saving money

Always check clearance. Always!

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When visiting my daughter in Phoenix, I walk as often as possible. In part, that’s because I’m nowhere near a gym* but it’s also because (a) it gets me out of my daughter’s hair for a while** and (b) in the winter it’s such a delight to see sidewalks without ice.

By foot, it’s about one mile to a Walgreens. I always go in, even if I don’t need anything (or need to use the bathroom). That’s because my rule is always to check clearance. Most of the time I don’t find anything, but sometimes I score.

Last month, I scored big-time: three two-packs of replacement brush heads for our Sonicare toothbrush. They were Walgreens brand, but they fit. (I called DF to make sure before I bought them.) Each two-brush pack cost me 70 cents, or 35 cents apiece.

Typically, these brush heads cost anywhere from $1.99 to $13.74 (!) apiece. In other words, 468% to 3,825% more. Wow.

My dentist is happy. My budget is happier.

Clearance is (sometimes) your friend

It sounds like such a no-brainer. Such a simple thing to do. But it’s not true for everyone.

If you didn’t grow up watching someone sort patiently through piles of dross in hopes of finding a diamond, then “clearance” might be foreign territory to you.

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Today’s frugal win: Deal-stacking.

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DF wanted to see the Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcast of “Lohengrin,” but also second-guessed that wish. The $25 ticket wasn’t so bad when you consider the opera lasted a little over five* hours, but still…And then there was the popcorn and cold drink that he’d surely need to handle five-plus hours of Wagner. He was on the fence until I suggested a few frugal hacks.

Here are the (many) elements of today’s frugal win:

Senior discount. He got $2 off for being old.

Movie Club. This subscription deal at Cinemark gives me one free movie a month plus a concessions discount. I asked the cashier to apply one of my free movie credits to the Met Opera ticket, which lowered the price from $23 to $10.75.

Ibotta gift card. I redeemed a $20 Cinemark card from my Ibotta account. (For more on Ibotta and other frugal hackery, see “Rewards programs FTW!”)  

Cinemark coupon. I got a $1-off concessions coupon by cashing in 25 of my Cinemark rewards points (which you get each time you buy tickets and food).

Movie Club discount. I get 20 percent off concessions purchases with membership.

Once all the discounts and the gift card had been applied, the tab had shrunk to just $1.45.  Now you can see why he decided to go.

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Low- or no-spend February 2023: If you give a mouse some icing…

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During the final week of the low- or no-spend February, I did what I did the first week: spent money. It started out very small and got a lot bigger – but not much more expensive. I coped by:

  • Using a gift card from shopping apps/rewards programs, and
  • Reminding myself, again, that it was low– or no-spend February, not “don’t you dare” February

Here’s how it all began: While doing a little Shopkicking (see shopping apps/rewards programs link above), my eye was drawn to a clearance-colored shelf tag. Turned out the store had cake icing (which some of you know as “frosting,” but I’m from South Jersey) for 25 cents a tub. I double-checked to see if a digit had fallen off the sign but nope, it was 25 cents.

I couldn’t not buy it at that price. And as soon as it was in my hands, I remembered a reader named Wendy, one of the recipients of this blog’s Giving Cards partnership. She used her $20 gift card to buy cake mix and icing, packaged them with disposable cake pans and birthday candles she already had, and dropped them at a food bank.

If you give a mouse some 25-cent icing, she’s going to want cake mix. Then she’ll want candles to make the celebration a little brighter. And what about a birthday card? Every mouse wants one of those.

Referring, of course, to the “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” books. (As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small fee for items purchased through my links.) 

 

I decided to make a pair of birthday party kits to give away on the Buy Nothing Facebook page. To do that, I’d need to buy the aforementioned cake mixes and candles. The mixes were on sale, two for $3, so not too bad. The candles were zero dollars out of pocket because I cashed in some Shopkick scrip. Finally, I added birthday cards from my card stash and put the two kits up for grabs.

But that wasn’t quite the end of the story.

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Low- or no-spend February 2023, Weeks 2 and 3. (I’m back.)

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Running a little late, obviously. I was already a bit tardy with the low- or no-spend February challenge update when a stomach bug made me almost completely work-avoidant. Many quarts of hydration and loads of hours of sleep later, I am much healthier. But catching up on belated assignments meant missing a week.

While mildly ill, I was reminded yet again that sickness means either spending way too much (medical co-pays, prescriptions, special foods) or feeling too crummy to spend much at all.

This time around it was the latter, fortunately. I was also reminded that I live in a low-maintenance prepper paradise where just about anything I needed was already in hand (and likely bought on sale or at Costco). Powerade? We got it. Canned chicken soup? Ditto. Generic ibuprofen PM, so I could sleep for 12 hours at a stretch? You bet.

That sleep was some of the coziest ever, thanks to the brand-new-to-us down comforter  whose frugal purchase was detailed in the first roundup. Reading some of the comments on that piece, I was impressed by a couple of readers’ stirring tales of thrift.

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Low- or no-spend February 2023: Week 1.

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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.) Let me say this upfront: I spent money. Before you … Read more

Low- or no-spend February 2023: Who’s in?

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This is not a new idea, and in fact many bloggers make it a strictly no-spend February. But I like to keep things a bit looser because not everyone can just stop buying things.

Not that you have to stop buying entirely. If you get a head cold in late February, you don’t have to wait until March 1 to hit the drugstore.

And obviously you’ll still have to gas up your car/renew your transit pass as needed, or pick up fresh produce or milk when you run out (and if you decide you can’t live without these things).

The point of this 28-day exercise is to try not to spend, and to be intentional about what you do end up buying. Pretty sure you guys are already good at that.

So: Who’s in?

Instead of buying on autopilot, a low- or no-spend February asks you to think critically about everything you want to put into the shopping cart:

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Black Friday serendipity.

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The washing machine finally died. DF can’t remember how old it is, but it’s at least 25 years old and possibly older. It didn’t owe us a thing. But the appliance still had one act of service left: It waited until the day before Black Friday to give up the ghost.

We were lucky it lasted as long as it did, yet we dreaded the cost of replacing a major appliance. Even a quick glance at the ads left us a bit breathless.

Fortunately, we are money nerds who specialize in stretching every dollar. A quartet of frugal hacks helped reduce the financial pain: 

First, DF compared prices and incentives at half a dozen retailers before choosing Lowe’s. (Hurrah for free delivery, setup and haul-away!)

Second, as always, he paid with a rewards credit card. As do I: All of my plastic is rewards plastic. It just makes sense to us.

[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.]

He further sweetened the pot by raiding the “washing machine fund” jar for another $150. This is one of our easiest stealth saving* tactics: For every load of laundry we run, $2 goes into a jar. Your fund can be for anything you want; in fact, we took money from this jar a few years back to help pay for a new stove.

Finally, I cashed in enough Shopkick points to get $225 worth of Lowe’s gift cards. Since I’m always telling him that the points are for our household, not just for me, this was another chance to put my (free) money where my mouth is. As recently noted in “How I saved $233.07,” these rewards programs provided a pretty nice boost to our home and garden budget this year.

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Soup of the evening.

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DF was an alchemist this morning. Pulling containers and bags of stuff from the fridge and freezer, he filled the crockpot with:

Two kinds of broth (chicken-vegetable and seasoned pinto bean)

The drippings from a chicken he’d cooked on the Weber

Leftover pork loin (bought deeply discounted, of course)

Chopped-up garlic scapes (from the 2022 garden)

Diced onions

A handful of red and yellow pepper chunks (from the produce section’s “ugly but still good” shelf and cut up to freeze)

Homegrown celery (frozen), carrots and potatoes

The slow cooker began to emit a marvelously savory aroma as the day wore on. A little after 5 p.m., DF sliced up some of his easy rustic bread and announced that dinner was served. Outside it was 13 degrees and snowy, but indoors it was all warmth, comfort, and food that was prepared and shared with love.

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Beat inflation: The financial fire drill.

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I figured the words “beat inflation” might get your attention. Let me say upfront, however, that inflation isn’t 100 percent beatable. No matter how self-sufficient we are, we still have to pay taxes and buy certain things (any food we can’t grow, sewing materials, shoes).

Even if we ride bikes instead of drive cars, we need replacement parts. If we do our own home improvements, we need to pay for materials somehow. And we can’t meet all our needs through rewards programs and Buy Nothing Facebook groups (although I’m having fun trying).

In the novel “The Godfather,” mobsters would hole up in anonymous apartments in times of gang strife. They called it “going to the mattresses.” Right now we’re in times of financial strife, and we should all think about going to the frugal mattresses: How to make the smartest, safest decisions to beat inflation?

Here’s how to start: by doing what I call the financial fire drill, a kind of extreme budget makeover. The idea isn’t that you won’t pay your bills, but rather that you’ll look for ways to cut the number and size of those bills.

The financial fire drill is pretty simple. You build a baseline budget, i.e., the absolute minimum you need to survive). That means basic shelter, utilities, medical care, food, clothing and debt service (installment loans, child support). The idea isn’t to starve in an unheated garret. It’s to figure out how little you could spend without jeopardizing health, safety and solvency.

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