Lessons Learned From a Bathroom Renovation

Now that Laura and I have renovated each of the bathrooms in our townhouse, we’ve joined an esteemed group:

Lambs. Led to slaughter.

Whoops! Did I just say that? That was my inside voice. I meant to say: homeowners who have completed a major renovation project.

I’m trying my hardest to be diplomatic here, but the best I can say about our bathroom renovation was that it was an experience. One that ultimately took double the money and quadruple the time we expected. Good times. Remember my recent post about getting your big-ticket decisions right? This was a big-ticket decision we got wrong.

The important question now is: what did we learn from this project gone awry, and how can we use that knowledge in the future? Laura and I did a post-mortem on our bathroom renovation project, we went over our mistakes, and we came up with a list of rules, questions and meta-questions to think through before our next home repair project (and we may have another big one if we decide to fix our home’s flawed HVAC system).

A warning: These aren't recommendations on tile, toilets or countertops. Not at all. They are generalized meta-rules to help think through what can (and will!) go wrong with any construction or renovation project. Once Laura and I had written them out, we realized our rules might be useful to CK readers planning their own major home projects.

With any luck, a few readers out there might be able to learn vicariously from our experience and avoid the complications we faced. I hope so.
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Six Lessons and Takeaways From Our Bathroom Renovation Project

1) Assume all renovation projects will have scope creep: they’ll grow to be bigger and more involved than you think. When you start your next one, tell yourself, "You have already bitten off more than you can chew… you just don't know it yet." Try and manage the initial scope of the next project with this in mind.

2) All projects will have cost overruns. Budget for them. And then budget for them again. And again. They will be bigger than you expect them to be.
      2a) All projects have time overruns. See above.

3) Always ask more questions and get more information before proceeding. Repeat this mantra: "I do not know enough, what more can I learn? "I do not know enough, what more can I learn? "I do not know enough, what more can I learn?"

4) The contractor we hire is not on our team, he is on the other team. The contractor is not our friend, the contractor is a businessperson who happens to be paid to be nice to us. We are the clients: we will be nice too, but “being nice” cannot interfere with being firm, clear and direct when articulating our expectations on a job.

5) Ask the following meta-questions at the start of any major project or undertaking:
      a) How humble am I being about knowing how this project will go?
      b) What am I getting wrong that I haven't thought about yet?
      c) What assumptions have I made that may not be rational or reasonable?
      d) What extra measures can I take to protect myself from the risks of a) b) and c), now that I’m more mindful of them?

Note: Keep an eye on what’s embedded in question 5: With this question, notice that you actually can't know the answers, really. The point is to let the question answer itself by encouraging you to think about things you haven’t yet thought about.

Finally, ask this question after the project is done:

6) Did we enjoy this project? Why or why not? What aspects of the project did we assume would bring happiness--that actually didn't? How did our assumptions differ from reality, and what does this suggest for future major projects?

Readers, I want to know: what have you learned from your past renovation projects or major home projects? What ideas or rules would YOU share?


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

How To Salvage a Musty-Smelling Towel and Make It Like New

Readers, a quick post this week:

Have you ever detected a musty or mildew smell in your bath towels? Even after you've recently washed them?

And when you discover that regular laundering won't get rid of the mildew smell, do you usually downgrade these towels to carwashing duty--or just throw 'em away?

Don't spend extra money replacing these towels any more. Instead, read this post. In fewer than 300 words, you'll learn a technique to restore them back to their original, clean, new-towel state. I call this technique "bleach and torch."

Here's how bleach and torch works:

1) First, wash your old musty towel(s) in your washing machine in hot water with both bleach and detergent (feel free to wash your other bleachable whites along with your towels in the same load). I use a relatively generous amount of bleach: about 1 cup of bleach to a medium-size load, or 1 1/2 cups bleach to a large/extra-large size load.

2) Next, dry the towel in your dryer on its hottest setting. Dry it until it's completely dry. Give it a serious torching in there.

3) Use the towel a few times. If you can still detect any mildew smell at all, repeat steps 1) and 2) again.

That's it! It's not rocket science. Basically the "bleach and torch" method murders all the mildew. You can go back to using your towel just like always.

A few follow-up details:

1) Yes, your towels may fade a little. But so what? You were going to throw them away anyway, right?

2) A reminder for those readers who may lack experience using bleach. Never pour bleach directly onto clothes or towels. It will ruin the clothes. Instead, follow this procedure:

a) If you have a top-loading washer: let the washer mostly fill up with water, then add bleach and detergent, then add your clothes. (PS: Be careful not to splash the bleachy/detergenty water onto the clothes you're wearing either!)

b) If you have a front-loading washer: just add the bleach into the bleach dispenser according to your washing machine's specifications.

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How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Money Sundays: Here’s How to Pay High Fees, Be Totally Undiversified, and Own the Same Consensus Stocks as Everybody Else

If you happen to invest in mutual funds, one thing you must do regularly is look over and think through the top holdings of every one of your funds. Here's why:

About a year ago, I was looking at the key holdings in three mutual funds that I happen to own in my IRA, and I was disturbed to find that they all owned the same damn stocks.

One, a tech fund, had 12% of its holdings in Apple* and another 8% in Google. Okay, it’s a tech fund... maybe I can excuse this. Maybe.

Another fund (the name of which I'll reveal because of the sheer hypocrisy of it all, as you’ll soon see) I happen to own is Fidelity's ContraFund. This fund's charter is to find "contra" ideas--ideas that are contrarian in nature and that go against the consensus. Oh, and it's also supposed to be diversified across sectors and stocks too.

Well, ContraFund at this point held 9.3% of its assets in Apple and another 5% of its assets in Google! In other words, 15% of that fund is literally identical in both proportion and form to a tech fund that I already hold. ContraFund was just a tech fund in drag!

Finally, a third fund, a growth fund that I hold, also held Apple and Google among their top ten largest holdings.

So wait, let me figure this out: I'm supposed to pay mutual fund management fees for this? And be happy about it? You might be mortified that I could make such a rookie error in investing, but I did. Needless to say, I quickly began reallocating my money away from these funds.

All of this raises a few sticky questions that any beginner- to intermediate-level investor should ask:

1) What value do you get when all of your "diversified" mutual funds hold the same damn stocks?

2) Can it really be this painfully obvious that professional investors are as herd-like as the rest of us “amateurs”?

3) Therefore, why pay 1% (or higher) management fees to a herd-like mutual fund when you can use index funds to get properly diversified stock market exposure for as little as one tenth the cost?

Readers, I would love to hear your thoughts on mutual funds. Share them in the comments!


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* It turned out later that this particular fund blew out its Apple stock after the stock suffered a significant decline. Now the largest holding (by far) is Tesla. We’ll see if this is smart--or dumb.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Making It a Treat

Temporarily giving up chocolate can restore our ability to enjoy it. After an initial chocolate tasting, students promised to abstain from chocolate for one week. Another group of students pledged to eat as much chocolates as they comfortably could, and they received a two-pound bag of chocolate to help them fulfill their pledge. The students who left with this reservoir of chocolatey goodness may seem like the lucky ones. But their sweet windfall came at a price. When they returned the following week to sample additional chocolate, they enjoyed it much less than they had the week before. People only enjoyed chocolate as much the second week as they had the first if they had given it up in between.

...Altering consumption patterns can provide a route to getting more happiness for less money.

--From the book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton

With all the caveats about the reliability and repeatability of studies, there are still plenty of ways we can apply this study's central idea to both save money and increase happiness.

Here are a few applications that crossed my mind as I read the above quote:

1) Don't bother going out to eat all the time. Eat out infrequently and you’ll better remember it and better enjoy it.

2) Scrap your daily latte, and instead make it a “once in a while special treat” latte. You’ll get far more pleasure out of it.

3) Don’t eat dessert every day. Make it a treat--not a regular thing. You’ll optimize both calories and pleasure.

4) Do you have a daily harmless vice? Make it a less-than-daily vice. Don't smoke every day. Or drink alcohol every day. You'll increase your happiness and save money too.

5) Cook something fancy every so often. Rather than cook a typical dinner on a typical night, make it a treat. Cook a favorite dish, put together something unusual or different, or try cooking something outside your comfort zone.

But don't give up chocolate. Not even temporarily. That's just crazy talk.

Readers, what ideas do you have to make treats out of the things we take for granted? Share your thoughts below!





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How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Wait... You Can DRINK An Apple Pie?

It’s been a while since I’ve featured a drink recipe here at Casual Kitchen. This one is unusual, easy, and perfect for this time of year.

It’s a powerful, pleasure-inducing alcoholic beverage that somehow defies the laws of palate physics. It’s called “Apple Pie” and it literally tastes exactly like an apple pie.

See what you think.

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Apple Pie

Ingredients:
1 Gallon apple juice
1 Gallon apple cider
2 cups sugar
8 cinnamon sticks
1 bottle Everclear

Directions:
Combine juices, sugar and cinnamon sticks. Bring to a boil until the sugar is fully dissolved. Cool completely. Add the bottle of Everclear and combine well.

Makes... a lot. Please drink responsibly.
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Three quick notes:
1) A quick note on Everclear: there are two kinds of Everclear, one that’s “partial strength” at 151 proof (75.5% alcohol) and one that’s full strength at 190 proof (95% alcohol). Use the 190 proof version if you can find it, but note that several states have banned sales of it.

2) My cousins in Ohio introduced me to this drink by asking, “would you like some apple pie?” It was early July, so at first I was confused (wait, what? You have apples already? And you (weirdly) made an apple pie in the middle of the summer?). After they got done laughing at me, they poured me this drink.

3) This is a hilariously strong drink, and it goes down deceivingly easily. This is your final warning.

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How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

The Secret Financial Life of Food

I began to follow the [food] commodities market more closely. After only a few weeks of scrutinizing the ups and downs of the market, I was amazed by the fragility of the same commodities that sit so sturdily on the supermarket shelf. Take coffee, for example. Within the space of a few weeks, the price of coffee was buffeted by tropical storms and early frosts that threatened to crimp crop output. Then came an onslaught of a disease that threatened crops across much of Latin America, where the majority of coffee beans grow. The commodity price soared as a shortage was predicted. Finally, a wily spectator who had "cornered the market" unloaded mass quantities of coffee, driving prices back down. There was no run on jars of Folgers at the grocery. The price of my daily latte didn't fluctuate by even a penny.

This is an excerpt from a striking little book by Kara Newman called The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets.

This little blurb about coffee futures makes you realize how insulated from reality we consumers are. We're completely protected from all the drama and price fluctuations of a commodity we completely take for granted. All we have to do is just head to the store or Starbucks... and there's our coffee, sitting there waiting for us. And the price is the same as always.

There is an entire industry out there putting this product on our shelves for us, and we consumers don't have to trouble our pretty little heads with any of these supply/demand worries. Heck, we don't even know about them--after all, how would we see something that we don't see? Kind of incredible if you think about it.

One takeaway that sticks in my mind is how incredibly lucky we are as consumers. It can be deceivingly easy to complain and wring our hands about the "greedy" food industry. But thinking through the example above gives me, if anything, a feeling of gratitude.

Readers, what do you think?



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How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.