An Unexpected No-Spend Month

Have you seen those bloggers who talk about having a no-spend month? If not, let me explain. These bloggers, for whatever reasons, choose a month where they decide, voluntarily, not to spend any money. At least none other than is absolutely necessary for survival, you know, say food to eat, and gas to get to and from work ....

I would read these posts and be amazed. Amazed at their resolve, at their dedication, at their strength ... But also a little bemused wondering why they would even think of having a no-spend month. I don't consider myself a shopaholic, I don't have the funds for that kind of recreational therapy for one thing. I do like to buy things and if I had more money I probably would buy a bit more stuff. I'm also not a minimilist. I don't see myself on either extreme of the equation.

But something happened on the way home from surgery. The last time I filled up our gas tank was a week before I went to the hospital and since that time neither my husbnad or I have been out shopping. We have a local grocery store that my husband walks to after work every day to pick up the few things we need to keep us fed and that has served us well. Since I'm not driving yet, I haven't been to Walmart, Target or craft store in the last 5 weeks. And I havent' really missed it.

While we have picked up a local pizza once a week or brought home subs from the place in town, what I have really missed is going to a sit-down restaurant. My mouth drools over some good mexican enchiladas, or some yummy italian pasta or a plate of phad thai from the thai restaurant. And dont' get me started on missing a nice glass of white wine at dinner. Pain meds and wine don't mix, as we all know.

So I've been suprised at how well this mandatory no-spend month has gone for our family. The husbster really likes how much money we're saving and the padding the checking acct has received. So maybe sometime in the future when I'm not recovering from rib reconstruction surgery, we'll do it again ..... or not!

So how 'bout you? Have you ever done a no-spend month or even been tempted to do one? How did it go for you and your family?

Til next time ....

Debt Reduction

We are watching videos of Dave Ramsey at church. Yesterday he talked about gazelle like intensity in getting out of debt and recommended selling everything you could lay your hands on. So that got hubby and I thinking about what to sell. Before our move, we sold alot of furniture and downsized considerably. But it has crossed our mind more than once to sell our car. Our only car. Our only means of transportation. The only reason we could even consider this is that we live downtown Boise, close to most everything. Neither of us work outside the home, and Boise has a decent transit and is a bicycle friendly town.

The main drawbacks would be not being able to continue to go to our church and if I needed to go to Joe's school, that would be difficult, if not outright impossible. So tho, we talk about it I don't think we will follow through.

So how bout you? Would you sell your car to get out of debt? What have you sold to downsize your debt?

10 Ways We Save Part Two

So what did you think of Part One? Do you do these things along with me? Here's 5 more ways we save for your consideration:


6) Downsizing our van to a economic sedan

We had an accident last sumnmer that totalled our van, so we were in the market for a new vehicle. I know not everyone can go trade in a car or two right now, but if you are looking, go for it! It really made a difference for us when gas prices were creeping up to $4/gallon last August. With our newer, smaller car we got better gas milieage with very little downsize.

7) Blockbuster-Netflix-Library-Hulu
When my husband and I were first dating, we loved going to see movies. We remember paying $3 or less per person to go see the newest blockbuster. And soon into our frugal married life, we found a $1 cheap theatre. Then, our #1 son arrived in our lives, and over the years we have realized that he has inherited 100 fold our movie loving gene. And he loves to watch the same movie over and over again. Yes, when he was younger, I bought videos and dvd's for the #1 son. It was during one of the wimpy frugal phases in our life. But we soon woke up to the reality that this was a waste of money.

We made the switch to renting from blockbuster and the library. That worked well enough, until we started racking up the late fees from blockbuster--yikes! We heard about netflix and quickly signed up. #1 son was able to watch his favorite movies without any late fees, Michael and I were able to watch movies at home with our homemade popcorn on our time schedule. But once we became a starving student family, we cancelled our netflix account as just one more way to trim the budget. Michael had heard about Hulu, an internet site where you could watch free movies and tv shows. And I loved having the Boise Library close by with a much greater abundance of dvd's, videos and even Wii games. And this time around, I'm very concious of when their due date is.


8) Coffee Time with hubby and friends

One of the differences between being frugal and being cheap is the knowledge that its not all about money. Being frugal is also about what your values are. What are your priorities. Yes, we are trying to pay down our consumer debt, but we are also trying to live an enjoyable, satisfying life while we do it. So for us, we have decided not to eliminate all of our discretionary spending. For me especially, I need times when I feel like I've had a little treat. But since we are being frugal, it plays inself out like this. Instead of going out for a weekly date night, Michael and I go out for lunch while our son is in school (no babysitting fees) or out for coffee at one of the hip coffee shops in this university town. Instead of going out for pizza, we often make pizza at home and have a movie and pizza night. I don't go out for lunch or coffee with friends as often as I used to, or as often as I would like, but I do go. I budget it into our monthly budget so that it can be a reality. It's important for my emotional well being, and it makes me happy.

9) At Home Haircuts

I have picked up my haircutting scissors again and once again I'm cutting Michael's hair. And I've added Josiah to my client list. I don't have a degree in cosmetology, but I've read books, I've watched professionals, and I do a pretty good job. I've had worse haircuts from professionals than what I've given my two boys. Joe is a trial to cut his hair anyway, since he wiggles and moves and generally doesn't do well. Both wear their hair in very simple cuts. With Michael's eyesight he isn't able to return the favor, but he has helped me color my hair at home which has saved us a bunch of money.

10) Doing Without

And last, and maybe the most important of all the ways we save money, is doing without. Knowing that this drastic method of frugality is but for a season, we are willing to put extra money towards the bills instead of new clothes, new furniture, manicures and pedicures, jewelry, eating out as much as I would like to (see #8 above), taking a wonderful spring vacation or renting a beach house on the ocean this summer. We don't go home to visit as much as we and our families would like us to. We don't have a brand new luxury car (see #6 above). But doing without is not all bad. Learning to do without can make one more resourceful. It can make one appreciate the simpler things in life, including family. With more stuff in ones life, there is more maintenance, more organization needed, more insurance to keep it safe, and on and on.

So there is our top 10 ways we have been saving money this year. This isn't the end tho. As I read what others say about saving money and being frugal, I know I will be adding to our drastic frugal phase ideas. Maybe riding a bike instead of using the car, maybe clipping coupons and doing rebates, maybe finding a mystery shopper job ,,, So how 'bout you? What are you doing to save money?

Ten Ways We Save Money Part One

I would much rather read about what someone has done--a personal story, than just a general list of things to do. So I'm assuming you are like me, and I am going to share what we have done to save money. Not all of my ways to save may apply to you, but hopefully you can find a couple to use to lighten your burden as we ride out this recession.


1) Trading in our monthly cell phones for one prepaid phone

This has been one of our all-time best decisions we have ever made. We have had a cell phone or two for years! First as a business expense and need for my husband and then for both of us. We used them instead of a landline for many years and used them to make long distance calls to family and friends. It was wonderful, but expensive. Over just the last 5 years we have paid anywhere from $50-$100 a month, including fees, taxes and misc charges. Even when we tried to get it as low as possible, the lowest we could seem to get it was $50. And then there were the contracts. We had been faithful to one company for over a decade and they treated us like dirt. Or worse.

So last summer I finally found out when our contracts would be up on our family plan. August and October respectively. And we slowly extracated ourselves from the cell phone monster. In January we bought a prepaid cellphone with 300 minutes for around $25. And the minutes were good for 3 months. So for the last 2 and a half months we have averaged $10/mo for our phone.

Now this has only worked for us because we have a landline with our apt. It is included in our rent. But even if we didn't have a landline or had to pay for it ourselves, I would still switch to a prepaid cell phone in a heart beat.

2) Making more foods from scratch

I have gone through bouts of using alot of prepackaged meals, but what I have found is that my grocery money doesn't go as far as when I make old fashioned meals from scratch. But then I decided to take it up a notch and look at those items that I generally pick up without thinking and make them from scratch. I don't have any price comparisons, but I know I have saved money. Consider. I have made salad dressings from scratch, bar-b-q sauce, teriyakisauce and other condiments, cream of whatever soup--very easy to do, bread---not as cost saving but definitely healthier, and pizza. There are others out there who make their own laundry soap, cleaners, beef jerky, yogurt, butter, and ice cream. It does take some work and forethought, but besides the savings you get, you also know whats going into your food.

3) Hanging clothes to dry on a line

If you have the space, this is a great money saver. I heard once that the cost of cleaning clothes comes 90% from the dryer. All that energy being used to heat the air that dries the clothes. I have hung all of my clothes to dry in the past, but am now just hanging my shirts. I gave up my huge drying rack and only have my little one. In this apt that's all that it can handle. But if you have the space, go get yourself a rack or clothesline and start drying on the line.

4) Using Craigslist & Freecycle

Just by being on the freecycle list, I have come across and recieved, good looking, good fit jeans, pants and shirts, several pair of shoes,purses for me, toys for my son, clothes too, sheets, fabric for my crafts, dishes and knick knacks. Off of craigslist we found a wonderful sofa for $30 to replace the too big worn out couch we left behind in the move. So if you need something, check out your local craigslist and freecycle.

5) Getting the Wal-Mart price for medications
If you pay for prescriptions with cash, like I do, then getting the Wal-Mart $4 price is a lifesaver. You may have to work with your doctor and the pharmesist to make sure the amount and the millegrams cooridinate. Not every medicine in every amount is $4, but you can get around most obstacles with some creative thinking. Also, some other pharmecies will match the Wal-Mart $4 price. Ask!

This article was getting too long, so I decided to divide it up into 2 parts. So tune in Friday or Saturday for the next installment. I'd love to hear how you have saved with these 5 categories: phone, making from scratch, cleaning clothes, craigslist/freecycle and medications. Do tell!

Which Frugal Chick Are You?

I have started reading the happy homemaker, and besides just loving her title, I also love her posts. In this one she talks about 3 types of frugalnesss in her life:

Drastic frugality- I am not sure what this all would entail but some ideas discussed were dh biking to work, making even more items from scratch to cut grocery costs, cloth diapers, vehicle changes, growing our own food, switch to a pay as you go cell phone, cut out paper plates, napkins, paper towels, disposable wipes in addition to the things we already do.

Moderate Frugality- Basically continue on the current path with slight modifications. We are planning a Square Foot GardenLiving on Less ~ Financial Goals
this year and I hope to increase our from scratch cooking since it is something I enjoy doing already.

Frugal living for Wimps- This is how I feel about how we are living now. We made some pretty significant changes a few years back, but have stalled a bit in our progress. Even if we continued on the exact same course we could still save money, but not enough to purchase a house for cash in the next few years.

Isn't this great? I love how she divides them up. For each of us, the drastic, moderate, and wimpy might look somewhat different depending on where we are on our journey, but I can so totally relate.

20 years or so, when we first started on our frugal path, we dove right into the drastic frugal phase out of necessesity. I hung my clothes on a line to dry. We practically eliminated eating out, we rented the smallest, cheapest house we could find, we heated our house with wood--a wood burning stove. It was an intense time in our lives, getting out of debt and building our business. Then as the business grew profitable, we switched to the moderate phase, and somehow got sucked into the wimpy phase. I've always tried to do some frugal things just to make our money stretch further, but it wasn't until my husband had his accident and our life radically changed 6 years ago that I dove back into the moderate frugal phase and am now looking at the drastic phase. I'm digging out my old Tightwad newsletters I saved, I'm visiting frugal blogs, and in general, I'm just resetting my mindset to be drastically frugal.

So which frugal chick are you? Do you see yourself in one or more of the categories? I have a couple more posts in the works about what we have done to be more frugal and what we are working towards. So stay tuned!

One Frugal Gem to Trim Our Budget

Like most others I have been looking for frugal ideas to trim our budget. I have a few of my own tricks that I have used over the years, but I'm always up for a new idea. So when I got my Biblical Womanhood newsletter this past week, I was excited to see her "Frugal Friday: Eight Tips for Saving $100 This Year", a guest post by Hope Ware. As I looked through her 8 tips, I nodded, yes, yes, yes, those are all good. Each one seemed to be things I was already doing, or was aware of, and then I happened upon the gem (at least for me).

Institute a weekly baking day. Isn't that a great idea? I thought so too. I bake sporadically. I bake bread, I make homemade pizza, I bake muffins once in awhile. But I had never really thought about having a baking day.

Hope explains how she does it:
Each week, I use one day as a day to bulk bake. I bake 3 loaves of bread, 2 tins of muffins, 2 tins of cornbread, and any other bread that I might need during the week.

One reason I like to make a weekly menu plan is that I can consult it ahead of time and see what bread products I'll need that week. I always bake a little more than I think I will need. Muffins freeze great and can be thawed in small amounts for lunches for the children or for your husband to take to work.

How many times have I planned on having pasta and didn't have any french bread, foccacia or bread sticks? Which would have been a perfect addition to the meal. And I end up going to the store, rather than going without. Or how often do I buy a take n bake pizza or even order delivery--yikes! because I don't have a pizza crust already made up, ready to go in the freezer. I can see having a baking day will help trim my grocery budget, and save me time and energy too. I'm liking this idea!

So how 'bout you, my treasured reader? What gems of frugalness do you live by? What have you discovered recently that you are adding to your repetroire? It seems like everyone is trying to tighten their belts just a bit nowdays. I know we are. Let's share ideas with each other here at Challenges and Adventures. I'm all ears.

Gas Prices & Budgeting

even tho i'm trying to be more frugal and spend less money these days, i'm not much for budgeting. i'm not a paper and numbers kind of girl so i leave that up to my hubby. for groceries and sundries, we come up with a set amount of money for the month which goes into my acct and when its gone its gone. same for eating out, and to a lesser extent gas. so this being the beginning of the month, i went to the station around the corner from us and filled up the tank in the silver bullet. its a small tank, so we've never had to spend $50 or $100 filling her up like some folks were doing this summer. but still, it seemed to always take a chunk out of our wallet.

this time tho, i was practically prancing as i got home and gave honey the gas reciept. $16.00 to fill up the tank!!! under twenty dollars, folks! our gasoline is now around $1.67 and could continue to drop. hubby and i are betting each other on whether its gets down to $1.50 by Christmas. (edited a few hours later: just saw the price down now to 1.59!!)

so after i got done prancing around like a disco mama, my next thot was: "now i'll have more money for other things" but since i'm not a budgeter, i'm not sure how much. i don't know how much we were spending on gas when it cost $3.50 a gallon so how do i compare? ever find yourself in one of those dilemnas? i guess i can wait til the end of the month and see if there are any pennies left in the penny jar. of course, this being december and all, its probably one of our spendier months anyway. so i may not see an influx at all ....

how bout you? seen any difference in your budget with the price of gas being back to almost reasonable levels? i love to hear your comments and appreciate the time and effort it takes for you to leave me one.

this pic has nothing to do with this post, except that joe is a great traveler in our silver bullet.

cell phone no more

we have had a cell phone in some form or another for the last 18 years. and yes, they have been around that long! my husband had one of those large brick phones that had the atenae sticking out of it. it got sketchy reception, but it was for his biz. it wasn't until the late 90's that we added a phone for me. our son came along, we had the money and i was just sure i would need a phone for those emergencies that happen with kids. i got the cute red nokia and loved feeling important enough to have a cell phone. ya, i'm that shallow.

over the years we would change our phone plans. more minutes when we had lots of calls to do or when we used our cells as our only phone. it was nice not having a landline at times. less minutes when it just got too costly or didn't seem to be needed. we got a few new phones over the years, some good and some not so good. and we had the unexpected need for new phones after the dog ate ... not one ... but two! ... i said TWO phones in ONE week. not only did we get a new phone, but we found the dog a new home. and yes we warned the new owners of the dogs desire to eat cell phones among other things.

about a year ago we started thinking about cutting the umbilical cord to the cell phone. we contacted our service provider to find out when our contract would be up. not til fall they told us. unless we wanted to pay their outrageous "get out of jail free" fee.

i counted down the days to when we could get rid of the cell phones and the monthly payment. the university apt we moved into provided a free landline with the apt so our need for a cell phone was not as big as our need to decrease our cost of living. when we were finally able to send in our last payment, i was overjoyed. our last day happened to fall on a friday. that weekend something felt off. it wasn't until a few days later that i realized that i had used my minutes to call long distance to friends and family scattered far from boise. i know there are answers for this problem, but i hadn't bought a long distance phone card yet at that point. and i noticed that when i'm driving to and fro, i often think of a phone call i need to make. old habit of making calls while driving which i'm probably better off not participating in.

eventually when funds allow we'll probably get a cell again. but i don't plan on going back on an overpriced 2 yr plan with one of the big companies. rather i'm toying with getting one of those pay as you go phones. no contract, no paying for minutes i'm not using, no hassle if i decide i need to cut costs for awhile.

so how bout you: are you cutting back? have you reviewed any long standing habits to see how you might cut corners? i'd love to hear your story.

ps: its kind of nice not to be interupted all the time too.

being frugal

this has been a subject i have toyed around with diving into. becuz of the economy it seems to be of more interest to people. but that's not my only motive for bringing it up. rather, moving to boise we have downsized. we went from a 3 bedroom, 2 bath 1940's tudor style home with a full basement and single car garage, fenced yard in a great n'borhood to a 2 bedroom student apt across the street from the university. hubster used to work part time to subsidize our disability income and i picked up odd jobs now and then. now we are living in a more expensive area with less income. we are hoping that a job at the university comes thru for hubby next semester, but regardless we are having to tighten our belts.

in years past, i have had to be frightfully frugal, and other times i have been able to spend more freely. i am wanting to revisit my previous frugal ways and learn some new ones. i know i can do it cuz i've done it before.

meanwhile, our pastor at the Pursuit has been preaching a 3 part series on Money. entitled appropiately enough: MONEY, MONEY, MONEY (you know the tune!) one thing he keeps stressing is that money, finanaces, moulah is really a matter of the heart. its not so much about how much we have or don't have, but what is our attitude about how much i have or dont' have. and that leads me to the question of the day: am i content?

there is a verse in timothy that says godliness with contentment is great gain. (1 tim 6:6) now i confess that while i have tried to live a godly life, it has not always been a content life. and therefore, there has not been a whole lot of gain, let alone great gain in my life up to this point. you see not being content, even when we had more, robbed me of so much. it robbed me of my joy, it robbed me of being able to give of myself and my resources, it made me continually be in search of something else ...

knowing this about myself, coming into this move to boise and downsizing our stuff and our lifestyle, i have been making an effort of being conscious of where my contentment/discontent equation lies. i have been making a concerted effort to be content in where we are in life. part of it has been easier, since i know that this will most likely be temporary. michael has 2 years of schooling and after he graduates he will be looking for a job that pays more like we were accustomed to be being paid. but there are no guarentees in life; as james says "come now you who say. "today or tomorrow we shall go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit" yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. you are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

so i'm trying not to just look to the future and wait this time out, but rather i am willing myself, choosing to be content, to be happy even in this season of life. even if it lasts for the rest of my life.

yes, we need to pay down and pay off our debt we have foolishly incurred. yes, i want to get to a place of financial freedom where i can give financially to ministries i believe in. yes, we need to build up a savings nest for unexpected emergencies. pastor paul's sermons covered these areas and showed the truth from the Word as to how we should do this and why. if you're interested, you can go to the pursuit and download the sermons onto your ipod or mp3 player.

but for me, from this day forth, i am choosing to be content.