I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘frugality’ Category

This winter, we’re determined to keep our natural gas bill as low as possible. Last year, we lived in a small and cramped but newer and well-insulated first floor apartment that kept itself pretty warm for not too much money. Yes, the gas bill was not insignificant but coupled with the electric bill we rarely spent more than about $100 a month total. This year, we live in a house that is about twice the size and three times as old as our apartment was, and although I haven’t had anyone in to check the insulation, I am guessing by the temperature of the walls when you put your hand on them that it isn’t the best it could be. A number of the first floor windows are also on the older side (single pane glass with a drop-in storm window behind it) which does not help at all. So our gas bills are much higher in the winter than they were at the apartment. We expected this trend, but we didn’t expect it to be quite as bad as it has been.

So, we keep the heat as low as we can bear. That seems like the smart choice, and it probably is. But in keeping the heat lower - we wear more clothes. A lot more clothes. And blankets. And our increased use of clothing has actually added one to two loads of extra laundry every week. It seems silly, but it is true. Our water bill and electricity bill (we have an electric dryer) will go up to lower our gas bill.

I’m not sure how to calculate the difference, but my gut says the gas savings will outweigh the electric and water increases. In this case, we keep the heat low and we absorb the increased costs elsewhere, with the feeling that we are ending up ahead in the end. But sometimes, the tradeoffs are not so simple to determine. I think I am being frugal but if I did all the math, I might not be as frugal as it seems on first glance.

For example, I shop at multiple stores for groceries. I feel like this is frugal because I get the best value at each individual store, and if I shopped at any one of the three stores individually, my overall spending would be higher. But, shopping at three stores versus one increases my gas cost. And although I have a route I follow in which I don’t really add any extra driving to get home once I get to the first store (the other two are on my natural way home), if I eliminated the furthest away stores and only shopped at the one closest to my house, I might save enough money in gas to offset the increased prices.

Maybe. My gut again says no, I spend less money overall with my current system, but I honestly haven’t done the math to see. And if we factor in the idea that time is money, and going to three stores takes me two hours versus the hour it would take to do all my shopping at one store…

Sometimes choices that on the outside seem frugal really have tradeoffs that may be unconsidered by the average consumer and negate or partially offset the overall frugality. Like driving all over town to save a few cents a gallon on gas.

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This is a guest post by Pinyo at Moolanomy, who recently became a daddy for the first time as his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in December. He’s learning the ins and outs of being a father and about reward cards, too! He blogs about personal finance and investing, and I urge you to give his feed a try.

Normally, I am not the one who does household shopping. My parents do most of the food purchases for the household. Although I do buy occasionally, I never bothered to sign up for one of those discount cards offered by supermarkets and convenience drug stores.

The Good

Ever since my wife gave birth, I found myself running to CVS more often. So I figured I would give their ExtraCare Rewards program a try. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. For the very first purchase of some diapers and baby wipes, I saved $5 on a $22 purchase — I will take a 23% discount any day. This is on top of the 2% savings points I am accumulating with CVS, and the 5% cashback reward from my Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card. All in all, I am looking at almost 30% discount on that purchase.

The Not So Good

Just like my friend at Gather Little By Little said, buying generic can save a considerable amount of money, but it could be a hit or miss thing. In general, I found generic store items to be a good way to save some money. So far, the results have been great with generic medicines, mouthwash, and baby wipes. Unfortunately, the CVS diapers I bought weren’t anywhere near as nice as the ones made by Pampers. So my wife made me return the extra package, and I am on a strict order to buy Pampers instead.

The Verdict

I am a believer and will be replacing my lost Pathmark card, and starting to use my Duane Reade card more regularly. I am also going to stick with the generic store brand when I can. As I am writing this, I also noticed a lot of deals on CVS web site that I am going to investigate. If you have look into these saving techniques before, I encourage you to take a look. It’s not much, but little things do add up over time.

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Some parts of frugality are really not too big of a struggle for us once they are started, and I wonder why I didn’t think of them earlier. But some drive me completely batty day after day after day. I like to give things a chance to work which is why I have been pretty mellow about it until this point, but there is a fine line between sacrificing comfort to be frugal, and driving oneself insane. Which is why I am considering making a change to one of my frugal choices.

I miss hot baths.

Our water heater is set to 120 degrees F for two reasons. One is for the safety of our small children - it is what is recommended to prevent kids from scalding themselves. The other is because it saves money on our natural gas bill, since the water heater is not heating the water as hot. Safety is of course paramount, so I will not be turning up our water heater to absolutely scorching temperatures, but, again…

I miss hot baths. A lot.

I am thinking of raising the temperature just a tad. Maybe to 130 degrees F. As it is, when I want to take a bath, I turn on the hot water, come downstairs, fill a big pot with scorching hot water from my kitchen tap (the kitchen has its own small under-counter water heater set much higher and that faucet is well out of reach of the kids), carry it upstairs, dump it in the tub, go back downstairs, repeat, and then take a bath. It makes it warmer but not really… hot. I really like a nice HOT bath. It is one of the small simple pleasures I really enjoy in life.

We all have to find a balance between frugality and livability or comfort. As we incorporate more and more frugal practices into our lives, sometimes, we need to know when to say when. Some comforts are worth the extra costs.

Now I need to learn how to change the water heater temperature. I will admit, this frugal measure has an element of apathy to it - when we bought the house, the water heater was set this way.

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Something I think about a lot is the concept of frugality as a mindset vs frugality as a practice. Basically, it can be summed up like this - is your frugality second nature and automatic, or it is a conscious choice that you may sometimes struggle to achieve? I don’t think it is necessarily all one or the other, for there are undoubtedly aspects of frugality that one can find easier than others. But certainly, there are some people who find behaving in a frugal manner more second nature than others. Or than I do, at least.

There are aspects of frugality that I grew up with and have done all my life without much thought, so much so that I sometimes forget they are frugal things to do. My parents bought generic items at the grocery store as a general practice, and so as I started shopping for myself, I did the same. I reuse a number of items, such as plastic bags and glass jars, instead of throwing them out. And I set the heat to a low temperature, and the a/c to a high one (although my spouse is not always in agreement!).

However there are many aspects of frugality that I do as a conscious practice, that are not second nature, and I continually struggle with. Conserving my resources comes directly to mind. I am a fritterer by nature, and as easily as I find it to fritter away my time, I also can fritter away my money. I am also not generally a very savvy shopper when it comes to big ticket items (when it matters the most!). I tend to overspend trying to insure something lasts but not in a very effective matter.

I have read before that it takes a month of doing something for it to become a habit, but I wonder if that applies here as well. I think it may take much longer than a month to develop frugality as second nature and not a conscious choice. The result however, will definitely be worth it.

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So it has been a week since Thanksgiving, and the turkey usage has gone well. There have been a few bumps in the road but with the power of the internet I was able to work through them.

I must first admit, I have never made “meat” stock before. I have made vegetable stock a few times, but I’ve never made a meat-based stock. The opportunity hasn’t really come up before besides Thanksgiving, because I very rarely buy a whole chicken. I had ladled the stock into 2 cup portions and put some into the freezer and a few into the refrigerator to use immediately. Well, I took the first one out of the refrigerator and opened it to pour into a pot and… it was like jello. It was completely gelatinous and wiggly and basically freaked me out.

Luckily, instead of just tossing the entire batch and calling it a day, I quickly did some internet research and found out this was normal and I just needed to heat it up. I thought I had done something horribly wrong but in fact it was just fine. Whew! I was pretty upset when I thought all my effort in making turkey stock was for nothing.

I made three dinners out of the leftover turkey meat - one with all dark meat, one with a mix of dark and white meat, and one with all white meat. The last meal, the all white meat meal, I made a stir fry type dish with turkey, green beans, and tomatoes served over turkey-stock cooked elbow pasta, and my spouse thought it was chicken. Hah! One victory for me. You can’t whine about eating turkey for a bunch of days if you think one of the days was chicken. Hee hee. I made:

• Turkey Tetrazzini
• Turkey in a sauce made from leftover gravy over egg noodles with broccoli
• Turkey, green beans, and chopped tomatoes with italian seasonings served over elbow pasta boiled in stock

I’ve also made two turkey side dishes with stock as well as the above meal that I cooked the elbow noodles in stock - a rice dish and a pasta dish, and my spouse also ate three turkey sandwiches over the weekend. So that has been a success as well. I have four cups of stock left in the freezer and that is it. The turkey was not a huge turkey so I am not surprised that I used up most of it in a week. I am pretty excited about how many things I did with it though. My spouse also has three more turkey lunchovers left in the freezer and one for tomorrow in the refrigerator from the three turkey meals I made.

I am not sure I am excited enough about this to buy a cheap turkey on sale, but if they get really cheap, I certainly will. Yay for the turkey! And I had a lot of stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce related meals myself. Yay for starch.

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