

1. Habitat for Humanity. I’ve recently started volunteering with Habitat, and let me tell you, I could not be more impressed with this organization. The biggest misconception is that they give away houses for free. On the contrary, they provide interest-free loans to families who have worked very hard to be fiscally responsible. The programs and classes that they provide to support these families are truly amazing. And the families themselves are even more amazing. I’m really psyched to see how working with Habitat changes my perceptions and pushes me outside of my comfort zone in the next year or so.
2. Mosaic Community of Faith. This group is essentially our dear friends Robert and Michelle, the couple who gave us pre-marital counseling and married us. Two greater people I have never known. They have done loads of community outreach in their neighborhood in Columbus, OH, and have opened their home up to anyone and everyone in need of a place to call home. It’s really hard to describe everything they do, but they live a missional lifestyle that is all about serving and helping others in their community. To find out more about them or to send a check, you can reach them at: 1358 N 5th St, Columbus, OH 43201 or info@breakdividingwalls.org . They are non-denominational and will basically rock your socks off.
3. Elim Christian Services. This is an awesome organization in Chicago that educates kids with all kinds of disabilities including Autism. They do it in a really respectful and empowering way, and let me tell you, the kids send us THE CUTEST artwork in the mail. It’s worth giving to them just to have something to hang on your fridge.
4. Compassion International. Compassion is a highly-regarded organization for international child sponsorship. We’ve been sponsoring a kid in Burkina Faso for about two years now, and it’s been really fun. We get letters from him in French which I embarrassingly try to translate on my own, and he always includes adorable drawings (more fridge artwork!). We’re hoping to take a trip to Burkina Faso in the next few years to meet him in person.
5. Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. Now for a great organization that isn’t faith-based! Fidelco raises German Shepherds with very strict breeding and training to be world-class guide dogs. They place a high priority on community involvement and are changing the lives of people with disabilities by providing exceptional canine companions that significantly improve the standard of living of their owners. Can you tell that I HEART THIS ORGANIZATION!?!??!
6. National Parks Conservation Association. As you’re probably well aware, our national parks are SHAMELESSLY under-funded and many are falling into disrepair. The NPCA works hard at raising money and fighting for better legislation to protect our national parks. They have a pretty great magazine that comes along with your membership, and is well worth a small donation. The national parks belong to US and it’s OUR job to preserve them for our own enjoyment as well as for future generations.

So that’s the list that I can think of at the moment. What are some of the organizations that you love to support and how will you be spreading cheer during this Holiday season?

By now you’re aware that we hauled down to IKEA to buy us some kitchen cabinets, and you may be curious as to why we chose to go that route. Maybe you’re not curious. If that’s the case, I point you to this:

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

While I have some mixed feelings about the quality for the price of some IKEA furnishings, our last apartment had a kitchen outfitted with their cabinetry, and I was surprisingly pleased with the quality. Sure, they’re not custom cabinets made my the Amish (rock on!), but they hold up well under normal wear and tear. I also think they leave a lot of options for changing styles – future owners of our home would be able to simply replace the doors with ones they prefer, instead of ripping out all of the cabinets.

We looked at Home Depot and Lowes, primarily at the assembled, ready-to-install cabinets, but none of them had the selection and sizes that IKEA carried. By choosing cabinets by the Swedish masterminds, we were really able to maximize our space – a necessity in our small kitchen.

But the biggest selling point was the price. The average cost of cabinets for a kitchen of our size is between five to six thousand dollars. We wound up paying about half of that for our cabinets. There is a great deal of assembly that is required, but so far that has been pretty fun. And you get to mock the bad drawings in the cryptic instructions while you’re in the process of constructing, what feel like individual caskets for very small children. Bonus!

We will need to return a few pieces that we realized were the wrong size – our error, not IKEAS. Although they did make one error with our large corner cabinet and sent it home with us in the wrong color. Luckily, we can use a local service, ModernNash, to return the cabinets and exchange them for us.

And now a few pictures of the assembly process.

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

Of course, I’ll post some more photos when they’re installed. Anyone else out there have IKEA cabinets they’ve enjoyed?

I’ll be posting a full budget breakdown when our kitchen and bathroom are complete, so you can see how we (hopefully!) did a remodel on a small budget. But until then, I wanted to share some ways that we’ve figured out to save at the Big Box home stores. Hopefully they’ll save you a dime or two next time you’re in!

1. I posted this on Twitter a while back, but I was psyched to find out that Home Depot/Lowes can mix up custom paint colors on demand. This means you can use more expensive colors, and sometimes better colors (ie: Restoration Hardware, Benjamin Moore) at the lower price. I’ve had custom colors mixed up for all of our paint so far, except for the trim, and I’m just using regular old Behr. It’s a great way to save.
2. I’ve been using Behr’s new primer/paint in one, and it’s been pretty good so far. For a few more dollars per gallon, you can cut back on the number of coats you’re using, ultimately saving you cash. I have yet to paint a lighter color over dark (which I’m going to be doing tomorrow in the master bedroom) so I’ll give you an update on how well it works in that instance. But I have switched over to their new paint, and I’m enjoying the time it’s saving me as well as the dollars!
3. We’re using Home Depot for the most part, since they’re much closer to the new house than Lowes is. It’s really just a matter of location. Our Home Depot happens to be a brand new one, so I’ve been pleased with the over-eager servicepeople and their newest-of-everything-stock in store. At any rate, our Home Depot (and probably yours!) will accept competitor coupons. This rocks our world, since we’re constantly getting coupons in the mail from Lowes, which we can then use at Home Depot. So far I’ve saved $35 this way, and I just received another coupon for $10 off my next purchase of $50 or more.
4. When it comes to appliances, you can save big if you buy them in bulk. Over Labor Day weekend, I went into Lowes (this time because they had the dishwasher I wanted) and told the salesman, “I need three new appliances. I want them to be Frigidaire, I want them to be XY&Z models, and I want them all for $1,000.” (I actually wound up with a non-Frigidaire dryer to save a little more.) He gave me the Labor Day Sale price, a multiple appliance purchase discount, and honored my two coupons which were not supposed to be used together. I got my ice maker for free with a rebate that I today sent away for in the mail. And now I have the fridge, dishwasher and dryer all for the price I wanted – ultimately saving over $300.
5. Cash in those credit card points! We cashed in our Amex points for two $100 giftcards to Home Depot. We blew through those last weekend for drywall (and necessary accoutrements) in the kitchen and breakfast nook. The fact that the project was virtually free made it a heck of a lot easier to accomplish.
6. Craigslist! I’ve already told you how I bought my new washing machine off of Craigslist. Today we hooked her up, and she’s more beautiful than I could have imagined. I saved $300 (and more in sales tax) by buying her second-hand, but still in the box.

Now do YOU have any money-saving home renovation tips to share?

I’ve just finished reading Sam Walton: Made In America, which I purchased at Goodwill for $1. Let me tell you – BEST BUCK I’VE EVER SPENT. I literally couldn’t put it down. Perhaps that makes me pathetic, or perhaps that makes me my father’s daughter.

Say what you will about the fall of Wal-Mart, it’s trade practices or ethics, while Walton was at the helm, great things were accomplished, and he was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century. The book gave me incredible insight into his personality and management style, much of which I believe is due great respect.

A compilation of a few quotes from the book that struck me. It may be lengthy, but well worth your time.

On incentivizing employees and creating repeat customers:

The more you share profits with your associates – whether it’s in salaries or incentives or bonuses or stock discounts – the more profit will accrue to the company. Why? Because the way management treats the associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers. And if the associates treat the customers well, the customers will return again and again, and that is where the real profit in this business lies, not in trying to drag strangers into your stores for one time purchases based on splashy sales or expensive advertising.

On the adverse effects of unions, and the benefits of strong communication and adept management:

But historically, as unions have developed in this country, they have mostly just been divisive. They have put management on one side of the fence, employees on the other, and themselves in the middle as almost a separate business, one that depends on division between the other two camps. And divisiveness, by breaking down direct communication, makes it harder to take care of customers, to be competitive, and to gain market share.

On the other hand, let me say this: anytime we have ever had real trouble or the serious possibility of a union coming into the company, it has been because management has failed, because we have not listened to our associates, or because we have mistreated them. I think anytime the employees at a company say they need a union, it’s because management has done a lousy job of managing and working with their people. Usually, it’s directly traceable to what’s going on at the line supervisor level – something stupid that some supervisor does, or something good he or she doesn’t do.

On businesses resting on their laurels:

If American business is going to prevail, and be competitive, we’re going to have to get accustomed to the idea that business conditions change, and that survivors have to adapt to those changing conditions. Business is a competitive endeavor, and job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.

Many people in this business are still trying to charge whatever the traffic will bear, and they’re simply on the wrong track. I’ll tell you this: those companies out there who aren’t thinking about the customer and focusing on the customer’s interest are just going to get lost in the shuffle- if they haven’t already. Those who get greedy are going to get left in the dust.

On ethical free markets:

You start with a given: free enterprise is the engine of our society; communism is pretty much down the drain and proven so; and there doesn’t appear to be anything else that can compare to a free society based on a market economy. Nothing can touch that system – not unless leadership and management get selfish or lazy. In the future, free enterprise is going to have to be done well – which means it benefits the workers, the stockholders, the communities, and, of course, management, which must adopt a philosophy of servant leadership.

Recently, I don’t think there’s any doubt that a lot of American management has bent over too far toward taking care of itself first, and worrying about everybody else later. The Japanese are right on this point: you can’t create a team spirit when the situation is so one sided, when management gets so much and workers get so little of the pie. Some of these salaries I see out there are completely out of line, and everybody knows it. It’s obvious that most companies would be much better served by basing managers’ pay on the performance of the company or return on investment to the shareholders or some yardstick which clearly takes into account how well they’re doing their job. And the formula has to make sure that profits are divided fairly among workers, management, and stockholders, according to their contributions and risks. At Wal-Mart we’ve always paid our executives less than industry standards, sometimes maybe too much less. But we’ve always rewarded them with stock bonuses and other incentives related directly to the performance of the company. It’s no coincidence that the company has done really well, and so have they.

Now this is just incredible. Note that Walton wrote the book in 1992 – YEARS before the collapse of the American auto industry. His foresight was truly tremendous:

Our auto industry doesn’t play on level ground. But I don’t think we should counter with protectionism because it doesn’t address the real problem: the quality of our product doesn’t compete with that of the Japanese, whether we want to admit it or not. The challenge is a great one for management. What they have to do is build a partnership with their people.

I understand that this industry has all kinds of problems we haven’t seen in ours. I know that US auto workers make $22 an hour versus $16 in Japan, and that Mexican auto workers earn much less. I’m not saying I could solve all these problems, but I’d love to have the fun of trying to take a unionized company today and sell its people on the idea of having to be competitive globally – whether it was in autos, or steel, or electronics. I’d love a chance at that, the pleasure of seeing if they could be motivated into a team that would share in all the company’s success – and still have a union. It would take a powerful lot of persuading to pull this off, but I guarantee that it could be accomplished by somebody obsessed and persistent enough. But if American management is going to say to their workers that we’re all in this together, they’re going to have to stop this foolishness of paying themselves $3 million and $4 million bonuses every year and riding around everywhere in limos and corporate jets like they’re so much better than everybody else.

I’m not saying every company should necessarily be as chintzy as Wal-Mart. Everybody’s not in the discount business, consumed by trying to save every possible dollar for their customers. But I wonder if a lot of these companies wouldn’t do just as well if their executives lived a little more like real folks. A lot of people think it’s crazy of me to fly coach whenever I go on a commercial flight, and maybe I do overdo it a little bit. But I feel like it’s up to me as a leader to set an example. It’s not fair for me to ride one way and ask everybody else to ride another way. The minute you do that, you start building resentment and your whole team idea starts to strain at the seams.

All in all I found Sam Walton to be an inspirational business figure who worked harder than most people, and tried to run an ethical business. I’m glad Sam’s not around to see what his companies are up to these days…

Yesterday the Comcast man came by (a solid hour late, as was to be expected) to give us cable internet and the additional $10/month basic cable that comes with it. This is my first stint with paid cable in all of my twenty-six years. I KNOW. CRAZY! Although our cable is SO basic the only extra channel we get is a Nashville weather channel.

Growing up my dad never wanted cable in the house claiming that the cost of cable was so exorbitant we were able to take European vacations by saving on that unnecessary monthly bill. It was only when I hit college that I realized the numbers did not quite add up for that excuse.

Last month Himself was given the same deal by the Comcast man – such a great deal that it would have cost Dad double to just maintain high-speed internet without the addition of cable tv. He finally caved. Now my parents can watch everything from Project Runway to Jeff Corwin, although the only thing they will probably watch is the ticker on CNN. WHILE MUTED.

Before we moved, we were up visiting the rents, and in the middle of a heated discussion over gay marriage, my father stopped us all.

“See, THIS is why I’m afraid to have cable in the house. NOW we sit around and have wonderful, thought-provoking conversations, but I fear that when the cable comes you’ll want to do nothing but watch thirty-minute home improvement shows.”

Well Dad, throw away your Shakespeare and college textbooks on the Italian language. Not only has cable entered YOUR house, but now mine as well. And all for the sake of saving a few extra bucks! Who cares if we can’t afford to visit Europe anymore? Our minds will be so thoroughly numbed that they would probably melt upon stepping foot inside Chartres.

It’s that time of year when you get all of your 2008 statements in the mail telling you just how poorly your investments did last year. This week, it also fell on a day when there was no milk in the house. A major double whammy.

I was pretty convinced that we were going to come out unscathed seeing as we’re renters lucky enough to be riding debt-free. Only when we sat down to start some house buying planning did I make the unfortunate realization of just how much we lost in the stock market – money that we were banking on for a down payment. We’re basically down to where we were in 2004 which spits in the face of the painful saving we had committed ourselves to over the past four years.

America’s system makes it nearly impossible for you to live a debt-free existence, and when you try to, you wind up frankly, being screwed over by the majorities who didn’t. Case in point – do you know what a RIGAMAROLE the car dealership put us through last week when we tried to buy our car with cash? I nearly burst some internal organs with frustration. No sir, I do not want a car loan. I want to give you my money right now. Won’t you please take it?

So I think if I’ve learned anything from this it’s that the fiscal conservative always gets burned in the end. Not that I’m planning on changing my financial mindset. Quite the contrary. I’m considering becoming a full-fledged libertarian and storing all of my net worth in gold bullion underground in an Alaskan bomb shelter.