frugal hacks

Low- or no-spend February starts tomorrow.

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Just a heads-up: Beginning tomorrow, we start the no- or low-spend February challenge. Given the comments I received on the original post, some of you are as intrigued as I am by this chance to look closer at your spending and, if need be, to get control of it.

This time around we’re doing “low-spend” as an option. I want to encourage people to do their best not to spend – but I also want them to let it go if they do have to spend.

Your teenager has no control over whether they grow out of their shoes next month, and your car isn’t going to wait until March 1 to break down. As thoughtful as those things would be, life isn’t perfect. It doesn’t conform to our expectations. (I expect most of you know that already.)

As I noted in the original piece, it’s more of a “spend-super-intentionally” month. The object isn’t privation. It’s innovation, and it’s discovery. How can we come up with clever workarounds vs. spending on autopilot? And just how much do we spend while we think we’re being frugal?

Also as noted: We’re going for mindfulness, like masochism. You can still buy stuff. Heck, you can even buy stuff you don’t technically “need,” as long as you keep the low- or no-spend February club rules in mind: 

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Found money and hunger.

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As regular readers know, I pick up coins (and sometimes bills) all year long. The found money goes into a vase my daughter got from the free box at a yard sale when she was little. At the end of the year, I round up the amount and donate it.

Last year my found money take was pretty paltry: just $5.88, probably due to the pandemic*. For example:

Work slowdowns/job loss might have made some folks more apt to pick up those quarters they dropped. When times were better, they just let ’em roll.

People weren’t shopping in-person as much, for fear of contagion. Fewer shoppers means fewer chances for dropped coins.

And since I spent a whole lot of 2020 hiding away from the invisible** threat, I wasn’t in the stores much myself.

To some extent, those things were still true in the past year. In addition, the country has been plagued by a coin shortage in stores and banks so folks were using less cash. Maybe that’s why I kept thinking that 2021 was going to be another low year for found money. Imagine my surprise when I counted up: The vase held $10.11 – almost 72 percent more than in 2020.

Generally I donate the rounded-up amount either to Feeding America or the Food Bank of Alaska. This year, however, I’m going to focus on hunger in the rural town where I grew up. 

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Join us for a no- or low-spend February.

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The first time I suggested this, back in 2019, it was simply a no-spend February. Given the current economy, I propose to make things more inclusive with a “no- or low-spend February.” This welcomes everyone, including those who might have reasons why they can’t just quit  buying.

Besides, this exercise doesn’t mean “stop buying anything at all for 28 days.” Of course you can still put gas in the car or fresh produce in the fridge.

As I said back in 2019, a no-spend month is really more of a “spend-super-intentionally month” – and I’m confident that readers of this site are up to that challenge.

Some of you already have to spend super-intentionally, all year round, due to issues like underemployment, health conditions, family financial crises or, lately, inflation. Other readers spend carefully in order to meet specific goals: minimalism, sustainable living, giving to causes they believe in, early retirement and the like.

Whatever your reasons for being careful with your dough: Who’s in for a no- or low-spend February?

It’s pretty simple. Instead of spending the way you normally do, you interrogate your purchases: 

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Disaster prep on a dime.

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(Happy Throwback Tuesday! Yes, I know it’s supposed to be Throwback Thursday, but given the various weather storms and power outages around the country right now, this article  needed republication before Thursday. The post originally ran on Feb. 18, 2021, when the Texas deep-freeze catastrophe was threatening lives and property.)

Disaster prep isn’t much fun. Who wants to think about all the ways that nature is trying to kill us? But it’s essential.

Texans couldn’t really be prepared for the double whammy of extreme cold and multiple utility failures. Burst pipes, multi-car accidents, disruptions to the food supply, boil-water notices, “seeking heating” shelters that don’t provide meals or a place to sleep – it’s pretty dire.

In some case it’s become a triple whammy: No way to stay warm + no power to cook/preserve existing food = needing to go out on slippery roads to seek a place to sleep. Assuming, that is, that local shelters aren’t full or that hotel rooms (if you can afford them) are still available.

I’m not looking to turn this into a diatribe as to whether Texas was foolish for wanting its own power grid and why officials didn’t winterize said grid. There’s already plenty of finger-pointing to go around. Instead, I’d like to ask readers whether they are even a little bit prepared if extreme weather or some other natural disaster should befall them.

If things got dire in your neck of the woods, how would you eat, drink and keep from freezing/developing heatstroke? Also: Got any idea where you’d poop?

 

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Two quick grocery hacks.

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DF and I didn’t plan to buy eggs or meat today at the supermarket. But we wound up using two quick grocery hacks that saved us quite a bit of money.

While these quick grocery hacks are recurring deals, they’re not always available. We’ve made it a habit always to look for them, though, and today is one of those days that paid off.

The first is to watch for “repack” eggs. Sometimes one or more eggs in a carton will crack and the dozen is unsellable as-is.

An enterprising dairy manager simply repacks the unbroken eggs into cartons with “Grade B” stamped on them.

Some of these cartons are just standard white eggs. Other times, it’s quite the mix of cackleberries: medium-sized, huge, white, brown, bearing an “EB” (Eggland’s Best)

Sometimes I think the B stands for “broken.” Other times I think it stands for “better deal” – because non-organic eggs usually cost from $1.99 to $2.99; those Eggland’s Best are currently $3.99 a dozen. The repack eggs cost 99 cents at one store and $1.29 to $1.49 a dozen at the other. On this trip we bought two dozen.

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How Alaskans fix their cars.

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Alaskans believe that duct tape fixes everything. Some people call it “hundred-mile-an-hour tape” because pilots have had to repair their wings with that sturdy gray* stuff. But apparently duct tape works on cars, too.

Off and on over my years in Alaska I have seen vehicles repaired with duct tape. On those occasions I didn’t have a camera with me. Having joined the 21st century and bought a smartphone, I now have a camera with me pretty much 24/7.

Yes, I have become one of those people who takes pictures whenever something strikes her as beautiful or funny, or both. For example, here’s a picture of my niece’s pup showing off her winsome doggy smile: 

 

I don’t keep all my pictures, but I confess to having a heck of a lot of pictures of our yard and greenhouse. At some point I will turn them into this year’s version of “Looking back at the garden.”

But that’s not what I came here to talk about. The subject today is fixing cars.

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How to save money on meat.

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The price of meat is a little terrifying right now. Before you respond with how much cheaper and healthier vegetarianism is, please don’t. We eat a ton of veggies, grains and beans, but we also like meat. For us, the never-ending question is how to save money on meat.

DF is particularly fond of bacon, eating it at two or three breakfasts a week if he can. The price of these pig mornings has cost a lot more lately; according to this article, bacon has gone up 17 percent in the past year. (Seems like more than that up here in the home of the Alaska Gouge.) Which is why I was delighted to be able to buy Oscar Mayer bacon for $3.62 per pound earlier this week.

That wasn’t the rack rate, of course. Some frugal hacks were required. In this article I’m detailing those hacks, for two reasons:

To remind readers that finding the best prices may take a bit of work – but not that much work, and

To encourage readers to look for better deals of their own, vs. feeling anxiety at the cost of meat (and everything else). Given how fast prices are rising, it behooves us all to do a bit of research rather than just buy without thinking and cry without ceasing.

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Holiday shopping hack: Unused gift cards.

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I give a lot of gift cards for birthdays and Christmas, because I like the flexibility* they provide  to the recipients. Generally I get them from rewards programs, which means that most arrive as e-gift cards. I print out two copies: one to give and one as backup in case the cards get lost.

Which isn’t me being paranoid. Lost gift cards are a thing. According to a Bankrate.com poll of nearly 2,400 adults, U.S. residents have an estimated $15.3 billion in unspent spending power just lying around. The average amount is $116 per person.

On the bright side, it was $167 per person back in January 2020. That’s progress.

These numbers are sobering – and unnecessary. That’s why I’m proposing that we all go on an unused gift card hunt. Mine happened on Sunday, quite by accident.

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Be a frugal role model.

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A while back my cousin found out he’d accidentally encouraged someone. While he was on his daily walk, a car pulled up and its driver called out to him. Seems she and her daughter had seen him taking long strolls in the hot Utah weather.

“You inspired me to get out and walk. I’ve lost 10 pounds since February, just walking,” she concluded.

My cousin posted this encounter on social media, concluding with, “Sometimes we are unaware of the impact we have on others.”

A longtime reader, whom I’ll call V, recently reminded me that my long-ago MSN Money Smart Spending posts inspired her to pay off a ton of consumer debt. Soon after the debt was gone, V’s husband was killed in a traffic accident. Because she was otherwise debt-free, she was able to handle the mortgage on her own.

“You gave me the tools and support when no one else was there,” she says.

I pointed out that she was the one who did all the work. But I did cherish the gig of frugal role model for MSN Money. Even though I now work on my own, I still love sharing ways to get the most bang for your buck.

Judging from the comments you leave, a lot of my readers are not only frugal, but also love sharing frugal hacks. I encourage you to keep doing that. Money-saving knowledge is needed more every day in this country.

During the pandemic lots of folks cut way back on spending. Living on less was essential if you’d been laid off or had your small business hammered by lockdown. It reminded me of the recession, when people were floundering and desperate for info on how to pay their bills.

Enter personal finance blogs, which told readers how to fix cheaper meals, use coupons and take other steps to keep costs low. People couldn’t get enough of this advice until things eased up a bit – at which point some couldn’t wait to get back to business as usual. They jettisoned frugality, deciding it was no longer necessary because the good times were back. 

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7 ways to get free groceries.

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Back in July 2019, a member of my neighborhood Buy Nothing Facebook group posted about an estate sale that wanted to dump all the kitchen stuff. Free groceries! Woo hoo!

The catch: You had to take all of it, or you couldn’t have any of it.

That didn’t bother DF a bit. He cheerfully brought home several of those large plastic totes full of nonperishables: soups, relishes, pickles, marshmallow fluff, Minute Rice, dried beans, canned milk, Stove-Top stuffing mix, jams and jellies, other stuff I’m probably forgetting and – our favorite – a 33.8-ounce bottle of vanilla.

The vanilla was our favorite part of the score. Have you priced that stuff lately? On Amazon it seems to range from $1.03 to $4.99 per ounce. [As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small fee if someone shops through my links.]

 

 

Getting this vanilla means two years’ worth of free flavorings for Lightning Cake, cookies, brownies, and tapioca, rice and coconut bread puddings. It’s unlikely that most people will score a find like the estate sale. But I have gotten free food in other ways, too – and maybe some of these tactics could help you build a deeper pantry.

 

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