January 2014 Frugals.........

Spent a lot of irritating time on the phone, but now have several little retirement accounts from different jobs rolled over into one IRA. Yay!

Towards saving energy and water, we have been using one mug per person (avoiding having a lot of cups and glasses filling the dishwasher) and simply rinsing and wiping a lot of dishes. This has cut down on dishwasher use from around 4-5 loads a week to around 2. We save the rinse water for use in the garden, which sorely needs water in this drought. This has been such an easy work/money/ energy/ time saver that I'm embarrassed I didn't do it sooner.

Being stuck in bed, have spent time online searching for the best deals on items we frequently use, with some success. Herbal teas are much less online than in the store.

We've been doing a huge de-cluttering over the past 10 months or so and dh has been doing well selling stuff on Craigslist.

FLoat On,
Thanks for the Senior Bank Accounts tip - I had never heard of such a thing, and I turned 55 this year. Cool!

Now I'm going to find out what other discounts I can get for being 55! Crazy - I feel more like 25.

Started January by having a no-spend day on the 1st.

I just remembered that I saved $2 on dog food by waiting to buy it. It was on my list Friday when I went grocery shopping but I decided to wait to see if it would go on sale on Sunday. It did so I bought some after work on Monday.

We are getting a refund on some of DS #1's tuition. yay!

Jan 03
---no spend....spent the day putting away more of the Christmas stuff...sorted more to be sold or given away
this was my exercise and decluttering/cleaning all in one....lol
---fish tacos for supper frugal and goo
---two items sold by my ebay consignment people not sure what I got but more then I had from these items before.

Bunch of frugals since the end of December:

- DW and I chose to stay in on NYE. We were invited to a party, but we just didn't feel it, so we stayed home and struggled to stay up till midnight.
- We tried to watch a DVD earlier this week. The DVD player, purchased secondhand and an inhabitant of the same shelf for its entire life here, decided it had just had enough. Sadly, there is no fixing a DVD player that was sold several years ago for all of $30-40. But we recycled it at Best Buy, which accepts such items for free, rather than our local recycler's, which charges to recycle it.
- We were going to buy another cheap DVD player -- new prices for name-brand players are within $5-10 of the decent ones people sell on craigslist -- but decided instead that we will just use the DVD player built into the TV downstairs.
- Courtesy of the freezer inventory I did last week, grocery shopping was cheap this week. I made more freezer-clearing chicken soup and have a couple of ham bones for when I buy some more greens (forgot...).
- A few no-drive days, though I'm trying to drive my car every 2-3 days in this extreme cold just to make sure it starts when I need it to. I bunch my errands around when I need to start the car.
- DW borrowed some videos from the library. Cheaper than renting... and all it took was a bit of planning ahead.
- Our electric utility offers a free copy of the Chinook (coupon) book for energy-conscious users. Usually it's $20-25. We use enough of the coupons to pay for the book a couple of times over and we have months to use them.

I went grocery shopping with DH yesterday (he usually goes alone) and we spent about $40 more than usual! So I think that every week I keep out of the grocery store I will count as a frugal!
Steve: Just curious, what types of things are in the Chinook book?
Gardenarian: May I ask where you set up your IRA? We're looking at possibly rolling over DH's 401K to Vanguard, so would be interested in any input you care to offer.

Yesterday didn't exactly go as planned. My dearly beloved was too exhausted after the snow removal project to go out snowshoeing or skiing, so we hung around the house and watched a few episodes of "Lillyhammer". I really felt the need to workout though and almost drove to the gym to run on the treadmill. Then I thought about the fact that I just spent $170 on winter running gear and decided to just dress appropriately and run outside. It was dark by this point so I put on my headlamp and went for a little 4 mile jaunt. It was cold but fun! And I saved about $7 in gas by not driving to and from the gym.

Today it's cold but the sun is shining so we're going to take the dogs and go snowshoeing up the mountain. It will be good training for all involved as my dearly beloved is running the Empire State Building stairs in February and I'm preparing for another ultramarathon in April or May. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to make up a huge batch of cabbage soup when we get back and we can eat that for the next few days.

I've been on vacation for so long that I lost track of which Fridays are paydays. I happily discovered that I got paid yesterday for a week's worth of work in December. I put the payday schedule for 2014 on my electronic calendar so that I don't have to think about it and now I just need to try to construct a budget to follow for the year.

We have plenty of food in the house and so unless we decide to head over to the gym later today it looks like we'll have another no drive day, again. Tomorrow I have a Tae Kwon Do class so if we have any other errands to run hopefully we can combine them with that.

That's all for the moment! Stay warm, everyone!

Rosarugosa - I use our county credit union.

Jan. 4--Intended to be a no drive/ no spend, but DS has yet another ear infection, so I had to take him back to the dr. The new antibiotic he was precsribed was very expensive, but our insurance covered it, thank goodness!

DH went to lunch with an old friend today. The plan was for all of us to go, but I decided to stay home with the kids instead. It's cold and the baby is sick. Plus this way it costs less and DH can have a little adult time.

While the kids napped, I finished sewing the Thomas pillowcase for DD and a hooded bath towel for DS. I also sewed a button back on DH's coat. Felt good to finish these projects, using up what I had.

This afternoon we will get DD set up in her new bed. Dinner will be leftover oatmeal, which was very good!

Well, I wasn't very frugal last month, so I really need to get back on the bandwagon! Been buying our cat food from Amazon but the price really jumped so I ventured back to Wallyworld for a bag, $10 cheaper. Forced by the county to hook up to sewer line although our septic was beyond code - called around and hired some locals that had a low bid, know the families slightly, they were wonderful, fast, and they have come back already to re-grade and rake up gravel (from our old leach bed), after a rain. Planning a simple evening of free DVD watching from the library. I have "mom duty" tomorrow so DD and I will group our errands around that and get home hopefully before the snow starts flying. Have laundry washing in cold water - will hang one load, the other will probably have to go in the dryer, sadly. I just don't have enough space for tons of washcloths... I've been busy and the weather's been crap so I've sort of put the laundry off too long, lol.