I’m still planning on learning about electronics and electronics repair but things have changed for me in the last few months. I found myself doing general handyman or repair work more than anything electronic related. Which is weird because I do not consider myself to be particularly handy or skilled in this regard. As fate would have it though I’ve been thrown into situations that required these type of skills and I’ve found that I enjoy doing this type of work. So instead of being too narrow in my project I’m going to be expanding it to include other areas. To reflect the change in scope I’m now calling my project Becoming A Jack Of All Trades.
June was busy. Summer was upon us and with it came the revelers. More drinking means more cans. Over the course of June I raised $20.30 picking up cans & bottles. In addition I found $0.55 laying on the ground.
The Tools
The reason for the uptick in can & bottle money (in addition to the nice weather) was that I purchased a grabber from Aliexpress for $8.89.
I’m not thrilled with the grabber tool to be honest. It does not work well and is cheaply made but it has made it possible to pick up more stuff. It’s already paid for itself so I can’t complain too much. I plan on modifying it by improving the claw part with a more firm grasp (maybe if I find some rubber or silicon in the garbage). I thought about just using a broom handle with attached nail but I have to weigh the opinion of the people who see me collecting as well. If what I’m carrying looks like a weapon you don’t want to give them a reason to phone the police or hassle me in some other way. There’s no mistaking what a grabber tool is for so usually I am unbothered. When people see you rooting around in a recycle bin or dumpster their first instinct is to pretend you just don’t exist which is fine by me.
The second thing I bought in June was a Stanley Toolbox on clearance at Walmart for $8.05. It was the only one in a liquidation section without any packaging and was dirty. One of the workers at the self checkout had to manually enter the information into the cash register so I could buy it. I didn’t own a tool box but one of my cats started chewing on the shoe box I was using so my hand was forced in the matter. Now Grizzly just “juices” the box to put his scent on it.
The third thing I bought in June was a hammer. To show you how handy I am I actually do not own any tools (besides what I previously posted about) so when I started fixing things I had to borrow a neighbors. A hammer is a necessity when you’re doing general work I quickly found out. When I was placing an order at a thrift store near me I also happened upon a nice hammer for $5 so I bought it.
As it turns out it’s an Estwing hammer which are supposed to be well made. It’s in good shape besides some surface rust. As soon as I happen across some steel wool I’ll take it off.
Financial Summery for June 2025
Revenue
Amount carried over from previous month: $1.11
Cans/Bottles: $20.30
Found Money $0.55
Total: $21.96
Expenses
Grabber Tool: $8.89
Stanley Toolbox $8.05
Estwing Hammer $5.00
Total: $21.94
Summary
June was a good month. I raised more money than usual and I feel that I’ve found the “right” groove to be in as far as the project is concerned. I was feeling uncomfortable at how tightly I was locked in to just learning electronics. Now I have freedom to diversify and I feel better.
May 2025 was a terrible month for me as far as this project goes. I got food poisoning at the beginning of May and then midway through it I also got a cold both of which very rarely happen to me. Suffice to say that I was just managing to power through my daily tasks and then going to bed early until I was better. Unfortunately by the time that actually happened the month was over.
I didn’t manage to do any actual electronics work or learning but I did collect $5.90 worth of cans while doing errands and found 2 dimes by the pharmacy after buying some much needed Imodium.
The Tools
I purchased a small silicon mat for $4.09 and some de-soldering braid for $1 both from Aliexpress. The mat was needed to protect whatever I’m working on since I have to move by soldering around the house. I was iffy on purchasing the de-soldering braid since I already had a de-soldering pump that I purchased last month but I wagered I would need it too for certain applications if the other didn’t work.
Financial Summary for May 2025
Revenue
Amount carried over from previous month $0.10
Cans $5.90
Found Money $0.20
Total: $6.20
Expenses
Solder Wick $1.00
Silicon Mat $4.09
Total $5.09
Summary
It was a nothing month basically. I also forgot to mention I found a pencil. Everyone needs a pencil so I got that going for me. On to June.
In 2025 one of my goals is to learn about electronics and specifically electronic repair. I have no formal or practical education in this area for better or worst but I’m also facing a big challenge in my life beside ignorance right now – poverty. I am currently the most broke I have ever been. Every cent I earn right now is earmarked for more important things so there is nothing left to put towards this goal. In addition to that I have no dedicated area devoted to working on electronics so whatever comes in the future will have to be mobile at least for the time being.
That being said, most of April was spent dipping my feet into the world of electronics and trying to narrow down one area to start with. I decided that soldering was a good enough beginning step because it was a practical skill I could develop while learning theory as I progressed.
I like learning through books so I started by checking the library system in my city. Unfortunately there was nothing in English about Electronics available except for one For Dummies (for kids) book that just turned out to be a shopping list of items for projects you could create. I have no money to buy books through a website like Amazon or Ebay or even know anyone that could teach me the basics either so that left one place to turn to- Youtube.
I watched a bunch of videos on Youtube but if I had to recommend the two best to anyone else wanting to start like me they would be:
The paceworldwide video is a concise and informative guide that explains basic soldering theory. I highly recommend it even if it’s from 1980 because it was simply superior at explaining what soldering actually is better that any other beginning video that I watched.
The bigclivedotcom video is more informal than the paceworldwide video but actually applicable to present day. It discusses what equipment you should acquire to solder and it does so with the aim of doing it cheaply. You would be surprised how many beginner videos on Youtube casually talk about starting soldering equipment but when you price out often their recommendations they end up costing upwards of $250+. One video I even came across listed off a range of equipment to start with that would cost $1000 but in the same video admitted that he did not know what flux was but to “use it because it helps the solder flow.” Terrible.
Now that I knew a bit about soldering the next step was putting together the tools I would need which is a rather difficult task when you have no money.
Raising Money for Tools
Since I have no money available right now, can’t get a second job and don’t want to take on any more debt it leaves me with scavenging. I took to the streets during errands to start collecting cans and/or trash that I could resell. It’s not glamorous but it’s the only option I have left.
Some of the cans I managed to collect during April
Have you ever had an experience say when you’re young and your parents get a new car and you start seeing the same model everywhere you go? This phenomena started happening to me but instead of cars I started seeing people collecting cans. Over the month of April I must have seen at least 20 different people at various times collecting cans in my area. Even one of my neighbors started collecting cans going through the garbage and recycle bins on our street. I honestly do not understand it. She has a car and she has a job so why would you bother with scavenging? Surely just having a car opens up tons of different ways to make money even if she lost her job. But no, there she is like a raccoon ripping open trash bags at the apartment next door. Maybe I’m just bitter that it’s more competition.
Anyway, I managed to collect $19.60 worth of cans during the month and I also found $0.75 laying on the street (which is extremely rare these days) and that left me with $20.35 raised for April to work with.
My cans! My precious antique cans!Street money
I also trash picked this decorative drink tray that’s listed on eBay but has not sold yet as of this writing. If it ever does I’ll include that amount too.
Trash picked drink tray
The Tools
The first thing I purchased was a soldering iron. Due not having a dedicated workspace nor having access to an electrical outlet all the time I decided to go with a battery powered soldering iron purchased from Aliexpress for $9.49.
The second thing I purchased was solder. I decided against using a cheap solder manufactured in the orient because I had heard that it could be extremely variable in quality and is often hard to work with. Plus there wasn’t much price difference between an oriental solder and one manufactured in Canada anyway. I chose a 18g 63/37 solder from MG chemicals which I purchased on Amazon for $5.76 after tax. It had good reviews and I figured I would have more success starting with this type of solder over one of unknown quality.
MG Chemicals eutectic solder
From there I purchased a solder sucker off of eBay for $1.00 shipped
I didn’t have much money after those purchases but I managed to find a few things that I thought would come in useful while at the YWCA thrift store. They usually have nothing “tool” related but I found a screwdriver set in the toys section for $2. The rubberized coating on the outside was suffering from reversion so it was tacky picking up every piece of dirt which is why I assume it was donated. It was surprisingly complete however, and in decent enough condition except for one bit that was missing a corner.
Mr. Sticky suffering from rubber reversion
I also found a mug full of miscellaneous “school” supplies that had several pairs of scissors and 3 magnifying loops in it for $1. The loops are old but will come in handy for PCB inspection. The scissors aren’t ideal but will be used instead of pliers to cut leads until I can afford something better. The people working there threw in the mug which I am not sure was originally meant to come as a package deal but I’m not complaining. It’s Corelle branded and I will be using it as a soldering stand to hide the hot iron in case one of my cats interrupts me while I’m working.
The last thing I found was an OLFA box cutter and an X-Acto knife both with replacement blades in a plastic baggy in the craft section for $1.00. I thought briefly of passing them up because they don’t have a direct use to me right now but they are both good quality brands and I probably will not come across a deal like that again when I eventually find a need for them.
An actual branded X-Acto knife and a OLFA box cutters with replacement blades
Lastly while scavenging I found storage – a shoe box for my tools, some empty pill containers and mason jars for components. I’ll use this stuff until I can afford something better.
Financial Summary for April 2025
Revenue
Cans $19.60
Found Money: $0.75
Total: $20.35
Expenses
Soldering Iron $9.49
MG Solder $5.76
Solder Sucker $1.00
Scissors/Magnifiers/Cup $1.00
Screwdriver Set $2.00
Blades $1.00
Total: $20.25
Summary
So there you have it. In the end I didn’t manage to do any actual soldering in April (mainly because it took awhile for the soldering iron to arrive from China). I did manage to put together what I think is a decent starting kit. I doubt I will be able to raise as much money in May as April with all this ridiculous competition but will do my best to keep adding to my tools as I go. In the end as long as I’m learning that’s what really matters.
Things in my life have become clearer this year and I would say really since the beginning of April I have taken a new direction. Some of my goals will remain personal as I don’t feel comfortable sharing them on a public space. Privacy is one of those things that you don’t really think about until it’s gone so I try to live by that rule.
What I can share however is that I would like to learn a new skill this year. That new skill will be electronics and electronics repair. I have always been interested in computers and electronics but never took that direction when studying or in my life for various reasons. With that in mind I will post more in depth about it soon but I thought I would share the general changes in my life here as a reference point to myself if I ever read back some of the things I’ve written.
In December I wrote about fixing an Electric Razor I had purchased from a thrift store for $1. My electric razor had died that summer and blade shaving in the interim was both expensive and annoying.
Since then the Remington Titanium R450 has worked like a charm. I still get a great shave from it every other day and the blades are as sharp as after I cleaned them initially. All it requires is that I empty the shave compartment and clean out the blades with a little brush every time I use it.
I was still curious however as to whether or not a dull electric razor blade can be sharpened with toothpaste (with a link to the original article HERE.)
I could have waited until the Remington Titanium R450 I’m using becomes dull but instead I happened across another electric rotary razor at a thrift store this March for $10. It’s more than I wanted to pay but I splurged out of curiosity and necessity (as having a backup electric razor would come in very handy).
The Philips Philishave 6000 Easyshave cost me $10 at the thrift store.
$10 got me the Philips Philishave 6000 Easyshave. I couldn’t test it at the thrift store but it was in excellent cosmetic condition and still had its protective cap and instruction manual with it.
I tested it the next day and despite powering up and appearing to spin it would not cut my stubble at all. Wonderful! I thought, as I can finally test to see if toothpaste really can make a rotary razor blade sharp again.
The first step was once again cleaning the blade heads and despite my experience with the previous razor and regretting putting it against my face I did it again with this one. And wouldn’t you know it when I disassembled the razor this is what I found:
It appears as though someone had been shaving their pubic area and clogged the blades. Fool me twice shame on me. If you can believe it despite the hair it was actually less dirty than the Remington so cleaning only took about 15 minutes. I reassembled it after cleaning and it worked great. I got a similar close shave to my current razor.
So in the end I still do not know if toothpaste can sharpen a rotary razor but at least I now have a backup electric shaver. Maybe I’ll find another electric rotary razor at the thrift store in the future and repeat my experience again but this time it’s definitely not going against my face unless it’s spotless inside when I crack it open.
My mental health has not been good the last few months but has gotten worst since January when the Trump administration took office. I normally do not like to follow politics and have lived through various administrations both in the USA and Canada without great consequence but the first time he was elected in 2016 it was a shock as a Canadian. It shook my faith in the American people that they could elect someone so incompetent and hurtful. I was slightly less shocked when he reelected in 2024 but what replaced it was a sense of dread and despair.
My feelings of dread and despair were in fact justified as Trump started his annexation threats to my country along with his ham-fisted economic policy of tariffs against it soon thereafter. The only sliver of hope I have left in regard to these annexation threats is that military force will not happen but even there I’m not hopeful for I’ve lost all faith in the American people and it’s crumbling democracy. The USA has a tyrant in charge of it and it’s only going to get worst in my opinion as he continues to undermine, gut and demolish its institutions.
In history classes in school I always wondered how during the lead up to WW2 there wasn’t more of a rebellion against the rise to power of Hitler and his Nazi party. I understand now that people take the path of least resistance. Keep your head down, do your work and this will all pass over. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway so why bother worrying about it? Things might be getting worst but you still have it pretty good. Don’t rock the boat. The simple fact is it boils down to the old saying. “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”.
So for the last few months I’ve been in a sort of mental stupor unable to do anything but basically functioning. I see now that this makes me part of the problem and how the world has gotten into this mess. I’ve decided that I will be apathetic no longer and will enjoy my life even if it means I have to fight for it.
After a few months saving I finally achieved my goal of obtaining a new mobile phone. I am now the owner of a brand new Google Pixel 6a. I had started out by wanting to acquire a Google Pixel 8a but my goal has changed over the months as I’ve learned more about mobile phones and met with additional circumstances. I realized that it would be impossible to save enough money to buy a Pixel 8a by the time the 3G service would stop being supported by my carrier (end of March 2025). Prices also have just not come down enough for me to be able to save enough for one nor did I want to be left without a functional mobile phone altogether.
I choose to buy the Google Pixel 6a for a couple of reasons:
It will still get OS updates and security support until July 2027 which beat out the support of the other phones in my budget at the time.
Despite coming out in July 2022 it’s still a capable device and can easily replace my Lenovo Tab P10 (which incidentally decided to start having battery issues and is now largely unusable) .
The real world technological differences between the Pixel 6 – 7 – 8 lines are flat. On paper there are differences of course but not to my eyes. I have no use for the AI that they have crammed into the newer lines and all the rest of the changes are marginal at best.
Most importantly I managed to find a brand new in box Google Pixel 6a originally from a Canadian mobile provider from a large tech vendor on Ebay for $150!
Not everything is rosy though. Here are some of the negatives of me buying the phone early:
After I purchased the Google 6a off of eBay 2 weeks later Bestbuy cleared out their Google Pixel 7a’s for $200. If I had waited longer I would have been in a position to take advantage of the sale. Timing is everything as the saying goes and mine was less than perfect.
The lack of 3.5mm jack on the Pixel 6a is annoying because I had to buy a USB-C adapter to accommodate this.
Last week I got an e-mail saying that my mobile carrier was extending their 3G service for an additional 3 months to the end of June 2025. Lovely.
In the end I ended up spending $227.18:
New in box Google Pixel 6a $173.61
Screen protector & case $39.07
USB-C to 3.5mm adapter cable $11.50
USB-C 20watt fast charger power brick $3 (thrift store)
I had already saved more than what everything cost together. Here are some pictures of the items I ordered and the phone itself all set up!
Here is the Pixel 6a in its final form reading my website.
The Google Pixel 6a is certainly a step up from my Nokia 3310 3G. I’m enjoying it so far but maybe my opinion will change over time. I’m just happy to have achieved my goal (even if a bit differently than it originally started).
I finally caught up with my savings shortfalls of the previous months. My guess is that there’s increased demand for consumer opinions around Christmas and Boxing Day since it’s the major time people do their shopping. Though I can’t complain since it translates into more money for me.
Microsoft Rewards / Scavenging & Canning
Microsoft was kind enough to cut the benefits of Microsoft Rewards by about 50% in mid-December. Whether this will be a permanent change or one that is rolled back is anyone’s guess. As a rule of thumb no rewards program ever gets better over time and this one is turning out to be no different. Despite this change I earned $15 once again in December that was put into Amazon gift cards. The difference however is that I liquidated the Amazon gift card balance on various orders and put that money into cash. I will reiterate that I dislike having any gift card balances but especially Amazon because in my experience they can arbitrarily decide to apply it to an order (despite you indicating you don’t want to use it). That and the fact your money is trapped in a walled garden and they can decide to ban your account at any time and for any reason thereby forfeiting the money.
With that in mind I turned the gift card balances into cash and combined it with the money I had earned scavenging/canning. I didn’t earn any money this way in December since the only people drinking outside during Winter are the homeless and they are less than forthcoming with their empties. That leaves me with $51 in cash sitting in my repurposed (but also scavenged) Classico Spaghetti sauce jar.
As an added bonus the cash smells faintly saucy now too!
Swagbucks/Leger Opinion
I ended up making $107 this month by doing surveys. Swagbucks was as consistent as ever but the other survey website I have been using – Leger Opinion did finally pay off for me though. I netted $30 alone that way this month whereas I had earned nothing the previous two.
Summary
Between all the work I ended up making $122 in December which is my best month yet. I’m about 70% of the way to my goal but I expect since the holiday season is now over, January will be rather bleak on the survey front.
Not all is rosy though. A big problem that I’ve been slowly coming to terms with is that I don’t think $400 will be enough to buy a Google Pixel 8a. I was overly optimistic when I started saving in October and thought by March 2025 the phone would have dropped in price to those levels. It hasn’t however and didn’t even brush against those levels on Black Friday or Boxing Day. My best guess is that it will reach that threshold sometime in the summer 2025 when Google announce the Pixel 10. Which means I have to really think about alternative choices of phone. I can say confidently that I know much more than I did when I started saving but I have also grown quite weary about the whole process – both learning and earning. I basically just want this thing to be over with so I can move on to other things.
It’s been about three months since I started saving for a new mobile phone so that means I’m halfway through my allotted time to get one. For brevity, I need to be using a new mobile phone by March 31, 2025 since my carrier is sunsetting it’s 3G service in Canada. I only became aware of this discontinuation at the beginning of October 2024 so it’s been a learning experience since then. I knew very little about the mobile space. I got my first mobile phone this summer – a Nokia 3310 (2017) so that should give you some indication as to what knowledge I brought into the situation.
I’ve spent the last three months learning about mobile phones, carriers, contracts, and just the whole mileu around smartphones so I thought I would write about some conclusions I’ve arrived at.
I think the smartphone market has reached it’s mature stage. There is still innovation but nothing currently that I would personally consider technologically impactful. What would I consider impactful? Take for example the switch from CRT resolutions to FHD sets. There you have a very noticeable real world difference between two technologies. Put a common CRT set vs. a common 1080p TV playing the same content and you will see the change. Or a more resonant example when Apple introduced the Iphone in 2007. At the time there was a marked difference between then QWERTY/Split screen phones on the market and the all touch interface of the Iphone.
Right now manufacturers of smartphones are touting AI as the next technologically impactful innovation. And it very well may eventually come to pass but as it currently stands all the uses for AI in smartphones are of no use to me and are what I would consider shoehorned into the phones. If I had to guess I would say that new battery technology is the next innovation in the mobile space. Having a battery that lasts for weeks without having to charge or takes minutes instead of hours to charge (without wearing the longevity of the battery). Batteries that keep their capacity for 10 years. Something along those lines I think is more likely to be the next technological catalyst that propels phones forward over something like AI. Time will tell of course but it’s fun to speculate.
Another thing I noticed is that it’s hard to get good real world information about smartphones. As it stands the market for smartphones reminds me of the fashion industry. You make the new phone, create the demand for it, push it out and move on to the next one. There is a thin veneer of legitimacy over the small army of salesmen because they call themselves Youtubers, Influencers or Celebrities (all really just are manipulators). Once the product is sold it disseminates through social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter and the like. The end buyers then reinforce the sales pitch with their confirmation bias. Sure this new phone I bought it the newest great thing or I wouldn’t have bought it duh!
I realized this as I tried to process the differences in smartphone generations as I evaluate what to buy. I don’t have any preference or brand loyalty so I was just looking to find performance differences in real world application. You can find hundreds of reviews on the New Pixel 9 Pro but only a handful comparing a Pixel 6 Pro with a Pixel 9 Pro. Not hardware benchtest videos where performance is translated into a score and compared to another. I mean real world tests like how much time it takes to open an app, how responsive it is, how the screen looks streaming media, how the different pictures look taken from their cameras, etc. Of course if you’re trying to run the latest games or hardware intensive programs to edit photos or process videos you’ll notice a difference. But for the majority of end users? They will not notice a remarkable difference.
What I ended up finding is that there just isn’t a huge difference between phone generations anymore. Phones in the Samsung S20 line or Pixel 6 line still work fine today in 2024. Even a newly released $150 phone like the Motorola G (2024) does about 90% of the things flagship releases like the $1800 S24 Ultra or a $1400 Pixel 9 Pro do. It might not look as nice or be as fast but the technological gap between devices has been all but bridged. The gap certainty is not worth the price difference being charged between devices at least for me.
The Nokia 3310 3G is a feature phone that was released by HTC in 2017. It’s a re-imagining of the famous Nokia 3310 from the early 2000’s that was iconic for it’s durability and staying power. I’ve been using it full time since June but before that my mom had been using it for years so I have second hand experience with it that way as well. Consider this a long term review because of that.
Pros:
It’s a basic mobile phone that does basic mobile phone things like calls and SMS messaging competently. I’ve had no dropped calls while using it over the last months in various areas of my city.
Battery life is good. It has a 1200 mAh battery that is removable. The original battery had swollen but I replaced it with a aftermarket battery that is nearly identical in performance. You can charge it from empty to full in about 2 hours and from low to full in about 1 hour. My experience was having to charge it every 4-5 days for an hour with light use. The battery is easily replaceable and can be accessed by just popping off the back of the phone.
It makes a good digital music player (MP3 player) with its 3.5 MM jack, expandable storage (it takes up to 32 GB SDHC cards) and battery life. Transferring music files is as easy as plugging it into a computer and moving them with drag/drop into a folder (when plugged into a computer the Nokia 3310 will show up as a USB device under windows 10/11). It will not support advanced codecs like .FLAC, .ACC or Vorbis for example though.
One of the most underrated aspects of using a feature phone like the Nokia 3310 3G is the peace of mind you have owning one. It’s a functional tool. Nobody is going to mug you for this phone. You don’t have to treat it like you’re handling a piece of jewelry or a newborn babe. You throw it in your pocket and it’s there if you need it.
It’s small. It’s a little less than 5 inches long x 2 inches wide and half an inch thick and It will not bulge out of your pants pockets.
Cons:
It’s a basic phone so it can’t do any of the things you would expect from a modern smartphone like going on the internet and having common APPs because no software developer supports it.
It has bluetooth but it is terrible suffering from re-pairing/dropping almost every time you use it.
The build quality is plastic. Not cheap plastic mind you but still plastic. It doesn’t have the same brick like durability of its namesake either. As you can see from the photos above it picks up scuffs and scratches but I’ve never used a phone protector or screen protector on it either so it stands up reasonably well.
It is 2/3G only device. No LTE or 5G possible. This is a big problem for the phone functionality at least here in Canada since the last 3G carrier (Rogers) is sunsetting their service by March 31, 2025.
Video is not worth mentioning. 240p @ 8 FPS yuck.
The 2 MP camera sucks. Even under ideal lighting conditions photos were blurry and overexposed.
Conclusion
If i had to grade the phone on a 10 point scale I would give it a 5/10. If you know what you’re getting into with a feature phone it’s fine. You get used to it and there’s perks of not caring about a mobile device in your pocket. There are some definite limitations however but as long as you can get it cheap it’s a suitable product that will meet basic phone needs.
CatsGamesWhatever 