Shower in the Dark

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Lately, I have started taking my daily shower in the dark. Actually, the light is off but I leave the door open and there is plenty of light from the bedroom windows to see. My thinking was that this would save a little bit of money. I haven’t done the exact calculation but after looking at a couple sites it looks like leaving the lights on in the bathroom all day would cost less than a dollar. Considering my shower takes 10 or 15 minutes it looks like I’m saving about one penny a day. I will still keep taking my shower in the dark though because I find that is actually very relaxing and there is no reason to waste even that little bit of electricity.

If I were to cut back on the length of my shower I could save more money. I found a web site that estimates the cost of a shower. My only cost for a shower is energy cost since water is included in rent. My cost for a ten minute shower is 32 cents and a ten minute shower is 47 cents. Five extra minutes for 15 cents seems like a good deal to me. Just because I’m not paying for the water doesn’t mean I should waste it though so I’m going to try to keep my showers to ten minutes. I don’t think that will really affect the quality of my shower. And I will look for some better ways to cut back on electrical use.

June Investment Income – $89.47

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My June investment income went down to $89.47  from $96.83 in April, I didn’t  calculate my investment income in May. The decline is because I didn’t add to my investments and the stock market went down  quite a bit.  It wasn’t a good time to own BP.  I should have sold my shares sooner but I didn’t realize just how big of a disaster the oil spill was. I won’t be adding to my investments this month either but my investments have recovered a little so my investment income should go up a little.  This is a little frustrating since I was looking forward to getting over the $100 mark but as soon as I’m able to start adding to my investments I should reach the $100 goal.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, 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. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early.

Online Income Report – June 2010

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For the month of June I made $414.06 in online income. I report my income when I actually receive it not when I earn it so my income total may not reflect my current income trends. The total I report here is my gross income but the total I include in my monthly income is minus some expenses so the totals will not always match. Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Google Adsense     $295.79

Text Links                $37.16

Affiliate Sales         $67.00

Direct Ad Sales      $14.11

My Adsense continues to go down.   Since there is a one month delay in payment I already know my Adsense total for this month is down and it looks like it will be down again next month.  I have done a lot of experimenting with my Adsense to try to increase my Adsense revenue but so far I have just found a bunch of ways to decrease my Adsense revenue.  I will keep trying while also trying to increase my income from sources other than Adsense.

If I receive the payments owed me my affiliate sales total for July will go way up.  I have also already had one  nice direct ad sale for a full year making a nice increase in my direct ad sales total.   I am also talking to a couple of other advertisers, if all the possible deals come through July should be my best month for online income to date.  I’m not counting my chickens yet though and I need to keep working on increasing my income and diversifying the sources of income.

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.