The door is where I start because it is where the failure is. It is not where the money is — that is chapters six to thirteen, and most people have never been told any of it.
The doors · one afternoon, about $31
1The ten-minute test — six checks before you spend a dollar
2Why your door fails — the frame, the hinges, the hollow slab
3The shopping list — every part with its length and gauge
4The afternoon — frame, strike plate, hinges, deadbolt, in order
5“They'll just break the glass” — answered honestly
6How to read a demonstration — including mine
7The sliding door — the bar everyone owns helps least
8The garage — the cord, and why not to cable-tie it
9The door nobody reinforces — the one behind the fence
The money · where the four figures a year go
10The night you get locked out — $150–450 becomes $1,500
11Three phone scripts — word for word, for eleven at night
12Rekey or replace — $20 a cylinder against $225 a lock
13The monthly contract — three models with the annual cost
14The camera subscription — what to cancel, what to keep
15The insurance credit — the letter that claims it
16The don't-buy list — twelve items with a verdict each
17What I would spend, in order — at $50, $200 and $600
Everything else · costs nothing at all
18Your car key talks all night — thirty seconds to stop it
19Moving in — who holds a key, and the garage code
20If you rent — reversible, and the landlord letter
21The spare key — the five places I checked first
22Habits that cost nothing — the dull ones that worked
23Fire: the way out — the chapter nobody writes
24Your parents' house — twenty years of handed-out keys
