george2's comments

Crisis Frugality: 3 Things to Do to Make It to the Next Paycheck - Blog Entry

10 Jul 2008 08:16 PM

Good post. When you KNOW you are going to be short, CALL every one of your creditors or service providers that you know you won't be able to pay on time. So long as you aren't chronically late on your bills already, most every company is willing to cut you some slack and waive late fees, etc. But you have to call in advance or right when your bills are due. If you wait until everything is a month late, you're going to get a lot less help from them.

This is especially crucial for stuff like your mortgage, car payments, and credit cards where you a) don't want to get dinged with late fees, b) don't need any sudden interest rate hikes because of late payments, c) can't afford to lose that item (house, car, etc).

Eating out the pantry is of course a good idea, but why wait until it's a crisis? One of the best ideas we've read is to BAN all purchases, including food, for a week at a time (two weeks even if you can make it), maybe once every month or two. By doing this, you're forced to eat from your in-house stockpile. This will help reduce food from being thrown out because it expired before you could eat it. Also this helps you get a better feel for what you really want or need to eat.

So if those cans of baked beans almost reached their expiration and you had to eat several meals with baked beans, you might be less inclined to get that 6-pack of beans at the warehouse club next time. They may have been cheaper per-can, but if you had to throw away half of them, that wasn't such a great deal after all, right?

You're free to tweak this idea of course. You might still elect to allow very select perishables to be bought (say milk or fresh fruits/veggies). Of course, if you have specifics needs like an infant/baby to feed, don't start giving them Dorito's or anything like that!

Care of Product Manuals - Blog Entry

26 Jun 2008 07:32 PM

Mary, good tips on product manuals. We ran into the same problems a long time ago, so we've always dumped most our manuals (soon as you open the item!) generally into a single box, with a separate box for any/all manuals relating to equipment or toys for the kids. Not as organized as you describe, but we can usually always find a manual when needed.

The other thing to mention is that nowadays, with many products you can often find the product manuals online at the manufacturer's web site, so all is not lost if the manual is lost.

6 Ways to Reduce Our Use of Paper Products - Blog Entry

24 Jun 2008 07:21 PM

We also moved away from paper napkins and to cloth wash cloths (the face washcloth size), especially for our kids. A bundle of wash cloths from the warehouse clubs doesn't cost that much, and over their useful lifetime saves a whole lot of paper from going in the trash and are easily washed with the rest of the towels.

We wet a wash cloth for each kid and let them use that instead of burning through a stack of napkins. We keep a separate large-slot hamper in the laundry room just for these cloths and one of their chores is to make sure their used wash cloths are put there.

Don't Buy Cheap - Blog Entry

24 Jun 2008 07:08 PM

Just thought of something to add. Some of the best deals around is on older software (if there's no good freeware substitute), which people often practically give away if it's more than a few years old or a few versions old. Freecycle (freecycle.org) is a great source of older software. At worst, you can find plenty of offerings on eBay or Amazon.

Also, some of our best "buys" have been free-after-rebate items at the office supply stores (Office Depot/Max/Staples), such as spindles of 100 CD-R blanks we got a good number of years ago. We never had to buy a single blank CD after that. Normally, I'm wary of most mail-in-rebates, but in this case if they failed to pay up, I wouldn't have been out all that much.

Don't Buy Cheap - Blog Entry

24 Jun 2008 07:06 PM

Mary, your post is right on target! Being frugal doesn't mean to buy the cheapest thing possible. It's about spending your money in the most efficient way possible. Our web site (www.theDollarRule.com) happens to be devoted to this exact sort of thinking.

Even if you know you want to spend wisely, it's not always an immediately obvious decision. In the $4 vs $12 spatula example, if you chose wrong, you're not necessarily going to go broke. But if it's a bigger price tag (computer, toys, etc.) then the DR can help provide some helpful rule-of-thumb (i.e., "don't buy it unless you'll get at least 1 hour of use per 1 dollar you spend").

Shopping at Goodwill Saves Loads of Money - Blog Entry

22 Jun 2008 03:17 PM

When I was in middle school, there used to be a Goodwill branch right near the school grounds One of my favorite things to do was to go there and browse the books on sale, 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardcovers. This was perfect for a student with little money. $5 would buy a good deal more than 5 hours of reading (aka The Dollar Rule). Also, if you're any sort of bibliophile, you'd find many interesting period books from say the 1940's, to early editions of novels or sci-fi, or old photography books, and many other books that bookstores and the library simply wouldn't have.

An Attitude of Gratitude - Blog Entry

12 Jun 2008 02:55 PM

One way to help being content with what you already have is to reset your "zero-point". The proper and true zero-point should be having nothing (think of the folks that lose literally everything in a natural disaster) instead of comparing what you have today to what you "might/could/would" have tomorrow.

I'll always remember an old math textbook example about using a number line and negative numbers. The example was about a couple discussing a purchase: a $200 coat on sale for $125. The wife tells the husband, "I just saved $75!" The husband retorts, "But you SPENT $125!" Obviously they had two different zero-points, hers at $200, and his at $0.

(For anyone offended by the gender stereotypes, swap the roles and change "coat" to "iPhone" :) )