Thursday, August 28, 2008

Temptations...

Although living frugally, saving money in all kinds of places, making money from little sidestreams of income, paying off all my bills and watching my savings account grow is wonderful, I am beginning to feel a definite temptation to spend. This is not to say that I do not occasionally treat myself. And I certainly do not cut out all the pleasures of life and live like a pauper. But, I do feel like going out and spending a long day shopping, or moving into a larger apartment which has a washer/dryer within the apartment itself, or taking a week-long trip to someplace exotic without worrying about how much I was going to spend there - all things that I probably will do eventually, but cannot afford to just now. It is having to wait that hurts so much.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Weekend Update

I had an okay weekend money-wise. I am about a $100 over budget this month (I am awful at calculating how much I think I will spend on things). I did sell a piece of furniture on Craigslist for $25, and got paid $49 by my old English partner. I also bought groceries, did laundry and went out with friends. Points to be proud about: only FOUR eat-out days this month. And only a deficit of $1 in the pamper account.

School starts tomorrow. This means less time for myself. It also means many more hours of work and more pay. However, starting September, I'll pay the full rent again. No more automatic $50 towards the Monthly Challenge. So, my Challenge goal for next month is only $100.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

My Points @ MyPoints

The postman delivered an envelope from MyPoints today – inside was a $10 gift card for Bath and Body Works. A couple of weeks ago, I had redeemed 1400 points for this gift card, and I must say that it has arrived sooner than I expected. And it comes at a good time too – I have a coupon from B&BW for a free $12 product with any purchase of $10 or more that expires in another week. So I’ll be out shopping for some fragrant goodies come this Saturday. I briefly considered redeeming a Wal-Mart gift card because groceries and food is where I could use a few more dollars, but I figured that I’d cherish some my MyPoints pillow mist or body lotion more than some MyPoints tomatoes or eggplants. And it’ll last longer too.

I am quite excited about online surveys and rewards programs. Since the beginning of June I have received $64.60 in checks and gift cards from my participation in them. Long live the internet!!!

P.S. Should I snowflake my $10 earnings from MyPoints? Since I received a gift card that cannot be redeemed for cash, I will have to use it and spend the $10. Since I was not planning on actually making any purchases, I am not really technically “saving” any money that I can snowflake either. Hmm… What do you think? Should I snowflake this amount or not?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Paying at Pay-Phones

I did not think there were many people who used pay-phones these days. Almost everyone has a cell phone or a land line or in most cases, both. However, as I waited for the bus these past two days, I noticed both times that someone was using the pay-phone close by. I wonder why... My over-active imagination is saying that it's people having affairs arranging clandestine meetings and not wanting to leave a trail back to their own phones. Or maybe some other kind of exciting secret mission maybe? I am surrounded by people who have fun and use pay phones. And I have a lousy cell phone. :-(

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Spending Challenge and More Snowflaking Ideas

Thus far in August, I have had three no-spend days, three days of eating out, and seven spend-but-no-eating-out days. In order to motivate myself to cook and eat more at home as well as to spend less in other ways, I have decided to provide myself with a monetary incentive. I have created a new “Pamper Myself” sub-account. For each no-spend-eat-at-home day, I will give myself $2. For each day I eat out, I will take out $2 from the pamper account for snowflaking. And for each day I spend money that’s not eating out, I’ll cut the account by $1. This will definitely encourage me to plan and lump my shopping expeditions together instead of going to the grocery store every time I need some small item. At the end of each month, I will calculate and deposit the money into the “Pamper…” sub-account. If the amount is in the negative, I’ll snowflake it. If I do end up having some money in the “Pamper” account, this money can be used by me at any time with the following stipulations:

1. The money SHALL NOT be used for eating out.
2. The money SHALL NOT be used to buy dull stuff like groceries.
3. The money shall be spent ONLY on myself and not on others.

I think I know what I shall do with it: I probably will revive my suspended Netflix account first (I shall have to fight this urge until January since this coming semester I need to focus on research and internship applications among other things. Netflix only encourages me to procrastinate. I get more done when I am too lazy to go in person to the redbox or library.) Also, I shall buy myself an iPod Shuffle to replace my iPod Nano which I stupidly ruined – that will encourage me to get out and walk more – another one of my goals. I am sure I shall not run out of ideas about what to pamper myself with. I have -$7 in this account right now. :-(

P.S. Another snowflaking idea I saw on some PF blogs is to snowflake any amount saved using coupons. I have to get some milk tomorrow and have a coupon for $0.75 off. So, this snowflake category will kick off tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

A Shocking Realization

Starting August, I have started to keep track of the days when I eat out and/or spend money in any way. What I observe is quite shocking. This month, I have spent money on all but two days. And those two days happen to be the days when I did not venture out of my home. So, every time I step out of my house, I end up spending money. This is quite insane!!! No wonder I am broke and in debt. The next couple of months look lean – until I get a full month’s pay at the end of September. So, I have resolved to try harder not to spend my money so frequently. Here is the tally so far for August:

Eating Out: 2 Days
Spending Money: 7 Days
No-Spend Days: 2 Days

I’m rather proud of the small number of eating out days. :-)

Over the weekend, I went to the casino with a friend. Now, I don’t have any money to spare, but my friend was all excited about going and the enthusiasm was very contagious. I had just returned some stuff to the supermarket and received about $20. I decided that that would be my limit. Here is an account of my thrilling $20 gambling spree: We started at the craps tables, where I placed two bets and lost both in succession. Then I hurriedly moved to the roulette tables, where the money in hand fluctuated between $5 and $35. I eventually left the table with $30 to return again to the craps tables where I again held at various times coins in the range of $5-$40. Eventually, I withdrew my original investment of $20, and decided to place the rest on the table to either win or lose. The dice rolled a 4 first, and then a 4 again more than doubling my money. Overjoyed, I withdrew the whole thing and cashed out. Just before heading out, I lost a dollar on the quarter slots. I had made a net profit of $39. No such luck for my friend. To cheer her up, I took us both to dinner - $25.50 in all. My profits for the evening - $13.50 which I am snowflaking. This brings me to reach this August’s monthly challenge amount of $400.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

August, So Far…

Since my assistantship contract at work starts only on the 15th of August, I’ll have only half a month’s pay at the end of August. I sat down and tallied the expected income and expenses. It’s a horrifying looking spreadsheet. However, I have decided to make a few changes. I am not sending any money towards savings this month, I shall use my snowflake and extra income money to pay for the semester fees and keep the rest in my checking account to tide me over till the end of September. If I am frugal and stick to my budget, I will manage to scrape by without digging into my savings. We’ll see how that goes…

So far, I have not had a single no-spend day this month. However, I only have had one evening of eating out. Taking stock of my pantry definitely helped in terms of planning meals. The pity of it is sometimes I don’t want to eat what is in my pantry. I’ve been busy cooking. I went and bought the silicone baking mats I wanted ($10.63 at Wal-Mart). So, yesterday was baking day – I made raspberry scones and sundried-tomato biscotti from ingredients I had at home. Also, a friend of mine gave me a HUGE bunch of basil that she grew in her garden. I kept a chunk of it to use as garnish, on pizzas and to add to bruschetta topping, and made pesto with the rest. And then, I used up a lot of the pesto in a HUGE batch of olive-artichoke-pesto-pasta (in order to use up more stuff I had at home but was not using). And I made some delicious Baba Ghanouj (using up an eggplant and half of the tahini I have in my fridge), and a large batch of pita chips. So all in all it was a good couple of days of cooking – at least it prevented me from going out to eat! Tonight, I picked up a bread machine from a fellow freecycler. I have never used a bread-machine before, but hopefully I will be able to make fun breads with the machine and use up more of the various flours I have at home.

On a sadder note, it looks like I will not be able to continue with the English speaking partner any more. We met for about a week and then our schedules started to clash. And it now looks like our semester schedules don’t match either. Oh well… maybe some other opportunity will pop up somewhere.

Monday, August 4, 2008

How I Saved $56.12 on Hand Soap

I am feeling rather proud of myself – my second day of well planned purchases. I planned my purchase for today around sales and used coupons. Bath & Body Works has its hand soap sale going on (5 for $15, or 7+ for $20). I love their hand soaps – especially their aromatherapy ones (originally $6). Unfortunately these are not antibacterial, but they smell absolutely heavenly, and I usually grudgingly shell out the $6 to buy them. Anyway, today I had my revenge. I got 10 of them for $1.85 each. How? Well, let me tell you. :-)

I had filled out a survey for them which gave me a code for $10 off a purchase of $30 or more. I also had a coupon for a $12 signature product free with any $10 purchase. So, I got 10 aromatherapy hand soaps, and a Velvet Tuber Rose Body Cream (originally $11). That’s a total of $75.97 including taxes. When you throw in the sale prices, that comes down to $42.27 after taxes. Enter my discount code, and the total is $31.57. Add the coupon for free body cream, and the final price of the lot is $19.85 including tax. That’s ten hand soaps at $1.85 each and a large free tube of body cream. The price of each bottle of this hand soap is now cheaper than a comparable bottle of SoftSoap.

All that being said, it will take me quite a while to get through my assortment of hand soaps now. I think I’ll be okay for hand soap for at least a year and half given that I live alone and use the soap only in the kitchen and one bathroom. I briefly considered snowflaking my whopping savings of $56.12, but since I don’t usually go about buying 10 bottles of hand soap at a time, I decided not to. Also, since summer funding is meager, I can use that money for groceries and other basic essentials.

P.S. Unfortunately, I have had no no-spend days in August thus far. However, I’ve only eaten out one day. Let’s hope that the next week will be a no-spend, or minimal-spend one.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

How I Saved $24.84 on Kitchen Utensils

I had a good day of shopping today. I feel good about all the purchases I made (mostly on excellent sales), but I feel best about my purchases at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I walked in to purchase a can opener, but ended up not since they did not have what I wanted. Instead, I made a good purchase of a 11” covered non-stick chef pan (originally $19.99), and an expandable over-the-sink strainer (originally $14.99). That’s a total of $37.08 after taxes. However, I used the store sales leaflet for a coupon of $10 off $30, and a mail coupon I received for 20% off one item to bring the total down to $22.24 after taxes. I also received a mail-in rebate coupon for $10 for the chef pan. So, that’s a total of $12.24 after the rebate (which has already been mailed off). A net savings of $24.84! I hadn’t originally intended on buying these two items today, but I have been on the lookout for a good, affordable stainless steel over-the-sink strainer for some time now, and one can never have too many chef pans. And now I can use my savings to go and buy two things I really need, but did not want to splurge on - a really fancy smooth-edge can opener for $14.00, and a pair of silicone baking sheets for $11.00. YIPEE!!!

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