Frugality

I haven’t given much to charity in the past but I’ve decided now is a good time to start. I’ll be seeing my aunt soon who let me live with her when I first moved to KC and wouldn’t take any money from me. Her husband died of cancer a few years ago and Cancer Action was very helpful during that time. I’d like to present her with a donation in her husband’s memory to Cancer Action and you can help increase the amount I donate. I’ll donate money for each of the following actions. I’ll donate $1 for every new subscriber here or at Bank Bonuses. I’ll also donate $1 for each account you sign up for on the Make $$$ with TFM page. I’ll also donate $1 if you let me know that you have made a donation. And I’ll donate $5 if you sign up for an account with FNBO Direct. You can do any or all of these actions. The maximum I can afford to donate right now is $200 but if enough people take actions that make me money I’ll increase the donation. I don’t have any way to track new subscribers or account signups so just leave a comment letting me know what actions you’ve taken. Thanks in advance for your help.

*This isn’t off to a very good start and maybe that’s because I wasn’t clear enough in the post. Anyway, I need everyone to leave a comment so I know how much to donate. To provide a little more incentive I’ll donate $1 for every comment left.

Trent at The Simple Dollar recently had a couple posts on Class Warfare and Being Broke and Being Poor. These posts generated a lot of strong reactions and I want to share my own thoughts coming from the perspective of someone at the lower end of the financial spectrum.

The “Class Warfare” post sprang from this quote-“You paid off $17,000 in credit card debt in a little over a year? You’re not a poor person, you’re a rich person. You don’t have financial problems and you can’t relate to my situation. I will have to find another website to read.”- that Trent received from a reader. I can somewhat understand where the reader is coming from. It can be irritating to read on blogs how you should lower your expenses by turning off your cable or cutting out the daily latte. Any sensible person at a lower income doesn’t indulge in those luxuries anyway. Advice to spend less than you earn can seem irrelevant when almost all your earnings go to basic necessities.

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My latest money and health hack involves not buying a parking permit for school this semester. That saves me the $96 cost of the permit. I have classes starting at 8am Tuesday,Thursday, and Friday. If I arrive on campus by 7:30am I should be able to get a parking spot on the street. If not I can park at metered parking for $0.75 an hour. Having to feed a meter should provide me some motivation to get to school early.

Now for the health part of the hack. To be absolutely sure that I can get a parking spot on the street I plan to arrive to school before 7am. I am going to just get out of bed, get dressed and go. I’ll need to take my shower at the fitness center and since I’m already there I’ll get a workout in. This is somewhat like the plan I had earlier this year to go without hot water at home, forcing myself to shower at the fitness center. That plan was derailed by the closing of the locker rooms and showers for remodeling of the fitness center. Since the remodeling is all finished the plan should work this time.

There is one more way this plan should help my money and health. In the past I usually went out for a fast-food lunch when at school. I can’t do that now because I’d be extremely unlikely to be able to find another parking spot on the street when I returned. This means I’ll need to pack my own lunch which will be cheaper and healthier than a fast-food meal.

Using this hack will make it simpler for me to save money and improve my health. I’d love to hear any money and/or exercise hacks you guys have.

I’ve posted a review of A Million Bucks by 30 on my other blog Bank Bonuses. I’m also giving away a copy of the book. You can enter by leaving a comment on this post or the review post. The only stipulations are that you can only enter once and I’ll only ship the book in the U.S to keep my mailing costs down. The deadline for entering is 8am on Friday Aug. 15,2008.

I love movies and watch a lot of them. Here is how I manage to do it on the cheap.

For DVDs I mainly use Redbox which I have posted about before. Now it is an even better deal.  When you sign up for their SMS alert system they will send you a free promo code every Monday. This month they are also sending free promo codes on Wednesday. Since the codes are good for each credit card you have I sometimes rent two movies using different cards and then have one to watch on Monday and one to watch on Tuesday. As long as I remember to return them before 9pm the rentals are free. Luckily, I have a Redbox that is only a three-minute walk away. We also have a $5 Netflix subscription to allow us to watch movies that aren’t available on Redbox.  Our cost per movie for Netflix and Redbox together is well under a dollar and even under 50 cents if we watch more movies than usual.

The other new thing I discovered this year is seeing movies cheaply by taking advantage of store promotions.  I’ve been taking advantage of these all summer and I haven’t had to pay full price -full price means full matinee price,of course- for me and my GF’s movie tickets yet.  An example is on this Slickdeals thread.  If you buy 4 Axe body wash or spray at Walgreen’s you get 2 movie tickets free.  The cost would be a little less than $7 making your movie tickets less than $3.50 each.  And you get to use the product as well.  I wouldn’t normally use Axe but I will to take advantage of this deal. If you can get a deal like this for a product you already use then it is like getting the movie tickets for free. I just go to Slickdeals once a week or so and do a search on the word “movie” to see what promos are available. I shouldn’t have to pay full price for a movie ticket for a long time.