Category Archives: Frugality

An easy guide to buying generics

Buying generic or store-brand items is one of my favorite ways to keep grocery costs down. But I’m frugal, not cheap, which means I won’t sacrifice quality completely just to save a few cents.

Generics have come a long way since I was a kid. Our grocery store even stocks a variety of low-cost organic generics. But there are still many generic products that, in my opinion, aren’t worth the pennies it cost to make them, let alone 75% of what I’d pay for a quality name-brand item.

Finding quality generics is a game of trial and error. The only way to know for sure if a generic is worth buying is to try it for yourself. There are some general rules I’ve found that can make the process easier, though.

Always

Staples – Milk, eggs, sugar, flour, tea, bread, butter, and other basics cost 25-40% less for generics, and you’ll never know the difference.

Canned fruits & vegetables – Many times the store-brand versions are even higher quality than their name-brand counterparts.

Medicine – The active ingredients are the same, but the cost difference is mind-boggling. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and all of the various cold medicines are as much as 75% cheaper in generic.

Tony takes a Claritin knock-off for his seasonal allergies, and it costs almost 1/4 of what we’d pay for Claritin. Seriously, 30 pills for $4 compared to 30 pills for $17 in the name brand. The store brand works just as well. The same is true for prescription medications. Always ask for the generic, and make sure your doctor writes substitutions into the prescription.

Sometimes

Cleaning products – Store-brand glass cleaner and bleach work just as well as their name-brand counterparts, but I notice a dip in quality for heavy-duty cleaners like shower and tub cleaners.

Cereal – Almost all of the major brand-name cereals come in a generic version, and we’ve only tried a handful that weren’t very good. At half the price of name brand, it’s always worth it to try.

Hygiene products – We buy name-brand toothpaste and deodorant, but Tony’s shampoo is always generic. This is one of those areas where you really have to try the product to know for sure.

Remember, if the product is low quality or doesn’t do its job, you’re not really saving money by buying the generic — you’re just throwing money down the drain on a low quality product.

Never

Dog food – It’s all our dog eats, so we spring for the good stuff. On the spectrum of dog food brands and prices, the food we buy probably falls somewhere on the upper side of the middle. It’s not the super expensive stuff, but definitely not super cheap or generic.

Peanut butter – We’re both picky about peanut butter, and ever since we discovered Skippy Natural we’ve been hooked.

Paper towels & toilet paper – I’ve experimented with generics, and the result wasn’t pretty. We use coupons and buy in bulk to reduce the cost.

Coffee – We brew a half pot every morning, and we each drink a cup. We’ve tried to buy store-brand to save money, but it’s like drinking mud. We don’t go all out and buy Starbucks, but we spring for a cost-effective name brand and save money by buying in bulk and limiting our consumption.

What are your rules for buying generic?

An update on goals & a progress report

I can’t believe it’s only been about 8 months since we committed to frugality and began saving our emergency fund. Our progress has been slow, but it’s started to pick up since we paid off our credit card debt.

Beginning in January, we doubled our monthly savings amount. Hopefully that means the progress meter I added to my sidebar over the weekend will begin to move more quickly.

Our summer savings account is actually complete … we’re just waiting on a tax refund check from the state of North Carolina. Once that arrives, it’ll go directly into our summer savings account to cover Tony’s income during the two summer months when he doesn’t receive a paycheck for teaching. We’re hoping he’ll be able to find a part-time job over the summer, and all of that extra income will go directly into the emergency fund.

As for the Europe savings account … well, that’s pretty sad so far. Our plan was to finish funding our emergency fund and then begin saving aggressively for our trip to Europe. We’ve had a slight change of plans.

It’s easier for me to stay motivated toward a goal when I can watch its progress, so we decided to open a new savings account and save separately for Europe. Opening a new account for Europe doesn’t change the total amount we have in liquid savings, it just helps us to track our savings to reach the two separate goals.

Since Europe is a fun goal, seeing the progress meter move should be extra motivating. Whenever I want to make an unnecessary purchase or spend money, I can take a look at our progress and remind myself that our tight budget will be worth it in 14 months!

After assessing our progress and our goals, I realized that we weren’t saving enough to reach them. So I shifted my budget around and cut down some of our discretionary spending to increase our monthly savings amount by $100. I’m hoping we can sustain the increase, but we’ll have to see how it goes.

Our emergency fund will remain our top priority, but we’ve begun saving a small amount for Europe every month, too.

Based on our current rate of savings, here are my projections for completion:

Emergency fund: Completed by July 2010

Europe fund: Completed by May 2010

Hopefully, we’ll bring in some additional income this summer and we’ll be able to finish sooner.

I’m glad I took the time to assess where we are and where we need to be. I was able to make a change to our savings before it was too late! Have you assessed your goals recently?

Europe on a budget: Should we add Italy to our trip?

When we started planning our Europe trip, we wanted to visit London; Paris; and Florence, Italy. After I started crunching numbers and planning a tentative itinerary, we decided that the added cost and extra travel time made Italy an impossibility.

Since then several people have urged me to reconsider our decision to nix Italy. Two of them even recommended Italy over Paris if we had to choose.

I don’t want to eliminate Paris from our plans, but I’ve started looking for a way to make Italy work. It will probably be at least a decade, maybe even two, before we can make another trip like this. I want to make sure we don’t have any regrets.

I’ve found some options for how to make it work, and now I’m trying to decide what to do.

There are three problems with adding Italy: the added travel costs, the additional time it would take to travel to Florence from Paris, and the inconvenience we’d have to endure to make it all work.

Cost

Flights out of Chicago (near where my family lives) are about $150-$200 cheaper per ticket. By driving the 800 miles to Chicago, we’d reduce our plane ticket costs by almost $500. We’d also be able to bring the dog along and leave him with my parents while we’re gone, which means we’d save the $350 cost to board him.

Here’s the breakdown. These prices are based on a May 2009 trip, so they’re obviously subject to change, but I’m using them as a basis for comparison:

Flying out of Raleigh NC:

Plane tickets: $1500
Train ride from Paris to Florence: $450
Dog boarding: $350
Total: $2300

Flying out of Chicago:

Plane tickets: $1100
Train ride from Paris to Florence: $450
Travel costs to and from Chicago: $200
Total: $1750

Flying out of Raleigh NC (without adding Italy):

Plane tickets: $1400
Dog boarding: $350
Total: $1750

We could add 2 days in Florence without increasing our travel costs if we fly out of Chicago. Now that we’ve eliminated the money constraints, our decision comes down to time and convenience.

Time

I was concerned that the 12-hour train ride to Florence would mean losing a day of sight-seeing. Then I discovered that we could travel overnight by train in a sleeper car, which means we wouldn’t lose any time while en route to Florence. (Anyone traveled in a sleeper car before? Is it comfortable enough to sleep through the night?)

Unfortunately, we’d still have to build a couple days of driving into our trip. Our original plan was 6 days in London, 6 days in Paris, and 4 days at home before returning to work. Adding Florence and flying out of Chicago would give us 5 days in London, 5 days in Paris, 2 days in Florence, 2 days of driving, and only a day and a half to relax before going back to work.

Inconvenience

Then there’s the most obvious problem: driving 800 miles to get home after all of that travel is going to be brutal. We know that. The question is, would it be worth it to suffer through in order to experience another country? I’ve always wanted to visit Italy, and I don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. But I do realize we’re going to be seriously inconvenienced.

The final consideration is our dog. I was nervous about boarding him for over two weeks. It just seems like such a long time. I would be a lot more comfortable leaving him with my parents (he’d receive better care, and it’s free!)

So what do you think? Is two days in Italy worth the inconvenience?

Time for new tires — or why I’m glad we have an emergency fund

new-tires
photo by kalebdf

Last week Tony took the car in for an oil change and brake check. I wasn’t expecting the news he gave me when he came home. One of our tires had a bubble and needed to be replaced immediately. The other three were on their last legs and needed to be replaced as well.

Our car only has about 20,000 miles, so we weren’t expecting this for some time. There was a time when a surprise like this would lead to panic and, most likely, debt. I didn’t have $200-$500 available for new tires at any given time, so I would have charged it on a credit card (unless my cards were maxed out).

This time it was a surprise, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t prepared.

Every month, we save $25 for car expenses. We’d accumulated about $90 in that account since using it to pay for maintenance before driving to Indiana in December.

The $90 would help, but it wasn’t enough. If we replaced all four tires, it would cost about $450.

I wanted to be sure that it was necessary, though. After all, the tires only had 20,000 miles on them. We knew we needed to replace the damaged tire, but I wanted to make sure the other three really needed to be replaced before taking money out of our emergency fund. We did the penny test and discovered that the back two tires were still okay.

We decided to replace the front two tires. We’ll monitor the tread and condition of the two back tires to make sure they’re still safe, and try to save up the money to replace them within the next few months.

We called for quotes at three different places — AAA, Wal-Mart, and Firestone. Firestone was the cheapest by about $100. The total for two new tires at Firestone was $215 with installation and other fees. Because we save additional money for car expenses, we only had to use $125 from our emergency fund. No big deal.

This is the first time I’ve had to tap the emergency fund, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that we have it. Before our emergency fund, I lived in constant fear that something like this would happen (and it always did). Our emergency fund made a normally stressful situation much easier.

I also learned that we’ve been too lax about tire safety. Just last weekend I drove over 100 miles on those tires — and one of them probably already had a bubble. I’m so thankful that I didn’t blow a tire going 70 miles per hour on the highway. Yikes.

From now on, we’ll keep a closer watch on our tire pressure and tread and check for tire problems, especially before long drives.

Entertaining guests for the weekend (again)

We’re expecting visitors again this weekend. Our friends from back home are staying with us Saturday and Sunday nights.

When it comes to entertaining visitors, I tend to have a pretty relaxed attitude. After all, they’re coming to see us, not for a nonstop agenda of activities. But it does help to have some fun activities planned to make sure that we all have a good time together.

Here are some budget activities I’ve come up with:

Give them a tour.

Now is the perfect time to view your city through the eyes of a tourist. Normally mundane things (like your city’s downtown area or landmarks) may be interesting to your guests. Check out museums and historic sites in your area. If you live in a small town, consider a day trip to the nearest metropolitan area.

Take the scenic route.

If you live in a small town, you probably live near some beautiful countryside. Take a mini-road trip through the country and stop for a picnic.

Have a dinner party.

Since your guests have traveled to see you, chances are they don’t live close enough to pop in for a traditional dinner party. Now is your chance to have one. Plan a special meal, break out your best dishes, and have a fancy dinner party.

Play a game.

When all else fails, board games are a good way to keep everyone entertained while continued to socialize. If you run out of ideas, maybe it’s time for Scrabble.

How do you entertain your visitors?

Wow, did I get a great deal on new clothes

My shopping trip yesterday was a phenomenal success. I was looking for fashionable, versatile clothing that would be professional enough for an upcoming business trip and comfortable enough to wear in my pretty casual office. I shopped with a friend, and we went to Anthropologie, Banana Republic, and Old Navy.

Before the trip, I decided I could afford to spend $150. That felt like a lot of money to spend on clothing in one month, but I haven’t shopped in about a year.

My friend suggested Anthropologie because I was looking for fashion, and even though they offer a pretty large sale selection, the sale prices were high for me. I did end up getting a nice cardigan from the sale rack, but at $40 it was the most expensive item I bought today.

Banana Repubic and Old Navy (as well as the Gap) are offering 30% off your entire purchase this weekend. This is in addition to sale prices and clearance mark downs. I found a TON of great stuff. After Banana Republic, I was still under budget, so I took my coupon to Old Navy where I bought some plain layering tees and camis — stuff that I always need, but usually don’t want to spend the money to get.

Here’s what I bought:

  • 1 pair dress pants
  • 2 cardigan sweaters
  • 3 dressy shirts
  • 5 layering camis
  • 2 t-shirts for me
  • 4 t-shirts for Tony

My total ended up being $165.22. If I had paid full price (which I would never do, but it’s still fun to see), it would have been $478.77. That’s a savings of over 65% off the original price!

It’s unlikely I would ever pay full price since I always shop the sales. A more likely scenario is that I would have paid sale and clearance prices without the 30% discount. If that was the case, it would have been $218.03 (including my $40 cardigan, which wasn’t marked down another 30%). So the 30% discount at Banana Republic and Old Navy saved me roughly $52.81.

How did I do it? Well, obviously, the 30% off everything sale really helped. But I also shopped exclusively from the clearance and deeply discounted racks. Not a single item was full price, even without the 30% discount.

My favorite item is a button-down cardigan. It was hanging on the clearance rack, marked down to $9.97 from $79. Why was it marked down almost 90%, and why on Earth was it still on the rack at that price? Well, there was a pretty big rip in the seam on the neckline. Because it was “damaged,” they took an additional 10% off the clearance price. Then I got another 30% off that. I paid $6.28 total for the sweater, which is a total savings of 92% off the original price.

When I got home, I stitched up the rip in the seam, and now the sweater is good as new. Even without the extreme discounts, it probably would have been my favorite item because it’s so versatile, comfortable, and cute. Never disregard the “damaged” items! It’s often a simple fix, and you can get some amazing deals if you’re willing to do some stitching.

The most important thing is that my wardrobe is refreshed with nice, versatile clothing that I can wear for business and daily life. But it definitely helps that I found such great deals!

If you haven’t checked it out yet, I strongly suggest you head over to Old Navy, Banana Republic, and the Gap to see if there’s anything left on the clearance racks. The 30% off sale ends today!

Clothes shopping stresses me out

This weekend I’m heading out to shop for clothes. It’s probably been about 8 months since I bought anything new, and even then it was just random clearance items I found every once in a while at the store where I worked.

This week, Kacie at Sense to Save wrote about how budgeting gave her permission to buy new clothing. Like Kacie, I hate to spend money on clothes. I take care of the ones I have and typically wear them for longer than I should. I’m just not that into fashion, and I’d rather spend that money on other things. As long as the clothes I’m wearing are in pretty good condition with no holes or stains, they’re usually fine with me.

I work in an office with a really casual dress code. Sometimes the women wear dress pants, but for the most part everyone comes to work in jeans. Obviously, we have to maintain a somewhat professional appearance, so holey t-shirts and old blue jeans aren’t acceptable, but for the most part it’s pretty casual.

I have plenty of nice casual wear that’s still in good condition, which is why I haven’t felt rushed to spend money on clothing. But next week I’m going on a business trip to a conference, and I need some suitable business casual attire. Now is a good opportunity for me to expand my wardrobe a little with nicer outfits that are casual enough for work and dressy enough for professional events.

I’ve set a budget, decided what I need, and I’m heading out today to do some shopping. Now I’m just worried about finding clothes that fit well, look nice, and don’t cost a fortune. When I’ve gone on shopping trips like this in the past, I’ve always found that the items on sale either aren’t in my size or don’t look nice. It can be pretty frustrating. Anyone have any suggestions for stores where I might find fairly fashionable business casual clothes for a good price?

What do you think about Netflix online movie watching?

netflix-dvds
photo by katiescrapbooklady

We love renting movies from Redbox. For only a dollar a night (often free with Redbox promo codes) we can rent recent releases.

For older titles, we rent from the library. Tony’s university library has a wide array of art films, mainstream titles, and TV series. They’re also pretty good about adding new titles quickly, but there’s often a long wait list for newer films that become available. We’ve rented a ton of great stuff from the library for free. It’s our favorite way to rent movies.

While Redbox and the library are perfect for new releases and mainstream titles, we often want to see art films and TV series that aren’t available through Redbox.

Lately, we’ve been considering other options for movie rentals. Online movie rental sites like Netflix and Blockbuster now offer online movie watching. Instead of waiting for a movie to be shipped to us, we can select what we want to see and watch it right on our computer. We like this idea, because it would allow us to watch a lot of movies even with the minimum one-DVD-at-a-time membership.

We’re considering joining Netflix with the minimum membership so that we can get art films and TV series either mailed to us or streamed to our computers. (We looked into Blockbuster, too, but their streaming service requires Internet Explorer on a PC, and we both have Macs.) For $8.99 a month, we could rent one DVD at a time and watch unlimited movies online.

We’re going to do a free trial first. Before we sign up, though, I just wanted to see if any of you have used this service. Are you happy with it? What is the selection of online movies like? I know they have a huge selection of movies by mail, but are all of the titles available to watch online? Do you still find yourself using Redbox or other rental services for convenience?

Feeding house guests on a budget

My in-laws Tony’s parents arrived yesterday, and they’re staying with us until Wednesday morning. (I hate the term “in-laws,” don’t you? It just sounds so cold.)

I don’t know about you, but whenever people come to visit I struggle to avoid falling back into my old spendthrift habits. For some reason, I still feel like the only way to be a good hostess is to spend a ton of money on food to keep my guests happy. Of course, I know that’s not the case (for the most part). But when you’re entertaining, you have extra people in the house to feed and care for. Inevitably, it’s going to cost a little extra money. The important thing is to avoid going overboard.

As always, I like to find a balance. We’re feeding twice as many people, so our grocery costs will automatically be a little higher for the week. We’re also making some special meals that we probably wouldn’t make if it was just us (like blueberry pancakes for breakfast). The trick is to balance it out.

Here are some tips I’m using to keep costs down while being good hosts:

Plan ahead.

Weeks ago we saw a great deal on steaks at the grocery store. Since we knew Tony’s parents were coming to visit this month, we picked them up and threw them into the freezer. This week we just had to pick up some potatoes and greens to go on the side. Now we have an extra special steak dinner for four, and it cost a fraction of the normal price. We would have paid twice as much for those steaks if we picked them up this week. Whenever we’re expecting company, I always keep an extra close watch on fancy foods to find a deal.

Cook in bulk.

We don’t like to make meals that serve more than four. We don’t usually enjoy leftovers more than once, and we don’t want to waste. When visitors come, we pull out our recipes that serve 6 or 8. We’re making a lasagna for Tony’s parents. It’s one of our favorite recipes, but we rarely make it because it’s just too much food for two people. Now that we’ll be cooking for four, it’ll be just right.

Don’t be afraid to cook frugal meals.

We planned special meals for three of the four nights they’re here. For lunch we just picked up some deli meat for sandwiches, and one of the nights we’re making a homemade pizza. We think they’ll enjoy trying our homemade pizza, and it’s the most economical thing we make. Why not share it with our guests?

Keep dessert simple.

Dessert can become a meal on its own — and double your meal costs if you let it. So keep it simple. We love to make fresh baked cookies and serve them with a scoop of ice cream. We’ve also made milkshakes or homemade ice cream with our KitchenAid stand mixer ice cream attachment. It’s tempting to make an elaborate cake or specialty dessert, but it only adds to your costs and stress to prepare it. Why make things harder when simple desserts are just as delicious?

Remember: it’s not about what you spend.

I don’t know why I still feel the urge to take our guests out for fancy restaurant meals. We rarely go out to dinner ourselves. For some reason, there’s a voice in the back of my head telling me that we need to treat them to extra luxury.

Since I started living frugally, I’ve been able to quiet the voice by reminding myself that we are treating our guests; we’re just doing it within our means. We’re making special meals, and putting in the extra effort to cook for them.

As long as you’re providing guests with plenty of good food to eat, being frugal doesn’t make you a bad hostess. After all, your guests are coming to see you. If you’re frugal every other day, you should continue to be yourself during their visit.