June Save $100 Challenge

[fidgiegirl]

I know it's a few days early, but I have an idea for a thread and wanted to get it going for June. I think there may have been threads like this on the old forum?

I am kind of into 100 as a number thanks to the 100 items decluttering thread (aaaaah, so much lighter now . . . ) and also Barbara Winter talks a lot about $100 in her book.

I have been thinking that sometimes I consider something a "frugal" when it is SPENDING money. I want to get away from that and start to add up what we save when we DON'T spend the money.

So I want to see if by NOT spending money on things I normally would buy or finding savings on things we must buy I can come up with $100. For example, DH and I buy dark chocolate bars for a super-delicious nibble after dinner. Our faves are BT McElrath and they come in at a whopping $4-$5 a bar. Today, though, my FiL tipped us off to a sale at Walgreens for Lindt bars. My DH got us $6 worth of bars for $2. Savings = $4. We also had to buy Zyrtec. The generic was on sale for $14.99 + BOGO. Savings = $15.

We went to my mom and dad's today. We tend to stop at a c-store for a snack on the way home. If we had planned ahead, we could have saved $5 by bringing a bottle of our own tea and keeping it in their fridge for use on the way home. Also we could have brought some chips or something from our house. If we had done that I would have counted $5 on our total.

I am putting these "rules" out here more to clarify for myself what it even is that we're trying to do than to set any rules for a challenge. Make it what you would like!

So far:
Dark chocolate = $4
Zyrtec = $15
TOTAL = $19

[razz]

This is a good idea for a thread to help with the planning ahead part of our activities.

We need to fix our front deck/verandah so DH and I worked to pull out the old shrubs using the tractor- much easier! WE also need some handrails and if we do it all ourselves, the railing will cost about $800-1000 less and our building the deck itself will be a major savings.

On smaller items, a friend and I traded some of my perennials for some of her annual plants so that saves a lot of money.

[Catwoman]

I'm in...For several years I've had a cleaning lady every other week, $60.00 per visit, I let her go last week.

[Wildflower]

Well, I was going to buy a new swimsuit and a new pair of birkenstock sandals. But after looking at what I already have I think I'll skip it. My current birks are in fine shape after 6 years, still looking great, and my Land's End swimsuit still fits and doesn't look faded even after a few years of wear. So I will definitely be saving well over a $100.... I will need to buy these things eventually though and I know they will cost more in the future, so I wonder am I really doing my finances a favor by not buying now, but paying more in the future... Any thoughts on this?

[Kat]

Oooh...fun challenge, fidgie! :-) Not sure if I will make it, but I am totally in!

filled out two $5 rebates on paint for the baby's room--$10
bought charcoal on sale for the whole summer--$12 (not really a "need," but just try convincing DH to grill less ;-) )
bought deck wash on sale (need this so we can stain)--saved $2

$24

[fidgiegirl]

Cha-ching!!! to razz, catwoman and Wildflower. You all just saved well over $100 in one fell swoop. Amazing how that can work!

Here I perused the sale items section of my online grocery ordering before just plunking in everything I wanted to order. Saw bread on sale so got that instead of what I had planned to get for bread. Also saw cake mixes for only $1 so got three of those. DH has to have a little sweet something in his lunch and we have been buying those bakery cookies again at about $4 a dozen. That lasts him the week but I think if I can make him some little cupcakes that will also last him the week and will only be $1. ETA: I had mentioned to him that I would like to get a mini muffin pan if we see one just for this purpose. But he pointed out that we can just fill our normal muffin pan only partway full with batter. Such a smart DH!

Saved about $10.

19 + 10 = 29

[fidgiegirl]

Catwoman, I am also reminded that I need to get a swimsuit this year. Herbergers carries some I really like, so I will have to keep an eye on their sales. I can definitely get by with the one I have so if I just wait into July I should be able to score one on clearance.

[Kat]

Looked at my receipt and saw that the charcoal bundles we bought were each $2 less than the sale price advertised. So I am actually up another $4. I always hate plunking down $20 or whatever for charcoal, but it lasts all summer this way, and I am sooooooo glad when I don't have to pay $10 a bag.

$28

[fidgiegirl]

Wellllllll,

Talked DH out of spending $50 on a North Face shirt in order to get a gift card. He was already going to buy some rain pants, which he did, using some gift cards and coupons. But if he had spent $100 on North Face stuff, he would have gotten another $20 gift card. Anyway, the math didn't work out - sure, he would have gotten a gift card, but with the extra he was spending on the shirt, it would have been a wash. So he passed. Whew.

Savings = $50

$29 + 50 = $79

Then I suggested we go to the thrift store to look for shirts for him, but we decided to pass. He doesn't need any that badly. We only have 10 days of school left and he doesn't wear short sleeved button ups except to school and not even that often then. He has put in enough years that he doesn't have to dress to a T every day. :) That's kind of how it goes. Don't know how to quantify the skipped thrift store trip, but it was surely a savings.

[fidgiegirl]

Well, we avoided a 24 pack of beer at Costco for our mini party tomorrow. At most three beers may be consumed, and it's not something DH would have just easily used up post-party. I don't drink at all. Savings = $12 (we will still go buy a six pack).

My DH told me he improvised a solution to fix his boat seats instead of buying a part that costs $15 (and he needed two). Savings = $30.

My friend gave me three tomato plants. I was planning to buy two varieties, now I only have to buy one. Savings = $6 (a guess).

DH got his boat battery tested and found out it's fine rather than just running out and buying another one. I think my DFiL was pushing for that. They normally split the cost of a $60 battery, so savings = $30.

$79 (previous total) + $12 + $30 + $6 + $30= $147

Yeah! I got to $100! It's amazing how restraint saves us money. I am going to keep going to see how much we can "save" in June. I know they are not all necessities or reductions in current spending, but if I were to have just gone ahead on impulse and spent all this, or my DH wasn't creative in thinking of how to manage the boat and just went ahead and spent, then we would be $147 poorer.

I missed the closing hour of the nursery. Bummer! Wanted to get all the plants I want bought and put in the ground today :(

[lhamo]

I have a couple:

KIds were out with friends yesterday (which extended to a sleepover last night -- blissful free night at home for me!), so I had the day free to get some stuff done. I had planned to head out to get my hair cut, buy running shoes, and do some grocery shopping in the morning, but then looked at the clock and figured out I couldn't get all that done before I would be wanting lunch. So I made a couple of big salads (one for lunch, one for dinner) and puttered around a bit, then ate an early lunch. took the bus instead of a taxi (savings = $3.50) to the place where I used to get my hair cut before we moved. I still had one more punch on a pre-paid card, so my haircut was "free" (well, I had already paid for it, but the punch would have been wasted if I didn't use it and I would have had to pay another place for a haircut. Savings = $4.60, yes, haircuts are cheap here!).

Then I walked to the sports store (instead of taking taxi, savings $1.5). Unfortunately did not find cheap running shoes, but did find a pair I liked that seemed to fit well. Also picked up some tshirts for the kids and myself at just $3/each -- probably not much of a savings over what I could get used or on sale in the US, so won't count any savings there. Got swim goggles for me and the kids at $3/each -- those can easily run $10 pair in the US, and planning ahead means I won't have to spring for them in Hawaii, where they are bound to be even more expensive. So say $20 saved there.

Then off to the grocery store. I really like this store but it is a hassle to get there and back so I don't often shop there. Prices are great though, especially on meat. There is a kind of sausage my daughter likes that they sell for about $.50 less a package than the store near our house, so I got four of those. The spreadable cheese I like to have for breakfast was $.15 cheaper a package AND BOGO, so I got four packages and saved nearly $5 on that. They had some different kinds of bacon that were considerably cheaper than what I usually get, so decided to try those. One type was half the cost of what I usually buy so saved about $1.80 there, and the other was BOGO so saved $3.70 there. I also discovered they have sandwich meats at a much better price than my local store, so bought about 6 different packages and probably saved at least $1 each on those. Altogether I probably saved close to $20 on groceries over buying closer to home. I did spring on a taxi home, as the walk to/from the bus with so much stuff on a hot day would NOT have been pleasant. But counting that extra cost I still saved around $15 on this grocery trip, and have the fridge stocked with stuff that will last a couple of weeks.

Today kids won't come home until after lunch, so I have a nice free morning to work out and do some stock-up cooking. I'm going to make pesto, salsa, and a greek lemon chicken recipe I adapted from the low GI cookbook I bought a couple of weeks ago. May also make a big pot of some kind of soup. Anyway, this saves money as these things will become my lunches for next week.

Oh, and I got a great book of collected essays by Wendell Barry as a free kindle download -- I had that on my wish list and was willing to pay the $8 or whatever, so getting it free was great!

So my total "savings" the last couple of days is over $50 -- half way to $100!

lhamo

[razz]

Way to go Fidgie!!!!

[fidgiegirl]

Thanks, razz, and well done, lhamo! Keep it up, all . . . I'm gonna keep on keepin' on . . .

Today I also passed on buying an iPod Touch at CostCo. I would have been reimbursed for the cost of the device but NOT the tax, which would have been about $8. So I said no and will have the secretary at school help me buy it at Sam's where the school has an account or something so I bet we can do a tax exempt purchase.

$147 + $8 = $155

[Kat]

Awesome job, fidgie and lhamo!

I did a little trimming to the budget I had for this weekend's cookout. First, I decide not to buy beer. Saved $8--made sweet tea and Crystal Light (which I already had) instead. Then I planned to make a fruit salad, but the ingredients were so expensive! I bought a whole watermelon on sale for $3 and cut it up instead. I saved around $15 doing that, and no one seemed to mind! I also made one batch of cookies instead of 2. Saved maybe $4 or so (they use a lot of butter and chocolate, which are expensive here). Finally, I bought generic chips at Aldis for instead of name brand ones on sale for $2.77. Saved around $1.50 there. Also used sale hot dogs from the freezer instead of gettting some at the meat market like I had planned. Saved around $7.

New total: $63.50

Even with all of this trimming, everything still turned out really nice.

[fidgiegirl]

Sounds like it was lovely, Kat. People really don't notice, even though we think they will :)

[razz]

Well, I decided to forego my 2011/12 season 4-show ballet subscription and bought another 'the Great Courses" www.thegreatcourses.com about opera (44 lectures) that was on my wish list of my recreational budget saving $82. Then the cost of travel for one hour in car to transit station to the city and return which totals $50 (more if the gas price goes higher) so my total saved today is $132.

[fidgiegirl]

My DH's rain pants were found after being missing for a loooooong time! My FIL had them in his box of fishing clothes. Yippee! That means we got to return the $70 pair we bought at Gander Mountain (they were North Face, and would have lasted a long time . . . ). So add $70 to our total!

$155 + $70 = $215

Of course, this is balanced out by the fact that we've had Punch Pizza twice this month at $25 an outing . . . soooooo gooooooood . . .