Category Archives: Simplicity

Frugal extras that bring me joy

Between the economy, the freezing temperatures throughout the country, and the post-holiday blues, everyone can use a pick-me-up right now. I know I can.

In the past, I often used money as a method of cheering myself up. If I was feeling down, I’d spend. But that only led to guilt and more depression when I realized I was broke.

It’s possible to treat yourself without breaking the budget. Here are the little extras I splurge on when I’m feeling down.

Gourmet coffee

It would be too expensive to drink gourmet coffee every morning, but sometimes we buy enough beans for one pot. For about $3, we create our own coffee house at home.

Movies

Most of the time we rent from RedBox (which is usually free with a code), but sometimes we see a movie at the cheap theater for $2 or splurge on a matinee for $5. Watching a good movie with my husband takes me back to the days when we first started dating.

Dessert

Sometimes after dinner we go out to a local bakery for a cup of coffee, and we split a slice of pie. For about $6, we’re out of the house enjoying something sweet.

Cooking fancy meals

If we’re craving a restaurant meal, we buy the ingredients in the grocery store and try to make it ourselves. Cooking together is fun, and it’s so much more rewarding to enjoy a meal you made yourself (not to mention cheaper).

What frugal extras bring you joy?

TGIF Round Up: Totally Fried Edition

Do you ever have those weeks where it feels like it’s just piling on one thing after another? That’s the kind of week I’ve had. One thing after another.

I’m adjusting to my new schedule, which includes an hour at the gym before I come home every night. Losing that hour has had a surprising impact on my productivity in the evening. By the time I get home, all I want to do is relax.

I’m working on a new routine so I can get things done at home when I’m finished working out.  Hopefully this adjustment period passes quickly! All this constant rushing is exhausting!

And now for a round up:

  • On Simplicity shares simple ways to start enjoying today. This is definitely something I need to work on. One of my resolutions was to stop looking ahead to the next big thing. These tips helped me find joy in the little things right now.
  • Wise Bread offers tips for avoiding recession weight gain. When money’s tight, it’s tempting to load up on cheap, unhealthy convenience foods, but you can eat healthy without spending a fortune!
  • Pecuniarities has some great ideas for burning extra calories in daily life. Moving a little more every day is really all it takes.
  • Budgets are Sexy questions whether pet insurance is a worthwhile investment. My advice? It’s better to self insure with an emergency fund and skip the monthly insurance premiums for a policy that most likely won’t pay up.
  • Money Ning shares tips for traveling on a budget. Now really is the best time to book your trip if you want to travel cheap. Prices are super low right now, especially if you’re not traveling somewhere warm. :)

I’ll be relaxing this weekend, and hopefully using as little brain power as possible. Hope you do the same! Happy Friday!

TGIF Round Up: Fresh new start edition

Weeks after vacations are always so long. We’ve been home since Saturday night, but we spent all day Sunday running around restocking our kitchen, unpacking, and taking care of errands.

A week and a half of travel including almost 40 hours of driving left me drained and exhausted. I’m looking forward to taking it easy this weekend.

Lots of New Year’s resolutions floating around the blogosphere this week. I hope you’re all sticking to your resolutions so far! I’m still committed to getting in better shape in 2009 – physically and financially. It’s only been a week, though. I hope this motivation lasts!

Here are my favorite posts from around the blogosphere this week:

Happy Friday everyone!

Reflecting on my first frugal year

Today is the last day of my first full year of frugality. I’ve only been blogging for about half of it, but we’ve spent all 12 months of 2008 cutting costs, saving, and pay down debt.

I’ve learned much more than I can confine to this post (you’ll have to head into my archives for some of the highlights). But here’s the big stuff I’ve learned in the past 12 months.

Budgets aren’t limiting — they’re freeing.

Before I started budgeting, I felt guilty about every extra penny I spent and stressed that I wouldn’t be able to cover the necessities. Now I know exactly what I can afford to spend, and I know what I need to leave for the necessities and savings. A little money goes a lot further when you budget.

We need much less money to live comfortably than I thought.

Before we moved here, our combined income was almost twice what it is now. But we always felt broke because we were blowing our money on restaurants and unnecessary purchases. I couldn’t imagine living on our current income then.

With a little discipline, though, we’re able to live a richer life on half the money. We still do all of the same things we used to enjoy (like movies, eating out, and books), we just enjoy them less frequently or find frugal ways to enjoy them for little or no money. Now we have money leftover for savings and debt repayment.

We actually “need” very few things.

Our ideas of needs and wants were severely out of whack before we started living frugally. Now we know that we don’t need two cars; we don’t need to own a house; we don’t need new clothes every other month. All we really need is each other, healthy food on the table, and a warm place to sleep. Once we recognized the difference between needs and wants, we were able to set priorities so we could still enjoy some of our wants without interfering with our long term goals.

Realizing how little we actually need also gives me great peace, especially in this economy. By eliminating extra wants, we could cut our monthly spending in half in the event of a financial emergency.

Stress free finances are the greatest luxury of all.

There was a time when I thought skipping weekly meals out and entertainment spending would mean getting less enjoyment out of life. Boy, was I wrong. I enjoy life so much more now that we’ve cut those things out, because I no longer feel stressed and scared about my finances.

It’s been a fantastic year, and I’m anxiously looking ahead to next year’s challenges and successes. I hope to learn even more!

Focus on the memories — not the money


photo by kspeterson

Last year at this time, our financial situation was pretty bleak. I was working two jobs — a part time retail job and a temporary office job that paid well but only lasted until the end of February. Though we had some extra money coming in, we were saving aggressively because we didn’t know how long our savings would have to last.

We were also away from family. I couldn’t take time off work and we couldn’t afford to travel, so we stayed here, 800-miles from our families.

At the beginning of the season, I was dreading Christmas. I imagined us alone in our apartment with no family, no gifts, no decorations and only sadness.

We looked at our budget and decided we could afford to spend $100 on Christmas. In the past, we had gone overboard on gift shopping for each other. I had come to associate Christmas with fancy gifts and extravagant meals. I couldn’t imagine recreating Christmas with so little money to spend.

We were surprised, though. Finding practical frugal gifts was a fun challenge. I aggressively shopped sales to find little things to put under the tree. I used creativity to come up with ideas. I reassessed our priorities and shopped only for things that I knew Tony wanted and would use.

We had fun putting up our old decorations and fashioning new homemade ones.

Christmas Day we dined on cheap Chinese food and caught a half-priced matinee at the movies.

Instead of focusing on how little we had, we made the most of every dollar and every moment.

Remember: Gifts don’t last, but memories do.

The most important lesson we learned last year was that gifts really don’t make or break Christmas. Shopping is fun if you can afford it, but the best part of last Christmas is the memory.

Twenty years from now we won’t have any of the gifts that we gave to each other. No matter how much you spend on it, stuff doesn’t last forever. After 24 Christmases I can only remember a handful of gifts. Many of them didn’t even last a year. What I remember is the time spent with family and the traditions that cost very little or nothing at all.

Keep that in mind if you’re struggling this year. Even if there’s no room in your budget for gifts, focus on the memories.

Make this Christmas a happy memory. Cherish the good moments and remember that the bad won’t last forever. Remind yourself that “stuff” is fleeting.

If you focus on the negative, then all you’ll remember is the sadness. Instead, focus on the memories you want to keep forever.

If you told me last October that our $100 Christmas would be the best we ever had, I wouldn’t have believed you. A year later, I know that I’ll always cherish the memory of last Christmas not in spite of our struggles but because of them.

Think a month ahead to save time & money

Each week, I plan a menu and a to-do list. In an attempt to reduce stress and plan ahead for the holidays (including a 2,000-mile road trip), I decided to try monthly planning.

In addition to using Mint to plan a zero-based budget based on our income (which I do every month), I also mapped out a month’s worth of meals, a pre-holiday/vacation to-do list, and I’m still working on planning a month’s worth of blog posts.

Using Notepad, I saved three documents on my computer desktop last weekend: December budget, December menu, and December blog schedule.

When it comes to my blog, I’m not so good at planning ahead. Between my full-time job, spending time with my husband, and home management, the blog typically takes a back seat. It’s not uncommon for me to sit down to write the next day’s blog post with absolutely no idea what I’m going to write.

This month, I’ve been pushing myself to stay ahead of the game. Not only am I attempting to plan ahead for blog post ideas, but I’ve been writing more on the weekends and scheduling posts ahead of time.

I have to say, monthly planning has made my life a lot easier.

In the past, I’ve tried similar planning using calendars and date books. For some reason, these simple little Notepad documents have worked better than anything I’ve ever tried. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time in front of my computer, or maybe it’s because they’re so incredibly simplified, like a little electronic Post-it note.

I finished my budget and menu plan last weekend. Even though my blog post schedule isn’t finished, I have a head start on the month’s posts. Most importantly, I have a place to put those ideas that randomly spring into my head.

My premature new year’s resolution is to keep it up. I tried this method to make the holidays easier, but I can see how it could save me tons of time and money the rest of the year, too.

Having a monthly menu plan has made it easier to take advantage of grocery sales on nonperishables. For example, we’re making vegetable beef stew in two weeks, so when we found beef stock on sale for 50 cents a can last week, we picked up four cans. It saved us $2.

In the future, I plan to use the previous month’s menu plans to simplify my planning process even further. Because we have many favorites that we like to make over and over, I can refer to old menu plans when I need ideas for the next month’s meals.

My monthly to-do list has made it easier to manage my time. I know what I need to finish each week, so I won’t end up with a million things to do the week before we leave town.

It’s also made my weekend a lot more enjoyable. I didn’t feel stressed Saturday morning before grocery shopping, because I knew our menu plan was already finished. I also didn’t feel rushed or guilty thinking about what I should be doing. My to-do list dictated a few tasks I needed to finish to stay on track. Once they were done, I was free to relax.

I can’t wait to perfect this monthly planning process to maximize my savings and productivity. That definitely works for me.

Christmas presents, not status symbols

Over the weekend, Tony and I were picking up a gift card as a Christmas gift for his grandparents. A month ago when we worked out our Christmas budget, we agreed upon an amount that we could afford. But as we stood in line I found myself second guessing our decision. “Do you think this is enough?” I asked him.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I ask myself that question almost every time I buy a gift. “Is this enough?”

That’s a pretty silly question, though, isn’t it? Enough for what? After all, anybody who would receive a gift only to think it isn’t good enough really doesn’t deserve the gift at all.

Of course I wasn’t worried that Tony’s grandparents would feel that way. They’re probably not expecting anything from us at all, and they’ll be thrilled that we thought of them. So where does this doubt come from?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this doubt is more about me than it is about them. I enjoy giving gifts to the people I love because it makes them happy, but the desire to give more than I can afford comes from the same place as the desire to buy fancier things than I can afford.

It’s a tough thing to admit, but in the past I’ve used gift-giving as a status symbol. I’ve charged up credit cards and spent money I didn’t have on gifts. I’m sure the people who love me would be horrified if they knew that buying them gifts was putting me at financial risk. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to risk their financial security to buy something for me.

I told myself that I was being generous. I wasn’t being generous, though. It was quite the opposite. Buying those fancy gifts made me feel good about giving them. Sure, it made the person who received the gift happy, but that’s not the real reason I was doing it. The people I love would be just as happy with a thoughtful gift that I could afford to give, whether it be something small, homemade, or even baked. The truth is, I liked the way it made me feel to give fancy gifts.

The past couple years have taught me valuable lessons about spending that I’ve learned to apply to gift-giving. Spend only what you can afford, and give only what you can give.

I’m still tempted to break my gift budget, but I have to remind myself that the people who love me would much rather I didn’t risk getting myself into trouble. After all, the safety and financial security of the people I love is much more important to me than receiving Christmas gifts. When I’m tempted to overspend, I remind myself that the people who love me want the same security and safety for me much more than they want presents.

The holiday season is a great time to make the people I love feel special. Spending more than I can afford just isn’t the way to do it.

New traditions for my favorite frugal holiday

Photo by rick

pumpkin pieBeing 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?

My favorite frugal fall pleasures

Photo by emzee

In North Carolina, fall comes late, but it’s worth the wait. The leaves are finally changing, the sun shines every day, and the temperature has fallen to perfect sweater weather. This is my favorite time of year, and I decided to take some time to reflect on why I’m thankful for fall.

Here are my favorite things about the most beautiful season. The best part? They cost nothing.

fall leavesHot cinnamon apple oatmeal for breakfast.

Long walks on brisk mornings with the leaves crunching beneath my feet.

The sweet anticipation of family and holiday tradition.

Bundling up on soft sweaters and my warm winter coat.

Healthy, comforting soups and stews that stretch our grocery budget even further.

Cozy nights at home cuddled up in sweaters and blankets.

More time to work on my handmade flannel quilt.

Comfy socks and slippers.

Hot chocolate and tea before bed.

Sleeping soundly in a chilly room under my down comforter.

What about you? What’s your favorite part of fall?