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Meal Plans

Finance

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

When we don’t have a meal plan, food costs more.

Our regular plan is to build a menu for the week and go to the grocery store on Sunday.  This allows planning, instead of scrambling for a a meal after work each night.   It also give us a chance to plan for leftovers so we have something to eat for lunch at work.

We work until about 5 every weekday.   When we don’t have the meal planned, it’s usually chicken nuggets or hamburger helper for dinner.   Not only is that repetitive, but it’s not terribly healthy.  It is, however, convenient.   If we plan for it, we can get the ingredients ready the night before and know what we are doing when we get home, instead of trying to think about it after a long day of work.

If we don’t plan for leftovers, we tend to make the right amount of food for the family.   When this happens, there’s nothing to bring to work the next day, which means I’ll be hungry about lunchtime with nothing I can do about it except buy something. Buying lunch is never cheaper than making it.   I can get a sandwich at Subway for $5, but I could make a sandwich just as tasty and filling for less than half of that, using money that is meant to be used for food.   All during wrestling season, we make 30-inch sandwiches on meet nights for a cost of about $5, feeding ourselves and at least a couple of others who didn’t have time to make their dinner before the 5:30 meet.

No leftovers also means no Free Soup, which is a wonderful low-maintenance meal that leaves everybody full.  Nobody ever gets bored of Free Soup.  (Hint:  Don’t ever put a piece of fish in the Free Soup, or the flavor will take over the entire meal.)

Unhealthy, repetitive food for dinner.  Over-priced, low-to-middle-quality food for lunch.

OR

We plan our meals right and have inexpensive, healthy food that doesn’t get boring for every meal.

It seems to be a no-brainer.   Except, I don’t have lunch today because we didn’t plan our meals and used the last of the leftover hamburger helper for dinner last night.

Update:  This post has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Work at Home Scams

Finance, Life

The idea of working from home is certainly appealing.  You get to set your own hours, sleep in some days, and be there when the kids get home from school.  You can be there when the packages get delivered and let the dog out before it’s too late.  Who doesn’t see the attraction?

Unfortunately, when something is so enticing, there will always be predators looking to take advantage of the dreams of others.  They dangle the “be your own boss” bait and reel in the people who their wishes overrule their judgment.

The ads are hard to resist.  “Make $2800 per month without leaving your home!” or “Stuff envelopes in your home for $1 per envelopes.”  I cases like these, the old saw tends to hold true: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Common work-at-home scams include:

Medical Billing

For only $499.99, you can purchase a “business opportunity”.  A lot of medical bill is actually done on paper so there is very real market for medical billing and processing.  Unfortunately for the respondents to these ads, the vast majority of this market is already taken by large companies with huge marketing budgets.  Finding enough customer to generate enough revenue to recover your investment is almost impossible, but you’ll never see that in an ad.

Envelope Stuffing

You answer an ad in the paper, sending $29.95 for a packet that will instruct you in the fine art of stuffing envelopes for $1 each.  When you get the information, you find out it is a letter instructing you to place an ad in the papers stating “Stuff Envelopes for $1 Each.  $29.95 for Information.”  This forces you to become the scammer, just to recover your costs.  Bad you.

Assembly or Craft Work

This one actually sounds like a business.  You invest in–for example–a sign-making machine for $1500.  The selling company promises to buy a quota  of signs from you each month.  After you buy the equipment and materials you spend countless hours making the product only to find out that either a) the company has disappeared or b) their undefined “Quality Standards” has rejected the work.  Nothing is ever up to standards.

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate opportunities to make money at home.  Bob at Christian Personal Finance recently listed 24 legitimate home-based businesses, including blogging, eBay selling, wedding planning, car mechanic, and mobile oil changes.

Are you exploring any home-based business opportunities?

Cheap Drugs – How I Saved $25 in 3 Minutes

Finance

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Image by cackhanded via Flickr

Today, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of prescriptions.  I always get the generics, because they are less than half the price of the name-brands, while still being chemically identical. That’s not what I’m talking about, although it did save me about $75 today.

When the pharmacist rang up my medications, the total came up to $35.   That just wasn’t right.

Many chain pharmacies have gone to a cheap pricing model for generic drugs.  That usually means $4-6 per monthly prescription.  Cub Foods doesn’t have that.

So I asked for the price match.

Cub Foods matches prices on generics with whatever large pharmacy is nearby.  In this case, they matched Target’s prices, bringing the price from $35 to $10.   Instant $25 savings. I just had to wait for them to look up my prescriptions in their match-book.

Pharmacies with cheap generics:

K-Mart offers a 3 month supply for $15.

Target and Wal-Mart both have a 30-day supply for $4.

Publix offers a 14-day prescription for some antibiotics for free.  That’s insane! It’s also a heckuva way to get people in the door.  “Why don’t you shop for half an hour while I fill your scrip?”

If your pharmacy is anywhere near any of these stores, call and ask if they’ll match the price for generic drugs.

A few tips:

Before you go get your cheap drugs, call ahead and make sure what you need is on the cheap list.   Don’t assume.

You won’t be able to use your insurance to buy the cheap generics.   The overhead in insurance processing would mean that the pharmacies would be operating at a loss for each prescription.  You can’t make that up in volume.    Between our copays and deductibles, it’s far cheaper to just pay the generic price without involving the insurance company.

Don’t be afraid of generics.  It’s not like Nike.  Generics are chemically identical to the name brands. There are two differences: the price and the letter stamped on the side of the pill.

The stores offering cheap drugs are generally bigger stores hoping to use the drugs as a loss leader.    Places like Walgreens or CVS make up to 70% of their profits from the pharmacy.  They can’t stay open treating that as a loss leader.

How do you save money on prescriptions?