Frugality

Save on Groceries with Non-Profit Food Networks

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We ordered some food from Angel Food Ministries last month and I thought it was a good deal. For $30 we got about $60 in groceries. It is a frugal way to buy groceries. With shrewd shopping and good use of coupons you could probably match this savings but it is a lot easier to just order a box of food. It was also convenient. We just went to the pickup spot and they loaded the box of food in our car. It was much faster than grocery shopping.

If you are not familiar with Angel Food Ministries they are a non-profit that distributes low cost food to thousands of people every month. Although they are distributing low cost food they make it clear that this is for people of all incomes. They have several packages of food you can buy but we just got the signature box. The menu changes every month but the foods you get are pretty similar every month. Here is this month’s menu. This wasn’t really a good deal for me when I was single since you can’t choose what goes in the signature box and it always included several foods I don’t eat. Now that I am part of a bigger family though there is always someone who likes everything.

Although I have only tried Angel Food there are several other similar programs. Some of them are:
Prairie Land Food
SHARE Colorado
Food For All

If any of you have tried any of these programs I would like to know what you think of them. Are they a good deal or not?

Lacking the Shopping Gene or Naturally Frugal

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It is pretty easy for me to be frugal because there is very little that I want to buy. There is actually very little I want even when it is free. There just are not many things that I think are worth the money they cost and a lot of things that I don’t think are even worth the hassle of owning even if they are free. This natural frugality does save me money but it does have drawbacks. Obviously, there are some things I need to spend money on whether I think they are worth it or not. Sometimes I find myself not wanting to spend money on things such as health care which could end up costing me a lot more money in the future. In instances like that I have to overcome my natural resistance to spending any money. I have gotten much better at doing that in the last few years but it has been a process and it is still ongoing.

An example is the shopping trip at Target my fiancee and I went on yesterday. It actually wasn’t a shopping trip but registering for wedding gifts but it still seemed like shopping to me. Although my fiancee knew I wasn’t enthused about registering for gifts she thought I would come around once we started the process. It may seem strange to most people but even in a big store like Target there just isn’t much I want even if someone else is buying. I don’t want to ask for anything that I wouldn’t purchase myself, it seems like a waste to me. My fiancee took my lack of interest in the wedding registry process to indicate a lack of interest in the wedding and marriage and was rather upset. The marriage is very important to me but I don’t much care about the wedding and reception. However, since they are important to my fiancee I should have made more of an effort to participate. That was another lesson learned and I have to continue to make sure that my natural frugality doesn’t negatively affect my relationships.

Proof of Low Expenses

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In one of my recent posts at U.S. News several comments expressed doubt that the budget I posted as an example used my real expenses.  A $1000 a month budget seems difficult for some to believe even though a little internet searching would show this is quite possible. Since I post my expenses every month my regular readers know what my expenses are but for the skeptics I am posting some proof of my low expenses.

First off is my high-speed internet for $15 a month.  I got this through Link City and you can see that is their basic rate.

Next is my phone bill of $35 a month. This is the SERO plan from Sprint which includes 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited texts, and unlimited data for $30 a month. You can’t get this deal anymore but I am grandfathered in. There are lots of discussions about SERO, the one at Slick Deals has a lot of information on this cheap phone plan.

My rent of $360 a month seemed to be the item people were most skeptical about. It is cheap rent, even for Kansas City but it isn’t hard to find a place for less than $400 a month. Kansas City apartments for less than $400 a month.

Last I have included a copy of one of my electric bills. It is very cheap because I didn’t have to use much A/C. That just left the fridge, lights, and my laptop which don’t add up to much.
electric bill

Beware of Vampires

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I am talking about vampire power users. These are electronic devices that suck energy – and money from your wallet – even when they are not on. Vampire power is also known as standby power. According to the EPA standby power accounts for 5-10% of the residential power used in the United States. This could be even higher if you have lots of older, less-efficient, electronic devices.

It is pretty easy to determine which devices are using standby power. If the device has a remote than it needs to use standby power to be ready to respond to the remote. Devices that don’t have remotes but are ready to respond at the touch of a button are also using standby power. A microwave is a good example of this type of device. Also if the device has a clock than it is obviously using power. The other main type of device that uses vampire power is a plug-in adapter that converts AC to DC. Cell-phone chargers and laptop chargers are the primary examples of this type of device.

There are several ways to reduce your use of vampire power. You could just unplug your devices whenever you are not using them. For devices that you use frequently or have a hard to reach outlet though that could be a pain. In that case a power strip is handy because it will allow you to plug in several devices and shut power off to all of them with a flip of the switch. If you don’t want to turn off the power to all your devices you can get a power strip with individual switches. If you only need to turn one device on and off you can try this On/Off Adaptor Adapter with * LIGHTED * ON/OFF Switch!

Cutting your use of vampire power is an easy way to reduce your electricity expense and it keeps you from wasting electricity. Why pay for electricity that you aren’t even using? For more information on vampire power and saving money on electricity in general I recommend you check out Michael Bluejay’s saving electricity site.

How Long Will It Take for a Washer and Dryer to Pay for Themselves?

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Our new apartment has washer/dryer connections and we bought a used washer and dryer for $150. Prior to that we were doing about five loads a week at the laundromat. It is pretty easy to figure out how much it cost us to do our laundry at the laundromat. The cost was $1.50 per load to wash and $1.25 per load to dry for a total cost per load of $2.75. Taking that total times 5 we were spending $13.75 a week at the laundromat.

Finding the cost of using our own washer and dryer is a little harder to figure. I found a website that has a laundry costs calculator. Using the calculator I determined that we have a total cost per load of $0.53 or $2.65 a week. Our laundry costs are low because we don’t have to pay water and we only use cold water.

We are saving $11.10 a week by having our own washer and dryer. A little math shows that in 14 weeks our washer and dryer will have paid for themselves. It actually is an even better deal than that because I place a high value on not having to spend several hours each week at the laundromat.

The next step is to be even more frugal and reduce the use of the dryer and the volume of laundry.