frugal

Jul

No Such Thing as a Free Pet

Originally uploaded by qousqous

A friend of mine recently added a new cat to her family. Let’s call her Joan for this little story.

Jack had been a half-grown homeless cat that hung around her neighbourhood all winter looking for handouts from kind hearted souls. Joan and her kids started feeding him on the front porch whenever he came around. They tried to convince Joan’s husband that they should adopt Jack. Clearly he had no place else to go. Her husband protested that they already have 2 adult indoor cats and adding a half grown outdoor cat wasn’t fair to the older cats. He was firm on his decision.

Several weeks later, Joan’s daughter was volunteering at the animal shelter and there was Jack. She called Joan begging to let her adopt him. Being that Jack is an all black cat, how was she sure he was the same cat? He was picked up on her very street, the daughter replied.

So there is begins. The “free” cat from a few weeks before is now a cat in the shelter. Adoption cost $125. But it didn’t end there. The other two cats are declawed and Joan and her husband have just had new carpets installed and purchased new furniture and decided that Jack must be declawed too. Another $300.

The “free” cat has now cost $425 (approximately) before he’s even come through the door. But it hasn’t ended there. He’s a young, frisky half grown cat. He has a lot of energy and needs a lot fuel. Their pet food bill has effectively doubled. The other two cats are not happy with sharing litterbox facilities and now there are two litter boxes which has upped the sanitary costs. I’m sure the price-tag attached to this “free” pet is going to continue to climb over the next dozen years or so.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love pets. I am a pet owner (two cats) myself. What I’m pointing out here is that “free” rarely is. If you’re prepared for the expense involved in pet ownership they can be wonderful members of your family and I highly recommend it but I also want to caution that “free” always comes with a price. In this case the price of adopting the “free” cat at the shelter (which included neutering and microchipping).

Jul

Pulling the Plug – No More Cable TV

By Merlene Paynter | frugal

Forgotten television

Originally uploaded by autowitch

I’ve finally done it. I’ve managed to convince my 13 year old son that we don’t need cable tv.

Over the past year I’ve been trying to reduce spending in a variety of areas and one of the first to get cut was the cable bill. This time last year we had an “all the bells and whistles” type cable package which included $19.95/month to rent a digital receiver that included a pvr. My cable bill was over $150/month and that was just for television!

I rarely watch tv and will often go weeks without ever turning it on. My 18 year old daughter is the same. My son however just loves to have the tv on, at all hours, half the time he’s doing something else (on the computer for example) with the tv providing background noise.

Slowly I’ve started cutting back. First to go was the digital receiver with pvr, saving me $19.95 plus tax each month. A month or two later I cancelled the movie networks saving an additional $17.95 plus tax. Another month or two after that I reduced the digital package from all channels to a few select channels. Then a couple of months ago I reduced the package to basic analog cable. It was the move from basic cable to no cable that was going to be the tough sell.

I tried to convince him that the shows he does enjoy watching can usually be found online (and legally) through the network websites, etc. He didn’t seem convinced. Finally I figured out the right bargaining chip. In exchange for no cable at all (a total saving of $150/month plus taxes over last year) I had to upgrade our internet from standard to ultra which increased my internet bill by $20/month. The ultra high speed he argued would allow him to watch tv episodes online without waiting for downloads.

Now that we’ve cut the cable I’ve decided to eliminate the television sets as well. They tvs we have are all large, heavy and take up a lot of room. The tvs are not making the move to the apartment with us. My daughter is taking them both with her to the townhouse she’s living in for college so she and her friends can use them. Instead I’m picking up new 22 inch LCD monitors for the computers. He can hook up the xbox to the LCD when he wants to use it and it’s a huge space saver to have only LCD monitors rather than monitors plus tv. Win Win!

Jul

Frugal Window Washing

By Merlene Paynter | cleaning, frugal

My family ran a fast food (as in just about everything deep fried) restaurant when I was a kid. Every weekend my job was to wash the big windows all around the restaurant. This is an inexpensive, easy and best of all, environmentally friendly recipe for shining windows:

Add 1/2 cup ammonia or white vinegar to one gallon of water. Wash windows with a sponge or white cotton cloth then wipe dry with crumpled newspaper (the daily newspaper, not newsprint) and your windows will be sparkling clean and streak free.

Jul

Everyone Wants Me to Spend Money

By Merlene Paynter | frugal, moving

Consumerism. Our generation is based on blatant consumerism. Even with terms like recession and economic downturn being bandied about – we’re still spending money hand over fist. Well most of us are. The few of us who are trying to live below our means are often pressured by society, peers, even family members to spend, spend, spend!

My upcoming move has me trying to decide what I will have room to bring along. My kitchen in particular is at issue. I currently have a good sized kitchen. More than enough counter space, lots of cupboards and big roomy drawers that house a large variety of pots, pans, utensils, and small appliances. And if I were to run out of space in the kitchen there’s lots of space in the cold cellar and garage to store more stuff. The apartment has a tiny galley style kitchen with very little counter space or storage. I’m dreading the thought of going through my small appliances and deciding which I can bring with me and which I’ll have to sell or donate. The kitchen is the one room that is giving me the horrors when it comes to “rightsizing” my life.

After lamenting this fact in a brief moment of self-pity the other day a good friend replied that we should cross the border and go shopping at all the outlet malls in western New York next week. Great sales on everything I could want for my kitchen she says. A day later while lamenting the fact that I’ll have so little kitchen storage my sister suggested I come spend a day shopping in Toronto with her. She knows all sorts of great little places to pick up dishes, cookware, crockery, etc. really cheap she says.

I’m a little boggled. Everyone knows that my funds are severely limited these days as I start my business. Everyone knows I’m moving into an apartment that is 1/3 the size of my house and my goal right now is to get rid of things I own not to add to the pile of clutter!

I’ve been having real difficulty keeping myself to the frugal straight and narrow recently, as I’ve mentioned with my bed dilemma (I’ve decided to go the most frugal route… I’m using the antique sleigh bed which means I only have to buy a double mattress now) and now I’m considering buying a new freezer.

This is an improvement though. At one point not too long ago I had decided that it would be best if I sold all of my furniture in the house and just bought all new furniture for the apartment. New everything: new dining room set, new sectional for the livingroom, a wall unit/entertainment centre, new drapes, rugs, lamps, new bedroom sets for both myself and my son, and so on. I’ve managed to talk myself out of most of that but it sure is hard.

Especially when friends, family, peers tell me all about the cool new things they just bought this week.

And they all wonder why I never answer the phone.

Jul

Frugal Dilemma – Should I Buy a New Bed?

By Merlene Paynter | frugal

One of the challenges of moving from a house to an apartment is room size. The master bedroom in my house is large enough to accommodate my king size bed and other furniture. The bedroom I will have at the apartment is much smaller and my king size bed will not fit.

My neighbour has offered to buy the king size bed and I’m happy with this but now I have the question of a new bed. Here are my options:

Buy a new queen size bed frame & mattress set that I really love – price will be around $3000
Buy a new queen size bed frame & mattress set that will do for now but not really 100% my taste from Ikea or similar store – price will be around $1500
Use an antique mahogany sleigh bed I’ve had since I was a child (and is currently not in use) and buying a double size mattress set that will fit it – price will be around $1000 (or less) for mattress set

I could talk myself into going with option #1 pretty easily. I’ve found a unique queen size bed that I really love and I could tell myself it’s an investment piece that will last me many years. I could also tell myself that the money my neighbour is paying for the king size bed will help pay for the bed. Then I could tell myself that, since I’m not really buying any new furnishings I really can afford this one little splurge. And finally I could tell myself that part of my new life without my husband I deserve the luxury of this new bed.

With option #2 things are a bit trickier. I don’t really love any of the beds in this price range. While having a queen sized bed would be nice when compared to the double bed in option #3 at the same time it seems a bigger waste of money to buy a less expensive bed that I don’t really love than to buy the more expensive one in option #1. I think option #2 can safely be eliminated now.

Option #3 is the most frugal option in the long run. It’s both frugal with my money and it’s frugal with my available space. The bed itself is an absolutely gorgeous mahogany sleighbed that’s around 200 years old. It’s a piece of furniture that has been in storage for a few years which really is a shame. The craftsmanship and beauty of it cannot be found in today’s modern furniture. However, it’s only a double size not a queen. The move from a king size bed to a double size bed is going to take some getting used to. And while it’s clearly smaller than a queen, the bed frame itself has a headboard nearly 5 ft tall and a foot board about 3 ft tall which creates a lot of visual clutter for me. My personal taste and style runs to contemporary in style and the heavy ornate feel of this antique is not in keeping with the rest of my furnishings.

Some quick info on sizes:

A Standard King size – 76 inches wide
A Standard Queen size – 60 inches wide
A Standard Double (also called Full) size – 54 inches wide

I’m stuck between options 1 and 3 now. I really don’t know what I should do. The frugal angel on my shoulder is telling me to go with option #3 but the devil shopper on my other shoulder is telling me to splurge just this once on option #1.

Update: I’ve decided to not just talk the frugal talk but to walk the frugal walk this time. I’m going with option #3. I’m going to use the antique sleigh bed which only requires me to purchase a full size mattress. The most frugal (and sensible) option.

You thought I’d cave in and go with option #1, didn’t you? Yeah, me too.

Update #2: This post was featured on edition #133 of the Festival of Frugality. Check it out. Lots of great frugal features there.

Jun

Collection Clutter

By Merlene Paynter | frugal

Teapots

Originally uploaded by pigpogm

Part of the decision to move to a much smaller home – in my case moving from a house I’ve owned for 12 years to a rental apartment – is the understanding that a smaller place means less room for stuff.

You understand this on a logical level but perhaps not on an emotional level until it comes time to start deciding what moves with you and what must be disposed of by selling, donating, etc.

This is particularly hard if you have a collection. I know people with collections of crystal figurines, clocks, lighters, ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, baseball caps…

I’m not a particularly sentimental sort and I’m not big into collections. Ok. I did collect books (several thousand hardcovers) for years. And perhaps I had a brief lapse and collected Beanie Babies a while back but generally… I’ve never been much of a collector.

However…
19 years ago on my honeymoon I had bought a lovely handmade pottery teapot from a local artisan. I’m not a tea drinker and I’m not sure what struck me about the teapot but I had to have it. I parted with $75 for this teapot and was happy to do so. It had pride of place on a shelf in my kitchen.

And then…
My mother got the notion that I wanted to collect teapots. First it was a Christmas gift of a teapot that looked like a hound dog wearing a Scottish style tam. Then on my birthday a teapot shaped like a rooster. Both of these got displayed along side the original art pottery piece in my kitchen.

And then…
My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law got the notion that i was collecting teapots. Over the next several years I was gifted with teapots for Christmas, birthday, Mother’s Day, anniversaries – any gift giving occasion and soon I was overrun with teapots.

And I still don’t like tea.

I began to comment how I didn’t like tea and I was a coffee drinker. No one got the hint. By now the shelves in the kitchen were bowing under the weight of all of these teapots and having run out of room to display them there they’d begun creeping onto the bookshelves and tables in my living room.

Being young and not wishing to appear ungrateful – after all it’s the thought that counts, right? – I continued to silently resent the teapots. By this point I had clowns, more dogs, cats, an elephant, several elaborate teapots that looked like an old fashioned sewing machine, an old potbelly stove, and a chess board. I swear I was having nightmares about teapots forcing me to drink tea after a while. At last count there were over 50 teapots in my teapot collection.

And I still don’t like tea.

I can’t even imagine if I had to deal with all of these pots today. Fortunately, a few years ago I finally worked up the courage to put a halt to the teapots and no longer have any – other than my original artsy teapot.

The problem with a collection is it often overruns your space and becomes a weight on you. When the last teapot was gone I felt a sense of lightness and freedom. I hadn’t realized how much the burden of all of these possessions – the dusting and the space they take up – had become until they were gone.

And I still don’t like tea. I’m addicted to coffee. But please, for the love of all that’s good and right in the world, don’t buy me any more coffee mugs. With my luck it’ll just turn into another collection.

Jun

Rent versus Own

By Merlene Paynter | frugal

For most of my life I’ve been under the impression that owning a home was always the best option financially. Dozens of personal finance books seem to say the same thing and I bought into it. Hook, line and sinker.

My family has spent the last dozen years or so scrimping to pay the mortgage, property tax, insurance, maintenance, utility bills, lawn and landscaping expenses. We bought appliances, lawn mower, hedge trimmer, snow shovels, wheel barrows. We planted annuals, perennials, sod, shrubs, trees and hanging baskets. Lawn fertilizers. Grass seed. Squirrel baffles for the chimney. Bird-proof vent covers. Christmas lights. Animal proof garbage cans. Multifunction sprinklers.

None of which we had to buy when we rented during the first few years while our children were young. Over the past dozen years of home ownership we’ve spent so much money on the “joy” of maintaining a home that I’m almost ill at the thought. All of the vacations we couldn’t afford. All of the investments and opportunities that we had to walk away from because we had every cent tied up in a house. It’s a nice house. I like it a lot but now a part of me resents it too. It’s cost us a lot of money over the years. It’s appreciated considerably in value over the 12 years but the hidden costs offset that considerably.

Once I got my head around the idea that I didn’t have to own a house – a lovely sense of freedom hit me. I can rent a nice apartment, in a nice area for less than half my combined mortgage, tax, and insurance payments each month. My utilities are included in my rent so I don’t have to worry about how a hot summer or a cold winter will affect my bills.

I have the freedom to know that I’m living worry free. If the toilet backs up or the roof leaks I don’t have to worry about it. I just pick up a phone. I don’t have grass to cut, weeds to pull, snow to shovel.

Not only is renting going to be considerably less expensive financially – it’s going to free up a significant amount of my time.

I plan to live on a fairly tight budget but this time it’s by choice not necessity. Now I can invest extra money in mutual funds and other investments. If I held onto the house as an “investment” I’d rarely if ever have any extra money. Usually when I did have a little extra it would when the furnace would die on a cold night or the electrical panel would act wonky and off went that extra money in the pocket of the repairman.

Yes, once I really started thinking about renting vs. owning, I’m shocked I bought into the hype for so long. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks renting makes sense over owning.

A quick breakdown of the costs of renting versus owning for me:
Rent = $768 per month – includes utilities
Own = $1620 per month – includes mortgage payment, insurance, property taxes – does not include monthly utilities which run approximately $200/month

My cost of living is reduced by more than $1000/month – freeing up that money to be invested in high interest savings, stock market, bonds or mutual funds – any of which, if chosen wisely, will result in a higher rate of return than my house would have over the coming years.

And the reduction in stress and worry is really invaluable.

Jun

Welcome Frugal Friends

By Merlene Paynter | frugal

I’m Merlene Paynter. I’m 39 years old. I’m the mother of two teenagers. I’m changing my life.

Frugalous is a combination experiment and journal as I change just about every part of my life. I’ve left my marriage of 19 years. I’m starting my own business. I’m selling my house and moving to an apartment. I’m conquering my fears and learning to drive a car. I’m going to live a debt-free and frugal lifestyle while I save and invest to make some of my dreams come true over the next 5 years.

None of these changes will be easy. There have been tears and will be more to come. There have been doubts and will be again as I move through these changes.

What I do hope is to offer you some practical advice on how to have a frugal but fabulous life. A lot of the debt reduction and frugal websites and books tell you all of the things you should do to save money. A lot of it seems to be recycled and rephrased and repackaged but there’s not a lot of new information. I’m really hoping I don’t fall into the habit of repeating the same old stories. I’m also hoping that if I do you’ll forgive me. I think we all know by now that if we save the $5 on the price of a latte we’ll be rich. That’s how it works, right?

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