Monthly Archives: November 2008

Introducing the “Holiday Food & Financial Diet”!

I don’t know about you, but the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a dangerous time for my waistline and my bank account. The holiday spirit tempts me to overspend on entertainment and gifts, and the holiday parties and meals tempt me to eat and eat unhealthy foods.

This has been a weekend of gluttony, and with our trip home for the holidays coming up in a scant 24 days, I’m looking ahead to another week of overeating, overspending, and expensive travel. This year, I want to nip it in the bud. I don’t have the will power to resist on the holidays themselves, but the least I can do is control myself in the weeks in between.

So how are we controlling our diet and spending in the next few weeks?

1. We’re reducing our consumption of meat.

We have a couple steaks and a few chicken breasts in our freezer. We’ve decided to pick up some extra chicken breasts to last us through the month, and then ration our consumption for the next few weeks. This will not only reduce the amount of meat we’re eating and buying — it will also ensure that we’re not leaving a freezer full of meat when we head out of town for Christmas.

2. We’re trying month-long menu planning.

I typically only menu plan on a week by week basis. This month, we’re going to try planning out our meals for the next three weeks in one fell swoop. This will allow us to maximize purchases, ration our meat consumption throughout the month, and clear out the pantry before our trip.

3. We’re cutting our entertainment spending and staying home instead.

With our big trip back to Indiana coming up, we’ve decided a few weekends at home won’t hurt us. This will not only free up some extra money for travel and gifts, but it will reduce the temptation to overeat at a restaurant or splurge on movie theater popcorn.

We’ve cut our usual $50 for entertainment out of the budget. Typically this goes to the occasional movie or meal out. This month we’ll stay home on the weekends, utilize the library, and revisit some movies we haven’t watched in ages.

4. We set a budget of $50 each to shop for each other — and we’re sticking to it.

Both of us were willing to give up receiving gifts from the other, but neither of us wanted to give up the fun of shopping for the other. Finding that perfect gift for the person you love most is so much fun. The trick is to avoid the temptation to go overboard. Last year, we were limited to $50 each, and we had a lot of fun finding small, practical but thoughtful gifts to put under our tree. We decided to maintain the tradition. Nothing big or flashy, just small tokens.

5. We kept our Christmas shopping list short.

It can be so tempting to shop for anyone and everyone in your family this time of year. I firmly reminded myself that the people I love who love me will understand that we’re not in a place financially where we can buy flashy gifts for our extended family. We used an Amazon gift card I received through MyPoints to shop for our nieces and nephews who are 5 and under, and we’re putting together gift baskets for immediate family.

I’ll revisit this topic throughout the month to let you know how I’m doing. I hope you’ll join in, too! The holidays themselves may throw off your financial and fitness goals, but if we can control ourselves for a few weeks in between it might not be so bad!

If you’re planning on joining in, please leave a comment and let me know how you’re cutting back for the next three weeks!

Fresh turkey for next to nothing next year

If you’re like me, then you found yourself staring longingly at the fresh turkeys this year, convinced that they must taste better. After all, they’re fresh.

OK, so I’m not convinced that they do taste better. My husband swears by it, though. I’ll admit, the idea of skipping the thawing process with a huge turkey taking up half my fridge for a week before Thanksgiving is appealing to me. But there’s no way I’m ever going to spend $1+ a pound for fresh turkey when the frozen ones are on sale for 49 cents a pound.

I was kicking myself yesterday, though. You see, this year Tony and I went to a potluck for Thanksgiving Day and cooked our own Thanksgiving meal yesterday. We ran out to the store for a few last minute items yesterday and discovered that fresh turkeys were deeply discounted. They were actually about 40 cents a pound.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” my husband asked.

He’s right. We’ve known since before we bought our turkey that we would be cooking on Friday. It makes perfect sense that fresh turkeys would be dirt cheap the day after the holiday. What else are they going to do with a bunch of fresh turkeys with a sell-by date a week away?

Next year we’ll try a fresh turkey, and we’ll only pay 40 cents a pound. I don’t mind cooking a day late if it’s just us again.

An all new Living Well on Less!

It’s been a crazy few days. With the holiday, blog migration, and redesign, I’m exhausted! Who knew that sitting in front of a computer could be so tiring?

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday. I sure did despite the craziness.Tomorrow is Christmas decorating, relaxation, and the official beginning of the Christmas season. I can’t wait. :)

I’m stuffed with our second Thanksgiving dinner of the weekend and ready to crash in front of the TV with some pumpkin pie. I just wanted to take the time to drop a note to apologize for my absence. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been away, but there’s been no time for proper posting.

There’s plenty more to come at Living Well on Less. For the time being, I think I need 12 hours away from the computer (at least).

Oh, and I hope you like the redesign. :)

Finally making the switch to self hosting

Just a quick note to say I’m taking advantage of the extra time on my hands this weekend to finally migrate to self hosting. I’m not sure how this will affect the site. It may be down for periods of time tomorrow and Friday while I try to figure this out. I’m in way over my head. :)

Hopefully I’ll get it all worked out, and I’ll be able to post tomorrow and Friday. If not, I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday! Enjoy your feasts, and I’ll be back soon (hopefully)!

UPDATE: Pardon my mess while I straighten up around here …

Whew. I somehow managed to get everything migrated to my new host without any major catastrophes. I have no idea how I did it, because honestly I had no idea what I was doing. But it’s done. And I’m exhausted, but happy that I didn’t break anything. :)

The site is sort of a mess (as you can see), but I promise to get all of it cleaned up when I have more energy. I’m just happy that Living Well on Less isn’t completely down for the count. Thanks for your patience!

Black Friday? No thanks.

Sigh. Black Friday.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite frugal holiday. Nothing but friends, food, and relaxation. Aside from food, I typically don’t spend any money at all the entire weekend after Thanksgiving. I’ve never headed out to the sales on Black Friday. I’d prefer to spend the Friday after Thanksgiving in my PJs grazing on leftovers and watching movies.

This year, we’re attending a potluck Thanksgiving on Thursday. We weren’t invited until last week, and we’d already spent the month collecting food for our own meal. So we’re having Thanksgiving 2 on Friday. That makes me feel even less motivated to go out and shop.

I think my problem is that there’s just nothing I need. Our Christmas shopping is done, and I usually try to avoid crazy sales unless I need something anyway. I don’t want to be tempted to buy just because the deal is great.

I’m curious about the deals, but I’m afraid to look at the circulars because I don’t want to be tempted. With our big trip back to Indiana for the holidays coming up next month, we really don’t need to be spending extra money right now. Even if it’s a good deal.

I know how hard it is for me to turn down a great deal. So I’ll most likely stay home this Friday relaxing. I probably won’t be able to resist looking through the ads, but hopefully there won’t be anything so compelling that I can’t resist. I’m not so into the crowds, to be honest. I don’t like feeling like shopping is a competitive sport. :)

My advice to those of you braving the sales racks? Look through the ads, make a list of ONLY what you need, and stick to it when you hit the stores. Don’t be tempted to buy just because it’s a deal!

Are you heading out this year? What are you buying?! (I have to ask. :) )

Thanksgiving is the most frugal day of the year

According to the American Farm Bureau, the average American family will spend $44.61 on a traditional Thanksgiving meal for 10 people this year. That’s a $2.35 increase from last year’s price, which is more than double the typical yearly increase of $1 and some change.

There’s been a lot of buzz about this increase in the news. You know what, though? That’s not too bad if you ask me. Try finding a restaurant meal of Thanksgiving proportions for under $4.50 a person. Not happening.

Thanksgiving really is the most frugal day of the year. What other day do the majority of American families stay home instead of going out to eat? Most stores are closed, so nobody is out shopping. Instead of spending money, we stay home eating a good home cooked meal and spending time with family.

I was curious about our Thanksgiving costs, so I took the time to add up the numbers for our meal. Here’s an estimate of what we spent this year:

12-pound turkey: $6
Potatoes: $2
Cubed stuffing: $2.50
Celery: $1
Fresh cranberries:$2
Canned pumpkin: $1.25
Miscellaneous cooking items (flour, sugar, eggs,milk): $3 (a very rough estimate)

Total: $16.75

It may look like we’re spending more than $8 per person, but don’t forget about the leftovers! We’ll be eating them all weekend long. :)

What about you? How much are you spending on Thanksgiving this year?

New traditions for my favorite frugal holiday

Photo by rick

Being newly wed is so much fun at the holidays. It’s so fun combining traditions from each of our families, adapting them to suit us, and creating our own. We’re building our own family history starting now.

Last year we ate a traditional meal on Thanksgiving Day, but the holiday really ended there. Because I worked in retail, I had to head back to work early the next morning and throughout the weekend. No fun. :(

This year is our first opportunity to enjoy the entire holiday weekend. So we’re thinking about the kinds of traditions we’d like to begin.

For starters, there’s turkey and pumpkin pie and a whole day devoted to cooking and eating. Of course.

But then what?

We won’t be home for Thanksgiving, but that’s fine. If we lived closer to home, we’d be spending the day with family anyway.

On Friday, we’ll cook our own Thanksgiving meal this year. I like the idea of staying home all day and watching movies. Normal weekends are so jam packed with errands and cleaning and everything I have no time to do during the week. Since Friday is a freebie day off, the idea of lying around all day in comfy clothes appeals to me.

When I was a kid, we usually ate another Thanksgiving meal on Friday every year. We went to my grandma’s for Thanksgiving Day, but my mom loved cooking for Thanksgiving so much that she liked to make her own meal on Friday. I can see us doing the same thing in the future.

Saturday night we have tickets to a holiday show. I thought that would be a fun way to kick off the season, and they only cost $10 each. We decided to skip our monthly restaurant meal this month and use that money for the tickets.

We’ll spend Saturday afternoon decorating our apartment for the holidays, putting up the tree and the lights and eating Friday’s leftovers. Then we’ll head out for the show.

I’ve always felt like the Christmas season really only begins after Thanksgiving is over. That’s why the holiday is so much fun. We get to celebrate Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas season all in one weekend. :)

How about you? What are you favorite Thanksgiving traditions?

For my fellow word nerds: Are you a frugalista?

Photo by enter

This month, the word experts at New Oxford American Dictionary announced their choice for 2008’s word of the year:

Hypermiling: attempting to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques.

A very timely choice considering this year’s astronomical fuel prices and many Americans’ desperate attempts to lower their fuel costs.

New York Times columnist William Safire weighed in with his choice for word of the year taken directly from Oxford‘s shortlist of runners up – a word that he believes will have more staying power during the coming recession now that gas prices have plummeted:

Frugalista: a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc.

According to Safire, the word “frugalista” will come to be “the nom de guerre of the ‘recession warrior.'”

If you’re a word nerd like me, you’ll enjoy the entirety of Safire’s column on the etymology of the word frugalista.

If you’re just here for the money saving tips and not so much for the vocab, you’ll still enjoy his column’s closing statement:

Concerned about your budget in this year’s market debacle? Sharpening your pencil and tightening your belt, foraging for bargains but not altogether abandoning good food and good screens? Join the frugalistas!

Don’t you just love being ahead of the curve? :)

Menu Plan & Grocery Round Up – 11/22-11/28

Watch out! After wrapping and shipping Christmas gifts for my niece and nephew in Seattle this morning and picking up the final things on my Thanksgiving menu, my holiday spirit has arrived. My husband probably won’t find his holiday cheer until next weekend when we put up the tree. He doesn’t appreciate the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music so much. He’ll get over it. :)

Our grand total for groceries this week was $56. Not too bad for the week of Thanksgiving. In the past, I’ve waited until the last minute to buy everything I needed for our Thanksgiving meal and ended up with a $100+ grocery bill. This time, I split up my list throughout the month of November to reduce the burden. All we picked up this week was some produce and random last minute items.

Some friends invited us to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner Thursday. We’re happy to spend the holiday with friends, but my husband doesn’t want to miss out on roasting his own turkey. So we’ll be making our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. That means two Thanksgiving dinners for us. Fine by me. :)

Here’s our holiday menu plan:

Sunday: Strip steaks, green beans, and baked potatoes
Monday: Chicken and dumplings
Tuesday: Chicken tacos
Wednesday: Homemade pizza
Thursday: Potluck Thanksgiving with friends (We’re bringing homemade green bean casserole.)
Friday: Thanksgiving dinner
Saturday: Leftovers, because there’s no way we’re going to eat all the food we make on Friday. :)

Now head over to OrgJunkie for more menu plans. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!