“Saving Money” Archive

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Merry Christmas!!! Finding the right gift…

I’m reminded that Christmas is just around the corner.

Perhaps it’s because my husband is blaring Amy Grant’s ‘Tender Tennessee Christmas’ in the other room.

No. I’m not joking.

His happy-go-lucky Pollyanna ‘I love the earth and all holidays’ attitude is for the most part a wonderful thing…

But thoughts of Christmas in October simply make me (and anyone within 50 yards of his subwoofer) suicidal.

I have to give him credit… it is an important reminder that we have to start thinking about Christmas gifts now. Since I’m broke and can’t spend 50 bucks on the last remaining blockbuster gift card in the Vons checkout on December 24th, I’ve got to make my plan of action. I’ve got to start taking left over change from payphones, digging through the neighbor’s garbage for recyclables, or compiling leftover foil for a life sized foil ball. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 29 years on this earth, it’s the fact that everyone needs a foil ball the size of a Honda.

No?

Hmm. Well, what was the best low (or preferably) no cost gift you ever received?

Last year my siblings and I compiled letters from us to our parents telling them how much we appreciated and loved them and had them printed and bound at Shutterfly.com (Walmart.com also provides the same photo type books we used). But I’m out of ideas! Help!

Posted by Beks on October 28, 2009 at 5:00 AM in Saving Money, Spending Money | 21 Comments »
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Ways to get by while on unemployment…

My budget was already threadbare but living with 50% less salary and on unemployment benefits has forced us to find ways to somehow reduce more.

First, we cut our dental and vision insurance. This is something that can easily be re-instated but the $25 a month can help me now.

Second, I cancelled all my appointments health related or otherwise. None of my appointments were an emergency and I requested that my doctor renew my prescriptions without the annual check-up since the last 6 years have been clear of any problems. These appointments and tests run in the neighborhood of $500.

Third, I called my cable company to cancel our cable, reduce our internet speed, and reduce our phone service. I explained our situation and was surprised when they offered reduced internet costs, reduced phone costs, and added free services and free channels for a 12 month period. I would tell you how much I’m paying – but I’m afraid they’ll figure out they made a huge mistake and ‘correct’ the discount… or fire the guy who gave it to me. I would have cut out the internet and phone entirely but my husband needs internet for school purposes and job searching late at night when he gets home (free internet at the library is closed) and I’m uncomfortable without a home phone for emergencies.

Fourth, I contacted my student loan company for a deferment.

Fifth, my husband and I contacted friends and family and let them know we’d be available for odd jobs. Since unemployment doesn’t start for nearly a month after a job loss, my husband has done everything from pulling weeds to insulating walls. I have been helping a company with paperwork at night after work. We use this money for groceries and for the important bills like electric and water. At no time should you feel you are ‘too good’ for any type of job.

Sixth, we cut off all our subscriptions and memberships. If you’re like us, you may not even remember you have some of them since they are automatically billed to your credit card and you may not look at each item on your online statement. Some examples: gym memberships, club memberships, magazine and newspaper subscriptions (some automatically renew unless you cancel). Savings – $50 a month.

Seventh, we’ve been using more public transportation. It takes twice as long to get somewhere, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s far from fun, but it saves $50-$75 a month.

It’s not a lot, but each item buys us a little more time.

Posted by Beks on October 19, 2009 at 8:31 PM in General Debt, General Personal Finance, Good Info, Insurance, Life Experiences, Living Frugal, Monthly Spending, Saving Money, job loss | 14 Comments »
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Surviving financial tests…

As I said on Friday, I had $50 for the bachelorette party this weekend. I opted not to attend on Friday as it required $35 for the hotel stay and $35 for um… something else. Saturday, I got dressed in my bridesmaid ‘uniform’ and headed downtown.

A 7 pm bachelorette dinner time that coincided with a 7 pm baseball game start and the 7 pm Saturday night party crowd shot parking rates and traffic to a premium. Unable to find an overnight parking place, I parked in an hourly rate spot (a spot that makes more per hour than I do). All throughout dinner, I checked my watch thinking, ‘Tick tock goes the meter – and my $50 allowance.’

I ordered the cheapest item on the menu, a $9 greek wrap, and had 2 – $2 beers. I dropped in $20 to cover my meal.

$30 left in my wallet.

We went to a club where I used $6 from my ash tray to have a Corona with the girls. As I sat nursing my beer with ‘Bridesmaid’ bedazzled across the chest of my pink tank top, guy came up to me and asked me to dance, he mentioned it was his 21st birthday… which had me thinking, ‘What is the official definition of a Cougar? And dear Lord… I’m not one right?!?’

A few more hours passed and I realized that I could not afford $35 for the hotel. Parking costs had chewed threw my money. When I pulled out of the garage, the kind and generous parking man gave me a discount from $54 to $30. Maybe he saw the shock register on my face – or maybe it was because I had my car loaded with bridesmaids in the same pink tank tops giving him Colgate smiles while winking flirtatiously.

I survived the weekend on $56.

And… it wasn’t so bad.

Posted by Beks on August 10, 2009 at 5:00 AM in Life Experiences, Living Frugal, Saving Money, Spending Money | 5 Comments »
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Demanding Satisfaction…

I mentioned my disappointment with the Target brand sunblock in my Picks and Pans last week. Fern, a savvy reader, suggested I contact the company and share my disappointment.

Well, I didn’t want to take an empty can of sunblock back to the store so I wrote an e-mail to Target. It was friendly and praising of their other products but asked for them to consider dropping or changing this particular product.

I didn’t expect to hear anything…

But I did.

Target wrote me an incredibly friendly e-mail and promised to look into my complaint. Two short days later, I received a full refund and yet another friendly letter in the mail.

I have always been a HUGE Target fan. They donate to local charities, have impressive customer service, and they save my budget every month. Add this surprisingly friendly response and…

Target, you have my lifetime stamp of approval.

A special thanks to Fern who let me know that, yes, it’s OK to complain sometimes.

Posted by Beks on August 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM in Good Info, Life Experiences, Living Frugal, Saving Money | 2 Comments »
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Changes in Eating Habits…

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in two weddings in the next 9 weeks. At the bridesmaid dress fitting for wedding number one, the store smartly ordered a size four. A few weeks later, at a fitting for wedding number two, the attendant measured me at a size two. Rather than object and say, ‘I know my body and I know it sure as hades isn’t a size two’, I said, ‘I’ll take one in every color.’

The size four dress arrived for wedding number one and it fits perfectly… which of course means…

I’m in trouble. Sure, I can get the size two dress on, but it presents the very ‘minor’ problem of the inability to breathe.

So I have two options. Lose weight OR pay a small fortune to alter the dress for wedding number two. In light of my financial situation, I thought it best to lose some weight.

I have dieted exactly one time in my life and the diet lasted 4 hours before I broke down and ate a large order of carne asada fries. And it’s not that I haven’t needed to diet. I gained 20 pounds in college and kept the weight on for three years. But… self control isn’t my strong suit.

I’ve been using the Lose It! program I recommended in an earlier post and have been carefully monitoring my caloric intake. By dinner time, I’m left with a dismal 300 calories and my debate is usually a toss up between a green salad with goat cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing or two glasses of wine. It’s not a tough guess as to which one regularly wins.

It’s been a week and all I can think about is food.

But I’m sticking with it…. at least for another four hours.

Posted by Beks on July 31, 2009 at 5:00 AM in About Me, Life Experiences, Saving Money | 18 Comments »
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Picks and Pans…

We all buy things we love AND things we hate. Maybe you need to be warned about the carpet shampooer that eats rugs or maybe you need to know about a great grocery dinner deal.

Here are some things that really stuck out to me this week:

PICKS:
Lose It! by FitNow, Inc.
Unfortunately this iTunes application is limited for use on iPhones or iTouch iPods but the good news is… its’ FREE. This application/program is great at helping you monitor portions and nutritional content of nearly everything you eat. It has a huge reference library of restaurant nutritional information and of everyday items from the grocery store. Users simply enter their height/weight information, the types of nutritional content they want to monitor, and their weight loss goals. While I don’t need to lose weight, this program is valuable to me since I want to monitor my fat, protein, and fiber intake for my marathon training. Diabetics can also benefit since this program monitors carbohydrates and sugars. I am now more aware of what I’m eating and how I can make small changes to my eating habits to make a healthier me.

PANS:
Sun Block by Target
I’m a HUGE fan of Target brand products. I like them just as much, if not more, than the name brands. Plus, the cost savings helps stretch my miniscule budget. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed with their sun block. We took this sun block with us on our beach camping vacation and quickly discovered it was a waste of money. Our first clue should have been its label ‘water resistant’ and not ‘waterproof’ like the other sun block products. It washed off at the slightest sweat and did not hold up at all to a quick dip in the ocean. If you plan on not swimming or sweating, it’s great. I don’t know about you, but when I wear sun block… I’m in the sun. And, the sun is hot. In heat, I sweat… er… ‘glow’. I’m fairly certain that’s normal. Sorry Target, head back to the drawing board.

What are your picks and pans this week?

Posted by Beks on July 27, 2009 at 5:00 AM in Free Stuff, Good Info, Living Frugal, Picks and Pans, Saving Money, Spending Money | 3 Comments »
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Shameless Money Saving on Vacation…

We saved quite a bit of money on our vacation this year. I’m not sure if I want to tell you how, because when I said ‘shameless’… I meant it.

Camping allowed us the opportunity to cook our own food. We met up with friends before leaving and shopped for food together. We purchased only what we needed and divided the tab by 6. Each meal? Around $2-$3. We didn’t count this as an added expense since we used the money from our grocery budget – and actually spent less than we would have had we cooked for just the two of us at home. We brought a few bottle of wine and jugs of water from home. We did go out to dinner one night – to Carl’s Jr. – and we counted that in the $38 total spent.

Showers were 25 cents for 2 ½ minutes. I was more than willing to pay for warm water but my frugal husband showered in the cold shower by the beach for free. I’m not going to lie, it looked a little odd when he washed off his Irish Spring soap while surfers waited to rinse their boards.

When we booked the campsite 6 months ago, my husband cut some hefty branches off our trees. He stacked them along a shady side of our house for the last few months and we used them to fuel our campfire each night. People asked us why we were storing firewood when we don’t have a fireplace and we got more than one weird expression when we told them it was for our camping trip… in six months. But we saved a fortune by using a little elbow grease and cutting our own firewood. We didn’t have to buy any!

When it came to camping supplies, we didn’t have much. We own a tent and a portable grill but that’s about it. My brothers fiancé’s family is an experienced group of campers. Rather than purchase new items, we borrowed their shade tents, pots, pans, cups, games, and portable tables. One rule about borrowing – make sure you return the items cleaner than when you first received them and if you borrow something that requires any sort of fuel, fill it up before returning it. Also, return the item within a day or two after you come home.

The campsite was over an hour from our home. I wasn’t prepared for an added gas expense and was surprised when I realized… I didn’t have to be! We brought our bikes and traveled solely by ‘pedal power’ after we arrived. The truck stayed parked at the campsite and my car stayed home the entire week. With both of our cars parked, we saved money on gas!

So what did we spend the $38 on?

$18 on a game of golf at a beautiful municipal course.
$10 at Carl’s Jr. (I ordered a kids meal and he had a sandwich).
$10 on a t-shirt from an outlet store.

Sure, camping isn’t my vacation of choice, but I had a great time and spent far less money than I have ever spent on a weeklong vacation by the beach.

Posted by Beks on July 20, 2009 at 5:00 AM in Good Info, Life Experiences, Living Frugal, Saving Money, Spending Money | 4 Comments »
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