2019 Amazon purchases

Personal finance blogger Joe at Retire By 40  recently posted a list / review of all his Amazon purchases for 2019. I thought it would be fun to do the same thing here.

I broke my Amazon purchases into categories:

Christmas Presents
1. Men's Compression Socks 2 pairs at $11.99 each
These were Christmas presents for my two sons.  Each of my three children got one big gift also known as the "anchor gift" and three small gifts. Socks are small gifts. I know they liked them because Son 1 requested them and Son 2 kept them. That is why I had to buy a second pair the day after Christmas.

2. Herschel Travel Bag $29.99
This was a Christmas present for my husband.  Usually we give each other "ideas", but I came up with this one myself. His old toiletry travel bag was decades old and had seen better days. Husband liked it.

3. Creatine Pills $27.83
Another small present for one of my sons.

4. Adjustable Height Standing Desk $119.99
Anchor present for my older son.  He will use this when he works from home.

Household
1. Driftaway Julia Floral Lined Valances 2 valances at $17.99 each
We are redoing our living room. These look fresh and bright compared to the old 1990's brocade valances we had before. I am going to do a whole post on the living room remodel once it's done.

New valance - photo courtesy of Amazon website

Clothing
1. Vince Camuto Black Ponte Leggings $49.00
I used Swagbucks to buy these so they were actually free. Yes, I am still doing Swagbucks! And these leggings are great.

2. Mizuno Wave Rider 22 Running Shoes $119.95 Returned
I wrote about my search for running shoes in this blog post . This was one unsuccessful attempt. They were terrible and the only Amazon item that I returned.

Grocery
1. Kind Bars $12.72
I bought these when I was figuring out how to redeem Swagbucks

2. Lara Bars $15.29
More testing out how to redeem Swagbucks

3. Ubr Breakfast Rounds 2 boxes at $19.99 each
I wrote about these yummy bars in one of my Acadia National Park posts. My husband fell in love with them at the breakfast buffet. I actually used a $25 gift card from Christmas 2018 towards this purchase.


Well that sums up my Amazon spending for 2019. I don't have Amazon Prime, but did take advantage of a 30-day free trial for Amazon prime / free shipping.  I did spend $2.15 for one week of Amazon Prime at Christmas. Excluding my returns, Swagbucks, and gift cards I spent around $255 on Amazon last year.


Do you spend a lot on Amazon?  Thanks for reading!

Swagbucks

Recently, I discovered Swagbucks.  Swagbucks is a rewards site where you can answer surveys, browse online and shop, all while earning points (called Swagbucks, or SB for short) which can be redeemed for paypal cash and gift cards.

I used a promo code from a blog that came up in a Google search. That earned me 1,000 SB which is the equivalent of $10.00. That blogger certainly earned some money or Swagbucks from his referral, but I'm fine with that. To earn the promo, I had to make an online purchase of $25.00. On Labor Day all the retailers were having sales, so I ordered two dresses from Old Navy (half price).

The dresses retailed for $40 and $35 but half price they were $37.50. I also earned an extra 260 SB for shopping through the Swagbucks site. After my sales and SB, the $75 purchase cost me $24.90 or something like that. Both dresses were super cute too!

However, I don't want to spend money to earn SB points. Thus, I have been doing a lot of surveys. This is what it looks like on the website.

Lots of surveys available to take

I also redeemed my first SB for a $25 Visa gift card. The gift cards themselves go "on sale" so I redeemed 2,160 SB points for the card.

Swagbucks emailed me a Virtual Visa card, which means that it's good for online shopping or you can add it to apps like Dunkin Donuts. It is legit! I used my Virtual Visa to pay a race entry fee (for a very inexpensive local race coming up) and used the balance to buy Kind Bars from Amazon.

I must confess that I did purchase LaraBars first thinking I had used my Virtual Visa, when I actually used my credit card on file with Amazon.  The second time around, I got it right and used the Virtual Visa.

The Kind Bars and the LaraBars were on sale and Amazon was offering free Prime for 30 days, which I signed up for.  Prime means free shipping. Yes, I now have a lot of bars in my house.

Is this a productive use of my time? At night, I am usually watching TV and playing on my phone anyway, so I figure if I can earn something all the better.

Being Neighborly

Every September our YMCA holds a Member Appreciation Picnic barbecue in their pavilion. A few weeks ago a notice was up that the picnic was being held on Friday September 6th.  There was an email to RSVP.  I didn't remember there being an RSVP in the past, but I went ahead and emailed the contact. It seemed odd that it was a gmail.com address and not a ymca.org address.

A few days later there was a notice that the YMCA Picnic was going to be on Friday September 13th.  I asked the woman working at the desk if that was a date change.  She told me that there were actually two picnics; the first one was a new neighborhood organization that is forming and was not the YMCA picnic. The new organization was using the Y as their venue. She said "You may as well go to both".

So, on Friday, my husband and I tentatively went over to the first picnic with absolutely no idea what I had signed us up for. As my husband said, we could always "Bite and Bolt". It turned out that our town was forming a Neighbors Helping Neighbors type of organization.  It is geared for ages 50 and up (yup, that's us). 

They asked us to fill out an information form with what services you can offer and what you may need.  For example, help running an errand or minor handyman tasks. The goal is to help seniors age in place and to encourage neighborliness. It turns out that this is a part of a larger national organization. 

Instead of handing in the info form, we took it home with us.  We are going to share it with a friend who is already retired and would enjoy doing that. Right now, two full time jobs and caring for our own home, cars, pet, volunteering at races, exercise and leisure takes up all of our time. I'm glad I went though! We met some very lovely people sitting at the table next to us and enjoyed a great dinner.  Stewarts contributed a "make your own sundae" station and I had a butterscotch sundae for the first time in years.😋

On Saturday night, we went to see Little River Band which was a free outdoor concert. If you remember them from the late 1970's and early 1980's their biggest hits were "Cool Change", "Reminiscing", "Lady" and "Lonesome Loser". It was a lot of fun.

Reminiscing about "Reminiscing"

On Sunday, my husband ran a 10K race up in Lake George. This race was a Half Marathon / 10K. I volunteered at the finish line water station.  It was my third year in a row doing water at the finish line. In fact, I never heard from the race organizer after I signed up so I headed straight to the finish line and started pouring. When I saw him, he said "I didn't email you because I figured you know what your job is".  After the race, there was a free barbecue for runners and volunteers.

Perfect day on Lake George

It was a fun and frugal weekend!

Last Week's Workouts: On Monday I ran 3.5 miles, on Tuesday I did HIIT with Erin, on Wednesday I did Zumba with Michelle, on Saturday I did Zumba with Tammy, and on Sunday I ran 3.5 miles. A five-workout week in the books.

Thanks for reading!

Yard Work Thoughts

The other evening I was out toiling in my yard edging along the gardens, back patio and driveway. Meanwhile, the lawn service guys were parked in front of my house working on three houses at once - both of my next door neighbors and my diagonal-across neighbor.

While I was happily thinking about how much money I was saving doing my own yard work, I remembered that earlier in the summer I signed up for the Frugalwoods Uber Frugal Month challenge. I wrote a post Goodbye June Hello July where I mentioned that. Here it is the middle of August and I am finally getting a chance to follow up.

With that being said, I have to say that I enjoyed many of the 31 articles that I read last month. Liz aka Mrs. Frugalwoods is an excellent writer, and really makes some great points. Plus her two little girls are adorable! I decided to go back and look at my inbox and find a post that was most relevant to my yard work.

In the post “Empower Yourself “, Liz talks about the pervasiveness in our culture that we can't do anything for ourselves. Some examples: cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, shoveling or snowblowing the driveway, learning to cook and fix things, even making your own coffee. Obviously, the benefits of doing for oneself are multi-faceted: saving money, learning and honing skills, and the pride and satisfaction of doing it yourself. I have another one: free exercise!

So here was my real life example. The head lawn service guy said "Want to come work for us?" which is kind of his tag line since he's said that to my husband as well. 

My husband and I are a good team - he likes big work with big results, like mowing. I do the detail work - like edging and flowers and getting that manicured look. I think our house looks as good as the neighbors (the head guy must think so since he keeps offering us jobs) and we can proudly say we did it ourselves.

Not my garden; this is from the park next to work 

I have to mention Summer of course. Our yard is not fenced but I can let her out; as long as I hang with her she won't run away. She was just being too friendly with the lawn care workers aka: bothering them, so I had to tie her to her lead at the top of the driveway. She can go in and out of the garage, play with her toys and watch the activity all at the same time. She especially loves watching the neighbor kids come out and play soccer on their front lawn.

All of a sudden I look up from my yard work and there is Summer taking a potty break on the lawn.  Obviously I did a poor job attaching her lead to her leash! Well she didn't run off and I took that as a sign that we were both done for the night.

Cheers!

Frugal Summer Fun

My husband and I have been taking advantage of the nice summer weather to do some fun activities. In the last couple of weeks we went to two free outdoor concerts and the race track and stayed within our budget.

One night last week, our library had an outdoor concert.  This is as low key as it gets. The band was a local group and we knew two of the band members.  While I was there, I also ran into the library to check out some books.

A couple of nights later, we dragged out the lawn chairs again for the Harbor Jam free outdoor concert. Performing was David Victor, who was formerly with the band Boston.  Boston was big in the 1970's and 1980's with hits like "More Than A Feeling", "Amanda", and "Peace of Mind".  In addition to Boston songs, he also played Styx music, like "Babe", "Come Sail Away" and "Too Much Time on My Hands". Remember all those good oldies?

At Harbor Jam, in addition to the usual vendors selling yummy but not so good for you food, the local culinary arts school had a food station. That seemed like the logical place to get some dinner. My husband and I both got gourmet cheeseburgers on brioche rolls with cole slaw and a pickle for $6.00 apiece.  We had brought a small cooler with drinks from home.  I have had restaurant meals that paled in comparison to that $12.00 outdoor dinner.

Last Friday, we went to the Saratoga Race Track for an alumni event hosted by our (college) alma mater.  The tickets were $25 per person which included: track admission, a program, buffet lunch (subs, wraps, salads, chips, cookies), drinks (beer, wine, iced tea), and raffle tickets to win prizes like tickets to the college football and basketball games.

I'm not a big better; I usually allow myself $40 for betting for the day.  But I did hit some winners and ended up with $41 more than when I left home which was pretty nice.

This year the new 1863 Club at Saratoga Race Track opened. On Friday, the cost is $275 per person which includes: track admission, a program, and a buffet lunch.  So where we spent $50 for the two of us for an awesome track day, apparently we could have spent $550 for pretty much the same thing.

Meanwhile, I’m glad our alumni event was last week; the races are canceled today due to high temperatures expected to be around 97 degrees.😓

Sometimes I think the enjoyment is higher when the cost is lower (or free!). If I arrive late, leave early or don't have the best view, it doesn't faze me. Whereas when you spend a small fortune you expect perfection and any little inconvenience or flaw can ruin the experience. 

Hope you are enjoying some summer fun and staying cool!

One Month In

Although today is a Saturday it is the one month anniversary of the date I started my new job. I have to admit that I struggled a little the first three weeks. Not with the work itself - that I am learning. Rather, I was surprised at how much less volume of work there is at the new job. This work has a routine of monthly, quarterly and annual reports and budget duties. At my old job it was just nonstop.

It really was an adjustment to accept this slower pace. Last week, which was my fourth, I was finally able to accept that less is Ok.

One thing that helped was an email from a former coworker. I was on the committee that hired him at the old job, but I didn’t work with him directly. A few months ago, he accepted a lateral transfer to the agency I work for now. We work one floor apart and have not crossed paths yet!

He left our old agency for the same dissatisfaction with management that I felt. In his recent email he said that the work volume here is far less than it was at the old job. Then he wrote “you get used to it”. One month in, I am getting used to it.

And now a segue to work clothes. I was mentally keeping track of what I wore to work each day. One nice thing about changing jobs is that all your clothes become “new again” because the new coworkers haven’t seen them. I wore a different outfit for 19 straight days. That means I went almost a month without repeating an outfit.

Looking at my summer work wardrobe, I have around 5 dresses, 10 or so tops, 4 skirts and 4 pants. I also have a lot of shoes. To some people that may seem like a lot of clothes and to some it may be a little. For me this is enough - I don’t want more and I don’t want to spend my money on more summer work clothes.

However, I am excited because I found my favorite running shoes in my size online in pink (Mizuno Wave Rider 19). The current version is 22 which I had previously tried and disliked. I couldn’t even find the 20 or 21 in my size to try, so finding the 19 was awesome. I just hope they are legit and not a knockoff!

Muddy running shoes after a spring trail run 

Same garden this morning 

Have a great weekend!

Goodbye June Hello July

June is over and that means that 2019 is halfway over as well. My main accomplishment for the month of June was getting a new job. Check. You know what, I'd still rather be retired. July 1st means I am officially 3 years and 5 months from retirement!

As far as running goals, I have done 6 races so I am on track to meet my goal of 12 races for 2019.  I have only run 135 miles for ALL of 2019, which means I am far below my goal of 450 miles for the year. After I read 26 Marathons by Meb Keflezighi, I requested the book Meb for Mortals from the library. This is Meb's book about how he eats, trains and thinks. I could increase my running by adding one extra day per week for a month.  I will certainly think about it!

Last week's workouts: I did Zumba on Wednesday with Michelle, I did about a 3.5 mile trail run on Thursday, and a 3 mile run on Saturday.

I am guestimating the distance of the trail run.  It was supposed to be 3 miles, but there were three of us at the back of the pack running together, and we missed the marker to go right up a hill.  Yes, it was a hill trail run! It's hard to explain but it meant we ran one section twice, and we still ran up that hill. At the top of the hill, I fell and landed on my right butt / hamstring.  I am OK, just a little sore - that is a good place to land; I have seen fellow trail runners take bad spills. I had to walk a little bit after that. Since I have sciatica that runs down my left hamstring, at least now both sides hurt equally! The only thing that makes it feel better is to keep moving.

At the end of said trail run, I fell behind the other two, and missed the marker heading back to the main lodge where our group was having a BBQ. There wasn't any danger; I could hear a dog barking in the direction I was heading. I followed that trail, and it led me to some houses. I was not lost enough to approach them, but it felt good to know civilization was close by.

I backtracked and saw the markers I missed. By the time I got back on our trail, I was running with (actually, being passed by) some of my running club peeps who were finishing their second loop. All in all, it took me 59 minutes! Quite an eventful trail run and I needed that after the work day.

A few months ago I read Meet The Frugalwoods and ever since then I have been following her blog.  Liz (Mrs. Frugalwoods) is starting a July Frugal Month Challenge. You still have until midnight tonight to sign up and join the group. You get an email a day and if you are on Facebook, you can join the special FB group. I already have a good balance of frugality in my life, however I am very curious to see what I can learn from this challenge.

I am looking forward to July because my husband and I are going to Maine. I have never been there, and that is on my bucket list. We are going to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.
Hopefully I will get some real hiking done in July.

What are your goals for July?

Frugal Friday

Yesterday I wrote a long post about my annoying, miserable bosses. Then I reread it, fine tuned it, added a picture, previewed it, reread it again , and went to bed. This morning I DELETED it. I don’t want to have negative icky posts on my blog. Let me tell you, the writing and deleting was cathartic. Anyway, this is the picture I had selected for that post:

My boss excels at making simple tasks complicated

Today was wonderful because both bosses took the day off. And it’s Friday and the start of a holiday weekend.

On to something else. . . many finance bloggers have a weekly post dedicated to the week’s frugal and thrifty activities. I decided that would be a better topic for this post.

Someone said being thrifty is when you spend less on things you don’t care about so you can spend more on the things you do. The funny thing is my husband and I like all the things we do that save money more than the expensive alternative.

1. On Monday my husband and I did a trail run with our running club. It was the final run and party for the spring series. I brought a homemade pasta salad to share. The run, the delicious barbecue dinner, and the live entertainment were all free.

2. One of our cars had a recall notice and we brought it to the dealership to be taken care of (free of course). Said vehicle also needed an oil change. Rather than pay the expensive dealership price, my husband brought it elsewhere and used a $20 off coupon. He gets major kudos for this; I would have been a one stop shopper.

3. I brought my lunch and beverages to work every day this week. I had salad every day with some type of protein: tuna, chicken or hard boiled eggs. For my snack I brought fruit four days and a yogurt one day. I put the yogurt in the freezer at work and by lunchtime it was a semi-frozen treat.

4. I carpooled to work with my daughter three days this week. Most weeks we carpool every day. Her last job was on the way to my job. Her new job is even closer. See side note below.*

5. My husband mowed our lawn. At least half of my neighbors use lawn services. That can’t be cheap! Someone from the lawn service jokingly (or for real?) asked my husband if he wanted to come work for them. Hubs said his rate is $50 an hour.😉

6. I made homemade iced tea. This costs pennies to make and it’s better for me than diet soda.

Delicious iced tea 

*Side Note Below - I heard from the new job. If you recall from last week’s recap post they called my references. This week, potential new boss called to say they were submitting the appointment package to HR. If I get this job, I will be working even closer to my daughter. Gee, we plan well!

Last Week Recap

Books
Author Herman Wouk died last week. He was nine days shy of his 104th birthday. His major works include The Caine Mutiny which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1951, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. He also wrote my favorite book of all time  Marjorie Morningstar which I’ve read about 6 times. Maybe I will reread it in his honor. Obviously, I recommend it if you’re looking for a good book.

My much loved copy of Marjorie Morningstar

Finances
Last week I signed up for a new Southwest Visa credit card. I used an affiliate link that I found on the points guy.com website. I have to spend $2,000 in three months and will earn 60,000 SW points (very easy for us and card will be paid in full each month). The annual fee for this card is $69. After the fee, this is about a $900 value. My husband and I may use the points to go to the west coast in the fall.

Work
If you read my post three job applications then you know I am job hunting. I had an interview two weeks ago and it went well. The exciting part is they called my references last week, so I am hoping to hear some good news shortly. When I started my current job 6.5 years ago, I truly believed I would be here until I retired. The work is Ok (what can I say, it’s work). The wonderful people who hired me are all retired and the new managers just don’t cut it for me.

Food
Last week I made chicken using a variation of this apple cider vinegar chicken recipe from eating bird food.com. Just like the website’s author, this has become my go-to chicken recipe. It’s low-carb, Keto-friendly, and it takes me under five minutes to throw together in the morning before work. I let it marinade in the fridge until I get home. Sometimes I make it right in a giant ziplock bag. Leftovers are great for lunch the following day in a salad.

For awesome pictures of final result go to the recipe website 

Fitness
My Mizuno Wave Rider 19 running shoes were discontinued so I took a chance and ordered the newest incarnation, Mizuno Wave Rider 22, from Amazon. They arrived last week - major fail. They are on their way back. Thank goodness for free shipping and free returns. As for last week’s workouts, I ran 4 miles on Thursday, did a bike ride on our rail trail on Saturday, and swam 40 laps on Sunday - three workouts total.

On to the new week!

Grocery Games

I was reviewing my 2019 year to date spending and was surprised at how much we spent on food. Here’s the chart (I use a plain old excel spreadsheet).

I must have rounded my numbers in January 

The grocery bill covers three adults and a dog. If you have been following my blog, I have posted previously on my grocery savings. Clearly I’m not saving as much as I thought.

If someone asked me, I would have said I spend $500 a month at the grocery store and $100 a month eating out at restaurants.

I can understand the overage in restaurants:
January - husband’s birthday
February/March - on vacation
March - older son’s birthday
April - wedding anniversary

The restaurant meals will be decreasing as we don’t have any special events coming up. We avoid eating out on Mother’s Day; the restaurants are just too crowded. We are also approaching backyard barbecue season. I feel confident that we can keep the May dining out at or below my budgeted amount of $100.

The grocery store is a whole different animal. Since we pay everything using our credit card to earn travel rewards (paid in full every month), it’s easy to see that the biggest culprit is the midweek drop-in shop. Without fail, we are running in to the supermarket in the middle of the week for something!

Unless we’re out of coffee, coffee filters or half and half for coffee, there is no reason to go to the supermarket midweek. Of course, I will continue my usual coupon clipping, rewards card use, shopping sales, meal planning, etc.

So far this month we’ve spent $143.20 which includes a trip to CVS for Coke Zero and candy (that’s not a joke). We could obviously eliminate some costs if we eliminated these guilty pleasures. But that’s a topic for another day.

How do you save on groceries?

Meet The Frugalwoods

I just finished reading Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames. This book is about how Liz, as she is familiarly known, and her husband Nate, saved up and “retired” to a 69 acre homestead in rural Vermont at the ripe old age of 32.

After surviving a temp job as bad as some of my temp jobs she went to work in New York City through Americorps, which paid a $10,000 stipend. With the aid of $120 a month in food stamps and a free subway pass, Liz was able to save $2,000 that year! Mind you, this was only about 10 years ago.

When they were first married, and both working good paying jobs, they started experiencing what Liz calls “lifestyle creep” - frequent dinners out, going to expensive coffee shops, and $120 haircuts. Yet they didn’t feel any happier.

At the time, they were living in a tiny basement apartment and going to open houses every weekend. Home prices being so high in the Boston area, they hatched a plan to start living frugally and focused on saving for a house. They went to hundreds of open houses. One day, they purposely drove to a potential home in the Boston suburbs during rush hour. While sitting in traffic, they wondered “what’s the point of buying more house and more yard if we’re never there to enjoy it?”

Long story short, they bought a house in Cambridge, and then applied the same intensive frugality to save up for their homestead. They still own the Cambridge house; it’s a rental property bringing in passive income.

l checked out her blog frugalwoods.com which is awesome. Their two little girls are adorable. I left a comment on her blog complimenting the photography; it’s that good.

Did you notice how I put “retired” in quotes above. Liz is making a lot of money from her blog and book, and Nate still works, telecommuting from home, and according to public record, earning over $250,000 a year. Frugality alone doesn’t support their lifestyle.

That being said, I was impressed by the extremes that Liz went to, such as eliminating dining out, coffee shops, new clothing, haircuts, and even eschewing makeup. The couple replaced expensive outings with free concerts and hiking. Liz bartered working at her yoga studio’s front desk for free yoga classes.

The couple’s focus and ability to stick with their plan and meet their goals makes for a good read. I like how they saved up for a purpose - House! Homestead! - and not solely to have money sitting in a bank account.

Could I have done that twenty years ago? Some things yes and some things no. As for the yes, I firmly believe that eating at restaurants all the time or coffee out daily becomes tedious (others may disagree); rather, going out less frequently increases my enjoyment when I do go. We do our own yard work, try to use coupons, and save when we can.

On the other hand, will I quit wearing makeup, wear used clothes, volunteer at the Y for free membership, or let my husband cut my hair? Emphatic No!

I still think the book and the blog are well written, enjoyable to read, and can be the inspiration to think more about how you spend your money.

Checked out from the library, of course 

Utilities Savings

It’s “thrifty Thursday”, and that means it’s time for a finance post. I went back into the financial archives to look at my utilities spending and was pleasantly surprised. Over the past five years, the amount we spent for gas and electric has gone down every year, except for 2018, when we spent $50 more than 2017. Here’s the breakdown:

These are some things we have done to lower our utilities cost.

1. We live in a newer home that has energy efficient windows and good insulation. Ten years ago, when we lived in our old house, heating costs were double for a home that was smaller.

2. We changed our supplier. Thanks to deregulation, we can choose a company to supply our gas and electric. We chose Agera Energy. There was no interruption in service, our bill didn’t change - we still pay the utility company. All that changed was the cost.

3. We got a Nest thermostat. It’s nice looking and easy to use - I don’t like when basic things are complicated. The smart technology links to our cellphones so it knows when we’re not home and adjusts accordingly. You can also turn it up or down from your phone. When we are energy efficient we earn leaves. Each month they send an email with our leaf report.

4. We don’t mess around with the Nest. We set it and forget it. In the winter we keep our house at 68 degrees during the daytime and 67 degrees at night.

5. If someone is cold, then they add layers. We keep three fleece throw blankets in our family room, one for each of us.

6. We turn the lights off when we leave a room.

7. I wash clothes in cold water or eco-warm water. Only the sheets are washed in hot water.

8. I hang our nice work clothes on a drying rack indoors. This is one load that doesn’t have to go through the dryer, and the clothes last longer.

Read more about sustainability at goinggreenshow.com.

Spend With Intention

If you are the one person I know that has “supposedly” unlimited money you can skip this post. As for everyone else, you need a plan for your money. Perhaps you have a substantial goal, like saving up enough to retire early or paying off a mortgage. Maybe you have a medium sized goal, such as saving for a vacation or a home improvement or a new car. Yes, you can buy a car with cash - we’ve done it. Or maybe you keep running out of money before you run out of month.

The first step is creating a realistic budget or, as I prefer to call it, spending plan. The word budget sounds restrictive, doesn’t it? That’s why this post is titled “Spend With Intention”. It’s not called live on a budget. I don’t allocate X dollars for this and Y dollars for something else and then eat beans when the budget runs out. Obviously if you are in major debt or your spending is out of control, then you need serious help. I recommend Dave Ramsey and his Seven Baby Steps.

There is budget software online for free but I use a plain excel spreadsheet. I set it up so the “inflows” total up, the “spending” totals up, and the two are netted to give me an ending balance.

Another thing that we do is pay everything we can with credit cards. We have rewards cards that earn us travel points. Caveat: credit cards must always be paid in full!

My method presumes that you are paying yourself first. That means 401(k) contributions, IRA contributions, deferred compensation, investments, and savings are all directly deposited.

Step 1
Start with the balance in your checking account on the first of the month. Now add in all sources of income for the month. That would be your take home pay, of course. Maybe you have rental income or child support - add that in. This is your available balance for the month. If unexpected money comes your way, like you sell something on Craigslist, add that in when you get it. The spending plan is always in flux.

Step 2
Now list your plan for spending that money. Start with the biggies and work your way down: mortgage or rent, auto loans and insurance, student loans, daycare, food, utilities, cell phone, groceries, eating out, clothing, donations and gifts, doctor copays and prescriptions. List everything!

Step 3
Some of the items are fixed. Those are easy. Some vary; for those, enter what you spent last month (utilities) or an average over the last three months (eating out). If you have no clue what you spend, then you have to read my remedial post “Tracking Your Spending”. (coming soon😉)

Step 4
If at this point your ending balance is in the positive, good for you! If it’s in the negative, that is Ok, because you are going to go back to Step 2 and start adjusting those variable items down until you are in the positive by at least $1. Ideally you will have a little (or big) surplus.

Step 5
Update as you spend. The spending plan is a moving, living thing. If you planned to spend $100 on clothes and you spend $38, put it in the plan. Now the plan has 2 lines: one that says Macy’s $38 and one that says Clothing $62. It still balances. Let’s say instead of $38 you spend $138. Now you have one line. It says Macy’s $138. Are you still in the positive? Awesome. Did that purchase put you in the negative? Then you need to adjust another expense category down.

I am a numbers girl so this is actually fun for me. I like to keep two months going at once, because everything that goes on the credit card in this month becomes a bill to be paid next month! I keep the past months as references.

Remember that spending with intention will help you to achieve your financial goals - whatever they may be!

Spring Preview

Happy Spring! According to the calendar anyway. The weather is doing its usual - one day nice then two days crummy. I am so ready to put the winter sweaters away. I actually decided to stop wearing the real wintry ones. Oh, and I am officially done with the boots!

Yes, I have been thinking about my spring wardrobe. I enjoy looking at fashion blogs and the fashion bloggers have been featuring spring items for a while. I have about 6 or 7 fashion blogs that I follow regularly. Two of them are doing Spring Previews. That means they are styling a new outfit every day in March except Sunday (26 days). These two bloggers must be internet friends because they remind you to check out the other one’s blog.

Each day there is a top and bottom or a dress, plus sweater / jacket, shoes, handbag, earrings / necklace / hat / sunnies (that is what fashionistas call their sunglasses). On Monday one blogger had links to 10 items. Let’s say the average is 5 items per day x 26 days. That comes to 130 items. If you check out both ladies’ sites, that is about 260 items! You never see the same thing twice. Holy Floral Maxi Dress Batman!

You know what? They’re nice to look at but . . . they encourage overconsumption and overspending. I’m sure you realize that when you click the links to the stores, the blogger makes money. Plus there are pop up ads galore. Occasionally, I will get ideas from these blogs but I don’t want to end up with a closet full of stuff that is someone else’s style. True style is not about having tons of stuff nor is it about wearing a brand new outfit every day.

Here is my spring preview so far. I ordered a black eyelet top and a running skort* from LLBean. (These are not meant to be worn together!) Both items are top rated, on half price sale, and I chose free shipping because I can wait a few days. Both items arrived yesterday and they are perfect. Had I needed to return them, there is an LLBean store nearby.
*Men, that is not a typo for skirt!🏃‍♀️

Right now I cannot think of another thing I need.

Bye friends!

I don’t want to be like Phoebe - tons of clothes but nothing to wear

Grocery Haul and Chimichangas

This was a busy week- at work and at home! One errand was restocking the pantry after vacation. Our grocery bill is our second highest expense after our house. It takes Herculean efforts to save at the grocery store. I feel like the price after working the sales, flyers, member card and coupons gets you to what you should be paying in the first place! My husband and I made an extra effort last Sunday and I wanted to share the results.

Also, our garage was overrun with cans and bottles that had to go back.  My husband and I returned 192 cans and bottles; another chore that was way overdue.  Hey, that is 192 cans and bottles that stayed out of the landfill!

When we got home, we realized not one, but two items were missing from the order.  Of course, they were on the receipt. This happened in Florida too. Is it just me? I remembered that midway through our checkout, the cashier flew off as if there was an emergency.  I thought she was helping the next cashier, but she didn’t come back, and a new girl took her place. My husband recalled that cashier #1 had two items in her hands when she disappeared. Needless to say, I went back to the store with my receipt and got the items.

Oh, and I found a penny in the parking lot. 🙂

Here are the results:
Total grocery cost before savings $231.64

Savings from store sales / member card $52.48

Coupon savings $12.67

Credit from bottle returns $9.60

Total paid $147.29

Grand total savings of $74.75. I can think of better things to do with $75!

Star dinner of last week - I made these healthy Beef Chimichangas from Eating Well. I omitted the mushrooms but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. The filling was enough for way more than 6 tortillas. I filled 8 tortillas and had leftover filling which I froze.

Happy eating!

Served with red beans and rice 

Yum!

Vacation Savings

We are heading to the airport in a couple of hours. The weather here in Florida is a lot cooler today with expected high of 68. Of course that would be nice for New York, but cool for a beach day. Our vacation was 10 days and 9 nights. When we travel south in the winter our goal is escaping the snow and freezing temperatures and relaxing. My husband and I can accomplish that and still stay within our budget. Here is how we saved money on our vacation.

1. We went to the library before we left to get books to read on vacation. I read two library books plus a book that was in the condo. I have one more to start on the plane.
2. We used credit card reward points to pay for the flight down. All we paid out of pocket was $5.60 apiece for the 9/11 surcharge. We flew on Southwest.
3. We are not tied to school vacations or holidays so we can travel off peak. Our return flights were $96 a person on JetBlue.
4. We took one suitcase for both of us. This saved us $30 JetBlue baggage fee. Since we had a washer / dryer in the unit we were able to bring fewer clothes.
5. We used Home Away Vacation Rentals instead of a hotel. I compared what we paid to the nearby Hampton Inn and Suites rate (which would include sales and hotel tax). I estimate we saved $1,500 and we had a really cute condo.
6. We ate out 4 dinners and 2 lunches out of 30 total meals. I find that eating out less often makes our restaurant meals feel special.. On our last night we enjoyed a nice seafood dinner overlooking the water.
7. We walked to the beach instead of paying $10 per day parking fee. According to my phone it was just about 1 mile each way. The walk is pleasant and, hey, walking never hurts!
8. We used a condo-provided Fun Pass for free lounge chairs and umbrella at the beach. That was a nice perk.

We had a good vacation and soon we will be back to reality!

The restaurant had these neon-lit pools of catfish.

Beach in the morning. The best things in life are free.

Treat Yourself

This is a screenshot of an email I received the other day. I had to look up Watkins Glen Racing because I’ve never been there.  It’s automobile racing ala Nascar.  Not anything I have ever done or plan to do, but it was the subject line that caught my interest.

“You’ve worked hard all year. Treat yourself!” Wow, it’s true. How did they know? I have worked hard all year.  As a matter of fact, I’ve worked hard for a lot of years. Maybe I should treat myself to a day of automobile racing at Watkins Glen. Or maybe a new pair of earrings, or a new pocketbook! I could go to the mall and buy some designer makeup! Or I could go to the new casino, and treat myself to some slots and an expensive dinner! Or not.

Treating yourself well is important to health and wellbeing.  After all, we live in a world of constant demands, work is stressful, then you come home and it’s time to make dinner and the sink is still full of breakfast dishes.  There are bills to pay and errands to run, the kids need help with one problem or another (this does not stop when the children grow up) and the dog is licking her hot spot again. At any given time, one car needs: inspection, oil change, tires rotated, or at a minimum, gas and it’s ten degrees outside.

Something about that phrase "Treat yourself" bothers me. Buying things that you don’t need just to treat yourself will not make you happier.  In fact, I think that the more you buy on impulse the less happy you become.  Because now you have just spent hard earned money on something to make yourself feel better. The item is taking up space in your home and setting you a baby step backwards from your financial goals. And it doesn’t make any of your stress go away. I am not saying you must deny yourself constantly and live a life of asceticism; the problem is when life becomes one treat after another. 

I know people who don’t buy anything.  They wear the same clothing forever.  They shop at the goodwill.  

Sorry but that is not for me.  There is a middle ground between “buying nothing” and “treating yourself”.  That middle ground is recognizing that there is something you want, yes, I said want and not need. Recently, I decided I wanted burgundy pants.  Burgundy is popular this winter and would go with several of my black tops. I did a little internet shopping and picked a cute pair with great reviews on sale from my favorite store. I did not treat myself to new pants, nor would I say that I needed new pants.  I wanted new pants, researched pants, and purchased said pants.

Thank you for reading!

FIRE VS. Traditional Retirement

No, I don’t mean getting fired vs. traditional retirement! FIRE is an acronym for Financial Independence, Retire Early.  This movement has taken the blogging world by storm, and influenced me to start my blog.  In fact, one blogger Rockstar Finance, has compiled a directory of personal finance bloggers.  As of this post, there are 2,131 personal finance blogs in the directory.  Out of those, 366 categorize themselves as Early Retirement blogs.  As a comparison, only 18 categorize themselves as Traditional Retirement blogs. Some of the other categories are: Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Minimalism, Millennials and more. You should check it out.

The FIRE enthusiasts believe that the traditional American path of education followed by 40 - 45 years in the workforce and retirement at age 65 is crazy.  They believe that if you start the FIRE lifestyle in your 20’s or 30’s you can achieve Financial Independence and not be reliant on a job aka “The Man”.  Instead, you can retire early, live off your investments and side hustles, and enjoy life while you are still young.

Unfortunately, early retirement is not an option for me.  For one thing, I am on the wrong side of 50 🙂so that ship has sailed.  Second, I work in government so my retirement will be primarily funded by my pension, and that requires a certain number of years. 

When I was in my 20’s and 30’s I worked part time because my children were young, and that means I have to work longer now at this end.  But that is OK, because my children are adults now and I don’t regret one minute being with them.  I would have hated working more in an effort to have saved money back when they were little and needed me around.  Plus, looking back, my husband and I don’t see how we could have changed our lifestyle much to save more than we did!  I mean, those FIRE people really do some dramatic things to save.

I will admit there are weeks when I wish I had more days to do things I enjoy like: reading, running, hiking, cooking, socializing with friends and family, AND the things I don’t necessarily enjoy but must get done like: laundry, grocery shopping, and errands.  Yes, an extra day or two or three or four or five off per week would be nice.  Boy, I am envious of those FIRE people.  

Thank you for reading!

  

"Sunset in the Alps" by mmartinsson is licensed under CC by-nc-nd 2.0