A penny saved…

Gasoline is expensive. It’s becoming more of a challenge to balance the need to explore with the pricetag from the pumps. Having a small and very fuel-saving car, my pain is pretty minimal compared to others. On the other hand, I remember the first fill up with my little Honda. From completely empty, with the highest grade of fuel, it was $18.

Now, for a complete fill-up on the lowest grade of fuel, it will cost me close to $40. I shudder to think what an SUV will demand now. The bad new is, fuel prices aren’t expected to drop back to those levels ever. So there’s little ’suck it up, buttercup’ in this post.

This weekend will involve a lot of driving for me. It’s going to be expensive and that does change things. It might mean that I’ll eliminate a few extra stops or plan my route more carefully so that I use less gas. I’m used to being footloose and fancy free. Suddenly having to chart a day out on a roadmap goes against my nature.

On the other hand, conserving resources is not a bad thing. I may have been used to splurging in the past because of cost but the higher price is forcing me into awareness.

Okay, we all have spending weaknesses. For some people, it’s techno-gadgets, others it’s cell phone accessories. For me, purses could very well be the number one area. Not just evening purses but bags, satchels, totes - if it’s a bag, I may have interest in it.

I say may because my taste is very specific. And once I’m smitten with a purse, I fall hard. Denying that intense urge to buy is a challenge. And my eclectic taste always seems to gravitate towards items that cost more than I want to spend.

Skelanimals are a sort-of animish design line from the brain of Mitchell … and I love the boldness of the mostly monochromatic designs and they have a purse that I thought would be perfect. While the $55 price isn’t unreasonable, it is more than I budgeted for my latest purse indulgence.

Hence the Che Guevara bag which I found on sale for about $10. It has all the boldness of design that I was looking for and it speaks to my revolutionary heart.

While I know that I’ll long for the Skelanimals bag a little while longer, I’m already using Che and the newness soothes the loss of the purse dream. The one thing I’ve been relearning throughout this frugal process is that things don’t make your life. You don’t become any more interesting or intriguing long term via osmosis from neat stuff.

You, the choices you make and the person you decide to be, that is what’s inherently cool. You also last along longer than a cheapish bag made in China.

By the way, anyone know of any North America manufacturers (who still make stuff here) of cool products? I love to buy local where I can.

I find being stylish AND thrifty a real challenge sometimes. A large portion of what is in thrift shops is not old enough to be classic but is more just old. And worn. While I don’t have to follow every latest trend - in fact, I like cultivating my own sense of style - I also don’t want to look like I’m coming out of left field, fashion-wise.

What is a frugal girl to do? My solution is to keep the vast majority of my wardrobe black or brown. Tops, blouses, pants, skirts - all mostly black or brown. It allows for a lot of flexibility, interchangeability, and patterns get dated really quickly. With needing less separates, I’ve found that I have more left in the budget if I need to get something trendy.

I have found that while I have to constrain my spending, even in thrift stores, if I’m not in love with what I’m wearing, it affects how I feel about myself. It’s a similar sort of ugly feeling that manifests with bad hair. Taking care of you, through exercise, haircuts, clothes or food are some of the small ways we make ourselves feel loved.

Too often, it’s easy to allow the good feelings we get when we shop replace so much needed feelings of love. So we buy more, wanted to recapture those feelings. Does it balance the stress of high credit card balances or not being able to pay essential bills? Bad money habits are like any other bad habit - they take honesty and dedication to break. You need to develop new habits to replace the bad. Maybe nurturing new and positive money habits should be considered another expression of self love.

One thing I keep realizing - yes, I know I said keep - is that a full wallet can be dangerous. It’s not that having money that can lead to reckless spending. It’s not having a plan. Without deciding in advance where and how you’ll spend, the dollars can quickly get out of hand. Literally.

Haven’t you had one of those moments where you took a couple of hundred dollars out of the bank and realized soon after that you were down to $20. Not only that, you really didn’t have an idea of where the money had gone?

That’s usually the point where I start thinking back through the past couple of days, thinking of where I’d been and what I’d bought. After doing the math, I can “find” that money again but in reality it’s gone.

Budgeting is an evil word for many people. Maybe it feels too constraining or maybe it’s because spending money just feels good. Whatever the reason, a plan or outline of spending is so necessary to know what you have and where it’s going.

Without it, your paycheques can just evapourate. Believe me, I know!

With the gas prices climbing at the pumps, my wallet is starting to really feel the squeeze.  Weekdays are never too bad - I take public transport to and from work and try to co-ordinate outings to save on gas.  With a house 160 km away from where I live in the week, weekends tend to empty my gas tank.

I’m lucky in one way.  My car is small and very efficient - it’s a Honda Civic.  Even at current prices, it is always less than $35.00 to fill it up from empty.  If I had a large truck or SUV, I’d probably cry every time I had to fill up.  Even so, with gas prices expected to double over the next few years, I’ll certainly think twice before heading out in the car.

In Europe, drivers have been combating high fuel prices for years.  That’s one reason why work and home tend to be fairly close together.  Many families have no car whatever - imagine that happening in North America!

I read the book, The Wealthy Barber,  many years ago, when I first realized that money didn’t have to be crazy or stressful.  To be honest, while all the ideas made sense to me at the time, I wouldn’t let them sink in.

I’m a recovering perfectionist.  By that I mean that I delayed many things in my life because I felt I needed more (insert item or quality here) before I could start.  I couldn’t start saving 10% of my gross income until I paid off my debts.  I know this won’t be a big surprise but in all that time, I neither saved nor paid off my debts.

Whether your goal is living debt free or frugality, the best time to start any plan is 10 years ago.  The very next best time is today.  It took me a long time to see that delaying a savings plan was contributing to the cycle of stress that had become linked with money.  I was tired of not having enough money to pay my bills, of being late with payments, of worrying whether I would have enough to cover everything.

I slowly began to realize that if I managed to save just $20 a pay, I would have about $500 by the end of the year.   If I continued to do that, I could have a savings account for a rainy day and break my dependence on credit cards and other forms of debt.  So I did just that.  Recently when I was briefly unemployed, this money was much needed buffer until I had a new job.

When you think of savings or frugality, think small at first.  Allow yourself to make tiny changes that have very little impact on your day-to-day life, then kick it up a notch.  The small sacrifices can create huge dividends when time is on your side.

While I am committed to buying less and spending wisely, as I’ve said before, I am tempted.  Constantly.

It is better than it used to be mostly because I’ve learned that spending is a habit more than a lifestyle.  There are a few stores I shop at regularly but most are thrift or what could charitably be called antique stores.  In reality, I don’t think a genuine antique has ever graced their doors.

How do I keep from spending at other, more expensive places?  I just don’t go there.  Literally.  I don’t go to malls or shopping plazas and I avoid housewares stores like the plague.  Ditto to anywhere that has nice purses.  I’m pragmatic about my weaknesses - why place myself in the path of temptation?

If I go to stores with merchandise that sings to me like a Lorelei, one of two things will happen:  I’ll buy something or I’ll make myself miserable wanting to buy something.

Many years ago I successfully quit smoking.  Haven’t touched a ciggie since.  I have been tempted, sorely at times.  I’ve been successful because I know that if I give in, even once, I open up the floodgates and it is game over.  Before I quit smoking, I failed at quitting many more times.

I want to be strong in my frugalness.  I know the best way of not being tempted to buy a new purse is to not see the purse I want to buy.

I love to grocery shop.  Not so much the spending money part of it but I find the order of the rows to be strangely quieting.  Seeing everything so organized is like being dropped into the eye of the hurricane (that my life often feels like).  Lately, in keeping with my frugal policies, I’m reevaluating again what needs to be spent and when.

Sale items are always tempting - after all, who doesn’t want to get a deal?   But if the price is only a light reduction, and it’s something I won’t be using for a while, is it still a good deal?  Is it better to keep that money in my pocket, or use it towards other items rather than spend it on something that will sit for 6 months before being used?

Case in point would be a bulk sized bottled of shampoo.  Personal items like this are always on my sale list.   I have no brand loyalty and try to buy the best I can for the least amount of coin.  As a result, there is always at least one reserve bottle waiting.  If I know I have a bottle or two sitting in the linen closet, is it worthy of my frugal principles to buy another?

While I know this is an item that will definitely be used, I’m started to think that if I have enough of something already, hoarding is a waste of time, money and space.  After all, frugality is as much about managing life as it is about managing money.  And I don’t want my life to become cluttered with frugality. My idea of simple living is to decrease my attachment to having stuff, even stuff of the transitory variety.

So the shampoo stays on the shelf, until I’m closer to actually using it.

I just spent the weekend digging, pulling weeds, removing thistles - getting pretty dirty.  Part of my frugal plan to eventually plant 2 acres worth of gardens focuses heavily on using seeds.  Between collecting, swapping and using seeds, I want to get a large variety of fruits,vegetables, perennials and herbs established.

One of the things I love most about working with seed is that it is a system that self-perpetuates.  By this I mean that once you’ve grown a plant from seed, eventually you cano collect more seeds and start more plants.  The more plants, the more seeds - you can grow a huge volume of plants or choose to swap or sell your seeds for a different variety.

And start growing again.  I’ve used seeds that are 4 or 5 years old and started new and robust little plants within a few weeks.  It’s exciting to be able to help something grow, to nurture it from a tiny seed, full of promise to a hardy seedling.

After digging new rows, I planted 3 different types of melon, cantaloupe, squash, pumpkins, corn, gourds, borage, lavender, coral bells, sunflowers, poppies, sweet William, columbine, cosmos, morning glory, sweet peas and stock.  That’s about half of what I’ll be planting.

Seeds rock my frugal world not only for the plants I can start with them now, but for the commodity they’ll be later.  The seeds I collect can be used to swap or sell with others next year.  I can continue to grow delicious fruits and vegetables, not only for my family to consume, but for sale or trade.  I can grow more plants and herbs to expand my personal gardens or sell to others.
These little seeds are the currency of my frugal future.

I work in a social environment.  Correction, I work in a very social environment.  At least once a week, there is a group lunch occasion, though some co-workers eat our every single day.  It has come to present a bit of a quagmire, balancing the desire to be part of the social experience with the absolute need to watch my spending.

To be honest, I’ve begun to wonder whether there is a balance between these points.  I did go out last week for a lunch to celebrate someone’s last day (heck with this group, there’s a lunch to celebrate a new tie or a cloudy day - celebrations are frequent).  And instead of ordering a meal, I had a cranberry juice.

It felt lame.  There I was, nursing a juice for 2 hours while everyone ate.  It was easier on the pocketbook but still cost me $5.  That was one expensive drink.  I almost felt afterwards that it would have made more sense to skip it, I was so conscious of being the only person without a meal.

And therein lies the rub.   I want to join in, to know people on a social level and have fun.  Unfortunately, I don’t want to have to spend  money to do it.  While I’m not exactly tight, I am very sensitive to what I spend money on.  And I don’t want to blow $30 on lunch.

Is there a happy medium?  After all, I shudder at the thought of being a social recluse but the thought of spending $60/week on lunches makes me shudder.  While I know that being frugal AND happy is about choices, I haven’t found a happy medium yet that makes me happy.