I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘frugality’ Category

Here in the midwest, fall is in the air.  I breathe in crisp, cool, and clear air every time I’m outside.  At least for the past week I have.  Although this year is trying its best to go from summer to winter in one fell swoop (it is lightly snowing as we speak, and it was in the 70s only two weeks ago) I’m still trying to take advantage of fall as much as possible before it disappears.  Here are four fun and frugal activities my family has enjoyed this year and in years past.

1.  Visit a pumpkin patch.  You don’t have to buy a pumpkin when you visit (although that can be fun too) but just wandering around a pumpkin patch is a fun time.  If you have children, it can be fun just to watch them stomp around and explore.  And a pumpkin patch is a fun frugal stroll for anyone, big or small.

2.  Rake leaves, or find some to jump in.  We own our home which means the big maple tree in our yard is our responsibility to clean up after.  Although you may think raking leaves to jump in is a fun activity just for kids, I must admit that i find it rather soothing to roll around in a pile of leaves.  Just don’t tell my kids I’m the one that flattened their pile.

3.  Take a drive to see the sights.  If you live in an area where the leaves change on the trees this time of year, you can take a nice drive to check them out like we do.  But there is more to check out than just the changing leaves.  We live in an area that decorates their houses for Halloween almost as elaborately as they do for Christmas.  We take walks through our neighborhood and the occasional drive just to check out all the scarecrows, witches, ghosts, pumpkins, and other decorations that can be found.

4.  Use a pumpkin to its full potential.  I must admit I am not too skilled at this one, for even carving a pumpkin is beyond my usual repetorie.   But if you buy a pumpkin to carve, you can roast the seeds for a tasty snack as well as make a fun porch or window decoration for your home.  Or you can just buy decorative gourds that are also edible, and cook them after you are done with them (I did this for my kids when they were eating baby food - mashed up gourd was one of their favorite foods!).

What’s your frugal fall plan for fun?

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In uncertain economic times, we all want to be in the most prepared position possible.  Today is not too late to start improving your financial future.  Even if you have to trick yourself into doing it.  For the 1000th published post on I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… , I’m sharing my favorite five mental money hacks all in one place.

1. Every time you spend money frivolously, put the same amount towards your financial goal.  Be it paying down debt, building an emergency fund or other savings, investing for the future - whatever it is, make it as important as those purchases you just “have to have”.
2.  Make it a habit.  Move money every day at the same time.  Maybe only a dollar.  But for thirty days, every day move money from checking to savings, or to whatever the financial goal.
3. Write it down.  Writing has power.  What is it you’re looking for?  What do you want to accomplish?  Make it concrete and put it in writing.
4. Paint yourself a picture.  Maybe you’re a visual person.  Put a picture of your goal somewhere you can see it every day.  Maybe it’s a zero debt balance.  Maybe it is a spectacular retirement home.  Maybe just a wad of cash.  Whatever it is, picture it.
5. Share your story with someone else.  Talking about what you want and how to get there makes it real.  Thinking through how to share it with others makes it a part of your life.

Thanks for being a part of my journey and I can’t wait until we go from the “debt elimination” phase to the “hoarding a wad of cash” phase!

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I have been a member of the Frugal hacks blogroll for quite some time, and enjoy browsing the different member blogs and seeing all the different approaches to frugality out on the web.  Last week, I was honored to be invited to become a regular contributor at the Frugal Hacks blog, and my first (and introductory) column appears today.  I will be appearing at Frugal Hacks on Thursdays, alternating between discussing frugal money management tips and frugality beyond money.

So feel free to click on over and read my first post!  There won’t be any less content here, it’ll just be an addition piece over there once per week, some of the time about broader frugality topics than I discuss on this blog.  Next week I’ll be discussing frugal bra shopping for the not-average woman.  It’ll be interesting, I think.  Even if you are a guy.  

If you want to keep up with the Frugal hacks blog and all of their wonderful contributors, feel free to subscribe to the Frugal Hacks RSS feed.  You are of course encouraged to subscribe to the paidtwice  feed as well if you are a regular reader here.  Frugality forever! 

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I used to fritter a lot of money away on random things.  I didn’t realize that I spent so much, it truly was just a few dollars here and a few dollars there.  But it does add up.  When I started to really buckle down on eliminating debt, I started being more vigilant about tracking our expenses.  And that is when I realized that my behavior needed to change.  I wasn’t buying a latte every morning or eating lunch out every day, but I was spending money I didn’t need to.  And my biggest culprit was just being in stores I didn’t need to be in, or wandering the aisles when I grocery shopped.   Just going along my ordinary day, I was spending money that I didn’t need to spend, on things I wouldn’t remember a week later, and that I might have thought I could afford in singular, but added up, I definitely could not afford.

I began to employ two strategies that really helped me get my miscellaneous spending under control and make forward financial progress.  They basically boil down to shopping consciously - making lists and sticking to them, and avoiding temptation by reducing exposure to things to buy.

If I enter a store without a plan, I am a recipe for disaster.  I wander, I am attracted to random things, and I end up leaving with an assortment of items that I never would have missed if I didn’t buy them in the first place.  So when I need to shop, I make a list.  It doesn’t matter if I am shopping for groceries, toiletries, clothing, household items, or all of the above.  I make a list, as detailed as possible, and I plan my way through the store by the list.  I go to where the items I want are, I skip aisles or sections that don’t contain anything I need, and I try as hard as possible to stick to the list.  Do I completely stick to the list?  Well - most of the time.  I find that if I stray, it is usually because I started a little random wandering.  This, I think, is why stores move things around once and a while.  Just to trick me into buying more stuff. 

That leads to reducing my exposure to things I might want to buy.  There’s a Target right down the street from my house.  In fact, I’ve mentioned before that it was one of my favorite things about our house’s location when we were initially house shopping two years ago.  I love Target.  If there is a store I can find a way to spend money in, it is Target.  So I just don’t go there.  I have been there once in the past 4 months, and that time I went in to buy underwear for my son and left with not only two more packages of underwear than I intended on buying, but a shirt for my daughter as well, and I narrowly avoided buying a new set of bamboo kitchen utensils.   I like way too much stuff in that store.

But reducing my exposure doesn’t just mean not going to Target.  I try to limit my shopping altogether, and if I am not looking for something specific, I don’t go into a store.  For a long time, I limited my grocery shopping to a few specific places that I was very familiar with, but I have started to open that up (because I seriously cannot resist free stuff).  But even with going to more places, I try to limit my opportunity to buy as much as possible, by making specific lists from the circulars  available each week, and sticking to the sections of the store that contain those items instead of wandering up and down the aisles.  Every extra aisle I wander roughly equates to an extra item in my cart.

So if you’re spending more than you’d like at the grocery store or just in general - examine your shopping behaviors.  You may be surprised at what a little conscious shopping can do.

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First off, at Walgreens this week, select Oral-B toothbrushes are $4.49 and have a $4.49 register rewards print out when you buy it, making them effectively free (one register reward per transaction).  On top of that, this week’s Sunday coupons had a $0.75 off Oral-B manual toothbrushes coupon.  Paired together, you make $0.75 for buying a toothbrush.  I did this deal yesterday, and I am planning on going back today and doing it again.

Because this week, I have two sets of coupons because I bought two newspapers.

Why I bought two newspapers is kind of pathetic.  I bought the first one at Walgreens (using my gift card so I didn’t pay out of pocket for it) but it was missing half the sales flyers, including two I actually use.  Now, I could have gone to the stores in question and picked up flyers on my own, but I was irritated and the coupons this week were good (for me - diapers, wipes, and other random things I was excited about) so I just went over to Kroger and bought another paper.  Luckily, both papers had all the coupon inserts, so that was good.  And the Kroger paper had all the sales flyers.

I probably could have just gone back to Walgreens and complained but I for some reason didn’t.

As for coupons, I have had an adjustment period to them, but it is starting to become smooth sailing and noticeably pay off.  The first month I was using them and expanded my shopping strategy, I actually spent more than I usually do.  But then I made a few realizations.  First off, there will always be another good deal.  So if I had stocked up on something, I stopped buying it altogether unless it was very close to or actually free (or, in the case of the above toothbrush deal, I actually make money on it in the process).  Second, I don’t have to use every coupon I clip.  I talked about this before, and I have been much better using coupons now that I leave half (or more) of them in the store.  Also, for things I am not totally stocked up on,  I really adhere to only buying items when I can get them at a very very low per unit price.  Knowing what is a good deal, per unit, lets me compare across brands and different container sizes without driving myself crazy.

This past week our grocery list was half of what it usually is.  My spouse remarked that he felt like he was missing something because the list was so short.  But he wasn’t - the couponing and bulk buying of deals was just starting to pay off.  And so we spent a lot less than normal as well, even with the stocking up on a few deals I have started to incorporate into my routine.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to declare couponing a success, but I think it is starting to work for us.  And I bit the bullet and subscribed to the Sunday paper this week.  So soon I won’t have to worry someone’s taken stuff out of my paper from the store.

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