Almost Frugal- a frugal blog

Weekly Round-Up: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…

Kelly — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:13:02 +0000

I thought that France was immune from the ‘Putting Christmas Decorations Out Insanely Early’ bug, but I guess not. There are already Christmas decorations up in tons of stores- some even started before Halloween! This is the earliest I’ve seen it in the nine years I’ve lived here. Bah humbug.

Meanwhile, here are some of my favorite reads for the week.

I’m starting a new feature on the Weekly Round-Up: My ‘Frugal Tips of the Day’ from my Twitter account. While I do tend to post the same links to my Twitter account and my Good Reads page, the ‘Frugal Tips of the Day’ links only go to Twitter. I’ll start including them here, as well, so that those of you without Twitter accounts (Hi Mom!), can still find them.

Frugal tip of the day: cancel an email membership. If it doesn’t come to you, you’re less tempted to spend.
Frugal tip of the day: Unclogging your drains environmentally can be frugal as well.
Frugal tip of the day: Sell something you own to bring in a bit of cash- but make sure to save the $!
Frugal tip of the day: Dye your old sheets, towels, napkins.. to give them a new lease on life.
Frugal tip of the day: Have an indoor picnic to break the mealtime routine and keep from eating out.
Frugal tip of the day: Design your own wrapping paper!

As always, you can check out the Good Reads page or my Tumblr site Almost Frugal Finds for all my links. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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This Is What Frugal Looks Like: Remodeling This Life

Kelly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:25 +0000

This is What Frugal Looks Like is a series that highlights different ways that people can be frugal in their lives- after all, frugality doesn’t have to be drastic or just about clipping coupons. Frugality can be fun and easy. Each respondent answers the same four questions.

Today’s interview is with Emily, from Remodeling This Life.

What does frugality mean to you?

Since becoming more frugal in my life, frugality has taken on different meanings. First, it was out of necessity and it felt hard to even spend less without feeling like we didn’t have enough to be comfortable. It got easier and now frugality really means to me an entire lifestyle of being conscious of what I do, whether it’s spending, creating, reusing, consuming, eating, growing. Just like a food diet, at first cutting back felt really hard. But once you get over that and make your diet choices a lifestyle instead of a crash diet, everything changes. You start exercising more, drinking more water, going to bed earlier.

And what was once a goal to lose 5 pounds has turned into an entire healthy lifestyle. For me, frugality is like that. It’s not just about spending less money. It’s about thinking about each and every little thing, being conscious of resources, and not just spending less money at the grocery store, but saving money at the bank. It’s also about making choices, deciding what priorities are and sticking to those to reach goals. There are things that are important to me not to skimp on. I think frugality should mean getting quality for what you pay for. It’s not just about dollar signs but how good it is for you, how long it will last, and how much it will add to your life.

What is something that you do that is ‘typically’ frugally?

There are some things that I won’t do to be more frugal. I don’t like coupons. I don’t make my own clothes. We drive older cars, we don’t upgrade everything, we don’t have lots of stuff, etc…but more importantly, we are healthy. I don’t truly think a person can be frugal and not be. We hardly ever eat out, we cook from scratch most of the time, we grow some of our own food but not a whole lot. Hubby changes the oil in our cars, I give him haircuts at home, we spend a lot of time outside instead of paying to do things when we go out as a family. It’s hard for me to come up with the frugal things I do because it’s our entire lifestyle.

What is something frugal that you do that is unusual?

In the blog world, frugal habits can seem really common. So this is tough. I think the most unusual thing we do is that when we bought our house we put a lot down on it. We bought an older, smaller home instead of something bigger and more expensive in every single way. This made what our home costs us each month so low that we’ve been freed up to do a lot of things that are much more important to us than money. Instead of having to be slaves to jobs and a mortgage, I can stay home with our kids, my hubby doesn’t have to work as much and we can all spend these years while our kids are young together doing valuable things together during a time we can’t ever get back. So, it may not be typically frugal to drop a chunk of change on a home, but it’s allowed us to have so much less to pay for each month that we can save for other things that matter later on and have time together now.

What are some of your long term goals that being frugal will help you to accomplish?

I have big dreams. I want to spend the time that my kids are little right here at home in a comfortable place, giving them what they need and offering a nurturing place for them to grow. I think family is so important and I want to be able to help them become the people they want to be. I don’t want them to have to take care of me financially later. I want to be able to travel when we retire. Family and experiences are at the top of my list when I think about saving for tomorrow.

About Emily:

Emily is a 30 year old stay at home to two kids, 5 and 2 years old. She loves blogging, running, writing, photography, her friends and her family. Her blog, Remodeling This Life, documents her family’s adventures in remodeling their 60s ranch, living by the ocean, and her search for a simpler life.

Here are a few of her favorite posts:

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Making Room for Others

Kelly — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:01:23 +0000

One of the things that I’m enjoying most about my new apartment is the extra space that it gives me for entertaining. Our living room can now hold more than 1 extra person at a time… it’s very exciting!

Last Sunday, we had friends over for dinner. Including small children, of whom there were many, there were 12 people in my house at the same time. It’s still amazing to me that I can host a gathering of that size. We didn’t have a fancy dinner, just pizza which the adults ate sitting on the couches and the kids ate at the kitchen table. But it was so nice to be able to host friends and share a nice evening together.

I think this is one of the most important ways that living in a bigger space, even though we pay more in rent, will actually end up saving us money. We won’t need to go out to eat to entertain. We won’t have to hold birthday parties at special venues (unless we want to avoid the mess in our house). We’ll be able to throw a party or two. I also feel a lot less stress living here, which lead in the old house to eating out because I couldn’t be bothered cooking, or getting fast food for the same reasons.

Along with the practical aspect of living in a bigger space comes the way that we can open our house and home to others. I feel more comfortable inviting my kids’ friends over for play dates, which is so nice for them. I am able to host meetings for the associations to which I belong, meaning that we can meet in a more central location. We will be able to put up friends who come to France on vacation, and my brother might be able to stay with us for a year while he goes to school. My husband can even start to invite his friends over as well, although with his friends come electric guitars- I don’t know how happy the neighbors will be!

Our new apartment isn’t huge, certainly not by American standards. It’s about 1100 square feet, which is for us, just big enough. But more importantly than the added floor space it gives us is the added ability to make room in our home for others.

How do you make room in your family and home for others?

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Showing Your Face to the World

Kelly — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:11:26 +0000

How do you think of yourself? How do you want others to think of you? How do you think others really think of you? And what kind of behavior would it take on your part to make the three coherent?

For example, there is still a flaky 17 year old somewhere inside of me. I have a hard time feeling (almost) thirty-five sometimes because to me, being thirty-five denotes responsibility and grown-upness. But others think of me as grown-up and responsible, a ‘Get Things Done’ kind of person, because in fact, I am in part a boring, ‘Get Things Done’ kind of person.

Another example: I feel like I’m bad with money. That should come as no surprise to you- it’s why I started writing Almost Frugal! But on the other hand, people think of me as being frugal, again, because of Almost Frugal. So what kind of behavior would it take to bring the two ideas together? Well, a bit more saving and a bit less spending, a whole lot more budgeting and maybe a bit of the envelope system tossed in for good measure. You know- the oldies but goodies.

The other day, I did a presentation for a local association of job seekers on how to effectively control your online presence. In other words, when a potential employer does a Google search for your name, what do they find? One of the things I mentioned as helping people to control their message, and thus how others think of or perceive them, was to use the same photo everywhere. Then I showed this picture:

Yeah, that’s me all right. It’s what you’ll find on my Twitter page, my personal Facebook page, my website, my LinkedIn profile and so on and so forth. Basically, every place that I am online, you’ll find that picture.

But what does it say about me? Certainly not the image that I want to project: that I am an interesting, smart, confident qualified person, who’s full of life and good stories. No, this picture is more the flaky seventeen year-old who needed a picture for her resume.

So when I had the opportunity to have some professional pictures taken at a fabulous price (€20) as part of my networking organization, I jumped at the chance. And got this one, to boot:

Better, non?*

Now as to the last question at the beginning of the post: “what kind of behavior would it take on your part to make the three coherent?“, well, I don’t think a picture is worth a thousand words. But I do think it is worth trying to figure out (best done with friends and a nice bottle of wine), how well the way you feel inside matches the image you project to others. And once you’ve figured that out, try and figure out what you need to do to make the two match up better.

That’s a story for another post, however!

* There is another, more traditional version of a head shot, on my About page.

Your turn:

How do you think of yourself?
How do you want others to think of you?
How do you think others really think of you?
And what kind of behavior would it take on your part to make the three coherent?

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Showing Your Face to the World | Permalink | 4 comments

How Disposable is Your Money?

Kelly — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:23:32 +0000

I was scrapping the food left on the dinner plates into the trash the other night when I started to think about all the money I was throwing away.

Not that there was a lot of food left (I use measuring cups to measure out the food, so I know approximately how much to give my kids so that they eat it all), but there was enough left that we weren’t able to stick the plates into the dishwasher as is. And of course there’s always water or milk left unfinished in the cups, or maybe only half a serving left in the pot.

Then I started to think about all the other ways that I throw money away. There are, of course, all the disposable items I buy… which aren’t actually that many, in fact, as I use cloth for everything but things that touch bottoms. The leftovers left unfinished. The McDonalds bought instead of a home-cooked meal… The clothes tossed because of a stain. You can take things even further. There is the light left on in an empty room, the water left running while teeth are being brushed or the extra long shower, and the windows left open for fresh air while the heat is on.

I think that each time I’m tempted to throw something away, I’m going to ask myself how much it cost me. Then I’ll see if there isn’t a way to make it work as something else. Because, while I certainly don’t mind disposable diapers, I don’t want to have disposable money.

How disposable is your money? How do you reuse it?

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Weekly Round-Up: On Loose Teeth & Cat Litter

Kelly — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:41:18 +0000

My oldest son lost his second tooth yesterday evening- I didn’t even know it was loose! Then, carrying it around the house in his tooth fairy bag, he lost it. Again.

I’d never before realized how much baby teeth look like pieces of cat litter! Maybe I need to vacuum again…

Here are some of my favorite reads for the week.

As always, you can check out the Good Reads page or my Tumblr site Almost Frugal Finds for all my links. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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Study Finds Prepaid Cards Less Expensive Than Debit Cards from Banks

A Guest Writer — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:00:56 +0000

This guest post comes via ACE Cash Express, who provides financial services, including payday loans, short-term consumer credit, check cashing, bill payment and prepaid debit card services.

A surprising new study conducted by Michael Flores, an economist and expert on financial institutions, found that consumers who use prepaid debit cards, instead of low balance checking and debit accounts, could save up to 70% in fees. That effectively makes the use of prepaid debit cards significantly cheaper than traditional debit cards from banks.

“There is no question that prepaid cards are a much better option for many consumers,” said Flores. “An objective review of the costs associated with these cards compared to costs of alternatives such as basic bank checking accounts, in addition to the safety and security associated of prepaid cards compared to cash, leaves no doubt that prepaid cards are a smarter option for many.”

The study found that using debit cards from banks will typically cost a consumer up to $350 each year. Those fees come from overdraft charges, minimum balance fees, and automatic teller machine (ATM) fees. Similar annual fees were experienced from consumers that didn’t have access to traditional banking accounts, and used a loose system of money orders and bill-payment services.

Based on the study’s results, the use of prepaid debit cards was overwhelmingly cheaper than any alternative. It was found that prepaid debit cards with direct deposits, like the kind you can get from your local ACE Cash Express, had the lowest cost of use.

You can download and read the full text of the report from NBPCA’s website.

Kelly says: Credit cards are virtually unknown here in France. Most people use debit cards attached to their checking accounts, which almost always come with an overdraft. The fees for going over the overdraft limit can be hefty, up to 18 or 19%. The most effective deterant to exceeding your available resources in my opinion however, is having your payment refused at the cash register- something which doesn’t happen nearly enough in the States in my opinion. Better to have a purchase denied than to incur the massive fees that can go along with going over your limit!

Do you use credit cards, debit cards or prepaid debit cards?

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