Bargain Quest

In preparation for Bargain Quest’s upcoming blogiversary, I’m devoting this week to boring, overdue blog upkeep. My tasks include playing with new themes (I think the last one suffered from legibility issues), transposing some entries that got lost in the Wordpress transition months ago, and maybe even upgrading my Wordpress version (Danger!).

Hopefully by Saturday, everything will be spic ‘n span! In the meantime, please excuse anything that seems amiss, and check out “Saving on Contacts” which has some helpful reader comments.

How much would you pay for second-hand Old Navy flip flops? Hopefully not more than $3.50. But shopping at Second Debut in Carytown (Goodwill’s “upscale” thrift store), I ran across a pair of Old Navies tagged at …. $6. Generally that store carries brands a step above Old Navy, but those must have snuck through. Just a random example of the importance of knowing prices and brands for making smart shopping decisions.

(Somehow two weeks have gone by since my last post. Normally, I’d give advance notice of being gone that long, but between out-of-town family visiting and catching cold… it’s amazing how fast a fortnight flies by, that’s all I can say.)

I apologize if you’ve tried to access the blog in the past few days. It’s loading very, very slooooowly. I figured it was something I did (it usually is), but turns out it’s a Dreamhost problem, so it’s out of my control. Hopefully they get it fixed ASAP.

In the meantime, it reminds me of the Comcast Slowsky turtle family commercials, which my husband finds hilarious….

“I’m gonna need you to back off.”

“You come push it!…. Push it real good.”

Heads up, this week’s festival is hosted by Matthew at Getting Green. I don’t have the time to highlight any posts tonight unfortunately, but there are only 19 entries (including my “Getting the Most Out of Gift Cards”) so it’s quite a manageable read. I’d also have to say that a couple of the submissions are a bit of a stretch to qualify as frugal-related… but it’s all good stuff. Enjoy!

The Festival of Frugality has been posted over at Stingy Students. I’m a sucker for the theme - Food Network Chef categories. Yum!

My submission (Saving 50% on Prescription Drugs) falls into Sandra Lee’s domain (”parenting or things around the household”). Meh. I actually have one of her cookbooks but I really don’t care for her show. I’d much rather be with Alton, Tony or Ina…

(By the way, I did finally receive that free Anthony Bourdain book I registered for)

There’s plenty to read, but here’s two entries I appreciated to get you started:
“10 Ways to Get Free Plants for Your Garden” at Personal Finance Advice
“The Fine Line of Frugality” at My Financial Journey

For almost 2 weeks now, I’ve been working off and on to switch Bargain Quest to the WordPress platform.

Previously, I was using Quick Blog. Haven’t heard of it? I’m not surprised. It’s GoDaddy’s blog system that I fell into by default when I started my blog in July. (That’s where Richmondbargains.com is registered) I picked it over Blogger because it was the easiest way I knew to have my blog on my own domain. I was young and silly.

To be fair, Quick Blog was very convenient. It looked professional and was easy to use. Godaddy also charged me $3 a month to use it. What really drove me nuts was the inability to customize anything beyond a few colors. The default font color for my posts was grey, so I had to recode every single post to a readable black and maroon.

Quick Blog’s biggest limitation for me is the fact that it’s not widely used. Unlike Blogger, WordPress and other popular options, no one designs extra plugins and functionalities for it, and when you want to leave, no other program has an automated process to import the content from Quick Blog format!

Having to move the blog was inevitable anyway. I’m in the process of setting up the main Richmond Bargains site as well and didn’t want to host it with GoDaddy. So redirecting the nameservers to a new host was going to hamper or prevent further public access to the blog in its Quickblog incarnation.

The good news:
-I got 90% of my posts over. The formatting isn’t perfect and graphics are missing, but the content is there. (My very first posts for the month of July are having to be added by hand.)

The bad news:
-Old comments are gone. I don’t think there is/was any way to bring them over, because Wordpress doesn’t have an import option specific to Quickblog. Eventually, I’d like to go back and edit posts to include the comments made. In the meantime, please comment away on new subjects or go back and repost if you thought something was important to say.
-Some previous feed and all email subscriptions have ceased. Sorry! If you were receiving automatic Bargain Quest updates, you may have to rejoin. I think RSS is functioning now, but I’m still working to get an email subscription plugin. Keep checking back!

It’s fun, albeit slightly nerve-wracking, to be able to mess with the “guts” of the blog. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, but I enjoy the challenge, even though the first few days on Wordpress were harder than anticipated. I couldn’t save new posts OR delete old ones (more of a Wordpress glitch). That problem is partially patched.

Since I’m doing all this reconfiguring anyway, if there are any features you think I should add, please let me know. And if you’re a Wordpress guru who has any helpful suggestions, I’d love to hear ‘em. Leave a comment or email me at richmondbargains at hotmail dot com.

Somebody hit the bargain jackpot…

From Yahoo News: A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.

Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, is selling the document in an auction March 22nd at Raynors’ Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. The opening bid is $125,000 and appraisers have estimated it could sell for nearly twice that.

Sparks found his bargain last March while browsing at Music City Thrift Shop in Nashville. When he asked the price on a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document, the clerk marked it at $2.48.

It turned out to be an “official copy” of the Declaration of Independence — one of 200 commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.

He didn’t know he had such a valuable piece until doing some online research and then having appraisers at Raynors’ offer an opinion.

(I’m having flashbacks to National Treasure when they’re running around DC and Philadelphia with the real Declaration.)

I’m in the midst of an attempt to switch to WordPress, and things are getting ugly, literally and figuratively. Please bear with me while I muddle through and attempt to not throw my computer through the window!

I’m cleaning out my overflowing RSS feed inbox, so here are some of my favorite blog posts from the past week. They’re not explicitly bargain-related, but well worthwhile…

A great list of 10 Steps to Become More Organized and Efficient at My Two Dollars.

5 entries with budget Valentine’s Day gift and date ideas from The Bargain Queen.

Savvy Steward’s 2-part book review on The Treasure Principle, providing some interesting food for thought.

A wonderful crash course in Gardening 101 at Get Rich Slowly.
The snow is falling outside my window right now, but J.D.’s glowing
veggie photo gives me a overwhelming urge to run outside and start
digging up my yard.