Ode to Bargain Mart April 22, 2009

I have a new love!  There is a mom at preschool who has been telling me about this little gem of a hole in the wall that sells groceries and goods that have been “damaged” in transit.  I have had to alter my own diet since my last post, going lactose and gluten free (when I can, at least).  We found a jackpot of organic ricemilk for my daugther priced at $1.50 per carton (usually around $3), a huge bunch of bananas for .99, and an 8-pack of Dr. Pepper for hubby for $2.50 (no idea the actual retail since we don’t bother with it much).  I also grabbed a few cartons of organic chicken broth for the same price and savings as the rice milk.

I used to frequent a place like Bargain Mart when we lived in Anchorage, Liquidation World.  Unfortunately it had to liquidate it’s own store and close about a year and a half ago.  These little stores are all over, and it seems you need to know someone  who knows about it because I certainly do not see advertisement for it.  I will shop this store before anything from now on, it is said that they get tons of new stuff weekly and I’m going to get the skinny on WHEN it’s restocked from my inside mom!

Gardening isn’t cheap, considering the hobby is centered around stuff that is somewhere out in nature to begin with.  I thought I was going to do mosaic flower pots.  When I got to the craft store and saw how expensive pre-cut mosaic tiles and the accompanying tools would be all together, I opted for some cheap pain and very pretty stencils that were on clearance.  I had plenty of fun painting the terra cotta pots (around $4 for a largish and $2 for a medium).  I happened to still have bulbs in the garage from our preschool bulb sale that happened around September.  I just hope that they had enough of the appropriate climate to grow so late!  Some actually started puttin up shoots so I’ll at least have two pastel tulips and a bunch of bluebells!  I think I’ll begin trolling yardsales for flower pots since the weather is trying to do nice things.

Professional photographs are not found in my house!  We had our wedding pictures done by a lady in Germany and that was the last time we bothered.  I did get a few great pro shots done of my daughter when she was a baby when my boss’ husband wanted to practice with babies.  We wanted some family photos done before my husband goes overseas and while shopping craigslist in the barter section stumbled across a photographer who is part of an organization called “Operation: Love Reunited”.  Photographers volunteer their time and services to military families who are either about to deploy, mid deployment (pics of the family to send to the soldiers) and/or returning from deployment.  Weather permitting, we are having ours made in Garden of the Gods.  If you have never seen or heard of the place, google  it.  Stunning! The site has examples and explanations.  http://www.oplove.org/

We recently took a vacation to visit our family on the east coast, and we drove since flying with our health concerns is akin to holding a grenade and waiting for it to spontaneously explode.  We spent a lot of money on the trip but it was all in supplies- gas, U-Haul and motel rooms.  We pulled our little atv trailer with a china hutch set (I couldn’t stand it, sister in law loved it) to my husband’s sister and left the trailer at his parents house where they had the space to store it since we can’t store it at our house and paying to let it sit somewhere is silly.  We then drove 8 hours to my parents where we rented a pull behind U-haul and were given the piano that mom had promised to me.  When we went back up to the in-laws, we proceeded to cull part of the overstuffed basement and came back with some beautiful pieces of furniture from the family’s world travels.  There is a beautiful and ornately carved secretary desk and chair with beautiful embroidery that came from India, a set of hand carved lions from Nigeria and a set of ceramic elephant plant stands that were among the last shipment out of Vietnam.  In between the neat finds were about 10 boxes of  Christmas ornaments from Hallmark, many that are old.  His mother wanted us to take them and hoped we could make some money off of them.  We’ll educate ourselves before jumping into the sales arena of course!  I do know that certain series are coveted and we have a few that look promising.  Right now the task is overwhelming since the two stacks of boxes tower over my head!

My husband purchased one of the Neat Receipt systems that scans reciepts and business cards and files them according to what it reads off of the actual paper.  It sorts by date and genre (such as retail, grocery, etc).  It’s a real smack from reality since you can see where the money is going.  A lot of it was going to things that we didn’t need, and that’s kind of hypocritical considering I’m blabbing about saving money and energy…  We’re working on a budget that involves a nice physical piece of paper with a spread of where the money goes.  If I can’t see it, I have no idea how to adhere to it.  We’re making the credit card an emergency piece of plastic, not a purchase inducer.  I am getting a set amount of money transfered from our pay into my own account and from there I do groceries, gas, medications and the rest is for things that come up or entertainment.

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!