Away we go again…

Time has passed.  I have clearly been anywhere but here.  And the world spins madly on…

The short version of things is that for the past three months, I’ve been working a part-time job in addition to my full time job.  In addition to my regular, full-time work, I’ve been teaching an online course.  There are a few reasons for this.  It’s highly applicable to my job now and good for keeping my online teaching skills honed.  It keeps my foot in the door with respect to teaching, which makes it more likely I could go back if I ever wanted to.  And, on top of that, the extra income means that I’ll be adding upwards of another $5200 to my house down payment fund, which is lovely.

All that means that I haven’t had much time for anything much beyond hunkering down, particularly since there’s been a good bit of grading over the last two months.  Unfortunately, that also means that although I have a lot of ideas rolling around in my head, I haven’t done a whole lot that would really make for great blog fodder.  At this point, it’s a good week when the dishes get done, the plants get watered, and I’ve managed a bit of exercise somewhere in the mix.

On the up side, no time for much of anything means that it’s been pretty easy to keep to my monthly budget.

So, that’s where I’m at.  It’s nether exciting nor scintillating, but I am anticipating more time soon to get back to some of the other things that I value.  I’m hoping to get in a good spring cleaning, clear out some clutter, and set the apartment straight. I plan to start looking at local open houses to get a sense of what the market’s like.  Nicer weather means more hiking, biking, and exploring locally.  The farmers’ markets will open soon and there will be local produce to cook with and preserve.  I have a strong desire to get in more knitting, sewing, and possibly some soap-making, too.  It’s been a very busy few months, but I’m looking forward to spring and a bit more of a relaxed schedule.

Five frugal things

In the spirit of greater frugality, I’m borrowing a page from the Non-Consumer Advocate and and recording five frugal things from my days here and there.

1. I signed up for a free work wellness challenge. I walked over to pick up my gratitude jar this afternoon, which turned out to be a free canning jar.

2. I scored a piece of free leftover pizza from an event. It made for a very nice afternoon snack.

3. I took advantage of our fitness program and went to a free campus yoga class. Later this week I’ll be going to boot camp and a strength class.

4. I called my insurance company to get my snow tire discount, saving me $36 this year (yes, I’m completely ignoring how much the tires cost in the first place on this one.)

5. I drank looseleaf tea from my desk stash rather than buying it. I save $1.30 every time I do that. I also drank a lot of water, refilling my reusable bottle each time.

No-spend February

Given both the successes and failures of my January no-spend challenge, I’m going to do a similar challenge in February to try to step up my game a bit and hopefully meet with a bit more success.  This time, I’m adding in a few side challenges intended to support my primary goal.

As usual, I’ll still be paying rent, insurance, utilities, and all of the necessary things.  I’ve also decided to not put any limitations on health related spending, since it’s something that’s important.  If I need to see my chiropractor or restock the supplements that I take, that’s fine.

For transportation, I’ll be setting the same goal as in January.  I’ll be reducing my driving locally and limiting my out of town trips to two weekends. Since the weather’s been fairly nice, I’m setting a side goal of walking or biking to do all my errands – it’s good for my wallet and my health.

In terms of food, I’m taking on a goal similar to January’s, but giving myself a bit more leeway.  I’ll be setting my budget at $150 to make it a bit easier to focus on getting locally produced food.  My related goal is to go to the farmer’s market once per week to see what’s available before I go to the grocery store.  It’s a bit far, but if I can bike when it’s safe enough, so much the better.

Beyond that,the plan is to not buy anything.  To this end, I’m aiming for not going to any thrift stores or book stores.  Period.  At all.  For the entire month.  Just…no.  Of course, that didn’t work especially smashingly last month, so I’m setting four side goals that I’m hopeful will help.

First, I’m aiming to exercise at least three evenings per week.  I’ve been able to take advantage of some exercise classes for free at work, so if I can do yoga, strength, and bootcamp, that’s three evenings that there’s no chance that I’ll be hauling my sweaty post-workout self anywhere but home.

Second, I’m going to have a look through my closet, see what fits now that I’ve lost a bit of weight, and focus on building some additional work-appropriate outfits.  I often wind up at thrift stores because I’m trying to fill out my work wardrobe.  I don’t buy a lot of clothes, but when I’m there I’ll see other cool things and that’s when the trouble starts.

Third, I’m reestablishing a reading habit.  I love reading but have gotten away from it a bit in recent years.  My hope is that by getting back into moving, exciting, intriguing, and informative books I’ll be more motivated to come straight home (and maybe also realise that I shouldn’t buy any more books until I get through enjoying the many that have yet to be read).

Fourth, I’ll be decluttering.  I have more than enough stuff and realising how much I have is always eye-opening.  On top of that, the trouble of sorting it and getting it out of here usually drives me to not buy anything for awhile.  Although I expect I’ll be slow about this, getting some stuff out of here should help me to not spend for awhile.

So, that’s the plan.  I do feel bad about last month’s purchases, but I suppose I should just see this as baby steps and the building of better and better habits.  Here’s to another month of less spending and more saving!

 

No spend January wrap-up

With January drawing to a close, I wanted to revisit my no spend month challenge to see how everything shaped up.  Looking at the numbers, I spent somewhat less than I normally would but more than I wanted to.

The good: I did manage to stick to my $100 grocery budget by focusing on eating what I had in the freezer and pantry and buying mostly fresh produce, eggs, and dairy.  I reduced my travel and only went out of town twice, which kept my transportation costs down.

The bad: Although I minimized thrift store visits, I did make a few trips and wound up with some books, linens, a pair of shoes, and a food processor.  I didn’t spend a lot of money and it’s stuff I’ll use, but it’s still more than I was planning to buy for the month.

The ugly: I bought three cookbooks from the local outlet store – Artisan Cheese Making at Home ($14), The Art of Simple Food II ($14), and Salt Sugar Smoke ($15).  The first two were books that had been on my Amazon wish list for a year, so I was pleased when the showed up for half of what they were on amazon.  The other was new to me.  Given that I already have a lot of cookbooks, I don’t have much of a justification.  Cookbooks are a weakness I need to get more under control.

Looking back at this month, it’s pretty clear to me that most of my justifications for buying things are focused on how they’ll save money in the long run.  I tell myself that napkins will save me money on paper products.  That making cheese and preserves will be less expensive than buying them at the store.  That buying hiking shoes at the thrift store will be less expensive than getting them new.

While not necessarily wrong, these justifications make it easy to buy things that I don’t really need when I could instead be saving that money for one of my bigger goals. Although I’m pleased to have cut down my spending in January, this is something that I’ll need to work on if I want to keep increasing my savings rate and cutting extraneous stuff from my life.

 

 

Thrift stopping report

The background: I’ve been wondering if my beloved thrift shopping is kind of, maybe, somewhat undermining my budget.  My plan this year is to be a bit more intentional about my purchases and a little harder on myself about the impulse buys and recreational thrift shopping.  If it’s something I need, no problem, but there’s very little that I do actually need these days.  In an effort to keep myself accountable, I’ll be posting here about what I buy at the thrift store and how much it cost in an attempt to dissuade myself from purchases that just aren’t necessary.

Three weeks into January (how did that happen?) and, I confess, I have not been as good as I would like about the thrift shopping.  A few instances where I’ve gone to drop things off have ended in a bit of shopping.  I’ve kept it to a minimum, but I still made more purchases than I was planning for.

The temptations:

I talked myself out of some things.  I’m not buying any fiction because I have so much left to read.  I shouldn’t buy furniture that I don’t yet have room for, even if it’s old and lovely.  I’m done with glassware until I sort out the pantry situation a bit more and I need more kitchenware like I need a hole in the head.  Given all that, I wasn’t really tempted all that much (okay, except by books…books are my vice).

The damage:

Books: Guerrilla Gardening ($3), Anthology of Children’s Literature ($1), This Changes Everything ($1.50), The Human Age ($1.50)

I love children’s literature and bought An Anthology of Children’s Literature – it was marked $10 on a day when it’s colour tags were on sale for $1.  Guerrilla Gardening is a book I’ve been wanting to read for awhile and I’m thrilled that I found it secondhand.  I also happened across a half off all hardbound books sale, so I got This Changes Everything and The Human Age on sale, both of which have been on the list of books that I very much want to read.

Hiking shoes ($8)

Unworn North face hiking shoes one size too big so I can wear my thick wool socks.  I was pricing out new hiking shoes a month ago and couldn’t bring myself to take the plunge, so this is a good alternative.  It’s been quite chilly to go walking, but I’ve found on their first outing that the combination of wool socks and Gore-Tex seems to do the trick.  I’ve been trying to walk to errands, but some evenings it’s been bitingly cold and my usual leather boots have been leaving my feet very cold.

The verdict:

Although I am pleased with them I probably didn’t need the books, so that’s $7 in unnecessary spending.  The shoes are also somewhat questionable – it’s not like I don’t have shoes and boots, but I’m tired of very cold feet and they were a good deal, which I suppose makes sense for something I’ll be wearing only in the coldest of weather.  But again, the goal is to not be spending, and spend I did.

 

The things that slide

The last two weeks have been busier than expected.  My first week back at work involved facilitating a intensive workshop complete with very long days and evening review and planning.  My second week involved catching up on all of the things that I didn’t have time for in that first week.  On top of that, I’ve got a part-time second job teaching online until the end of April that’s taken up quite a bit of time between getting everything ready to go and launching the course.  It’s been good for my savings account but not so great for all of the other things that need to be done.

That’s really just a long way of saying that I haven’t had as much time to write here as I’d like.  Not that I haven’t been thinking about it, it’s just that there hasn’t really been much time to actually sit down and get words out.  That said, I do have posts in the works about this month’s spending, stopping hitting the thrift stores, and ethical consumer choices.

The one thing these last two weeks have highlighted for me are how quickly work can take over and how easy it is to let things slide.  In my case – as for many people, I suspect – it seems that the things that slide are often the healthy ones – exercise, healthy eating, meditation, budgeting, and downtime for things like reading and writing.  It’s been all too easy to slip into bad habits, so this week will be an exercise in getting back to good ones.  On the up side, I’m done most of my work for today and am planning for a grocery trip, evening run, cleaning session, and some meditation before reading in bed for awhile. It’s a start, and it feels like that’s what counts right now.

Grocery questions

So, I went to pick up a few groceries today, intent on staying within my self-imposed $25 per week budget, and walking out of the store I found myself seriously wondering whether I have drastically underestimated prices and overestimated my ability to pull this off.

I spent $33 on a huge bag of frozen berries ($12), four liters of milk ($4), a large package of mushrooms ($4), 18 eggs ($5), greek yogurt ($6), and 10 lbs of onions ($2), which puts me at $8 over budget already. And that’s with planning to use up the leftover veggies that are in the fridge before buying any more.

Thinking it through, I know that the berries, onions, and milk (which I freeze) will last me well over a month, so that won’t be a cost again for awhile.  That should make it possible to buy only fruits and veggies on the next trip.  This is probably do-able, but it’s always somewhat disconcerting to see how much groceries cost even before factoring in reports that prices will be rising around five percent for 2016.

But once I had that sorted, that’s when the really deep questions started.

Once I got home, I got to thinking about the ethics of sticking to a budget like this.  First of all, I’ve artificially set my budget pretty low for no real reason other than taking on a financial challenge.  If I go over it’s not a big deal, although I’m striving not to.  I also have the benefit of using up food from my pantry and leftovers from the fridge.  And I have the means to easily drive myself to whatever stores are having the best sales.  But this isn’t the reality for most people, and I wouldn’t want to give the impression that a $25 a week budget is easy or something everyone should or even could be doing.

On top of that, I started to factor in the disheartening ethics of the food system and the fact that we pay so little for food.  Another reason I can stick to this budget is because food here is really inexpensive compared to many areas of the world. This is largely because many of the costs of its production are taken off us and put onto the earth and other people.  The true cost should be a lot higher.

Sitting here now, I’m questioning whether this is the right choice.  I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a good financial move.  But, would it be better to raise the budget and head to the farmer’s market, where I can get free range eggs and locally grown apples and the amazing sourdough from the bakery just a town over?  Is saving my money worth it in terms of all of the other costs that are offloaded to other people who shouldn’t have to sustain them?

Given the present food system, many people can’t make this choice for a whole host of reasons.  But if I can make it I feel like I should.  It’s true that the local market tends to be more expensive than the discount grocery store, but maybe there are some ways to find a balance between financial savings and supporting local businesses. Over the next week I’m going to take some time to think a bit more about this challenge and how I can do it in a way that doesn’t lead to me feeling quite so guilty after a grocery trip.

No spend month

In the interest of keeping both my budget and my stuff in check, I’m planning to challenge myself for January with a no spend month.  Y’know, because I don’t have enough going on.  Between travel, the odd gift, and a few anticipated but still unpleasant expenses, December’s been a bit on the spendy side.  On top of that, I’ve been thinking through some big financial goals and trying to curb my extraneous (mostly secondhand) spending. I think a month off from spending will do me good.

My usual expenses will be exempt from the challenge – I’ll be paying rent, phone, internet, and insurance, as per usual.  I’ll be allowing myself health-related expenses.  I go for regular massage therapy and physio and those will stay in the interest of maintaining my health.  I was also planning to do yoga this year and I’m willing to put the money towards a few classes – it should help some ongoing issues I’ve been having with my back and knees.

Food and transportation are a bit more complicated.  Although they’re clearly necessary in some instances, I do think I could cut back a bit so I’m putting a few restrictions into play.

To cut down on transportation I’ll be limiting unnecessary trips.  I drive to and from work daily, pay for a parking permit, and I do some reimbursed work-related travel usually once per week.  This makes budgeting somewhat challenging, since all the costs aren’t mine and the reimbursement covers more than the cost of gas.  The easiest solution seems to be limiting trips. I’m aiming for one non-work trip a week for errands and two out of town weekend trips, since they use a good bit of gas.  My goal is to stay under $125 for the month for my non-work transportation costs.

In terms of food, I’ll be focusing on simple, basic vegetarian food cooked at home.  I have a lot of pantry staples that I can use and will buy mainly the fresh veggies, dairy, and eggs that I need to round things out.  My plan is to spend no more than $25 per week on food, which will bring me in at $100 for the month, significantly less than the $250 I usually budget, which seems really high now that I’ve written it out.  I’m seeing lots of opportunities to break out some of my underused cookbooks and try out some new dishes with what I have on hand.

Usually this is where I start to talk about exceptions – the things that have been on my radar that I’ve been meaning to buy for awhile and would make a no spend month exception for if they suddenly went on serious sale or something.  I just don’t seem to have a lot to put on the list right now.  I do plan to buy snow tires for the car, but I’ve been saving for months for that.  I need a few more rubber rings for my pantry jars.  Other than that, even my usual suspects – a water filter, dehydrator, and a cookbook or two that I’ve had my eye on – aren’t pressing enough for me to put them here.  So, for now, the exemption list will remain short and, with any luck, my spending will stay low.