Free audio books and movies
August 17th, 2008 by admin
I like free. I have a card from the New York Public Library since I have an office in the city, as well as my local public library. My local library is a member of a consortium of local libraries and I am allowed to use the libraries in neighboring counties.
My library card is the key to these free books and movies. And there are even more than that available. Many of the libraries have Overdrive. A neighboring county uses NetLibrary audio books so I have many titles from which to choose.
I also download movies from archive.org - these are generally movies out of copyright protection due to age, or movies that have been publically released by the copyright holder. I found some great Basil Rathbone films.
Local libraries also offer some videos on Overdrive and Permissiontv platforms that I can have simply because I am a member of the local consortium.
Be frugal, use what your tax dollars are paying for at your public library.
Pre-tax
August 10th, 2008 by admin
Many people have options with their employers to take pre-tax deductions for things like medical expenses, child care expenses, dependent care expenses, and commuting expenses.
The law allows funds to be removed from your gross pay prior to computing federal income taxes. These funds must be used for specific purposes, and penalties may apply if they are not used in a certain time or for a certain purpose, but all things considered these can save you forty cents on the dollar if you are in a high tax bracket.
You win twice with this, you get the pre tax dollars to spend to pay bills you woul have to pay anyway, and you get to reduce your taxable income. 401(k), §125 cafeteria plans (health insurance), health savings accounts, dependent care spending accounts are some of the well known pre-tax deductions, however you can also deduct commuting expenses if your company participates in such a program.
Check with your HR department to see how you can save.
Potpourri
July 20th, 2008 by admin
This is not about potpourri, although if I were to discuss potpourri it would be a suggestion that you not waste your money on it. Paying good money for long dead plants is just nuts.
So, on with today’s frugal ideas:
Interlibrary loan (ILL), since you are frugal you are already using you local public library. However every library has a limited budget to spend on materials, so the ILL program was developed decades ago. Libraries have a special system through which they borrow the books on your behalf, make them available to you, and then return them to the library from which they originated. Libraries usually do this for free, or for a nominal fee. Talk to your librarian, they have all sorts of money saving things for you - they will even reserve best sellers and new releases for you so you can run into the check out desk, and they will be waiting for you.
Crazy discounts: Some pharmacy chain (CVS) is offering 25 bucks for transferring a prescription to their pharmacy. Last month Walgreens was offering the same deal, and two months before the Publix grocery store was offering the same deal. So if you are on inexpensive meds, or your co-payment (I hate the term co-payment, what does it mean it is a payment, there is no co anything about it, the other portion is because you have paid a premium for your prescription plan, they are not picking up the rest of the cost of your prescription just because they like you.) is low you can make money - OK gift cards- on your drugs.
This weekend I had two gift cards from Publix for twenty-five bucks a pop, and a coupon for five bucks off an order over fifty bucks. I got out of the grocery store with my weeks groceries for eighty three cents after the fifty-five semolians were taken off.
The Grocery Game: I tried the grocery game. The initial trial is a buck so it was well worth it. It has some very good ideas about using coupons and buying things on sale to stock up. It is not remarkably valuable for a single person, but for a family the ten bucks every eight weeks seems quite reasonable.
Telephoning companies for anything: I really don’t like talking to customer service people because it is frequently a waste of time. Either they don’t grasp what I am telling them or they are don’t have the authority to have done what I need done.
Recently I bought something on a store credit card that offered six months with no interest. Now normally I don’t bother with these things, but why not use someone else’s money and keep mine in the bank earning 1.2% (yeah, it would have been easier just to pay for the thing and lose the buck and a half or so in interest, but had I known then what I know now).
This promotion required a $10 minimum payment each month until paid off. If you paid it off before six months were up you paid not interest, if not they calculated the interest from the first day.
So got the bill in the mail every month, and I set up the last payment to be paid electronically 2 days before the 6 month mark. I also set up the prior five payments to be paid on the 21st of the month which was the day before the due date on the first bill.
This was all dandy until they started playing musical due dates. The payments were still made, but one ‘billing period’ had two payments - one on the first day, and one on the last day. That of course caused one ‘billing period’ to be without a payment so they decided to charge me interest from day one.
That didn’t sit too well with me so I called customer service. I talked to several nice people and one actually offered to remit 50% of the accrued interest. I was not happy with that. I declined that offer and wrote to the customer service department. This letter was answered promptly, well not answered in the sense that they actually responded in writing, but responded to in that they removed all the finance charges sense. Perhaps it was because I provided available dates to for the County Court Alternative Dispute Mediation Conferences that would be convenient for me so they could pass them along to their legal staff so that we could coordinate our schedules. I’ll never know but I have the thirty four bucks credited back to my account and now it has a zero balance. I did read and understand the entire agreement and there was no mention of changing the due dates, so they can go pound sand.
Writing rather than calling preserves your rights (read the agreement), shows that you take the problem seriously enough to spend the time to write rather than just a couple of minutes on the phone to hear a ‘no’, and they are generally read and responded to by someone in the same country - often a bid deal.
Throw away society
July 20th, 2008 by admin
We throw a lot of stuff away, and we buy a lot of stuff made to be thrown away. Paper towels, trash bags- why do we spend money on things we just use to convey garbage from one place to another.
I don’t use paper towels frequently anymore. Sure I do buy them, but I buy a case from a restaurant supply store (GFS- Costco, Sams, BJs all have them too) that lasts me more than a year. I use them for draining bacon, blowing my nose, covering food in the microwave - things for which I want something new and clean.
For other things I use cloths. I do recycle some old t-shirts and things like that but I buy most of the cloths I use at the dollar store. I got a dozen cotton cloths for two bucks a few months ago. I use them for kitchen clean ups, cleaning up cat puke, doing the windows, junk that most people use paper towels for.
However I am saving money, and reducing the amount of garbage I create. Sure, I am doing it for the money, but helping keep junk out of landfills is not a bad thing.
Trash bags make little sense to me. Why do people pay six or seven bucks on something they will only throw away. They line garbage cans with them. If you have a garbage can why are you keeping it clean with a plastic liner? Simply rinse it out after you empty it.
Shave some expenses
July 1st, 2008 by admin
Razor blades are really expensive. I have purchased double and triple edged razor blades for quite some time, I have not made it to the quatro or penta-bladed ones nor do I think I will.
A year or so ago I found a safety razor my grandfather used. It takes single blade disposeable blades, the old fashioned safety razor blades - the kind you put in the slot in the back of the medicine cabinet to dispose of (I wondered what those slots were for years).
Now these blades are much cheaper than those souped up plastic multibladed race car models. More importantly, they shave just as well, if not better. 
A box of 10 blades which gives me about 100 shaves is about five bucks. That comes out to a nickel a shave for their fine German craftsmanship.
Contrast that with a ten pack of for about twelve bucks which gives me about half as many shaves as multiple blades clog and become damaged much more easily than a single blade.
Also the safety razor gives me two sharp edges so I can shave with the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ of the razor, switching as the blade dulls.
Gillette now makes a 5 bladed cartridge razor, the Fusion and the replacement blades are twenty five dollars for an eight pack. Good for them if they can sell them, I should buy Gillette stock.
What is quite annoying about the cartridges is that they are not interchangeable among manufacturers. A Trac II will not fit an Atra or some such nonsense. I’ve purchased a package of blades only to find out that it needed a different handle. I think I have all the handles now, but I no longer need them.
Since I switched to my grandfather’s safety razor I decided I would use his shaving soap mug and badger hair shaving brush. Nothing gives a better shave than a nice warm foamy soaping to prepare the beard and then a clean cut with a nice sharp safety razor.
Yes, I do use Burma Shave shaving soap if I can find it in the store, but it is now usually Williams that I can find.
Save some money
Keep your dough
Not made of cash
No money to blow
Burma Shave
Today’s grocery frugality
June 28th, 2008 by admin
I went grocery shopping today, and boy was I surprised at what I would have paid for some things just a year or two ago.
I stopped at the local greengrocer (produce stand, vegetable market) and got some bell peppers for chicken fajitas I am planning on for dinner tonight or tomorrow. They were 89¢ per pound at the produce stand. I also picked up a white onion, and I saw corn four for a dollar so I got four ears of corn as well. I also got some tomatoes
In the local chain grocery the bell peppers were $2.29 per pound. Two and a half times as much as the produce stand. The onions were cheaper at the produce stand as was the corn.
At the grocery I only picked up things I could not get elsewhere. I was going to the butcher shop on the way back from the grocery store so I didn’t get any fresh meat. I did get some hotdogs that were 2 for $5 (or 2.50 each), some store brand cat food, and store brand diet ginger ale at 69¢ per two litre.
I only buy loss leaders at the grocery store for the most part these days. I am not shopping at several different stores to get the best prices, perhaps I should. I may sign up for the grocerygame.com website today as the trial is only a buck.
I have put some bread in the decade old bread maker my dad bought me. I have stopped buying bread at the store as I like mine better and it is much cheaper. I bought flour, yeast, and sugar in bulk and I prepare the dry ingredients in plastic bags. All I have to do is pour the dry ingredients, a cup of warm water and a tablespoon of butter in and press go. Two hours later I have nice fresh (oddly tubular shaped) bread. I’m good for a week on a loaf and it has an english muffin like texture, it toasts very nicely.
So my bread is in, and I am off to church. Be frugal and prosper.
Frugal tools
June 11th, 2008 by admin
I have a friend who just spent fifty bucks on a cork screw because he said he always broke corks with the one he was using.
Now, the new cork screw is nice, heck I think it is even a wine opening system! However it is way overpriced for something that pulls corks out of bottles. It is a rabbit cork screw, apparently this is the latest in the state of the art in wine opening.
Well since wine has been opened in one fashion or another for thousands of years, I really doubt there is anything new. I’ve seen screw type, compressed air type, lever action, some thing you jam down along the cork and attempt to pull the cork out with (which never works) and other types of cork screws.
There is one best type of corkscrew and it is the kind waiters use. I was a waiter in college. I am a very bad waiter and I promise never to subject diners to my service again.
This is the easiest and best corkscrew. A simple tool that is inexpensive, works every time and does not damage the cork.
To use this corkscrew: cut the foil around the cork with the knife blade, remove the foil atop the cork. Screw the screw portion into the cork. This is the important part, it is not a T to be pulled on with brute force, it is a simple machine, well two simple machines, a screw and a lever. Use the funny looking end of the corkscrew (not the knife not the screw the other thing) as a lever against the rim of the bottle. You will see that it just fits.
This is the same principle as to why digging with a long handled shovel is easier than a short handled shovel. You are using the simple machine to reduce the work you would do had you simply tried to pull the cork out.
Another popular corkscrew uses the screw simple machine only (and it could be argued that above you are using the lever only because the screw just anchors the attachment to the cork).
This uses the screw to remove the cork after the tip is anchored in the cork. This too beats the simple screw it in and use brute force to pull it out method.
If I were a teacher this would be an excellent lesson to show the different cork screws and have the students see what simple machines are used. It would also prepare my wine which teaching small children would drive me to drink.
Simple is often better, and always cheaper.
H2 Oh No
June 4th, 2008 by admin
It is simply amazing that people will pay $7.56 a gallon for water. I am sure it is very nice water but it is simply drinking water. Six one litre bottles of Fiji Artesian water for $11.99 at my local grocery store.
Looking at the website for Fiji Water they note that they are carbon negative, not just carbon neutral mind you but carbon negative. How do they do that when the get water from a well, put it in plastic bottles, ship it from Fiji in the South Pacific to the United States (and other countries) and then truck it to a warehouse where it is then distributed to my local store by truck?
They are shipping drinking water over half the globe and they are carbon negative. Amazing you say. Well it is easy being carbon negative even when emitting tons and tons of carbon they simply buy carbon credits. They pay money to someone or some group for credits that allow them to call themselves carbon negative (probably more credits than needed for that nice carbon neutral label) .
I wonder if I can buy some sort of credit that will allow me to be 21 again?
If you want to be frugal avoid the water at 5.61 cents an ounce, have a glass of milk it is cheaper.
Gardening
May 24th, 2008 by admin
Gardening is a great way to be frugal, get some exercise, and have some fun.
While we may not all have huge estates on a stable of hired hands to tend the fields, all of us can garden. I myself a working on a container garden with tomatoes, carrots, basil, bell peppers, green beans, and the occasional geranium (of course I don’t eat geraniums). All of these are grown in containers on my back porch. I am even growing some of the tomatoes upside down in old buckets cat litter came in. I cut a hole in the bottom with a doorknob saw, stuffed in a burlap bag and soil and put a seedling from Burpee in the soil sticking out the bottom (or top at this point as it was not yet hanging from the ceiling). I saw upside down tomato growing devices advertised on television, but I am not about to spend twenty bucks on something I can make out of junk I would have thrown out.
Burpee notes which plants are suitable for container gardening on its site. I am growing bushstake tomatoes and they are looking quite healthy so far, even upside down.
An invaluable resource for gardening, in containers, or on your back forty is your local extension agent. Your county probably has one, or you may look at the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences website, or the National Association of County Agricultural Agents website. If you are not able to find your local agricultural agent there your local librarian will certainly know how to reach them.
I am off to make an insalata Caprece with fresh basil.
Pressure
May 13th, 2008 by admin
For optimal gas mileage make sure your tires are properly inflated. The AAA reports that 85% of the motorists in the USA do not know how to properly check tire pressure.
Learn about tire safety from the Rubber Manufacturers Association. If you are some sort of lefty anti-capitalist and refuse to go to a trade group website you can look at a US Government site (your tax dollars at work).
Oh, and the RMA published a report that says paying extra to have nitrogen used to inflate your tires in regular duty vehicles (not jets, or race cars) may not be worth the money. I say it is a waste of money.
Correct tire pressure improves gas mileage and adds to overall motoring safety.