There are LOTS of online tools to help you remember what you need to do. Grocerylists.org now offers a handy printable list you can stick on your fridge to be sure you don’t leave anything behind on your weekly trips to the store.
Just print it out, hang it on the refrigerator door and mark it up before you go to the grocery store.
Category: Life hacks
Why I ride DART
Just thought I’d play around with the numbers today and see what we save by me riding DART each month.
I estimate it’s roughly 30 miles from my house to the office. A daily round trip is 60 miles a day. Multiply that to an average month of 20 work days and you’re looking at 1200 miles a month just to get to work and back.
My truck averages between 16 and 19 miles per gallon. Not great, but we knew we’d be getting somewhere around there when we bought it. Averaging those 1200 miles at 17 mpg, it would take 70 gallons of gas to get me to and from work every month. At $2.70 a gallon (a low average/estimate) it would cost me $190 a month just to drive to work. That’s $2,280 a year.
That doesn’t include the wear and tear on my truck and the increased number of oil changes I’d need.
In addition to the fuel costs, you have to find a place to park the truck. Across the street from my office is a parking lot that charges $8 a day. There’s a parking garage that’s super small – not made for full size trucks that costs $5 a day. The lot I do use when I have to drive costs $3 a day and there’s a cheaper one across the street from it that costs $2 a day.
So at minimum, I’d pay $40 a month to park. At maximum, I’d pay $160 a month to park.
That’s $230 – $350 a month, or $2,760 – $4,200 a year, just to drive my truck to work.
The cost of a DART monthly pass is only $80 a month or $960 a year. That’s a minimal savings of $1,800 a year! If we wanted to pre-pay for the year, I could get a yearly pass for $500. Giving us an additional $460 savings per year.
Plus, there’s the added benefit of getting to read and/or sleep on the bus ride. The knowledge that you’re not adding to the poor air quality in Dallas and the shorter drive time in the morning thanks to getting to utilize the HOV lane on the daily bus ride.
Now in full disclosure I do get a parking stipend of $110 a month for working in my office but that would come whether I rode DART or parked my car nearby. But with the cost of the DART pass and the stipend I get an additional $30 a month in savings.
What other ways have you found to save money on your daily commute?
Excel/ Access hack
This is probably a simple hack many have already thought of, but it came in super handy for me today.
I had to search an Access database for college courses that are no longer offered in our district. Apparently a number of colleges still show them as active at their college though so I wanted to be sure they were all set to “de-active” or “no” in our database.
After several minutes I was getting cross-eyed trying to check the appropriate line.
To remedy the solution I simply posted a post-it note above the bottom line. Every time I did a search for no in the appropriate column, that row appeared right below my post-it note and kept me focused on the line I needed to make changes to.
In other solutions/ideas to help keep you focused on what you’re working on?
Take your keys with you
From Frontburner:
Crime around White Rock Lake fell 3 percent last year, but police note that car thefts would decrease if folks realized they shouldn’t leave their keys in the car just because they don’t want to carry them while they jog. Not making that up.
AcademHack
“Please on behalf of those who will listen to you, stop using PowerPoint, or at least stop using PowerPoint the way that it is commonly used.”
Just found AcademHack – via research on my last post about Twitter. The presentation above is from them. Wish I had one of Brian’s weekly PowerPoints – they’re usually right on with this idea.
AcademHack has some great stuff! I’m not in the classroom but there’s some great stuff here that could work for those in any type of leadership/teaching position… including community groups.
digital analog camera
remember the days of analog cameras? you’d fill a full roll of film, never quite knowing how it would turn out – until you developed the film. sometimes you’d be thrilled, sometimes sadly disappointed.
but what if you could return to those anxious days without the cost of film developing? that’s the idea behind the Eazzzy! cam design. no lcd screen, no viewfinder, but also no waiting for film to develop. just plug it into your usb port and go.
another option that i’ve had fun with is basically the same idea – just continuing to use a digital camera with a broken lcd screen.
we’ve set it out at a few parties and gotten funny looks but the pictures are some of the more random fun photos of the night.
you could do the same thing i spose by taping over the screen and viewfinder as well.