- The Festival of Frugality #278 The Pure Peer Pressure Edition is up. All of your friends are reading it. http://bit.ly/aqkn4K #
- RT @princewally: Happy StarWars Day!: princewally's world http://goo.gl/fb/rLWAA #
- Money Hacks Carnival #114 – Hollywood Edition http://bit.ly/dxU86w (via @nerdwallet) #
- I am the #1 google hit for "charisma weee". Awesome. #
Meal Plans
- 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.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-17
- RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
- @bargainr What weeks do you need a FoF host for? in reply to bargainr #
- Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
- A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
- RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #
Saturday Roundup
First, the shameless self-promotion:
If you want to see the glorious wisdom that is my Twitter feed, follow me on Twitter. I’m @LiveRealNow.
Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email. You get a choice between having all of the posts delivered to your inbox, or just occasional updates and deals. Both options get my Budget Lessons, free of charge, including exclusive access to articles that are not published anywhere else. Woo!
If you prefer to get all of you information and interaction on Facebook, become a fan!
And of course, there is always the wonderful RSS subscription.
The Best Posts of the Week:
- Cover of Monster Hunter International
Give the gift of kidneys so that Larry Correia can murder you for charity. Larry is the author of Monster Hunter International and Monster Hunter: Vendetta. Both books are excellent mind-candy, if you like explosions and monsters that, well, explode. Save a life and get murdered at the same time. Who could ask for more?
A V-8 only insinuates virility; multiple child seats prove it. With a title like this, and multiple car seats in my car, I have to include the post.
And finally, here are some tips to save time with email: Email Sucks.
Finally, a list of the carnivals and blogs I’ve participated in:
Dustin at Engaged Marriage was kind enough to run my guest post: Arguing Fairly with your Spouse.
I was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance with Check Your Bills.
Repair Plans, Appliances, and Rancid Meat…Oh, My! was included in the Carnival of Money Stories.
Selling Your Home: The Real Estate Agent was included in the Festival of Frugality.
If I missed a carnival, please let me know. Thanks to those who have included me!
Saturday Roundup – Welcome to Halloween
- Image via Wikipedia
This weekend marks the beginning of Halloween at Casa del Myhouse. We’ll start setting up our yard display tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll be featured on TV again.
Don’t miss a thing! Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email.
The Best Posts of the Week:
Bill and Ted is coming back for another sequel! I don’t know how they can top Bad Robot Ted or the Grim Reaper playing Battleship, but I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s a summary of the first stage of the new, overpriced, under-understood health care plan.
I keep thinking about signing up for a CSA. Here’s some details on how they work.
Frugal Dad talks about “my money“.
Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in:
Cheap Vacations was included in the Festival of Frugality. Thanks!
If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Cheap Drugs – How I Saved $25 in 3 Minutes
- 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?
