Scrounging Money Around the House

For me frugality is a means to an extra principle payment on the loan we have for our vacant land where we plan to build a log home for our retirement. This mortgage has the higher interest rate of our two loans, and it's the property that means the most to us. So every nickel I scrape up is earmarked for that purpose. The extra principle payment is why I don't drive my car more than a couple times per week; why I keep the thermostat set at 64 during the day; why I'm selling our extra stuff on ebay, and looking for any possible way to cut expenses.

Recently, I discovered a bag of money just sitting in our home office. It contained not American greenbacks, but a large variety of foreign coins and bills we'd collected over our pre-mortgage years of vigorously decadent travel. I opened it up and sorted through the bills, some of which were for obsolete European currencies replaced by the euro. There were Australian dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Iranian rials, Estonian kroner, Finnish marks, Venezuelan Bolivars, New Zealand dollars, Russian rubles, Swedish kroner, British pounds, Irish pounds and Italian lira. I didn't even bother trying to sort the coins.

After sorting through the paper money, I called up my wonderful bank, USAA, and asked about depositing foreign currency in my account. They said they'd take everything but the Iranian rials and the expired European currencies: the lira, Irish pounds and Finnish marks. Best of all, they wouldn't charge me a currency conversion fee. Yet another reason why I love USAA! Running a few quick calculations on the exchange rates, I estimated that I'd just scrounged up around $250 towards next month's extra principle payment. That felt great! It may be a drop in the bucket, but it all adds up.

I was a little sorry to see the Estonian currency go. It's among the prettiest I came across in my travels. And also a little disappointed that we'd hung on to the old European currencies long enough for them to be worthless today. I have no ideas about how to cash in foreign coins. I'd probably do it if there was a somewhat easy way. In the meanwhile, the coins are fun for my nephew to play with, and they're nice mementos of our travels. We might see about selling the Iranian rials to some Persian acquaintances of ours who occasionally travel back to that wonderful country. We'll keep at least one 10,000 rial note as a souvenir. The rest would only be worth around $9 anyway.

At some point, I'll tell you about USAA and why you should definitely do business with them if you're eligible.

The frugal mindset

I'm not sure that I've said this before on this blog, but a frugal way of life crept up on me. Though the decision to start conserving money as much as possible was a rather abrupt one (we took on two mortgages nearly simultaneously), the ways in which I practice frugality have evolved over time. I don't think I obsess about money, but I do recognize that there are lots of things I now do that have an ingrained and unconscious character about them. At the same time, there is a mindfulness about the way I live that helps me conserve tiny amounts of money all the time. Here are a few examples.

I often eat my lunch, or even dinner off the same plate I put my breakfast on. A few crumbs from my toast and a smear of butter or jam doesn't seem that worrisome to me. I can eat my sandwich off that same plate and fill the dishwasher up a little more slowly.

I save any full-sized sheet of white paper that arrives in the mail with only one side printed on. More often than not, what I need to print out is for personal consumption and use only. So I don't care if there's something random printed on the back. This was even more useful to me when I was in school and needed to proofread term papers before turning them in. Also, unless there's a good reason for doing so, I always print stuff out on the lowest quality print setting. It's called "draft" on my computer. This uses less ink, so I get more mileage out of the cartridge.

I don't like to throw things away that might have some use left in them. Granted, this attitude could contribute to pack-rat accumulation if left unchecked. But I've found that by giving myself a little time to mull it over I often come up with good uses for things that would otherwise be tossed. I also don't like paying for disposable items, particularly when there's a free alternative. Pages ripped from an old phone book work well for cleaning glass in place of paper towels. They are nicely sized and free. They're also the perfect size for wrapping up tampons or sanitary pads, in place of toilet paper. Plastic produce bags can stand in for plastic wrap in many cases. Brown paper grocery bags and newspaper are absorbent enough to drain bacon or other fried foods on. Use the stuff you get for free instead of something you have to pay for. I'm currently saving up wine corks in order to duplicate a lovely large bulletin board made entirely out of used wine corks.

I like to feed birds, but I don't like paying for birdseed. So I actually save crumbs from the bread we slice at home, along with any seeds from store bought crackers that accumulate in the container. When the crumb bag fills up a bit, (and it does so surprisingly fast) I mix the crumbs and seeds with reheated fat saved from cooking meats. When it's cool enough, I gather it into a ball inside some wax paper and then put it in the freezer. Once it has solidified nicely, I unwrap the ball of fat, seeds, and crumbs and put it into a mesh onion bag and hang the bag from a tree outside our living room. The birds cling to the bag while they feed. I love to see them eating things I would just have thrown away otherwise.

I re-wash and re-use my ziploc bags and my aluminum foil until they fall apart. I see no reason to get only one use out of these items, except where raw meat is involved. I now know that heavy-duty aluminum foil is worth the slightly higher price because the extra thickness allows it to stand up to repeated washings. I'm beginning to grudge the use of plastic wrap because I haven't figured out a way to either clean it or store it after the first use.

All my task lists and grocery lists are written on junk mail envelopes.

A cup of tea warms me better than cranking up the thermostat. I routinely dress in warm layers during winter. But when the thermostat is set to just 64 degrees, sometimes I feel chilled anyway. If it's not time to burrow under the covers for a nap, I've found that just a warm cup of tea can take the chill off my bones for an hour or more. I've also left pots and pans around to be cleaned on cold days when I know that my hands are going to need warming at some point through the day. Spreading the cleaning chores out over the day gives me a tool - physical exertion - for keeping warm. In hot weather, I plan physical exertion, especially outdoor exertion, for first thing in the morning or late in the evening.

Sweating the small(er) stuff

I've mentioned Amy Dacyczyn's wonderful Tightwad Gazette on this blog a few times already. Her collected books were the perfect fulcrum for shifting my viewpoint to a more frugal mindset. Most of all, she assured me that it was okay to "sweat the small stuff." More often than not, the thousands of tiny economies we could be practicing are pooh-poohed by both spendthrifts and frugalites who are more "big picture" types.

But the philosophy to be found in the Tightwad Gazette struck home for me so profoundly because Amy Dacyczyn's family and mine are similar in a financial sense. I'm not raising six kids on a single modest income, as the redoubtable Mrs. Dacyczyn did. But I am free of credit card debt and other crippling sea-anchors that so many other households struggle with. I don't worry about meeting my basic needs from paycheck to paycheck. I've never had a financial, life-altering crisis. I really admire those who labor long and hard to get out from under mountains of debt. But I'm not in that position, so I come to the frugal lifestyle from a different place and with a different perspective.

Still, I hope that my experiences and my advice can be of use to a wide variety of people in a lot of different circumstances. Today, I'm going to focus on some tips for energy efficiency that can be of use to new homeowners and other money-saving tips for those who are just breaking free of debt other than the home mortgage. Credit card debt is obviously the single highest priority for those trying to make it into the black. If you're still carrying a balance on credit cards or other loans, I would urge you to skip these most of these tips (because most of them are going to require some outlay of money) and instead make a higher monthly payment. But if you've finally arrived at the point where your car loans, your credit card debt and your student loans are things of the past, congratulations! There must be a symphony of emotions for people in such a position: euphoria, pride, relief, gratitude, giddiness. And this is where I step in with some grounding, no-nonsense suggestions on how to use some of the money you've been putting towards paying down the debt each month, now that it's gone. Implementing these suggestions will cost money, but it's money that will be working for you for years to come. If the monthly surplus you have freed up by eliminating debt is tiny, then choose the cheapest of these tips to make a start. In time, the savings from each tip will snowball into a larger and larger saved amount, which can then be plowed back into more expensive cost-cutting measures or an extra principle payment on your mortgage. So dig deep and find the money to do these things early on.

• Change out your regular light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs. These bulbs are more expensive than incandescents, but each one will save you 50 cents per month on average. If money is tight, buy just a few bulbs and put them in the lights you use for the most hours per day. Add more compact fluorescents as your budget allows. Do not install a compact fluorescent bulb in any light that is on a dimmer switch. The bulb will get burned out in seconds and you'll have wasted the money spent.

• Insulate your hot water pipes and your hot water storage tank. Long tubes of foam pipe insulation are cheap and easy to install. If money is really tight, start with the tank itself and the pipes in unheated spaces, closest to your water heater. Be sure to measure the diameter of your pipes and buy the smallest tubes that will fit them. Also be sure not to cover the thermostat on the tank.
  

• If you rely on forced air heat, make sure your ducts are well insulated. You can lose as much as a whopping 60% of your heated air if your ducts are passing through unheated areas of the house. You may need professional help to insulate and/or repair damaged ducts. But if you're relying on this form of heat, it's well worth the investment.
  

• Check your outlets and light switches that are mounted on the exterior walls of your home. Remove the plate covers and see if there's a piece of foam insulation there. If not, buy some and install them.

• Wash all your clothes in cold water. If you're not satisfied with the results, use an overnight soak before returning to a hot water wash. The average load of laundry run on a hot cycle uses 32 gallons of heated water, compared to 20 gallons for a hot bath. If you've been washing in hot or warm water out of habit, give the cold cycle a try and see if you can really tell the difference.
  

• Buy some clothespins and rig up a clothesline inside. You can use it anytime, despite rainy or cold weather. On average, it costs 50 cents to dry a load of laundry, and more if your dryer is electric. If your family goes through just two loads of laundry per week, that's $52 per year. No excuses here. There are plenty of suitable spaces for a line or two in most homes. Consider the attic or the basement if space is really tight. I have two 7-foot lines, one above the other, just inches from the wall in my small laundry room. I also hang socks and underwear right off the edge of my rubber-coated wire shelving in the laundry room. A collapsible drying rack handles the rest. If you can't abide scratchy towels or clothing, it is permissible to put the dried towels in the dryer on "air fluff" (or whatever the unheated cycle is called on your machine) for 5-10 minutes. That's really all it takes to soften fabrics up. So long as the clothes are already dry and you use the unheated cycle, the dryer will use an acceptably minute amount of energy.

• Add insulation to your attic if it needs it, and it probably does. Heat rises. So a poorly insulated attic is the equivalent of an open door during the wintertime. Same goes for crawlspaces. Though the expense is higher than for many simple fixes, this is one of the most cost-effective investments you can make to improve energy efficiency.
  

• If you live where the summers are hot, install an attic fan to vent hot air. These can be hooked up to sensors that only turn on when the space reaches a certain temperature. They can make an enormous difference to the overall temperature of the house, and thus to your cooling bill.

• Check with your local electric company about a home energy audit. Many utilities offer these for free. Heed their suggestions as your budget allows.

• If you rely on window unit air conditioners to cool your home in summer, place them on the shady side of your home. Or plant a fast growing shrub where it will shade the air conditioner. This also applies to condensers for central air conditioner systems. Operating in the shade can increase the efficiency of the unit by as much as 10%.

• Air dry your dishes, either in a drying rack, or by not using a heated drying cycle on your dishwasher. If you can time it right, the dishes in a dishwasher will still be hot enough to dry very quickly if the machine is opened and the racks pulled out for better air circulation.

• If you're going to be living in your home for years to come, consider replacing your windows with newer high efficiency models. Windows are often the biggest culprits in heating loss during the winter, losing as much as 25% of the heat in the home. Be sure to run a return-on-investment analysis if you don't plan to live in the house for years to come.
  

• When it's time to replace a major appliance or furnace, buy an EnergyStar rated model.

• Install a programmable thermostat, especially if you are out of the house for hours each day.
  

• Plug your electronics into power strips with on/off switches. Turn off the power on each strip when you're not using the appliances plugged into it. TVs, VCRs, DVD players, digital projectors, kitchen appliances and stereo equipment all continue to draw power when they are turned off. In fact, on average an astonishing 75% of the energy these appliances draw is consumed when the appliances are not in use. Power strips eliminate this problem by cutting all power to our gadgets.
  

Most of these tips involve a once-and-done monetary investment. Pick and choose among them according to the budget you must operate within. As the small savings accrue, you will be able to afford the more expensive investments.

The USDA's Cost of Food - How we measure up

The cost of feeding ourselves is one area where I've been focusing a lot of my efforts in saving money lately. Eating out is a thing of the past for us. Our grocery bill therefore represents our total expenditures on food. I wanted some objective indication of how well we were doing at saving ourselves money in this area. A link found on a frugal discussion forum sent me to the USDA's Cost of Food page. Here the US government breaks down the average price of food at home across the country on a month by month basis. There are four different budgetary plans, ranging from "thrifty" at the low end to "liberal" at the high end. The chart makes it easy to look at average food costs for families of different sizes, and as of this writing the data is complete through December of 2006.

Although I have shopped carefully with my price comparison book, baked our own bread, prepared home-made breakfast items, and relied on cheap staples for dinners, I had never actually tracked our grocery expenses to the dollar. I decided that this month - February, 2007 - would be the month to start. With my husband's cooperation, the receipts started piling up. And yesterday, with a well stocked refrigerator and no need to shop before the end of the month, I toted up the grocery bills and checked in against the government website.

Since no data is available yet for this month or even last month, I looked at both the December, 2006 and the February, 2006 figures for a family of two adults. Extrapolating from these figures, I estimated that under the thrifty plan, the figure for this month would be only about $315-$320 dollars. I'll check this against the actual posted figure when the government catches up on its data.

At first I thought we were doing just fine, with almost $29 to spare until the end of the month. But then of course I remembered a receipt I'd set aside for an item that needed to be returned. That receipt put us over the USDA's thrifty plan figure by $6-11, even when we eliminated the vitamin pills we purchased, moving them out of the grocery budget and into the health care budget. The good news turned to not-so-good news.

My husband and I spent a little while going over our collected receipts. We'd done some stocking up this month, buying a couple cases of "three-buck Chuck" wine for less than $75. I noted that there were quite a few snack items and beer listed on my husband's receipts. He keeps a small apartment in another city that he travels to regularly for work, and the urge to splurge just a little is irresistible for him, I think. He suggested that we not count the beer he bought because he hadn't yet drunk all of it. I demurred, pointing out that we've been eating foods throughout the month that were purchased earlier and stored in the pantry and freezer. Besides, stocking up during sales and once-a-month runs to specialty stores is our usual practice. So it's not our consumption costs, per se, but our food expenditures that we're tracking. In the long run, it should all even out.

The exercise of tracking all our grocery expenses has been a good one - one that we will undoubtedly repeat in the coming months. I'm a little bit disappointed that we didn't meet our goal of living within the thrifty plan as defined by the USDA. But I'm glad that we definitely come in at the low end of their "low-cost" plan, even when purchasing organic products whenever we can. The snack foods and beer that my husband buys have been noted, but that's as far as I'm willing to go in addressing the issue. He's the bread winner, and I'd much rather have a contented spouse than see him feeling deprived and unhappy for the sake of another $20 per month.

We learned that even under the thrifty plan, we could buy organic products and a fair amount of meat, or buy a small amount of snack foods and alcohol - but not both. This is very useful information for me as the primary grocery shopper for the household. I'm not sure yet how it will change our spending habits, if it does at all. But having the knowledge is always a good thing.

Frugal Menstruation - the Diva Cup

The High Price of Menstruation in America
A recent frugal practice in my life is the use of the Diva Cup instead of tampons. I had long resented the high cost of tampons and other "feminine hygiene products." As with many toiletries and grocery items, when making the switch to a frugal lifestyle I initially looked for the cheapest price on the items I was accustomed to using. Unfortunately, I came up empty when looking for good deals on my preferred brand, OB tampons. The best unit price I could find was about 15 cents per tampon. I never actually counted the number I used each month, but I know that I bought the large boxes (40 count) and used at least half a box per month. Estimating conservatively then, I was obligated to spend $3 for a disposable, non-environmentally friendly product each month.

I didn't want to switch to the cheaper Tampex tampons because they introduce even more waste into the landfills. Finally, I got annoyed enough by the high prices that I looked into menstrual cups as a radical alternative. I ended up buying the Diva Cup based on the consumer comments on the product website. I was especially interested by the reports from some women that using the cup instead of tampons reduced cramping. But I bought the Diva Cup from an online retailer that offered a better price than buying directly from the manufacturer. Go figure. I paid about $26 out of pocket for one cup delivered to my door.

About the Diva Cup
The Diva Cup is made of silicone, which is a well-tested material used in many medical implants. It looks a little like a diaphragm, and it comes in two sizes: one for women under 30 who have not had children, and a slightly larger cup for women over 30 and any woman who has had a child. It also comes with a small draw-string bag for storage. It sits snugly in the vaginal canal and collects blood, rather than absorbing it as a tampon does. It might seem like a small cup would fill up quickly and need to be changed regularly. But the average woman only loses a moderate amount of blood over several days of bleeding. According to the manufacturer, the risk of toxic shock syndrome is significantly less when using a silicone cup than when using tampons. Still, the company recommends that anyone with a history of TSS not use the Diva Cup.

Using the Diva Cup
A childless woman in my mid-30's, I found the larger size Diva Cup easy to use. It's definitely a more hands-on way of dealing with menstruation. I came into a lot more contact with my own blood. I'm not a particularly squeamish person, and after all, it is my own blood. But I can imagine that some people would just not feel comfortable dealing with this. There was a learning curve to removing the cup when it was full. I had a few small messes to clean up, but I quickly got the hang of it and had no further problems. In my use of the Diva Cup, I found that even on my heaviest flow days, the cup did not need to be emptied anywhere near as often as I would need to change tampons. This made it seem feasible to use a Diva Cup even in a public restroom. If I was forced to use a public restroom while using the cup, I simply wouldn't empty it until I got back home. I'm confident that even on my heaviest days, I could go at least eight hours without dealing with the cup at all. At home, I empty the Diva Cup into the toilet, rinse it out, wash it well under hot running water, rinse it again, and then re-insert it. When my period is over, I wash it well, let it dry and then store it in the drawstring bag until next month.

The Diva Cup was extremely comfortable when in place. Most of the time I couldn't tell it was there at all. Inserting it comfortably took a little bit of practice, but I never had any pain associated with its use. I don't know if I would recommend this product to younger menstruating teens or those who have never been sexually active. I might be wrong here; it's just something that I would leave up to women in that category to decide for themselves. I think that anyone else would be able to use a menstrual cup without discomfort.

Results
I was curious to see how the Diva Cup would perform overnight during the heaviest days of my period. I have had overnight leaks with tampons in the past. Unfortunately, I did have some leakage during the heaviest part of my period the first time I used the Diva Cup. Since then I have learned to make sure the cup is emptied last thing before I go to bed, and emptied first thing when I wake up. I've had no further problems. Women with especially heavy flows might see different results. I would consider using a water douche along with the cup during my heaviest days if I experienced more overnight leakage. Still, I can say that the Diva Cup performs no worse than tampons for me in this regard.

I have noticed some apparent reduction in cramping when using the Diva Cup, which frankly surprises me. I wasn't expecting to see this benefit. But I can't be 100% certain of this yet because the amount of cramping I experience varies quite a lot from month to month. I haven't been using the Diva Cup long enough to know whether these have just been easy months or whether the cup is making a difference. One other possible benefit is that the Diva Cup also eliminates the increased risk of yeast infections associated with tampons. I have had a few yeast infections now and then, and I had never heard that tampons contributed to this problem. Apparently, tampons dry out the vaginal canal too much, thus making it harder for the body to maintain the population of healthy bacteria in that environment. So two possible points there for the Diva Cup.

To sum up, I'm glad I've started using the Diva Cup. According to my calculations, my financial break-even point for the purchase of the Diva Cup is about nine months. ($26 divided by $3 per month in tampons.) With at least another ten years of menstruation ahead of me, I should see a net savings of $335. And I don't have to worry about running out of tampons in the middle of my period, thus eliminating one possible reason for an emergency run to the store. Additionally, there's the benefit of introducing less waste into the environment. Now I wish that I'd started using the cup ten years ago. I can recommend this product or others like it to any adult menstruating woman who wants to save money and/or be environmentally responsible.

Tips for the frugal car owner

A car is a practical necessity for many of us. It's also among the most expensive items purchased by many households, and it continues to cost money over its lifetime of use. I'm going to present a few tips here for saving money while owning and maintaining a car. It should go without saying that a frugal person would strive to pay cash for a used car in good condition, which was shopped for very carefully. These tips focus on keeping costs down between auto purchases.

• Drive your car efficiently. Don't take your car out to run a single errand - ever. If you must get to work by car everyday, then make a habit of doing all your grocery shopping and other chores on the way to or from work. If you don't work outside the home, wait until there's a time-critical need to use the car, and then do all your other "whenever" errands on the same day. Always ask yourself if there's anything you need to do along the route you need to travel before you leave the house.

• Clean the junk out of your car. Every pound of weight you add to your car burns up a little more fuel per mile. Keep only what you really need in the car for each trip. Obviously, you need certain items in case of emergencies. The rest of the stuff that just gets left in the car is costing you money for no reason.

• Drive 55 (or less). There are so many frugal reasons to keep to a modest speed, even when the legal speed limit is higher. Fuel efficiency plummets dramatically as a car's speed increases beyond 55 mph. Accident mortality increases in a direct relationship to speed. You're more likely to walk away from an accident that happens while you're moving 40 mph than 60 mph. Also, you won't get a speeding ticket, which can cost you in more ways than one. Not only is paying the ticket like burning cash straight out of your wallet, but your insurance premiums will go up. You could end up paying hundreds of dollars per year for that excessive speed, for years to come.

• Keep the air pressure in your tires at the level recommended by the manufacturer. Low air pressure in the tires results in more drag between the road and your car. That in turn results in lower fuel efficiency. Checking the pressure on your tires is easy and requires only a simple pressure gauge. Make a habit of adjusting the pressure in all four tires once per month at a gas station that has a free air pump.

• Keep your air filter clean. The air filter is another part of the car which can be easily maintained by the owner for a small but significant increase in fuel efficiency. This maintenance is commonly done every 5000 miles. But I recommend that you make it a part of your monthly car care routine. It takes only a few minutes to clean off an air filter with a vacuum cleaner. Check your owner's manual for guidance on locating and removing the air filter in your car.

• Ask yourself if you really need to drive a car. If you live in a major city, there are lots of other options aside from driving a car. And the costs for driving a car are likely higher as well, because you must often pay for parking in the city. The favorite frugal option is to walk, as this provides both free transportation and free exercise. A scooter is an excellent solution for many city-dwellers who travel ten miles or less per day. A scooter is much cheaper to buy, maintain, insure, and operate and it removes a lot of the hassles of driving and parking. How many days each year do you really need those extra empty seats, or weather protection offered by a full-sized vehicle? If a scooter isn't for you, then evaluate your public transit options carefully. Also look into carpooling or ride sharing if your work schedule is regular.

• Don't stint on maintenance. Change your oil on schedule, or get it changed for you. If you live where icy roads are salted in the winter, wash your car so that a simple thing like salt doesn't destroy its value. Sometimes to be frugal you have to know how to spend wisely. Regular maintenance keeps your vehicle running longer and safer to drive. You don't want to end up dead with a lot of money in the bank in the pursuit of false frugality There is such a thing as tightening the belt too far.

• Raise the deductible on your auto insurance. Your insurance should protect you from financial crisis, not protect you from ever having to spend any money at all. Figure out the highest amount you could pay for auto repair without seriously jeopardizing your budget. Set the deductible as close to that amount as possible.

• Check the annual mileage that your insurance policy is written for against your actual annual mileage. If your real usage is higher, the ethical thing is to inform your insurer. If it's lower, you may well qualify for a reduction in your premium. This is especially important check if you no longer drive your car to work. Remember this if you suddenly lose a job and find yourself needing to rein in expenses.

• Use a grease pencil to write a message on the inner face of your hubcaps. Include your name, phone number and a message about a monetary reward for the hubcap's return. Make the reward amount somewhere between 25% and 50% of the replacement part of your hubcap. If you lose the hubcap, you and the finder might both get lucky.

• If you vehicle doesn't already have them, look into VIN etchings for all your windows. There are kits you can order which put an unobtrusive copy of your vehicle identification number on each window in the car. This seriously erodes the car's value to car thieves. Many auto insurers will give you a discount on your insurance if your car includes these identifiers. Check with your insurance company about this before investing in the etching kit.

Hope you found some of these tips useful. Feel free to add your own in the comment section.