One of the best ways to save money around your home is to perform some types of repairs and maintenance yourself. But some types of work are easier to do yourself than others. In this edition, we’ll help you learn how to prep an AC unit for summer and figure out whether you can do this work yourself, saving some money in the process.

Savings

If you can do the general maintenance work on your air conditioning unit yourself, you may be able to save anywhere from $75 to $150 for a service call.

Some companies will offer good deals on air conditioner “tune-up” services in early spring, so you may find this service at a special price of $50 to $75. But some shady repair services use this “tune-up” deal to convince you your AC unit needs repairs that it actually doesn’t need. Finding a trustworthy repair person who will be honest with you is more important than saving a few bucks with a special on a “tune-up” for your AC unit.

If you can only do some of the basic maintenance tips listed below, at least you’re going to make the unit more efficient, saving some money on your electrical bill this summer. And a clean air conditioning unit will have a longer lifespan too.

Time Required

Even if you’ve never worked on an air conditioning unit before, you should be able to complete this type of maintenance in a couple of hours. An AC unit that hasn’t had maintenance performed on it previously will take longer, as it will be dirtier. If you perform maintenance on it a couple of times per year though, the process may only take an hour as you’ll be familiar with the work and the unit will be cleaner.

Tools Required

Cleaning and maintaining an air conditioner requires some simple tools, but they do have to be the right size. The exact sizes and tools you’ll need depend on the types of screws used to secure the unit’s panels, both indoors and outdoors.

• Screwdriver with varying bits
• Socket wrench with varying sockets
• Putty knife (or butter knife)
• Insulation tape
• No-rinse coil cleaning spray
• Soft-bristled brush
• Level
• Garden hose with pressure nozzle
• Wet/dry vacuum
• Hedge clippers

Preparation

Pick a reasonable weather day to perform this work, as you’ll be outdoors. You don’t want to be working in really cold temperatures, as you’ll be using water.

Find the fuse for the air conditioning unit and turn it off at your electrical box. Sometimes an AC unit will have its own fuse box near the unit outdoors that you’ll need to turn off too.

Simple Maintenance Jobs

Here are some simple, specific tasks you can complete to perform maintenance and learn how to prep your AC unit for summer.

• Clean up: Outdoor air conditioning units will collect debris on their grates over time because of the way they draw and expel air. You’ll see leaves, twigs, seeds from trees (such as cottonwood), and even animal fur stuck on the various parts of an AC unit. Removing this debris will allow the unit to run more efficiently, as it can move air easier. A wet/dry vacuum may work well for cleaning the exterior grates if the debris is dry. You then may need to remove the grates to clean the unit’s metal fins properly. Most of the grates are attached with screws or hex screws.
• Washing with water: You also can use water to clean any debris from the metal fins on the AC unit. (These metal fins will look like a zig-zag pattern, and they’ll be tightly packed together.) It’ll work well to use a garden hose with a power nozzle to gain enough water pressure. If you can get inside the unit and spray toward the outside, you’ll be able to remove the debris easier. If you can only spray from the outside, the water may clump the debris together, pushing it toward the edge of the unit, where you can remove it by hand. If you have pets or trees in your area that produce seeds that fly through the air, you may want to wash the fins a few times during the summer.
• Straightening fins: Once the fins are cleaned, you may notice some are bent. You’ll want to straighten them to ensure they can work in the most efficient manner. They don’t have to be perfectly straight to work properly, but ensuring they aren’t touching each other will help. You can use a flat head screwdriver to straighten the fins. A small putty knife or even a sturdy butter knife with a thin blade will work too.
• Free space. Make sure vegetation and foreign objects are at least 24 inches from the unit. If you have plants near the AC unit, you’ll want to check this free space occasionally during the summer, so the air conditioner has enough room around it to draw and expel air properly.

Tougher Maintenance Jobs

If you feel comfortable working around the air conditioning unit, you can perform a few other tasks that require a bit more know-how. But if you’re leery of these tasks, call in a trustworthy professional.

• Leveling. As an AC unit ages, it could slip out of a square alignment (such as the unit pictured above). Place a level onto the air conditioning unit, just to make sure it’s in alignment. Some air conditioners are braced with brackets against the home. Others rest on a platform on the ground. If the unit is not level, it could cause problems with the compressor over time. You can use shims to adjust the level of the unit as a temporary fix.
• Clean evaporator tube. Inside the home, you may have an evaporator coil inside the blower unit near the furnace. As moist, warm air inside the ducts strikes the coil, moisture from the air collects on the coil. It usually then drains through a flexible tube to a floor drain. This tube can become clogged with algae and mold over time. (Yes, that’s gross.) But you can clean this tube for a better performance level. Use a wet/dry vac to clean out this tube. Or if it’s especially clogged, consider swapping it out.
• Clean evaporator coil. The evaporator coil described above will collect dust over time. (You can minimize the dust by regularly changing your furnace filter.) If you feel comfortable working inside the unit, you can clean these coils. You’ll have to remove a panel from the unit that has screws or hex screws holding it in place. It also may have some insulation tape around it. Once you can see the coil, you can sweep it with a soft-bristled brush. Then finish cleaning it with a condenser coil spray that you can purchase in a hardware store. This special type of spray doesn’t require rinsing, so it’s great for this type of work.

Final Tips

Before you switch over from heating to air conditioning for the summer, be sure you’ve inspected both your interior and exterior units for any odd damage. If you can easily see the wires, inspect them for any cracking. If you suspect anything out of the ordinary, call a professional.

Outdoors, look for nests that mice may have created. This is a potential problem if you covered the unit all winter, creating a habitat protected from the weather. Or look for any cracks in any portion of the unit where water may have penetrated and frozen, causing a crack.

Indoors, make sure to change all filters. Inspect the unit for any corrosion or cracks. This would be rare, but it could happen with an older unit if water was building up in the area.

Certainly, if you see any cracks or damage, it’s time to call in a professional. But if the all of the components look good, and if you’re able to complete the maintenance tasks described above yourself, your air conditioner will now be ready to run at full throttle for the summer (as long as you remember to turn the power back on at the fuse box). Plus,  you’ll have saved some money in the process!

Saving Money with DIY: How to Prep an AC Unit for Summer

We’ve reached the time of the year where we all have the same thought: Please, please, please don’t let me pay too much on my income taxes!

Another thing on which all Americans can agree: We like (legal) tax deductions. Whether you’re doing your taxes yourself or paying a professional, we can help you make sure you don’t miss any commonly overlooked tax deductions to which you’re entitled. (And don’t forget to check out our list of the cheapest ways to calculate your taxes.)

1. Child Care Tax Credit

This is one of the most confusing rules in taxes. But if you pay for child care while you work, you can take a credit for a chunk of that payment. This credit is better than a deduction, because tax deductions only reduce the amount of income that’s subject to tax, while the credit reduces the actual tax bill. Make sure you take advantage of this credit and calculate it correctly!

2. Donating to a Charity

You may already deduct money you donate to charity, but you can write off other things you do for charity too. If you drive as part of the charity, you can deduct up to 14 cents per mile driven.

If you make a meal and donate it to your local homeless shelter, you can deduct the cost of the ingredients. Basically, anything that you give to the charity, other than your time, is deductible.

3. Earned Income Tax Credit

As described above, this tax credit is better than a deduction, because it directly reduces your actual tax bill. Still, many people don’t understand the EITC. It’s aimed at providing help for low income earners. You’ll have to go through a series of calculations to see if you qualify, which thwarts some people from seeking the credit, but if you qualify, you’ll be glad you took the time.

4. Mortgage Points

Another confusing deduction for a lot of people concerns points paid to obtain a mortgage rate. At the time you purchase a home, you can deduct all points paid for the year you obtain the loan. But if you refinance the loan later and pay points, you have to deduct those points over the life of the loan, such as 1/30th of the points per year on a 30-year mortgage. If you sell the house before the 30 years are up, you then can take a deduction for the points remaining. Confusing certainly, but important to understand to take deductions at the right time.

5. Recovering from Natural Disaster

If your home was hit by a natural disaster, you will be able to deduct some of the money you spent to put things back together, as long as insurance didn’t reimburse you for those expenses.

Some of the casualty loss calculations are a bit confusing, which means some people just skip the process, but this deduction can ease the sting of the disaster.

6. State Sales Tax

If you live in a state that doesn’t collect income taxes, you can deduct your state and local sales taxes from your federal tax bill. Although this can be a huge hassle to track this over 12 months and save every receipt, it’ll especially be worth your time during years in which you made large item purchases subject to sales tax, such as vehicles or construction materials for a home remodeling.

7. Student Loan Interest

If your parents or another party are helping you pay student loan debt, but the loan is in your name, you must take the tax deductions associated with it. Only the person legally obligated to the debt can take the tax break for the interest paid on the loan. The IRS treats the loan repayment as a gift to the child. In other words, in the eyes of the IRS, the parents are giving the money to the child as a gift, who then uses it to pay toward the debt … even if mom and dad write a check directly to the student loan provider.

It’s Tax Time Again! 7 Commonly Overlooked Tax Deductions

Think back to the holiday season. (We know, it’s tough to remember what happened four days ago, let alone four-plus months ago, but just try.) You probably were thankful for receiving many excellent gifts, perhaps including some gift cards. Sure, you don’t normally shop at the House of Prune Juice, but after receiving a gift card, you figured you’d check it out.

All this time later, that same gift card is still in your wallet because you never had a hankering for prune juice. And at this point, you probably never will. Don’t worry. Those unwanted gift cards may be worthless to you, but they aren’t to someone else, and they’ll pay cash for them. We guarantee that cash won’t live in your wallet for four-plus months without being used. Keep reading to find our best ideas for how to sell your gift cards for cash!

Realistic Expectations

We do have to include a disclaimer here: Chances are not great that you’ll receive face value in cash for your unwanted gift cards. Depending on the demand for a particular brand of card, you could receive far less than face value actually.

So you’ll have to decide at what percentage of face value you’re willing to sell the gift card before you start the process.

Additionally, you can sell a card that you’ve partially used, but most re-sellers that purchase gift cards require that you have at least a $20 balance on the card.

Why Can’t I Receive Face Value?

Remember that if you’re selling an unwanted gift card, the gift card re-seller has to have the ability to re-sell the card at a profit. So the margin for the retailer occurs in the difference between the value for which it purchases your card versus the amount it can sell the card. Re-sellers wouldn’t make any profit if they pay you full value for the gift card.

Additionally, some cards are in greater demand among buyers than others, so more popular cards will be more valuable when you sell them. And some gift card re-sellers may have a temporary oversupply of cards from a particular company, meaning they’ll pay you less if you’re selling that type of card at the wrong time.

If you sell the card to another person, rather than at a retail re-seller, you may receive closer to face value — or even face value — for your gift cards. But you do have the hassle of taking the time to find a buyer … and even then, you’re not guaranteed to receive face value.

So the fastest and easiest method to sell an unwanted gift card is to go to one of the gift card re-sellers listed below, but don’t expect to receive face value.

Cardpool

With the Cardpool service, you have multiple options for exchanging your gift cards for cash. Cardpool partners with stores and kiosks in your local area to purchase gift cards. This is the fastest way to exchange a gift card. (If you’ve used Coinstar Exchange kiosks to sell cards in the past, Cardpool now owns these kiosks.)

The Cardpool web site offers the ability to search by postal code for locations near you. You will need an ID to make the exchange.

You also can use Cardpool to perform an exchange remotely over the Internet. Just enter the gift card retailer and the amount remaining on the card, and you’ll see a payout amount that you can choose whether to accept. You will have to mail the gift card before receiving your payment.

GiftCardBin

GiftCardBin is a service that partners with businesses in your local area — usually payday loan stores and pawn shops. You then can sell your gift cards at those locations. Just visit the GiftCardBin web site where you can search for a location via postal code.

You also can sell your gift cards online through the GiftCardBin web site. But you will have to mail the physical gift card before you can receive your payment.

Check Into Cash

This is a payday loan store that also will purchase gift cards in person. Visit the Check Into Cash web site to find a location near you. You cannot sell your gift cards remotely through the Internet with this service.

Card Cash and Gift Card Zen

The Card Cash web site and the Gift Card Zen web site are two more options for selling the cards online. Neither site has an option for selling the cards in person, though.

Local Check Cashing Stores

If you don’t have one of the stores listed above in your area, it’s worth checking with any locally or regionally owned check cashing, pawn shop, and payday loan types of stores to see if they’d be interested in purchasing your unwanted gift cards.

Sell It on Your Own

There are many options for selling an unwanted gift card yourself. A popular option is eBay. If you’re looking more for a site that focuses only on gift cards, the Raise web site is an option. At Raise, you just set the card’s price and then wait for it to sell.

You always can try to sell it through a Craigslist ad too. Or if you don’t mind trying to sell face to face, visit the store that issued the gift card and ask people there if they would like to buy it. Because the people there already like the store, they’d be good candidates to buy the card. Just make sure your sales pitch is on point!

Still Carrying Holiday Gift Cards? Here’s How to Sell Your Gift Cards for Cash

Green is always the theme for St. Patrick’s Day. Wear green, or risk the wrath of painful pinching. It’s the one night you can drink green beer and fit right in at the bar. And when it comes to saving some green by throwing your own holiday party, try our best cheap St. Patrick’s Day party ideas!

Drinks, Alcoholic

Try these ideas to serve fun alcoholic drinks on a budget at your St. Paddy’s party.

• Green Beer: When it comes to making green beer, you can try a few different methods — experiment on your own. But when Betty Crocker tells us how to make green beer, we listen. Place a few drops of green food coloring in a pint glass. Then slowly pour in a light colored beer, which will make the green stand out. Best of all, you can use cheap beer for this recipe. As long as it’s green, no one will care what brand it is. Cost: About $8 for a dozen drinks.
• Shamrock Punch: Rather than a pot of gold at the end of your rainbow, how about a punch bowl filled with Shamrock Punch? Mix one-third to one-half of a 750ml bottle of rum with 12 ounces of thawed limeade concentrate, 12 ounces of thawed lemonade concentrate, and 2 liters of carbonated lemon-lime soda. A few drops of green food coloring will give it the right look. If desired, add a few scoops of lime sherbet to the bowl at the time you serve the punch and let them slowly melt. Cost: About $10 for a dozen drinks.
• Green Jell-o Shots: You’ll use Irish whiskey for this recipe. Buy some 4- or 6-ounce paper cups (preferably green) or clear plastic cups for each shot if you don’t have enough shot glasses. Boil 24 ounces of water and mix in three 3-ounce packages of green gelatin powder. Then add 18 ounces of cold water and 6 ounces of whiskey. Pour the mixture into the shot glasses or cups and refrigerate for at least four hours. (To make the mixture greener, you can add a couple drops of green food coloring.) Cost: About $9 for a dozen drinks.

Drinks, Non-Alcoholic*

Not all St. Patrick’s Day party drinks have to contain alcohol. Really. It’s true. (*But the great thing about each of these drinks is you can add alcohol if you want!)

• Irish Coffee: To turn regular coffee into Irish coffee, dissolve one tablespoon of brown sugar in a cup filled about three-quarters with coffee. Then add heavy whipped cream to the top one-quarter of the cup and serve. (And if you want to add whiskey to the mix before the cream, we won’t tell.) Cost: About $7 for a dozen drinks (without whiskey).
• Shamrock Shake (not from McDonald’s): Don’t drive to your favorite fast food restaurant for a Shamrock Shake. Make one at home in a blender. The following recipe will make about four drinks. Use four large scoops of vanilla ice cream, one-third cup of whole milk, one-quarter teaspoon of mint extract, and a few drops of green food coloring. Blend them together and pour them into glasses. Top with whipped cream. Some people will drizzle chocolate sauce over the whole thing, or will add chocolate sprinkles on the top. (Blend in 4 ounces of peppermint schnapps if you want to make four alcoholic drinks.)  Cost: About $9 for a dozen drinks (without alcohol).

Food

If you want to cook corned beef and cabbage at your home for your party, more power to you. Or if you’re like most people, and the smell of cooked cabbage makes you want to move out, try these fun Irish-themed foods that don’t cost much to prepare … and don’t smell bad.

• Irish Soda Bread: Betty Crocker knows about more than green beer. The Betty Crocker Irish Soda Bread recipe is really good and takes less than 1 hour of prep and cook time. (I’d recommend skipping adding the raisins though.) Soda bread is a bit like corn bread without the corn meal. Cost: About $4 for a dozen people.
• Irish Stew: A simple Irish stew recipe is a great pairing with soda bread. The linked recipe from CookSmarts.com tastes great. It’s easy to make, with onions, carrots, potatoes, and beef as the primary ingredients. This is a great slow cooker recipe. (You’ll have to triple the linked recipe to feed a dozen people.) Cost: About $18 for a dozen people.
• Sweet Treat: To make a simple dessert, visit your local grocery store’s bulk candy section. Buy various green candies, such as Skittles, M&Ms, jelly beans, gumdrops, et cetera. (It really is unfortunate that using this method, you’ll have to eat all of the non-green candies separately.) Additionally, look for green and gold foil wrapped candies, such as chocolate toffees, chocolate coins, or Rolos. Then purchase some black, green, and/or gold cupcake baking cups and place some candy in each of them. Cost: About $4 per dozen cups.

Decorations

Depending on the type of party you’re throwing, decorations may be last on your list. But try these inexpensive ideas to make your home feel as though a leprechaun may at least have visited.

• Colorful Rainbow and Pot of Gold: Use strips of inexpensive tissue paper to create a rainbow that leads to a pot of gold. You can use a black construction paper cutout for a black pot or have the rainbow lead to “pots” filled with green and gold foil wrapped candy, as described above. Cost: About $4.
• Green Lighting: Do you have some green Christmas lights stored away? (Hopefully they’re still not hanging on your house two-plus months after Christmas.) Put them to use for your St. Patrick’s Day party. Or try some of our LED lighting ideas to create cool green lights around your home. Cost: Free to about $20.

Going Green

If you put together an all-green party for a dozen people using the 10 cheap St. Patrick’s Day party tips listed here, you’d spend about $8-$12 per person for a full meal plus a handful of drinks. Not bad. Just don’t forget to include a green t-shirt to avoid a night full of pinching … unless you’re into that sort of thing. Have enough green Jell-o shots, and you probably won’t feel the pinches anyway.

Save Your Green with these cheap St. Patrick’s Day Party Ideas