Life in Colorado October 6, 2008

I haven’t written since we were busy preparing for our drive from Alaska to Colorado and what a drive it was!  It will test your marriage and your sanity.  The toy treasure chest worked out beautifully, we didn’t even get to everything I stuffed inside.  We did use the DVD player a lot towards the last half of the trip.  Mia was done by day three.  We drove for six days, so three days of DVD’s really isn’t so bad!

We have a decent Freecycle network here, but there are a lot of “wanted” ads that far outnumber the offered/recieved.  I don’t know if there are just more people, or if there are just more greedy people.  We did manage several pairs of shoes in Mia’s new size that are in stellar shape. I don’t have to buy a pair of sneaker that will be destroyed at preschool!

There is so much to do here and so much of it is either cheap or free.  We had a blast at the Colorado Balloon Classic last month.  Hundreds of hot air balloons lift off en masse at a local park at a festival.  It was unique and free and offered an opportunity to get some amazing photos.

My neighbors and I went to a charity event at the Castle Rock outlets that required you to purchase a $20 ticket that donated to a charity of your choice.  With the ticket you received special discounts at stores as well as the opportunity to buy raffle tickets.  For twenty bucks I came out ahead!  With my own tickets I only won a $25 gift certificate to Fossil (I did badly need a watch!) and my neighbor who has two older boys gave me her $50 for Stride Rite and $25 for Hartstrings.  However I think I cancelled out the savings when I bought a Coach handbag.  Let me explain!  First, I never splurge on myself like that.  The deal was that it was an outlet store doing a 40% sale on a newer selection.  You can’t even get a good deal like that at the base PX!  The PX has things around 20% off which puts it around the normal outlet price.  So I got a $300 dollar handbag that I had been coveting for a third of that. Plus tax,but you know how that is.  Know what something is worth and know when to bite!

We decided to live on post since we still have the house up in AK.  We only just got renters in which means we were paying a mortgage on an empty house for the entire summer.  Yes, that punched the finances and jacked our credit card back up.  However, that lovely hush-money…er…PFD from being an AK resident helped tremendously.  Instead of going after a new TV or something that we really don’t need, we paid off the Subaru!  No more car payments!  We turned around and replaced it with a preschool payment, so really it’s all the same financial feeling right now, but it’s a good feeling to get out from under a debt that has interest to it.

Another perk of living on post is the bills.  I’m not saying I love bills, quite the opposite.  The housing company has a neat way of doing things.  Most utilities are covered as long as you stay within an average.  For each season they have calculated the average cost of a specific bill and as long as you stay within their calculations, you do not owe money.  If you go over, you owe the difference but if you come in under the average, they pay you  the difference.  It’s pretty neat, we get about $20 a month during the summer.  I think the biggest help is not using a clothes dryer.  We had to buy a new washer when we got here because the housing doesn’t come with a w/d, but opted out of buying a dryer because of the cost and the fact that the air is ridiculously dry.  We bought two extra drying racks and our clothes were usually dry in half a day or overnight.  I don’t know how well it will work during the winter but we’ll give it a shot.  They have a lot of windows in the house so I rarely use lights unless I’m in my closet or it’s evening.  We’re probably the most energy efficient family on post. 

I’ve also been back into the Ebay thing.  I loved Value Village in Anchorage.  There were always great deals on high end items.  Here, the ARC Thriftstore is the place to go! There are Goodwill stores too, but they seem to get the whatever items.  In Denver there is an ARC store near the hospital that we frequent and I found two Diane Von Furstenberg dresses and a few Hanna Andersson dresses that I put on ebay.  I made my money back over and over.  On craigslist,  a woman put an ad up for “three pair of european shoes”.  I wondered if they were Dansko and sure enough they were…and she was only asking $15 for all three pairs!  They were brand new.  I made my money back and then some!  People don’t buy a lot off of craigslist though.  I blame the economy.  It’s just too easy.  I did manage to sell some of Mia’s toys that she has outgrown, but it took a long time.

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

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!

…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!