Instant Pot Air Fryer Vortex Plus 4

The main benefit of an air fryer is that it uses less oil to fry food. But I was reluctant to get one because I didn't want another seldom used appliance taking up room on the kitchen counter. I was initially looking for an 1800 watt 6-quart size. But then I came across the Instant Pot Vortex Plus 1600 watt 4-quart model. With only two people in our home, the smaller size would be ideal and give us a chance to see how they work. I found a lightly used one on ShopGoodwill.com and paid $37.87 with tax and shipping.

It has all of the features of the 6-quart model, but with a smaller basket and 200 watts less power. The maximum temperature is 400 degrees, which is the recommended temperature to air fry most foods. The lower wattage also means that it uses less electricity. So far, we have been using it to cook packaged foods like French fries, tater tots, and chicken patties. I bought some parchment paper inserts on Amazon to make cleanup easier and a spray bottle of olive oil. It allows us to make quick healthier meals. 

The 4-quart size is just right for two people. The only negative is that it will make your house smell like whatever you are cooking. That's because unlike other cooking methods, hot air exhaust comes out of the back of the machine. That part may be a problem if you cook fish, which we haven't tried yet. With that in mind, an air fryer may not be a good choice if you live in an apartment building. Your neighbors will know what you are cooking. The other thing is that the machine beeps when it is time to turn your food over. When doing this, you have to be careful, because the metal basket gets pretty hot.

The Instant Pot Air Fryer also broils, roasts, dehydrates, bakes, and reheats leftovers. That should come in handy for reheating pizza, which gets soft when reheating in a microwave.  I like how the stainless-steel trim matches the other appliances in our kitchen. It also doesn't take up too much counter space. This model is simple to operate, even my girlfriend eventually figured it. In her first attempt, she put a paper liner in without any food while it was pre-heating. The air flow pushed the liner into the heating element. Luckily, I was there to catch it in time. Right now, a new one costs $129.99 on Amazon, but they have been as low as $79.99. There are lots of similar models on the used market as well.

2024 Ebay Sales Summary

 Although it is not quite the end of the year, I decided to post my Ebay sales summary for 2024. The good news is that total sales increased by 128.5% from the previous year. Net sales increased by 158.2% and the average sales price per item increased by 36% to $27.15. The number of items sold increased by 68%. This was mainly due to the 21 Xbox controllers that I sold in 2024. 

Now the bad news. The cost of selling (which includes Ebay fees and shipping) was 37.6% of total sales. And the cost of goods was 29.5% of total sales. Add sales tax to that and my profit was only 27% of total sales or about $305. That was still a 48.4% improvement over last year's profit. Total items sold was 42, so my goal for 2025 is to sell an average of one item per week. I should be able to achieve that if I can find reasonably priced controllers to refurbish. It feels like a few individuals have been trying to dominate the used game controller market. The average price of a used controller that needs repair on Ebay does not leave any room for profit for resellers. You can get a new Xbox One black model S wireless controller for $49.95. I usually charge $32 for a refurbished controller with free shipping. That means I can only pay $12 per controller.

The last item that sold was a Marine Corps military utility cap. I got it in a bulk package of 35 assorted hats and caps. This was only the third cap that sold so far but that was enough to pay for all 35. The buyer was located in California and is the production company for the NCIS television series which stars Mark Harmon. NCIS stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, so they buy a lot of military uniforms and gear for the show, which has been in production since 2003. I thought it was interesting to know that an item I sold might end up in a TV series. I'll have to keep my eyes open for more military items to resell. All of the other hats I have are pro and college sports team related which may take longer to sell.

Whirlpool WRB322DMBM Review

This will hopefully be my last post on the topic of refrigerators. I was able to keep my old fridge running for the last month by placing a fan on the compressor. Even with that, it would still overheat every few days, which would require a 2 hour cool down period before it would start working again. I decided to replace my failing 21-year-old Amana ARB2517CLS with a Whirlpool WRB322DMBM. I found this model was readily available at BestBuy, Lowes, and Home Depot. The suggested retail price was $1999, but each store had it discounted by $500. I decided to go with Lowes because they have a store that is within 3 miles of my home. They also had an extra $100 discount on any appliance purchase over $1000. This knocked the price down to $1399, which was a good deal. With shipping, haul away, and tax, the total came to $1606. I will also get a $105 rebate from the local power company, bringing the cost down to $1501. Such a good discount makes me think that this model might be discontinued soon, as it was first available on the market back in 2014, ten years ago.

It took about two weeks for the fridge to show up at the local Lowes store. They called and said they could deliver it 3 days sooner than the estimated date. We scheduled the delivery for Thursday, February 1st. On the morning of the 1st, they called again to say they would be there in 20 minutes. A large freight truck pulled into the driveway and the fun began. I had removed all the shelves prior to their arrival. They (two Hispanic guys) had to remove the doors on the old fridge to get it out of the kitchen. On the new one, they only had to remove the handles. Once it was in the kitchen, I had them move the door hinge to the left. It looked like they had done this many times before. They plugged it in and slid it into place. Total time for the delivery was about one hour. I installed the shelving and lowered the front leveling pads so that the weight was off of the front wheels and gave it a wipe down with stainless steel cleaner on a microfiber cloth. 

The Whirlpool has about 2 cubic feet less storage and is about 2 inches narrower in width. The missing space is equivalent to taking out the chef's drawer that was in the Amana. The Amana had a spot for an ice maker to be installed, but the Whirlpool came with one already installed. I just need to run a water line to the new fridge and turn on the ice maker. I plan on adding an inline water filter when I do that because the fridge doesn't have one. The Whirlpool has LED lights and digital temperature controls. The Amana was rated at 535 kWh per year and the Whirlpool uses 584 kWh of electricity per year. This is most likely because the Whirlpool comes with an ice maker installed. The inside is nice and bright and without the ice maker running the Whirlpool is very quiet compared to the old fridge. The missing storage space should not be a problem because we also own a chest freezer and a beverage cooler. If it lasts for 20 years like the other one, it might be the last refrigerator that I need to buy.

Shopping at ShopGoodwill.com

 Shopping at a Goodwill store is not what it used to be. In the past it was easy to find good deals. Some people even made money buying items at Goodwill and reselling them online. That has become very difficult because prices at Goodwill have gone up and shipping is much more expensive now. You can still find an item below market price once in a while, but it isn't easy. If you are buying something for yourself, you can still save money vs. buying new, but they have taken all of the profit away from resellers. Even on their online auction site (ShopGoodwill.com) it is difficult to get a good deal.

At times, the Goodwill auction site will not let me connect. If you get a "The request is blocked" error message, you need to delete the ShopGoodwill cookie from your browser. After that, your browser should be able to load the home page. I've seen other technical issues with the auctions, like slow load time and not being able to pay for an item. On one recent auction, my bid was the high bid, but it didn't show that I was the high bidder. I my bid was the same as another bidder. Somehow the bidding system failed, and they ended up cancelling all bids and relisted the item. The item eventually sold for much more than I was willing to pay. This happens a lot. I often lose auctions by one dollar, when someone places a last second bid. I don't like sitting at my computer waiting for the clock to run down before I bid. I decide how much I'm willing to pay and put my bid in a few hours ahead of time. The last thing I want to do is overpay for a used item that is being sold as-is.

When shopping on the website, I have a set of rules that I follow. The first is to never buy from a Goodwill store that is located in California, Florida, New York, or Washington State. For me, the shipping charge is too high from these locations. Second, is to avoid bidding on items that have a handling fee that is greater than 3 dollars. The only exception would be if they were offering one cent shipping. I mainly bid on video games, so my third rule is to never bid on a game assortment that includes Disney, Just Dance, or old sports games. That may sound weird, but it rules out a lot of assortments. I don't want to play them, and no one wants to buy them. The ones that get a new version every year, like Madden Football, FIFA, NHL, NBA and Call of Duty, are in every assortment. It is rare to find an assortment that does not have one or more of these games. 

There are many ways to search for items on ShopGoodwill.com. My favorite is to enter a keyword into the main search window. That works well if you are looking for a specific brand like "Olympus" or "Logitech". The results will find items in all categories with that keyword in the description. I also use search by category when looking for video games for a specific console. On the advanced search page, you can search specific Goodwill stores that are closer to you or ones that have low handling fees. And, if you are not looking for anything specific, try clicking on the "Newly Listed" link. Items are being added continuously, so you get to see a wide range of items that may be of interest. If you bid on an item, just be prepared for disappointment, because many times items go for more than you think they are worth.  

Shopping at Walgreens

 There is a Walgreens drug store just down the street from us. It is located on the corner of a busy intersection as they are usually found in prime locations in most cities. Walgreens and CVS have been in the news lately for the difficult working conditions being placed on their pharmacists. It is the result of management cutting expenses over the years and understaffing. We have experienced long waits to get prescriptions filled at certain times of the day. The pharmacy at our Walgreens is open from 9 AM till 1:30 PM and 2 PM till 8 PM on weekdays. 4.5 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening. The pharmacy is usually busiest at 11 AM and 5 PM. On the surface it sounds like another group of workers complaining about being overworked and under paid. We've seen strikes from teachers, health care workers, delivery drivers, and auto workers succeed in getting management bow to their demands. It remains to be seen if pharmacy workers will be able to improve their working conditions. The retail drug industry has been crushed by opioid lawsuits and has been in cost cutting mode for some time now.

That is just one of the problems facing Walgreens. They also need to revamp their customer discount system. Someone spends a lot of time placing sale tags on shelves. The discounts are usually 2 for 1 or buy one get one for 50% off. The problem is that the discount is only on select items. It is easy to grab the wrong item, thinking it is on sale, only to find out that it isn't when you check out. On a recent trip to Walgreens, we saw a shelf tag that said buy 1 get 1 free on Lay's potato chips. During checkout we discovered that Ruffel's chips were not part of the deal. So, each bag of chips we had rang up at full price. Our bill was $10 more than we had anticipated. I quickly went back and got one of the Lay's chips that qualified for the deal. We then had the cashier refund both bags we originally paid for. Then we purchased two of the Lay's chips that qualified for the deal. But before we paid for the purchase, we used one of their infamous "On your next purchase" discount coupons that we received from our first purchase. This resulted in an additional savings. They need to get rid of the "next purchase" coupons that print out after you make a purchase and come up with a simple discount system that doesn't cause confusion and wasted time during checkout. That is by far our biggest complaint about Walgreens. The sales tags always seem to be under the wrong item, or someone has put an item back in the wrong location.

If you're a senior, you can always get 20% off in-store at Walgreens on the first Tuesday of every month with their Seniors Day Discount. Around this time, seniors who are myWalgreens members also get Walgreens coupon codes for 20% off online purchases. These discounts only apply to eligible regular-price products. I have yet to do any shopping at walgreens.com, mainly because we have a store within walking distance. It looks like they have a large number of items with paperless coupons and other site wide discounts. Shipping is free for orders over $35 and free for orders shipped to a store for pickup. Walgreens has numerous distribution centers similar to other large retail stores, so order fulfillment should be fast. I was unable to find information about their return policy on their website. Clicking on "Returns" under "Customer Service" brought up the help menu. I guess someone forgot to test that link. Hopefully their new CEO (Tim Wentworth) will be able to fix things and save them from going under.

Fiskars 4-Claw Weed Puller Review

 The weed situation in my yard seems to get worse every year. When I first bought the house 12 years ago, the lawn looked amazing. But in the past few years, dandelions have taken over. I tried Scott's turf builder triple action which is a granular weed and feed product. It helped a little, but chemical products are expensive and not good for the environment. I have a neighbor on one side that has his yard treated by one of those professional lawn care companies. On the other side, is a neighbor who does little to their yard other than mow once a month. Over time, dandelions from that neighbor's yard have migrated into my yard. This year I decided to see if I could make a dent in my dandelion population.

The first thing I did was got a couple of buckets, one to sit on and one to put dandelions in. I started in the backyard and used a garden trowel to dig the dandelions out by the root. The backyard wasn't as bad as the front. I wanted to start in the back so the neighbors wouldn't see me sitting on a bucket for hours on end. I managed to get the back done but broke my garden trowel in the process. The neighbor who used the professional lawn treatment, saw me pulling weeds one day and let me use his weed pulling tool. It was one with a long wooden handle. It worked well, but I was afraid I was going to break it. I looked online and found several long-handled weed pullers. After some consideration, I decided to get the Fiskars 4-Claw deluxe weed puller. They call it deluxe because they also have a 3-Claw version. I wasn't crazy about the plastic construction, but I have a Fiskars extendable power-stroke clipper that has served me well over the years.

The Fiskars weed puller is easy to use. You just center the tool over the dandelion, push down, and pull the handle toward the foot platform, and the weed come out. There is an ejection mechanism that releases the weed once it is out of the ground. I find that I still need to bend over to get the dirt off the root and try to fill the hole left behind. The handle is 39" long, which is kind of short if you are over 6 foot tall. So far it is working fine. The only problem is that it takes about an hour to clear a 5' x 10' patch of ground. I can fill a grocery bag with dandelions in just that small of an area. That should give you an idea of how bad my dandelion problem is. Some dandelions are so tough that they squeal when you pull them out. I assume that is the tap root coming loose. I have starting work on the front yard where the dandelions are the worst. The tool makes it easier, but progress is slow. Once the yard is complete, the tool will make maintaining a dandelion free yard a simple task. That's assuming the tool doesn't break on me before the job is done. You can find the Fiskars 4-Claw deluxe weed puller on Amazon for $47.53 or as low as $40 from other garden supply stores. 

The Luggage Size Dilemma

 Trying to save money can sometimes backfire, especially when traveling by air. My partner wanted a larger check-in bag for an upcoming trip. She was looking on Amazon and was about to spend over $100 on a new piece of luggage. I showed her several options on shopgoodwill.com and she found one that she liked. I put the item on my favorites list. Toward the end of the auction there was only one bid. I placed a bid for $11 and won. With shipping and tax, the luggage was only $23.

Goodwill had listed the size as 17L x 10W x 32H. When the luggage arrived, it looked bigger than I expected. Not having taken a commercial flight in a while, I decided to look up the limits on check-in baggage size and weight. The size limit is 158cm (62 in.) and the weight limit is 50 Lbs. for most airlines. The size is calculated by adding the L + W + H. Goodwill's size description comes to 59. Unfortunately, the measurements need to be from the widest point and include the handles and wheels. Goodwill must have measured from the top, which is the narrowest point. My measurements at the bottom were 21L x 12W x 33H, which adds up to 66, which is technically over the size limit.

I tried to find the manufacturer's specifications, but I didn't have any luck. In 1993, American Tourister was acquired by Samsonite. In 2009, American Tourister was acquired by Astrum International, which also owns Samsonite. I'm not sure how old the luggage is but it must have been discontinued years ago. There are luggage manufacturers that cheat on the size. So, I searched online to see if anyone had issues with over-sized luggage. Some responses indicated that the weight limit was more important and that being a few inches over was not an issue. But more often, responses said that the limit is the limit, and you risk getting your luggage flagged as over-sized.

The penalty (fee) for checking over-sized luggage is $200 per bag, each way. That is enough to scare most travelers into compliance. You can buy a quality brand-new set of luggage with one over-size baggage fee. Which leads to the dilemma: Do we take a chance with the Goodwill luggage? It would be fine if you were traveling by car. But the risk of having your luggage flagged as over-sized is too great. No wonder no one was bidding on the larger luggage auctions. The employees that write the descriptions for Goodwill auctions often don't have a clue about the item they are describing. Items can't be returned because they are sold As Is. Even if it could be returned the shipping fee would exceed the price of the item. I may try to sell it on Ebay, save it for a future road trip, or donate it back to Goodwill.

Amazon Shopping List #2

Another month has past and its time to take another look at my Amazon Shopping list. As of June 1, 2020, the total price for all of the items on my list is $68.71. Only 10 out of 20 items on the list that are available to purchase. One item is no longer available. There was a price increase on 4 items and a price decrease on 4 items. It would cost $36.49 to buy one each of the available items. This is a slight improvement over last month, when only 7 of 10 items were available. I have noticed that the availability of items changes daily. But, there never seems to be more than 10 items available each day I look at the list. I would need to track the available items each day to determine which day of the week would be best to place an order. People probably do most of their shopping on the weekends, so the middle of the week may have more items available. But, it also depends on Amazon's restocking schedule. Since I have a variety of pantry items, I would need to place several minimum orders each month in order to get more of the items on my list. I will check the status one more time next month.

Regarding the protests this past week in Minneapolis, the autopsy showed no signs of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. They didn't say what intoxicants were in his system. It will be several weeks before that report comes out. The family is set to announce findings of an independent autopsy on Monday June 1st, 2020. It will be interesting to see how the two autopsy reports differ. The police need a better way of handling someone who is potentially intoxicated and shows signs of resisting arrest. Physical force and non lethal weapons have the potential to cause death, if there are underlying health conditions. Maybe people need to be reminded how to act when they encounter law enforcement. We need ideas and solutions not protests.

Amazon Shopping List

It's been about 6 weeks since I posted my experience with Amazon Pantry during the early days of the pandemic. It wasn't very good. So, I decided to take my own advice and created a shopping list of Amazon Pantry items that I would consider buying (if they were available). My list consists of 20 items. As of April 30th, the total price for all of the items on my list was $69.34. Unfortunately, only 7 out of the 20 items are currently available. At the end of each month, I'm going to check the list again to see if prices have changed and how many items are available. This should tell me if  things are improving or getting worse at Amazon.

Amazon has one of their huge distribution centers in my city. I have read several news reports about employees walking off the job because they feel that Amazon isn't doing enough to protect their health. Amazon disclosed that 3 workers had tested positive for the virus at the facility near me. I suspect the number infected is larger than that, considering how easily the virus is spread, and the number of people working there (about a thousand). Similar outbreaks at meat packing plants around the country have also been in the news lately. This adds to the fear of anyone who works in close proximity to others. This all adds stress to our supply chain. Reading about farmers who have to dump milk or euthanize livestock and poultry because they can't find anyone to process their product is a breakdown in a food supply chain that has been over optimized. The most recent report shows 28 million people out of work. This week on the news, I saw lines of cars at drive-thru food banks. These are like a modern version of the soup lines from the 1930's. Things looked a little better at the grocery store this week. We found most of the items we were looking for. We even found some toilet paper, although the choices were few, and the prices are high.

Amazon Pantry Cart

If you are stuck at home and need food, your only option is home delivery. But, if you think you can order up a box of food from Amazon, think again. This past weekend I tried to find food items that I could actually use to make a meal and found the choices very weak. I did find a few canned items and added them to my cart. In order to get free shipping with Amazon Pantry your order has to be over $35. By the time I found enough food items worth putting in my cart, at least an hour had past. During checkout I discovered that several items that I had in my cart were no longer available. This put me below the $35 mark, so I had to go back and look for more items. When I was ready to checkout again, I found that more items were no longer in stock. I finally gave up. It's like being in a grocery store and someone grabs an item from your cart and runs to the checkout.

I went back and tried again today. This time there was a limit of one per item. Without being able to buy multiples, it was nearly impossible to find enough food items worth buying. Plus, the delivery time is now a two week wait. Amazon needs to put a timer on each shopping cart. If I have the item in my cart someone shouldn't be able to buy it before I get a chance to checkout. You can add items to a "Save for Later" list. This will make it easier to add the in-stock items to your cart for quicker checkout. But, you are not going to see any deals or new items on the site. Times like this they need to offer a survival pack that has a week's worth of food for two people. It should include canned and dried goods, but no snacks or condiments. I haven't been to my local grocery store in about a week. I just hope it is not the same story there. Most local chain grocery stores offer online ordering with curbside pickup. I'm sure that option will become very popular now.

Your listing has been removed!

If you do any selling on Ebay you will eventually run afoul of one of their listing policies. Most often this will be caused by a trademarked word or having "Like New" in the item description. They assume that you know all of the rules and make you feel like a cheater that just got caught. "Please be sure your current and future listings follow these guidelines, keeping in mind that additional violations could result in the suspension of your account."

My latest offense was using the work "Velcro" to describe the adjustable strap on a baseball cap. It wouldn't be so bad if they just moved the listing to my "Ended" folder. But they completely deleted the listing, so I couldn't go back and fix the problem! I saw a video posted by a guy once who had a listing removed because Ebay determined that the item itself was offensive. It was a statue of a German General. Ebay deleted the listing and the guy didn't even have enough information to find the item in his inventory.

I still had photos of the item, but I wasn't sure what price and shipping options I had set for the item. It was easy enough to recreate the listing. It just wasted my time. The email states that they credited all associated fees except for payments processing fees and the final value fee for the listing. There was no payment to process, but they may still take the final value fee. It's bad enough that 34% of gross sales on Ebay goes to final value fees, PayPal fees, shipping fees, and promotion fees when you sell something.

Unlimited Plans for Sale on Ebay?

Believe it or not you can by unlimited wireless plans on Ebay. All of the major mobile resellers are there, plus some that look a little shady. It seems like anyone can become a mobile reseller these days. Just get a business wireless account from one of the major carriers (that give you network priority over retail customers) and sell subscriptions to users on your account! Just Google "Unlimited wireless data plan no throttling" and you can see some of the websites out there. They don't really explain how they can do this. But, the fact that they are selling "memberships" tells me that they are reselling from a business plan. I took a look at the business plans from AT&T and Verizon. Their plans don't appear to offer totally unthrottled data and there is a limit on how many lines you can have. This would explain why some unlimited reseller sites are temporarily unable to accept new members.

I'm not sure how they can claim unlimited and unthrottled. They may have connections on the inside that give them special deals or have found a loophole to take advantage of. One interesting thing I discovered is that there are a few wireless plans that are grandfathered. Back when unlimited plans first came out, they were offered as unlimited/unthrottled. People with these plans avoid having their data deprioritized on the network. You can sometimes find these plans on Ebay, usually for $1000+. The problem is that you cannot change any features of the plan. Any change puts you into one of the newer plans where your data will be throttled down to 3G speeds (after you reach the plan limit). This is a bit like my Comcast basic cable + 3 Mbps Internet service. You can't get speeds lower than 15 Mbps anymore. If I want to change anything, I'll have to move to a newer (more expensive) plan.

Why I Unsubscribed from Prime

I've been an Amazon customer since 2003 and a subscriber to Prime since it was started back in 2005. Back then it was $79 per year for free 2 day shipping on select items. In 2018 they raised the price to $119. Over the years they have added video and music streaming plus numerous other features. This week I decided to unsubscribe from the service. The main reason is because I only use the shipping and video and I am currently unemployed and don't plan on buying from Amazon as often as I have in the past. One could argue that if I only use the video service, I'm still getting a bargain at $10 per month compared to Netflix, which is $12.99 per month. I like Amazon Prime video more now than in the past because they have added more content. But, I had to make some cuts, and the Prime subscription was up for renewal. I still believe that Amazon could crush Netflix if they offered a separate video streaming subscription at a lower price. You can still watch a few things for free on Amazon's streaming service without Prime. One is the IMDB channel, but they do show ads. As far as the free 2 day shipping? That has been hit and miss lately. Sometimes they can only ship part of an order in 2 days and the rest comes days later. You can still get free shipping without Prime if your order is over $25. You can also get free shipping from other large online retailers like Target and Walmart. Ebay is another good source for items with free shipping. So, other than the video service, I don't think I'm going to miss Prime very much. They claim to have over 200 million subscribers, so my leaving isn't going to hurt them in the least.