Frugal Accomplishments

This week, I feel like we've done really well with our frugal accomplishments.  We haven't had any unexpected expenses, and we've been able to take advantage of some great savings opportunities and a few small earning opportunities.

Here's how we've saved this week:

• Cooked all meals at home including potato soup, loaded mac and cheese with broccoli, bean and cheese quesadillas, whole wheat banana muffins, pizza, and smoothies.
• Took advantage of two free meals at church (a potluck on Sunday and pizza for our kids worship service on Wednesday) and shared dinner with Mom on Sunday evening, and she generously gave leftovers for my lunch on Monday.  So a total of four free meals.
• Purchased bananas at the cheapest location and used savings apps for cash back on them.  These were snack for preschool one day.  The other day we made trail mix using ingredients we had on hand (popcorn, raisins, pumpkin and sunflower seeds).
• Kept grocery spending to about $20 for the week, with coupons.  There was a good deal on almond milk, but we opted to skip it, since we still have half a gallon of regular milk in the fridge, and we have powdered milk, powdered coconut milk, and evaporated milk in our pantry right now.  I did purchase some kefir and yogurt, which we don't normally purchase, since I've been on antibiotics.  The hope is that these will help to maintain the "good" bacteria in my body, keeping the "bad" ones in check.
• Washed all clothing in cold water, but towels and sheets in warm.  Everything was hung to dry.
• Continued to recycle and compost.as usual.  We even encouraged recycling and composting at little man's birthday party on Saturday, which really cut down on the waste.  I am trying to get better about composting our brown paper, such as toilet paper tubes and paper towels (though we use so few of them), newspapers, and flour/sugar sacks.  The added browns really help the compost, and they break down quickly.
• Combined errands as usual for the most efficient route and to save on fuel.
• Carpooled to school daily, saving on gas.
• We have added one trip each week to get little man to speech, but Benny is combining errands or a fun trip for little man in with this, so it's not too bad.
• Gratefully accepted a scholarship to fund part of little man's preschool.
• Continue to advertise the upstairs rental and are hopeful to have the space filled for the summer.
• Benny found some new gaming stuff he can sell online, so he is working to post this.
• Sold a few more items on eBay, so shipping these soon.
• Tutored twice this week for $35, which is going toward home equity line payoff.
• Benny picked up a few extra hours at work, so that money will also go to home equity line payoff.
• Little man got some money for his birthday, so this will go toward his savings.
• My quarterly haircut was on Thursday.  This is a splurge for us, at $35, but I only have it cut four times a year.  It's worth it to me with curly hair to pay for a good cut.
• To accommodate paying for my haircut, I regularly cut Benny and little man's hair.  I cut Benny's hair on Sunday using the clippers we've had for 10 years, and we hope they'll still keep going strong for 10 more.
• Little man received some unexpected gifts for his birthday, so we opted to save what we had purchased for his birthday for his "big brother" gift when the baby comes, and for Easter.  This will save us on these expenses later.
• Made some Valentine's cards, and will work to make more at home with little man to give to his preschool classmates next week.
• Used handmade thank you notes to write all of little man's birthday thank you's on.  Most of these can be hand-delivered, saving on postage.
• Found some magnets at school that I wasn't using to use to hang little man's artwork, so we didn't have to purchase these.  We will decorate the magnets one snow day as a craft project.
• Plan to line up a babysitter (hopefully for free) to keep little man so Benny and I can have a date afternoon soon.

What about you?  How did you live and save green this week?  I'd love to hear from you!

Increasing Your Earnings to Decrease Your Debt (or Increase Savings)

We've been working really hard over the last few years to eliminate all our debt (mortgage is next on the list, I think) and increase our savings for retirement and other long-term goals.  We've trimmed all the fat from the budget--and some would say we've gone beyond that into sacrificing.  Now, we're on to finding avenues to help us increase our earnings so we can meet our goals even faster.

Find Professional Development that is Free or Pays You

I've gotten in the habit of only accepting professional development opportunities that are free that sound fabulous, or ones that pay me.  For example, NCCAT (the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching) offers seminars to teachers for free.  You have to pay your travel, but they help with sub cost, and house and feed you like royalty.  This is a great way for me to get a little R&R on someone else's dime, while also getting some great PD that keeps my license current.

This past summer, I was accepted into the Governor's Teacher Network, which pays me a significant stipend for producing professional development for other teachers.  I can get some credit for completing their online course, while also getting paid.  The NEH has great summer opportunities for teachers all over the country and world, and they pay you to go.  I'm applying for one of their workshops this summer.  If I get accepted, it will be great because we have family in town, which means less money will be pulled from my stipend check since I won't stay in a hotel.

Now, I realize that you may not always be able to implement this strategy, and it may not work for all fields, but for teaching, this has been great.  It also helps me to make sure that I'm not giving up valuable time with my family for mediocre PD.

Ask for a Raise

As a state worker in a non-union state, I can't exactly do this, even collectively with other workers.  However, it is a strategy that works for people in other sectors.  I was blessed this year that with pay scale adjustments, I received a raise of about $150 per paycheck.  (Though I know others with different levels of experience actually had their pay reduced, which is another discussion entirely...)  If you work in a job where you can ask for a raise, and you haven't had one in a while, consider if you could request one.  Or maybe you need to work a bit harder, develop your skill set more over the next six months, get the boss's eye, and then ask for one after he sees how hard you're working.

Work a Side Gig

I recently accepted a job tutoring a younger student after school.  It will take a significant portion of my planning time, but the extra pay was worth it.  I tried to be reasonable with my fee, knowing that not all families can afford professional rates, but also knowing that my skill is more than just babysitting.  If this tutoring continues, it will add almost an extra $200 to our monthly income, which will really allow us to pay down the home equity line faster.

Many people could work a side job like this in whatever your field of expertise might be.  Maybe it's teaching music lessons, or doing yard work for someone who hates it, offering a  design consult to someone who lacks color sense, babysitting, or something else entirely.  What could you do to make an extra $20-$50 each week?

Sell Your Stuff

Or someone else's... We're not shy about taking people's cast-offs.  We find that we'll either put them to good use, or we can make a little extra cash by selling the stuff on eBay or Craigslist.  It's important if you're going to do this that you know your product.  You can't mark stuff up too much, otherwise it'll never sell.  You also won't make much if you sell it too cheaply, and it won't be worth your time.  I know some people scour yard sales and thrift shops for stuff to resell online, and have made a business doing it.  We're not to that level, but it is a strategy that has helped us pay for the "extras" we'd like, but aren't necessities, like our CSA share or new bedding.

Sell Your Space

We've rented an upstairs bedroom in our home for several years now and will begin renting our basement apartment soon.  There have been lots of benefits to this arrangement outside of finances, but the primary reason we did it was so that we could use the rental income to pretty much cover our mortgage payment each month.  I realize that not everyone may be comfortable with renting a room in your home, but we have found that it's led to some wonderful relationships that we never would have found otherwise.  As long as you're selective about where you advertise, and about who you interview for the space, then we've found it to be a great bonus in more ways than one.

All in all, I figure our extra income streams actually amount to about $800 or more per month, which is pretty impressive, since a few of them (like rental income) are pretty passive.

What could you do to increase your earnings?  Here's to living and saving green!  I'd love to hear from you!

Last Week's Frugal Accomplishments

Frugal living has become a lifestyle for us, often with things we don't even think about anymore.  Here's a list of last week's frugal accomplishments, most of which are second nature now.

Miscellaneous:

We didn't run the heat or AC.  We put an extra blanket on the bed when we needed it at night.

Our tenant paid her rent for her upstairs room on time and cleaned her space prior to leaving for fall break, so we didn't need to clean upstairs.

I found a few clothes in storage that little man can still wear from last year.  He poked a hole in the toe of some pjs that I need to add to the mending pile, along with a pair of jeans he's worn a hole in the knee that need a patch.

I carpooled to work a few days last week to save on gas.  This also meant I could plan with her during the drive, saving on time too.

We used some evening time to work on projects downstairs so we didn't have to pay someone else to do these small tasks (cleaning, installing door hardware, spackling, etc.).  We're in the last 5% stretch to getting it done, so we should be renting that space out by the end of the month (know anyone interested?)!

We took walks for after dinner entertainment, when the weather allowed.  When it didn't, we worked downstairs or played upstairs with the little one.

Laundry:  

We washed our cloth diapers and wipes and hung them to dry on the drying rack or outside on the line.

We washed all other laundry in one large load in cold water and hung it to dry inside or on the line.

Groceries and Cooking:

We prepared all meals at home and took advantage of three community meals at church.

Sunday dinner was with my mom, as usual, so she paid for most things, and I cooked while she played with the little one.

We ate mostly meatless meals, except for BLTs one night, which were made with all local ingredients.

We made bread in the bread machine.

Breakfast for the week was 13 bagels from Panera, which we purchased with a gift card we had.  We bought cream cheese at the grocery store for cheaper than we could have included it as a "bagel pack."

We cooked acorn squash in the crockpot and processed it for the freezer (just mashed it up and put it in a freezer bag).  We used this to make "pumpkin" muffins Sunday morning.

It was super doubles at Harris Teeter, so we participated and purchased some things for free with coupons and some discounted diapers and wipes for a baby shower gift.  We got some peanut butter for 50 cents, which was a steal, and a boon to our pantry since little man is loving peanut butter right now.  We spent about $30 and saved over $50, so pretty good considering the bulk of that was disposable diapers and wipes we don't usually buy.

We cooked chick peas in the crock pot for a soup and a warm squash salad.

We "gleaned" extra apples from the food pantry at church, which got too many for clients to take.

I harvested a few herbs from the garden to season meals.

I planned out our bulk spice/baking order for next month, which will save us on these items in the long run.  We order from San Francisco Herb Company, and have been pleased with the quality.  We plan to order more sesame seeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, loose tea, and a few herbs.

We purchased some vodka to make vanilla for Christmas presents.  We'll use vanilla beans we purchase in bulk to make this.  I'll make vanilla sugar with the old beans from our vanilla jar.

I picked up our last week of CSA share on the way home from work (saving on gas and another trip out).  We were able to process some of this for the freezer to use later this winter when we don't have these fresh veggies coming in on a weekly basis.

We had free eggs from a friend, which we brought them some winter squash in trade for.  We used the eggs in baking and for egg and cheese breakfast bagel sandwiches.

What about you?  What did you do last week to meet your goals?  I'd love to hear from you!

When to DIY and when not to

Cooking has become a passion for me.  Art and crafting always have been one.  Now that we're homeowners, it's so much fun to DIY something, especially when we know it will save us some cash.

But where do you draw the line?  When does DIY go from passion and fun to not-worth-it drudgery?

For everyone, that answer is a little different.  For us, it generally boils down to time and money constraints.

Here's an example:  I love homemade flour tortillas.  They're warm, and yummy and fresh.  But for weeknight cooking with a little one, they're not very practical right now, even though I know it's far cheaper to make them from scratch than to pick up a pack of 8 or 10 for a buck at the store.  The homemade ones don't keep very well, I've found, and don't work as well for things like enchiladas because they're not quite as flexible.  So, I'm willing to give up my love of the homemade ones for the convenience and time on a weeknight.  (But I love going to a friend's for taco night and whipping some homemade ones up when there are extra hands to help with the little Wubba.)

I love reinventing furniture, which often entails painting it.  But I've learned that it's not Benny's favorite thing to do, especially when there are lots of spindles involved.  So, I'll save up some cash and save Benny's sanity by not bringing home one more project for him, and we'll pay a painter friend to use his sprayer to spray the furniture.  I still get a deal by getting the chairs I want (most recently we found $7 all wood chairs, so we snagged six for the basement craft room), and it still costs less than buying new.

When something veers out of our expertise, we hire it out.  Plumbing and electric work fall into this category, though we've rewired table lamps ourselves no problem.  Our dishwasher seal needs replacing?  We find the seal online for $30 and do it ourselves and save the repair guy fee of $75 or more.

When I find a recipe that looks intriguing and like something we'll love (hello these soft pretzels and rolls), then we find time to make them.  It might mean a little time in the kitchen, but it's fun for us, and it means we might have a new favorite snack that costs a fraction of the grocery store variety without all the preservatives.

What about you?  Where do you draw the line with DIY?  Are you an expert plumber or do you love sewing (that's my summer project)?  I'd love to hear from you!

Cash from Junk: Paying for our CSA share

It's no secret that we love our CSA share.  The farm we work with, Creek Song, is fabulous and always provides great produce.  It's wonderful that it's all organic and it is always super fresh and great for our family.  This year, we decided that we wanted to purchase a full share so that we could can and freeze some of the extra produce to use in soups, stews, and stir fries throughout the winter.

However, the $500 share fee wasn't in our $100/month grocery budget and we didn't want to use our savings to pay for the CSA.  So, we had to come up with a way to pay for the share that wouldn't dip into our savings.  Enter:  Raygan's closet, or more accurately, the junk we've stored in his closet.  It has become abundantly clear over the past few months that our little guy is growing and will need the closet space sooner than later, which meant our junk had to go.  Since we're giving up about 800+ square feet of our basement and upstairs for rental income, this space is now out for storage.  So, we evaluated... did we really need the junk?  How much of it had we actually used in the past year or so?  If we hadn't, we sorted it... keep (mostly if we saw that it had reasonable future use), donate (if we saw that it didn't have substantial cash value), or Ebay (if we thought we could sell it for $20 or more online).

Slowly, we've weeded through a box at a time, mostly in evenings after dinner and on snow days.  We found more than we thought that we could sell, including old phones, crocheted items, maternity and baby items, gifts from students, and some old Mary Kay inventory.  We tried to set a goal of posting 3-5 items a week.  This meant that we weren't overwhelmed with trips to the PO and that it was easy to post items during Raygan's naptime.  It's worked out that we've been able to make our regular weekly trip to the PO and take items to mail then, so it hasn't been any extra fuel cost added to the budget.  We're still fine tuning the shipping costs, but all told, by the end of this month, we're sure we'll have our $500 CSA fee, if not a little more to put into our savings.

It's so nice to know that we've turned our junk into some cash for our food for the summer.  And we love the bonus of having the extra space in Raygan's closet.  (Built in shelving there soon, anyone?!)  Plus, it's great knowing that none of our junk went to the landfill, but it's either getting repurposed in our home or finding a new life in someone else's home.  

Have you had success selling on Ebay or some other site?  What closets have you been cleaning out?  I'd love to hear how you're living and saving green!

Community Living at it's Best

This summer we have the pleasure of having my cousin live with us. She's in grad school here in the High Country and needed a place to stay for the summer while she takes classes and has her first practicum experience at the speech and language clinic on campus. It's been a great time to get to know her better, since we kind of drifted apart during those high school and college years.

One thing that she's helped us to think about more is vegetarian cooking and eating. She's a vegetarian, primarily out of her love of animals, and has been for several years now. While we're not vegetarian, we do have an understanding of how many livestock animals are raised in this country and feel that we have a moral obligation to use our purchasing power to curtail this. So, for us, this means purchasing less meat overall. (Did you know that it takes a vast amount of petroleum resources and grain stock to raise a beef cow, than to support a vegetarian lifestyle?) Secondly, it means purchasing from reputable sources, such as the ones we find at our local farmer's market or Earth Fare. By simply doing these two things, we can feel much better about how our food is grown and raised, and it means that we have a smaller carbon footprint, since our meat doesn't have to travel as far or use as many petroleum based machines for processing.

With my cousin living here, we've also learned a lot about communal living, which is something our small group has explored for a while. We've shared several meals together, meaning that the work is less on all of us to prepare that meal. She's been able to enjoy having a dog around (which she always wanted as a kid, but couldn't have due to asthma in the family), and Lavender has learned to be much more social with one more person. She's helping to keep the upstairs part of the house neat and tidy, which means less work for us. And it means that while we're on vacation, she'll be here keeping an eye on things and making sure things go smoothly here at home, including the vegetable harvest.

Later this summer, we're hoping to add another friend to the communal living arrangement for a few weeks while his house is being finished. He's offered to help us with some major landscaping projects in exchange for the room, as well as lending a hand in the kitchen with his excellent culinary skills. And, since his family will be using our basement to store their things for the short term, it'll be incentive to clean out the basement.

We're hoping that this will better prepare us for the one-day basement apartment and sharing the house with a renter. It's also definitely helping us complete some projects that we might not otherwise get done, or would put off due to the time/cost investment.

What are your thoughts on sharing your space with someone else? Could you do it, or would it be too much? How could you make it work for everyone to provide a better quality of life? What would you learn from each other?

Here's to living and saving green, and spreading that beyond your household!