The money fast - how it went

Our week long money fast went well. I packed lunches, we ate at home, and we went to the library for entertainment. The fast proved a success.

Then we went off the money fast and everything went to pieces.

We each bought lunch out twice. I ordered clothes online. He ordered CDs. When I got my paycheck, I paid the bills and realized we had nothing, $0 leftover until he gets paid later in the month. I'll have to transfer money from savings to pay for things like gas and groceries. I don't know how we slipped so badly this time. It's demoralizing - part of me wants to throw my hands in the air and say "screw it!"

But instead, we'll trudge through another week and a half of pinching every penny and doing a less voluntary money fast. It hurts, but at the same time you have to take your blows to learn your lessons. Our transformation to one of those people who posts their half-million dollar net worth on the internet won't happen overnight. It hasn't even been a month since I started this!

So wish me luck. It's a long steep road to the hilltop fortress of financial security.

Cheap Yeast for the Least Back East

In my last post, 25 ways to save money, I mentioned buying baking yeast in bulk for 60 cents a pound at the health food store versus paying $3 for 6 teaspoons of those little packets. 3 Things About Money appreciated the tip, and I realized I forgot one thing - put the yeast in the freezer to keep it fresh. Unless you're baking several loaves of bread a day, you're not going to be able use it up before it putters out.

25 different ways to save money

Dawn at Frugal For Life asks "What are 25 different ways you save money?"

Here's mine:

1. I don't wear makeup.
2. I use shampoo and conditioner, and it's Suave on sale. No hairspray, gels, shelacs, etc.
3. I use my library for books and movies.
4. Cooking meals at home instead of eating out.
5. As often as possible I use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
6. I stay out of thrift stores. I found that I was coming home with tons of crap because it was "cheap", but each "cheap" item adds up monetarily and in clutter.
7. I shop at thrift stores, but usually take at least 5 things out of my cart before I pay.
8. I don't buy from the vending machine at work. Even ignoring the issues with sugar and fats, you could buy 5 times as much of the same product at the grocery store.
9. I use the internet to review an item's quality and price before I make a purchase.
   
10. I cut my dryer sheets into quarters. The box lasts four times as long and a quarter works just fine.
11. I try not to wash dishes under running water. Filling the sink saves water and soap. (Although I do get lazy and cheat).
    
12. I don't go to movies unless it's something really worth watching on the big screen. The last one I saw in a theater was King Kong, and yes, it was worth it. Before that, it was the Incredible Hulk, and no, it wasn't.
    
13. I pay myself first every month. 10% of my income goes straight into savings, and it stays there except for emergencies.
14. I cancelled my vision insurance through work. I can get an eye exam for the co-pay at Kaiser, and take my 'script to a one hour lens place and still come out ahead. When I added up my premium, coverage limits, and co-pays, it just wasn't worth keeping it.
    
15. My husband gets all of his work shirts for free from vendors. Considering how quickly they get ripped or dirty, it's worth it.
16. I'm not a fashionista. Worrying too much about what your clothes look like is expensive. I'm clean and appropriate, and that's all that matters.
17. Eat leftovers for lunch.
18. I buy yeast for breads at Vitamin Cottage where it's 60 cents a pound versus those small packets at the regular store, where it runs $3 for 6 teaspoons.
    
19. I take light rail to school. It's an unlimited pass, mandatory with my student fees, and parking on campus is $3.50 and up.
20. I mostly use vinegar and water for cleaning. I mix in eucalyptis oil, but the vinegar smell only lasts a minute and there's no chemicals to give me a headache. I use an old product spray bottle that was completely cleaned out.
21. If something breaks, I get opinions from friends and family before shelling out cash for repairs. Sometimes someone else knows how to fix it. (usually my dad)
22. I track every expense on Quicken. If I don't, I lose track and end of overdrafting, which comes off our credit card. The interest rate is horrible, and every time it costs $10, regardless of how much or little we were short.
23. I ignore cosmetic damage to my car as long as possible.
    
24. I compost. It cuts down on trash and in a few months, I'll have good rich material for my garden beds.
25. We bought a swamp cooler this summer instead of air conditioning. Installation for a regular whole house unit installed on the roof would have been in excess of $3,000. Instead we bought a $400 portable unit like people use in workshops. It cools up to 1,000 square feet, and our house is less than 800 square feet. In the winter we'll store it in the basement. I know you people back east can't imagine actually wanting humidity, but out here it's a blessing!
    

What I've done right - Part 1

• Buying a small house.

Our house squeeks in at just under 800 square feet. It listed as 750 on one of our documents. This is a basic, 1950s built home - a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. Since there are only two of us, anything bigger would seem wastefull. If one of us wants to be alone, we go in another room - very simple. It therefore follows that it's cheap to heat - we've only been here half a winter, but it was approximately $65 a month to heat when we first moved in and couldn't figure out how to work the thermostat. The heater ran constantly. Now that we have it figured out, I hope this winter will be lower.

We also pay less in homeowner's insurance because there's fewer bells and whistles. For example, not having a fireplace saved us quite a bit of money. Taxes are also relatively low, but that's also partly due to the county we live in.

We have a different attitude towards "stuff" now. The Mister, for example, has a massive CD collection, and looked into getting a special cabinet to hold them. It would have cost about $200, and we couldn't figure out where it would go. So we put it off. I might research it for Christmas or his birthday, but it's not a priority. He's been stashing his CDs in odd places for years now, and it's worked fine. We looked at townhouses over double the size of our current home. The other day I mentioned one we looked at, and we both said "What would we have done with all that space?" We would have bought more stuff, that's what.

If we lived in a rural area, we might have bought a larger place because the necessities of living are different in the country. But suburban living doesn't have a lot of demands for wood shops and barns and spare bedrooms.

Whatever mistakes we made or will make, I won't regret purchasing our house. Some might feel cramped, but we don't want them to stay anyway.

The next big thing: bento lunches

It seems like bento-style lunch boxes are exploding on the internet. There's the Vegan Lunchbox lady, flickr groups , and Laptop Lunchboxes are everywhere it seems.



I bought a Laptop lunch box about a year ago, and used it regularly. Now I live 5 minutes from work, so I come home to have lunch. The poor thing sat unused in a cupboard, mocking me as a testament to consumer culture. Then I dusted it off and started packing my husband's lunches in it. He's a big guy who works a very physical job, and I worried it wouldn't hold enough to satisfy him at lunch. Test runs proved this wasn't a problem. In the lunchbox, I typically pack carrots and snap peas with light ranch dressing for dipping, a piece of fruit sliced up, and fat free pudding, yogurt, or trail mix. A whole wheat pita with turkey and cheese goes in a Ziploc (washed out and reused) on the outside. It's perfect, and he loves it. I asked him if the guys at work give him crap about eating from a child's lunchbox, and he says no one bugs him about it. And the ladies at work think it's "cute!"

The downside of the Laptop lunch is the price - the whole set including box, sleeve, case, and bottle, runs about $34, or you can get just the box for about $20. You can pick up an authentic bento box for much cheaper in Japanese markets, or on the internet, but they aren't as versatile. There are also divided lunch carriers made by Tupperware and Rubbermaid.

So, the pros:

• They can be affordable, depending on your budget.
  
• It reduces the amount of trash that hits the landfill
• They encourage portion control
• They make packing and eating a homemade lunch fun - you come up with creative ideas for making and presenting your lunch.
  

And then the cons:

There's the over-consumption angle. Let's face it - it's a fad right now. We're running out and buying something to simplify our lives. I really like our lunch box, and don't regret buying it. But did we need it? Or did I get caught up in a craze? And then all the "extras" you can buy if you want to go really crazy - soy sauce bottles, hot dog cutters, rice cake shapers - it's amazing what comes up if you check out ebay.

And what happens to all these plastic boxes when the craze runs its course? My Laptop Lunch box is coded #5 for recycling, and my recycling provider only takes #1 and #2. Of course, I'd probably donate it to Goodwill if it came to that, but how many people will just pitch it in the trash?

Balance the pros and cons for yourself. Like I said, I don't regret purchasing one, and I hope to continue creating bento-style lunches for a long time. Not every want-based consumer purchase is necessarily bad. What matters is the consideration we give our purchases.

How simple are you?

Simple Living America offers a simplicity score survey on their website. At one point, the data collected from this survey was used for academic study. Apprarently they had an excellent response, and no longer need any more data. But they left the survey up if you're interested in knowing how you "score" in simplicity terms.

I scored 3.7, which according to them is in the moderate range. I hope to take this survey again in the future and see if my score goes up.

Things to do in Denver when you're broke... Part 1

Regina over at Crafty and Cool suggested I do some posts on fun free things:

Check out your city. Mine hosts a tour of local artist's studios every summer. Tomorrow there's an author is giving a talk at the library about healthy one pot meals. There's also free music and movies, lectures, and art exhibits. Check out other towns around you as well. Most events won't check for residency if you want to participate.

Beyond that, get out in your neighborhood. Go for a walk, meet you neighbors. If you're like me, you walk after dark and take a gander in the houses of the people who leave their drapes open and their lights on at night.(Lest you think me a lech, I only casually glance in as I walk by. I'm not standing slack-jawed on the sidewalk staring for 10 minutes or crawling through shrubs or anything.)

One of my favorites that I rarely indulge in: a picnic in the park. If the park is 5 minutes away, why not pack your dinner in a basket and hop on over? We all need to get out of the house once in awhile, and most of satisfy that urge by eating out. You can still eat out while saving money and changing the scenery. And no snotty waiters either.

Lastly - volunteer. It gets you out of the house, you'll meet new people, and you'll get that warm feeling in your chest that's not cardiac arrest for once. Sure, some of the openings will be Not Fun - that is, boring. On the bright side, you'll get out of the house, not spend money, and you just might warm up to the task at hand.

First you stumble, then you pick yourself up

I screwed up.

I thought the Mister got paid today, but I was off by a week - he gets his check next week. I'm kicking myself over and over,because this one is going to cost us overdraft fees and money from our savings. This voluntary money fast is no longer quite so voluntary.

I've learned the importance of keeping track of everything. The beauty of Quicken is that we can see into the future, financially. This is so valuable. But if you're off on something, dang does that screw everything up.

Is it better to be scraggly or save money?

Shoot. No sooner than I posted about our money fast, the Mister informs me he planned to get a haircut tomorrow. It's been 3 hours and I'm still torn: do we permit this previously unauthorized grooming expedition, or does he wear his hair in a 1963 Beatle-esque 'do? It'll only be $15 bucks, but it remains a dillema.

A few years back, he wore his hair in a long ponytail, and when he finally cut it, three things happened:

1. He donated the hair to Locks of Love
2. The haircut was free because of the donation.
3. His boss subsequently gave him a raise, because he thought the haircut was part of an effort to look presentable for a new-job hunt.
   

Hmmm... maybe he should just let it grow again and repeat the above-listed process. But a partially bald 32 year old man with a ponytail just isn't attractive.

The first step

I'm sick of staring down our increasing credit card debt every month. We have two regular credit cards, a Best Buy account, and a veterinary account. Add to that a car payment and a mortgage, and you'll realize how out of control this is.

I watched the Oprah's Debt Diet show a few weeks ago, and one family had to tell their friends and family about their debt. I don't think I'm ready to post account balances, but I am ready to state loud and clear "We have a problem, and we're doing something about it."

Since you must start somewhere, we're starting here: a one week money fast. We have three exceptions:

• Bills, because to ignore them would defeat the whole purpose of this exersize.
• Groceries. I went today and while I spent more than I usually would, we're not eating out at all.
• Subway for lunch tomorrow. It's an ongoing tradition and I didn't see any reason to break it.

The result will be interesting. We live in such a consumption-driven society, and for a long time I was able to delude myself into thinking I was immune to it.