frugal living

Storing Food

Every year, about the time the kids head back to school, Macey’s grocery store has a Case Lot sale where I can buy large quantities of food for reduced prices. I always stock up on the stuff that will keep for six months to a year. This kind of stocking up is often called “emergency preparedness” but really I do it because it is a way to lower my grocery bill all year long. Also it means that I don’t have to go to the store as often since I have so many staples stashed away. We have a small storage room in our basement that is devoted to this food storage. It has big shelves covering the walls so that I can stack the food in easy-to-see rows.

Last year I went shopping as usual, but I was too busy and stressed to unload all the cans from their boxes and onto the shelves. I meant to, but instead the boxes got stacked in the corner of my office. I periodically fished through the stacks of food to fish out cans, but this past year was not notable for the amount of actual cooking that I did, so mostly the stacks just sat. Today I finally made the shelves full and the boxes empty. It is wonderful to see all the food organized again. And now I can see clearly what I need to stock up on at this year’s sale (green beans, corn, chili, peaches) and what I should not bother to buy again (Mac & cheese. Only Gleek likes it anymore and we still have bunches of it.)

This year I’ll empty the boxes right away and I’ll even get back to scribbling the purchase price on the tops of the cans before I load them onto the shelves. Writing the prices on the items helps me keep fresh in my mind what a really good price for that item is. That way I don’t get fooled by those sales which seem like a good deal, but really aren’t. The sad thing is that there is not much that I need to buy. We still have plenty of almost everything. I really need to cook more this year.

Fall resolutions

The past month has been expensive. We knew it was going to be. We talked and planned and calculated carefully. The two hotel bills will be covered by profits from the respective conventions. The down payment on the next book has been planned for. The repairs to the vehicles were not a surprise nor were the bills for eating out while traveling and the gas it took to get there and back. But it is one thing to carefully plan and calculate in advance. It is quite another to have all those bills come due nigh simultaneously. The tab was over five figures. I am suddenly inspired to re-institute many frugal habits which fell by the wayside while we were so stressed and busy.

The timing on the intention is good. The kids start school tomorrow and we’re going to be settling into a new life rhythm. I can build frugality right into the pattern. The first place to start is with meals. I need to be cooking from scratch rather than grabbing from the freezer. With life moving a little slower, I should have time to do the advance planning that cooking requires. Cooking gets difficult when Kids are already poinging around the kitchen complaining of starvation. I also need to clean. Howard’s office, my office, the pantries, the linen closet, the kids’ closets, all are in dire need of reorganization. I want to throw things out. Getting rid of stuff makes me feel in control of my life and it reduces the visual/emotional clutter. Lots has accumulated over the months of busy. It is time to clear out and to spend less.

Schedule shifting

I’m on day 3 of a new year. There are things I’m trying to do different, better. Last year was full of business, and schlock books, and writing. It had very little household or financial management. We weren’t complete spendthrifts, but our financial situation this January is not as good as it was last January. I spent a lot of energy last year trying to help bring in more money. But that left no one paying attention to making the money we have last longer. We’re not in financial trouble, but next year I want to look back and see our debt measurably reduced. I want to look at our house and see repairs rather than damages. I want to look at the kids and know that I’ve really done right by them.

It is daunting how many things I must help my children learn. Piles of stuff is covered in school. But I undermine that if I’m too distracted or stressed to make the kids do their homework. And what of all the things that are not covered in school? Simple hygiene for instance. Somehow my kids have not managed to learn how to flush toilets with any regularity. When they do flush, they often clog the toilet with enormous wads of toilet paper. And then there other things like bathing regularly, brushing teeth, changing underwear, picking up toys, washing hands, clearing food from the table, wiping up what you spilled. My kids consider all of these things as optional. Someone has to explain to them why these things are important. Someone has to be paying enough attention to require them to come back and do it right. Someone has to sit with them at dinner and teach by example how to hold a polite dinner conversation. Someone has to fix regular meals and require them to eat so that they have a clue what healthy eating habits look like. Someone has to make them go to bed even though they don’t want to.

Howard and I both feel like we need to be more focused on these things. We also need to be more focused on taking care of our own health. We’ve done lots of pondering and talking to figure out how to restructure our days to make it work. Howard is shifting around his work schedule to make space for designated family times. I am too. We have a plan and we think it will work. Only time will tell.

Unfortunately in this schedule shifting I have to curtail my attendance at writer’s group. I might be able to make an occasional meeting, but I can’t go weekly anymore. This makes me very sad, but it doesn’t change my decision because I believe the decision is the right one. Fortunately the group seems willing to let me be an absentee member and give responses by email. This is in no way the same. I’ll miss out on all the laughter and off-topic conversations. I’ll miss out on the camaraderie. I’ll miss hearing the stories about how everyone’s lives are going. I’ll miss the way that one idea sparks a different one as part of a lively discussion. But at least I’ll still get to read the submissions and maybe come summertime I’ll be able to shift the schedule in a way that makes room for me to go more often. Maybe by then I’ll have all this other stuff under better control.

I’ve already gotten started on the new focus. I sat down yesterday and made a meal plan for the entire month. This increases the likelyhood of me cooking dinner by 90% or so. Without a plan I spend an hour staring at the cupboards hoping that inspiration will strike and then deciding that maybe cereal is an acceptable dinner food after all. The meal plan also lets me shop ahead for the groceries we’ll need. In theory this lets me buy when things are on sale so we spend less. It also means I’m buying more ingredients rather than convenience foods, which is also cheaper. Next month I’ll just use the same meal plan with only a few tweaks representing the success or failure of attempted meals. It’s a start anyway.

Hi. I’m Sandra and I’m a frugality slacker

Our family has been very busy lately. All the kids have activities, Howard is trying to put out his next book, and I’m trying to put out a book as well. We all spend a lot of time running here, there, and everywhere trying to get it all done. But recently I’ve had this feeling that I’ve been slacking. Specifically I’ve been slacking on doing the activities that help us live within our still slim budget. I’ve been buying time for my projects. I mean that literally. If I spend time formatting pages for my book instead of planning ahead for meals I inevitably end up choosing a pricier dinner option. So spending time on my projects costs our family money. I don’t intend to give up on my projects, but I should be making space for more frugal activities. With that in mind, I’m writing a list to remind myself what they are.

Frugal Activities I should be doing more often:

Gardening– specifically vegetable gardening. Right now we have no veggies planted. I need to get on this very soon or I need to accept that we’ll have no garden this year.

Garage Sales — This is where christmas came from two years in a row. Last Christmas we spent money, but I should probably still create a “looking for” list and hit some sales.

Menu planning — meals are more likely to be inexpensive if I plan them more than 10 minutes before I have to serve them.

Reading grocery store sales fliers — If I don’t read them I don’t know when the foods we eat are for sale at cheap prices. I should be buying in bulk when the prices are cheap.

Tracking food inventory — If I don’t keep track of what we have, then we run out of things. Then we run to the store and buy replacements despite the premium costs and the extra gas used. If I know I’m running low, then I can watch for sales and buy in bulk.

Repairing things when they first show signs of wear– If I repair frayed clothing then I never have ripped clothing and it lasts longer. Minor repairs can sometimes prevent major replacement costs.

Walking instead of driving — I can’t do this for all the places I go, but there are many places that I can. When I can, I should.

Tis the season

I went to the grocery store yesterday. It was cold and rainy outside. I walked into the warm, to confront a huge holiday display complete with live music. My first reaction was to mentally check the calendar and realize that it is indeed that time of year. Somehow I still felt like we were in October. As I walked past the big display I could feel my body relaxing. I could feel that holiday cozy feeling trying to settle in. I could feel my desire to frivolously spend money increasing.

That’s when I realized it. Huge holiday displays and music and smells are actually a form of psychological warfare. The stores are attempting to assault my budget to capture my funds. They’re trying to turn me into a quisling. We have all been conditioned over the years to associate holiday displays with spending money. We get all warm and fuzzy with our desire to give gifts to those we love.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the warm and fuzzy. I love the feel of the holiday season. I just need to make sure that I can enjoy the holidays without changing my spending habits. Yes I can buy gifts, or materials to make gifts. Yes I can buy treats to make the holidays special. But I need to buy what I intend to buy, not on impulse because the colors and sounds make me feel warm and fuzzy. Our budget is no longer insanely tight, but we can’t afford to spend whimfully.

Looking ahead to Christmas

Last year we spent less than $100 to provide Christmas for our family. It was a very difficult task which involved me combing through garage sales every week for months to find hidden treasures. I did it because I had to. This time last year we were living off of savings. Not only that, but we couldn’t see any way to replenish those savings in enough time to prevent running out. We drew a financial line after which Howard would have to seek outside employment rather than depending upon cartooning. That deadline loomed and I was desperate to keep it as far away as possible.

This year our situation is very different. We successfully self-published the first Schlock book. We’re on the edge of publishing the next one. Our budget is still necessarily tight, but the future is open and free of that we’re-out-of-money deadline. Without desperation driving me, I simply haven’t been going to garage sales this year. I”m still collecting stuff that I run across, but I’m not seeking out things to acquire. This means that as Christmas draws closer we’ll be spending money. I figure the budget for this Christmas will be around $500. And that probably won’t include travel expenses for going to my parent’s house. Compared to last year this proposed budget seems extravagant.

Part of me feels a little guilty about the difference between last year and this year. There were some truly wonderful things that occurred because I was so focused on not spending money. I want to find a way to keep those good things without having to work quite so hard. I’m not sure whether that will be possible. After so much time spent squeezing every penny, it feels like cheating for me to spend money to solve so small a problem as Christmas gifts. Part of my brain is convinced that the right way to do Christmas is the way I did it last year. A very different part of my brain is very glad that I can relax and not work so hard.

A third part of my brain is wondering why on earth we’re spending so much energy thinking about Christmas at the beginning of September.

two things that puzzle me

Frequently I’ll be talking with a friend or neighbor and they’ll have to leave because they have to run to the grocery store before dinner. They declare that unless they go to the store they won’t have anything to cook for dinner. This puzzles me greatly. Particularly when the person I’m talking to is a fellow mormon and theoretically has a year’s supply of food stashed away. I can only assume that what they actually lack is a few key ingredients for their planned menu. I’ve made that kind of run myself in the days when cash flowed more freely. These days I don’t run to the store on a whim. Each trip to the store costs me time, money, and the risk of being tempted to buy something impulsively. If I am lacking a key ingredient I either substitute or fix something else. This means we eat a fair number of experimental meals, but mostly they turn out pretty good. Practice has given me a basic sense of which substitutions will work and which will result in disposal fodder. Using what I have rather than running to the store is a basic tenet of my frugal budget.

Another thing that puzzles me is the assertion that I hear from many people that eating healthy is more expensive than other eating. One of the first things I did when trimming my food budget was to eliminate pre-processed foods. I started buying only ingredients and fixing the food myself. This completely eliminated most of the junk food that my family was consuming. Candy, chips, twinkies, fruit punch, and chicken nuggets all became things of the past. Instead we eat cheese macaroni, ramen, rice based dishes, potato based dishes, soups, and lots of canned fruits and vegetables. Howard eats lots more meats than the rest of us, especially when on an Atkins style diet. We are spending far less money than we used to do and we are eating far healthier. The biggest food budget expenses are for meats and fresh fruits/veggies. We have more of the latter in the summer when we can grow them ourselves. In the winter we stick to canned. Meat we buy on sale and freeze it until we’re ready to use it. I guess the difference is in how you define “healthy.” I believe it is possible to have a healthy diet without eating fish twice a week. I tend to watch fads in healthy eating come and go while I stick to basics. I also don’t believe that there is a magical balanced diet that will prevent all ills. Pretty good is good enough.

Hot Pockets, and Nuggets, and Chimichangas, Oh My!

In anticipation of the stressful week that we just survived, Howard and I purchased frozen food. We bough frozen lasagnas, chicken nuggets, hot pockets, and chimichangas. These are all items that we haven’t had for nigh two years because they’re too expensive. BUT this purchasing decision was actually the frugal decision, because while Hot Pockets are more expensive than home cooking, they are far cheaper than fast food or delivered pizza. We knew we would not have time, energy, or brainspace to cook. Also we didn’t want to have the added stress of having to negotiate the eating of food with children who’d rather do something else.

Sure enough, the kids wolfed down these food items with relish. Patches is young enough that he doesn’t remember the days when this was standard fare, but he’s definitely found a new favorite food group called “chicken nuggets.” Kiki rejoiced at the return of her beloved Hot Pockets. Link felt the same way about the chicken nuggets. Gleek actually sat still to eat these foods rather than bouncing around the room between bites. All of this forced me to remember why I served them so often during the Novell years. They were so convenient and argument free. Unfortunately convenience is expensive. With home cooked meals I can usually feed the whole family for $2 or less. Chimichangas cost $.90 each and our family will eat 8 or more during one meal. Fast food runs us $15 or more for one meal. We saved money by planning ahead for stressful times. (I would have saved even more by planning further ahead and freezing home cooked meals, but that just didn’t happen this time around.)

Today we ate up the last of the frozen pre-prepared food. All along we’ve been telling our kids that we bought these foods as treats for during “book week.” I fully expect to hear requests for more of them in the near future. I won’t be buying them. The point of a treat is that it is rare and special. If kids get chicken nuggets every day, then chicken nuggets stop being a treat. If kids get candy every day, then it stops being a treat. “daily treat” is something of an oxymoron, or at least it should be. I thought about keeping a stock of chicken nuggets in the freezer for “emergencies,” but when I KNOW there are nuggets in the freezer “emergency” gets redefined to mean “I don’t feel like cooking today.” If I don’t have convenient foods in the freezer I muddle through on cheaper options despite being tired. We’ll get more of these frozen foods when next we have a “book week.” Hopefully that will be within the next 6 months.

Why you should save

I recently heard a radio program which was lamenting the negative savings rate in America. The guest was an author of a book about saving for retirement and naturally had lots of opinions on the subject. As usual she was touting her book and was giving tips on how listeners could improve their financial situation and save money. Among the tips were: Setting up an automatic debit from paycheck into savings account. Only having one credit card. Using cash to purchase whenever possible. Impose a waiting period on purchases to avoid impulse spending. and doing the math on a purchase to figure out the final price with interest.

All of these tips are good, but I’ve heard them all before in many different iterations. Every book or expose or report I hear, watch, or read, gives tips such as these and emphasizes how important it is for people to save money. What none of these reports, or books, or exposes make clear is why people should save money. Well okay, they say “for retirement,” but what is “retirement” to the average 30 year old? It is forever away. People need to stop saving for “retirement” and instead save for something specific.

So ask yourself, what is your dream? Do you dream of owning a farm in the countryside? Figure out how much it will cost to buy and to run, then save money hand over fist to make it happen. Set a goal that by age 60 you’ll be able to afford that farm and have enough money to keep it running for the rest of your life. Do you dream of taking a trip around the world? Do some research. Figure how much it will cost and set a goal for when you’ll have that money saved. Do you dream of never having to work again? Figure out how much money you need to have saved so that you can live on the interest. Do you dream of making pottery and selling it? Figure out how much money you need to have saved so that you can live on it for two years while your pottery business gets off the ground. Do you dream of owning a fancy car? Figure how much it will cost to buy it and maintain it, then save for that.

The key here is to plan ahead. When Howard and I got married we had several goals. We wanted Howard to be able to earn his living creatively. We wanted to own a house. We wanted to have several children. We structured all of our spending to accomodate those goals. When Howard got a pay raise we wouldn’t raise our standard of living much, mostly we’d save it against a planned goal. Even when we had the house and the kids, we still spent carefully because we had the dream of Howard being able to make a living as a cartoonist. We did spend some money on luxuries like nice furniture and new cars, but each of these purchases was balanced against the larger goal. Each time we carefully considered whether the expense added more value to our lives than having Howard work from home would. Eventually we reached the day when Howard quit Novell. That was scary and I confess I did some second guessing about some of the things we’d chosen to spend money on. But we’ve scraped by and it looks like we’ll get to keep on going.

Don’t just save for “retirement” save for something specific. Know what your dreams are and take steps to make them reality.

Thrift Shop Bonanza

When the weather is nice we walk to church. I like walking with my children in their Sunday best and looking at flowers or just generally being outdoors. Yesterday on the walk to church I was watching Link running ahead of me and I realized that his church pants are a couple inches too short. So is his tie. And the pants have pills all over them. This realization wouldn’t be so bad, except that I’ve had the exact same realization several weeks in a row. One of my hot items for garage sales was new church clothes for Link, but I didn’t get lucky.

Today I decided to bite the bullet and go to a thrift store to see what I could find. I mentally planned to spend about $10 on pants, a tie, and maybe a shirt. I was headed to the boy’s clothes section when I noticed little signs saying “All purple tags $.99.” I started with dress pants, then I rummaged shorts, then dress shirts, then girls clothes, then coats, and mens clothes… you get the idea. Fortunately I had my “looking for” list with me, so I was able to quickly determine what sections to comb carefully and what to just skim. Items we could use that had purple tags, went into the cart until the cart was piled high and I was tired.

I went in mentally cringing at spending $10. I walked out after spending $30. But for that thirty dollars I got:
8 coats (yes coats, nice winter coats for kids to grow into)
3 sweatshirts
6 pairs of boys shorts
1 skirt
2 pairs dress pants for Link
1 tie (This is the only item that didn’t have a purple tag, but it was also the only child sized tie available)
2 boy’s dress shirts
1 turtleneck

I was thrilled with this haul and I asked the lady at the register how often they do this kind of sale. Apparently Savers does this every Monday. They have 5 tag colors and each of the colors goes on sale in rotation. This completely changes my clothes shopping strategy. Instead of driving around hitting garage sales every weekend, I need to be hitting Savers every Monday. Lot’s less gas involved, and it’s air conditioned. I’ll still hit garage sales for other things, and I won’t pass up cheap clothes if I find them, but now I know where I can find a steady supply.

Now if only I can find a set of bunk beds with the tag of the week on them. (I know, not likely, but I can dream)