I wasn't too sure of what they were called until I looked them up. SURPRISE! When my wife and I were married in 1972 we got a canister set with these latches. Flour, Sugar, Coffee & Tea containers. Believe it or not we still use them. You see, we have the BEST money saving plan ever devised. "Use it up, wear it out. Make it do, or do without." These canisters have yet to think about wearing out.

Canadians may as well offer you "A penny for your thoughts" ... ... as it won't buy nuthin' else, these days. The bank'll (still) give you a quarter for 25 of 'em, to return to the Mint: don't know how much longer that'll last! Usually a litre (a bit over a quart per U.S. gal.) of 10% cream costs about upwards of $3.99 (in one store 5% usually costs $4.39 - don't ask me why!) . Quite often either kind is on sale for about $1.99. The other day one discount store had 5% cream on sale for 99 cents. If I'd bought two, the price would have been $$1.98 ... so they'd charge me $2.00, "rounding up" the 2 cents. When I bought three, price was $2.97 ... so they "rounded down" to $2.95: saved 2 cents rather than giving 2 cents extra. Trouble was ... those coated paper square canisters were swelled out a bit ... which often indicates that the milk-related contents are approaching the end of their useful life. Don't remember the code date ... but think that it's a couple of weeks in future, at least. What to do to avoid real waste due to spoilage? Gave one to landlord ... who ploughs and cultivates my/our garden ... and treats me well, otherwise ... refusing the loonie that he offered ... thus achieving some Brownie points. Gave another to son and his partner, who's using 1% milk in her coffee quite a bit of the time, for dieting reasons (son likes cream) ... she often gives me supper ... and I take the veggies from the large garden. Using the third myself, displacing the 10% cream carton that I had open ... and am reasonably confident that I don't need to worry about it going bad before it gets back into operation. Such are potential problems when changes are made in one's currency! ole joyfuelled

Have you read all the great forums available here? You'll pick up great info on so many of these forums. That Home Site Forums

I am going to give a rather long (and surely controversial) answer to costs in construction. Before we start talking about savings in home construction we need to realize that there are different categories of new home construction and different methods that are unique to saving with each. The three types that I hear the most are custom, semi-custom and production(tract). There really isn't a bright line between any of the three categories but for cost they are easy to distinguish. So for now let's assume: Custom - The home is designed from the ground up specifically for the owner. Either through significant modification of an existing style or a whole new design with all options owner specified (e.g. the kitchen design is unlimited as is your cabinet choice). Semi-custom - The design is selected from a list of available plans or designs, but the features and options are owner specified (e.g. the kitchen is limited to an existing footprint, but the cabinet choice is unlimited). Production - The design is selected from a list of available plans or designs as are the "upgrades" and features (e.g. the kitchen is limited to an existing footprint, and the cabinets are selected from a list of approved designs). Custom is kind of simple - You save money in the design phase and spend money in the build phase. The secret to savings is a good designer and a lot of planning. If most of your decisions are made before you break ground and you change little, then you will save money. Semi-custom is a bit more complicated - Essentially you save money by saving design fees. However, you will undoubtedly spend a bit more making a canned plan yours. The key to savings for semi-custom is to make fewer changes and save more money than you would have spent on a good designer. Many people fail at this and end up with semi-custom homes that cost more than custom. Production is a bit of a catch 22 - You won't find a lot of love for production builders on this forum. However, there are serious advantages to being able to play the production builder game well that are not present in the other options. Of the three methods, production done well can make the most financial sense, however, done poorly production homes are terrible investments. Unlike the other construction methods customization in production builds isn't a function of builder cost. Rather, upgrades in production builds are based on profit maximization. So instead of worrying about how much an upgrade costs, they worry about how much they can get you to pay for an upgrade, and they can get people to pay a lot, so upgrades are very expensive. In fact, most production builders don't want you buying a basic house because all of their profit comes from upgrades. The secret to making good financial decisions in production builds is accept structural upgrades and avoid all cosmetic upgrades. You basically want a mid to large sized builder basic house in a neighborhood where lots of people are upgrading. After a few years, those expensive to client and cheap to contractor cosmetic upgrades will wear faster and be no better than the builder basic. Those houses will still be selling and will drag your price up. If you plan to live there for a long time and are interested in a house as a livable space rather than a short term investment while you save and build income for a better home, then don't look at production builders.