A penny here, a penny there...

The fine line between a sailboat and a sailing boat, a good example of how cutting taxes for big companies does not make jobs, and Robert Reich tells us what the President should have said on the job front...

Being an admittedly frugal person, I keep a weather eye out for various deals and ways of saving money without impacting function. A great way to do this is simply to get stuff that does not have the word "marine" on the label. For instance I am currently re-bedding some gear on the deck and I'm using DAP 18810 polyurethane to do it with. The 18810 is very user friendly, cures in just about the perfect amount of time (everything else tends to be too fast or too slow), has a projected lifespan of fifty years, and a price that makes a person on a budget smile at less than $4 where I picked it up... (It might have been on sale).

Of course, the ubiquitous Marine stuff that does the exact same job (though not quite as well) is a whole lot more expensive, works OK, but does have a whole bunch of shelf life issues and is not nearly as user friendly... Plus it costs an arm and a leg ($21 here in the sunny Caribbean) so not exactly destined to bring a smile to someone on a tight budget.

Another job on my list is to replace the vinyl lettering on the starboard side of the boat that got seriously abraded along with the paint when we lost the mast... As it happens, in today's mailbox was the newest e-rag Cruising Compass (all pimping all the time) who had one of those non-articles (WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: Design and Install Your Own Graphic with Name My Boat) which reminded me I needed to get some replacement vinyl lettering for "So It Goes"...

Now, the site Cruising Compass was pimping does "So It Goes" in vinyl lettering in 6" for $14 (so $28 total for both sides of the boat) which is not all that bad for a company that has the word "boat" in its name and you could do a lot worse price-wise. Since I was curious I checked out Boat US who does the same "So It Goes" for $44.95 or $67.43 both sides of the boat... Can you say "OUCH"?

The place we will be ordering our new lettering from is SignShopping.com which does a twofer price for $19.95 for anything up to 25 characters. They did our current lettering and it is excellent...

Watch the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves!

Listening to the Dixie Chicks

So it goes...