Author Archives: Karen

Monthly debit card fees make cash-only budgeting smarter than ever

According to an article on the New York Times, big banks including Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo are beginning to charge consumers a monthly fee for utilizing debit cards. Bank of America has announced that debit cardholders will be charged $5 per month if they choose to make debit card purchases in that month, while Chase and Wells Fargo are in the testing phase. The debit card fees are an answer to federal regulations capping debit fees charged to retailers for processing the cards. From the New York Times article:

Starting Saturday, big banks must comply with a new regulation that caps the fees they can charge merchants for processing debit card purchases. But some consumers are already seeing the impact of the change, in the form of higher fees charged on their checking accounts, as banks seek to recoup lost revenue.

Bank of America is the latest bank to say it will begin charging a monthly fee for checking accounts that use debit cards. Starting early next year, the bank will charge $5 a month, in any month that the customer uses a debit card to make a purchase. (If customers have a debit card, but don’t use it, they won’t incur the fee.) The fee won’t apply to A.T.M. transactions, and it won’t be charged to customers with certain premium accounts, a bank spokeswoman, Betty Riess, said. “The economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,” she said.

Bank of America joins banks including SunTrust and Regions in charging the fees. Other institutions, like Wells Fargo and Chase, are testing them, too. And over all, bank fees have crept up to record levels, a recent survey found.

I currently bank with ING Direct, which built a reputation on limiting fees to their consumers, but I’m curious to see how their recent merger with Capital One will affect this reputation. It could be that they’ll join in with other banks in charging these fees.

If you’re facing debit card fees from your bank, you have a few options for combating it. The first option is to switch to a bank that doesn’t charge these fees. Unfortunately, though, it seems that most mainstream banks could be moving in the direction of passing higher fees along to consumers as they lose revenue due to the new federal regulations.

To avoid fees all together, you could either move to a cash-only budget or pay monthly bills and expenses with a no-fee credit card and pay the balance in full each month through bank draft or check. Cash-only is obviously the safer option to avoid overspending to paying high interest fees for balances that carry over.

How do you plan to avoid high bank fees in the coming months? Has your bank announced any new fees now that this legislation is going into effect?

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Simple ways to feel more organized

When Judah started bebopping all over the house a couple months ago, I felt like I lost a good chunk of useable time during the day. He suddenly started sleeping less, and he wanted to be moving constantly — which means I have to watch and chase him constantly. It’s hard to get anything done when he’s awake.

I’m not ashamed to admit that housework took a backseat. My to-do list took a backseat. And yes, this blog has taken a backseat. Eep.

I’m working on getting it together, though, and there are a few things I’ve implemented to make me feel and seem more organized — even on the days when I’m anything but.

Create a daily routine, and try to stick to it.

Things seem to go more smoothly when Judah and I stick to a basic routine. Play time, meals, naps, errands, and chores are all penciled into our day at roughly the same times every day, so we both know what to expect. Judah seems happier when we’re on a schedule, and I feel like I get more done when I adhere to a routine. There’s room for variation, but certain constants keep us running on schedule.

Keep things tidy.

Housework is one of the first things to fall to the back burner when I’m pressed for time, but a messy house makes me feel even more chaotic. For the past couple weeks, I’ve been cleaning a little every day instead of doing major cleaning on the weekends. By keeping our living areas (the kitchen, living room, and dining room) tidy, I just feel better and more organized. It also leaves more time for relaxation on the weekends. This same principle can be applied to your work space. Keeping your desk tidy will help you feel more focused and productive.

Schedule some downtime.

No matter how hectic things are, I try to reserve Judah’s morning nap time for quiet time for myself. I read, blog, email, or sometimes even nap during that time if we had a particularly rough night (ahem, teething). Taking an hour to myself every day helps me recharge and feel more focused so I can be more productive throughout the day.

Write it down.

I rely on my iPhone for pretty much everything. Appointments, reminders, and other odds and ends are programmed into my calendar, and I receive an alert to remind me of things. I would probably lose my head if it wasn’t attached to my body, so these reminders are crucial to keep me from missing important dates and appointments. If you prefer pen and paper, a planner or calendar can do the same job.

Know when to quit.

Sometimes after I finally get Judah to bed, I want to keep going and finish what’s left on my to-do list, but I know I’m too drained. When you hit a wall, tackle the last crucial things, but leave odds and ends that can wait until tomorrow. If you push yourself too hard, you’ll spend every day feeling exhausted, and it’ll lower your overall productivity. Instead allow yourself to quit when you know you’ve had enough. You’ll start the next day with more energy, and hopefully that’ll give you the bump you need to finish what you didn’t get to the day before.

What tricks do you use to fake it when you’re feeling unorganized?

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Kicking the habit of using unnecessary household products

Habit has always been one of my biggest money drains. There are a lot of expensive things that I buy just because I always have, but when I really think about it, I could probably survive without them. I’ve already broken my habit for a few of them, but I’m still working on others. Here are a few of the things I came up with:

Paper towels

I’ve been trying to break my paper towel habit for years. They’re so expensive, and they’re bad for the environment, and yet I can’t seem to kick them. Over the past few months, I’ve tried really hard to decrease my dependence on them. I now use a dish towel to dry my hands, and I use a sponge for most household cleaning. For some messes (like sanitizing the counter after working with raw meat), I still prefer a paper towel that can be thrown away. But I’m saving money by reducing our consumption of this expensive convenience item.

Fabric softener

For years, I spent money on fabric softener sheets without really thinking about it. When we started using cloth diapers, we read that fabric softener residue can coat the washer or dryer and damage diapers, so we kicked the habit cold turkey. I was shocked to discover that I didn’t miss fabric softeners. At all. My towels are just as fluffy without them. My laundry may not have an artificial fragrance now, but I don’t miss that enough to warrant spending the money on them.

Individual cleaning products

There was a time when the cabinet beneath my sink was stocked with 20 different cleaning solutions. Kitchen cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, shower cleaner, mopping solution for the floors, and so on. Then I realized it’s all basically the same thing. I consolidated my cleaning supplies to a bottle of Lysol and a bottle of bleach. I’d like to kick the chemical habit all together and switch to vinegar, baking soda, and good old fashioned soapy water instead, but I’m working through the rest of these two bottles. I may still keep a bottle of bleach in the garage for really messy jobs, though.

Convenience foods

I used to spend a lot of money on snacks and frozen meals and other convenience foods. These items were one of the first things I dropped from our grocery list when we started living frugally, and I never looked back. They’re expensive, unhealthy, and I didn’t miss them one bit. We have fun crafting similar foods from scratch, and our grocery budget is much lower without them.

What household items have you learned to live without to save money?

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Giving prefolds another chance

You may recall last month when I wrote about the problems I was having with prefolds, and the fact that I was considering switching to expensive pocket diapers. Several of you gave me some helpful hints in the comments, so I decided to give it a few more weeks.

First I stripped my diapers to get rid of any stink. I realized part of my problem is that I’m still using detergent made for extremely hard water from back when we lived in a rural area with hard water. So I think I was using too much detergent. I cut the amount in half to avoid future issues.

Since too much detergent was the problem, I used a gentle stripping method with no additives or bleach. I basically just ran my diapers through several cycles of extremely hot washes until they stopped sudsing. Easy!

Then I started experimenting with the fold. Since Judah was born, I’ve wrapped the diapers around him and secured them with a Snappi. This was causing issues with disposing of solid waste, because the diapers were all folded up and creased. Yuck. I tried the newspaper fold, which is just a flat fold that fans out in the back with no Snappi. That helps!

I’m still having issues with keeping my mobile baby still while I get the diapers on him. Sigh. I suspect that will just continue to be a problem. I know it’s easier to get him into one piece and snap it than it is to wrestle him into the diaper and then the cover, but I suppose in the end that one extra step isn’t making all that much difference. I just try to keep him distracted with a toy or a song, and I go as quickly as I can.

Finally, it seems like giving it some time helped. I believe Judah was going through a particularly yucky diaper phase, and it seems to be much better now.

The moral of the story? Spending money to solve a problem should always be the last resort. Experiment with some free solutions before you shell out more cash!

Is sticking to your budget hurting your savings account?

This post was originally published September 3, 2009.

piggy bank

“Wait, wait,” you’re saying. “Budgeting helps you make better decisions with your money, which should be helping your savings account. Isn’t that the whole point?!” And you’re absolutely right.

However.

This summer, I learned a valuable lesson that I want to share with you. Sometimes being too rigid in your budget can actually lead you to make bad budget decisions.

This isn’t one of those posts about how you need to treat yourself every now and then to avoid burn out. This is about how sticking to a budget can sometimes make extra money feel, well, extra. And if it’s extra, why not just spend it? You deserve it after all that hard work budgeting, right? The problem is, this mindset can prevent you from growing your savings account.

I am constantly vowing to use the snowflaking method to increase my savings, but my strict budget gets in the way. If I receive unexpected “extra money” in the middle of the month, I often end up spending it. After all, this is extra money. I’m technically sticking to my budget, right? So I can spend this money on whatever I want.

It’s a bad habit, and it’s slowing down our savings progress. If we saved this extra money instead of spending it, we would be saving a lot more.

So how do we break this bad habit? I have a plan. Part of the problem is that I feel compelled to make a plan for unexpected money right away. Whether it’s $10 or $100, I decide how to spend it immediately, and more often than not it involves spending it on something we don’t need because, hey, it’s “extra.”

From now on, unexpected money will be deposited and ignored until the following month when it can be added to the budget. It’s much easier for me to commit money to savings when I’m creating a budget than it is for me to commit unexpected money to savings when the budget has already been set for the month.

I’m hoping that adding it to a budget will help me view it as part of our income instead of “extra money.” I’m much less likely to spend our regular income than I am to spend money that I don’t include as part of our income.

Is this a problem you face? How do you combat “extra money syndrome”?

Photo by alancleaver

Crock pot cooking saves time & money

I’m suffering from a lack of inspiration this week. I’m tired. Judah is teething. Things have been a little rough lately. So forgive me for phoning it in a little on this one, but lately I’ve been having a love affair with my crock pot.

I’ve always thought of the crock pot as a fall/winter thing, but my love affair with mine started during this summer’s intense heat wave. We were having issues with our air conditioner, and the house just wasn’t getting as cool as we wanted. We couldn’t bear the thought of turning on the oven, and my husband (the cook in our family) didn’t want to stand over a burning stove top in the kitchen. Enter the crock pot.

We started buying large cuts of meat, slow cooking them in the crock pot, and using the meat in dishes throughout the week. Sandwiches, salads, soups, quesadillas. The possibilities were endless. Now as we enter the cooler season, I’m thinking about soups and stews and roasts and other winter comfort food that will be a snap to prepare in our beloved crock pot. It makes me wish we’d started using the thing years ago.

Here are a few of the reasons why I love it so much:

It’s easy.

Just chop and drop your ingredients in the morning (or before you go to bed), and when you get home dinner is ready to serve. Simple!

It uses less energy than the oven.

Even though the crock pot cooks for longer, it doesn’t use the massive amounts of energy it takes to heat an entire over to 300-400 degrees. So it will lower your energy bill (slightly).

It doesn’t heat up the kitchen or the house.

While most people think crock pot = winter comfort food, we started using ours in the summer time to avoid the heat generated by the oven and stove top.

It allows you to buy and cook cheaper cuts of meat without sacrificing flavor.

The process of slow cooking breaks down and softens up cheap cuts of meat that would otherwise be tough. That means you can stretch your grocery budget and still eat delicious meals.

It makes the house smell glorious.

There is nothing better than walking in the door to a house the smells of delicious roasted meat or soup. Trust me.

You can make more than you think with a crock pot.

I have an entire pinboard on Pinterest devoted to crock pot cooking, and I’ve been shocked at how many different recipes you can make. It’s not just soup and roasts. The crock pot can make it easier to prepare pasta dishes, casseroles, dips, and even drinks and desserts.

What’s your favorite crock pot recipe or web site? I’m always looking for new ideas!

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Recipe inspiration from Pinterest

Everyone has been buzzing about Pinterest for a few months now. I spend way more time on the site than I probably should, but I’m sad to admit that I don’t have nearly enough time to actually act on the inspiration I find there. I’m constantly repinning ideas for crafts, home decorating, and brilliant life hacks, but I’ve recreated almost none of them.

Menu planning is the one area where I do act upon the inspiration I find on Pinterest. It takes no effort to glance at the recipes pinned by the people I follow and repin what looks good a few times a day. On grocery day, I look through the ideas, and there’s always something that inspires me.

Now that I’m on a high-protein, vegetable-heavy, low-carb kick (I’ve lost 7 pounds so far!), it’s been harder for me to find good, frugal recipes that fit my dietary restrictions. This is why Pinterest has been so helpful! The people I follow share a ton of great ideas for easy, healthy, low-carb meals. (They also share a ton of ideas for sinfully delicious desserts that I repin in the hopes that I’ll someday hit my goal weight and enjoy those things on occasion again.)

This week, I was thrilled with the recipes I found on Pinterest, and four out of seven meals we’re cooking were inspired by recipes pinned on the site. I wanted to share them with you in case you’re looking for frugal, healthy meals that don’t require a ton of ingredients or time.

  • Healthier General Tso’s Chicken – I’ve been craving Chinese food, and this recipe is a simple, easy way to kick up traditional stir fry. It has more sugar that I should be eating, but we’re adding extra veggies to counteract the sugar content.
  • Rosemary Chicken – I have a huge fresh rosemary plant growing in front of my house that I’ve barely touched this season, so I was thrilled to find an opportunity to use some of it up. We’re pairing it with a fresh romaine side salad and this roasted broccoli to amp up our vegetable intake.
  • Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup – We’re making a few adaptations to this recipe since we’re trying to avoid processed foods. It calls for canned enchilada sauce and cream of chicken soup. We’ll make our own enchilada sauce and use a combination of milk and chicken stock instead of canned soup. Hopefully it will turn out as good as it looks!
  • Basil Chicken with Vegetables – This is another skillet stir fry that will allow me to use up some of my homegrown herbs. I’m trimming basil by the handful every week to keep it from flowering, and I haven’t been able to use it as quickly as it’s growing. Again, we’re loading it up with more veggies than the recipe recommends.

If you haven’t signed up for Pinterest yet, I highly recommend it. It’s honestly the most useful social network I’ve ever joined. Sure, there’s still the time suck factor, but the ideas really motivate me to try new things in the kitchen. And hopefully someday I’ll find the time to make some of the awesome crafts and life hacks I find there, too.

Are you on Pinterest? Follow me here, and share your username in the comments so I can follow you!

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Cloth diapers: reconsidering expensive pocket diapers

I’ve raved about inexpensive prefold diapers in the past, and I still think they’re a great entry into cloth diapering. They don’t require a huge financial investment, they’re easy to use, durable, and a snap to keep clean.

However. As many of you seasoned cloth diapering moms warned me, prefolds have become cumbersome as Judah is getting more mobile. I don’t think they’re interfering with his ability to move around (obviously), but I do wonder if they’re as comfortable for him now that he’s moving. And let’s be honest, wrestling a mobile baby into a prefold, Snappi, and cover while he twists and turns and moves is a lot harder than snapping him into a single diaper.

One other slightly TMI confession: I am not as wild about cloth diapers since we introduced solids. Prefolds were simple for an exclusively breastfed baby. Now not so much. I’ve tested some of the pockets I already have on hand, and I was amazed at how much easier it was to deal with solid waste with the fancy microfleece lining compared to the cotton prefolds that are folded to fit him. Let’s just say all those folds and creases make it a lot harder to dispose of the waste before washing. Moving on.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from prefold diapers. They have worked fabulously for me, and I will continue to keep them on hand and probably continue to use them under certain circumstances. I don’t regret buying them. I didn’t want to invest hundreds of dollars into a cloth diaper stash before I knew if it would work for us, and the initial investment to use pocket diapers full-time for a newborn who needs 10-12 diapers changes a day was just too much for me.

I’m just starting to wonder if I should add a few more pocket diapers to my stash to make things a little easier on all of us (and future babysitters). Now that we’re past the newborn phase of 12 diapers a day, I could probably make a dozen diapers last two days, especially if I had some prefolds on hand to fill in the gaps if he needs a few extra diaper changes on some days.

I have a BumGenius 4.0, a FuzziBunz Hemp Organic, a BumGenius all-in-one, and a SmartiPants pocket diaper. I like all of the pocket diapers a lot, but I haven’t used them enough to develop a preference.

I wanted to get opinions from my cloth diapering readers: do you have a preference for a certain pocket diaper? Which works best for toddlers? Judah is slim and small for his age (10th percentile for weight, 50th for height at his last appointment three months ago), so I suspect he will stay that way for the foreseeable future. He’s probably around 18 pounds now, so I don’t think fit will be a problem for a while. We hope to use cloth until he potty trains, so I want to make sure they diapers I buy now will fit a 3-year-old if necessary.

I like the idea of FuzziBunz hemp diapers, because they’re made from organic, natural materials. But they’re more expensive. I’ve also developed some brand loyalty toward Cotton Babies products. My favorite covers are Flips and Econobums, so I’m thinking I’ll be just as happy with the BumGenius. So I’m torn. Tell me what you think!

Are pot roasts covered by car insurance?

My parents were visiting us all weekend, which means we didn’t have time to run the errands and do the chores that we typically do on the weekend. So my Monday was a little busier than normal. My to do list looked like this:

  • Grocery shopping
  • Post office
  • Return library books
  • Attend play time at library

It’s not a lot, obviously, but usually the only thing on my list on Monday is play group.

Last week, Judah skipped his morning nap, so he was crabby all through play group. I decided to go to the grocery store first yesterday morning in the hope that he would fall asleep in his car seat on the way there and sleep through most of my shopping so he’d be rested by the time we got to the library. (Ha! He did fall asleep on the way there, but woke up immediately after I shut off the car, so my plan didn’t even work.)

I was running late when I left the grocery store, but I thought I’d have just enough time to get home, unload the groceries, and make it to the library right around the corner just in time for play group.

I was driving up the center lane of the parking lot when an ENORMOUS monster-sized dump truck suddenly appeared on the other side of a parked school bus. I slammed on my brakes and laid on my horn. THUMP. The dump truck hit me anyway.

Thankfully, he wasn’t going very fast, so the impact was minor. If Judah HAD been sleeping, I doubt he even would have woken up. The air bags didn’t deploy, which is a relief for me since those things terrify me. I mean, I get that they’re helpful in a high speed crash, but they usually cause more injury than the accident itself in a minor collision.

You may remember, I just bought my car in February. My shiny new beautiful Toyota RAV4, the nicest car I’ve ever owned. Now it has a huge dent on the front thanks to the giant dump truck. Sigh.

Obviously, we missed play group as we waited in the parking lot for an hour for the sheriff, and he wrote out a police report. All while my $12 chuck roast sat in the back of the car probably spoiling. So help me, if that chuck roast spoils, I WILL SUE. For $12 plus pain and suffering caused by lack of dinner for the rest of the week.

Anyway, I’m clearly keeping things in perspective. I’m thankful that we’re both safe, and even if the damage had been major, it’s just a car. In this case, the damage is superficial. I was able to drive away from the scene with no problems despite the fact that my front side is dented in.

After posting about the incident on Facebook, Kacie reminded me that I should probably consider replacing Judah’s car seat. I did some quick research to see what the protocol is in the event of such a minor collision. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a car seat may still be safe after a collision as long as 1.) the air bags don’t deploy, 2.) no one is injured, 3.) the car is still drivable and 4.) there is no damage to the door closest to the car seat. All of those things are true in this case. However, the NHTSA says you should defer to manufacturer guidelines.

I called Chicco to see what they’d have to say. Surprise surprise, the corporation that sells car seats says the seat is now unsafe, and they want me to buy a completely new car seat no matter how minor the impact. Pfft. I’m annoyed, because I don’t think there’s any way the seat was damaged by such minor impact. I could probably shake my car more by bumping it with my hip. But I am a parent, and I’m not willing to take any risks with my baby’s safety, and they know that. So they’re using my parental fear to manipulate me to buy a brand new car seat.

Well, the joke’s on them, because I’m not even buying a Chicco! Judah’s probably getting close to the height limit for his Keyfit anyway, so I’m just going to go ahead and get him a convertible. The dump truck driver’s insurance better reimburse me, though, because now I won’t be able to use the Keyfit for a future baby. I’m pretty crabby about that.

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Judah desperately needed a nap when we came home, but I couldn’t get him to sleep all afternoon, because they’re replacing the roofs on the condos next door, which is making a ridiculous racket.

All of this is to say, I had a bad day. But we’re okay. Any time you and your kid can walk (or crawl) away without a single bump after an accident, it is a blessing. My pot roast may not have been so lucky, and my pretty new(ish) car is all dinged up, but we’re okay. And that’s what matters, isn’t it?

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