It took three months of virtual house arrest-that’s how my wife, Georgina, felt about having to wait for deliveries and repairs-but we are just about settled into our new home.
Looking back, it all seems like a few minor inconveniences, nothing out of the ordinary for anybody moving into a newly built house. But for a while it looked as if nothing would go right the first time.
For example:
The bed in our master bedroom, bought new, came with the platform cracked. The store promised to send us a new one, free of charge. They did-with the platform cracked. The third bed they did not even deliver; they found the crack in the warehouse. Unlike the Buffalo Bills, the fourth time was a charm: The next bed, two months after the first delivery, was fine.
The headboard for our daughter’s bed-bought in a store different from ours-was shipped to the wrong ZIP code and returned. We got it two weeks late.
When we began hearing funny noises at night, we walked over to our daughter’s bathroom and noticed the toilet flushing. By itself. The builder sent a repairman and he fixed it, but then our toilet started doing the same.
Ever been awakened six times a night by a flushing toilet? After a week of being flushed out of our sleep, we got the repairman to come and fix our toilet, too.
The man who did the caulking had to come back again and again. First when water began leaking from our shower stall onto the bathroom floor-he had to come twice-then again when we found some 457 ants that had crawled into our kitchen from the back yard after we had sprayed for ant hills.
A media store case (that’s a fancy name for a cabinet to hold tapes and compact discs) came minus part H61192, a magnetic touch latch. No big deal, except you couldn’t close the thing. Georgina called the company’s 1-800 number and they mailed us the missing part, at their expense.
Companies wasting money
I could go on and on, but I would need six columns, not one. The point: Every time something was not done right, we got inconvenienced and somebody else-whoever made the error-incurred an unnecessary expense.
Which makes me wonder, how many billions of dollars does American industry waste because something is not done right the first time?
“If a problem is not fixed when it occurs, it will only become more costly to fix later, both in terms of time and money,” says a booklet on quality training given to all the managers in my newspaper company. It suggests that “failure costs” could be 100 times greater than “prevention” costs-that is, making sure, in advance, that things will not go wrong.
Applying this concept to our personal lives, here are some examples of doing things right the first time that could save us hundreds if not thousands of dollars:
Plan shopping trips, take a list with you and follow it. Returning to get something you forgot wastes gasoline as well as time. You may even end up spending more on things you never intended to buy.
Plan your wardrobe. Buy things that last, not fads. Save on accessories by color coordinating.
Buy energy-efficient appliances and take care of them. Even if they cost a little bit more at first, you will save in the long run.
Take care of your car
Forget the looks: Buy a car that lasts and take care of it. Changing the oil every 3,000 to 4,000 miles is an inexpensive way to prolong the life of your automobile. Skimp on necessary maintenance and you could end up paying much more later, or having to buy a new car sooner than you planned.
Select sturdy, quality furniture you can keep for years. We picked a leather sofa for the family room in our new home, and a less expensive, upholstered sofa for the living room, where we don’t spend as much time.
Plan your landscaping and you can save on energy costs. You also won’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to chop down large trees close to the house, as some old neighbors of ours had to do.
Take care of yourself. Eat a balanced diet, exercise and get plenty of rest. Not only will you feel better, but you may save a bundle on medical costs by keeping in good health.
At work, doing the right things right the first time is bound to get you noticed. (As a supervisor, I can vouch for that.) Who knows, that could mean a bigger raise or a promotion for you.
And finally, as Georgina suggests, marry the right person the first time.
Emotional scars aside, a long and happy marriage beats an expensive divorce or alimony settlement.
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Humberto Cruz welcomes questions and comments from readers. Although he cannot respond to each one individually, he will answer those of general interest in his column. Write to him in care of the Orlando Sentinel, P.O. Box 119, Orlando, Fla., 32802-0119.
