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Repair Cafe: Bring Your Broken Doodads and Gadgets

This article was written by in Consumer. 10 comments.


We live in an era of cheap, disposable goods. My closet full of clothing, much of it rarely worn, even though I sort through my wardrobe about once a year to eliminate items I no longer need, is a good indicator of this situation. For a good period when I was a kid, I wore hand-me-down clothes — as the eldest child, I received clothing from a family friend — and when an item became damaged, my mother fixed it with her sewing machine.

Prices for clothes have certainly increased over the last few decades, but clothing is not expected to last. When a piece of clothing becomes damaged, it’s easier and cheap enough to replace.

Broken ToasterBroken kitchen appliances, lamps, and other household devices past their warranty periods can’t be fixed with a sewing machine. Many would need specialized care by a professional, and with today’s disposable consumer culture, many people just opt for replacement rather than finding a repair shop and paying nearly as much money as they would to buy a new item.

Additionally, retailers and manufacturers have embraced the concept of planned obsolescence. To keep manufacturing costs low and to maximize profits, there is little concern for making products that last as long as their owners. This is a primary feature of high technology — a house phone sold fifty years ago may still function properly today, but a cell phone purchased five years ago not only doesn’t keep up with the latest technology, but it likely doesn’t work at all. Furniture built in the eighteenth century was made to last in a family for generations; IKEA furniture might last a few years under regular stress of use.

In Amsterdam, there is a small movement in opposition to this disposable consumer culture. The community has come together to repair its members’ broken items. Volunteers bring their tools and sewing machines to an open building several times a month and offer to fix any broken item brought to the gathering. This Repair Café helps reduce waste by encouraging reuse of broken items, and makes fixing an affordable alternative to replacement.

The government in the Netherlands, private groups, and individual donors have helped the Repair Café Foundation raise $525,000 over the past few years, and these funds have helped the organization create these gatherings at various locations across the country. These Repair Cafés provide a chance for consumers to make better use of their goods and for volunteers, particularly those with repair skills that might no longer be in demand, use those skills for a good cause.

Would Repair Cafés; be welcome in the United States? It’s not exactly a profitable business venture, and as such, is unlikely to draw much attention. The model, however, could easily be recreated, perhaps in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, to provide a money-saving alternative for spending money to replace slightly damaged items. Strong marketing encouraging consumers to exist in a cycle of buying and replacing comes at a price to retailers and manufacturers. If these expenses were redirected towards making better, durable products without planned obsolescence, consumers might lose the desire to constantly have new items, and would be able to hold onto the same products for a longer period of time. There would be less waste. Companies and their shareholders would find they have more loyal, life-long customers. Customers would shop with a focus on the differentiation in quality rather than with their tunnel-vision focused solely on price. Companies that build their products to last would succeed while those focused on the short-term would fail.

Could Repair Cafés be an answer to the consumer culture of disposable products? Would the availability of free repairs in the United States change the way consumers buy goods, and thus force companies to build products that are made to last rather than go obsolete? Is the trend towards disposability reversible at all?

Photo: phozographer
New York Times

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British Airways Visa Signature Card from Chase Review

This article was written by in Credit. Add a comment.

If you’ve ever flown British Airways long-haul from the U.S. to London, you’ve probably lingered when walking past those sleeper seats in the “Club World” section. They don’t just recline, they lay fully flat. You won’t run the risk of a small child kicking the back of your chair for hours before you endure the endless escalator rides at Heathrow. Thanks to this spring’s special offer from Chase’s British Airways Visa Signature Card, you can treat yourself to this luxury for about the same price as a standard coach class ticket.

Right now, Chase offers a staggered signup bonus for new British Airways Visa Signature cardholders. British Airways calls their frequent flyer miles “Avios,” and you’ll earn 50,000 of them as soon as you use your new Visa card. Make $10,000 in purchases, and BA credits your Executive Club account with 25,000 more Avios.

Land your final bonus of 25,000 more Avios once you’ve cleared $20,000 in purchases during your first year. After that, you can spend 80,000 Avios and about $1,100 in upgrade fees to book yourself that luxury flight.

Saving Avios and flying on the cheap

You don’t always have to splurge on a sleeper chair, though. Your 100,000 bonus Avios are plenty to cover the cost of two “World Traveller” round trip base fares between London and any of BA’s stateside hubs in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. This isn’t a discount airline you’re flying, either. British Airways’ coach seats on these flights resemble other airlines’ business classes. You get a private entertainment system, hot meals, and impeccable service from a flight crew that only gets testy if you don’t give them the chance to serve you.

The special smart chip you won’t see on other travel credit cards

Only a handful of American credit cards include the embedded smart chip that you’ll need to make routine purchases in Europe. Chase puts that “EMV chip” front and center on the British Airways Visa, and you’ll appreciate it when your travels take you off the beaten track. To combat fraud, many European merchants won’t accept American magnetic stripe credit cards outside of common tourist areas. The EMV chip saves you time and hassle, especially if you want to use any automated parking meters or vending machines during your visit.

No foreign transaction fee

Your $95 annual fee buys you another important perk that you’ll find on few travel rewards cards: no foreign transaction fee. Chase makes the process easy for frequent U.K. visitors: charge your card in pounds sterling at no extra fee, while enjoying Chase’s best currency conversion rate for the day of your purchase.

Rewards and risks of airline credit cards

Of course, British Airways is still a traditional airline, with a typical frequent flyer system. Regular BA travelers say that the 2012 Olympics and London’s business boom have made reward seats scarce, unless you plan your free trip far in advance. You’ll also have to pay redemption fees, airport service fees, and other taxes on each reward ticket.

If you value flexibility in a travel credit card, consider the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card instead. You’ll earn as much as 2 percent back on your everyday purchases, in the form of statement credits that you can redeem against any of your travel expenses. Still, given the high price of transatlantic airfare, the British Airways Visa Signature offers tremendous value, if you’re willing to jump through a few hoops.

To take advantage of the 10,000 Avios offer, apply for the British Airways Visa Signature Card from Chase today. You will need excellent credit in order to be approved, and be aware of the $95 annual fee.

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How to Be a DIYer Without Time or Talent

This article was written by in Frugality. 11 comments.

This is a guest article by Gerri Detweiler. Gerri is the host of Talk Credit Radio and serves as Director of Consumer Education for Credit.com. She is the author or co-author of five books, including Debt Collection Answers: How to Use Debt Collection Laws to Protect Your Rights. Her next DIY project is to (finally!) roast coffee beans.

Mark Frauenfelder makes his own yogurt and sauerkraut. roasts coffee beans, and has raised chickens. He’s also tricked out an expresso machine and built his daughter a guitar out of a lunchbox. And he’s managed to complete all of these DIY projects — and many more — while contributing to the very popular blog BoingBoing, and serving as editor of Make Magazine. Oh, and he’s also written a book about his experiences: Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throw Away World.

My DIY projects, by contrast, are often utter failures. My homemade sauerkraut probably would have given me food poisoning if I had been dumb enough to taste the foul-smelling concoction, and the popcorn popper I bought on eBay to roast coffee beans has been sitting untouched on a shelf for a couple of years now. Oh, and my homemade yogurt tasted like the cheesecloth I used to strain it.

It would be easy to dislike Frauenfelder, except for the fact that he’s a really nice guy. So instead of getting annoyed every time he writes a post about one of his successful projects, I decided to interview him on my radio show, Talk Credit Radio, in the hopes of gleaning some wisdom that could help me become a more successful DIYer. Following are some his best tips (edited and excerpted) from that interview:

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

Gerri: Tell me a little bit about what you learned from your DIY journey?

Mark: I think the most important thing I learned was that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that you can learn a lot from mistakes. In fact, a lot of research has shown that people learn fast when they do make errors because it really sticks in your mind.

As Editor-in-Chief of Make Magazine which is a technological project magazine, I hung around a lot of people that I call “alpha makers,” people who are just committed to anything and they do a great job of it. I found that it isn’t so much their skill level that’s important but the fact they have gotten over their fear of screwing up. And that is like the most important thing that I learned, otherwise you’re going to be frozen with fear.

I make tons of mistakes all the time but I hopefully learn from them so that every new box guitar I build is a little bit better than the one before. Then you can raise the bar and challenge yourself to try something a little better. It’s a fun way of looking at the world.

You do have time to for DIY projects

Gerri: Mark, let’s talk a little bit about the time factor. You’ve got two daughters, and a full-time job as a writer and editor. How do you fit in these DIY projects? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just go and buy a spoon (rather than carve one yourself)? Or go and buy espresso rather than try to figure out how to trick out your espresso machine?

Mark: Absolutely, it would be easier to go out and buy something and time is really precious, especially when you have small kids and you have to work for a living. And that is one of the reasons I wrote this book. I read all those books about going back to the land and making things yourself, they kind of assumed you lived in this ideal world, you have infinite time to do all this stuff.

So I took a much more realistic approach: What if I gave myself 15 minutes a day to get away from the computer and work on a project? And I think almost anybody can give himself 15 minutes a day. But it really adds up and after a month or so, that’s a considerable amount of hours that you’ve been able to devote making things.

There was a guy I was reading about in the 1700’s whose wife was 10 minutes late at the dinner table every minute so he took those 10 minutes to work on a novel and he ended up writing 3 very successful novels that way by squeezing in those 10 minutes. I think that’s the trick is giving yourself that time and scheduling it in.

Gerri: In your book, you talked about how when you were making your wooden spoons, you discovered that you could actually do that while you were on a conference call, for example, and concentrate better. So maybe there is some synergy between being able to accomplish other things whether to clear your mind, or find the relaxation that you need if you take on some of these projects.

Mark: Absolutely and you’ll see that with knitters. People who knit say that they are able to really have a much more pleasant conversation while they are knitting and I found that also that when I do work conference calls, if I just sit and carve a spoon it puts you in kind of a slow state or something and I’m much less fidgety and I can really concentrate one that conversation. It’s a pretty cool effect.

You can do this anywhere

Gerri: You aren’t living on a ranch in Montana or out of the woods somewhere. You’re living in a Los Angeles suburbs, is that right?

Mark: Yeah, I’m about a six-minute drive from Hollywood and Vine. So I’m right here in the city, basically up in the hills.

Gerri: You’re doing these kinds of projects in a very urban environment. Do your neighbors, do people think you’re crazy?

Mark: They’re amused by the chickens. When I had the chickens, they got out and were running around on the street and one of the people who lives on the block, he was one of the producers of The Waltons and he was, “hey this is just like The Waltons!” And he got hold of a cam and started snapping some pictures – he loved it.

It’s not always about saving money

Gerri: Some of these projects may involve specialized tools, or they may involve specialized materials. What have you found in terms of the financial payoff or the financial cost in your DIY projects?

Mark: That’s a really good question. It’s kind of a yes and no thing. No, it’s not going to save you money compared to something that you would buy. If you were to build your own television set it would cost a lot more money to buy the part than it would to buy the TV off the shelf. It’s usually cheaper to buy in almost every case.

But, if you look at making as a hobby that is really rewarding and a way to spend time, it’s going to be less expensive than going out at night and spending a lot of money at a nightclub or taking an expensive vacation or something like that. As leisure activities go, you can make it pretty inexpensive. If you wanted to become a wood carver, you could buy an improvised wood carver set under a $100 and it would give you a lifetime of enjoyment. In the end I think it’s an inexpensive and rewarding way to spend your time.

Gerri: And some projects like some of the food projects you’ve done, you may have an initial investment, like building the chicken coop or getting the yogurt maker if you decide to go the route. But it sounds like that in the long run, they can end up saving you money.

Mark: Yeah, definitely, one thing that I’ve started doing is roasting my own coffee. And there’s a way that you can do it using an air popcorn popper. There are tutorials online that show you how to do it and the cool thing is that green coffee beans, unroasted beans are a lot cheaper than roasted beans. They’re about $5 a pound that’s comparable to, comparable roasted beans would be about $15 a pound. And green beans will stay fresh for about a year or two so you can keep them by yourself, 10 pounds of beans and then roast a batch whenever you need fresh coffee and you will have the freshest coffee ever and you’ll save money.

Gerri: I really appreciate your book and recommend it. I also love your blog at boingboing.net. Can you give us more places that you recommend that anyone who’s interested in DIY should visit?

Mark: Sure, well I think makezine.com has a lot of really good recent resources that will show you how to make different projects, lots of tutorial videos that can help you get started, information about Maker’s Fair, which is our twice annual fair, that has a 100,000 attendees who come to see this giant-like science and creativity fair. It’s really fun.

And another really good website is instructibles.com and that’s where people upload instructions on things that they’ve made, all sorts of gadgets from beer coolers, built-in wagon to really neat kind of kites, all kinds of projects. I think those two right there will keep you busy for at least a couple of weeks.

Listen to or download the complete interview with Frauenfelder here: download

You can also listen to or download an interview with Consumerism Commentary’s Flexo here: download

Editor’s note: I’ve been a fan of Mark Frauenfelder since I discovered BoingBoing many years ago. He was a guest on the Consumerism Commentary Podcast, as well, in 2009.

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Podcast 154: The Psychology of Wealth

This article was written by in Podcast. 2 comments.

Today on the Consumerism Commentary Podcast, Bryan J Busch talks with Dr. Charles Richards, author of The Psychology of Wealth.

They discuss many aspects of the brain’s conscious and unconscious affects on spending and saving.

Consumerism Commentary Podcast
The Psychology of Wealth: S06E24 / 154

Download – RSS – iTunes

Table of contents

The Psychology of Wealth on Amazon[00:00] Introduction from Bryan J Busch
[00:33] Interview with Dr. Charles Richards
– [00:45] The Family Operating System, its influence and how it works
– [03:15] Examining your background and values
– [03:50] The Singer sewing machine’s new way of buying
– [05:37] The U.S. moved from owning what you need to putting luxuries on credit
– [07:07] Are we doing it wrong?
– [08:48] Your core values might just be hand-me-downs
– [11:21] Moderate advice for solving debt problems
– [14:02] Self-esteem’s influence on wealth, and increasing it through generosity
[16:42] End

We always welcome feedback from listeners. If you have any comments for this episode or for any other, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, please leave us comments here or email us at podcast at this domain name.

Theme music by Mindcube.

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Taxpayers Earned $25 Billion on Treasury’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Bail-Out

by Flexo
United States Treasury

At the height of the recession, President George W. Bush and the congress authorized a bail-out of banks and investment companies headed for failure. In a similar plan to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government authorized the Treasury moved forward with the plan to stabilize the financial industry, and to an extent ... Continue reading this article…

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The Best Online Savings Accounts, May 2012

by Flexo

The best online savings accounts offer high interest rates and great customer service. Savings accounts, particularly so-called “high-yield” savings accounts, are best for money you might need within a year. Any money that you don’t want to subject to the short-term risk and volatility in the stock market should be held safe in a savings ... Continue reading this article…

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How to Love Cooking

by Forest
Toast

This is a guest post by Forest from Frugal Zeitgeist. Forest writes about frugality, finance, minimalism and lifestyle. In this article, Forest shares his experiences in the kitchen. Cooking great meals is a great way to save money and stay healthy, but it’s a skill that I haven’t developed for myself. Passion can boost motivation, ... Continue reading this article…

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Behavior Gap Napkin Sketch Giveaway

by Flexo

I received an advance copy of Carl Richards’ book scheduled for wide release on January 3, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money. Carl is a Certified Financial Planner who began writing articles — and sketching on napkins — at his own website, behaviorgap.com, and now does the same for ... Continue reading this article…

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