Gifts from a yard sale master

When we first announced that I’m pregnant, Tony’s incredibly sweet grandmother asked hesitantly how I felt about used items. Apparently, she didn’t want to offend me by giving us used baby stuff if we weren’t into the idea. Pfft. Of course, I told her we LOVE to buy used things and that we’d be incredibly grateful for any gift she bestowed upon us. If it’s used and she can get it for a good price then all the better.

Tony’s grandmother spends a lot of her weekends in the summer hopping from yard sale to yard sale. She finds used items in good condition and haggles the seller down to an even better price. If it’s an item she needs or she knows someone who needs it, she keeps it or gives it away. Otherwise she resells it at her own yearly yard sale for a profit. She’s a smart lady!

Last weekend when we visited Tony’s family, she told us she’d be bringing over all of the baby stuff she scored at yard sales for us this summer. I told her we’d love to see her, but if she’d like to wait until the baby shower to bring the items that would be fine. She said no, she’d rather bring it before the baby shower because she wasn’t sure we’d have room to take everything back home with us in addition to any baby shower gifts.

I assumed she’d picked up a few outfits here and there. Imagine my surprise when Tony and his dad carted in three enormous boxes packed full from his grandparents’ car.

Behold:

Included in the stash:

  • A metric ton of baby boy clothing in various sizes from newborn to 12 months, including sweaters, onesies, jeans, and pajamas. (The clothing is stacked by size in the photo, so each visible outfit is covering up a ton of other outfits.)
  • A bag full of baby socks in various sizes.
  • Several bibs.
  • Two snowsuits.
  • At least 25-30 cozy blankets and receiving blankets (Maybe more. I didn’t count.)
  • A set of crib bedding with a cute jungle theme.
  • A jungle-themed musical mobile for the crib.
  • Some cute stuffed animals.
  • Not pictured: A bouncer seat, walker, and three strollers.

All of it is in excellent condition (some items even still have store tags on them!) She even pre-washed all of it for me, so the newborn and 3-6 month stuff is ready to be folded and put into his dresser for his arrival home. The rest has been organized by size and stored for future use.

I am absolutely blown away by her generosity and incredible thrift. I’m definitely going to need to get some yard sale-ing tips from her!

We still have TWO baby showers coming up (one for each of our families since they live several hours apart). I almost feel like we’re set for baby clothes, but I know there will likely be more clothing from our friends and family members who attend the baby showers. I have a feeling I’m going to be writing a post about creative storage solutions for small apartments in the near future.

An important public service announcement about your tires

When we were in Europe, we left our car parked at my parents’ house for two weeks. My dad was kind enough to get a nick in our windshield fixed for us. When he was driving the car, he noticed that the steering wheel was shaking at 65-70 mph. We’d noticed this, too, but between the hectic move and rushing around before our big trip, we’d put off doing anything about it.

When we came home, my dad warned me that he suspected the front alignment was off. He recommended that we get it checked out. My dad worked as a mechanic for several years when he was younger, so he knows his stuff. I made a mental note to take care of it.

Fast forward four months. It’s been a very busy four months. Between the baby and the move and everything in between, we put off taking the car in.

We’ve also done a lot of driving in the past four months. With the move and visits to family and friends all over the state, we put several thousand miles on the car since May. We’ve had the oil changed since then, but I admit we’ve neglected to check our tires regularly.

This weekend we drove about 3 hours south to visit Tony’s family. On Sunday when we were getting ready to leave, my father-in-law noticed that the front passenger tire looked funny. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it wasn’t just worn: the front tire was pretty much completely bald. (!!) It was purchased at the same time as the front driver’s side tire, which was nowhere near as worn. This confirmed what my dad had told me four months ago: we had a serious alignment problem.

Since it was Sunday evening, we were three hours from home, and Tony needed to be back this morning for work, we didn’t have a lot of options. We have a tiny temporary spare, but it shouldn’t be used for more than 50 miles. We were over 100 miles from home. So Tony and his dad swapped the bald tire with one of the rear tires. Our car is front-wheel-drive, so we figured it was safer to put the bad tire in the back.

We made the trip home very carefully, driving under 55 mph the whole way to avoid blowing the tire. Thankfully, we made it safely.

Today I took the car to the shop. The alignment only cost $40 — less than half the cost of replacing the bald tire, which was $90. It took 15 minutes. I am kicking myself for putting off such a simple thing. If I’d listened to my dad and taken the car in to get the alignment fixed four months ago, we wouldn’t have had to replace that tire so soon, and it would have saved us almost $100. Doh.

We were also very lucky. In the past month, I’ve taken several trips out of town by myself for a friend’s wedding and a funeral just last week. That tire was dangerously close to blowing completely, and if it had happened when I was by myself two hours from home, I have no idea what I would have done.

There are few morals here:

  • Have your alignment checked as part of standard maintenance. We had the oil changed Saturday before we left. Not only did they not notice the bald tire (which honestly surprises me), but they didn’t check the alignment. It’s a simple thing to do every few thousand miles, and it can really help lengthen the life of your tires. But it’s not part of a standard oil change, so you have to ask them to do it.
  • Check your tires frequently! I am embarrassed that we got on the road for a three-hour trip without at least glancing at the condition of our tires. To be fair, we did get the oil changed that day, and we were told the tires were fine. But they only checked the tire pressure, not the tread. Not only should you check the tire pressure and look for standard wear, but also check for leaks, bubbles, nails, and anything else that could compromise the safety of your tires.
  • Listen to your dad. He probably knows what he’s talking about.

Photo by milesgehm

Good news: the recession really is over

I’ve seen lots of posts in the blogosphere with tongue-in-cheek responses to yesterday’s news that the recession is over.

“Unemployment is still high.”

“The housing market is still in a slump.”

“People are still struggling.”

“What do you mean the recession is OVER?!”

Take heart: when an economy is actively in recession, it means economic activity is slowing down over a period of time. It was months and months after the start of the recession before economists finally looked at the numbers and said, “Whoa. We’re in a recession, guys.” And the announcement that it’s “over” comes over a year after its official end — which economists say was June 2009.

Now based on the numbers, the economy has stopped shrinking. Things may still feel pretty bad out there, but the news that recession is over means one thing: it’s getting better.

Does that mean things are going to turn around overnight? Absolutely not. After a recession this bad (the worst since the Great Depression), it takes time for everything to be okay again. And unfortunately, the economy is rebounding particularly slowly this time.

Historically, the economy takes years to rebound back to previous levels after a recession. Since this recession has been so deep, it makes sense that things may not be “good” again for a while. Since 1945, the average economic recession has lasted 10 months while the average economic expansion has lasted 57 months (source). That means it takes, on average, over 2 years for the economy to peak again after an average 10-month recession. This recession lasted 18 months, which means it will probably take a little longer than average for things to go back to normal.

But this really is good news. It means the worst is (hopefully) over.

In the meantime, try to keep looking on the bright side. This, too, shall pass. And when it does, we’ll all be armed with all of the frugal tricks we learned during the tough times to help safeguard us from future economic downturns.

Sad day

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to write a new post for today. An old friend’s 3-year-old daughter lost her battle with cancer on Friday, and I’m hustling to get caught up on freelance work today so I can attend the funeral service 4 hours away tomorrow.

The friend and I haven’t been close for several years (we were college roommates), but I am heartbroken for her and her family. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

And please consider adding St. Jude Children’s Hospital to the list of charities to which you contribute. It’s the hospital where this little girl was initially treated, and they are a not-for-profit research hospital. Thousands of children are treated there each year regardless of their family’s financial situation, and St. Jude conducts life-saving research to seek new treatments for childhood diseases. If you’d like to give, you can donate here.

Hidden costs of small-town life

When Tony accepted a teaching job at a community college in a small town in Indiana, we planned to move to Fort Wayne — the closest major city about 40 miles away. I wasn’t crazy about the 1-hour commute for my husband, though, especially since we share a car. When we started hunting for apartments, we also weren’t crazy about our choices — prices were high for the nice areas, and everything in our price range seemed run down.

When we found an apartment about five miles away from Tony’s job at almost half the price we were going to pay in Fort Wayne, we were ecstatic. Lower rent, no commuting costs, and it would be easy for me to drop Tony off at work in the morning if I needed the car for the day.

Two months later, I don’t regret our decision. I’m pretty happy in our little apartment, and there are definite financial perks to small-town living. We’re not spending the fortune on gas that would have been required if Tony was driving 2 hours round trip every day. We’re not as tempted to go out to dinner, because our restaurant options are bleak. And our favorite places for recreational shopping (mainly Target) require advanced planning since they’re 30 minutes to an hour away depending on which city we visit, so we don’t browse once a week and spend more money than we intended.

Unfortunately, I’ve also discovered some hidden costs. Some of them are financial. Most of them are a matter of convenience.

Cell phone reception stinks.

I’ve resorted to using Skype for 99% of my calls, because my cell phone is basically useless in my apartment. I have better luck when I’m not home, which is really what cell phones are for anyway, but the poor cell phone reception is SO annoying. We don’t have a landline. I considered installing one, but since all of our family and friends would be long distance calls, a landline wouldn’t be financially practical. So I’m dealing with the hassle of choppy reception on Skype and dropped calls.

Goodbye, free TV.

Remember last year when I shut off the cable? We loved our antenna reception back when we lived in a reasonably big metro area. But now? We hooked up our antenna, and we get nada. We live about 40 miles from the broadcast towers for all of the channels. Outdoor antennas aren’t allowed in our apartment, and our indoor antenna isn’t strong enough to pick up anything. Most of the shows we watch are available at Hulu.com or the network’s website, and there’s always Netflix, but my husband is pretty sad about missing out on football this season. We’ll also miss other live broadcasts, like the Oscars. Boo. We’re considering opting into the basic cable package for network channels, but the tightwad in me hates the idea of paying $18 a month for something that used to be free.

We use more gas.

We’re not using nearly the amount we would have if my husband was commuting every day. But driving 25-40 miles away “into the city” every other week or so adds up. The nearest midwife is about 25 miles away, and now that I’m in the final stage of my pregnancy, we’ll be driving there every other week.

Sharing a car is more difficult.

In North Carolina, the public transportation system wasn’t perfect, but it worked for us. We chose an apartment on a bus line, and my husband used the bus to get himself into campus for class. There’s no public transportation here, and because the area is pretty rural, it’s also not very walkable. Since I work from home, and my husband’s job is pretty close, I’m able to drop him off and pick him up if I need the car for the day. It’s not a big enough hassle for us to get a second car, but I do miss public transporation.

Making friends is tough.

In North Carolina, we made some friends through Tony’s graduate program. I also joined a book club through Meetup.com. I wanted to meet some other young moms in the area when we first moved here. The closest meetup? The same town where my midwife is — 25 miles away. I joined, and I plan to attend some of the events, but I imagine it will be harder to make the trip on rural country roads when there’s snow on the ground and I have a newborn. Not to mention, when your friends live 25 miles away, it’s not as easy to pop in for a visit.

When we make our next move, we’d like to stick to the suburbs. I don’t want the cost or the hassle of big city life, but living in a small town is more of a hassle than I expected.

Photo by tonivc

Become a fan, write a post, feed a dog #dogsrule

I know I’ve posted this picture before, but it never gets old for me. This is my dog, Howie. This is the photo taken by the shelter that made us fall in love with him and decide to adopt him. Isn’t he so stinkin’ cute?

That was three years ago, and he’s brought nothing but joy to our lives since then.

I’ve always been a dog lover, and shelters and animal rescue organizations are some of my absolute favorite charities. Dogs are the most loyal companions, and they count on us for survival. Millions of shelter dogs don’t have an owner looking out for them. Since Howie is a shelter dog, the cause is even closer to my heart now. That’s why I’m participating in the Pedigree Adoption Drive campaign!

To raise awareness about shelter dogs and encourage people to adopt a pet from their local shelter, Pedigree is donating dog food to shelters around the country. And the best part is, it’s so easy for you to participate. Here’s how:

  • Visit the Pedigree Adoption Drive page on Facebook. Click the “like” button.
  • Pedigree will donate 8 oz. of dog food for every person who “likes” the page.

Isn’t that easy? It costs you nothing but a moment of your time.

If you’re a blogger, you can help even more by spreading the word with a post about the campaign on your blog. Pedigree will donate 20 POUNDS of dog food to shelters for every blogger who writes about the campaign on their blog. That’s enough to feed a dog like Howie for almost a month.

For more information and the guidelines for participation, visit this blog.

#dogsrule

Transitioning to a work-at-home career

Back in May, when my husband finished graduate school, we made the decision to move closer to our families. I quit my full-time job as an internet marketing specialist and copywriter at a web design company, we packed up our 2-bedroom apartment, and headed to Indiana.

Since I was already about 8 weeks pregnant at the time, we decided that my husband would be the primary earner and I would seek money-making opportunities from home. My field is well suited to freelance and contracting work, and staying home will make things easier when the baby comes.

Four months later (really? FOUR months?!), I’m just now starting to get into the swing of things. As you can imagine, working from home is significantly different from working in an office for someone else. Here are the main pros and cons I’ve encountered so far.

It’s a lot more convenient.

The ability to set my own schedule has been invaluable as I’ve faced a rough pregnancy. Some days I don’t feel well enough to work until after noon. This would be a serious problem if I was employed by someone else, and it would involve calling in, using sick time, and perhaps being reprimanded or fired if it became a regular occurrence.

Now I simply adjust my work schedule to meet my needs. If I don’t start working until noon, then I most likely won’t finish for the day until 8 or 9 p.m. If I have errands to run in the middle of the day, no problem; I take care of them when it’s convenient for me. When I have a doctor’s appointment, I take a couple hours off. And let’s be honest, sometimes pregnant ladies just need a mid-day nap.

It’s also more responsibility.

When you work for someone else and the workload is low, you still get paid. You may spend a day or two organizing files or working on other projects until work funnels in, but your paycheck will come. That’s not the case when you work for yourself. I’m now the sole member of my sales staff, and if I don’t find work, I don’t get paid. I’m no good at sales, so this has been a challenge for me.

The other big issue? Health insurance. Ugh. Right now, I qualify for good coverage at a surprisingly reasonable premium through COBRA. That will run out in October 2011. My husband’s current job doesn’t offer health insurance, so if he doesn’t find full-time work with benefits before then, I may join the legions of uninsured workers in this country.

Also: taxes are no fun when you’re self-employed.

It’s tough to stay motivated.

Some days when I’m feeling particularly crappy, it can be really tough to get out of bed and get to work. With no one to answer to but myself, it’s a little too easy to procrastinate. I sometimes end up days away from my deadline, sweating bullets to get the project finished and wishing I’d just stuck to my work schedule to get it done.

I don’t miss office politics.

My least favorite part about working in an office was the gossip, clashing personalities, and office politics. I love that I don’t have to deal with that anymore. I also don’t have to pick up the slack for other people’s laziness, fix problems created by co-workers, or do my job according to someone else’s protocol. I love having the freedom to do my job the way I see fit, only answering to myself and my clients.

But I do miss office camaraderie.

I miss the occasional lunch out on a nice day, the holiday parties, and commiserating about difficult clients with my teammates. With my husband gone six hours a day, it can get pretty quiet and lonely around the apartment.

The pay isn’t so hot (yet).

When I started my last full-time job, there was definitely room for growth in my salary. But I had full benefits, including paid holidays, health insurance, and vacation time. Since I started on the low end of the pay spectrum, my employer was generous with raises. By the time I left, I was pretty happy with my salary.

Now that I’m just starting out in my freelance career, I find myself taking jobs at a lower rate than I’d like because the competition is stiff and I’m relatively inexperienced as a consultant. I’m also still working out the kinks when it comes to estimating the time each project will take. Sometimes, my hourly wage is pretty sad — especially since I receive zero benefits. But there’s potential for growth, and working from home offers me lots of other perks, so I’m hoping it’ll turn around.

Despite the challenges, I love being self-employed.

Overall, I’m really happy with my decision to work from home. I honestly can’t imagine handling a full-time job once the baby comes, and knowing that I don’t have to deal with daycare and other working mom issues is a huge relief for me right now.

However, I should caution you, if you’re planning to make this move yourself: save, save, save. If we didn’t have a healthy savings account, the last four months wouldn’t have been possible. My husband just started his job (we still haven’t received his first paycheck), and since I’m just starting out, my income is sporadic. There’s no way we could have survived the summer without our emergency fund.

Since my income is so sporadic, we’re not including it in our regular budget. Everything I make will go toward replenishing our emergency fund. I recommend living off your spouse’s income for a while when you begin your freelance career, otherwise you could end up in financial trouble if your workload dies down or your clients are slow to pay you.

Photo by Damon Duncan

Our cloth diapering game plan

Since we’ll be using cloth diapers, and cloth diapers aren’t particularly easy to add to a registry, I’ve already started to stock up.

Here’s what I’ve collected so far:

I’ve spent about $100 on diapers so far. All of them are brand new.

I think I’m done buying covers and fancy diapers. I may get a couple of Thirsties covers since they’re highly recommended and I’d like to try them, but we’ll see.

Since the Flips, Econobums, and Bummis are all waterproof and easy to wipe clean, they don’t need to be washed after every change. I’ll be able to reuse them a few times a day and just change the prefold diaper. I got the pockets and all-in-one to try them out, but I’m hesitant to stock up since they’re more complicated to wash and take longer to dry. I may buy more later if I really like them, but I’m hoping to mostly use the covers and prefolds method since it’s more economical, and they’re easier to wash and more durable.

Here’s what I still need to buy:

I’m estimating that it will cost another $200 for me to complete my stash. That puts our cloth diapering supplies total at about $300. Not too bad considering these should last us until our baby is potty-trained and perhaps even last until baby #2.

My mom is very skilled with a sewing machine, and when she visited a couple weeks ago, we looked at some patterns for cloth diaper covers together. I know how to sew, but I’m terrible at following the diagrams in patterns. She promised to make me a few diaper covers and diapers and then show me how to do it. I’m excited at the possibility of making cloth diapers for myself at a fraction of the cost, so we’ll see how that goes.

You may have noticed that all of my diapers are “one-size.” According to the manufacturers, all of these diapers should fit babies that weigh 8 pounds and up. If you’re experienced with cloth diapers, though, you probably know that long, skinny babies usually don’t fit into standard one-size diapers until they’re 10-12 pounds. And what if my newborn is only 6 or 7 pounds?

Tony and I both have a family history of big babies, and since we’re having a boy, I’m pretty confident that our little guy will be at least 8 pounds at birth. But who knows? I could go into labor a couple weeks before my “due date” and end up with a tiny 6-pounder.

My point is, we won’t be using cloth diapers from day one. There are “newborn-sized” cloth diapers on the market. However, these diapers are just as expensive as the one-size diapers, and depending on how big my baby is at birth, he may only fit in them for a few weeks. Not a good deal compared to the one-size diapers that will presumably fit him for 2-3 years.

Instead of investing in newborn-sized cloth diapers, I’ll be using newborn and size 1 disposable diapers for the first few weeks until our baby is big enough for his one-size diapers. This will give me a chance to get used to caring for a newborn before I need to learn to care for his cloth diapers.

I want to bargain shop for a few packs of disposable diapers, but it’s so hard to know how many and what size to buy. If he’s at least 8 pounds at birth as I suspect he will be, then he’ll skip the newborn size entirely and immediately fit into size 1s. And he’ll only wear size 1s for about 2-4 weeks. If we end up having a small newborn, he might need a few packs of newborns and more packs of size 1s.

Rather than stressing about it, I’ve decided to keep an eye out for really great diaper deals. If I can get them for cheap, I will, and I’ll save the receipt so I can exchange sizes or return them if necessary. If I don’t have enough disposables to last until he fits into cloth, I’ll suck it up and pay a higher price for a few packs. No biggie. He’ll be in cloth for 2-3 years. Buying a few packs of disposables at regular price won’t kill me.

Do you use cloth diapers? What’s your stash like? Did you use them right away with your newborn?

Photo by vincentmartinez

Adjusting to our new lifestyle

This summer has been terrible for our finances. We haven’t had any income since May. Thankfully, our bills were drastically reduced for the first, oh, 6 weeks of summer while we stayed with Tony’s family. But we still had car insurance, health insurance, student loan payments, my health insurance deductible, and other expenses.

We moved into our own place in the middle of July, and ever since then we’ve been hemorrhaging money from our savings account. I try to remind myself that this is why we saved. We knew moving was going to be hard, and that Tony wouldn’t start work until August. And of course, when you start a new job, it’s always a few weeks before you receive your first paycheck.

Tony is scheduled to be paid for the first time today, and this month marks the first when we’ll be utilizing our new budget. Up until now, the name of the game has been Spend as Little as Humanly Possible, but I didn’t create a zero-based budget because we didn’t have a monthly income.

When Tony was first offered his adjunct teaching position, his salary wasn’t going to be enough to cover even our bare bones expenses. But they offered him additional classes (he’s now teaching 6), and the extra income took us barely over the edge. Thankfully, they’ve already offered him 6 classes for the spring semester, too, so we know we’ll be set until May. I’ve spent a lot of time crunching numbers, and it looks like we should be able to hang on to our savings if we can keep our budget very tight.

Unfortunately, there’s no room in our regular budget for savings. However, our regular budget is based only on my husband’s income. Any income I make through freelance work or blogging will be reserved for savings. So we’re hoping to replenish the $2,000 we spent from our emergency fund over the summer.

Our new monthly income is about 1/3 lower than our previous combined income. Our monthly savings budget took the biggest hit since we’re no longer including it in our regular budget (for now). But there are other shifting expenses. Our rent is much lower here, but we’re now paying about $500 a month for health insurance (and that will go up when the baby comes. Ugh.) We’re also spending money here and there buying things for the baby (diapers, clothing, etc.)

With new expenses and lower income, we’re trying to make major changes to our spending habits. Here are the biggest changes:

Groceries/Household Goods

I’ve jumped onto the drugstore game, and I’m doing pretty well. Unfortunately, my pregnancy has wreaked havoc on our food bill. When I go to the grocery store, I end up with tons of extra food in the cart. When I send my husband alone, our bill is lower, but I spend the week feeling like I’m starving and there’s not enough food. Sometimes I even send him out to pick things up. Harumph. I’m not sure how to get around it. I was never a big snacker before I got pregnant, but now it seems I need several snacks a day. And snacks are expensive. Hopefully my drugstore deals are offsetting our overspending on groceries. I’ll have to wait until the end of a full budget cycle to know for sure.

Entertainment

We’ve cut cable and most entertainment spending from our bill for now. I haven’t missed going out much since most days I don’t feel well enough to do anything but lay on the couch anyway. Now that we’re living in a smaller town, we’re also not tempted by recreational shopping trips that result in $50 worth of stuff from Target that we don’t need, and that definitely helps.

Utilities

This apartment is much more energy efficient than our last place. So we’re saving money on our electric bill without even trying. Yay! We tend to keep our place cooler by default, so I’m anticipating lower energy use in the cooler months — at least until December when the baby arrives.

Our goal is to make it through the year with our emergency fund intact. The really ambitious goal is to replenish what we’ve spent and save a little more on top of that. We’re still working on cutting our spending to free up more money for savings. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Photo by purpleslog