I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘frugality’ Category

I have been trying to become a more savvy grocery shopper, and part of that has been better incorporating coupons into my grocery shopping.  I’d say into all my shopping but I don’t seem to shop for much more than groceries very often.  I’ve started to consistently get the Sunday paper and not only read all of the circulars and plan my grocery list from them, I’ve been clipping coupons.  I started out clipping too few coupons – only clipping what I absolutely knew I would use because I buy it, exactly, that brand, already.  But I realized that if I can combine a coupon with a sale, I may be able to buy something name brand for less money than I usually buy generic items, and although I have no name brand vs generic preference for these things, I’d like to get the least expensive option possible.

So I started clipping loads and loads of coupons.  basically anything that was for a type of something I’d buy, even if it wasn’t for the exact one I usually buy.  I started clipping coupons in earnest in August, and so now some of them are starting to expire.  And I realized that clipping coupons had a strange effect on me.  If I clipped something, as it grew close to its expiration, I started to feel like I should buy it.  Even if it wasn’t on sale.  Even if the coupon wasn’t a big enough discount to warrant buying that item over whatever else I usually buy.

I haven’t bought anything just because I had a coupon.  Yet.  But if I hadn’t realized that just having the coupon was giving me this feeling like I needed to buy it, I might have ended up buying some things that weren’t a bargain at all, just because I had a coupon.

Just because I clipped it doesn’t mean I have to use it.  Last night I stopped at Meijer (a grocery store) to do my weekly shopping trip there, and they had a new Dole bagged salad kit on sale for buy one get one free.  I didn’t know what the original price was, but I had a coupon for 55 cents for it (which they would double), so I decided to check it out.  It turns out that the regular price for it is $3.99, so with my coupon doubled, I would pay $2.89 for two bags, or ~$1.45 each bag.   I was thinking of getting some when I didn’t know what the price was, because a salad kit in a bag sounded fun.  But it ended up enough more expensive than buying salad ingredients, per ounce, then making my own salads, that I decided to forgo the fun of a nifty salad kit.  So I left the carefully clipped coupon on the shelf for someone else who might want it.

One of my favorite things regarding money is the FSA, or Flexible Spending Account, that is offered through my spouse’s work.  However, if you are like me, the first time you heard the term mentioned you had no idea what it meant and in fact, it may have sounded a little shady.  If you have the option of a flexible spending account through your employer (or your spouse’s) you owe it to yourself to at least find out about it if you haven’t already – you may be in for a pleasant surprise!

So What Is A Flexible Spending Account, Anyway?

A Flexible Spending Account, or FSA for short, is a way of saving money pre-tax for qualified expenses, generally limited to health care or child care.  It is an account administered through your workplace that you can save up to a pre-specified limit each year through automatic payroll deductions, and use that money to be reimbursed for (or pay for) qualified expenses.  The amount you are allowed to save pre-tax varies from company to company, so you need to investigate it through your own HR department.  The amount is also generally flexible within certain parameters and chosen by you – it is not a specific “this is the only amount you can save” figure.   This is a annual “use it or lose it” type of program – if you do not use all the money set aside in the account each year, you lose the money.  So even though it is set aside pre-tax, if you end up forfeiting money because you don’t use it, that doesn’t work out.

I Don’t Get Sick Often, So What’s In It For Me?

Even if you don’t have many health care expenses, the program can still work for you.   First off, the program can be custom-tailored to fit your needs.  If you generally only spend $150 a year on medical expenses, then you can save $150 in your FSA.  Secondly, the term “medical expenses” covers a wide varitey of things, not just doctor and hospital visits.  Most non-precription drugs qualify for FSA reimbursement, as well as dental and vision care.  For example, on my receipts from Walgreens or CVS, there is a designation on each item if it is aFSA qualified item.  Things as mundane as asprin and ibuprofen qualify.

My Life Is Unpredictable.  Help!

That’s okay.  My life is somewhat crazy too.  This is my strategy.  I set my FSA savings number at a reasonable number compared to prior years’ usage.  I then designate things I would like to do in a given year, but can be put off until the next year (or longer).   Things like a set of prescription sunglasses for my spouse.   Then, if I have extra money in the FSA close to the end of the year, I will go ahead and do things like that.   I also save receipts for things I don’t normally bother to go through the process of claiming, like non-prescription drugs.  If, close to the end of the yea, I have a lot of unclaimed money left, I will submit those claims as well.  I also, if needed, can stockpile some non-prescription drugs.

I have two small children and a crazy life.  I haven’t had to resort to too many tactics yet. 

So if you have the option of an FSA and have never looked into it, give it a whirl.  Lowering your taxable income without lowering your actual income is a good thing.    And I love getting those reimbursement checks throughout the year!

I must say, I am enjoying figuring out Walgreens and how to get good deals there much more than I did CVS.  I still shop at CVS sometimes, for example, this weekend I bought 6 GenSoy energy bars for my spouse there for $6 and got $3 in extra care bucks back.  But, generally, I do not like to deal with extra care bucks and would much rather have a gift card to the store like Walgreens provides.

Over the past two months, I have bought a few items at Walgreens that provided a rebate, and had accumulated $16.49 on my gift card from those rebates.  This month, there were quite a few free-after-rebate items I wanted, so I went to Walgreens to start using my gift card.  My goal is to get to a point where I don’t actually spend any money out of pocket at Walgreens, just the balance of the gift card.  I’m not quite there yet, but I am getting closer.

I had to visit Walgreens twice, because the first time they were out of one of the free-after-rebate items I wanted, but in total, this is what I did.  I purchased the following items:

• Crest ProHealth Toothpaste:  $2.99
• Chemistry Shampoo:  $7.99
• Walgreens brand water pitcher filter:  $6.99
• Excedrin Tension Headache:  $3.99

All four of these items had a free-after-rebate offer.   I had a $0.75 off coupon for the toothpaste, so in total with 7% sales tax, I paid $22.70.  I had a $16.49 balance on my gift card, so I used that to pay and then paid $6.21 out of pocket.   I then submitted all these items online for my rebates, and since I am having the rebates put onto my gift card, I will get a 10% bonus on the values of the items in rebates.  According to my calculations, I should get a rebate of $24.16 applied to my gift card.  And I have a bottle of shampoo, some excedrin, a water filter, and some toothpaste to show for it.  The shampoo is fin, I would never pay $7.99 for it but free was good. 

Walgreens so far seems to have a shampoo or conditioner free after rebate every month, which is great for me because I am not at all brand loyal.  I am also not brand loyal to toothpaste, so basically actually getting paid to buy toothpaste because of my coupon worked well for me.  If I can pair coupons with free-after-rebate items, so much the better.  I am hoping that I now have a high enough gift card balance to continue to just buy free-after-rebate items every month, use my gift card to pay, and with that 10% bonus (which is effectively only 3% for me on taxable items, but still a bonus) slowly increase my gift card balance every month.  We shall see but I am doing pretty well so far, I think.

As I have mentioned before, my spouse is on a meal plan to control his weight.  This is a system that has worked incredibly well for him, so even though he is now in a very healthy weight range, he continues to generally follow a meal plan and counts calories.  That would drive me crazy, but it appeals to his sense of order I think, and really, it is whatever works for you.  Now that he’s expanded beyond his original meal plan (his maintaining calorie count per day is about 800 more calories than the original meal plan) he frequently makes choices and decisions about the different fresh foods we have in the house and decides how much to eat.   The problem, for him, is that those types of foods don’t necessarily come with labels or easy to determine portions.  He can determine the caloric content from research, if he knows the amount of ounces he’s eating, but that isn’t always apparent.

So I decided to do something to reward him for all his progress and help him in the future.  We received a $50 gift card for Christmas to Walmart, and I put it away until something inspired me for its use.  After some deliberation, I decided that instead of spending it on groceries or something sensible like that, I would get my spouse a food scale so he can weigh his food and know the ounces he eats.  Again, something that would drive me crazy but it makes him happy.  When I looked at Walmart’s online site, I found what looked like a great idea – a scale that actually has information about a number of common food items including calorie content, fat content, and other facts, stored inside.  So, for example, when you weigh an apple, it won’t just tell you the weight, it will tell you the calories in that particular apple.  This would save my spouse time of looking things up, and also make it possible to weigh portions after cooking so he eats the number of ounces of foods that he wants to eat.

So in July I ordered the scale.   And there’s where the mishaps began.  Walmart only has food scales available online (not in store) so I ordered it from the online site and selected “Ship-To-Store” so I wouldn’t have to pay shipping.  This is a slow method but I was okay with that.  In a few weeks, I got an email that the scale was ready to pick up, so I went in to do so.  So far so good, and I got the scale and brought it home.

But it didn’t work.  Once the battery was installed, it just said “Please Wait” and then shut itself off after a few minutes.

Well, okay then.  I brought the scale back to the store and returned it.  Say what you’d like about Walmart, the one thing I love is that returns are super easy.  They took the scale back, no problem, and I chose to have a gift card issued in return.  That way, I could just order another scale online and use the gift card to pay.  And I went home, and a few days later I did just that.   By then it was the beginning of August.  I had originally had this crazy idea that I could use the scale to weigh our tomato harvest, but that wasn’t quite working out as I planned.  But, eventually, we’d have a scale and I could weigh some tomatoes, right?

Not quite.  Over the past weekend, I got an email that my order was ready to pick up.  So last night I went in and got my brand new scale.  I brought it home, and this time, it worked!  Hurrah!

Or… not.  It technically works, as in you can turn it on and it responds, but it stinks.  It is SUPER slow to measure anything, and it isn’t even consistent in its measurements.  So, basically, it is useless.  So back to the store with it, this time for a complete refund, and we’ll do some research into a different food scale.  Maybe without all the bells and whistles this one promised, but hey, if it actually measures, that will be a bonus.

As for my tomatoes, I have harvested 51 Roma tomatoes and 10 beefsteak ones as of this morning.  I haven’t been able to weigh them, but I know that the Roma plant has more than paid for our initial $6 investment in them both, and then some.  I weighed a few Roma tomatoes at Meijer to get an idea on what they weigh, and I got about 3-4 tomatoes to a pound.  If that is true of mine, I have harvested between 12 and 17 lbs of Roma tomatoes.  Since Romas were $1.88/lb at Meijer this week, that would be at least $22 worth of tomatoes at that price.  The beefsteaks I harvested were much more variable in size than the Romas, so I am not going to guess at the weight of those other than I know I have harvested at least a few pounds of beefsteaks, more than paying for the initial $3 investment in the plant.

I can’t quite equate the cost of tomatoes with what my plants have saved me as far as spending money goes, because when I have a lot of tomatoes at once, I tend to use them as the vegetable portion of our dinner instead of something else like broccoli or green beans or asparagus.  So the tomatoes I harvest aren’t always replacing tomatoes I would buy.  But they are being consumed, and we are using them instead of foods we would otherwise buy at the store.  And those other vegetables have costs too that I am saving by using what we’ve grown instead.

Next year, I’ll actually have a food scale so I can measure our crops.  I hope.    And I am planning to expand to a few more veggies out along our back porch.  Right now there are flowers there that were put in by the previous owners, but they are going to be sacrificed to crops.  The flowers might be prettier, but I’m allergic to most flower pollen anyway.

My son started preschool this week, and right before school began we got a list of things he needed to bring in for the classroom.  This weekend I took him shopping for the items he needed to bring, and one of them was a package of stickers.  I took him to Dollar Tree to find some stickers, and in doing so, found out he had very specific ideas about what kind of stickers he wanted (animals) and what type (large, not small).  Because he had such a clear idea beforehand, it turned out that the selection at Dollar tree was inadequate and we ended up having to go to target to buy the stickers.  So instead of the $1 I thought I was going to spend on a package of stickers, I spent $3 for ones more to his liking at another store.

But, that was okay.  There are times where a lesson in finding the best bargain and using your resources wisely would be an appropriate one, but this time, for this item, for me it wasn’t it.  For my son has a very significant speech delay, and although he is four, his level of communication lags more than a year behind his biological age.  In fact, that’s why he goes to preschool – he goes to a special education program designed specifically for 3 and 4 year olds with developmental delays (he attended the school last year as well).   So for him to come up with this clear vision for what he wanted, and be able to clearly communicate it to me, and make choices between different options, was a big feat all on its own.  And a feat I chose to reward.  And frugality, after all, is not just about finding what’s cheapest.  It’s about finding the best option all around, not only in price but in quality and personal preference.  I may not have found anything wrong with the generic stickers at the Dollar Tree but ultimately, they are stickers he’ll have to use in his language book at school and he should have ones he enjoys.

Next week when he helps me shop for snacks for his classroom (they rotate snack weeks and the first week in September is his) we’ll have to have a more stringent budget in place and make choices between items.  But for today, I’m just happy we found stickers he approved of, and I understand what he wanted.