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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 10:33 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Inside a neighborhood newspaper recently I found a coupon section with the headline, "Frugal is hip. It's OK to clip."
Hip? Suddenly I'm hip? For years people debated my sanity, sometimes openly, because I shopped thrift stores, used coupons, made soup stock from chicken bones. Turns out I was just a bit early to a party that others have finally deemed cool enough to attend.
At various times in recent history it has also been hip to wear shoulder pads, cook with oat bran and turn rocks into pets. I don't want frugality to be hip. I want it to last.
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 10:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We have decided not to dye our hair again, and all of our women friends have an opinion about it.
Strong opinions -- ranging from enthusiastic support to this comment from an older friend: "If you go gray, you will be a granola. Still interesting to me -- but invisible to others. Don't do it -- savor your youth!"
That comment nearly stopped us in our tracks, but we're going ahead with this. It's not just the expense -- we color at home once a month for about $8.50, but if you have it done professionally, it's $40, $75 or even more depending on where you live. It's also the time, the handling of harsh chemicals (get that stuff in your eyes and you can go blind), the damage to our hair -- and the suspicion that we're denying the realities of age in a way that's not healthy or helpful.
At some point, this charade has to stop (I'm nearly 55), so why not now? (Plus, it's not like losing a limb. If we don't like what we see, we can always dye it again.)
What's the best way to proceed?
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 05:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
We have little kids. Kids are messy. Our daughter spills milk or juice on almost a nightly basis. Our son, who's a bit older, doesn't make messes as often, but when he does, they tend to be even more disastrous, such as a full jar of salsa knocked off the counter and shattered all over the floor.
For years, our solution to this problem has been a big roll of paper towels. It's simply what we're familiar with and, like many simple and familiar things in life, it's almost an automatic thing to have on hand. We simply have paper towels in the kitchen.
A few weeks ago, though, after we bought another batch of them at Sam's Club, I began to really question that purchase. Sure, we have a lot of messes, but did we really need to be dropping $5 or more a month on paper that we wind up throwing into the landfill? Probably not.
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Posted
Sep 17 2009, 06:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
One of my favorite ways to trim my spending is to find simple substitutes for my regular expenses. If I can trim a few bucks from the cost of household supplies and other routine purchases, over the long run that can add up to a lot of money with virtually no change in my life.
Here are 12 of my favorites (not including my "infamous" homemade laundry detergent).
Vinegar instead of fabric softener. Instead of buying expensive fabric softener, just use half a cup of white vinegar in the softener cup in your washing machine. It accomplishes the same effect as softener -- it makes your clothes really soft -- plus it breaks down the laundry detergent, making the clothes much better for people with sensitive skin or allergies. What about the smell? Once the clothes are dried, you smell nothing at all. You can buy four gallons of vinegar for $6, meaning the cost per load is about 5 cents, while a load's worth of Downy costs about 15 ccents. You save a dime per load and your clothes are less chemical-laden.
Bing: More uses for vinegar
Reusable containers instead of Ziplocs. Ziplocs -- especially the small ones -- usually wind up in the trash after one use. On the other hand, a reusable container can last for years. Because a typical Ziploc costs about 10 cents and you can get a reusable Rubbermaid container for about $1, you break even on the container after about 12 uses (the cost of washing the container in the dishwasher is estimated there) and everything thereafter is pure savings.
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Posted
Sep 16 2009, 05:15 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Alex Wayne at partner blog Wise Bread.
Looking for more money-saving ideas during these tough economic times? Dig that food dehydrator out of storage. This is a frugal living tip that almost everyone can act on. Just by reducing or eliminating food waste, you can save quite a bit of money.
Don't have a dehydrator? These days, you can buy a brand new one for less than the cost of a PlayStation game. Or, visit the flea market or yard sales around the neighborhood. Still can't find one? Try Craigslist. Don't have any money for another kitchen appliance? Alton Brown will show you how to make one.
Bing: Choosing a food dehydrator
Here are nine ways a dehydrator can help you stretch your budget:
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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 12:20 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
The French president has suggested that economic indicators such as gross domestic product take into account some of a nation's more intangible assets: happiness, leisure time, availability of health care.
France looks pretty good by some of those indicators -- great food, beautiful buildings and countryside, a 35-hour work week and five weeks' paid vacation. Alas, using intangible features such as happiness to calculate economic statistics is probably not practical.
But we think Nicolas Sarkozy has a great point when it comes down to measuring our own personal gross domestic product. Are the things that make us happy really how much we own and how much we produce, or do other intangibles matter more? Does having a granite countertop really make people happier?
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Posted
Sep 14 2009, 06:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly.
It's been a long time since I wrote about the general state of my financial affairs. A few readers have written to express concern that I've lost my way. I haven't. If anything, I'm more devoted to this stuff than ever.
But as I wrote earlier this year, I've entered a different stage of money management. During the first two stages of personal finance (debt elimination and establishing a foundation), things happened quickly. They did not seem quick at the time, but they were.
Now I'm in the third stage of personal finance. Progress is steady, but there's not a lot of scenery. Have no fear: I'm still on the road to financial freedom.
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 01:06 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A few weeks ago I went out to gather blackberries. Something told me to leave by the back door rather than the front. I've learned to listen to these impulses, so into the alley I went.
Half a block away, I found the reason why.
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 08:55 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
You never know how much stuff you have until you need to move it 1,500 miles. Just ask my daughter and son-in-law, who are heading to Phoenix, Arizona. Although they sold some items online, staged a yard sale, donated many other belongings to charity thrift shops and gave lots of things to friends, they still couldn't fit everything into a 6x7x8-foot moving cube.
I don't suppose anyone out there could use seven dozen plastic hangers and some ice cube trays?
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Posted
Sep 03 2009, 07:32 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
If you've read The Simple Dollar for long, you've seen tons of lists of money-saving tips, from 100 little steps for saving money and 100 free things to do this weekend to 50 ways to have fun by yourself on the cheap and my frugal vacation guide to Dallas/Fort Worth, just to name a few.
A few days ago, an old friend of mine wrote to me about The Simple Dollar. She'd been reading the archives for a while and had finally caught up with the most recent posts. One of her comments was quite interesting and worth discussing:
The articles I didn't like were when you listed tips for cutting your spending. Most of them are just simply outside the realm of possibility. Most people don't want to do a bunch of extra work or do something really unenjoyable or ruin something fun just to save a few bucks.
Her example actually revolved around a tip she found on the site where I suggested making sandwiches on vacations instead of eating out for every meal. She wrote:
I'm on vacation to have fun. Eating a "sandwich" that consists of some awful lunchmeat jammed between two pieces of dry bread does not equal fun. I just simply won't do it, and most people won't, either.
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