Pinching pennies ain't for sissies

An after a year...where am I?

2012-01-10T12:15:00.000-04:00

To be honest, I'm not where I hoped to be. I still have debt and I spent more at Christmas than I hoped to.

BUT I have a plan, and I have curbed eating out quite so much. I'm bringing lunch way more often than I buy it, and I went from driving to taking the dreaded bus.

Hoping to move into a larger space later this Spring and get a roommate. That will really help me save away the money to pay off the rest of my debt and save for a house. It also will have its own laundry, so no more saving coins. If I implement my austerity measures in full force along with the roommate deal, I'll be ready to buy a house in 2 years.

One of the things I would like to focus on as I resume this blog is healthy and cost-effective eating and recipes. I do like to cook, and am often mystified by people who would rather buy convenience foods than cook something themselves.

For example, I bought a Nova Scotia (buy local!) ham, a smaller one, for $10. I had a meal from it last night and tonight I'm making pea soup with it. About $7 worth of ham, $2 worth of peas, $2 worth of potatoes and carrots and water will have me rolling in pea soup for the rest of the week plus some for the freezer.

Recipe:
2-3 cups of diced, cooked ham. (Or you can put in a ham bone with meat on it)
1 1/2 cups of diced potatoes
1 cup of diced carrots
(you can put in 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion - I use powder)
1 pound split peas (I prefer green, but you can use mixed or yellow)
10-12 cups of water

Salt, pepper, onion powder.

Put in slow cooker on high for about four hours or low for 6-8 hours (all day).

Yum. Happy eating and saving.

Lack of posting....my bad

2012-01-10T12:02:00.001-04:00

Hi there...my blog was shut down by Google for reasons still unknown to me, then I got busy writing my Masters Thesis and gave up on it.

I hope to resurrect it soon!

Thanks for following,
Lori

It all adds up so quickly!

2011-03-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

So, for the last few days, I have been lax.

Really lax.

Combination of traveling for work and not following my cooking routine have meant eating out too often and not sticking to my "bring your breakfast & lunch to work" plan.

I thought I would share so you can see just how easily careless spending adds up in a short time.

I put a lot on Visa so I can better track my spending, then I pay it off. What I saw when I raised my head and looked was amazing. $400 in just under 2 weeks in take-out, dining out, a few days of parking and other spending. That is a month's worth of payments to the "house fund". Gone. Some of the food wasn't even all that great.

I'm traveling for work (at least I'm reimbursed for meals and mileage) until Tuesday, then it's back on track. Bus, portable coffee, and meals at home.

The good news is that as quickly as bad spending habits add up, so do good spending habits. I can't get the $400 back but I can make sure I don't spend that recklessly in the future!

On another note, check out this website that has the top 50 healthy and frugal foods you can buy. I plan on taking the list when I go grocery shopping on Tuesday!

Happy pinching!

Lori

http://factoidz.com/the-healthiest-frugal-foods/

Bulk buying or bulk wasting?

2011-02-15T13:30:00.000-04:00

Since entering my "frugal" journey, I have had lots of people caution me on the evils of bulk buying. Some never buy products in bulk, while others like me are just careful what we buy.

For starters, I buy a lot of my food as locally as possible. But local, for some things, can be very expensive. So I do have, and use, a Costco membership, and I also go to Bulk Barn.

A girl living on her own does not need 2 litres of chocolate syrup at a time, or a litre of jam. I don't buy these things. Here are some of the things that I have found are very cost-effective to buy at Costco or Bulk Barn:

1. Some meat. Where else are you ever going to find 10 large boneless skinless chicken breasts for $26? They're $8 for two at the grocery store. It's a 50% savings. I freeze them in packages of 2. Bang-o.

2. Toilet paper. 36 double rolls for $16. 'Nuff said. It does not go bad. Sometimes paper towels and tissues are good, but I find the napkins way more expensive in bulk. Plus, who needs 500 napkins unless you're a total piggy.

3. Some canned goods. I don't buy the ginormous size cans, but multiple cans, for the right price, are useful.

4. Dried beans, etc. at Bulk Barn. Best value going. Also flour, grains, etc. are a good deal, and less packaging in many cases than traditional variety.

5. Baking supplies. I use Splenda and Costco, hands down, is the cheapest place to get the baking size of that product. Also good deals on Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar and other things I use a lot of.

The key, I suppose, is to know your grocery store prices for things, your general uses of products, and compare, compare, compare. Always remember that anything that you buy and toss is money wasted, not money saved.

Here's a great article by one of my favourite blogs on the subject.

http://www.wisebread.com/the-4-myths-of-buying-in-bulk-dispelled

Sometimes you really don't know it all

2011-01-11T10:08:00.000-04:00

I am trying to do two things at one time: save for a house and pay off what's left of my debt.

Actually I have done pretty well paying off debts, student loans are gone...couple of credit cards paid off and cut up. Tuition costs have added up over the past few years in my M.A. course, which, thankfully, is nearly done.

I haven't really evaluated my financial plan as thoroughly as perhaps I should, so I made an appointment to talk to a financial advisor at the bank. Turns out that was a really smart move.

Not only does she have some great advice on reducing my interest payments so I can pay off the last credit card that much sooner, she also came up with a plan to maximize the interest I earn on my savings, and build it up faster!

We're meeting again on Friday to move things over and around and whatever else needs to happen, but I'm transferring the credit card to a line of credit which will save over 6% interest. I'm changing my savings account to a kind that will pay better interest, so my savings will grow.

She confirmed that I should be in a good place to buy a house in about 18 months to two years. That fits into my plans really nicely. It's funny, but now that I have a goal in mind, making all these decisions just seems easier.

Oh, and day 9 without spending anything on eating out. Back to the bus/ferry at the end of the month, too, which costs $70 versus $270 to drive ($140 for parking, $100 for gas and $30 for bridge crossings.) That's $200 more a month into the house fund!

A note on the bus - it sucks. There's no way around it. BUT, with my IPod, a book, and a lot of research that found a relatively painless way using the ferry, it's not too bad. Bonus? In bad weather, I don't have to navigate the streets!

Learning from our elders.

2011-01-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

Boy you have to give it to the Depression generation. They knew how to make a dollar stretch well beyond all expectations. They had to.

My grandparents were Depression survivors. They were never-use-a-credit-card, every dollar in the bank, pay cash or do without types. Grampy was a machinist and Grammie was primarily a homemaker, but she did work in a nursing home for a few years. When they died, they left a tidy estate for their children.

There are lessons to learn here, from a recovering member of the "I want it now - here's my Visa" generation - with a bit more moderation perhaps.

* Eat at home. Grammie and Grampy almost never ate out and if they did, it was inexpensive. For their 50th anniversary, he took her for lunch at the Met (1980s Canadian version of WalMart)for an egg salad sandwich. I think the lesson here is to make eating out special. Maybe a little more special than the Met.

* If it works, use it. If it's broken, fix it. Don't throw anything out. Cleaning out their house was a nightmare. If the toaster was beyond repair, keep it, because you might be able to salvage something from it to fix the next toaster. I remember Grampy sharpening the 4 for $1 paring knives til they looked like prison shivs. I do toss stuff, as I don't want to appear on Season 4 of Hoarders. However, I have a 20-year-old flat screen TV I got for $25 in a broken relationship revenge sale. As tempting as it is to buy a new HDTV, that isn't happening until this one dies, may it live healthy for years yet.

* Enjoy the simple things. My grandmother didn't need to rent movies, go out to dinner or movies, or other expensive activities. She did crafts, cooking, and volunteering. Grampy mostly watched the Weather Channel in his later years, but he used to go fishing, hunting, camping, etc. Neither of them traveled off the North American continent in their lifetime, but they were happy. I'd like to travel someday, but if home ownership means waiting a few years to do that, I'm cool.

* Pay in cash, and save your change. I actually have done the change thing for years. One time Grampy gave me the contents of one of his change jars (they were peanut cans, coffee tins, wood bowls - whatever) and it was something like $75.00. Not a bad haul when you're 12, and that was before loonies and toonies. I save the non-laundry change and it does add up. Not millions, but something. And you don't miss it! I don't pay cash much, because of safety concerns. My new habit is to keep only what I budget for spending and paying bills in my chequing, and put the rest into savings. It helps.

Oh, and it's Day 3 of the no-eating-out challenge. Success again. I have maybe $5 in change in my wallet, at the most, and I have not needed or wanted to get any cash to have in it. I don't need it. Zero spending until Sunday. So far, so good, and it feels AWESOME.

Happy saving!

From spender to saver - a social experiment

2011-01-05T12:19:00.000-04:00

Some people are thrifty savers. Others are reckless spenders. At 41, sliding towards 42, I fall somewhere in between - an apathetic financial planner with aspirations of saving.

The fact that my retirement plan is WalMart Greeter should give you a pretty good picture. I have paid off my student loans, but a return to school for a Masters Degree has accrued a little bit of debt, along with my car loan. Not horrible, but not where I want to be.

I do have a modest savings account, called my "House Fund". After eight years of renting, I want to buy my first house in 2012. In order to do this, I need to rein in my spending, build my savings, and pay off my debt.

So I'm beginning a social experiment. How many ways can I reduce expenses, pay off debt, and add to the "house fund"? I'll dig up some of the best advice, try different ways to reduce my spending, and share updates. Maybe it'll be helpful to my fellow future WalMart Greeter colleagues.

Step One: Food, glorious food.

One of my very worst habits is eating out. Not just lunch, but breakfast/coffee most mornings and sometimes supper is takeout. Living alone, and working a crazy schedule (plus school work and church stuff), it is an easy temptation. Sadly, I love to cook, but I go through phases where I just don't do it.

Meanwhile the well-intentioned grocery purchases go rotten in the fridge.

So, for health and financial reasons, this is my first target. Starting on January 4th, I challenged myself to see how long I could go without eating out. No morning coffees/bagels at work, no lunches, and no takeout on the way home. No restaurants. My goal is to go at least to the 9th without eating out. (I have a planned church lunch on the 9th).

The results are quite telling. Usual morning Tim's habit is about $4-5, lunch is seldom under $10 and I eat downstairs about 3 times/week on average. I usually eat dinner out twice during the week and twice on weekends.

Savings this week:
Timmies avoided: $20.00
Lunch at café downstairs: $30.00
Eat at home every night this week: $40.00
Only eat out once this weekend: $15.00

For the House Fund: $105.00

Next post: transit sucks, but it's cheap, dammit.

What I learned in my 30s

2009-05-14T13:33:00.000-03:00

Here are some of the lessons I have learned in my 40 years. While we each have our own lessons to learn, I thought I'd share what the 30s taught me:

Grey hairs don't matter: grey matter matters

Life is too short to carry a grudge, feel guilty about eating cheesecake, or worry about housework too much.

Past disagreements feel pretty stupid when a parent is lying on their deathbed.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you care about them.

Besides telling the people that you love them, try telling them you admire them, respect them, cherish them or value them. It feels really good to say and even better to hear.

Worrying about what people think leads to inaction, low self-esteem and wasted energy.

Nine times out of ten they don't even think what you think they are thinking.

Persistent and silly relatives who take it upon themselves to convince you to marry and have babies can be instantly stopped with two words (whether they are true or not): I'm barren.

Buying the newest and the best of everything is not nearly as rewarding as giving your best to the people who matter in your life.

Unless you live in Japan, you don't have a grownup apartment until the futon dies.

When we encounter pain in life, it has the ability to make us better people or make us bitter people. If you have any say in the matter, choose better.

Each of us is one trip on the stairs or one critical health episode away from losing our intellect, independence and mobility. Use what you got while you got it and don't take it for granted!

Even the most horrible, nasty, grouchy person is a vulnerable human being somewhere underneath.

No matter how much you want to, you can't make everyone like you. So stop trying and focus on liking yourself.

It takes way too much energy to live with regrets. Learn to forgive others and even more importantly, learn to forgive yourself.