You don’t miss $4.33

This really should be included in the “You Don’t Miss $20” section, but I considered that it really should have is own section because it is a whole new level of thinking.

The concept is simple and the same as the $20 concept – you don’t miss this money in your account.  So, after the $20 was sent over to my friends, I would check to see the amount I had left.  If it wasn’t an even number, then I would round it down and send that money to the student loans folks.  Honestly, I never see those extra digits.  They mean nothing to me.  If somebody said to you "What do you have saved for when you travel to Thailand?" you won't respond "$4,678.32" you will respond with "around $4,500".  Your mind likes to round down.  You want to be comfortable if you make an error, but you also just can't remember all those digits.  It isn't natural for most people.

So, every time I signed into my bank account, I would do the $20 trick to my student loans, I would make the required payments, and I would then look at my account balance.  $154.33? Perfect.  $4.33 into the student loans.  This was likely done three times a week, and probably averaged about $5 every time I did it.  Pennies, amiright?  Why on earth would I read this stupid blog with its stupid self-righteous voodoo on paying off loans.  It can't be done any faster than I am paying off my loans now, right?!

Wrong.

$5 x 3 x 52 = $780

In one year, doing this ridiculous round down function paid off to the tune of what is likely $780.  When you apply the same calculations, I was saving this much in interest:

$39

Hardly interesting, you might say.  But you are also paying off some of the principal.  Or, you are just paying off the interest and the rest of your $$$ will go to your principal.

Over five years, the savings on interest are closer to $200.  That means you are done paying off your student loans approximately 1 month earlier!  It seems like small potatoes but everything adds up.  Because $780 per year for five years means that you have paid off an additional $3,900 in your loans.  That means you have shaved almost TWENTY months off your student loans.  Yes.  That's right.  Suddenly you are debt free (or, student loan debt free) over a year earlier than anticipated.

I can’t emphasize this enough – it’s the small things as much as it is the big things, and its getting that money out your hands and into the hands of the person who will gladly suck at the teat of your interest payments if you let them.  If I walked up to you right now and said "give me $200" would you say yes?  Of course not.  But that's what you are saying to the student loan people (ie banks) every single time you pay interest when you could have avoided it.

My motto is always this – the best way to fight the banks is to pay them off.  They hate people who are debt free.

 

DIY - Reupholster Dining Room Chairs

We discovered we needed a new dining room table when E invited his whole family over for lunch in the not so distant future.  Doing the math with our seating options, I quickly discovered we did not have the space to seat more than six people, max.

I also desperately wanted a hutch to put in all of my Nana's gorgeous china.  From my quick review online, I realized that this was going to be expensive if we didn't do it on Kijiji.

I found the most amazing antique hutch in the world, that came with a nice dining room table with two extension leafs, and six chairs.  One of the chairs even had arms on it.  I was in love.



Original fabric - Salmon Tulips?

However.... the pattern on the chairs was a different story.  When we were looking at the set, the woman proudly told me that it had been recently re-upholstered. I could tell from looking around her very beautiful home that it was re-upholstered to her tastes, not mine.  Fortunately I still have one picture of the fabric... basically a salmon pink with weird little blue flowers on it.  We scooped up the set and I set to work researching how hard it was to re-upholster dining room chairs.

The answer?  It is shockingly easy to do!

I recommend watching some youtube videos, such as this one or that one. It was honestly so easy.  The only investment you'll likely need to make it a staple gun and some new fabric, depending on the quality of the stuffing in the chairs (because these had been re-upholstered recently, I didn't need new foam).



Using a "tool" to take out the staples

Basically, you start by popping out (or in my case, unscrewing) the fabric seats.  Then you flip them over and start taking out the staples.  This was a painful process as there was a LOT of staples.  From what I can tell, whoever re-upholstered these chairs was about as much of a professional as I was, and probably didn't bother to watch the aforementioned very helpful youtube videos.

I didn't take pictures of the whole process - at the time, I was really just obsessed with getting this done in time. The youtube videos will honestly show you the steps to follow. I will say that after I did it, I felt less nervous about the colour I chose because now I know that if I don't like it in five years I can just pop them off and change them!  It is quite liberating to know that I have that option.

The one thing I still have left to deal with is that bench...