budget

Monday miscellany: Pandemic hangout edition.

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The “miscellany” idea is one that I’d like to make a weekly (or at least relatively frequent!) feature on the site. It will be a mix of news, events and whatever crosses my desk.

This week I’ll start with what’s happening today: a free virtual hangout designed for mothers during the pandemic.

“Monday Mom” is a way for mothers to share resources, chat and, yeah, vent to other moms who Get It. It takes place at 5 p.m. PDT/8 p.m. EDT.

Monday Mom is staged by the LOLA Retreat, an annual conference that’s the brainchild of personal finance author Melanie Lockert (“Dear Debt: A Story About Breaking Up With Debt”). Lockert has two other events this week as well:

“Managing Debt During COVID” is just what it sounds like: tips and tactics to help you survive financially during the pandemic, with financial law attorney and money maven Leslie Tayne. She’s the author of “Life and Debt: A Fresh Approach to Achieving Financial Wellness.” The program takes place Tuesday at noon PDT/3 p.m. EDT.

Finally, the “LOLA Retreat Hangout” is a place to connect with other women and talk about personal finance. The topic of money is too often taboo and as a result people miss opportunities and/or make choices (or don’t make choices) that wind up affecting their entire lives.

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What to do with “extra” money.

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Recently I interviewed personal finance blogger Jordanne Wells and something she said really struck me:

“If you know having money in your pocket will make you feel like you want to spend, then don’t have money in your pocket.” 

Wells didn’t mean using cash vs. credit/debit, or walking around without any money/plastic. She was referring to having “extra” money, as in spending less than you thought you would.

For example, maybe you budgeted $100 for groceries but the total was only $80 thanks to wise coupon use and some really good sales.

What to do with that $20?

“Put it toward something right now,” Wells says.

As in, right now. Don’t wait for the monthly credit card statement, or hesitate to move those bucks into your emergency fund. Do it nownownow.

“All of those payments just help to get you in that habit of ‘When I have money, I do something (positive) with it’,” the writer says.

She’s no ivory-tower theorist. Her lessons came the hard way. When Wells came to the U.S. from Jamaica to attend college she had zero information on how to handle money. Credit cards were a revelation: “I can charge $50 and I only have to pay $10? Awesome!” What with school expenses and then “work-appropriate” clothing, Wells amassed debt that she couldn’t pay in full – and that grew to $30,000 by her early 30s.

Needing to buy a vehicle after a car wreck, she learned that she had “awful” credit; the best car loan she could get was at 11 percent interest. So she set out to improve her financial life via what she calls the “Debt S.L.A.Y.E.R” method. Wells also wrote an e-book called “How to Build Credit and Raise Your Credit: Everything You Need to Know to Understand, Build and Maintain Excellent Credit.”

 

 

Right now a lot of folks would love to be in the position of having “extra” money. Plenty of people would have liked that opportunity pre-pandemic, too. If you’re living from paycheck to paycheck, or even just on very thin margins, the notion of surplus money cluttering up the checking account is something of a pipe dream.

Or maybe it isn’t.

 

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Extreme Frugality: Waste nothing edition.

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(Note: This is one of an occasional series of articles on saving money.)

We took the second batch of apple rings from the dehydrator this morning. Made from windfall apples, they have a mildly sweet flavor that at first seemed bland. Yet after eating two or three, I was hooked. Really looking forward to snacking on these this winter.

The cores of those apples wound up in the slow cooker along with other cores from the freezer; they’d come from the previous batch of dehydrated fruit and from two batches of apple pie filling. When DF judged them done, he drained the liquid through a cloth-lined colander and poured the juice into wire-bail bottles, then stored them in the chilly basement.

And the gloppy pomace left in the colander? That went into the compost pit out back. One day it will become part of a garden bed.

Not everyone can (or wants to) garden, or to preserve food. But you can observe the “waste nothing” ethos in other ways, too.

Not-wasting is a central tenet of frugality. A life without waste is a life in which each decision means something. This doesn’t limit our choices, however. It merely refines them. Rather than drifting through life reacting to every trend or advertisement, we decide what’s really important to us.

DF and I didn’t set out to become Super Green Eco-Consumers when we chose to reduce, reuse and recycle. We were merely living the way we grew up, i.e., not spending more than we must on food, clothing, utilities, housewares and the like.

Sure, this affects our impact on the Earth, which I guess does make us eco-friendly. But it also dovetails nicely with my frugal mantra (which he now shares): I save where I can so I can spend where I want.

Because we’re careful with money, we can afford to save for retirement, which means we won’t be a burden to our families as we age. We can also afford to give to charity, help relatives and friends in need, and allow ourselves special treats (a trip to Phoenix, a massage, a really good meal at Kincaid Grill once or twice a year).

Living without waste makes our lives better. And one or more of the following tactics might make your life better, too.

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Get free credit reports weekly.

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Thanks to the economic impact of COVID-19, some people are paying credit card bills and other obligations late. Or even missing them altogether, which can put a major hurt on your credit score.

Coronavirus-related scams are on the rise, and identity theft is a big concern since so many people have been shopping online. The Federal Trade Commission fielded four times more fraud claims in the first few weeks of April than in the previous quarter combined.

We’re all supposed to check our credit reports every four months, through annual free reports from the big three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). But for the next nine months, you can check it every week.

Those bureaus have teamed up to provide free weekly reports through AnnualCreditReport.com. It’s a collective response to COVID-19, whose financial upheaval has led to those late/missed payments, and it continues through April 21, 2021.

However, you don’t have to be struggling financially to want to check your credit report. It’s always a good idea to make sure there’s nothing weird on your report – and it’s not always fraud-related. Incorrectly entered info, such as transposed digits in a Social Security number, can lead to errors.

For example, one time when I checked the report seemed to think that I worked at a credit union in the southeastern United States. Nope, that wasn’t me.

Note: A credit report is not the same as your credit score. But this new paradigm offers help with that, too.

 

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Quarantine soup.

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I don’t like to waste food, especially since it’s been harder to find lately. It’s not that we’re food insecure, but that we could be.

Pandemic-related shortages have been reported in stores nationwide, and meat-processing facility closures have led some producers to slaughter animals rather than wait out the pandemic.

In addition, an expert I interviewed for a recent COVID-19 article noted that there will likely be some food shortages in the coming year. Mostly those would be specialty items, or high-maintenance crops that farmers aren’t sure they will have the manpower to nurture and harvest. (It can’t all be done by machine.)

Too, some farmers are plowing crops under right now because their biggest-ticket buyers – hotels and restaurants – aren’t buying. An analyst quoted by U.S. News & World Report notes this could lead to shortages (and higher prices) in the supermarket.

Not wasting food has always been a goal. But now it seems more important than ever.

 

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The low-maintenance preppers.

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th-2(Happy Throwback Thursday! This article was originally published on Feb. 27, 2014. But the subject matter seems pretty current.)

I just went shopping in our basement, bringing up several items that were missing in our upstairs cupboards: catsup and ibuprofen (both from Costco), a jar of homemade jam, a can of chicken soup.

It always tickles me to see how much we’ve got stored down there, from the kale we grew and dried to bedpillow-sized sacks of dried beans.

Since I live in a really seismic state, the stockpile also makes me feel safe and prepared. Well, as prepared as one can ever be for another Good Friday Earthquake. (And yes, I’ve thought about what might happen if the house collapsed into the basement: Anger, panic and finally rueful laughter.)

That’s probably why an Everyday Cheapskate post called “Don’t be scared, be prepared” resonated so much and got me thinking, once again, about food preparedness.

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Bonus earnings with the Fetch Rewards App.

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Recently a reader suggested I check out the Fetch Rewards app now that I’ve finally joined the 21st century by getting a smartphone.

At first I was skeptical, because DF and I simply don’t buy that much stuff.

Now I’m a believer, thanks to the 13,645 points in my account.

That translates to almost $14 worth of scrip at a slew of retailers and companies that provide entertainment, beauty, pet products, clothing, media, travel, spa experiences, office supplies, charitable donations, and even a prepaid Visa or Mastercard.

Full disclosure: Eight thousand of those points came from referrals. Which brings me to the point of this post:

From now through next Tuesday (March 24), the Fetch Rewards app is running a bonus campaign. For every person who decides to join using my referral code* (more on this below), I will get a whopping 4,000 points (instead of the usual 2,000 points).

But you’ll get something as well. Two somethings, in fact:

  • A 2,000-point welcome bonus when you successfully scan your first receipt, and
  • A referral code of your own to share – and if any of your family or friends joins, then you’ll get 4,000 points. Through next Tuesday, anyway, at which point it reverts to 2,000 points.

Here’s what you need to know.

 

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The REAL way to save on Black Friday.

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Having a gift closet is a great frugal hack, as it saves you money all year long. A stash of “evergreen” presents means you’re ready for any occasion.

(Especially those that sound like this: “Hey, I forgot to tell you, I’m invited to Jack’s birthday party on Saturday.”)

If you pick your spots, the first few shopping days of the holiday season are a great way to put some oomph into your gift closet. They’re also a good chance to hit some specific gift milestones, and maybe even to get something your own household needs (or wants).

Gifts for people who are pregnant, getting married, and or heading off to/graduating from college abound in sales flyers for Black Friday et al. Maybe it’s time to check a few gifts off your own upcoming events?

You’ll see towels, sheets, blankets and the like starting at just a few bucks. Last year, I spent just $5.99 for a luxuriously warm blanket in a rich mulberry color. It’s on our bed, and between it and the comforter we’ve been a little too warm lately.

Then again, poking an arm or leg out of a cozy bed is one of the great joys of a winter night. In “Dandelion Wine,” Ray Bradbury described it thusly:

“…sticking your feet out of the hot covers in wintertime to let the cold wind from the open window blow on them suddenly and you let them stay out a long time until you pull them back in under the covers again to feel them, like packed snow.”

Someone who’s setting up a first apartment might really appreciate something like that, especially if you could afford to pair it with a set of sheets. Maybe a half-dozen bath towels and washcloths would be a big help for that new apartment-dweller.

Small appliances like coffeemakers, electric fry pans and slow cookers are typical loss leaders. The Kohl’s flyer I got in the mail offers these for $2.14 after coupon and rebate.

Why didn’t they save that price for Valentine’s Day, I wonder? Maybe it’s because none of these are romantic enough. But they’d be a big help for someone setting up housekeeping – and that includes getting married.

 

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Extreme Frugality: Holiday shopping edition.

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Surviving and Thriving has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Surviving and Thriving and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses and recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

(This is the first in an occasional series of articles focusing on saving serious dough. A little background can be read here.)

Black Friday? How about Black November?

Not long ago, Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving – was considered the kick-off for the holiday shopping season. The timetable has been moved up, though.

This year, some retailers offered “Black Friday in April” or “Black Friday in July” deals, and recently the National Retail Federation reported a phenomenon called “Black November” – big deals offered on Nov. 1, with more to come before Nov. 29.

Some of the busiest shopping days of the year, however, are the days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. In 2018, an estimated 165 consumers spent an average of just over $313 during that five-day period.

“People plan their attack, and where they’re going to go. It’s a sport,” says shopping expert Trae Bodge, a senior editor at Retail Me Not.

 

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Extreme frugality: An occasional series.

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During the last recession, people went to surprising lengths to make ends meet. Hypermiling. Navy showers. Dumpster-diving for food (aka “freeganism”).

Some practiced extreme frugality to keep from sinking further into the red; others did it to survive. (Some still do.)

Hailed at the time as examples of savvy consumerism, these sorts of activities don’t get a whole lot of press today. Some would say that’s a good thing, i.e., fewer people are living on the edge.

I’m not so sure.

While I’m glad the recession is technically* over, I remain sad that we seem to have learned nothing from the tough times of previous decades. There’s more things than ever to buy, especially as regards electronics – and quite a few us want these things at all costs.

In fact, a new survey from CreditCards.com suggest that 61 percent of people with credit card balances are willing to add more debt for the holidays.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really glad I no longer have to wash all my clothes by hand, or live on the most basic of foodstuffs. But I think we could all do with a little bit more strategic frugality.

Some people think “frugal” means “impoverished,” and certainly it’s true that some people live frugally because they have no choice. It’s a way of life that can be terrifying. (Anyone else here ever raided the baby’s piggy bank** for bus fare to get to work on payday?)

In those days, and again during my lengthy divorce and return to college, I was frugal because I had to be. But even when times got better, I was still frugal – because I happen to think it’s a great way to live. To me, it means a life in which every decision is intentional. Every step I take (or don’t take) means something.

 

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