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Frugal habits

Recreational Shopping: A change of habit

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Spent most of today hanging out with two old friends. All afternoon, we bucketed around stores in the shiny new shopping plazas of the western suburbs. Specifically, we wanted to shop at Pier One and Target. We weren’t after anything specific: we planned just to peruse the stores as an afternoon’s outing. In a word, we were indulging in recreational shopping. Shopping for the fun of shopping.

In times past, an activity like this would lead to the diddling alway of great sums of money. I do enjoy (even covet) much of the stuff at Pier One, and Target is a posted danger zone for me. Today, though, I found myself not wanting to buy much. Matter of fact, you could say I couldn’t bring myself to reach for the AMEX card.

Pier One had some very pretty throw pillows, which I admired greatly. VickyC bought a pair, absolutely gorgeous, soon to look splendid on her sofa: marked down significantly. Also at a good mark-down, Kathy got an attractive desk lamp, which she’s been needing since she kiped her husband’s for her own desk. But you know…my sofa has four perfectly fine pillows on it. Old, maybe; a little stale to my eye, since I’ve been looking at them for several years, but clean and in good repair. A couple of years ago, I would have justified buying new pillows on the grounds that a) I like them;  b) it’s time to update “the look; and therefore c) I need them.

In the year or two since I’ve dedicated myself to a more frugal and simpler lifestyle, something strange has happened. Where before want would morph to need, now something has to be a real need before I feel that I want it. It’s not a deliberate, conscious change. It’s a change of habit that has gone on long enough to become part of my psyche.

At Target, I did buy one thing that to an outside observer might look like an impulse buy: a rope hammock. A couple of years ago, I bought one of those arc-shaped wooden hammock slings from Costco, the trees here at the Funny Farm still being too young to support the beloved old Eddie Bauer hammock that had survived into advanced decrepitude. The Costco hammock is made of sturdy outdoor fabric, allegedly an improvement over rope. It’s not. A fabric hammock collects dust, leaves, bird droppings, seeds, and various other debris. Whenever it rains, a puddle materializes in the low point; tipping the hammock to pour the water out digs a hole in the desert landscape below it. And a fabric hammock just can’t compare to rope in the comfort department: that weather-proof fabric is hot, ungainly, and ungiving. 

For quite some time, I’ve known Pawley’s Island has a hammock that probably will fit in the odd-sized Costco stand. And it’s one of the things I’ve planned to buy before the salary runs out. I’ve just been too lazy to order it online, a process I view, perversely enough, as a bit of a hassle. So when I spotted Target’s version, made of cotton (not a saggy artificial fiber), I grabbed it. If it won’t fit, Target will take it back.

I used my old hammock until it fell apart, something like twelve or fifteen years, both for loafing and for laying out laundered clothes to dry flat. The once barren yard now has plenty of shade, and I know I’ll use a more comfortable, less annoying rope number a lot more than I do the leaf-ridden, dusty, clammy fabric thing. So in this case, I think “want” actually does rise to the level of “need.” I need something to put in that fancy wooden hammock stand, so it won’t go to waste and so I can enjoy laying in the yard when the weather’s balmy. Which around here is most of the time.

The other day on the way home from a client’s place of business, I passed Scottsdale Fashion Square, formerly a regular hang-out. And it struck me that it’s been a good two years since I’ve been in that place. Then I realized I haven’t been in the tony Biltmore fashion plaza for many a moon, either. I simply have dropped the habit of shopping for fun. I no longer bat around stores to pass the time of day.

This, I expect, will be a permanent change. 

Is there anything that’s changed in your habits, either because of the current economy or as a result of a deliberate decision to alter the direction of your life?

10 ways to layoff-proof your life

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Yesterday as Cassie and I were walking to the park, we came across a neighbor in his front yard, putting the finishing touches on a new sprinkling system. He said his father-in-law had installed it, the old man having been laid off and needing work. Then he started to count off all the people he knew who were out of work, including the guy across the street who owns a big house on a half-acre of land fronting on the park. At least, we agreed, the father-in-law had developed a way to keep a little cash flowing into his pocket. The homeowner gave me his phone number, since our house downtown needs a watering system.

You can’t really make yourself layoff-proof these days. Even if the economy doesn’t land you in the can, an injury or illness may put you out of work. A friend who’s a nurse—supposedly a recession-proof trade—was hurt when a second-floor balcony at her rented home gave way under her feet. Memory impairment from the resulting head injury has put her out of commission for the nursing business. So, you’re smart to develop a few strategies, preferably well in advance of the fact, that will blunt the worst of the damage.

1. Establish a budget and keep track of your spending.

Knowing how much you spend and what you spend it onallows you to figure, quickly, what your expenses will be, where you might cut costs, and how much you will need for bare survival.

2. Develop at least one side income stream, and preferably more than one.

Each adult in the household should have a second income stream, no matter how modest. A second job or a skill that creates occasional paying gigs brings in extra cash while you have a job and can at least help if you suddenly find yourself out of work. Responsible teens may also be encouraged to build income streams, to the extent that these don’t interfere with schooling and healthy activities. Examples include blogging, selling crafts, mowing lawns, pet-sitting, babysitting, organizing yard sales, bagging groceries.

3. Keep your résumé up to date.

Goes without saying, doesn’t it?

4. Identify job boards and bookmark HR sites of companies or agencies where you might apply for work.

Do this even if you don’t expect to be laid off. It’s always a wise idea to think about where you might turn if you need a new job or want a better-paying one. Having thought this through in advance gives you a head start if the worst should happen.

5. Join and become active in trade groups.

Maintain a presence in the business community where you work, so that people will know you and you will know them. This, too, will give you a leg up if you have to seek new employment leads.

6. Build an emergency fund.

A second income stream will help with this. You probably should stash enough to live for at least six months. Given the current economic conditions, it might be wise to make this a higher priority than paying down debt.

7. But to the extent that you can, do pay down that debt.

The fewer payments you have to make, the longer you can get by on a reduced income.

8. Don’t rack up any new debt if you can possibly avoid it.

Make it do, use it up, wear it out: this is the time to kick on every frugal habit you know. If you don’t have a budget, start one now, and don’t buy any junk that you don’t absolutely need.

9. Stockpile.

A good freezer can be had for a couple hundred bucks. The one I bought a few weeks ago is the best buy I’ve made in years. It’s already cutting my costs, just by keeping me out of grocery stores. More to the point, though, by the time my job ends in December, I intend to have at least six months of food stored in the house, perishables in the freezer and staples such as rice, beans, and canned goods in the pantry. With any luck, it’ll be quite a while before I go hungry.

10. Plant a garden, even if it’s only in a few pots on the apartment balcony.

Thanks to the veggies that have grown in my yard all winter, it’s been months since I’ve had to buy lettuce. And the produce has been wonderful: fresh from the garden to the table. Freezing and canning these goodies results in a better product than I can buy at the supermarket and extends the garden’s value way beyond the growing season.

Taken together, these steps represent a strategy to prepare yourself for an unexpected job loss. Or for an expected one: they can ease your way into retirement, too.

Best month on budget so far!

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Well, here’s a nice surprise: As this month’s budget cycle draws to a close, I’m $47 to the good in spite of having diddled away $275 on a swell leather purse. With five more days to go, all the food the dog and I need is in the house, and I shouldn’t need to buy gas or anything else for another week.

budgetapril09

Last November, I cut the month-to-month discretionary spending budget (i.e., all costs other than regularly recurring bills and utilities) from $1,500 a month to $1,200, planning to put the extra $300 into savings. At first, staying within the new parameters was a challenge. Most months ran into the red. Last month was the first success, but with only $11 to spare.

In microbudgeting, a month’s budget cycle (here based on the American Express billing cycle, ensuring that enough cash will be available to pay that bill in full each month) is broken into four approximately week-long chunks. Thus if you run in the red one week, the budget overrun can be made up in the following week.Theoretically.

budget2april092The last week of this month’s budget slipped into red ink because of an unexpected $177 bill: Greg the Handyman had said he would install a houseful of blinds and then backed out, so I had to arrange for Lowe’s to do it. Greg’s hourly rate is a lot cheaper; had he done the job as agreed, week 4 probably would have been in the black. But because two of the other three weeks are deep in the black, the month overall is also in the black.

I’d planned to pay for the handbag extravagance out of monthly savings, which just now contains more than enough for an indulgence. However, because this month’s budget is so fully in the black, ordinary cash flow actually will cover the cost and still leave the budget $47 in the black!

Ordinarily, a month with two large extraordinary expenses would put a $1,200 budget into the red. That’s why I put $200 to $400 a month into savings: to cover overruns. Had I not purchased the bag this month, the budget would have been $322 to the good. That is with a trip to the mechanic’s for car maintenance!

And—hallelujah, sisters and brothers!—that is an all-time record. It means that in ordinary expenses (as opposed to a certain wild extravagance), I spent only $878 this month.

What accounts for such a wonder?

Well, first, because of the train I won’t have to buy another tank of gas before the end of the budget cycle. Ordinarily, gasoline runs about $75 for three fill-ups. This month, I’ve spent $41 at Costco’s gas pumps. If I ride the train to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, trips to the Great Desert University will take all of $3.75 out of the remaining $47 next week.

Second, except for the handbag, I haven’t had any really large extraordinary expenses: no serious repair or veterinary bills. When you own a house and occupy it with a dog, some hulking budget-buster comes along almost every month.

Otherwise, I’m not sure. I haven’t gone into full ascetic mode at any time. The only explanation is the freezer + stockpiling, which has hugely cut the number of grocery-store runs. It’s the miracle of staying out of stores! The theorythat going into grocery and big-box stores, even with a shopping list firmly in hand, leads to untold numbers of impulse buys seems to be true.

If this isn’t a fluke and I actually can cut discretionary spending to under $1,000 a month without much pain, I may just be able to get by in unemployment retirement.

Light rail is AWESOME!

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So yesterday as a lark SDXB and I rode the city’s new light rail train from uptown Phoenix to the end of the line in Mesa; thenon the return legdropped off in Tempe for lunch at the Great Desert University’s new “local foods” café. What a hoot! The trains, being brand-new, are clean and shiny. The ride is smooth and surprisingly fast: from Tempe to our stop was about 40 minutes, no longer than it takes me to make the drive in moderate traffic. And it was great fun.
Check it out:

trainatcback

Starting Monday, I am going to park my car near AJ’s (my favorite purveyor of overpriced foods) at Central and Camelback and ride the train to campus. That will save about 30 miles of wear & tear on my car plus almost a quarter-tank of gas per trip!

buyingtix
Buying tickets

As an old folk, I can get a round-trip ticket for $1.25, somewhat less than the cost of gasoline for a round-trip drive. They have various packages that save a little, but unfortunately the tickets are for consecutive days, and I don’t necessarily go to Tempe five consecutive days a week. Ditto the university’s cut-rate package: you have to buy a full year’s worth; they take it away from you when you’re canned; and it covers consecutive days. So any day that you don’t ride represents wasted money. With the senior-citizen fare, the best deal seems to be to purchase a ticket from a vending machine for each ride.

But it gets better!

Presently, the end of the line on our side of town is in a shopping center with a Costco and a Target, within walking distance of M’hijito’s house. On days when I need to do make a significant shopping trip, I could leave my car in the Park’n’ride there and, on the way home, hit Costco and Target. This would save an extra trip for supply runs.

Also along the way are a Safeway, a Walgreen’s (both in reasonably safe areas), and the wonted AJ’s. In other words, I could combine about 98% of routine shopping with light-rail trips!

It would cut the use of my car by a good 75 to 80 percent. And once The Hartford hears about this, it will cut the cost of auto insurance: they specifically ask whether you commute on public transport.

In about 18 months or two years, this train is going to run right up the main drag just to the west of my neighborhood. I will be able to walk to the station—or ride Xoot the Xooter, or, as I get more decrepit, ride an electric scooter.

So! In retirement, I will barely need a car.

Good thing, since the amount of savings I’d earmarked to buy the new car was incinerated in the Bonfire of the Bush Vanities, and so I’ll have to make do with my ten-year-old van. Chuck the Mechanic Par Excellence informed me that its next scheduled service, at 90,000 miles, will set me back $1,200. Great timing, eh? I really need a twelve-hundred-dollar bill just as I’m about to lose my job. Well, it’s a lot cheaper than a new car.

And if this light rail system actually works to cut mileage by, say, 60 to 75 percent, the old clunk may survive another ten years.
Frugal and green!
🙂

Olive Oil: The ultimate skin cleanser

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Some time ago, I reported the discovery that olive oil can be used in place of expensive facial cleanser. Not only does it clean one’s face without leaving an oily film or making the user smell like salad dressing, for me it relieved an itchy spot that defied all the training and genius of two Mayo Clinic dermatologists. Five months later, here’s an update.

 

Since last November, I’ve been cleaning my face once or, more usually, twice a day by massaging in a little of Costco’s extra-virgin olive oil, laying a warm washcloth over my face to gently “steam” the skin, and then wiping the oil off well with the warm cloth. Then I apply a little Cetaphil as a conditioning cream. Before starting this beauty regimen, I had always washed my face with a mild soap such as Ivory and conditioned with Cetaphil or a similar drugstore-style moisturizer.

Lately I’ve noticed that my complexion is a lot more supple, soft, and healthy-looking that it used to be. Apparently regular, long-term use of olive oil to clean and condition your skin works to good effect. Over the past few years, I’ve watched my cheeks turn into something that looked like an old, dried-out leather purse, no doubt the result of spending all my life in the subtropics and growing up in an era when a deep tan was admired as a sign of good health. Although my skin is certainly not wrinkle-free now—nor, at my age, should it be—those fine networks of sun damage are almost unnoticeable, and I can go out in public makeup-free without frightening small children.

Now, here’s the weird part: despite all the stress I’ve been under, my appearance has not gone to Hell. Normally, chronic insomnia makes me look like the Wrath of God. But…

The night after I was told our office would be closed and my entire staff canned, I did not sleep at all. Not one wink. Didn’t go to bed until 4:30; lay awake until 5:30; got up and went back to work. Since then, most nights I’ve had about three or four hours of sleep. Last night and the night before, after my financial advisor demonstrated that my savings will come fairly close to supporting me despite the devastation of the Bush economy, were the first decent nights’ sleep I’ve had since March 26, when this episode started—over two weeks ago.

Even during the worst of this period, my face has looked hydrated, reasonably fresh, and well toned. No dark circles lurked under the eyes, and the color looked pretty normal, not the fish-belly gray one would expect. Don’t know what the explanation for this really is. All I know is the only thing I’m doing differently from what I’ve done during other high-stress periods is using olive oil on my face.

Yeah, I know: anecdotal evidence! Worse yet, post hoc, ergo propter hoc! But something’s working. In the absence of any other change, the olive oil treatment is a likely cause.

Adventures in Olive Oil

Olive Oil: The Ultimate Hair Conditioner
Olive Oil: The Miracle Skin Cleanser

Do no-buy days work?

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For a while, I’ve suspected that “no-buy days”—days in which you deliberately stay away from merchandisers of all kinds—would cause you to spend less on those days but create a pent-up demand that would predispose you to more spending and stimulate impulse buys on the days you allowed yourself into the stores.

In the wee hours of this morning, as I was wondering how I could get around what is now a migrating closing date on my American Express account, it occurred to me that instead of “no buy” days, you could establish set “buy” days during a given billing cycle, and otherwise letevery day be a no-buy day. In other words, you would not set foot in a retail establishment or click on a Web store’s site except on specific days set aside to make purchases. This thought drove me to Quicken as dawn was cracking.

There I discovered that over the past year I’ve tended somewhat in that direction: more and more no-buy days and fewer and fewer days in which I do purchase things. In January 2008, for example, I made 16 trips to various food purveyors, dropping an astonishing $734.33 on groceries. In January 2009, I made 10 trips and spent $333.99 on groceries.

Evidently, fewer trips to grocery stores mean less cash spent on groceries.

Now, in January 2008, my German shepherd was still living. She ate a lot of food, and that may account for some of the whopping bill. But what really accounts for it is that I was in the habit of stopping by Trader Joe’s or AJ’s (a local “gourmet” market) on the way home from work, where I would regularly buy a snack and beer or wine. I’ve almost stopped doing that. To the extent that I buy beer or wine—which I’ve also almost stopped doing—I buy it at Costco, where Corona is to be had at a significant markdown over the grocery-store price. And I’ve been sick for the past month and haven’t felt like eating…that could have to do with the drop in spending.

The December grocery bill was a hundred bucks more than January’s, but then I did throw an expensive Christmas dinner party.

The truth is, it looks like staying out of grocery stores cuts one’s bills significantly. With a little tinkering—establish specific days for shopping, build a week or ten days’ worth of menus beforehand and attack the store with a carefully crafted shopping list, and shop more at Target or even (ugh!) Walmart—it ought to be possible to reduce the grocery bill to a sane level. Three hundred and thirty bucks for one old lady and one small dog is not sane.

The trouble with grocery shopping at Target is that Target is a dangerous place. The last time I saved a bunch of money on grocery items, I spent $150 on sheets and bedding that I really didn’t need. I also spotted a $250 bicycle of the type I covet, available at other purveyors for $400 to $700. Ditto Walmart: they have the minivacuum cleaner I want, the one with the electric cord. Every other store carries only the cordless variety, which won’t run long enough to vacuum an entire houseful of tiled floors. All the big box stores—Costco, Target, Home Depot, and Walmart—pose the same threat. You go in to buy necessities, but they offer so much other tempting junk that it’s very, very difficult to get out with your wallet intact.

But I will say: last year at this time I was spending way too much at Trader Joe’s and AJ’s, emporiums that sell almost nothing but groceries and household items.

Here, apparently, is the key to surviving on a reduced income: plan, plan, plan! Plan specific shopping days and gasoline-purchase days. Plan purchases carefully, using lists and resisting unplanned buys. Defer impulse buys until the next scheduled shopping day, to give yourself time to think it over. And plan to make every day a no-buy day except for the scheduled shopping days.