Tight Fisted Miser

Nintendo Wii for Sale

I was lucky enough to find a Wii for purchase at retail price.  It was purchased to resell since it is out of my budget to keep it.  Rather than putting it on Ebay or Craigslist I thought I would offer it here to my readers instead.  The price is $300 plus actual shipping costs.  This seems pretty competitive with the online prices I’ve seen and is only a modest markup for my time in purchasing and shipping the console.  I can accept payment through PayPal or RevolutionMoneyExchange.  If you’re interested leave a comment or email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Posted in Announcements | No Comments »

My Food Stamp Experience

Last month I read a post at Living Almost Large titled “Still Hungry with Food Stamps“. It was in response to this CNN article about a woman who found it difficult to feed her and her baby on $280 a month in food stamps. LivingAlmostLarge thought that it shouldn’t be a problem to eat on that amount a month but some of the commenters disagreed with her. Since I’ve been on food stamps myself I wanted to do my own post on the subject and I’ve finally gotten around to it.

I was on food stamps in Texas for three months in 2003. I was employed at the time but not getting many hours and therefore not making much money. I was making just enough money to pay my bills but certainly wasn’t going hungry. Since I worked at a pizza restaurant I had access to free food several times a week. I debated whether to apply for food stamps but decided I should go ahead and take advantage of the program.

It was pretty easy to apply for the food stamps. I just filled out an application and dropped it off at the office. I was called about a week later and after a short interview I was declared eligible for $160 a month in food stamps. I don’t remember the exact details of documentation but I remember being surprised at how easy the process was. I was also surprised at the amount, $160 seemed like a lot to me for one person.

The food stamps were actually in the form of an EBT card which worked like a debit card. The first month I used my entire allotted amount. Some of this was due to buying food for a friend that visited and building up a supply of basic staples. The second month I didn’t come close to using all of my allotted amount. This amount rolled over to the next month resulting in me having much more than $160 to spend on groceries for the month. The third month I got a new job and canceled my food stamps. However, I was still able to use the amount remaining on my EBT card and used it to buy my groceries for the next couple months.

Overall, I would say my experience with food stamps was a positive one. I found a $160 a month to be plenty of money for groceries and I actually bought more expensive foods than I normally would have. I did occasionally get dirty looks when using the card but for the most part no one seemed to care that I was using them.

If I were in the same position again though I wouldn’t apply for food stamps. I was eligible for them so it was legal for me to do so but since I could have easily got by without them I don’t think it was ethical to do so. So far this year I’ve been averaging $100-$150 on food including restaurant food so I’d have to be pretty poor to not be able to afford food without food stamps.

Posted in Frugality | 5 Comments »

Gas Saving Challenge

David from David Makes Cents and Sean from Financial Ramblings recently had a gas saving challenge.  The goal was to see who could get the larger percentage improvement over the EPA MPG estimates.  David managed to get 32.257 MPG which compared to the EPA MPG estimate of 29 amounted to 12.16% improvement.  Sean got 32.088 MPG which compared to the EPA MPG estimate of 26 amounted to a 23.4% improvement.  Both of these are much better than the EPA’s fuel economy estimate which shows that you can significantly increase your MPG by altering your driving habits.

I didn’t participate in the gas saving challenge but I keep track of my mileage anyway so I can do a comparison.  My last four tanks I have gotten 30.2,32.29,33.22 and 34.42 MPG.  All of them except for the 30.2 amount reflect a large amount of highway driving.  Using the 30.2 figure I am doing just a little better than the EPA figure of 29 MPG for combined driving.  This isn’t too bad considering I was using my a/c the whole time and it also includes two shifts of pizza delivery driving.  If I compare my 30.2 MPG to the new EPA estimate for combined driving of 26 MPG than I’m doing really well.  The new EPA MPG figures are 26 MPG for combined driving, 23for city driving, and 31 for highway driving.  The old EPA MPG figures were 29 combined, 27 city, and 34 highway.  The EPA changed the way it calculates MPG because people complained that the old figures were unrealistically high.  I find thought that the old figures more accurately reflect my style of driving.  You can find EPA estimated MPG for your vehicle at fueleconomy.gov.

Posted in Frugality | 2 Comments »

May Investment Income

My investment income for May came to $27.66.  This is a very small increase from $27.50 for April.  I didn’t contribute any money to my Roth IRA.  I forgot to include my 401k last month or my income wouldn’t have gone up at all.  My 401k is tiny right now.  I contribute 6% of my pay but I only work two shifts a week and have a low wage so that doesn’t add up to much.

This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings.  What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking | No Comments »

May Income

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

I’m quite pleased with the total. I only worked part time but my online income and other alternative income helped give me a good income for the month. I’ll add more analysis later.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking | 1 Comment »

May Expenses

Here is a breakdown of my expenses in May.

I finally got my expenses back down under the $1000 mark. Expenses should be pretty much the same in June. I do make a 3 hour drive twice a week now which might increase my gas costs but I’m driving less during the week which will offset most of that. My car has to be registered and inspected this month also so my transportation cost might go up a little. My entertainment cost also might go up slightly since I was able to take advantage of more free entertainment in May than I think I’ll be able to do this month. Overall it should be a low cost month though.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking, Good Deals | 2 Comments »

Overview of Delivering Pizza to Make Extra Money

Over at MyMoneyBlog, Jonathan did a post on delivering pizza to make extra money. Delivering pizza is often mentioned as a good side job to make extra money.  Information about the job isn’t always accurate though.  Since I currently earn most of my money from delivering pizza I’m going to review the post and share what I know about delivering pizza.

Most pizza jobs do pay minimum wage +  ~$0.75 per delivery + tips.  That much is accurate.  Making 6-10 deliveries an hour though is well on the high side.  My average is closer to 3-4.  I believe there has only been once or twice that I made 6 deliveries in an hour.  My experience is that people in the upscale areas do tip better.  My delivery area includes the richest zip code in Kansas City as well as some of the poorest. I get much better tips in the rich area than in the “hood”.  Unfortunately, people in the “hood” order a lot more pizza than people in the upscale areas.  Most of my stiffs come from the “hood” but with a positive attitude you can still make decent money in the hood.

The big pro is flexibility of working hours.  I’ve changed my work schedule several times to accommodate other jobs and school and it was not a problem.  They have never been fully staffed for drivers in the over one year I’ve worked at this job, if I had to quit and come back again I would most likely be able to do so.

The cons are the wear and tear on your car.  I’ve got a hoopty that has already depreciated about as much as it can depreciate.  It also gets 29-30 MPG doing pizza delivery.  That makes a big difference in the profitability of the job.  The cost of gas has reduced my profit a little but not that significantly.  If you figure that I drive 60 miles in a shift that is only 2 gallons.  If gas is $1 a gallon more than last year I’m only out $2.  Even if you double that figure it is only $4 a shift.  That is noticeable but not that big a deal.

The crime is what I consider the bigger drawback.  We had several drivers robbed last year, including one that was carjacked .  His car was even more of a beater than mine which put a big hole in my theory that my car was too crappy for someone to want to steal.  One weekend we had robberies three days in a row. The store was robbed once also. I haven’t been robbed myself but I came close to being robbed once.  I seriously considered quitting at one point but the management cut out the worst part of the delivery area and things have improved quite a bit since then.  There were some complaints of racism but it was a fact that the area was unsafe so I’m glad they stopped delivery there.

As for the fringe benefits of pot and pizza going together that is definitely true.  I’ve worked several pizza places and the pot/pizza connection has always been there.  I’m usually one of the few non-tokers in the store.  I’m guessing that the pot munchies drives a pretty significant percentage of sales too.  The odor can frequently be detected when making a delivery.  At least they’re not driving while high.

I think pizza delivery is a good way to make extra money.  The key is to drive an older car that gets good gas mileage.  I’d also try to work in a slightly upscale area or one with a lot people employed in the service industry if possible.  That would probably get you the best total pay.

Posted in Financial stuff | 1 Comment »

May Goal Review

I’m still on track with my goal of not incurring any new debt other than student loan debt.  My other goals aren’t going so well.  I lost 3 pounds in May which means I now need to lose 25 pounds over the rest of the year.  My original goal was to lose 20 pounds but I gained 8 pounds before I started losing any making this goal a little bit harder.  I also am not doing as well on my blog as I would like.  Whether I’m actually improving my blog content is somewhat subjective but looking at my subscriber and traffic data it doesn’t appear that I’m attracting any new readers.  If I provide better content that should change.  I’m also about to implement another change which should help improve this blog.  I’m not doing great on my goals so far but there is still plenty of time to get them accomplished I just have to not procrastinate.

Posted in Goals | 1 Comment »

“Passion Saving” Winner

There weren’t a lot of entries for the “Passion Saving” book giveaway. I guess I’ll need to do a little more advance promotion next time.  The winner is Michelle and the book will be sent as soon as I get her address.  I hope to do more book giveaways in the future if I can generate more interest in them.

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »

Still in Law School

I’ve gotten all but one of my grades for the spring semester.  Anything better than an F in my last class will be good enough for me to continue in law school and get off academic probation.  I’m sure I did better than an F in my remaining class so I’m planning to be back in law school for the fall.  I should be happy about this but I’m not.  It is better than all my money and time going to waste though.

Posted in Law School | No Comments »