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March plans...

March 8th, 2005 at 05:26 pm

March is off to an okay start. We did have some people over for dinner and also went out to dinner once, so my $10 a day allotment is quite a bit over, but I also did a marathon cooking session last night and made five meals for the next five days, hoping to avoid food purchases and get caught up.

I enjoyed potting up my dahlias and cannas to give them a head start for summer. I also am wintering over about 150 geraniums, so this summer I should not find myself at the Walmart checkout with quite so many flats of annuals, though I probably will get some petunias as I can't over winter these.

New Mini-van today!

February 6th, 2005 at 12:03 am

We got a new Sienna Mini-van from Toyota today. We did without any extras and shopped around a lot and got almost $3k off the initial price we were quoted. This will be great for hauling things, but it was painful to pay for a new car. My DH hit a deer with my Saturn wagon and fortunately he's fine, but the car is only scrap value now as we dropped collision. THank goodness he is fine.

Frugal choice today: Continue work on decluttering!

January 25th, 2005 at 06:34 pm

I still have far too much stuff. My goal today is to round up at least 20 more things to donate.

Frugal choice today: Get snacks for trip

January 25th, 2005 at 06:33 pm

DH and I are going on a trip so today I went and got $13 worth of snack food so we would avoid the overpriced/unhealthy food at the airports. This will surely save us time and extra calories.

Millionaire next door

January 25th, 2005 at 06:31 pm

A good friend of mine who makes lots of money but spends lots of money finally read this book. I'd given it to her about a year ago. She loved it and is starting to rethink the concept of "Big Hat No Cattle." This should aid in her early retirement plans.

Tackling insurance costs.

January 21st, 2005 at 05:37 pm

I've been trying to find ways to reduce our insurance costs, but it seems there are so many variables that it's hard to get a good comparison of apples to apples.

Driveway plowed for 1/2 price.

January 21st, 2005 at 05:37 pm

I had been quoted 45-50 for having the drive plowed when the snow is too deep for the snowblower and put up a sign at the grocery store and found a guy to do it for $25. Good!

Snowblower fixed for $30

January 21st, 2005 at 05:36 pm

Not wanting to pay the high costs of typical repair shops, I posted a sign at the local grocery store for someone to fix our snowblower. A guy came out, fixed it in now time, and only charged us $30. I was so happy not to have to haul it all over and to get it done cheaply.

Insurance costs!!!

January 21st, 2005 at 01:53 am

We just renewed our insurance and the costs are so high! We will pay almost $400 for DH's one year car insurance, $300 for mine, $250 for my life insurance, $500 for house, and $250 umbrella. That's $1700! Yikes. Next year we'll have to shop around.

Organization = saving money

January 21st, 2005 at 01:49 am

I've found as I'm decluttering more, I feel more in control and less likely to lose something, buy a replacement, then find the old one. So that's encouraging.

Dental costs!!

January 21st, 2005 at 01:48 am

I had to pay 330.00 today to have cleaning and a filling. That's always discouraging. I then went to the grocery store where the total was 89.00. Then accupuncture for 65.00. Then gas for 17. It was an expensive day. I did get a refund I hadn't expected for $57, so that was nice.

Tuesday: Frugal choice #3 1-18-05

January 18th, 2005 at 06:28 pm

Have been listing items on a free local classifieds and sold a $5 painting earlier and $8 worth of exercise tapes. This has been a nice boost.

Tuesday: Frugal choice #2 1-18-05

January 18th, 2005 at 06:27 pm

Have been putting hot water for tea in a thermas rather than using the stove to warm water as I've read it is very inefficient to use electric for heating.

Tuesday: Frugal choice #1 1-18-05

January 18th, 2005 at 06:26 pm

We needed a new electric can opener and rather than heading to Walmart, I checked two thrift stores and found one for $3, saving at least $10. Also found a pepper grinder we've been wanting for 75 cents, saving at least $4.

Saving electric - awareness!

January 17th, 2005 at 10:13 pm

One thing that has been interesting in my ongoing goal to reduce our electric bill - which was almost $150 last month - is learning to read my own meter. What I've been doing is going out at the same time each day and recording the numbers. I did a google search to learn how to read the meter. In addition, when I go out, I now am conscious of how fast or slow it is spinning and this makes me more likely to go and shut off some lights or rethink hanging a load of laundry verses putting it in the dryer.

Thanks!

January 17th, 2005 at 10:11 pm

Thanks for the info back to the $5 offer. It is an awesome offer. DH and I have been continuing to save money. We had the electric company come and they did a free audit. It was interesting to see how much money went to lighting verses ceiling fans, oven, etc.

We made several changes based on what we learned. I had been overwintering geraniums in the basement and learned I was paying $16 a month to keep the grow lights on 24/7. So I reduced the time to 6 hours per day and will thus pay only $4. Hopefully they will survive. If they don't, I'm not out a whole lot as I got them (all 95 of them) for $12 from a greenhouse where they were being thrown out.

Could someone point me toward the $5 reward for journal entries?

January 17th, 2005 at 07:42 pm

I can't find the original offer of $5 for a certain number of journal entries. Could someone please point me to that great offer? THanks.

Daily spending reductions.

December 27th, 2004 at 04:45 pm

My family has been spending an average of $700 per month on food. Ouch! So this is my main area to reduce in the year ahead. In addition, I would like to start tracking our spending daily rather than monthly, thinking this immediate feedback will have more impact. I would like to get our food bill down to $10 per day, or $300 per month. In addition, I want to use solely cash.

Today, I spent the following.

1. $3.29 Diet Coke
2. $1.99 milk
$1 off coupon used.

Total $4.46

Thursday Frugal Decision #3

December 24th, 2004 at 03:09 am

Decided to forgo the special calendars that would have used our own pictures. They were almost $20 to make up and we can get a free calendar from the bank.

Thursday Frugal Decision #2

December 24th, 2004 at 03:08 am

Used up some left overs to make soup and also made some homemade banana bread.

Thursday Frugal Decision #1

December 24th, 2004 at 03:08 am

Returned some items and got $21 back! That was sort of "free money" in that we weren't using the items.

Sunday: Frugal choice #3

December 12th, 2004 at 11:25 pm

Used up some left-overs to make a delicious casserole.

Sunday: Frugal choice #2

December 12th, 2004 at 11:25 pm

Have been donating a lot of stuff lately. This not only reduces the clutter which makes it less likely I'll buy things I don't need because I can't find them, but it also allows me to get a tax deduction. This is a win-win situation.

Sunday: Frugal choice #1

December 12th, 2004 at 11:24 pm

I've been getting behind on posting. It's been a busy stretch. Today I shopped with a list at the grocery store and stuck to it pretty wellSmile. I've read that for every 30 seconds, you spend on average an extra dollar. yikes. I'm trying to be more speedy in the store.

Sunday: Frugal choice #3

November 14th, 2004 at 08:08 pm

Am making my son's lunch from a pack of frozen pureed squash rather than the gerber's portion. Gerber's is about 50 cents per serving; dividing up a package of frozen squash is 10 cents for the same size serving.

Sunday: Frugal choice #2

November 14th, 2004 at 08:06 pm

Organized a cupboard in my kitchen, finding a few items I didn't realize we had and avoiding duplication during my next shopping excursion.

Sunday: Frugal choice #1

November 14th, 2004 at 08:05 pm

Put storm windows up in another room. By doing a few rooms at a time, it doesn't get overwhelming, and should help with our heating bill.

Saturday: Frugal choice #3

November 13th, 2004 at 11:41 pm

Did all my errands in one fell swoop to save gas. Passed on a book sale (so tempting but all the way on the other side of town). Sent an email rather than a planned card (saving 37 cents and some time).

Saturday: Frugal choice #2

November 13th, 2004 at 11:39 pm

Saved calls to friends/family till today, when we get free minutes from our cell. Also learned from the cell phone company that I can check the minutes by simply punching #646, and getting an instant text message of minutes used. This should help reduce the times I go over minutes.

Saturday: Frugal choice #1

November 13th, 2004 at 11:38 pm

I made 3 casseroles today, spinach, bean, and broccoli using up items we had on hand. In addition, I made pumpkin bread. So we have a week's worth of food at a fraction of the cost of eating out, and healthy stuff too!


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