Part 2 - Living frugally, yet well

This is the 2nd post in response to the question: “Can you explain how to save money while still raising a family and trying to keep up with what society seems to think a family needs to have?”

On Friday, I talked about Keeping up with the Joneses (AKA Society) and keeping Clothing purchases from breaking the bank.

To continue that theme, I want to talk a little bit about what Living Well is, to me. I suppose that "Living Well" is as subjective as you can get. It can vary drastically, even within households where everyone really has the same core values. I know that it varies for Wes and I frequently.

To me, Living Well means that I don't have to carry a lot of money stress around with me. It means that my children are happy, provided for, and healthy. It means that our basic necessities are met, with a little extra. Are we there yet? Mostly.

The path to really living well started with a budget. And then, some discipline. There are NO easy answers or quick fixes to getting your finances in order. But, there are definitely some quick wins. For me, the first quick win was understanding that "It's only $10" is a crappy response to buying something you don't need.

Use a free tracking service to load all of your bank accounts, credit cards, and/or gas cards. Mint is fabulous for this! Once you get all of your transactions loaded, review the categories. Make sure they're accurate, and take a good hard look at where you spend your money. Do you spend too much money on video games? Is dining out your weakness? Do you just HAVE to buy expensive crafting materials or the latest magazines to hit the news stands?

The first time I downloaded all of our bank account transactions into Microsoft Money, it was to prepare our taxes. When I categorized our expenditures for the previous year, I found out that we spent FOURTEEN THOUSAND dollars on eating out. That's more than our mortgage!

If you're married, go over the results with your spouse**. Discuss ways to compromise and make changes to your spending. Figure out how to work together to get your financial house in order. Unless everyone is on the same page, there will be sabotage. Sometimes, it'll even be you!
** This discussion should only happen when you're both prepared for it. Don't ambush your partner. No good can come from that.

Once you've determined your spending patterns, work on your budget. Get all of your fixed and mandatory expenses in there first. House payments, rent, and utilities should be at the top of the list. Next, your fluctuating expenses. While you're working out your budget, discuss where you can make cuts without having a negative impact on your household. This can be as simple as teaching the children to turn the lights off every single time they leave a room, to setting a timer for showers, or eating more vegetarian meals to cut meat costs.

Can't go without cable or high speed Internet? Bundle your telephone/cable/Internet packages for big savings on those utilities. Grocery shop with coupons, and use The Grocery Game (my favorite) or Coupon Mom, or another coupon and sales tracking program.

Can't go without eating out? Use the referral link from the Coupon Mom website to go to Restaurants.com. You can get a $25 gift certificate to your favorite restaurant for $10 through Restaurants.com .. and with the referral link from Coupon Mom, you get an extra 40% off. That's a $25 gift card for $6! You can buy more than one, if you choose. Watch out for the restrictions though.

Love books and magazines too much to give up? Go to your public library. They have most of the periodicals you could ever want. There is an endless supply of books. Have kids? GREAT! Go during story time and meet other parents and kids in your neighborhood.

While you're at it, start your own home play groups or a babysitting co-op, so nobody has to pay for sitters. If you aren't that ambitious, look for co-ops that are already in place. Time Banking is taking hold all over the country.

Don't dig the library for your reading fix? Try book swapping or Half.com. Two of the more popular book swap rings are Paperback Swap and Swaptree.

Do you need a shelf or table? What about canning jars? Do you have a bunch of baby clothes taking up space? Extra furniture stashed in the attic that will never see the light of day again? Use Freecycle! There is one in practically every neighborhood. You can find a home for just about everything you have no use for. If you're willing to put a little effort into it, you can also find just about anything you need there too. Can't find what you need on Freecycle? How about Craig's List?

These are just a few of the ways I've found to cut our costs in ways that don't hurt our lifestyle. They do require a little more effort than going out and plopping down your debit card or credit card, but they are worth it to my peace of mind. We're still Living Well. We're just doing it more consciously than we were before. The rewards are growing.

Part 1 - The Joneses and Clothing

Get a cup of coffee and something to nibble, pull up a chair and get comfy. My friend asked for the impossible and I do love a challenge. I recently posted a request for article ideas on my Journal. The first suggestion was “Can you explain how to save money while still raising a family and trying to keep up with what society seems to think a family needs to have?” Well, sure! Why didn’t I think of that? After all, I am trying to save money and raise a family too.

First of all, just who is Society and why should we be keeping up with them? If, by Society, you mean the people who would have you believe you need the latest item to hit the shelves and receive a full media onslaught of advertising, the easy answer is you DON’T need to keep up with them.
-- My children don’t need the latest marshmallow/sugarfest box of cereal to hit the shelves. – Oatmeal and whole wheat versions of no-name cereals work just fine.
-- My husband doesn’t need the newest version of the Blackberry or iPhone. – The phone he has still works, receives his emails, allows him to text and make calls and performs all the functions he needs to for work.
-- I don’t need that new workout suit because I go to the gym now. – My sweats and t-shirts may not be glamorous, but they do the job.

We don’t need to succumb to the peer pressure of keeping up appearances. Paid Twice wrote an article that really resonated with me. In it, she explains that “There is no shame in not being able to afford it.” This article blew me away! How do we let people shame us into feeling like our self-worth is tied to our stuff? As My Two Dollars so succinctly put it, “You are not your stuff.” Do THEY really shame us, or do we do it to ourselves? Do THEY really care?

That said, living well on less money is still possible. Just because you don’t want to “Keep up With the Joneses” doesn’t mean that you can’t live a comfortable life.

Clothing:
It's possible to dress nicely and in name brand clothes for extremely reasonable prices by just changing the way you look at your shopping. There are three ways to do this, in my opinion.

-- If you absolutely must have new clothes, the First Tier, and often most expensive, option is to shop at discount stores. There are great clothes for exceptional prices at Ross, Marshall's, or Burlington Coat Factory's clearance racks. I've shopped at all of them with mixed success.

-- The Second Tier option is to try consignment shops. Plato's Closet has locations in 37 states and is widely known for name brand clothing for a fraction of the price. Many of their clothes still have the tags on them and have never been worn. Another great consignment chain, for children, is Children's Orchard, and they have locations in 22 states.

-- If the Internet is more of your shopping preference, the Third Tier is your option! You can often find fabulous deals at Ebay, Gently Used, or Penelopepup's Vintage Clothing, to name a few. For even cheaper options, you can get clothes, in current styles, for next to nothing at Swango's awesome clothing swap!

I'm an advocate for Tier Two and Tier Three options for clothing, because ReUse is far more effective than Recycle. Keeping things out of landfills should be part of anyone's frugal living plan.

In the next post, I'll be focusing on other areas of (more) frugal living while raising a healthy family. Hang tight, I've got more babbling to do!
Momma

Articles By Request

I posted a request for topic ideas on my other blog. So far, I'm up to three really great topics. I plan to use all the resources at my disposal to write articles on the following topics:

1. Can you explain how to save money while still raising a family and trying to keep up with what society seems to think a family needs to have? (I think this is one series all on its own.)
2. Home Equity Loans. There's two types, the one thatt refinances your entire house with the loan amount included in it, and the one where you take out a loan but you only draw agaisnt it as you need it, and you only have to make payments against the balance you have out. Which is better if you're trying to remodel your home?
3. There seem to be several different ideas about "how" to get out of debt. What are your thoughts on each one, and your opinion of which is best?

There's nothing like a challenge! :) Looking forward to writing on these topics.

What about you? Do you have opinions on any of these topics? I'd love to share them!

Lemons out of Lemonade

Before I left for work on Monday, I took the easy way out for dinner and put a pork tenderloin roast in the crock pot with some diced tomatoes, garlic, and spices. This pork roast is a favorite of Momma's family, because it means one thing... CARNITAS! I always make 3 meals from our pork roast. First night is homemade Carnitas. The second night is tamales. The third night is barbecue. So, from the first moment that roast goes into the crock pot, we all know what's coming. We all anticipate it with great enthusiasm!

Monday afternoon, upon returning from work, we had a problem. The roast was not done, nowhere near. Having no Plan B, I unplugged the crock pot, gathered Wes and the children, and we all went out for Chinese. When we got home, I put the cooled pot into the refrigerator for a "do over" on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, Wes turned the crock pot back on low and we headed out to our respective days at work again. About 2:00 PM, I received an IM from a friend reminding me that we'd made plans for a cook-out with them that afternoon! OH NO! So, I asked Wes to stop at Costco for grilling meat on his way home, and when I got back to the house, I unplugged the crock pot again.

So, yesterday afternoon, I took the roast out of the refrigerator, shredded the (now overcooked) pork roast, added some more diced tomatoes, a cup of salsa**, half a bottle of barbecue sauce, whole kernel corn, and some Worcestershire sauce. VOILA! Homemade Brunswick Stew! I also made two pans of cornbread. It has to have been the best Brunswick stew ever.
** I use salsa because it's cheaper than keeping fresh tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic on hand, and it saves oodles of time with the prep work.

Even Wes, a BBQ joint connoisseur of Brunswick Stew, was digging into it with enthusiasm. So, hooray for making lemons out of lemonade. Today for lunch, LEFTOVERS. I really can't wait.

Keeping Up With The Accounts

We have 12 bank accounts. How does this happen? Quicken used to be a simple program to use, but not anymore.

In the beginning, there was just Momma. I had one checking account and one savings account. When my three young ladies started receiving child support, I opened a savings account for each of them, those accounts each receive 10% of whatever support is received.

Enter Wes, and his checking and savings account. When we combined households, we didn't combine accounts. Not for any other reason than we have automatic payments coming out of each and going into each account that would be a pain to consolidate. Not to mention that the tax debt liens do not impact my accounts the way they do his.

Last year, I got an annual bonus from my employer. I used that to start my first ING Direct savings account.

At the beginning of this year, Wes and I went into business, necessitating opening two new business checking accounts. *Note: If you intend to receive wire transfers, you should have one account for only wire transfers, and one account for all the rest of the transactions.

Once we started living on the money that I'd been stashing into our ING Direct account, I thought it would be a good idea to move $1000 (standard emergency savings, read more about it at: Being Frugal, Paid Twice, or Get Rich Slowly) into a separate ING Direct account, so that I wouldn't calculate it when determining available funds.

Then, once Wes and I started receiving payments for the consulting, I opened an ING Direct Business Savings account so that we can earn interest on the taxes we must pay quarterly.

I think that the next project will be to simplify these darned accounts. But how?

Results of Planning

The convention was AMAZING! Wes and I got to spend loads of time meeting new folks and reconnecting with old friends. There was so much to see and do, we didn't even get to 1/2 of it.

The planning ahead really paid off for us. We didn't spend any money on restaurant food or drinks of any sort. We did end up buying a few impulse things from the vendor room, but I budgeted money for that "on the sly" so that when Wes found something he just had to have, I was able to indulge him.

All in all, we spend $95 in the vendor area, $75 on food and drinks for 3 days (and had enough leftovers that I have not had to shop for breakfast or lunches at work for 3 more days), and $202.28 on the hotel room.

Preparing for the Weekend

BIG BIG weekend planned! Wes and I are going to a convention this weekend. We've been planning it for a year and are so excited. I mentioned, in previous entries, that one of the biggest reasons I work so hard to live on less is because we enjoy traveling. This is no exception.

How we're doing it different this year than last year:
Last year
- Driving long distances home at 2 AM just to go back again at noon the next day
- Eating out at sit down restaurants 3 meals a day (and fast food late night munchies)
- Paying Per-Drink prices for cocktails
- Buying tons of stuff from the vendors
- Paying full price at the door
- $ for babysitters

This year
- Staying at a hotel room, on site - a great deal at the group rate
- Packing a cooler with sodas and 2 boxes of wine (yay boxed wine... no corkscrew)
- Bringing the coffee pot and coffee - those little 2 cup pots at the hotel are worthless when you've got 8 people who are running on 2 hours sleep!
- Bringing muffins and croissants for breakfast - No sit down breakfasts
- Bringing chips, snacks, and the all important crock pot & ingredients for making Wes' famous queso dip!
- Sharing food with friends for lunches and dinners - no gigantic food costs
- Bringing the mattress pad in case the beds aren't comfy
- Bought tickets a year ago for 1/2 price
- The children are going to grandma's house for Easter, and are thrilled to be rid of us. No babysitter costs!
- Not shopping at vendors - we have taken stock of anything we might actually want to buy, and determined that Ebay or online in general will have better prices and we can plan those purchases in advance.

All in all, it won't be a FRUGAL weekend, but it won't be the spendfest it has been in the past. Most of all, it'll be a great time with old friends, meeting new friends, and seeing all there is to see.

Happy Easter!
Not The Momma (this weekend anyway)

My Friend Owns The Coffee Shop

Wes and I have been far more careful about our spending in the last 6 months or so. We've made a concentrated effort to keep our expenses low and implement a (more) frugal lifestyle. In the past, we often stopped 3 or 4 mornings a week to have coffee and bagels at our friendly neighborhood coffee shop. The owner is someone that we consider more than an acquaintance and less than best friends. We stopped for the company as often as we stopped for the coffee.

The problem is that we became invested in her success. We want to see our friend do well. We want to contribute to her success and support her in any way we can. But, of course, our priority is to maintain our goals and financial decisions. We know that the shop is struggling, now that there is a nifty new Starbucks across the street and the economy is slowing. We sure don't want to see yet another Mom and Pop kind of place go under due to the massive steamroller that is Big Business.

I struggle with this fairly often. I know that the success or failure of her business does not depend on a single customer. I know that it's a tough business world out there and we're not responsible for the way life works. But, it's hard to see someone or something you've invested in hit rough times.

There are times when responsible spending is rough. It's not as easy to see the impact at the Wal-Mart or Starbucks as it is with Mom's Coffee and Bagels.

Cell Phone Bill - Take Two

Last month, I wrote about an adventure with our cell phone plans and my attempt at cutting some of our costs by lower the plans. After carefully combing through this month's bill, I am pleased to announce that not only is our bill correct, but it's less than I budgeted! So, that's another $3.97 snowflake toward back taxes.

Snow Flakes to date: $18.33

The Grocery Game - Unexpected Benefits

I posted last week about The Grocery Game. Since then, I've come to believe it's the smartest move ever!

The Investment
Cash
Each week, I spend $2.35 on a double edition of the Sunday Atlanta Journal Constitution. This gives me two sets of the week's coupons. The cost of the website is $20 every 8 weeks ($10 for the first store and $5 for each additional). So, for the service, I spend $2.50 or $.83 per store per week.
Total expense per week: $4.85

Time
I spend 30 minutes reviewing the list for each store on the Grocery Game website and checking the boxes of the items I'll be purchasing. I choose the option of hiding all of the items I'm not choosing, as well as all supplemental notes on the page, and print the pages.
Then, I get out the coupons and spend an hour organizing them. This includes:
-Labeling the current week's packet of coupons with the date they came out
-Clipping the coupons* for each grocery list I printed
-Putting the coupons and the list in the envelope**
Total Planning time: 1.5 hours

*I only clip the coupon when I need it. It's incredibly simple to keep up with and makes life easier, as all of the coupons on the Grocery Game are listed with the date and circular that the coupons came from. Instead, I write the date of the circular on the front and then use a large rubberband from the newspaper to hold the stack of circulars, then file them in date order when I'm finished clipping.
** I use one envelope for each store so I don't have to dig through the coupons as I shop. I know exactly what I have with me and exactly what I'm buying, so I only have to take the coupons out at the checkout line.

Shopping
The Publix and Kroger are across the street from one another. The CVS is on my way ho me. So, I stop at Publix first, drive across the street to Kroger, then hit CVS on the way home. I make one small circle and there is no running all over town.
Total Shopping Time: 1.5 hours, including driving.

Special note on the shopping time: I now shop with lists, so I don’t forget anything. I no longer have to stop at the store during the week, which saves me about an hour or so every week. This evens out the planning/clipping time completely.

The Benefits
Cash
Between the sales, the coupons, gas, and not stopping the store during the week to pick up random things and adding impulse buys, I save about $100 - $150 a week.

UPROMISE
SO many of the name brand items that I have coupons for are also UPromise items. These are things I would never buy the name brands of before it was exceptionally more affordable. (Rice A Roni for $.12 a box this week.) Not only do I get the food at insanely low prices, but I get a percentage of the original price applied to the children’s UPromise accounts.

School Donation
Another benefit of being able to buy name brand items at incredibly low prices are the Boxtops For Education labels. A good percentage of items I have coupons for have these labels. Our PTA program receives $.10 for every Boxtop redeemed. This is not a direct benefit to me, but it definitely helps out our children.

Other Donations
There are, often times, coupons and sale prices that combine to make the price of the items FREE. Except that, some of these free items, no matter how great, are not a good fit for our family. Diapers, Formula, and Cat Food are not items we will ever need. Wes is allergic to cats, and our baby days are far long gone. Rather than let these deals go to waste, I go ahead and get the free items and donate them to animal and people shelters. If one wanted to work the system, these donations are tax deductible at market value. I haven’t done this, but if it turns out that I make enough of these donations, I may just go for it.

I'm sure I'll post about this again, as I get ramped up. But, let me just say that my freezer and pantry are filling up. There is less money going out the door for food. My children are loving the variety of new things I'm stocking, and I'm saving enough money that I don't have to scrimp when it comes to rising food prices on fruit, milk, eggs, and meat.

Recipes

I have a love of cooking and fun recipes. I have almost a dozen cookbooks, but only one that we use religiously. It's a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook with all the basic instructions for types of food and base recipes in the front of each section. This has, many times, been invaluable to me.

I also have a drawer full of printed pages from various websites I use to track down recipes for specific things. This houses our favorite Tilapia recipe, the Cranberry Crumb Pie that we are required to bring to all gatherings between November 1st and New Year's Eve every year, and a few dozen hand written attempts at keeping track of my waffle recipes.

One thing that most of my recipe favorites have in common is simplicity. They have basic but versatile ingredients and I don't have to stock exotic items to have our favorite meals. They don't require a lot of steps to make wholesome and fun meals for my family.

Recently, I was hanging out a friend, pilfering her basement for interesting items for our upcoming costume party, and spotted FOUR boxes of the old recipe cards from the 60s/70s. Noticing my interest (squeal of delight), she kindly offered (was thrilled to be rid of) them to me. Since then, I have been happily experimenting with these recipes. One thing I've noticed is that the ingredient lists are much simpler than anything in my cook books.

My family loves the foods I've been experimenting with. They are relatively inexpensive and quite likely to use ingredients I have on hand, or need to use up anyway. I have a feeling we'll be adding a few new frugal and fun favorites to our lists.

First Paycheck

Yesterday, we got the FIRST check made out to Wes' new company. WHEW... I have to be honest, I was a bit panicked. The payment was 30 days overdue. Our savings account was officially down to one mortgage payment and 1/2 month worth of child support. To say that Momma was a little stressed might be the understatement of the year.

So, the check has been deposited. "Payroll" has been processed. The new Business ING Direct account has been established. This morning, I feel like we're getting a little more control going in our situation.

I was able to send in the debt payments that I usually send on the 15th of the month:
$450 for Federal Tax Debt
$300 for State Tax Debt
AND! I sent in my $14.36 Snowflake (Thanks PaidTwice!!!)

I'm now off to the thrift store to find costuming goodness for an upcoming costume party. This should be fun.

BEST HOMEMADE MUFFINS EVAR!

Saturday mornings are my late morning. I sleep in, sip my coffee slowly, read my favorite blogs, and then go to the kitchen and make one of my famous Waffle or Pancake concoctions. I always use whole wheat flour, and build from there. I don't use a recipe, so it's difficult to duplicate any of them. My family doesn't seem to mind, since they always get something new.

To date, I've treated them to Peanut Butter & Jelly Waffles, Pineapple Coconut Waffles, Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Walnuts, and the list goes on. Once in a while, my true Backwoods Kentucky background comes shining through and I make biscuits, sausage gravy, and home fries. I am the Breakfast Queen.

Ok ok.. enough with tooting of my horn. This morning, I spotted a fantastic (and SIMPLE) recipe for Cinnamon Spice Muffins, courtesy of a guest post on Get Rich Slowly. I have never had homemade muffins turn out quite so tender and fluffy. So, if you haven't already, head on over, swipe that recipe and give them a try for yourself. MMMMMM

Back on the Wagon

This has been a crazy few weeks. Wes and I took a business/pleasure trip to Boston and then hopped a train on up to Dover, NH a couple of weeks ago. It was well needed time to ourselves. Along the way, he and I learned a few things about our finances. Mostly that we don't practice frugality when we travel. Even though we have good intentions.

On the upside, I went to Retail Me Not and purchased our Amtrak tickets to and from Dover for a total of $17 each way on a buy one, get one free offer. That was less than the tolls for the toll roads, much less the gas it would take to drive back and forth. We used the MBTA or the "T" subway system for $2 a ticket going to and from the Amtrak station.

We still ended up spending $156 on taxis (business meetings) and $68 on a trolley tour. I know the trolley tours are not the best idea, but it was too cold to walk and we really wanted to see the city. Most of the trip was tax deductible, but we still spent way too much money.

We're both getting stressed out because Wes has been contracting now for 3 months without a paycheck. The first company he contracted for is now 30 days late paying the 1st invoice and 15 days late paying the 2nd. The 2nd company (and current) is not late for another 2 weeks, so we're crossing our fingers that they'll be on time.

In the meantime, I'm very happy that we've managed to make our emergency fund stretch to cover 3 months of living expenses. Now to figure out ways to replenish it!

The Grocery Game

Well, I've been reading about the Grocery Game for quite some time now. I'm happy to report that I decided to give it a try. I signed up for the 4 week trial for $1. Last night, I did the grocery shopping, using the Grocery Game's "game rules". Here are this week's results:

Store --- Full Price --- Savings --- Total Paid --- % Savings
Publix ---$71.00 ---- $43.93 ----- $27.07 ------ 62%
Kroger --$161.63 ---- $71.41 ----- $90.22 ------ 45%
CVS -----$42.09 ----- $23.74 ---- $18.35 ------- 56%

Total Spent: $135.64
Total Bdgt Wk: $150.00
Total to "Snowflake": $14.36

YAY for my first official Snowflake.