My meager attempts to reduce spending...

The ticket I got a few weeks ago finally came in the mail. It is $202 plus an additional $57 to take the traffic school (which is a must to keep the insurance from going up) plus the actual cost of the traffic school: about $300 as I suspected.

I went online to see what my options were. I SWEAR I did not see ANYONE in the crosswalk, but to take the ticket to court would mean suggesting the police officer either lied or was mistaken. They could just as easily come to the same conclusion about me. But deep in the small print I saw an option to go to court and either plead "not guilty" or "no contest" and the judge might reduce the fine based on one's driving record. So I took that route. I went to court, spent about 3 hours waiting for my case to come up. I didn't really say much, because I couldn't figure how to plead my case without just sounding like I was whining, but the judge acknowledged my good driving record and reduced my fine. He reduced to it to $15 (yay!) which, plus the state fees and the traffic school charges, came to $183 (hey, wait a minute...) I guess that's better than $259. So I took an on-line traffic school (took about 3 hours) for $20, and now its all done. It still rankles me though. Thirty-one years without a ticket!!!

I fixed my front fence by myself, instead of hiring someone. Two of the posts were rotted in the ground, and were wobbly. I purchased some metal sleeves that go around the base of the post, and pounded them in with a sledge hammer. My next goal is to paint the fence so that it is again a "white picket fence". I also need to fix the back fence, but I need to work with my neighbor on that, and she needs to get rid of her bamboo forest first.

I think I told you already about fixing the leak under my sink. I had to replace several of the pipes and fittings, but I did it!

I'm hoping to put mulch down on the yard, to control the weeds, and make it look nice without having to have grass. Easier to take care of, and no watering!

I read an article about checking ones toilets for leaks. It suggested putting food dye in the tank, and if the dye is in the bowl after about 15 minutes, there is a leak. Well, the dye was in the bowl, so I bought new flapper valves (I believe that's the technical term) and replaced them. Then the toilets did a double flush, which obviously used way more water than the stupid leaks did! I called the water department, to yell at them for suggesting I replace the valves to save water, and now they were using even more. She thought I was crazy for asking HER, she said I should call a plumber to fix it (yeah, right!) Anyway, I asked the water department to come out to do a water use survey and to check for leaks. When the guy arrived, I explained about the toilets, and he said I should have replaced the valve with the same kind of valve. The valves SAY they're "universal" but they're not. My old valves had little floats on them. So back to the store for valves with the floats (couldn't take the old ones back for a refund, because I'd had to cut a tab off them to install them.) Now the toilets flush fine. I talked to the guy about my concerns about my water bill. Almost every month, I use 4 ccfs of water, and then one month it went up to six and then was 5 for a couple of months. I wanted to ask if it could be a leak or something. He said, "That's a very low bill. Most people on average use about 2 or 3 ccfs per person per month. How many people live here?" "Uh, five." "Wow." So anyway, I'm not getting much sympathy or help to lower my bill, but it should be lower now that I've got the toilets fixed!

PG&E just replaced our electric meter for one that they can read remotely. I was talking to the installer, joking about how in ten years the meters would be obsolete since we wouldn't have any energy left. He said no, there was lots of natural gas, but acknowledged that it didn't address the global warming problem. He said he expected a lot of people to switch over to solar, and I said I had looked into it, but since my electric bill was only $50 a month, it would never pay for itself. He was amazed my bill was that low, even though we have a washer and electric dryer (which Pammy does her laundry in also.) So I guess I'm doing a pretty good job at conserving, huh?

However, Max has taken three showers this week (which is more than he's taken in the last three months.) I explained that it's great that he's taking more showers, but if he's going to take one every day, they need to be 5 minutes. A half- to an hour-long shower is only allowed if you take only one a month!!

Just think how much money I could save if I didn't have these rotten kids!!