artofthecoupon.com

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Some people argue that cutting all ‘luxuries’ out of your budget is akin to a barebones diet… eventually you will burn out and splurge.  The question comes up- are there certain little luxuries that make life worth living, or should we keep certain indulgences in order to make frugality feel less like a burden?  Personally, I think this is the wrong mindset entirely. (more…)

I have a few friends that always want to go out to dinner with me.  While eating out once in a while is a great treat… it is not something that I want to do on a weekly basis.  It just doesn’t fit into my budget.  So, I found myself left with an uncomfortable choice… do I abandon my budget to avoid embarrassment, do I broach the subject of money and possibly create an awkward moment, or do I just claim I’m busy all the time and potentially risk the friendship?  None of these seemed to be attractive options.   (more…)

This post at Clever Dude got me thinking about the question of whether it is ever ethically OK to keep found money.  There is some base belief in America that there are certain circumstances which justify otherwise unethical behavior; for example, no one would fault a starving person for stealing bread because on some level we believe that it is an act of desperation and that the thief needs the bread more than the store.  But, what if that store is just barely making it, and the loss of that loaf of bread is going to cause the owner of the Mom ‘n Pop shop that it was taken from to go hungry for the night.  Then, is it suddenly more ethically wrong for the original thief to have taken the bread? Are we OK with him taking it from Wal-Mart but not Jim’s Deli? (more…)

While banks line up left and right to get bailed out by the U.S. government and Obama puts forth a bailout plan that essentially has responsible taxpayers paying for their neighbors swimming pool, I can’t help but wonder about those who might not be homeowners but who are still struggling.  People who worked for a small company or ran a small business and are getting laid off because no one is spending any money in such a dismal economy.  The about-to-retire people who have lost their pensions because the pension fund is insolvent after stock market losses.  The new graduate with $40,000 in student loans to repay who can’t find a job because no one is hiring.  What is happening to those people and who is helping them? (more…)

I like to save money on a lot of the little things.  Stamps is one of those little things.  Some people can buy stamps with Extracare bucks (even though technically this is a nono).  Since I’ve never tried, I’ve found another way to save a little bit of money.  I buy Forever stamps on Ebay.  I found $42 worth as a $40 buy it now with free shipping.  That is already a 4% savings.  I use Ebates (referral link) to get another 3% cash back.  Then, I pay using a 5% cashback rewards credit card when I pay through Paypal.  4% savings, 3% cash back and 5% cash back adds up to a nice little chunk of change back for something I would have had to buy anyway.  And, since I bought $40 worth at a time, I now have a bunch of stamps around so I don’t have to worry about not having one when I need to send a rebate or a last minute birthday card.  

I’ve seen a lot of posts lately regarding the cost of dog ownership.  As the owner of two dogs and an extremely frugal person, our dogs are one of the few things I do spend money on.  In fact, we have spent $820.11 on our dogs (2.2% of our spending) since we started tracking expenses in July of 2008.  I would have spent 10 times that amount because our dogs bring immense amounts of pleasure into our lives.  However, even though I know they are worth every penny, I still do want to be frugal when it comes to our pets just like I am in other areas of our life.  So, here are some frugal tips I have compiled, and ways that I save money on our precious pups. (more…)

It is clear there are a number of problems in America right now.  In less than 1 year, Americans have lost more than 1/4 of their net worth.  Many of these losses come from the sharp, staggering drop in housing prices when home equity went down more than 5 TRILLION dollars. Many Americans who had been using their homes as ‘bank accounts’ were no longer able to do so and American’s who bought expensive homes without down payments or any hope of affording the homes suddenly couldn’t keep them.  And, with the crash of the stock market, retirement assets dropped more than 2 TRILLION dollars.  Credit card companies are slashing credit limits, and those nice home equity lines of credit that made it possible for us to live well above our means were disappearing faster than chips in a Las Vegas casino.   (more…)

Spending almost nothing on food is a big theme around these parts lately.  I mentioned in this post that I get most of my milk, eggs, and butter from Walgreens or CVS using Register Rewards or ECB’s.  I neglected to mention, however, that I do a great deal of baking.  Making things from scratch with your own two hands, baked goods included, is one of the other keys to being a frugalite.  Of course this means you need to have a set of additional staples on hand, including 1) Brown Sugar 2) White Sugar 3) Flour 4) Oatmeal 5) Chocolate Chips. (more…)

I made another payment on my Citibank loan today, and it is hovering so close to the $10,000 mark.  I just can’t wait until it falls below that line.  Even $9998.00 will feel so much better and more comfortable to me than $10,000.  I don’t know why that is- I guess it is loosing that extra digit.  Anything below $10K feels easy to me, like it is just a small amount that can go away with little effort.  I know that isn’t true and it will probably still take another 5 months or so to get rid of the loan, but it just feels better. 

I’m paying a minimum of $1200 on the loan every month, and it has been hovering closer to $2000.  Assuming I can pay an average of $1500 a month, it will be another 6 months before I can cross that loan off. Since I seriously started paying on it in May and the balance was around $26K (I can post exact numbers later) that will mean I have paid off $25K in 16 months.  Since DF and I pay an equivalent amount to our loans, that will mean we have paid off $50K between the 2 of us in 16 months.  Considering our combined average annual salary is around $60K take-home (maybe a little less) that makes me feel pretty good.  

These numbers are a little off considering I transferred some of the balance from the loan to  low interest credit card and we’ve also paid for some other debts in there as well, but I’ll post more exact figures later. 

As I wrote in The Truth About Saving Money with Coupons, the art of coupon shopping goes beyond merely cutting a few coupons.  I wrote a guide to saving here, but one component I left out of my original guide was the importance of the cashier.  Some cashiers are wonderful.  They effortlessly handle a stack of coupons, ringing them through the register, fixing “beepers” (coupons that beep for no reason) and resolving problems.  Then, there are the other ones.  The cashiers that act as though coupons are magical tools that rip money right from their paychecks.  The ones that scrutinize every coupon, sometimes pulling items out of your bag to make absolutely sure they match.  The cashiers that read every word of a coupon, line by line, to look for some reason, any reason, not to take it.  Here are some common “lines” that these second types of cashiers uses, and some great comebacks that can help them come to their senses. (more…)