February Frugals

[Yppej]

Voluntary frugal - The HVAC company would not come out at no charge. Talked to someone in the field who said the issue is not urgent and they almost certainly caused it when they did the furnace cleaning. I will continue to monitor the still slow drip. Ideally I will live with this until my next furnace cleaning which will be with a different company.

Involuntary frugal - went to buy a new microwave with 7 acceptable brands written down. Target only had two other junky brands in stock. Bed Bath and Beyond had no microwaves at all. I grew up without a microwave and can wait until a decent, reliable one is available.

[Tybee]

Maybe you should pay yourself thirty dollars a month for going without a microwave. Then in 8 or 9 months you would have the money to buy one, but you would also be out of the habit of using one, and maybe you would not want one anymore.

[Yppej]

I can get a microwave for under $100. Next I will check Wally World.

[JaneV2.0]

I waited a long time to get a microwave, finally got one, and unloaded it to my partner after a year or two. It took up way too much space for the amount of use it got.

[Yppej]

Doing fine with no deodorant. Free breakfast at work yesterday because we made our goal for the month.

[iris lilies]

Maybe you should pay yourself thirty dollars a month for going without a microwave. Then in 8 or 9 months you would have the money to buy one, but you would also be out of the habit of using one, and maybe you would not want one anymore.

That is a creative idea!

Me, I cant live without a micowave.

[catherine]

DH and I did our monthly budget (first time in years he collaborated with me on this) and our actual expenses (discretionary & non-discretionary) were 20% below our goal for the month! Underages were spread across a few discretionary categories.

[razz]

That is great progress, Catherine, to get a joint understanding of the current budget for any couple!

[Teacher Terry]

Great news Catherine. I use my microwave multiple times a day. It came from Walmart.

[rosarugosa]

That is great, Catherine. I wish DH took more interest, but his eyes kind of glaze over when I try to involve him and he is more than happy to leave the finances up to me. That's never really been a problem, but I do feel like it would be healthier for it to be more a matter of our budget rather than my budget.

Jeppy: This probably isn't frugal, but we have a great oil company and we've been doing business with them for probably about 30 years. I never comparison shop, so I have no idea how their oil prices compare, but they are very responsive, and they did an excellent job solving the problem of our chilly addition room when they replaced our furnace in 2018. We have a balanced billing program with them. Every year, they set a cap on oil price maximum, and we pay a fee to have our prices subject to the cap. I remember one year when prices unexpectedly went through the roof and we heard that many companies were not honoring price caps, but ours did. In this instance, I'm more interested in the reliability and the relationship than getting the cheapest price.