Today I decided to make some stakes for marking out various locations on the property. Locations that need to be marked include the septic field, well, driveway, and house.
3 ft. Pine Grade Stakes cost around $0.75/ea and 2 ft. stakes cost around $0.99/ea at the local hardware store. While shopping around I found 8 ft. 1″x2″ pine strips for $0.97/ea which I realized are the same material and I could make my own stakes for cheaper – and have a reason to write another blog post.
In the end I got 32 x 3′ stakes and 16 x 2′ stakes out of my wood for a savings of $24.32. It took only about 15 minutes to cut all the wood and cleanup so a pretty easy project to save a few bucks. Going forward I could save scrap wood from the construction site and chop them into free stakes with very little effort.
During this activity I also decided to try video-taping the event for posterity and practice with my camera. We’re hoping to have more useful and well-produced construction videos in the future. In the video I said the stakes cost $2.00 /ea which is incorrect (not sure where I pulled that number from). Also, I actually made 32 of the 3 ft. stakes – just lost one on the ground when I counted up in the video.
3 Ft. Purchase Cost: $24
2 Ft. Purchase Cost: $15.84
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Total Purchase Cost: $39.84
My 8 ft. Cost: $15.52
Total Savings: $24.32