I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘frugality’ Category

I’ve had a lot of questions lately pop into my inbox from new readers that found this site searching for frugality topics out of necessity, not necessarily desire.  With the economic climate in the US such as it is, sometimes people are making the choice to be frugal as self preservation, not as a desired lifestyle choice.

And I can completely relate to that.  Although I enjoy trying to be frugal with what I have and find ways to cut or eliminate expenses, it wasn’t always this way.  I never had super-extravagant tastes, but I did like to spend money on myself, and not always for things I needed.  Becoming a more frugal person has been a very eye-opening experience, and has taught me a lot about myself, but hasn’t always been easy.

The problem with any radical changes is that they tend not to last.  If a person tries to go from spending money freely and without any forethought, directly to spending only on a strict and controlled budget, that is a recipe for disaster.  You might stop spending money for a few days, or a week, but sooner rather than later you “slip”, and once you slip it is easier and easier to go back to your old habits.

Small steps are the key.  Here are some ideas for a few small steps to take to ease into a world of frugality - which to me is not about spending as little as possible, but instead about being self-aware about the choices we make with our finances and the effect they have over both the long and short term.

Date night can be a walk in the park.  Literally.

If you have kids, which I do, having a date night with your spouse doesn’t have to be an extravagant affair.  My spouse and I recently went on our first date night in quite a while, and honestly, it was fun just to hang out and not have kids pulling us in 16 directions.  Plan your date night with an eye to the atmosphere and not just something expensive.  A picnic in the park can be as fun (or more) than a fancy dinner out.  The second-run movie theater can be a great alternative to the newest releases.  And if you do have kids, trading babysitting with a friend can keep you from breaking the bank on child care.

Cutting coupons doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Coupons are a great way to lower your grocery (or other) bills.  But you don’t have to spend hours and hours finding the best deals.  ease into using coupons.  Start with just scanning the Sunday coupon offerings and picking out things you were already going to buy anyway.  As you become more comfortable with the process, you can branch out.

Spotting the right sale is like a beat the bank game show.

I scan circulars for sport, I admit it.  I like to try and beat the advertising at its own game.  It is all a matter of mindset.  If you think something is drudgery - it will be.  Inject a little fun.  Have a contest with yourself to get the best deal (or a better deal than last time).  You might like it!

What has to go first - what needs to go next - what’s left is negotiable.

Changing everything today may not be possible.  Take a realistic look at your finances.  How much needs to be cut back?  Prioritize.   If you need to eliminate $150 from your monthly budget, start by cutting $150 of your spending, not $500.  Work your way up bit by bit instead of all at once, and the road will be easier to stick to for the long term.

Looking at the world through a frugal lens does take some work, but ultimately can be very rewarding.   Looking at frugality as a task to be enjoyed, and ultimately as taking control over your financial life, can provide needed encouragement to keep on the path to a better financial future even when that road seems steep.

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My spouse and I received a Brita water filtration pitcher as a wedding gift many many years ago.  Our tap water is safe as far as drinking it, but has a distinctly odd taste that keeps us from drinking too much of it without the filter.  So to encourage water consumption, we filter our water for drinking.  The filters themselves are pricey, so when I can get a good deal on them (sales and coupons working together for the greater good), I tend to stock up.  Walgreens also makes a generic filter that fits in our pitcher, so when that was free after rebate for a few months, I got those too.

Last night, my spouse accidentally dropped the pitcher on the floor and broke it.   Oops.

Now, this isn’t that big a deal - the pitcher is widely available after all and we can replace it.  However, if I didn’t already have a large supply of filters in the cupboard for this particular brand of pitcher, I might look into other options for filtering our water.  Would an attachment directly for the kitchen sink be less costly?  Would another brand of water pitcher work equally well and cost less?  I don’t know yet, and I intend to find out.  But the supply of filters will have to factor into the equation as well - for even if they came at a discount, they did have cost associated with them, and if I make a different water decision, they’ll go to waste.

I try to think ahead when I stock up on sale items - how much does my family use?  How long until this product expires?  What is the likelihood of not being able to use this item?  But this one wasn’t something I’d considered.  But it brings another factor into the equation - when stocking up on an item, consider its use and if the product it is used in might not continue to be serviceable.

Hopefully after my analysis Brita comes out on top and I can just replace the pitcher we had with a clear conscience.  But, we’ll see.  Off to price out water-purifying devices!

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In my area, there is one huge consignment sale run twice a year by a local church that everyone knows about.  It is the place to go if you are in the market to buy gently used, good quality used children’s clothing, and the waiting list to become a seller is a mile long.  I know, because I’ve been on that waiting list for over two years.

But on Monday I got the call I’d been waiting for - they had a seller pull out at the last-minute, and had an opening for the spring sale.  Which is in less than 3 weeks.  Was I interested in becoming a seller?

Of course I was interested!

The timing, although quick, actually works out well for me, because our neighborhood association garage sale weekend is the following weekend.  So anything that doesn’t sell at the consignment sale will already be prepared to go into our garage sale.  Hopefully between the two activities, I will significantly whittle down the 7 boxes of outgrown kids clothing that reside in our guest room closet, and create a few snowflakes to tackle the last of our ever-dwindling non-mortgage debt.  So in the meantime, I prepare to succeed.

Priced to Profit vs Priced to Go

Although I would love to make a little money in this clothing-selling venture, my primary purpose is to pass on all the clothing my kids have outgrown in their lifetimes that I still have.  So I price my items to sell versus pricing them to make a good profit (a little under what the current general selling price are for similar items).  This means I’ll most likely sell more of my items, but make less money on each item.  Because I am a frequenter of yard sales, consignment sales, and have been to this specific sale 4 or 5 times, I have a good idea of what the going rates for items like mine are.  So I’ll set my prices a bit under that and hope for the best.

Presentation isn’t Everything, it’s the Only Thing

I want to sell as much as possible, and as quickly as possible.  So I’ve been washing all of my items and checking them for obvious defects.  When I label and repack them, I fold neatly or lay flat as to disturb things as little as possible.  The nicer everything looks, the more likely it is to sell. I’m competing with tons of other clothing from sellers, I need mine to make a great impression.

Devil is in the Details

Every sale has a protocol to follow, and this is no different. I need to make sure I have the right color tags, that I’ve put my seller id number on each of my tags, and that I know when the dropoff and pickup times are, so I don’t forfeit my profit or my unsold items. If I leave off my number, I don’t get credit, and if I don’t come by a certain time to pick up unsold items, I lose them. So I’ve marked my calendar and made a checklist to follow to adhere to the guidelines.

The sale is May 2nd, and I am hoping for a very successful one. And even if it isn’t, now that I have my foot in the door I can continue to be a seller as long as I would like, so hopefully I can learn from any mistakes I make and do even better at the next sale!

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Here in the midwest, it is cold.  Very very cold.  Colder than I remember it being in a very long time.

Maybe as I get older, I forget the past and it is only a slightly colder than average winter.  But with temperatures in the low single digits (F) and wind chills dipping to the -20 degree F range, there is no arguing that it is cold.  And as I shudder about what my natural gas bill might be next month, here are a few do’s and don’t about saving money on your heating bill this winter.

Do:  Find drafts and stop them

Cold air leaking into your home through improperly sealed windows and doors can add significantly to your heating bill.   Check your doors and windows for drafts (on a cold, windy day this can be done just by feeling along the edges) and seal them up in an appropriate manner.  Permanent leaks outside the mechanism of the door or window can be caulked, within the structure itself weatherstripping may be the appropriate solution.  Doorjambs can be blocked with a simple rolled up towel as a temporary solution.

Don’t:  Try to heat your home with a standard “recreational” fireplace.

Fireplaces can be a source of warmth, but most of the standard ones put in houses in recent history are for looks, not comfort.  A fireplace may provide temporary, supplemental heat, but don’t expect it to provide the majority of heat for your home unless it was specifically designed for that purpose.

Do:  Use selective heating of used areas, if possible

Do you use one floor of the home during the day and not another?  Are there rooms in your home that are not in general use?  Close off unused rooms, including vents that supply heat to the space.  If the area is used at night but not during the day, a short term closure may be useful.  Our home is older and has trouble heating the top floors efficiently (our ductwork leaves lots to be desired), so we close off our upstairs during the day so that the furnace doesn’t work quite as hard (the temperature gauge is on the bottom floor).

Don’t:  Leave space heaters unattended

Space heaters are a great way to add additional warmth to heavily used areas, but make sure they do not run unattended.  They can quickly become a fire hazard.  Turn them off if you are leaving the area for an extended period of time, and don’t run them overnight when you aren’t paying attention to them.  In some cases, you should have a carbon monoxide detector in the same room with a space heater, depending on the method of heating.

Do:  Layer Layer Layer

Winter is not the time to spend all day running about inside in your underwear.  Enough said.  Wear layers and keep toasty warm.  Especially socks!  (And yes, I have been known to layer socks!)

Don’t:  Expect your house to be heated by your oven

Sure, take advantage of the heat supplied by your oven when you cook.  I’ve been known to stand in front of the oven while baking on a cold winter day.  But don’t expect the oven to significantly affect your heating bill.

Be mindful of the ways your heat is being conserved and may be escaping, and where you need your heat to go.  It is hard to use energy frugally when the temperatures outside are so low, but it can be done.  But be smart about it - frugal, not cheap.  Don’t put your family or home at risk to save a few dollars.

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My family is traveling from the midwest to the east coast for Christmas.  All of our extended family (both sides) is all on the east coast, so we travel there to spend Christmas with our loved ones.  Because of this, we have our own small family Christmas early at our own home.  My spouse and I previously decided that yesterday was that day, and Saturday helped our kids wrap presents for each other so that Sunday we would have everything from us and the kids to each other under the tree.

The one present that my four year old son got yesterday that wasn’t from us was an easel.   My parents got that for him, and sent it here instead of to their house because it would have been too big to bring back in our car. The easel is a chalkboard on one side and a dry erase board on the other, that has a roll of easel paper at the top you can pull down over the dry erase board.  We loaded the easel up with crayons on the paper side and chalk on the chalkboard side, and my son was good to go.

Except we made the mistake of not explaining well enough, and he tried to color on the chalkboard side with crayon.  Oops!

And while I was distracted looking at that, my two year old daughter got a hold of the offending crayon,  and went on a rampage of her own, coloring on my spouse’s office chair, a bookcase, a wall, one of her riding toys, and probably other places I haven’t discovered yet.

Not wanting my son’s easel ruined the first day, I googled how to remove crayon from chalkboard.  I found many many recommendations, and the simplest (to me) was to rub it with paste-type toothpaste.  I have a lot of toothpaste I’ve collected for free over the past several months by shopping for deals at CVS and Walgreens, so I went through it and found the lone tube of paste-type.  We prefer gel here for our teeth.  Heh.

And lo and behold, the toothpaste took the crayon right off the chalkboard!  As well as everywhere else I found my daughter’s scribbling - walls, bookcases, plastic, even some wood.  Since my daughter is a BIG scribbler, this is a great find for me.

So the next time I come across a free toothpaste deal, I’ll be stocking up on the paste style and putting it into my cleaning cupboard.  Hopefully the one tube will last until at least then!

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