frugal living

Today I sat down and let Kiki teach me how to knit. She’s been wanting to do it for weeks, but we’ve never made space for it. As soon as we sat down, Gleek came along and wanted to knit too. Both Kiki and I were completely aware that Gleek does not have the patience nor manual dexterity to manage knitting. Fortunately Kiki had learned a finger “knitting” technique which was not beyond Gleek’s capabilities. Kiki loved teaching it and Gleek glowed at being able to do it. I forsee yarn projects for months to come.

In other news my financial education plan seems to be working. By making sure I pay allowances weekly the kids get into a budgeting mindset rather than a bonus mindset. Kiki scored additional money by selling an unwanted toy to Gleek. I was happy to see the exchange because the toy in question was one that Gleek coveted and Kiki never used, but would defend ferociously if Gleek dared to touch it. Now the toy is Gleek’s and we’ll have more peace. Hopefully.

Kiki has held true to her plan to save for a house like the ones she saw on the way to the zoo. She is setting aside half of what she currently has to put in a savings account to save for her house. A local bank has set up a school savings plan where kids can make deposits to their accounts at school. Kiki plans to use this account to save for her house. I don’t know whether that money will eventually get used for a house, but I love that she is thinking ahead and saving money. The rest of Kiki’s money is going to be spent on supplies for her intended art projects.

Link has become fascinated with the coins themselves. He has decided to start a collection of the 50 states quarters. I’ll be trotting off to a craft store to try to find one of those cheap albums for it. He has also decided to start collecting lincoln pennies. Unfortunately penny albums run about $30, so we’ll just be sticking the pennies to cardstock paper and handwriting dates underneath. It should work fine and if he continues to be interested in coin collecting we can invest in more professional albums later.

Today was much occupied with matters of money.

It began when Kiki decided that she needed more money to fund her new found knitting hobby. She decided that she wanted money for yarn far more than she wanted her collection of Polly Pockets. So she began spinning possibilities for selling the collection. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of ebay, garage sales, and consignment stores. I was worried that she would regret the sale and miss her toys. I mean it was only a couple of months ago that she was avidly saving to buy Polly Pocket sets. I’m not sure who the inspiration struck, but Kiki decided to hold a store for her siblings. She would put prices on the items she wanted to sell and her siblings could bring their allowance and come shopping. I decided to allow this economic exchange provided I was able to supervise all the pricing and sales.

Link, Gleek, and Patches loved shopping in Kiki’s store. Gleek who had left over birthday money acquired all of the Polly Pocket collection for a price of $6. Link acquired some little magic tricks. Patches purchased a bouncy ball. Everyone came away happy. There may be regrets later, but that too will be a learning experience.

I’ve been trying to pay more attention to my children’s economic education. Primarily this means that I am paying out allowances regularly once a week instead of allowing a large pile to accrue before paying up. This means that if they want to fritter thier money away on little stuff they can. If they want to save up for something big it is them saving the money not me. I’ve also instituted a rule that they can only buy something if they have their money with them. I will not loan them money. I’ve tried to be dilligent about making sure the kids bring their money to stores so they can decide whether or not to spend. Then I make them do the paying so that they learn how to make change and handle reciepts. Patches in particular feels very empowered by this. He brings his jar of money to the grocery store and very seriously buys himself a treat in the check out line. I no longer have to say “No we’re not buying that” I just say “spend your own money.”

After the Kiki’s store ran out of merchandise I had to run over to Chalain’s house to help him sort out his business accounts. He’s decided to hire me as a book keeper, so today I got started. It is so satisfying to take a huge pile of paper stress and turn it into neatly organized accounts and thin files of necessary papers. It also feels really good to set up a system that will keep the pile o’ stress from reaccumulating. Just like with Kiki’s store, everyone came away happy.

It’s been a good day.

I have survived the birthday party. My voice is hoarse and I have no motivation to do anything else for the rest of the day, but I have survived. My four kids and six guests attended this party. Howard was in the grip of a scripting jag and was hidden away in his office. Or maybe he was just hiding. Trying to keep 10 kids happy during The Opening of Presents is a huge challenge. Patches did not understand why all the presents were for Gleek. He cried mightily over this unfairness. One of the guests clearly would have preferred to keep the gift she brought. She was ready to cry. In desperation I hollered “Cake & Ice Cream!” then stashed all the opened gifts away under a blanket for the remaining half hour of party time. There was chaos, there was joy, fun was had, everyone went home happy. Mission accomplished.

The party was short (only 90 minutes) because I’m not insane. We decorated butterfly wings cut out of posterboard. Then the girls all wore their wings for some of the games. Naturally they got to take home the wings. Kiki also carefully drew pictures of My Little Ponies and gave one to each girl. Those also went home with the guests. The third take home item was a My Little Pony paper doll that I printed off the internet. Note the similarity here, I gave the guests only paper to take home and they were delighted. I am so sneaky. This party cost $1 for the shiny stickers we put on the butterfly wings, everything else I had on hand already. Add in $2 for the gifts that my other kids gave to Gleek, $1 for the cake mix, and $1.50 for frosting. The total cost of Gleek’s birthday comes to $5.50 and she is the happiest little girl I’ve ever seen. Having a big birthday party has been a big dream of hers for almost a year. Today her dreams came true, she got to be the center of a huge crowd of friends and loved it.

Her actual birthday will be next week. She’ll get to pick what we have for dinner, open her one remaining gift from her grandparents, and be five years old. There won’t be any more cake. Between my birthday cheesecakes and her birthday cake all of us have eaten way too many sweet things. The quiet celebration on her actual birthday will be much more to my taste, but today she got to have the birthday party that she wanted. All is good.

Where I live garage sale season starts in March. It doesn’t get really moving until April or May, but the first sales are there in March. A significant amount of our household needs are supplied from garage sales, so starting in March I’ll be hitting one or two each week. BUT there is no point it going to the sales at all if I don’t know what I am looking for. So I’ve begun compiling my “Looking For” list. Some of these items I hope to find at garage sales, some (like underwear) I hope to find new in a store, but on clearance. The key is to anticipate needs before they arrive and you have to solve the problem today.

With this in mind I began creating an inventory of the kids clothes. I rifle their drawers and laundry baskets to figure out exactly what they have to wear right now. I count short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, short pants, long pants, sweaters, swimsuits, tennis shoes, sandals, church clothes, socks, underwear, and any other clothing item I come across. Then on the same paper in the next column I tally everything the next size that I have in boxes waiting for that child to grow. Gleek is currently size 4T. I have boxes of size 5, 6-6x, 7-8, and 9-10 clothing all waiting for her. I’m not going to need to look for many clothes for her, except for size 5 & 6 short pants which apparently Kiki completely wore out. This is incredibly useful information because when I hit a sale, no matter how cute the clothes are I know I don’t need to buy any pants in size 5 because she’s got 10 pairs waiting. Kiki and Link each have a really long list of the kinds of clothes I’m trying to find for them. Patience will help me find clothes for my kids for $1 or less per item.

Clothes are not the only thing on my “Looking For” list. The biggest item on this year’s list is a set of bunk beds. I need a set for Link and Patches to share. Patches currently sleeps in a toddler bed, but he’ll outgrow that sometime late this year and before he does I need to have bunk beds because that room is too small for a pair of twin beds. I know that I want the bunkbeds to be sturdy and I prefer a wooden frame to a metal one. I want the price to be under $100 (preferrably under $50). Beyond that I’m not picky about style or wear & tear. I’ll watch all summer and only if I’m unable to find this deal will I consider plunking down more money.

Small items make the list too. Things like clothes pins for the clothesline I intend to build, a dish drainer, 2X4 lumber for some projects, and items for next Christmas.

Armed with my list I sift through thrift stores and garage sales much more efficiently. Also I won’t forget what it is that my family could use. Last year I acquired most of the things on my list by August, so I just stopped going to garage sales for the rest of the year.

Last April I had this to say about garage sales:

This morning there were a plethora of garage sales. I left the house to buy gas for the mower and ended up being gone for an hour because I kept driving past sales and stopped to see what was there. I didn’t find any big scores, but I’m slowly accumulating information which I’m using to figure out when a garage sale is worth the time and gas to find. I’m going to list them while they’re in my head so that I don’t forget:

Garage sales which advertise in the paper have more stuff than ones which just throw up a few signs on nearby corners.

Garage sales which run for two days have more stuff than sales which only run for one.

Multi-family sales tend to have more stuff.

Multi-family sales are sometimes annoying because you have to pay more than one person for individual items.

If the sale is more than 5 minutes away by car, it isn’t worth the time and gas.

I don’t have to get all the sales today, there will be more next week, and the one after, and the one after…

It never hurts to see if the seller is willing to accept a lower price.

If the price isn’t listed on the item ask “Would you take…” rather than “How much?”

No garage sale item is worth arguing over. If the seller isn’t willing to come down to a price I’m willing to pay, then I need to walk away.

Garage sales are best first thing in the morning before they have been picked over or after noon when people are tired of sitting in the front yard and just want to get rid of stuff.

I don’t have to hit garage sales every week, I have all summer to slowly collect what I need.

Keep track of the kinds of things I’m looking for so I can make decisions quickly.

Take as few kids with me as I can possibly manage.

Be picky. Just because I have money with me, doesn’t mean I need to buy something.

Any time I’m considering buying something ask myself: “what will I use it for and where will I put it?”

More than once I’ve been asked for tips on how to cut grocery spending. Since that is becoming a frequently asked question I am now creating this entry so that the next time I’m asked it, I can just point the asker here. In fact I’m starting to use the “tag” feature to create a trail of entries on “Frugal Living” If you want to read all the entries, just click the “Frugal Living” link at the end of this entry and you’ll get a list of all the entries I deem to be related to that topic.

Let me say right here, that I’m still learning this whole frugal living stuff. When Howard still worked at Novell our children lived off of storebought chicken nuggets and chimichangas. We ate take out food almost daily in some form or another. I am not trying to set myself up as an Expert or Guru or anything else holier-than-thou. I’m just excited about the topic of saving money on household expenses and I’d like to share some of the stuff that I’ve learned. …

The Frugal PantryRead More »

It’s a new year and I’m newly inspired to do housekeeping and penny saving. Sometimes a small behavioral shift can save significant amounts of money over the course of a year. I just did my year end accounting and got to look at all the numbers for 2005. Some of them I’m proud of ($312 to clothe a family of six all year), some I’m not (did we really spend $11,000 on our vehicles?! Yipe!). I look at the numbers, take a big breath, and move on. At least now I know a little better where to focus my efforts to bring our expenses down. And they must come down if I want to make ends meet through the end of the year.

So, I’ve been cleaning house. How does cleaning save me money? If things are organized around here, then I know what my resources are and I can lay my hands on them quickly when I need them. I need to have working systems for laundry, food inventory, kitchen cleaning, and meal preparation. Fortunately I’ve already got each of these about half done, I just need to clean up the spaces and implement the other half. I’ve been practicing on it this weekend and feeling incredibly domestic. If I succeed in these goals I will have turned into a Domestic Goddess who cooks three healthy meals a day, keeps her kitchen spotless, always has her line-dried laundry done, and tracks her food storage religiously. “Domestic Goddess” is not something I ever really wanted to be. It has a negative connotation to it because it seems somehow “holier than thou.” On the other hand, being that person allows our family to run smoothly on a small income, so like it or not, Domestic Goddess here I come. I hope.

I have a book recommendation for anyone who is unsatisfied with their financial situation. All too often people think that making more money is the solution to their financial problems, and sometimes it can be, but another solution is to spend less. Amy Dacyczyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette can help people accomplish the second. There are actually 3 Tightwad Gazette books, I mention the complete version because it contains all three books and because a very kind friend gave it to me for Christmas.

I first became aware of these books last year during the financial panic of Howard’s departure from Novell. (We knew it was the right decision, but from no angle did it look like a fiscally intelligent one.) A friend recommended I pick one up, and so I checked it out of the library. The book solidified for me many of the ways that I thought about money and spending. It also gave me many tips on specific things I could do to spend less. I would never have been able to pull off a $100 christmas if I hadn’t read Tightwad Gazette. I don’t follow all the tips that it espouses, and some of them seem a little bit extreme, but that’s alright because the attitude toward money and spending is far more important than any specific tip it gives. As Mrs. Dacyczyn says “The tightwad life is not only about spending less…it’s about spending in a way that reflects your values.” If you love dining out expensively, then this book can help you cut other corners to fund that love. If you crave video game consoles, then it can guide you into spending less on groceries. If you want to own a house, it can help you cut other corners to save for a downpayment. Howard and I are cutting corners and “making do” so that he can stay working at home for as long as possible, hopefully indefinitely.

These books are not just for the financially strapped. I wish I had read one 5 years ago. Had I done so, I would have squirreled money away even more diligently creating a larger nest egg and our current financial state would be much more comfortable. We spent money all the time for things that brought us little satisfaction. We had an income of $100,000 per year and spent most of it. Now we are discovering that we can live happily on $35,000 per year and I find myself wondering where the other $65,000 went. (Well a good chunk of it went into taxes, but you get the idea.)

At this point you’ve figured out that I’m a big fan of these books. You should check one out of your local library or use the amazon.com link on Howard’s site to buy one online. Some of the used copies at amazon are selling for only pennies because other people feel as strongly about these books as I do and they want to pass on the goodness to others who need it.

This year we provided Christmas for our family for less than $100. It occurs to me that others might need/want to be able to do this as well, so I’m writing this report. …

$100 Christmas ReportRead More »

Sadly, I have now run out of Appalachian Rosemary cheese. It came as part of a gift for Howard, but I claimed it once I tasted it. He claimed the Grayson, so we were both happy. Only now I’ve run out. sigh. Expensive cheese is one of the things I miss now that we haven’t money to spare.

Another thing I’ve missed is the Carl’s Junior guacamole burger. I got to have one today because Howard’s sister treated all of us to lunch. It was a fun trip. We all got to eat, the kids got to run like hoodlums through the play structure, and the adults managed to have a conversation over the shrieking of the children. And I got my huge, messy, yummy guacamole burger. I miss guacamole.

I also miss ordering pizza. This lack was ameliorated greatly by the Strohls who gave Howard a pair of gift cards for his birthday, one for Pizza Hut and one for Cinemark. We used them periodically over the course of the year and managed to make them last until September. The cards are all used up now, but I’m still overflowing with gratitude.

Know what I don’t miss? I don’t miss living a life so stressful that we threw money around to try to solve problems that could be managed easily by less stressed people. I don’t miss retail therapy. I don’t miss having kids who are accustomed to having treats bought for them every time they entered a store. I don’t miss having kids who refuse to eat anything but chicken nuggets. I don’t miss sitting amid mountains of Christmas wrappings and boxes with piles of new toys abandoned all over the house and wondering why I spent so much on toys that are already broken. I don’t miss having Howard gone all day and away on trips at least one week per month.

On any kind of scale, the small things I do miss are by far outweighed by the things that I’m glad to have gone. Having less money has caused us to prioritize and focus on what is really important. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t cheese, guacamole, or pizza.

I have a love/hate relationship with shopping. I hate shopping when I have to argue with kids about what we will not buy. I hate shopping when I can’t find what I went to get. I hate shopping when I’m tired or grumpy. I love shopping because it gets me out of the house. I love finding the exact right thing for cheap. I love wandering through a store looking at things and talking about them with my shopping buddy.

Today Patches was my shopping buddy and we went to a local thrift store. The purpose of the trip was to find pajamas for Kiki. Patches insisted on walking and did a remarkably good job of staying right with me. He did even better once we cruised the toy aise and found him a car to drive. So I meandered along the aisles while a two and a half year old drove his car next to, in front of, and behind me. Vrrrooom noises were naturally involved.

For some inexplicable reason Kiki wants a set of sleeper pajamas with footies on them. My 10 year old wants to wear infant style pajamas to bed. She thinks they look really cozy. I didn’t find any today. I didn’t expect to. Sleeper pajamas only come in sizes that large rarely, and usually only in specialty shops where they cost $30 per pair. She’ll have to do without them. Or maybe I’ll break down, buy a pattern and make her some. Eventually. But she does need warm pajamas right now, so I selected some warm looking pajama tops and bottoms that only sort of matched. This being a thrift store there are never matches. Ever. But then as I was idly checking girl’s sportswear I found the match to the cute penguin print top I’d already selected. And I found a closer match for the other pants. So now Kiki will have two sets of matching pajamas to wear.

Kiki & Link are both due for new snowboots. They both have good pairs, but you never know when a kid will decide to suddenly grow, so I wanted to have some waiting in the next size up. I found some really good looking ones for $4 per pair. Even better, they aren’t gender specific so I can pass Kiki’s down to Link next time around. While I was in boot territory I swung by the women’s sizes. Last week I’d come to this particular store shopping for jeans for me. On a whim I’d tried on some boots. There was this one black pair that fit really comfortably and I liked, but they were $7. I virtuously left them behind. When I told Howard about them he informed me that I should have spent the money because cool-looking comfy boots are good. So I wandered back to women’s boots and they were still there. I snatched them and no longer have to regret putting them back last week.

We meandered and Vrrrooooomed to the check out. Patches had picked out a pretty cool car and it was only 50 cents so I let him bring it home. It is a pink Polly Pocket car. I briefly considered trying to get him to give it to one of his Polly Pocket loving sisters for christmas, but that way would lie many tears & conflict. Patches doesn’t care that the car is pink. He cares that it is a car and it has seats that his little hamtaro figures can sit on. Vrrroooom!

So today’s shopping trip was the kind I love. Yay!