Category Archives: Frugality

I’m the world’s worst couponer

When I started this blog about a month ago, I also decided to adopt a new habit in addition to writing about my financial progress: clipping and using coupons.

Even though I’d been living fairly frugally for about a year, I never clipped coupons. To be honest, I doubted that they would help me much because 95% of the foods we buy are produce, meats, and other fresh foods.

When I started this blog, though, I wanted to try new approaches to saving money and try to become even more frugal. Most of the other frugal bloggers I read clip coupons, and many people suggested that I try it to reduce our grocery spending. So I’m giving it a shot.

For the past three weeks, I’ve bought a Sunday paper every week and clipped the coupons that caught my interest. I’ve also been checking out some of the printable coupon sites, but I’ve been having trouble printing at some of them because I use a Mac and Firefox. Ultimately, after fighting with it for 20 minutes, I get frustrated, decide all the frustration isn’t worth the 50 cents I’ll save, and give up.

As I suspected, most of the coupons don’t really interest me, anyway. But I have found some good ones for toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other non-food items that I buy.

For the most part, I really haven’t been impressed with the savings-to-work ratio. However, most of the deals I’ve been reading about in the frugal blog world include coupons that were clipped weeks ago, so I’m thinking it might be a few weeks before the coupons I’m clipping now really pay off.

I’ve only used a handful of the coupons I’ve clipped. However, I’m having a hard time getting into the habit of redeeming them. I keep forgetting to bring the coupons I have, or only remembering that I have a coupon at all when I see an item on sale for which I also have a coupon. The problem is, the coupon is at home and I’m in the store. Oops.

The one time I did remember my coupons, I brought a list that included the items I planned to use the coupons on. Then after browsing a while and picking up other things, I actually forgot to hand over my coupons at the register. I had to take them up to customer service to get a $1.30 refund for my coupons. How embarrassing. Looking at the $1.30 in cash that I’d saved after all that hassle also didn’t do much for my lack of enthusiasm about coupon clipping.

Despite my skepticism, I’m determined to give this a real shot before I dismiss it. I feel like I need to get organized before I can really know if coupon clipping is going to work for me.

There’s been a lot of buzz in the frugal blogs about coupon organization systems, but I honestly don’t want to spend any money on this. I am, however, looking for tips on frugal or free ways to get my coupons organized.

So I’m asking you: What methods do you use to organize your coupons?

Being frugal when temptation strikes (is really hard)

Sigh. Being frugal is hard enough without the constant testing.

Today, Tony (the husband) and I were on a routine shopping trip at Target. Dish detergent (bought with a coupon), dog treats (also bought with a coupon), Raisin Bran on sale, and deodorant. We picked up our items, and because we’re masochists and we’re not doing anything else until we head out to a cookout later, we decided to browse a bit. Big mistake.

I don’t even bother looking at high ticket items anymore, so Tony saw it first. The Calphalon cookware we’ve been eyeing for over a year. On clearance. 50% off. Gulp.

As you know, we cook a lot. Aside from two Calphalon skillets we bought at Bed, Bath and Beyond with a gift card we got at the wedding, we’ve been using the same cheap cookware for two years. It’s still functional, but we’ve been dreaming of a new, high-quality set of cookware since before we moved.

So there it was. The exact set we’d been dreaming about for two years marked down from $200 to $100. It’s like the fates were trying to tempt us.

We stood in the aisle for about 20 minutes just looking at it and drooling. Tony, who I know wanted it more that I did because he does most of the cooking, tried to make it easy on me. “Let’s just go,” he said, gently pulling me away. “We don’t need it.” I knew he didn’t mean it, though. And I knew, despite his heroic attempt to save me from myself, that he was hoping I’d override his veto.

Mostly because it was something that I knew he wanted, I started making the standard excuses. “We’ve been so good this month. We deserve it.” Then the little frugal voice in my head that’s been getting louder and louder lately said, You want to celebrate the fact that you’ve saved money this month by spending money? How does that make sense?

“But because we’ve done so well, we should end up having about $300 left over at the end of the month from cutting corners in our budget. We could afford this without even breaking our budget!” To that, the little voice said, Um, up until two minutes ago, you couldn’t wait to put that toward your last little bit of credit card debt or your savings.

And of course, the excuse that used to trump them all: “We need it.”

But this time, that excuse wasn’t going to work. I reminded myself of the $100 Target gift card we received at the wedding. We discussed putting it toward new cookware, but ultimately talked ourselves into using it for an ice cream maker attachment for our stand mixer. Yeah, dumb.

To be fair, the cookware cost $200 at the time, and we didn’t want to spend money in order to use our gift cards. We did receive cash from relatives at the wedding, but we decided to use it as the first deposit into our savings account.

The fact remains, if we really needed that cookware, we wouldn’t have bought the ice cream maker first. You didn’t need that cookware so badly when there was something frivolous and fun you wanted two months ago, the frugal voice said. After all, gift cards never expire. Nothing was stopping us from saving up money to pay for the rest of it or saving the gift card until we saw a great deal like this one.

After I had talked myself out of it, it was Tony who started having second thoughts. “I guess when you think about it, we would easily spend $100 by going out to eat only four times. For that price, we can get brand new cookware that will help us cook hundreds of cheaper meals at home.”

As much as I hated to admit it, though, that’s not the point. We can easily make hundreds of meals at home with our old cookware without spending another $100.

Besides, do we really want to undo all of our hard work and restraint this month by spending money now when we’re so close to our first month of budget success? Celebrating your financial successes by spending money is a good way to keep yourself from ever really getting anywhere.

It was the hardest decision we’ve made since we decided to get serious about living frugally, but we walked away from the clearance cookware. Even though we had the money for it, and even though it was an amazing deal. Sigh.

I’m still questioning our decision. Eventually, we’ll need to buy new cookware. Will we end up paying twice as much for it and regret our decision to wait? That thought has definitely crossed my mind. But I just can’t risk getting off track now that we’re so close to our first successful month. We need to know we can do this, and we need to walk away from some good deals for a while if we’ve ever going to get ahead.

I’m sure someday, after many months of budgeting success, we’ll be able to make exceptions for things like that when the deal really is great and it’s something that we really could use. But right now it’s just too early to start making those exceptions. If we give in to every temptation from the very beginning, how will we ever get anywhere?

What do you think? Did we make the right choice? What would you have done?

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Luxury on Less Tip: Sample fine wines without spending a fortune

My husband and I are wine enthusiasts. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not big drinkers. But we love to sample wines. With some meals, there’s nothing quite like a glass of wine to complement it.

When consumed in moderation, red wine is also proven to have a wide array of health benefits, including increased cardiovascular health, lower risk for certain cancers and obesity, decreased effects of aging, and even a longer lifespan.

It’s possible to find many fine wines for under $10 a bottle, but even $10 is too much to spend on something as frivolous as wine when you’re on a tight budget. We do occasionally use some of our entertainment budget to pick up a bottle for special occasions or date nights at home, but it’s a rare treat.

Our favorite way to sample wines is by visiting local wineries. With several scattered throughout most states, it’s possible there’s a full scale winery right in your backyard. You can use this winery directory to find one near you.

Most wineries offer 100% free tastings. You can sample various wines and learn about how to pair wines with meals and taste like a connoisseur. Many also offer free tours of the facility, which can be a fun way to spend an afternoon. They often have beautiful grounds where you can stroll or enjoy a picnic.

If you do find a wine that you particularly enjoy, you can pick it up with confidence since you’ve already tried it and you know you like it. If you don’t budget money for entertainment, or you’d rather not spend it on wine, then you can leave the winery after a lovely day with some knowledge about fine wine without spending a penny.

If there isn’t a winery near you, another option is to host a wine tasting party. Everyone chips in a bottle, so everybody can try a little taste of a wide assortment of wines. It’s a classy way to spend an evening with friends without busting your budget. Cheers!

Help! My grocery bills are ridiculous!

On the advice of Kacie at Sense to Save, I’m participating in Menu Plan Monday this week by posting my meal plan for this week. I’m hoping I might get some tips on how to lower our ridiculous $75-$90 a week grocery bills. Any advice is welcome and appreciated!

Blackened catfish fillets with rice pilaf (We bought 1/2 pound of fish on sale for $4.99/pound. The rice pilaf is just rice cooked in homemade chicken stock with onion, garlic, and seasonings added.)

Balsamic pork roast tenderloin (We had a tenderloin leftover from last week. We bought it on sale for $2.99/lb. and used it for two meals last week, too.)

Tacos with refried beans (Ground beef on sale $2.99/lb.)

Taco salad (We only use 1/2 pound of ground beef for tacos, so we’ll use the leftover taco meat for this.)

Roasted chicken with potatoes (The whole chicken we bought cost $6, and we’ll use it for two meals this week and a gallon of chicken stock.)

Chicken Alfredo (Made with homemade Alfredo and leftover roasted chicken.)

Homemade cheese pizza (Homemade pizza sauce and crust. The most expensive part of this meal is the cheese, which we buy in bulk at $5 for 2 lbs. because we make pizza once a week.)

I painstakingly plan these meals out based on the sales at two separate stores, and I try to use everything up and stretch things out. I’m really frustrated by our continually high bills. We don’t buy extra snack foods, and we eat leftovers for lunch.

We do buy whatever fruit is on sale (this week strawberries, blueberries, and two peaches). The grand total for fruit was $5.25.

I realize my meal plan is meat heavy, which is why I want to try to plan more vegetarian meals to cut down the cost. Our goal is to cut costs on groceries to $60 or less per week while still eating healthy, tasty meals. Any tips?

Note: We spent about $75 on this week’s meals, which is our average grocery bill. The other $15 of our grand total went toward bulk purchases that will last us a month.

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Saturday Grocery Round up

We had quite a day. It started with our research at the farmers market and the co-op. We didn’t make any purchases at either, because we were waiting to see what our best best would be. Ultimately, we decided to stick with trips to multiple stores to get the best deals.

Today was particularly intense, because we were out of a number of staples that we buy in bulk (coffee, mozzarella cheese for homemade pizza, and black peppercorns). Those are all pretty pricey because we buy enough to last us a little over a month. We also bought a whole chicken that we’ll roast for dinner tomorrow night, then use the leftovers for chicken Alfredo later in the week. We use the carcass to make a gallon of chicken stock.

We went to two grocery stores and Costco for the coffee and cheese.

Our grand total? Still a depressing $91. Sigh. I feel like I’m failing miserably at bringing our grocery bill down to $60 a week.

I know it’s time to make some drastic changes, but I’m just unsure of what my next step should be. Unfortunately, grocery store coupons don’t help us much because the only processed foods we buy are cereals (I do use coupons for that when I have them) and pasta. The rest is produce and fresh meat.

I know that cooking without meat is a big money saver, but we don’t have many vegetarian meals in our repertoire, and the ones we do have require expensive produce like grape tomatoes. Next week we’ll try to come up with some menus that don’t require us to purchase additional meat. We have some chicken breasts on hand in the freezer, but we usually buy some kind of meat each week. I think cutting out the extra meat will help, but I’m just afraid that our meal plans will begin to lack variety.

Anybody have any delicious vegetarian meal ideas to share?!

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Sometimes free money = unnecessary spending

I have a Victoria’s Secret Angels card that I opened in college. I’m proud to say I’ve never carried a balance on it. The truth is, I like their stuff, even if it is overpriced, and by maintaining an open account I can often score some great deals.

They periodically send out coupons. I put them aside until I honestly need something, then I bring my coupon in during the semi-annual sales. The result can be $10 off the clearance price on an item that was marked down from $40 to $19.99. The catch is you often have to use your card to get the deal, but that’s no big deal to me if I’m only spending $9.99 for a nice bra. I’m happy to charge it and pay it off immediately before the interest kicks in. It’s very rare that I use the card, I never use it to pay full price or for anything that I don’t need, and I always pay the balance right away.

However, my relationship with my Angels card and the coupons associated with it is love/hate. This month, they sent me a “birthday reward” for $10 off anything in the store. Sort of weird because my birthday isn’t until October, but whatever.

I read the coupon. The only limitation was that I couldn’t use it with another discount. From what I could tell, it was $10 off anything with no provision that the item had to cost more than $10. I didn’t need anything, but I figured if it was free, I might as well pick up some scented lotion.

I went there tonight, picked out a bottle of lotion for $9, and brought it to the cash register. “I’m sorry,” the nice cashier told me, “but in order to use this coupon, you have to charge the remaining total on your Angels card. If you’re not charging anything, you can’t use the coupon.”

If you’ve read my About Me page, then you know that I worked in retail as recently as 2 months ago. I wasn’t about to make this woman’s life more difficult tonight by arguing with her about a coupon that I was using to buy something frivolous. She was just doing her job, and there was probably nothing she could do about it anyway. I thanked her and went to look around the store to see if I could find something I needed for $10.

I settled on a tube of mascara (an item that I’ll probably need in the next couple weeks to be fair). I normally pay $4.50 for mascara every 4-6 months. The tube I bought tonight was marked $12, but with the coupon I paid $2. It’s important to remember, though, I didn’t really save $10. I really only saved $2.50 because there’s no way I’d ever pay $12 for a tube of mascara. But $2.50 is $2.50, I guess.

When I left the store, I felt resentful and a little mad at myself for giving in. When I was in college, that $10 coupon would have led me to spend $30. Even then I paid it off by the end of the month, but still … it’s not really a coupon if you’re spending more than you’re saving.

I went into a store tonight planning to spend $0 and walked out with a $2 charge on a credit card I never use.

I still have a lot to learn, but I learned a valuable lesson tonight. From now on I’ll skip the coupons if there’s nothing I need. Free money is rarely ever really free money.

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Spending money can save you money

When it’s time to tighten your budget, the first rule is “cut all unnecessary spending.” Since we started cutting expenses, there have been many “extras” that we’ve cut out. Restaurants, movies, and shopping trips for unnecessary items, to name a few.

Budgeting has changed the way that I look at my money. I’ve begun to dread extra expenses outside of our normal monthly living costs, because it forces me to renegotiate the budget to avoid overspending.

This can be a good thing. It forces me to really examine unnecessary spending and put it through a basic litmus test: “Do we really need this?”

It can also be dangerous. It makes me hesitate spending money on some things that may not be required, but could ultimately save us hundreds of dollars in the long run.

When considering whether to cut “unnecessary” expenses, it’s important to consider the future, too. Maybe you won’t see a return on your investment immediately, but shelling out the money for certain expenses can end up saving you money later on.

Here’s a list of the “unnecessary expenses” that we’ve added to our budget because of their long-term saving potential:

1. AAA membership

We signed up for AAA right before we drove back to Indiana for our wedding. It’s a long trip, and we didn’t want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere by a flat tire, car problem, or stupid mistake like locking our keys in the car. Membership normally costs $42 per person for a year, but we received a direct mail piece offering membership for a discounted rate of $20 per person for a year.

In my opinion, it’s worth it even at $42 per person. AAA Members receive roadside assistance that includes towing, jumping, fuel delivery, tire changing, and lockout services. If you use just one of those services even once in a year, it pays for itself. We haven’t had to use it yet, but even if we don’t, I think it pays for itself in peace of mind, especially when you’re traveling far from home.

Members also receive a huge array of discounts on car rental, hotels, and other travel and driving related expenses. This perk is secondary to me because all of the discounts are for things that we shouldn’t be spending money on anyway.

Next time we need an oil change, we’ll check the rates at the AAA Auto Care station near us, but we’ll only go there if it really is a deal. And of course, if we do need to get a hotel room or rent a car, we’ll take advantage of our AAA discount.

2. Car maintenance

I’ve recently started putting money into a savings account each month to pay for routine car maintenance like oil changes, but in the past these things have come out of our regular budget. It can cost anywhere from $18-$30 for a basic oil change service, but for some reason I hate having it done.

It’s really a no-brainer, though. Cars that are serviced every 3,000 miles last longer. Since we have a new car that was purchased in 2006 (a very generous graduation gift for us from my in-laws), we plan to drive it for at least a decade. That makes regular servicing even more important.

3. Veterinary Services and Medications

When you adopt a pet, it’s important to remember that you’re committing to a lot more financially than just the adoption fees and dog food. Every month our dog, Howie, requires heartworm prevention medicine as well as flea and tick prevention. He also gets a heartworm test, physical exam and several shots every year, including immunizations for rabies, kennel cough, and parvovirus. I think there might be other immunizations included in his yearly boosters, but I’m not sure what they are at the moment.

We get his monthly medication every 6 months through 1-800-PetMeds, which is a lot cheaper than what we’d pay at the vet. It still costs about about $16 a month for the medications alone.

Vaccinations are about $10-$15 each, so they end up costing roughly $40 a year. Our vet offers a 20% immunization discount on Thursdays, so we always schedule his appointments then. Heartworm testing is required to renew his heartworm prevention medicine each year, and that runs about $30.

His yearly preventative exams cost $50. We also spend $18 every three weeks for his dog food. We choose to feed him high quality dog food because it keeps him healthier. (If you’ve ever had to clean up after a dog that eats cheap dog food, you understand.)

As you can see, being a responsible pet owner isn’t cheap. Not including dog food, we spend over $300 a year to keep Howie healthy. But we committed to taking care of him when we adopted him, and in the long-run proper medical care could prevent major illnesses that cost thousands to treat. Putting money aside for these yearly expenses makes it a lot easier when it’s time to order another six-month supply of medicine or take him to the vet for his check-up.

On a personal note, you could argue that the best way to avoid these extra expenses is to not have a pet. That’s true. However, for us, the fulfillment and joy that we get from being pet owners is worth the cost of taking care of him. Studies have shown that owning a pet can increase your overall health and well being, so I would definitely say pet expenses have long-term benefits. Dogs really can be a wonderful addition to your family and well worth the money if you can work them into your schedule and budget.

4. Renters Insurance

We’ll probably be renting for a while, so we invest in a renters insurance policy. It covers our personal belongings in and outside of our apartment for just $18 a month 9 months out of the year. Our policy does cover us for the other 3 months of the year, we just pay the premium over 9 months for some reason. We’re covered up to $20,000, which is probably more than the total value of our stuff because most of what we own we bought second-hand.

I’ve always thought the term renters insurance was inaccurate, because it’s really personal property insurance. The most valuable things we own are our laptops and my engagement ring. Both are covered by our renters insurance, no matter where we are when the damage or theft occurs. For instance, if one of our laptops was stolen from our car while we were traveling, our renters insurance would cover it.

Damage to the property inside our apartment is protected by our renters insurance in the event of a break-in, flood, or other natural disaster (particularly important since we live in hurricane country). Most policies also cover personal injury to protect you from liability in case someone is hurt inside your apartment.

This is another expense that pays for itself in peace of mind. Landlords rarely cover any damage to your personal property, and usually have a provision written into the lease that says they’re not responsible for damage even if it’s their fault. Renters insurance is basically homeowners insurance for renters, so if your pipes burst or a hurricane destroys your apartment complex, you can replace your personal property. I say, better safe than sorry.

What extra expenses do you add to your budget to save money in the long-run?

Will joining a grocery co-op bust my food budget?

I love the idea of a grocery store co-op. Cooperatively owned by community members, these stores sell local produce that is organic and free of pesticides. Not only does shopping there support local growers, but it reduces your carbon footprint by reducing the emissions created by the huge semis that transport produce to grocery stores from distant locations.

I used to shop at the local co-op occasionally when I was in college, but I never became a member. The produce was fresher, tastier, and better quality overall. But it was quite a bit more expensive.

While they do sell packaged organic and specialty foods, those items are way overpriced, so we only plan to shop at the co-op for produce. But we’re trying to reduce our grocery costs, and even with the discounts, I’m afraid that we’ll pay a lot more for our produce.

I think this is a really important cause, healthy produce is important to me, and I understand that local farmers can’t compete with the prices of larger distributors. So I’m willing to pay a slightly higher price for the quality and the cause, but we can’t afford to completely bust our food budget to shop there.

The membership dues are $30 a year. That fee entitles us to the member discounts, including select items at 25% off every day. They also send additional discount coupons in the monthly newletter and periodically offer member appreciation days for a 10% discount.

We’d also have the opportunity to volunteer a few hours per month to receive additional 12% discount days, and we’d receive an annual patronage refund dependent upon how much we spend. I can’t find any hard numbers on the co-op’s website or through my research on what kind of refund we could expect, so I’m assuming it’s not much.

We’ve decided to go there this weekend, check out the prices, and ask some questions about the discounts and the patronage refund. This is something we’d like to do, but not if it’s going to drastically increase our grocery bill.

We’ve shopped at the local farmer’s market before, and I’ve considered that as an alternative. I like the produce, and I think the experience is fun overall, but I don’t think it’s practical for us on a weekly basis. It’s kind of far out of our way, so I feel like our additional fuel consumption is offsetting some of the benefits of shopping there. It also forces us to get up and dressed on Saturday mornings earlier than we’d like, and the vendors there only take cash (which I find inconvenient because I generally don’t carry cash).

In addition to the costs, I’m also concerned that we might be joining a little late in the season. We live in a warm climate with a long growing season, so we can probably expect to see local summer fruits and vegetables at the co-op for at least another month or two. But what about the fall and winter? I would hate to pay our dues now and then have to wait through the fall and winter to start buying produce there.

Do any of you shop at a co-op or belong to one? What are your thoughts?

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A deal that’s almost too good to be true

Wise Bread just posted this amazing deal from Super 8 motels. The first 800 people to book a room online after 8 p.m. every night between now and August 15 pay $8.88 for one night. The reservation can be for any night between now and December 30, 2008.

We’re planning a trip to Indiana for the holidays, and because we’ll be traveling with our dog and the trip is 10 hours minimum, we planned to drive halfway there in the evening, stop for the night, and make the rest of the trip the next day. I’m going to hit the Super 8 site every night at 8 to see if I can get this deal.

I’d rather avoid paying for a hotel room all together by making the trip in one day of marathon driving, but I think that might be too intense for the dog, and if the dog is freaking out then it’ll just make a tough trip even tougher on us. $8.88 for the room plus a $10 pet fee is as close to nothing as we’re going to get, and since we’ll only be in the room for about 8 hours total to sleep, it makes no difference to me if it isn’t luxurious. Wish me luck!

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