- Watching Gamers:Dorkness Rising #
- Charisma? Weee! #
- Tweeting a dork movie? I'm a bit of a geek. #
- We just met and the first thing you do, after boinking a stranger in the presence of the king, is to murder a peasant? #
- Every movie needs a PvN interlude. #
- Everything's better with pirates. #
- Waffles? Recognize. #
- The Spatula of Purity shall scramble the eggs of your malfeasance. #
- Checkout clerks licking their fingers to separate bags or count change is gross. #
- Watching Sparkles the Vampire, Part 2: Bella's Moodswing. #twilight #
- @penfed was a waste of money. $20 down the drain to join, wouldn't give a worthwhile limit, so I can't transfer a balance. #
- @JAlanGrey It's pretty lame. The first one was ok. This one didn't improve on the original. in reply to JAlanGrey #
- RT @tferriss: Are you taking snake oil? Beautiful data visualization of scientific evidence for popular supplements: http://ping.fm/pqaDi #
- Don't need more shelves, more storage, more organization. Just need less stuff. #
- @BeatingBroke is hosting the Festival of Frugality #226 http://su.pr/80Osvn #
- RT @tferriss: Cool. RT @cjbruce link directly to a time in a YouTube video by adding #t 2m50s to end of the URL (change the time). #
- RT @tferriss: From learning shorthand to fast mental math – The Mentat Wiki: http://ping.fm/fFbhJ #
- RT @wisebread: How rich are you? Check out this list (It may shock you!!!) http://www.globalrichlist.com/ #
- RT @tferriss: RT @aysegul_c free alternative to RosettS: livemocha.com for classes, forvo.com for pronunc., lang8.com for writing correction #
- Childish isn't an insult. http://su.pr/ABUziY #
- Canceled the Dish tonight. #
Cooking Poor
Frugal cooking can be an intimidating concept. It’s easy to turn a meal into a huge expense, but it’s not that hard to trim your grocery budget without sacrificing variety and flavor. It just takes some planning and a few money-saving techniques. We usually feed our family of five, often with guests, for about $100 per week.
Schedule your meals. Find or make a weekly meal planner. I recommend this or this. Cross out the meals you don’t need to worry about due to your schedule that week. If you won’t be home, you don’t have to cook that meal. Fill in the meals in the remaining slots. Keep your schedule in mind. If you get home from work at 5:30 and have to be somewhere by 6:30, dinner needs to be something quick. Also, make sure you include every side dish you will be serving. Now, look at the recipe for each dish in every meal. Write down everything you need to make all of the food you plan to eat that week. While planning your meals, think about how to use your leftovers. If you cook chicken breasts one day, the leftovers can be chicken nuggets the next.
Take inventory. Take your meal plan and a pen while you look through all of your cabinets and your refrigerator. Why buy what you already have? If you already have steaks in the freezer, don’t waste your money buying more. If you have it, cross it off of your meal plan shopping list. Whatever is left is your shopping list. Review it. Is there anything that can be combined or eliminated? Is there a key ingredient for a sauce that’s missing?
Don’t forget the staples. If flour or sugar is on sale, stock up. Anything you use on a regular basis is a staple, buy it when it’s cheap.
Build a shopping list from your meal plan. When you are in the store, stick to your list. It’s hard, but avoid impulse purchases at all costs. Don’t shop hungry, don’t buy things just because they are on sale, and don’t dawdle. Get what you need and get out.
Avoid pre-processed food. We slice and shred our own cheese. Buying the pre-shredded cheese costs an extra $5 and saves just 5 minutes. Don’t buy pre-sliced apples or anything that will only save a few minutes for several dollars of cost.
Every couple of weeks, I cook a large pot of either beans or rice and keep it in the refrigerator. Almost every meal that we cook gets a cup or two of beans or rice added to it. It doesn’t alter the flavor much, but it adds a few extra servings for pennies. It’s a healthy way to stretch any meal on the cheap.
We have a large bowl in the refrigerator filled with mixed greens. We buy whatever salad-like greens are on sale and prepare the large salad all at once. Most meals start with a salad, which makes it easier to fill up without relying on the protein dish, which is generally the most expensive part of a meal. As a dedicated meat-eater, it took some getting used to, but it’s a good meal–cheap and healthy.
Cook enough for at least 3 meals. That will eliminate 2/3 of the work involved in cooking. Plan ahead to make your meals simple and easy.
Freeze the leftovers in usable sizes. Stock up on semi-disposable meal-sized containers. Freeze some in single-serving sizes for work, and others in family-size servings for last minute meals at home. Preparing for last minute meals keeps you from serving garbage or takeout when life gets in the way of your plans.
Avoid wasting leftovers. Wasted food is wasted money.
When you are done cooking meat, take any drippings or scraps and throw them into the slow-cooker along with any vegetable scraps laying around. Cook it overnight, then strain it into an ice cube tray. You now have stock/broth ready to be added to any recipe.
Plan for serial meals. Chicken breast leftover from today’s meal can become chicken nuggets tomorrow, to be shredded into chicken salad the next day.
When there isn’t enough left for a full serving, we put the remains in a resealable bag in the freezer. When we accumulate enough to fill our slow-cooker, we dump in all of the bags with a couple cups of water. I look through the refrigerator for any leftovers that have been overlooked that week or any vegetables getting close to being too old. It all gets cut up and added to the cooker to cook on low all day. I rarely add seasoning because everything going in the pot tastes good. We never get the same meal twice and our “free soup” is never bland.
That’s how we cook cheap, without sacrificing too much time. How do you save money cooking?
This post is a blast from the past. Originally posted here in January 2010.
Carnival of Personal Finance #270, the Elvis is Dead Edition
- Image via Wikipedia
Today is the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis, so I’m bringing you the “Elvis is Dead” edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance.
What can the King teach us about finance? The immediate lesson is, of course, to not let success destroy you or your life. Always remember what is important.
“Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.” -Elvis Presley
Before we get into the carnival, please take a moment to subscribe, either by rss or by email. If you are on twitter, please follow me at @LiveRealNow.
Editor’s Picks
“When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times…I learned very early in life that: ‘Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain’t got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend – without a song.’ So I keep singing a song. Goodnight. Thank you.”
-From his acceptance speech for the 1970 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation Award. Given at a ceremony on January 16, 1971
Craig Ford from Money Help For Christians presents How to Buy Cars With Cash. This is great advice. My car will be paid off in the next few months and I will be doing exactly this.
FMF from Free Money Finance presents Are Tattoos at Work Really That Acceptable? Do tattoos limit your career? I reference this graphic when thinking about a tattoo.
Pop from Pop Economics presents Getting a raise: The negotiation. It’s always best to raise your top line as high as possible. Bringing in more money is far more effective that simply reducing your expenses.
[Read more…] about Carnival of Personal Finance #270, the Elvis is Dead Edition
How to Save
Saving is hard. For years, we would either not save at all, or we’d save a bit, then rush to spend it. That didn’t get us very far. Years of pretending to save like this left us with nothing in reserve. Finally, we’ve figured out the strategy to save money.
First and foremost, make more than you spend. This holds true at any level of income. If you don’t make much money, then you need to not spend much, either. Sometimes, this isn’t possible under current circumstances. In those cases, you need to either increase your income or decrease your expenses. Cut the luxuries and pick up a side hustle. The wider the gap between your bottom line and your top line, the easier it is to save.
Next, make a budget and stick to it. There is no better way to track both your income and your expenses. I’ve discussed budgets before, so I won’t address that in detail today. Short version: Make a budget. Use any software you like. Use paper if you want. Make it and use it.
Pay yourself first. The first expense listed on your budget should be you. Save first. If you can’t afford to save, you can’t afford some of the other items in your budget. Cut the cable or take the bus, but save your money. Without an emergency fund, your budget is just a empty dream when something unexpected comes up. And something unexpected always comes up.
Automate that payment to yourself. Don’t leave yourself any excuse not to make that payment. Set up an automated transfer to another bank and forget about it. Schedule the transfer to happen on payday, every payday.
Now comes the hard part: Forget about the money. Don’t check your balance. Don’t think about it in any way. Just ignore it. For the first month or two, this will be difficult. After that, you’ll forget it exists for a few months and come back amazed at how much you’ve saved.
If you don’t forget about it, and you decide to dip into the account, you are undoing everything you’ve worked so hard to save. Do yourself a favor and leave the money alone.
The Zombie Guide to Saving
Brains!
Nobody has ever accused a zombie of being smart. The are, after all, dead and rotting. Their primary means of education themselves is eating the brains of the living, which is hardly an efficient learning style. Besides, in a strictly Darwinian sense, their victims are among the least qualified to teach useful skills.
Zombies smell. They are little more than flesh-eating monsters. They are lousy in the sack. Yet, for all their flaws, have you ever heard of a zombie in debt or worried about financing retirement? They are obviously doing something right.
What can you learn from a zombie? That depends on the type of zombie. Not all of the life-challenged were created equal.
There are 3 main types of zombies:
1. Slow shamblers are best recognized by their lurching gait and unintelligible grunting, similar to a frat party at 3AM. They are rarely fresh specimens. Arguably the the scariest of all zeds, due to the sheer inevitability of their assault, they do always get where they are going, even if it takes a while. Trapped in a pit or a pool, they will keep trying to reach their goal. A slow shambler, were he able to effectively communicate beyond the basic “Hey, can I eat your brain?” would tell you to approach your goals like the famous tortoise: slowly. Set aside an affordable amount in savings every week, no matter what. Even if your are stuck saving just $10 each month, you will eventually get your sweet, sweet brains.
2. Voodoo zombies are the still-living, yet mindless minions on a voodoo priest. These unlucky non-corpses crossed the wrong people–usually by stealing or not repaying their debts–and ended up cursed for it. They are forced to do the bidding of their masters until such time as their debt has been repaid, if ever. Their warning is to always pay your debts and do not steal. Honest, ethical behavior is the best way to avoid this fate.
3. Runners are almost always “fresh” to the game. As they decompose, they slowly transform into slow shamblers. These fellas can often pass for the living…from a distance. By the time you get close enough to identify them as monsters, your brains are on the menu. They are capable of sprinting for short distances and, on occasion, have even been seen to run up vertical walls. To properly categorize the runners, we have to break them down into 2 sub-groups. The first sub-group is the envy of all zombies still capable of envy. They have used their skills to trap enough prey(that’s us, folks!) that they will feel no hunger for the foreseeable future. They are secure. They are the successful runners. The other sub-group tries to emulate the first, but lack both planning and follow-through. While the first group builds momentum to secure their future, the second group tends to use that momentum to smack face-first into the wall, confused at where their lunch went. Constantly charging from one thing to the next, they never manage to sink a claw into their goals. To avoid falling into the second group, you’ll have to settle on a strategy and pursue it with all the single-minded, decomposing determination you can muster.
You know what they say: “Great minds taste alike.” What kind of financial zombie are you?
Why Going Green is Good for the Pocket
Going green is about making changes, some of them very small, to lessen the impact you have on the planet and its precious resources. But if it can be both good for the planet and good for your pocket then who would seriously not want to ‘go green’?
Saving money is at the top of most people’s minds at the moment, so check out your credit card at Moneysupermarket to ensure you are getting the best deal and see how going green can affect the rest of your finances.
Most of the things we can do to reduce our consumption of both energy and materials are automatically going to save us money.
Some of the more obvious steps to make your home more energy efficient can result in substantial savings, such as fitting good insulation, having double glazing and putting up thick curtains to keep the heat inside.
These simple tips are not all that can be done in the home, as by starting to think differently about how you use the different areas of your home, you’ll find out how zonal living can save you even more.
Zonal living is about only using energy as you need it in the home. Heating can be varied from room to room, ensuring that the temperatures in each room are adjusted according to when and how the room is used.
Keeping bedrooms cool at night, for example, not only saves you money, but also promotes better sleep. You can achieve zonal heating by fitting thermostatic valves to your radiators and using electrical timers to switch heaters on and off at appropriate times.
Most of us now have more electrical appliances in our homes than we actually use and each of them can be steadily consuming energy even when not in use.
The worst culprits are probably the TV and DVD player, because it’s so convenient to use the remote to switch them off. You might think you’re turning them off, but all that’s happening is you’re putting them on standby. Spend a few seconds actually switching off appliances at the plug and you’ll be amazed at the savings over the course of a year.
The same applies to cell phones. Nowadays, most of them recharge in a couple of hours or less. If you leave them to charge overnight, you’re simply wasting energy and money.
Could you cut down on your usage of the tumble dryer? Nothing in the white goods department uses up quite so much energy as these noisy machines so, if you can, buy a washing line and rediscover the joys of laundry dried by the breeze and sun; your bank account will reap the benefits.
Fuel costs only ever seem to go up, so adopting a more efficient style of driving will help your pocket as well as the planet. The Drive 55 campaign claims that keeping within the speed limit of 55 mph can cut as much as 50% off your fuel bill.
When you move away from a junction or lights, you can use up large amounts of gas, so learning how to use your gears smoothly is another way of saving cash.
None of these steps require great changes but taking a little time and putting a little thought into your energy consumption will help save you money and help conserve energy and resources.
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