The Green Frugal

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Recently, the dedicated team at McKenzieBooks.com (our parent company) has made some really cool improvements to our BRAIN™ feature, so we thought we would mention it to our avid readers here.

What is BRAIN™ you say?

This blog is dedicated to being green and frugal. Since we spend a lot of time with the green life on our minds, it’s no surprise that McKenzie Books has created a tool that is designed to shopping smarter by saving your green and buying green (used books).  BRAIN™ stands for “Books Recently Added Inventory Notice”  – clever eh?

But what does it do?

It’s BRAIN-bustingly simple (nope that’s not a real word).  BRAIN automatically notifies you when we receive books that meet your search criteria, basically a high-tech book wish list.

That sounds cool! How does it work?

When you can’t find a book in quality used condition on MKZbooks.com , create your own email alert. Simply plug in a search for ISBN, author, subject, or series name.  You choose the frequency of notifications, minimum book condition, and how many search results you want in your emails.  When you sign up for your BRAIN account, we call this “activating your BRAIN” (oh the puns are just beginning).

“Feed your BRAIN” by searching for books that you want and creating alerts.  After you create up to 150 alerts, you might just feel like you’re getting too many alerts, too often.  Not to worry, that’s called “BRAIN overload” and you can delete any or all BRAIN alerts with the click of a button, or even change how often you get them.  It’s completely up to you.

What’s in BRAIN alert emails? Nothing but the bare essential book info, including: title, price, author, and a brief description of the condition of that particular copy.

BRAIN lets us do the searching for you.  Now you can get back to work, because we’ll be honest here, we shop online at work just as much as you do!

Feed Your BRAIN widget

Interested in trying out this cool free tool? Follow these easy steps:

1. Make sure you have a MKZbooks.com Customer Account by registering here.
2. You will immediately be sent an activation link to your email address in the welcome email. This should arrive within minutes. If you don’t see it check your junk email box.
3. Click the activation link and you will be taken back to MKZbooks.com to log into your account on the right side of the screen.
4. If you’re not automatically taken to the BRAIN page, click on the “Books Arrival Alerts” tab at the very top of the website.
5. Voila! You are ready to start creating BRAIN alerts!

For more information you can visit our FAQ page for full BRAIN FAQs.

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So, you have book clutter. Let’s talk about ways to deal with it.

Cash for Books

The first option is to sell the books you no longer need or want. You can check your local independent bookstores to see whether they offer this service or not. Sometimes, they only offer exchanges or give in-store credit.

If that doesn’t appeal to you, check out Cash4Books.net. It’s fast and easy. Type the ISBNs and get an instant price quote. Box them up and print the mailing label. There are no service charges and shipping is free.

Created by Earl Dizon. Illustrations by Michael Bowen.

Books for Everyone

Donating your books to Goodwill or your favorite library is another great way to get rid of that clutter.

There’s also BookCrossing which dub themselves as “the world’s library”. You print out their labels and “release” the books into the wild. You can track where they are- if the recipients take the time to record it.

Books Make Great Gifts

My favorite thing to do is to give books as gifts. A warning, though: Just because you love your first edition hardbound James Patterson novels or your well worn copies of Nora Roberts, it doesn’t mean other people will. Keep their likes and dislikes in mind. And make sure the books are in good condition.

Happily Ever After

After doing any or all of this, remind yourself not to let it happen again. Don’t buy any new books until you’ve read everything in your library. And only add more if you’ve got room.

Parting with books is sometimes difficult. But, at least now, you can properly maintain what you have.

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You could still get a few good beams out of this old barn for reuse

The old adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” aptly describes this growing aspect of the green building movement – recycling building materials.

The concept is simple: recycle parts of old houses and buildings that are reusable.  As with most  forms of recycling, this is a win-win situation for everyone.  These businesses are a cross between a Home Depot and an auto-salvage yard. If you are donating or selling your used building materials you get to recycle them. If you are looking for some, you get the same item at substantial savings.  They are especially great if you are searching for those older styles of fixtures, like a clawfoot bathtub for instance.   Instead of demolishing old structures, they are “deconstructed” – pulled apart piece by reusable piece for reuse.

Reused building materials centers are a boon to the home project do-it-yourself types, as well as construction professionals.  Did your dog chew through your door? Need windows for a diy backyard greenhouse or sauna? Did your teenage driver try to “back up” using first gear and take out the garage door? You will love reclaimed building materials centers.

Are you remodeling or renovating your house?  Besides the community, environmental, and “feel good” benefits of donating your deconstructed home materials; building owners can receive substantial tax write-offs for these donations.  That means your remodeling job could come out costing you a fraction of what it would have if you hadn’t recycled those materials.  Not a deconstruction pro? Don’t know what’s worth trying to get a write-off for or not? There are companies that will do this for you and provide IRS Certified auditors, but you have to do your research.

Here in Portland, OR we have a number of recycled building material centers, here are just a few examples:

Boneyard NW

The Rebuilding Center

ReStore

These centers describe themselves in a variety of ways so there is no single phrase to use when searching in your local area. Try combining some of these more common words with phrases like “building materials”,  “remodeling”, or “renovation” :  reclaimed, reuse/reused, renew/renewed, recycled,  green, used, salvaged, eco, and sustainable.

With just a quick search I found some online resources to help you learn more and possibly locate a recycled building materials business in your area:

Builder2Builder

Building Materials Reuse Association

National Association of the Remodeling Industry

ReGreen Residential Remodeling Program

Habitat for Humanity ReStores

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It’s heeeere!! Booktoberfest: a month-long virtual festival for book lovers. Yes, National Book Month has finally arrived and that means it’s time to start cashing in on Booktoberific Screamin’ Deals, only at McKenzie Books. To get started, visit BOOKTOBERFEST CENTRAL! Booktoberfest Free Shipping Enjoy free standard shipping on all MKZbooks.com orders for the rest of October.  It’s simple!  Take advantage of automatically free standard shipping for the continental US with no order minimums, catches, or fees.  Happy Booktoberfest! Booktoberfest Screamin’ Deals How can we improve on blowing your minds with free standard shipping for the month of October? We’re also introducing our all-new Facebook Application: “MKZbooks.com Screamin’ Deals”.  Download the App and receive crazy coupons and mad offers that are relevant to your interests. It’s a penny saver book lover’s dream come true! Want more info before dowloading the application?   No problem! Visit the MKZ Booktoberfest Page to learn how to save big all month long!

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As we come out of the summer months, there are great deals to be had at your favorite shopping places. Here are our October recommendations:

• Cars – model year 2011 are rolling into dealerships right now, make those 2009s look extra “old”.
• Fishing gear – from ice fishing to fly fishing, all of the gear you will need is on sale now.
• Winter clothes – check the clearance racks for last year’s winter wear, stores are trying to get rid of last years cold weather clothing right now to make room for the full priced jackets, scarves, gloves that will be on shelves as soon as the temperature drops.
• Plants – visit your local nursery or garden center to score great priced perennials that just don’t look pretty anymore, just keep them from freezing over the winter and they will bloom for you in the spring.
• Jeans – retail stores stock up on denim for the back-to-school season and now that studies have been going on for a couple of months, the leftovers jeans are ripe for the fall harvest.

A few more suggestions from the bloggers at LifeHacker.com for deals to score in October:

• Big appliances
• Cookware
• Health insurance
• Toys

To read further click here.

What deals have you cashed in on this month?