Catch a curveball February 22, 2008

All the preaching I do about saving money?  Handy stuff, that saved stash!  We were going on a snowshoe trip last week but woke up to a house that was 50*  I accused my husband of lowering the thermostat, but he went to the garage and found a dead furnace!  Fifty degrees isn’t so bad , say in Georgia, but we live in Alaska.  That just won’t do!

This was also a Sunday morning, and if you haven’t needed a service on the weekend I’ll let you in on the double price not-so-secret.  We called around and everyone had a service fee of double what it was during the week.  Meanwhile, we had a very cozy fire in the fireplace and some space heaters set up, that brought our temp back up to about 68*, where we normally keep it anyhow.  We opted to wait until Monday.  Long story short, we shaved about $200 off our bill.

Speaking of shaving, I was experimenting with our electric bill last month.  I knocked $20 off by using the dryer only for towels.  That downstairs bathroom can handle more than I though.  My husband found one of those twist shower rods and hung it over the middle for an extra rack.  Even the jeans dry and they aren’t so bad on.  The stiffness was unnoticeable after a minute. I’m guessing I was using it about every 3-4 days.  Unfortunately ever since the furnace incident, it  hasn’t been heating very well.  It’s very old for a furnace and we may have to dip into that savings soon

To show we’re not perfect… February 16, 2008

Yesterday, I was THAT mom with THAT kid in the grocery store.  Mia was screaming, arching out of the cart seat and nearly hyperventilating.  I should have known better than to do errands yesterday; she had an IVIG infusion in the morning and she is always crabby afterwards.  So, she’s crabby and falls asleep in the car (thankyou benedryl..also makes her crabby), and the ultimate bonehead move, I woke her up at the grocery store.  Bad mommy.

Mia is learning to use the potty.  We’ve been talking about it for a while, preparing her for the idea.  We bought a little potty for her to mess with because she is deathly afraid of the big toilet. She explored it by taking it apart, wearing the seat as a hat, carrying the lid around and eventually sitting on it.  She had only used it a few times until today, all day with a few accidents so far.  She was so scared of her own pee and screamed whenever she went, but today I’m using the tough luck approach.  I told her we had no diapers today and have kept her in old stretch pants.  I ask her every ten minutes or so if she needs to potty and she even asks on her own sometimes.  It is getting closer to the time for “big girl” underwear! 

On vehicles February 7, 2008

As cheap as we can be and as environmental as I try to think, vehicles are not our strong point!  DH has a Jeep Rubicon and likes to offroad–not a cheap sport, nor is it very enviro-friendly.  I have to say though, the offroad club we belong to are actually very respectful and help remove all kinds of large waste from the glacier flats and coastal refuge and they are veryanal about the Tread Lightly principles.  Anyway.  I had a Cherokee for a while; it was old and it wasn’t the most gas conserving thing out there but I loved it.  We finally parted last year and we saved for a down payment on our ‘05 Outback.  The gas mileage still isn’t spectacular, but for a family that was used to anywhere between 11-14mpg, it’s sittin’ pretty.  I don’t know if I’m really one to be giving out car tips, but I can at least share what we do until we can afford a Prius!

• Buy used.  That way you won’t get flatted by the depreciation. 
• Long loan, fast payoff.  Now, whether or not it is actually smart, this is what we did.  We shopped around for the best rate, and chose the 4 year loan.  The monthly payments are manageable, but we are actually paying at least double because all of your interest is at the beginning of a loan.  You don’t actually pay for the price of the car until later in the loan.  If you can add as much as you can to your monthly, you will pay it down faster and pay less in interest.  We just got this puppy in November and are working at paying it off at a year and a half instead of 4.  The financial calculator link will help you figure out what you can handle.  It means doing without some frivolous extras, but we will fully own a relatively new car while everyone else is still upside down.
• You don’t need the SUV.  No, seriously.  You don’t.  I had a friend who went from a blazer to some huge thing like a Sequoia or something.  Her excuse was “I need more room.”  For what??  Two kids and their things fit nicely into a Blazer.  They fit nicely into a sedan!  When I pointed that out she said, “Well, I want to feel safer.”  Now, I happened to be privy to the fact that she liked to look good more than be safe (don’t ask.)  The only unsafe vehicle is one being driven by an unsafe driver.  Small vehicles are considered “unsafe” because of the move to bigger vehicles.  Trust me, I hauled a baby and medical junk just fine in a two door Cherokee (once considered a big SUV in her hayday).  Room is rarely the real issue. I even fit my friend and her two children back there AND went yard-saleing!  Sometimes it is warranted, like the friend who runs a daycare. She really does need every seat in the Suburban.  If you don’t haul more than two kids and groceries, a car or smallsize SUV is just smarter.  You won’t pass out at the pump and you will actually fit into parking spaces.
• Shave all you can off of the insurance.    DH is the king of found money.  He found a great rate and after reading lots of fine print, found that you can get a little knocked off the payment if your VIN # is etched into every window and if you use something like The Club.  He used his dremel, practiced on an old picture frame and then tatted all the windows. I hardly even notice.  Call them and ask, it won’t hurt anything.
• Maintenance.  It costs, but it could save you more than what you pay the dudes at JiffyLube.  I wish someone had impressed upon me the importance of checking oil when I was in highschool.  Get cozy with someone who knows how to change oil or do simpler engine work.  This is where some of that Wheel-N-Deal can be handy.  

Bought once, used a million times! February 6, 2008

I was born into a secondhand-loving family.  When my dad started his own business, it would get hairy at times and second hand was just how we rolled.  It’s amazing what people will just give away.

• Thrift.  Love these places!  Salvation Army, Goodwill and local churches usually have at least one around.  The church I grew up in was where a lot of the city’s aristocracy went on Sundays, so consequently the thrift house run by that church gained their castoffs.  You could find lightly used high-end items most times.  This is an awesome option for kids, especially the older active set that spill and tear while playing.  The drawback is that you have to spend a great deal of time sorting through the clothes or things that are crammed onto shelves.  I’d make sure everyone used the bathroom and was fed before going in!
• Resale/Consignment.  If you like to know that you won’t have to dig through five stained shirts to get to the first non-stained item, go here but don’t expect to pay thrift prices.  Sometimes they only take high-end, like the boutiques, and sometimes they’ll be more lenient, like Platos Closet.  These are also where I sometimes take my things for extra cash.  The children’s resale store isn’t great, you leave feeling like you need to file a report but Platos Closet once gave me an extra $15.  Since then I’ve significantly cut back on buying clothes.
• Craigslist.org  I love Craig.  You can buy or sell many things here.  I sold Mia’s changing table, exersaucer, our unused electric blanket…  Even what I thought was an ugly useless video shelf.  My husband put it up for $30 and I balked at it, saying no one would pay more than $10 for it.  Not even an hourlater someone called and bought it!  We found my beloved Subaru on Craigslist and our beater for husbands commute.
• Ebay.  Okay.  If ever there were a double edged sword, it was Ebay.  You have to be uber careful since you can’t physically check the items out.  I fell into the Ebay Trap  when I first started using it and ended up with a lot of crappy buys, mostly cheap foreign made clothes that fell apart.  But I won it for.99 darnit!  I have since limited myself only to buying brands I know.  Some kids clothes like Hanna Andersson and Gymboree I have found tougher than cockroaches, so I have no problem plunking some PayPal on them.  I only buy shoes whose sizes I know, same for jeans and other clothes.  It’s a great place to buy high-end for cheap, but you need to be careful and know the items you’re buying.  Jeans are an easy ripoff.  I adore the fit of Joes Jeans, so I have familiarized myself with what an authentic pair looks like in comparison to a ripoff, same for Seven For All Mankind.  Most important, I try to onlyuse what is in my Paypal.  I get my paypal funds from selling on Ebay, but you should be careful here as well.  Research what you want to sell. See if anyone else is having luck with it before you list.  Sometimes people simply hear, “you can make money on ebay” and they just list everything they see.  Nobody wants to pay you to ship them a piece of junk.  I urge you to look at their selling guides first.
• freecycle.org  This is a yahoogroup that has grown to insane proportions.  The initial idea was to keep usable objects from the landfills. You join and receive emails from people offering or asking for an item, or you can do the same.  I have cleared many “junk” items out of my house to people who thought they hit the jackpot. I have also made scores from other people’s unwanted, like the screen door and my daughters crib mattress.  You’d be surprised at what people are willing to give you.  I have stopped my husband from buying things after asking for and receiving them on freecycle. 
• other yahoo groups.  There are actually loops out there where people resell their kids clothes. I found a very nice group of moms who are all about some gymboree and hanna.  They offer very fair prices for clothes that are often very gently used.
• Just ask!Sometimes you don’t even have to buy or look at ads.  My husband and I were going to look at a pulk to pull Mia in while I snowshoed or skied, and it would have set us back about $250.  While at her occupational therapy, I was telling her therapist about it.  She looked at the other therapist in the room and asked “Hey, do you still have that pulk that you wanted to get rid of?”  Voila.  Free pulk.  Just get the word out that you are looking for something but be willing to offer something in return. We got super lucky on this one!
• Wheel-N-Deal.  This is the term my husband has given for barter and trade.  We bartered some help with our flooring by offering a friend a case of beer.  I’ve traded babysitting and sewing skills as well.  Our Man Cave (aka The Garage) is host to heaps and piles of “junk” that he has picked up for free or cheap and plans to use to “trade up”, or get something better.  He has outfitted much of his manly Jeep doing this and it has kept a lot of purchases from going onto the credit card.  The mini fridge that I was critical of got something pretty pricey for that Jeep!

Switch flipping penny pincher! February 2, 2008

There is always something we can do to save on the household bills.  Here are the ideas that have lowered our bills significantly:

• Turn the lights off. Duh, that one is a no brainer. It’s easier said than done!  I had to work hard to train myself to flip the switch as I walked out of a room.
• Adjust the thermostat.  At the very least, lower it when you leave the house.  Ours normally hangs out at 69* or so, we just wear sweaters and slippers.  It’s Alaska, we’re going to put on a sweater anyway!  When we go on our many zillions of appointments and errands, we knock it down to 65*.  We definitely saw a drop after we started doing that regularly. 
• Switch regular light-bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.  We took it a step further and switched our main dining/living room light fixture with an Energy Star rated one.  That sucker puts out mega light but uses a fraction of the kilowatt-hours that the run of the mill fixtures use.  The one that was there was also energy efficient, but too small so we moved it down to my sewing room and did away with the oldskool fixture down there.  We haven’t bought a lightbulb in ages!
• Wash dishes as you go. And don’t leave the water running as you do it.  Or, if you have enough dishes, just wait until the dishwasher is full before running a load.  I also opt out of the final heat drying cycle and choose the air dry cycle.  No matter what the appliance is, if it uses heat it’s eating your wallet.
• Don’t use the dryer. You’re laughing at me now.  The neat thing about our split level house is the bathroom downstairs that is ultimately unused.  It’s neat because it makes a great dryer.  In the winter I set up a couple of drying racks and hang anything I can on everything that will hold clothes.  When you close the door the heat from the vent turns it into a very large, very quiet dryer.  Clothes last longer, you’re not wasting heat on an unused room and you aren’t using a mega money eater.  I do put things like bath towels in the machine, and if I need a certain pair of jeans, they get a cycle.  But most clothes don’t really need a dryer.  Sure they are a bit stiff, but when you put the shirt on, your body heat softens it up.  It also saves wear and tear on the cloth diapers.
• Use the microwave more than the oven.  This was a fairly new discover for us.  I was reading The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen and they pointed out that the oven uses a lot more energy than the microwave.  I’m not sure which healthier, but I know I like the taste better when it’s slowly roasted in the oven versus zapped dry in the microwave.  The dryness can be fixed by putting a little dish of water in with the thing you’re zapping.
• Figure out where you are losing heat, then seal it.  Our house was built in ‘83 and has the original windows and doors.  Yeah, they leak.  We are replacing the front door as soon as the temp gets above 20.  Right now you freeze as you walk by and we keep a towel stuffed around the bottom to keep some of the cold air from coming in.  The windows are not that great so we shrink wrapped the ones that we aren’t “using”.  If you go to any home improvement store, you’ll find window kits for adding insulation.  It’s a special tape that you apply to the frame, press the plastic to it and use a hair dryer to tighten it.  If the problem is higher, say in the roof, then you should probably consider the savings of adding some spray insulation to your attic, another tweak will hope to make soon.  I know the attic “door” itself was a nuisance.  It is located in our daughters closet and when the seal was broken, it turned the closet into a deep freezer, in turn keeping her room colder than the rest of the house.  Husband caulked the opening and we stuff a towel in front of the closet, making her room a little toastier.
• Don’t keep the seldom used plugged in.  For us, our TV is seldom used…until I get my hands on the second season of Desperate Housewives!  Sometimes days will go by before we turn it on again.  Apparently things suck energy just being on standby.  So we unplug things when they aren’t used and also switched our computer to energy save mode.  That was also in the afore mentioned book, but we beat them to it!

Kids cost a fortune! February 2, 2008

Especially if you feed them pre-packaged food!  I do err on the side of granola, FYI, but I try not to judge people out loud for their choices!  Inside my head I’m pretty elitist and quite high and mighty, but I’m not going to go out of my way and tell someone that they are lazy or wrong for doing/not doing something the way I would. Tomayto, potahto, you know? So, here are the things I do that have majorly impacted our finances:

• Breastfeeding.  Before we found out the extent of our daughters allergies and gastric disease, I breastfed.  Formula is seriously high priced and seemed like too much of a pain in the ass to me.  All I had to do was find a discreet place to sit down, cover up and Baby was happy.  No mixing, no warming, no getting up in the night (we also co-slept. It was the only way any of us got any sleep!)  Plus it forced me to take a load off every couple of hours. I had a perfect excuse to sit in the rocking chair and stare at her or read a book!  My daughter weaned at just shy of 12 months.  If you figure a “good” formula is about $.31/oz, we saved a little over $3,000 in the first year. http://www.kellymom.com/bf/start/prepare/bfcostbenefits.html#table1 This is where I got the numbers.  Before knowing the extent of Mia’s conditions, we would have been getting something like nutrimigen had we not breastfed.  I dare say that $.31/oz would be conservative by this time.
• Blenderize!  Before I had a baby, I worked in daycare.  Even then I didn’t understand why jarred food was so superior.  When my daughter weaned to sipper cups and solids, she ate what we ate, just blended up into baby friendly fare.  Granted it made her break out like crazy, but the point is that it really wasn’t a hardship to chuck it into the processor, freeze it in an ice-cube tray and pop it into ziplocks later.  All I had to do was get a cube and microwave it.  http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/cost.htm  This site compares the cost of jarred and home-made babyfood by brand.  Plus jars are wasteful if you don’t recycle. Down, hippy!
• Cloth Diapers.    I get freaked out just thinking about the chemical gels…ew.  Cloth was a choice at first, but it turned out to be the best choice for allergies.  The upfront cost is skeevy, but by the end of the first year you’ve only spent about $600 or so with cloth (and that is EVERYTHING from the dipes to the energy used to wash/dry…IF you use a dryer!)  It doesn’t hold a candle to the $2,000 using the cheap disposables in a year. http://babyslime.livejournal.com/151952.html This is a great article on the cost, how “hard” it is and environmental impact.  My husband could care less about the trees and animals, he liked the dollar signs!  And this next link is for the cost calculator to plug in your diapers and see how much you could spend or save http://www.diaperpin.com/calculator/calculator.asp  I haven’t perfected being perfect, so we cheat a little bit.  We have found that cloth at night just won’t work, no matter how “nighttime rated” they are. So we use Seventh Generation disposables at night.  They don’t have plastics or use chlorine and are the only brand I’ve found that won’t make her little butt break out.  I only have to buy diapers once a month unless I get behind on the diaper laundry
• Baby wipes.  I flex on these.  Mia is allergic to every brand we’ve tried except the Seventh Generation wipes, and you don’t get any more bang for your buck there than you would with other brands.  Before she was born, we were gifted and given a ton of baby washcloths without the biase taped edges, almost raw.  I nabbed an empty wipes container and filled it with water, one drop of bleach (that helps keep the beasties from growing, and no, it doesn’t hurt. One little drop in a couple of cups of water, people) and if your kid can use shampoo, a drop of that.    I cheat on this one.  I use them when she hasn’t pooped.  When she does, I keep a roll of TP to wipe her and flush that and then use the washcloths.  They go in with the diaper laundry. 

…and we’re off! On a food run, that is. February 1, 2008

Food rocks.  It tastes good and it gives us energy, but it is also where a huge chunk of our paychecks go.  You can find articles on saving money for large families, but what about those of us who are a smaller three person unit?  Here is how I keep the bill at bay:

• Make a meal plan.  You might say you don’t have time to do this.  Yes, you do.  I am a very busy person but still find time to do the things that I need to do.  My daughter is considered “medically fragile” and we have at least four therapies and doctors visits per week, but I still have time to grab a cookbook and make a grocery list. I even make time to share my strategies with you
• Make a list.  If I don’t make lists, I will get too much or forget the things I went for in the first place.  I allow for incidentals, though.  I make two or three extra lines to write in something that I see and decide is necessary, but after those three lines are used, that’s it.
• Wholesale Clubs.  This one is arguable.  Great for big families, but for our little household, you have to have self control and blinders for those “great deals” that you didn’t plan on getting.  We get all of our staples there.  Rice, pasta, canned tomatoes (you can do ANYTHING with canned tomatoes) meats, etc.  Things that will last.  We get our fresh fruits and vegetables at the regular store.  This list is imperative for me here, WITHOUT the extra write in spaces!
• The Coupon Trap.  Sometimes coupons are great, if you already use that product.  Otherwise, you doing precisely what they expect; you’re buying something because it looks like you’ll save.  Sometimes you can buy two store brand boxes for the price of one brand name box.  So you save fifty cents on the brand name.  Big deal, you are still only getting one.  I do use them, I just have to be smart about it.

When you have kids, they make grocery shopping even harder.  I don’t mean with the tantrums and “I want it!”  Those blasted cartoon characters alone can add ten bucks to an otherwise manageable sum.  My daughter can’t eat food right now, but she doesn’t really see a lot of cartoon characters anyway.  When she does see a box featuring one she recognizes, she doesn’t make a big deal out of it.  I have to tread lightly on this subject since our situation is atypical!  All I’m going to say is avoid the characters!  That may mean a temper tantrum or leaving the kids out of the shopping altogether.

Americans have the food thing down to a (very unhealthy) science.  Fast food rules.  Not in our house!  After cutting fast food when I was pregnant, we saw how much we were saving and it floored us.   When I did eat it after such a long hiatus, it tasted inferior and greasy.  I can make a prettier hamburger and my pancakes will rock your world.  Get in the habit of carrying an energy bar or something from home. I’m not saying it has to be carrot sticks, but don’t grab on the go and you willsave cash.  I know, energy bars are expensive in their own right and usually taste gross, so why in the world would you buy it?  I found some that taste AMAZING.  We get all of our cleaning products, vitamins and makeup through melaleuca.com and their Access bars taste like girl scout cookies. No joke.  The mint chocolate actually satisfy my sugar craving.  After using these as snacks for a month, I dropped 6lbs and one pant size.  Not snacking on crap really does pay off!

Who Am I? February 1, 2008

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go existential on you.  I’m part wife, part mommy and part crafter, so I know exactly who I am.  I do not, however, know how to start a blog. It’s always too abrupt or too vain and lengthy.  My intentions for this blog were to specifically put ideas out there on improving quality of life for people who have a hard time with finances, then I decided I wanted to do a crafting blog, oh but wait! Those two things can go together, so why not…  You get it.  This is where I get to be a know it all about saving money, recycling/re-purposing and crafts.  I may expand the repertoire as I wish, because I’m not above learning something new.  I’ve decided I’ll blog about each “idea” separately, even if I write several on the same day, that way they are divided and plopped into proper tags.  That may prove to make no sense at all, but work with me here.  Further, the “ideas” are not always going to be original so I give due credit when it is borrowed.  I have implemented a lot of ideas from other sites and writers, this one is to show how they work for us, it doesn’t mean it will work just as well for you. 

Hmm. Spiffy.