Needs vs. Wants

Many years ago, I had a neighbor who would come over every month to use our phone so she could call the phone company and get her phone turned back on. Each time, she was in a panic because her husband was in the military and was required to have a working phone at home, so she was afraid that he would get reprimanded if his commanding officer tried to contact him before the phone company got it switched back on. This same neighbor would get take-out food several times a week, and always had cable service with premium channels. Somehow, I never really felt sorry for her when she would regale me with tales of their financial woes.

As I have mentioned once or twice, saving money, whether you need to reduce your debt, save for a large purchase, or just live within a small budget,  really just comes down to determining needs versus wants. A person’s basic needs come down to food, water, shelter and clothing. I could survive by eating rice and beans, drinking only water, having only 2 or so outfits to wear, and living in a one room shelter. I’m not saying it would be a fabulous existence, but it could be done. With that in mind, almost everything I own is a luxury. For me, the realization that I have so many things that I don’t truly need, helps me deal when I can’t afford to buy something I want.  

We live in a society that puts a high value on material possessions. We are bombarded by advertisements that try to convince us of all the luxuries that we need. The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of us don’t need any of these things. Nobody needs a high definition television. Nobody needs a television at all. If you are trying to pay off debt, you do need to control your spending.

For me, a few luxuries make the other sacrifices easier to swallow. It comes down to deciding which luxuries are worth it, and which ones aren’t. For example, I don’t need a high speed wireless internet connection in my home. It is very nice to have, and it allows my husband to do some of his work at home, and allows me to have this blog, so we decided that a broadband connection was worth the expense for us. It would also be nice to be able to access the internet from my cell phone. I could find the cheapest gas prices nearby and get driving directions when I lose my way. In the end, I spend most of my time in my house, and I don’t travel to places I am not familiar with very often, so I couldn’t justify the expense of a data package for my phone.  

Which expenses are worth it for you, depends on your particular financial situation. If you are only making minimum payments on your debt, and you have trouble buying food and paying utilities every month, then you really have no business spending $60 a month on satellite television service. On the other hand, if you have and are following a debt reduction plan and can comfortably pay all of your bills, spending $20 a month on a Netflix subscription can make it a lot more tolerable to skip that movie night or dinner out.

I have found that many of the luxuries that we cut out of our budget we have been able to replace with less expensive alternatives that are almost as good, or sometimes even better. The more your expenses exceed your income, the more things you need to cut. It isn’t always easy and it isn’t particularly fun, but neither is being $40,000 in debt (and that does not include a mortgage!)

Excuses, Excuses

Since I have started to try to live more frugally, I have had a few conversations with friends and family about financial struggles. One thing I have noticed is that no matter what our individual situation entails, it seems there are 2 possible solutions. If your income isn’t enough to cover your expenses you either need to find more income, or reduce expenses. Going out and finding a 2^nd job or a higher paid position isn’t that easy these days, but I don’t personally know anybody who doesn’t have at least some areas of their budget that they can reduce.

For me, as well as most people I talk to, getting started on making better financial decisions isn’t always easy. Sometimes, making excuses for why we can’t stop frivolous spending can be all too easy. Here are some of the excuses I have heard, or have, at some point, tried to use myself.

It was such a good deal.

While it can be a good idea to stock up on things you need when they are on sale, buying things that you do not need is a waste of money, no matter how much of a “good deal” it is.

My self esteem is tied up in getting my hair done, pedicure, manicure etc.

First of all, I believe that true self esteem comes from being proud of who you are, and what you do, rather than from how you look. While a new outfit, or hair-do can give you a temporary mood boost, that will fade, and if you aren’t happy with the person that you are, that outfit isn’t going to fix that. I often struggle with self esteem issues, and have turned to retail therapy to make myself feel better. The thing about it is, when the end of the month rolls around and we don’t have the money to pay that bill I forgot about, or to buy that box of diapers that we need, suddenly those retail therapy purchases don’t make me feel so good.

What does make me feel good is getting all the way through the month without accidentally overdrawing our checking account, or sending one of our credit cards an extra payment. Sure, it isn’t as glamorous as a pedicure in the short run, but in the long run living within our means is helping my kids learn to be financially responsible, and is helping my family move toward home ownership.

Why should I cut back on this when you spend on that?

When one spouse uses the other spouse’s financial missteps to justify their own, it can wreak havoc on a budget. Saying “well, she bought that new dress, so I can buy this new phone” is a lot like misplacing ten dollars and using that to justify throwing another ten in the trash. It can be tough when backslides happen, but instead of deciding to backslide further, learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward.

When spouses aren’t on the same page about their financial situation, it can be even harder to get your debt and spending under control. I am a stay at home mom, so my husband is the sole wage earner for our family. However, I am the one who pays the bills and balances the checkbook. If I didn’t talk to my husband about our finances (and if he never asked,) he would be mostly clueless about our debt situation. If your spouse doesn’t see the need to save money and get out of debt, you have to show them the reality of the situation. Write out a monthly budget to let your spouse see exactly how much income you have, and how much you spend each month. You might want to point out areas of spending that could be reduced. If your spouse is resistant to cutting back, don’t expect them to be willing to cut out all of their luxuries at once. Even stretching out the time between haircuts for one extra week will help cut costs. If you and your spouse have been in the habit of using each other as an excuse to spend excessively, you may need to present cuts in a format of, if you give up this, I will give up that. Hopefully having the numbers laid out in a calm, rational way will allow your spouse to see the need for frugality. Even if it doesn’t and they insist on eating lunch out everyday, you can still save money on the things you can directly control. Every little bit really does help.

I buy things for myself because I didn’t have anything growing up.

It can be very tempting to indulge your inner child, especially if you had to go without a lot growing up. If your financial situation is causing you stress, or you are in danger of losing your house, or car, you have to stop indulging the child that you were so that you can take care of the adult that you are. Odds are pretty good that your indulgence helped get you into debt in the first place. In order to climb out of debt, you have to stop frivolous spending. Period.

I have reward points that will expire if I don’t use them.

I currently have a $10 reward check from a store credit card. It expires at the end of this month, if I don’t use it I lose that “free” $10. Last time I was in this particular store, I didn’t see a single item for less than fifteen dollars. If I insisted on using up my gift check, I could buy a fifteen dollar item and save ten bucks, so it would only cost me five dollars plus tax. On the other hand, I could not get anything and it would cost me zero dollars. It doesn’t cost me anything to let that check expire, but using it costs me money.

The trick to moving towards a frugal life style is being completely honest with yourself. Once you get past the excuses for spending, you have to learn to distinguish between needs and wants and between can’t and won’t. That is the part that really seems to be a barrier for people. We are constantly inundated with information telling us all the toys and gadgets we need. When you really get down to it, your needs are very little, and the vast majority of everything else you have is essentially a luxury. Once you wrap your head around how many luxuries you really have, it makes it a lot easier to cut back on the frivolous spending.

Conquering Mt. Hand-Me-Down

As I mentioned previously, I have four kids. Keeping them in relatively clean clothing that are free of holes, in an attempt to make them not look like feral children can be quite a challenge. Even at discount stores clothing costs can add up, especially for kids who are going to out grow it soon. At least with my own clothes I can get several years of use in return for my investment. With the kids, I’m lucky if the clothes fit for a year. When you factor in stains and holes in the knees, we’re lucky if clothes last 6 months.

Hand me downs can really help stretch a family’s clothing budget. I mean really, you can’t beat FREE! While the price is certainly right, there is some time involved in making the most of donated clothing. I automatically accept all offers of hand me downs. Sometimes this can lead to an overwhelming stack of bags and boxes of clothes to sort through, especially if they aren’t dealt with right away and they begin to pile up.

Mt. Hand-Me-Down turned into a Mole Hill

Having a simple system helps make quick work of even the biggest hand me down pile up. The first step is to get rid of all the items that you can’t use. I usually go through the pile looking for anything that is too small, has holes I can’t or won’t repair, has significant stains or that I know my kids just will not wear. These go into a pile to donate to a thrift store or shelter. Items that were part of a set and are missing the top or bottom, if the single piece is difficult to match also go. In most cases, this thins the pile significantly.

Some might say that I am being too picky with something I got for free. The thing is, I may be trying to be frugal but I am also trying to reduce clutter, so even free items have to be worth the storage real estate. With that in mind, however, PLEASE don’t throw away usable clothing or other household items. Donate it. Whether it goes to a friend, a shelter, or to a charity that operates a thrift store, it doesn’t matter, just donate what you can. There is a Jewish teaching that every body needs to give to charity, even if the charity you give comes from charity you received from someone else. There is always someone worse off than you, and it doesn’t cost me anything to donate my unused stuff.

Storage labels for clear bins

Most of the time the usable hand me downs are a size or more too large for my kids to use right away, so they need to be stored. I use clear bins so that I can see the contents and reduce digging for a specific item later. I sort clothes by size and if there is enough of one size to fill more than one bin, I also sort by season. I write the size and season on a piece of paper and slide between the folded clothing and one end of the bin so that it can be read from the outside. I usually make a note of which child it will be for and an approximate date to pull it out of storage as well.

With a little effort, and the help of some clear bins and a permanent marker, those huge piles of donated clothes can quickly turn into an organized stack of usable, free clothing.

Get Organized Giveaway opportunity

Living on a Dime is full of frugal living, and organizing tips. I visit the site often!

They are having a giveaway for a copy of Get Organized, Stay Organized by Christine Shuck. Check out the details here

Grocery Savings and RECIPES

The original intent of this blog was for frugal living tips and ideas. I am by no means a frugal expert, but I have been working towards a more frugal lifestyle for about a year now. I believe getting organized is a major factor in living frugally. If your stuff is organized you save time by not having to endlessly search for the things you need and you save money by not buying duplicates of an item you can’t find. That said, updating about how I organized this or that in my house has gotten boring for me, so I can only imagine how boring it is for readers (both of them.) With that in mind, I have decided to skip some organization conversion chronicling and move on to some of the money saving tips I have been using.

Like many families, groceries are one of our biggest expenses. At the beginning of the year, my grocery budget was just about equal to my rent budget. This is due in part to a ridiculously low rent payment, and our grocery budget does include non-food items like diapers, paper goods, cleaning supplies etc. but it still makes for a very large grocery bill. Over the past few months, we have managed to cut $100-$150 out of our grocery spending each month. Of course, so far, NONE of this extra cash has been applied toward reducing our debt because the house and cars seem to sense that we have some extra and greedily find ways to use it up. While it is frustrating that we haven’t been able to apply the extra money toward paying off debt, at least we had the cash to pay for repairs and didn’t have to go deeper into debt to pay for them.

The very first thing to address when trying to cut down food expenses is waste. In my home I see a few types of food waste.

1. Food going bad and having to be thrown away before it gets used.
2. Kids throwing half of their meal away
3. Parents (that’s me) eating twice as much as we need to feel satisfied

Issue number one can be prevented by keeping better tabs on what we have in the pantry and refrigerator and occasionally planning a meal around an ingredient that is about to expire. I have also found that vegetables that have wilted to a point where I wouldn’t serve them fresh can often still be used to make broth. This can apply to freezer burned veggies as well. Milk that is past drinkability can still be used for cooking and baking and can even be used as a substitute for buttermilk in recipes. Of course sometimes food is too far past its prime to be salvaged no matter what you were going to use it for. If your milk resembles yogurt, I wouldn’t recommend making pancakes with it. When we do have produce or bread go past all hope of salvage, it goes in the compost pile which then helps fertilize our garden, so at least it isn’t a complete waste.

Issues two and three can be handled the same way, portion control. Portion control is probably the thing that saves me the most money on groceries. I used to take a recipe meant to serve four and automatically double it to feed my family of six. This wouldn’t be a big deal if we had two portions left over for lunch the next day, but we didn’t. Either I would give the kids large portions and half of it would get thrown away, or we would eat all of it, sometimes even after we were full. Now I either increase a recipe just enough for six, or I prepare it for four and add an extra side to our meal to make sure everybody gets enough to eat. If I do prepare enough for 8, I try to pack up 2 portions for lunches before I serve everybody. I give everybody small portions that are less than I think they will eat. That way if they aren’t hungry (rare), or don’t really like it (less rare), there isn’t as much waste.

Portion control can not only cut down on waste, but it can save money by stretching your food supply. The biggest example of this is meat. Americans as a whole eat WAY more meat than we actually need. If I am using boneless skinless chicken that needs to be cut up and added to a soup or casserole, I will usually use just one breast for the entire meal. If I am serving chicken breast as a main dish by itself, I will use no more than 4 (sometimes even 3) to feed the whole family. Usually for this type of meal, however, I use thighs and legs and each person just gets one piece. Where I am really able to stretch my budget is with ground meat. We pretty much only buy ground turkey, but it would work with beef too. We get a 5lb chub of ground turkey each month. Using my 12 inch sauté pan, I cook the whole batch using dried minced onion, garlic powder, season salt, and paprika as a general seasoning. I then divide the cooked meat into 12 portions and seal it up using my food saver and throw it in the freezer. Once sealed, I spread the meat out in the bag to make as thin of a package as possible. This way it is not only easier to stack and store, but it also defrosts much faster. Each one is less than ½ a pound, but it still manages to be plenty for most meals. Because the meat is already cooked it saves me time in the kitchen during the hectic dinner hour. We use these mini-portions in spaghetti, for casseroles, and in any recipes that call for a pound of ground beef.

As a busy mom, I am a big fan of the one dish meal, whether it is a stir-fry a casserole or whatever. I almost never buy things like Hamburger Helper® or similar boxed meals, but I found a recipe for Hamburger Buddy that is essentially a homemade version that is fairly simple to make and is much healthier. Of course, I used turkey instead of beef and I used one of my mini portions rather than a pound. The recipe calls for a food processor to finely chop the veggies. This works well for hiding vegetables from picky eaters, but I have also made the recipe by roughly chopping everything with my Pampered Chef ® Food Chopper. It wasn’t as sneaky, but it tasted just as good. My kids really liked it and it has turned into a very adaptable recipe.

You can make many variations of this recipe with the following formula:
1 lb ground meat*
3-6 cups vegetables
4 cups liquid (broth, water or a combination)
2 cups dry pasta (small pasta works best. My favorites are shells and elbow)
Seasoning
Thickener (I have used ¼ cup sour cream, cheese, and flour or cornstarch mixed with a couple ounces of reserved broth)
One of my family’s favorite of these adaptations has been dubbed Cheeseburger Buddy. I don’t measure ingredients unless I am following someone else’s recipe, so I am guestimating on all of these measurements.


1 lb ground turkey or beef*
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 small onion, diced
1 15 oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1 2 lb. bag frozen chopped broccoli
4 cups chicken, beef or vegetable broth
2 cups whole wheat shells or elbow macaroni
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 slices American cheese
¼ cup sour cream

In a large sauté pan, brown the ground meat with the garlic and onion until there is no pink left. Drain fat. Add can of tomatoes, and broth and noodles. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally until pasta is partially cooked but not yet tender. About 5 minutes. Add frozen broccoli, Stir to distribute, cover and cook another 3-5 minutes until pasta is tender. Add cheeses and sour cream and stir until cheeses melt and create a sauce. 1-2 minutes. Serves 6.

*I use one of my mini-portions of ground turkey

If Loving Lists is Wrong (Then I Don't Wanna Be Right)

I am a bad blogger. It seems the more I have going on, the more I have to blog about, BUT the less time I have to blog.

As I have mentioned before, my biggest hurdle to getting organized is the “doing” part. I can plan with the best of them, but getting off my butt to DO something is a bit of a challenge. In my latest attempt to overcome this shortcoming, I took a page from some of the budget making articles I have read. Just as tracking your spending can help you identify where you are over spending, and how much money you really have, I figured that making a schedule could give me a similar insight into my time. In all honesty, this endeavor probably began as yet another way to procrastinate, but in the end it really did help me.

I laid out my schedule in half-hour increments starting at 6 am and ending at 10 pm. I don’t generally get up at 6 am, but is a goal, so I started with that. I made columns for each day of the week. Next, I filled in parts of my day that are regular, like getting the kids off to school, Girl Scout meetings, and such. Once all of that was filled in, I filled in household jobs that should get done on a daily or weekly basis, but usually get neglected like laundry, emptying the dishwasher and tidying the front rooms. Now I had a schedule that accommodated all of the family’s activities and allowed time for general household maintenance. When I saw that there was still a LOT of available time, I filled in slots to work on bigger projects and built in a little “me time.” Now I could really see how much time I had available and how much I had been wasting. In case you haven’t noticed, I am a big fan of lists. I made a checklist for the next day of all the things I wanted to accomplish. Having that visual guide really helped. I managed to check off all the items on my list! I now try to make a checklist everyday. I sometimes skip it and on those days I definitely get less accomplished. Some days I don’t get everything done, either because I got to ambitious with my goals, or I wasted too much time. I just put unfinished tasks onto the next day’s list and move on.

The first week I used it, my new system helped me get 100% caught up on the laundry. Everything was clean, folded and put away. That had never happened before! Usually, if all the laundry is clean, there are 4 or 5 baskets of unfolded laundry on the couch, which then ends up on the floor where it gets mixed back in with the dirty laundry. I have also finally managed to get the linen closet organized. I got tired of risking a towel avalanche every time I took a shower. As it turns out, you can get much more space if the towels and sheets are folded and stacked rather than just crammed in. Pulling out the crib bedding we haven’t had a use for in almost a year didn’t hurt either.

Last week, I had a couple of really productive days. I did 3-4 loads of laundry, made bread, dealt with Girl Scout cookie stuff, mended a bunch of pants, did a couple organizing projects, made laundry soap etc, etc. By the end of the day I was so tired, but really excited about everything I got done. If I keep this up, my house might start looking presentable!

I am almost done boring you now. I just wanted to mention that I got a new e-book on saving money on groceries. That is our biggest budget category after rent, unless you count all the debt payments as one. But unlike rent and debt payments it is possible to lower the grocery bill so I am willing to try anything to knock it down a little. I will let you know how it goes once I get a chance to give it a try.

The Laundry room

Working through two days of Thanksgiving break, we were able to clear and condense enough stuff in the garage to set up my new sewing space. In the process I re-discovered no fewer than 8 plastic bins full of various fabrics I had purchased on clearance and then never got around to using. Now I can add more projects to the To Do List.

With a sewing space carved out, I got to work on the flannel pajamas for the kids. The plan for this year was to make jammies, as usual, and then make fleece hoodies for my kids and four other kids on our list. I was determined this year to not let the household stuff go by the wayside. While I was spending the bulk of my day at the sewing machine, I made sure to wash at least one load of laundry and to fold and put away as many loads as I washed each day, so that it didn’t pile up. I didn’t make any progress on the house, but at least it wasn’t getting worse.

Once the pajamas were completed, I only had a few days left to finish the hoodies. I started to get really stressed out from the pressure to finish. Mike saw the stress I was under and he suggested that I skip the hoodies and we buy some gifts instead. I argued that we couldn’t afford it and it would be a waste of the money I had already spent on fabric.

After some back and forth, I realized that there was no way I was going to get the sewing done in time. The fleece fabric could be saved for next year’s gifts. I had purchased extra flannel at the store to get ahead on next year as well since Chanukah starts on December first in 2010, so this would allow me to get a head start. We did have to spend more money on gifts than we had planned, but in this case, the trade off for my sanity was well worth it. We set a budget and hit every discount store in the area. We were able to come in under (the newly set) budget and I didn’t have to spend the entire holiday season in the garage. An added bonus was that I didn’t spend so much time sewing that I got burned out, so I am actually looking forward to some more projects! All in all, I am counting this as a success, even if I didn’t reach my intended goal.

After the holidays, we continued to work on the garage. We received some cash as a gift, and I used part of it to get some more clear plastic bins for storing stuff. They are always on sale after Christmas, so I got several 54 qt bins for $3.00 each. So far I have only used one of them but there is plenty of stuff still to be sorted out there, so I am glad I stocked up.

I also picked up some heavy duty larger bins for the laundry room area. These ones are not clear because the lids don’t go on them, so I can see what is inside. I now have 5 bins in my laundry room area. Clothes that need special attention (stain treating, mending etc.) and the ever present single sock collection both get kept in old broken laundry hampers. In a shallow plastic bin I place parts of outfits or sets that are missing their mates. The 3 new large bins store the hand me downs, one for clothes going to my own kids, one for clothes going to friends, and one for donating to charity.

A major part of my plan for the laundry room was to get the folding table cleared off so that I could actually fold the clothes out there. The plan is to eliminate the ever present basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded on the couch. Not only did we get the table cleared, but I also laid some tile on the surface to make it easy to wipe off. I just got some really cheap peel and stick stuff, so the whole thing took less than 30 minutes. The bins allow me to sort through items as they come out of the dryer, and prevent that too small shirt from cycling through the laundry 50 times because SOMEBODY keeps throwing it on the floor. Using the folding table means that clothes don’t even come in the house unless they are folded and ready to be put away. Plus, now that I have a system, I can easily patch a pair of pants while I am waiting for the dryer to finish. So far the new set up is working great, and it has cut way down on rewashing clean clothes because they ended up on the floor.

Up next: The Master Bedroom