Gas tools galore
The price of gas when you first started driving has now become one of those life facts you’ll never forget and always bring up as a reference point: When I started driving gas was $1.95 and I spent about $18 a week).
Right now, it seems gas is going back up after a nice stay around the $1 and change mark, but analysts say (what does that even mean?) it should stay around the current national average of $1.90 (the New York state average is $2.07).
Need to find the cheapest gas in your area? Check out this handy interactive map from MSN Autos. You just zoom into wherever you’re located, and it lists all the nearby gas stations and its current price list. I checked it yesterday, at least by the gas station closest to my apartment and that was correct - but that’s all I can reallly vouch for.
Also, a sort of common sense tip from Young Money, everyone probably already knows to fill their tank when the price of gas is low - but do you do the reverse when the price is high? I’m in the habit of always filling my tank so that I won’t have to keep coming back to the pump, but if gas prices are high, there’s a good chance they’re falling, and in that case, I’m missing an opportunity for lower prices. The trick there is to keep on top of the news and anticipate when prices are rising and falling. Don’t you worry, there’s a tool for that too.
And if you can’t get enough about gas … check out The Ithacan’s new column Common Cents for an interesting argument about why gas prices should stay high.
The cure to empty cabinets
… is of course to go food shopping. BUT if you’re like me and that just never seems to happen (I think I’ve been living off old pasta, chili my dad made when I was at home and grapefruit my grandmother mailed me from Arizona, for like, two months) there’s a Web site for you!
At NotBeansAgain.com, you enter whatever you’ve got in your fridge into its ingrediometer and you’ll get a list of recipes you can make without having to go food shopping. Plus, there’s a “League of Thrift” column on the homepage with the day’s top recipes, so if you have to go food shopping, at least you can try to find something that uses the least amount of ingredients. The current winner according to me? Poor Student Pie (because how could you not relate?) which appropriately calls for 2 potatoes, 1 can of beans, butter, grated cheese and chili powder. So even if you don’t have all of that - you could easily pick up a few things for less than 10 bucks (which it would totally cost to order out) and be set for dinner tonight … and maybe lunch tomorrow.
Now, don’t expect magic or anything people, if you’ve only got lettuce and some pickles, it’s not going to turn out a secret recipe for Filet Mignon, but still, who knew most of your leftovers could be put to use? And when you’re strapped for cash, every day you don’t have to buy milk and eggs or hit up Campusfood.com counts for something.
Recessionistas
It might seem strange that my two loves are saving money and buying clothes…
…. but they are.
So I’ve been trying to scheme out a way to write a post about fashion that was even remotely relevant to this blog and now I think I’ve finally found the way. Her name is Michelle Obama.
The first lady has been making almost as many headlines as her husband ever since she started showing promise of giving First Lady/Fashionista Jackie O. a run for her money. Except not really. Because Mrs. Obama has made a name for herself among us ladies who truly believe that fashion can be affordable. She’s appeared on TV in low-priced, household brands like J.Crew (which also dressed daughters Malia and Sasha for the inauguration) and White House Black Market (pictured above on an appearance on The View).
Spend less: Go bagless
Obviously when you’re talking about consumerism and overconsuming, there are certain things that you can eliminate from your spending habits and some things that you really can’t. For example, when I decided not to buy clothes for a year, even if it seems drastic, it was a pretty logical decision for me since I just have no need for a single other piece of clothing in my closet. For the past month, however, I’ve unintentionally stopped buying groceries. It turns out, I’m really hungry and that’s not really one of those things you can cut out of the weekly budget.
So today was my first time back in the grocery stores and I thought I’d try Aldi since I’d heard it was a lot cheaper than Wegmans or Tops, the favorites of Ithaca. I should have done my research because I was totally unprepared.
Aldi has the right idea - they cut costs by keeping their spaces small and more energy efficient, eliminating store displays (the aisles are formed by simple shelves and the actual stacks of food) and making you pay a quarter for shopping carts and 5 cents for shopping bags.
Okay, I’m not so cheap that I wouldn’t have paid 5 cents for a shopping bag, but since everyone at the store had brought their own reusable bags, I just felt like sort of an idiot and didn’t bother to ask if there were any for sale. I really didn’t save that much money price-wise (when I compared the prices of the items I’d bought to the prices at Wegmans I found they were basically the same) BUT I did end up buying a WHOLE lot less groceries since I could only take what I could carry.
So there’s one idea for you. Go bagless, buy less.
Save on Christmakkah shopping!
Visit Restaurant.com NOW and get a $25 coupon for $10! $2!!
Just type in your area code for a list of restaurants near you.
You can thank me later.
UPDATE: Get at $25 coupon for …. $2 with the special discount code: SURPRISE.
Finally, something you can’t blame on our generation
It’s not exactly news that the economy is a little sub par right now or how it’s affecting consumers (that’s the name the financially stable policy makers use for the lowly public) - but The New York Times published an article on Saturday about debtors that are even deeper in debt during this recession than previous recessions … there are a whole lot more of them. The downturn economy is affecting people even harder this time around than usual - maybe because it’s hitting on all fronts (housing prices are down, incomes are down, jobs are down, lending is almost nonexistent) but I think it’s also because people in 2008 just live differently than people did during some of the last deep recessions (like in the early 1980s when Congress reacted to failing banks by deregulating them and loosening lending restrictions … good idea, guys).
I know, I know, I’ve said this a million times but people just don’t save as much anymore - even the idea of saving has transformed into the idea of investing. I’m not saying I know much about the stock market yet, I don’t have any investments, but I do know that the people who have made out best coming out of the financial crisis are people who have CASH. According to Bankrate.com, in 1985 Americans saved 11.1% of their income, in 2005 that rate slipped to -.5%, the first time since the Great Depression that it dropped below zero, and it’s pretty much stayed down there ever since.
The 1-day challenge
Does anyone else see something a little ironic about the concept of a one-day challenge? Maybe that it’s only one-day long? I mean, there’s probably little that you couldn’t survive for just one day, even people diagnosed with the black plague were given a few days to go.
Well The Simple Dollar suggested a new way to save money - don’t spend anything for one day. Now if that sounds completely outrageous to you, I think you’ve got some serious financial woes ahead of you. If you’re saying, one day? I can do that easy - then I think you should do it for a week.
It’s all about budgeting - think about what it would really take to spend $0 one week, fill up your gas tank on Sunday, buy groceries that last (eggs, rice, frozen meats, pasta, coffee - yes, that’s a food group), maybe some alcohol to get through the weekend and what else do you really need?
It may seem like you wouldn’t really be saving any money because you’re just spending it all on Sunday instead of throughout the week - but what the challenge does is make you think about what you need and what you don’t need, how much you really spend on things, and how you can reduce that. If you did this once a month, I think the savings would be significant because eventually, your whole outlook on spending, saving and consuming would change.
Ramit picked up this story on I Will Teach You To Be Rich and featured a reader who took the challenge and saved between $50 and $200!
We do a week with NO spending. We fill the car with gas and hit the grocery store on Sunday. Starting Monday, we cannot spend a CENT. Sort of a fun little challenge. And it is only for a week. So, if I see something I need or want, I can get it next week. No cheating. AMAZING results. The first time I did it, I was flabbergasted to have the same $20 bill in my wallet. I got very used to it and so it is a nice little “shot in the arm” technique. Kind of like a fast to begin a diet regime.
Take a shot at it, if you can’t make it for a week, try a day. Let me know how it goes for you.
So I’m not the only one
Like most things, once the idea of being an un-consumer was brought to my attention, the subject kept popping up everywhere! Turns out, this wasn’t an entirely original plan. But some people are a lot more ambitious (and brave) than I am. Back in July, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ran a short Q&A with John Perry, the co-founder of The Compact, an online community of people that have vowed to become un-consumers. They’re hardcore: For one year, they decided to call it quits on buying anything other than food, medicine and hygeine products (but I’ll bet anything they learn to make their own organic soap soon).
(I like this photo they chose for their Yahoo! group, shows the true spirit of America.)
Besides the fact that, as someone who’s trying to eliminate just one type of purchase to change a lifestyle (I can’t even give up shoes or accessories yet), this is just admirable - something John Perry said also struck a chord:
We wanted to see if we could adapt our behavior as consumers to live off what we have while maintaining a modern life. We thought it would be fun to see how long we could go.
I should also say Perry’s now been doing this for two years instead of one, and the Yahoo! group now has more than 8,000 members …. and you have to be approved for it, so they’re all serious. But the point is they’re having fun! It was just a little experiment that turned into a lifestyle (and with 8,000 followers, you might say a movement).
The thing is, I bet if everyone starting cutting back on SOMETHING, it would feel really natural after a while. No one seems to believe I can go a whole year without buying clothes, but I have high hopes for myself. I can’t wait for my “I told you so post” to go live next October. The draft is already saved.
How to save money on Halloween ….
Relapse.
There were a number of factors that took place this summer that put me in the saving-money mindset: I had just blown multiple thousands of dollars in Spain during the spring semester, I was spending close to $400 a month commuting into the city for my internship and that internship happened to be at a personal finance magazine - so I spent most of my day reading about consumer tips and billionaires.
It was about the same time I read this post from my genious money crush, Ramit. He suggested not buying clothes for ONE YEAR. It was a little crazy, but I thought it might just be the kind of lifestyle change I was ready for. I had worked ever since I was 14 years old, and all I really had to show for it was a 1995 Ford Escort station wagon and way too many $12 shirts from Kohls.
Okay so long story short, I took it for a trial run. I made it the whole summer without buying any clothes, even most of the fall. I was well on my way to committing to the full year - and then I joined Mint.com around the same time I decided I “deserved” to let myself buy a few things (a dangerous mindset of overconsumers).
Then, Mint.com so nicely threw this in my face:
Feed for Two Cents