I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘saving money’ Category

Here it is, the day after Valentine’s Day, and the sales are just beginning. I don’t recommend trying to buy roses or candy and save it for an entire year (although, I would eat chocolate that had been in the freezer for a year, but that might just be me) but there are many Valentine-related shopping deals to be had today and this weekend. Here are just a few ideas:

If you have kids, they probably have to bring in valentines for their classmates every year. Go buy a few boxes today. Depending on the age of your child, they’re not going to care that much if they were last year’s Valentines. My son picked out Dora Valentines for this year, and I’ll be stopping by the store this weekend to pick up another box of whatever they have left that he likes. As long as it is shiny, he is happy.

Speaking of kids, stock up on little goodie bags as well as assorted trinkets like pencils, erasers, and even Valentine Playdough. Go shopping this weekend and I guarantee there will be a display of anything you can imagine, all at least 50% off. Do you send in a Valentine treat for the teacher? You can find mugs, picture frames, and other memorabilia on the cheap for any special “heartfelt” occasion.

How about for your sweetheart? Check out those bargain bins! Anything from those teacher gifts I mentioned (mugs, picture frames) to silk flowers (hey, I’m allergic to real ones, I love a nice silk flower) and even sometimes Valentines cards can be found for much less than they were yesterday.

I have a special area in our guest room closet just for holiday-related merchandise I got on the cheap in advance. From Halloween costumes to Valentines, I keep it all in one place, and it makes it simple to pull out what I need and know if I have to supplement with new items. Save yourself some money next year by planning ahead today!

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We bought our house in January 2007, but because the lease on our apartment wasn’t up until May 1st, we chose not to move in immediately and do some minor cosmetic changes (mostly repainting most of the rooms) and didn’t move in until March 2007. So this past winter has been the first one for us living in our house, and we’ve discovered that we have a few, shall we say, quirks to contend with.

One of those quirks involved our laundry room. We have a laundry room, or more accurately a laundry closet, which was created by partitioning off one end of the kitchen to hold the washer and dryer plus a few cabinets. This little room gets extremely cold compared to the rest of the house. At first we thought the door in that room to the outside (the partitioned part includes our back entry) was inadequately sealed, but we soon realized that the cold was coming from the dryer itself when it was not running. So - aha! The vent must be the culprit. And sure enough, when I went out to look at the outside end of the dryer vent, underneath the slanted protective hood the vent was wide open. There was no flap over the actual vent to keep the cold air outside when the dryer was not in use.

Well, this is something I knew we could fix. We took a trip to Home Depot, and bought a new dryer vent cover. When we brought it home however, it didn’t quite fit on our vent tube. I was a bit frustrated because they are generally just a certain size, and the fact it didn’t fit probably meant our vent is somewhat warped and wouldn’t fit any new cover. The last thing I wanted was to have to move the dryer, take out all the tubing, and reinstall new tubing. While pondering how annoyed I was, I looked at the old cover. I had cleaned out the inside of the vent the last time I came out to investigate the cover, but I hadn’t really looked inside the cover at all. There was some lint trapped up near the top of the cover, and in fact, once I cleaned that out, a vent cover flap dropped down. The cover had a flap to block the vent when not in use after all, the hinges had just become stuck because of lint buildup.

So I spent a few minutes with a q-tip cleaning out the hinges, and reinstalled the cover on the dryer vent. I don’t know if it’ll make a difference in our energy bills (although I assume it can only help) but the little laundry room has stayed much warmer ever since. All because of a little misplaced lint.

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This weekend when I was grocery shopping at Walmart, I made a discovery. Finally, dimmable CFLs have shown up there. I’ve seen them on the internet for what I thought were outrageously high prices, but until this past weekend, I hadn’t seen any at our local stores. I’d checked Lowe’s, Home Depot, several supermarkets, as well as Walmart, and no luck until now.

Since we moved into our house, we had slowly (at the rate of one bulb per week) replaced almost all of the incandescent bulbs in our home with CFLs. We finished that project late this past summer, except for three fixtures - two hallway ones that have tiny bulbs with candelabra ends, which I haven’t seen a CFL version of, and our one dimmable fixture. The hallway ones we hardly ever use, but the dimmable fixture is in our office and has 5 60-watt bulbs in it. And is on probably 6-8 hours a day, depending on how dreary it is outside. The office is connected to our children’s playroom and the fixture is the primary source of light for both areas.

We’d really wanted to replace those bulbs with CFLs but could not because of the dimmable factor. But then, this weekend…

They’re $11.74. Each. I need five of them. Seriously… not going to happen.

Now, over the long term, they should more than pay for themselves. The package says they save an average of $45 over their lifetime in energy costs, plus you wouldn’t be buying any more bulbs in that time. But $58.70 plus tax is a big investment to make up front. However, $49 savings times 5 bulbs is $225, and if you subtract the cost of the bulbs, you still come out $166.30 ahead, or $27.72 a year (the package says 6 years is the average lifespan). In just two years they just about pay for themselves in energy savings.

So we came up with a plan. My brother gave each of us a DVD for Christmas that we neither wanted or requested, and are movies we would never watch. Walmart takes returns for store credit without a receipt, as long as they sell the same thing. I looked the DVDs up on Walmart.com and they sell both. So last night, I took the DVDs back, got $29.09 in a Walmart gift card, and bought three bulbs. With tax, I had to pay $8.24 out of pocket. And now we have three dimmable CFLs in our fixture. Over the next few months, I’ll try to work buying the other two into our budget somewhere.

I will say this - they don’t really dim much. Just in case you were interested in that feature. It doesn’t really matter to us, we don’t really use the “dimming” function of our fixture that often, it was just like this when we bought the house, but it is something to consider if you actually want your dimmable lights to… dim.

Three cheers for energy savings. Or… three bulbs. Maybe I’ll even see a noticeable difference in our electric bill next month.

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a very adventurous cook. I get the job done - I make things that are reasonably healthy and my spouse never complains about the taste (and honestly, he’s a complainer - a few times I’ve missed the mark and I heard about it ). But as far as creativity, innovation, or being able to buy something new and incorporate it into my everyday cooking - I’m not really good at that at all.

I don’t eat meat. Therefore, I am even less motivated to be different and exciting in this arena (my spouse is an avowed meat eater) and tend to just stick to basics I know how to prepare. We have a lot of chicken and beef in various forms in this house. Occasionally I slip in pork chops for variety when they’re on sale, or even the occasional turkey dish. But generally, I am limited in my scope, and even more limited because there are only certain cuts of meat I actually know how to cook. And since my spouse would eat the same thing every day if you let him, he’s not ever been one to encourage trying new things.

But no more! As I’ve become more cautious and considered in my grocery spending, I’ve realized that meat is expensive, and I need to take advantage of more sales. Sure, when hormone-free chicken or ground sirloin is the loss leader at Kroger (meaning - it is the BIG picture on the front page of the flyer at some ridiculously low price) I am the first one there with my big bag to stock up. And sometimes, the loss leader is something that is a good deal for what it is, but not a good deal for me. Yes, New York Strip steak is an awesome deal at $4.99/lb when the regular is $8.99, but I’m not paying $4.99/lb for meat right now. Sorry honey. But there are occasions when the loss leader is a great deal for meat, but I look at the ad and think - what the heck do you *do* with that? This was one of those weeks.

The loss leader this week was Boston Pork Shoulder Roast for $0.97/lb. I really have no idea what to do with a Pork Shoulder Roast of any kind. But, less than a dollar a lb is a very very tempting price for meat, and I decided I would take the plunge, step out of my comfort zone, and buy one. I bought a 3 lb roast, and the package claimed there were great recipes on the underside of the label so I felt encouraged. But when I got home, I found that the great recipes were grilling recipes over open coals… not something I have. But not daunted yet (just a little less excited) I googled “Boston Pork Roast Shoulder” and got a number of hits for recipes. I picked one that seemed easy and I had the ingredients for, prepared the pork, and it slow cooked in my oven for the next 5 hours.

And the best part is - my spouse, who is scared of unfamiliar and new things, really liked it! So much so that he was in agreement that I should go buy another roast before the sale ends and put it in the freezer for later. And the roast I made (plus rice and green bean sides) was enough for his meal, my daughter’s meal, two lunch leftovers, and enough meat left over to incorporate into another meal later in the week (which will also make 2 lunchovers). I’m going to make some teriyaki pork stirfry.

Speaking of which, need to go over to Kroger now and pick up another roast… and I can’t wait to see what the meat loss leader is next week!

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I love my ING Direct savings account. The interface is really easy to use, and the subaccounts feature makes it incredibly simple to split my money into categories. During my recent car repair woes, I knew exactly what money was available for my repair vs in savings for my kids’ college funds since I have everything set up within separate subaccounts. And although the 4.1% APY interest rate is not the biggest out there, it is much better than the 0.50% I get at my local bank where I have my checking account.

ING Direct offers a $25 bonus to new customers opening one of their savings accounts with an initial deposit of $250 or more. Basically, it is an easy way to make $25 for your time. To get this $25 bonus, you need to use a referral from an exisiting customer. Luckily - I am one of those .

I had used up all my referrals, but ING recently reset everyone’s referrals so I have more I can give away. I am going to post them a few at a time on my ING Direct $25 Referral page. If you use one of those links to open up an ING Direct Orange Savings Account, you can receive a $25 bonus deposited in your account, and I will receive a $10 bonus. The bonuses I receive go directly to one of my two kids’ college savings accounts (I switch back and forth between them.

So if you are interested in opening an ING Direct Savings account and have an inital deposit of $250 or more, make sure to use a referral! I will update the referrals as they are used.

Thanks and happy savings!

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!