Is it possible to fix a storm door or should I just buy a new one?

– Mike L, Internet

Unless you have done serious damage to the hinges of the door, it is fixable.

If the removable screen portion is ruined you can take it to a screen shop to have it repaired for a reasonable price. If the damage is not that bad you can also opt to weave in some wire to close up the hole.

If you break the glass piece than you might want to buy a new door. That large pane of glass can sometimes cost just as much as a new door.

If you popped out the bottom sheet metal portion there is hope for you. If you unscrew the middle cross piece you can put the metal back into the bottom of the door. As long as the metal is not trashed that is!

When you find yourself with the fix it or replace it problem try to figure out a way to fix it first.

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front_door_before used under Creative Commons License from flickr user webchicken

At what age should I let my child use a computer?

– Cindy B, Internet

A kid on a computer? As soon as they can sit up straight and not drool on the keyboard or try to eat the mouse.

Seriously, you want to get your kid used to using a computer at the earliest age possible. Teach them how to use a mouse and a keyboard. Build those basic computer skills as early as you can.

Do not ignore the rest of life. You also have to rip that kid away from the computer and send them outside to play!

There is a ton of “kid” software on the market to help kids learn but most of it is junk. You don’t need any fancy art programs for your kid to use just open up a basic paint program and let them go nuts. Most of their early work will look like a bunch of scribbles from a crayon but that’s no different than what they would draw on paper with a real crayon!

If you are confusing a computer with the Internet than that is a different question.

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Anna trying out her new keyboard used under Creative Commons License from flickr user spullara

How can I store my garden tools without them getting rusty over the winter?

– Brad L, Internet

My wife likes to plant flowers in our yard and she has a good number of small gardening tools. Many of these tools quickly become dented and scratched from working the soil and if you do not take good care of them rust will set in.

What she has taken to doing is getting a few small buckets and filling them with sandbox sand. This is the white sand you would buy to fill a sandbox for your kid to play in and is sometimes called beach sand. It is important to let the sand dry out before use.

After filling a five gallon bucket without about 4 gallons of sand she takes some of my used motor oil and pours it in to make a nice sand-oil mixture. You do not want the oil to be above the sand but you do want it to mix in very well. I think about four quarts per bucket is what she uses.

What you now have is a bucket that you can stick your small tools into to give them a nice coating of oil. This oil should be good enough to protect them through the winter.

If you only have a few tools you could leave them in the sand but my wife uses the bucket to dip the tool in and out several times to give it a good coat of oil and then lets it hang over the bucket while any excess oil and sand drip off. She then hangs the tools up in the shed.

You can use a rag to wipe off the sand before hanging just be sure to leave enough oil to properly protect the metal surfaces of the tool.

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Garden Tools used under Creative Commons License from flickr user judomaster

What is the correct amount to tip when eating out?

– Allen D. Internet

Many people in the USA are confused by tipping.

Do you tip no matter what?

Do you deduct for bad service or food?

Do you tip extra for fast service?

The problem with tipping in the USA is that restaurant owners pay their wait staff less than minimum wage and rely on the customer to pay the difference. This may work in theory but the restaurant owner should just charge more for the food and pay their staff a decent wage.

Another problem with tipping is that the only thing the wait staff is doing is bringing you the food from the kitchen. If the food is crap and you leave a smaller tip you are punishing the wait staff for a problem caused by the cook.

Some restaurants even enforce a tip on large parties. More than eighth people at your table? Then you get to pay a built-in gratuity! The problem with the built-in gratuity is that it limits the amount of the tip because no one is going to leave a bigger tip after they have been forced to leave a tip! It gets even worse when the gratuity is built-in and they don’t tell the customer…

So what do you do?

I follow a basic system of 20% for good service and good food. If the food is bad I tell the waiter and see how they respond. If they remove the price of the food from my bill or otherwise compensate me I still figure my tip as if I had paid for that food.

If service is crap then I only leave between 5 and 10%. If service is stellar than I go as high as 30%.

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Please Pass The Lettuce used under Creative Commons License from flickr user Sister72

My wife and I have a running argument about the division of labor in our household. She insists that things such as taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn are ‘man work’ but if I turn around and tell her that cooking and cleaning is ‘woman’s work’ she cuts me off from sex for a week or more! What is a fair and equitable way to distribute the chores in our house?

– Brad E, Internet

Ah yes, the old double standard of dealing with the housework. I take it your wife is assigning the jobs that she does not want to do to you and then picking the ones she does want for herself. That is not too big of a problem in and of itself if she is also working around the house.

Many woman still resent the idea that some jobs in the home are “woman’s work” because they feel that they are your equal and that somehow being deemed “woman’s work” is somehow demeaning. At the same time they have no problem assigning the garbage as “man’s work”.

When it comes to household chores I have a short list of laws

Law 1 - Those who work outside the home in a bread winning fashion should do the least amount of work in the home.

The basic idea here is that if the role of bread winner is held by one person than while that person is away from the home earning the income that supports the home the other person should be doing most of the housework. I don’t care if it is a man or a woman who is home all day, if you are the one at home you should be doing the larger portion of the work.

I know of families where the husband stays home and he does everything around the house and provides a cooked meal for when his wife comes home. I also know of families where the man works and always comes home to a messy home and no dinner. Which home do you think is happier?

Guess what, if you do not have to work outside of the home you better be pulling your weight in the home.

Law 2 - If both adults work equally outside the home then the work in the home should be divided equally as well.

This law has nothing to do with the amount of money earned. If both of you work eight hour days then both of you are equal when it comes to the division of labor at home.

Law 3 - When dividing household work one should make two lists. The person who makes the lists does not get to pick.

The idea here is that you sit down together and create one big list of all of the household chores. One of you then takes the master list and makes two smaller lists. The person who does not create the lists gets first pick of which list will be theirs.

By making the list maker make the lists but not be able to pick which one is theirs forces them to make two lists that are fair and equal.

Think of it like breaking a cookie in half. If you get to do the breaking and the picking you are more than likely to reward yourself with the bigger half. By letting the other person pick the half they want it forces you to try and break the cookie as evenly as possible.

Law 4 - If something has to be done and the other person is not around just do it!
This law has to do with things that happen when the person responsible is not around. Let’s say for example you were cleaning out the fridge and now the garbage is full. Even if it is not your job to take out the garbage you should do it if they are not at home. You also need to take the garbage all the way to the trash barrel outside. Don’t just tie it up and leave it on the floor.

I hope these laws help you out at home. The world has changed a lot since the days of Leave it to Beaver so don’t expect to live that idyllic life in today’s world!

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Summer Chore chart used under Creative Commons License from flickr user SharkeyinColo

How about affiliates? In your experience does anyone ever make money from them?

– Charbarred, The Plugg

Affiliate marketing is seen by many as the one true goldmine on the Internet. Others see it as a waste of time, energy and space. I have had some success with affiliate deals but the key is to pick the right one.

If you think you can just sign-up with Amazon or eBay or even art.com and throw a site up and have the money roll in you are going to fail. Why? Because everyone else is doing the same thing!

Do you have any idea how many affiliates are in the Amazon program? What about eBay? I do not have exact figures but one offshoot of the eBay system has about 24K members. See what I mean about putting up a lame site? It will not work.

I have tried the Amazon affiliate network but I made nothing there. Technically I made $0.88 but I will never see that money because of the minimum payout requirement. I ended up taking the Amazon links off of my sites because even though they were generating hundreds of thousands of impressions and thousands of clicks there were no sales.

I then moved on to the new eBay network AuctionAds and saw some success. It was a variable success though and it most often hit on Mondays. I used their tracking system to figure out which articles on which sites were generating the clicks that converted into revenue and fine tuned it to the point where it now pays a reliable monthly payment.

I also dabbled in game reviews for a while and found some small success using the Fun Again Games affiliate system. I never made enough to make it worth my while though I was able to turn those funds into games by using them as store credit.

The simple fact of the matter is that affiliate deals can work but only if your site is a niche site that focuses on one thing and is popular. You can’t just throw up an affiliate link store and expect people to buy things from you. You need to write about the products you are trying to make money off of without it appearing to your readers that that is what you are doing.

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Money used under Creative Commons License from flickr user jenn jenn

When do you give your kid a cell phone?

– Ms Q, Qmusings

When do I give a kid a cell phone? Normally when I am done with it and want them to put it on the charger for me.

What? Did I get the question wrong? Oh, you want to know about at what age you should allow a child to have a cell phone? Hmmm… Interesting question.

I personally feel that a child should never have their “own” cell phone until they are of a legal age to sign and be bound by a contract, say 18? However, sometimes it is to your benefit to give your child a cell phone to use before that age.

For one thing there is the security of knowing that no matter where they are they can call you. Of course that also means that they are free to call anyone else at any time!

I am not too worried about them calling other people though and for one simple reason; the monthly bill. Unlike your normal POTS line a cell phone bill is often itemized for every call because you are billed by the minute no matter who you call. Because of this you can look back at the month in review and see all the calls your kid made on the cell phone. Since most kids are oblivious to bills they may not even be aware of this!

Another benefit of giving a cell phone to your kid is that you can call them when you need to. Are they out too late? Call them! Do you need them to pick up some groceries for you? Call them! Has your son been bad lately? Call him and tell him to pick you up a big box of pads from the drugstore, go for the biggest pack they have!

I have no problem with giving a responsible kid access to a family cell phone as soon as they are driving or their friends are driving. Since this is the age they are likely to get themselves into trouble at I want them to know that mom and dad are only a phone call away.

Irresponsible kid? Those kids spend their teen years grounded cleaning their rooms!

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Hello Moto! used under Creative Commons License from flickr user nieve44

How do I get my kids to clean their bedroom without having to nag them?

– Blossy, Internet

When I was a young child my divorced mother used to come home in the middle of the night screaming about how the house was a mess. She would wake me and my two brothers up and force us to clean the house at that late hour. Visions of the movie Mommy Dearest would dance through my head…

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Before used under Creative Commons License from flickr user gemsling

Why do my parents always tell me to do as they say and not as they do?

– Chris F, Bismarck ND

Even I remember this one from my childhood. It usually came about when I tried to emulate something that my father did that was either dangerous or uncouth.

I know it may seem like a double standard to you but it’s not. Your parents key goal in raising you is to make you into a productive citizen. There are certain social hang-ups and failings that are ingrained into your parents that they hope not to ingrain into you.

Racism was a big problem back in the 1960’s and it has taken several generations for us to turn into a more colorblind society. There are forces on both sides of the racism debate that do not like the idea of people being colorblind but the good Dr. King wanted a colorblind society.

In order to move towards such a society parents had to try and teach their kids not to have the prejudices they themselves grew up with. This is why you may hear your parents say something bad followed by them telling you not to act in the same manner. Old habits die hard.

The other reason parents use the “do as I say not as I do” line is because they may be doing something that takes skill and they just know that if you were to try it you might hurt yourself.

As an extreme example let’s say that your father is a former boxer and he likes to work out in the home gym using a punching bag and other things. He may (or may not) want you to follow in his footsteps. Even if he does want you to become like him he may realize that the skill level he is at is so far advanced compared to where you are at that he does not want you to attempt the things he does because he knows you are not yet ready.

Most of these things will become more clear to you after you have kids of your own.

Your parents are not the enemy and they are not trying to keep you down. They just want to be sure that when you fly off and leave the nest you have the skills to make it. Even though we love our kids we don’t want to see you boomerang back into the nest after you leave!

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The joys of parenting used under Creative Commons License from flickr user jenn jenn

How do I motivate my kids to go outside and play?

– Barry L, Atlanta GA

There are different methods you can use to motivate kids to do the things you want them to do even when they themselves do not want to do those things. Being from Georgia you must be familiar with the character Tom Sawyer from the writings of Mark Twain. Do you remember a certain fence Tom had to whitewash? A job that he completed by tricking his friends into doing it for him?

One tried and true method of getting kids to do what you want is reverse psychology. You use this method by making your kid think that you do not want them to do the thing you want them to do. Nothing makes a kid want to get involved like telling them you don’t want them involved!

You do need to be careful how often you use this approach. Over use can lead to your kid figuring out what you are doing at an early age. Sometimes they just call you on it and everything is fine but other times they will not call you on it and instead begin to build a high level of distrust toward you.

The best method to get kids to do what you want them to do is to do things with them. Drag them outside with you and play a game. Chase them around the yard. Wash the car and let them get you with the hose.

The reason your kids may not be motivated to go outside is because you are not going outside. Kids learn from their parents and that includes both good and bad habits. If you are spending plenty of time outside and the kids still prefer to spend their time indoors than you might want to make indoors a little less enjoyable.

Take away TV time when it is nice outside. Make them do housework if they are just hanging around in the house. Just as you can make outside time more enjoyable by being actively involved you can also make indoor time less enjoyable by being actively involved!

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Kids playing used under Creative Commons License from flickr user MShades