Category Archives: tightwad

Day 27: Only shop the perimeter of the supermarket.

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This is a classic frugal tip that is so good, it bears repeating. Supermarkets aren’t a good place to buy toiletries and many household consumables (diapers, paper plates, deodorant, etc.), so only shop the perimeter.

Most grocery stores are laid out in a “box” pattern with vegetables on one side, dairy and meats along another (usually the back due to theft concerns) and breads on the other side. Anything in the middle falls into one category or another:

1. Make it instead
2. Don’t buy it at all
3. Buy it elsewhere.

The one area that I stray is with pasta. One store we go to keeps it with bulks in the back—another with ethnic foods in the middle. I’ll run around and get some pasta—even though it’s easy to make at home.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 23: IMEX

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In my area, (Seattle metro area) our county offers a catalog called the IMEX—or Industrial Materials Exchange. This catalog shows all kinds of items that might otherwise be landfilled. Extra paint, tile bits, buckets and containers, etc. I’ve used the IMEX to find items before—but you can also use it to offer items, much like freecycle on a large scale. With IMEX however, there are often nominal fees for the items.

http://www.govlink.org/hazwaste/business/imex/

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 22: Cat Litter

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Sorry for you non-cat owners. Today won’t be especially relevant. I’ve got to tell the cat owners out there about something I’m a big fan of. It’s a product called “Worlds Best Cat Litter” (yes, I just blogged my cat litter). The stuff is made of recycled corn cobs diced into tiny bits. It’s very low-dust and is super absorbent.

The litter is flushable, but we toss it in the garbage as we have a juvenile litter-changer here who gets a little overzealous with the flushing.

Arthur, our cat, who's worth every cent spent on litter. Because this litter is so absorbent, it clumps super-fast and stays odor free. We empty the clumps out of our cat’s box every day, and only change the crumbs in the pan every other month (with no odor!). When you see the litter, it’ll give you sticker shock. We buy a big bag for about $25, but it’s six months or more of litter. Since it’s not clay, tracked bits don’t scratch floors or furniture. It’s low on dust, there’s no odor at all and it’s environmentally friendly.

I realize it’s very strange to blog cat litter as a “frugal family find” but crunching the numbers on consumables is a great way to save money around your house. (Not having pets is also a great way to save money, but personally, I think our cat is worth it.

Note: this is not a sponsored post and I have received no compensation for endorsing this product—it’s the real deal).

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 21: Dumpster Dive at Home.

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Yeah, I really said that. Take a good hard look at everything you throw out for a week. Why are you throwing it away? It didn’t come into your house for free—have you used it to the full extent of its life? Can you re-use something one more time?

Every day our daughter brings in the paper, salvages the bag it’s delivered in and uses that to clean out the cat litter. We hang on to the rubber band from the newspaper for craft projects. It seems that practically everything we throw out could have been used for another purpose.

I always thought it was a tacky cheapskate thing to do, to keep yogurt cups and cottage cheese containers and re-use them for leftovers, but now that I have kids loosing expensive store-bought containers at school or under the seat of the car, etc., I’m just as happy to loose a yogurt cup. Call me tacky, at least I’m not angry about the missing plastic-ware.

I compost almost everything I can. Junk mail, bank statements (yeah, steal that ID thieves!) coffee grounds, vacuum dust and lint from the dryer. There’s something satisfying about watching the MasterCard statement being eaten by worms and then growing mint for my mojitos.

We throw out one kitchen-sized bag of garbage per week, and mostly that’s cat litter and leftovers past their prime. A substantial decrease from where we were about three years ago.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 20: Reduce Your Expectations

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Going from a lifestyle of excessive consumption to a frugal lifestyle is a shock.  Mostly because it’s very empty looking.  Right now, my entertainment center is empty.  I’m writing in the living room, and seeing a blank space. Why? Well, the TV is in the bedroom for the night.  The A/C is on in there and my husband wanted to watch a movie.  Rather than having two TVs, we simply pick up the one and move it to the other room.

Eliminating the expectation of rooms filled up with “stuff” can be percieved as weird, but it’s sure a lot easier to dust. 

Image credit: Freedigitalphotos.netOne area you may notice this especially is in the area of gift giving. Scaling back your gift-giving can be especially challenging.  My best advice is to go in little increments rather than all in one.

A few years ago I hosted a bridal shower for a dear friend, and when I sent the invitations I sent an index card with instructions for guests to bring it back with a favorite heirloom family recipe.   I compiled all of the index cards in a discounted wedding photo-album from a craft store as a “brides first cookbook.”  Now when she goes to make her husband some cookies, she can use his mom’s favorite recipe and when she craves comfort food she can make her dad’s mac and cheese.   We filled in the album later with snapshots taken at her bridal shower and additional recipes from loved ones that she requested for her collection.  Sometimes buying more/bigger stuff doesn’t make for “better” stuff.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 18: Co-op

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I discovered co-ops accidentally. In my very, very broke college days, I made it through by house-sitting for professors as they went on leave to teach abroad. For 18 months I lived rent-free caring for houses in much nicer neighborhoods than the student housing. One of these places happened to be across the street from a food co-op.

Image Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Image Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Having just a laundry basket and a bicycle to my name, this appeared to be my only realistic option to for grocery shopping. There was a positively crushing membership fee of $35 annually, which I didn’t pay because I didn’t have that much cash. Instead I opted to accept the prices a few cents higher on each purchase.

Generally, my purchases there were limited to a tiny amount of chicken every other week, corn tortillas, cheddar cheese, jalapenos, potatoes and onions.

The house I was caring for had a good tomato garden and some herbs. From this I could make tasty quesadillas and salsa for next-to-nothing and rice for breakfast and lunch. (My food budget was $50 a month in the summer of 2000).

Co-ops pool resources and buy in bulk sharing the savings with the membership. There are some famous co-ops that you might not even realize exist (REI is a co-op).

Now I rely on more informal co-ops. A friend organizes a co-op with the mail order food company Azure. I haven’t participated yet but I’m working on my list and price comparison sheets to determine my order for winter. I could buy 10 pounds of oats and use them, but I think the bag size is 25. I could use ¼ pound of cinnamon, but not 1 pound, so it’s a little hard to develop a list.

This friend has several people that put in the orders together and then the food is all delivered by tractor-trailer to a central location—where everyone comes to pick up their orders. Some things will definitely be going on this list—like peanut butter, flour, some spices, but other things are going to need more careful consideration (how much butter do I want to freeze in the name of a good deal?). A co-op can be formed in an organized way via a membership club, but even splitting a jumbo box of diapers from Costco with a pal can save you some serious dollars down the road.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 17: Glean it!

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Following on yesterday’s story of the crab apples, don’t forget about gleaning. Gleaning is the process of collecting something that isn’t going to be used–and putting it to use.

Sometimes you can help a food bank by picking up donations and delivering them to their distrubition  site—they may send home surplus items with you (yes, food banks do get TOO MUCH of some items). Of course I don’t recommend that you divert any resources from the needy, but its frequently true that they are overwhelmed with cerian items at some times and are forced to throw them out.

photo credit: freedigitalphotos.netYou can offer to glean a neighbor’s neglected pear tree in exchange for a few jars of pears, or employ Web sites like Freecycle or Craigs’ List to look for fruit tree/garden owners with too much produce to manage. (If you live in the town I grew up in, it’s likely that this time of year, mysterious baskets of zuchinni have already appeared on your doorstep this summer).

I wrote a piece for Seattle’s Child Magazine while back about berry picking with kids. I was surprised to learn that most berry-picking isn’t more cost-effective than buying supermarket berries (color me disappointed!) but I did learn a valuable gleaning tip:

In my county, wild blackberries are prolific and not sprayed! (Call your city or county’s department of natural resources for details on if harvesting these is permitted and if they are sprayed or not).

Here blackberries are considered a weed and are managed by pulling or burning, but not during the summer. They’re not sprayed and grow heavily at the edges and borders of many county parks. I verified with my county that it is permissible to pick the berries provided that I am on public lands or picking the berries with permission on private lands.

Every summer we take our beach buckets out several times a week and bring berries back. We wash them and lay them on baking sheets to freeze then scoop the frozen berries into zipper bags. They freeze well and make pies, smoothies, cobblers and ice-cream-toppings galore.  We’ve picked more than five pounds of blackberries already this summer to freeze for winter.  (Some have found their way into pies and blintzes already though).

Ambitious canners can also make jelly out of this yummy gleaned fruit.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 16: Freecycle and Pay it Forward

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I needed some really big containers for laundry-detergent storage and found someone giving some away via Freecycle (they previously held cola syrup for a manufacturing plant).

I was looking for some old empty spools and found a costume designer who was tossing a drawer full.

With three brown-baggers in the family, we’re always short on reusable plastic containers—but found a family in the midst of a move giving away an entire box of them.

Likewise, sometimes someone has fallen on hard times and the food bank doesn’t provide washing detergent—I’ll fill up someone’s detergent container with my home-made brew.

I’ll pass on formula and diaper coupons I don’t need, and when a piece of furniture or tricycle is outgrown, it gets “freecycled” on to another family who could use it.

This is a great way to find (or be rid of) children’s clothing, movies and books.

Etiquette says that you don’t ask for something unless it’s really needed (i.e “wanted: new laptop with DVD player” won’t fly) and that if you’ve received something, pay it forward by sending something back.

You can find a freecycle group local to your area using YahooGroups. I suggest “lurking” for a little while to get the idea of how the system works. This is also a great way to find appliances—as when someone upgrades they often post an ad something to the effect of “come get it if you want it.” Similarly, it can be a good way for canners to glean from otherwise untended fruit trees or gardens. Just today I saw a post for crab apples. “You pick.”

Better a crab apple than a road apple anytime.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 14: Source a new vendor

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If your household was a manufacturing plant, you’d be “sourcing” to the nth degree. This means finding the best vendor for your supplies, but most especially for your keystone supplies.

In my businesses, I need toner and paper—but most especially, legal paper, which varies wildly from $5 a ream to $12 a ream for the same quality. It all depends on the vendor. Seeking out that $5 vendor and developing a plan to find a better deal and a backup vendor is key to frugal success, not to mention, profitability.

A quick-and-easy way to do this with your household economy in mind, is to take a look at your grocery receipts over a couple of weeks—and circle the ten most expensive items on each.

Maybe they’re the same? (At my house the most expensive items were consistently beer, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and pull-ups).

Beer is a bit of a sacred cow. I’m afraid my dear husband isn’t about to let me tinker with more frugal solutions to that at this time. (honey, home brewing is trendy!), The others were easy targets. I switched from our favorite laundry detergent which was about $15/mo to a home-made version at just over $2 a year. Dishwasher detergent I now cut 50-50 with washing soda, and the pull-ups are getting replaced with cloth diapers. Talk about savings—between those changes I’m saving about $32 a month.

Consider other “vendors” to your household. Where do you spend money that you could re-source? Here’s a few starting places:
1. Food
2. Cell phone provider
3. Cable TV provider
4. Pharmacy
5. Medical insurance
6. Auto Insurance
7. Home Insurance
8. Banking: Debt and Investments—are you getting the best bang for your buck?

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad GazetteThe Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.

Day 13: Make Gifts

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Day 13: Make gifts

We’ve taken to making gifts lately. Not simply because it’s frugal but also because we can put some serious effort into what we’re giving our loved ones. Last Christmas we gave our loved ones holiday-themed spa baskets with “Candy cane” and “Christmas Tree” scented bath salts and a decadent home-made peppermint hot-chocolate lip balm.

Canned goods also make a wonderful gift (my aunt gave me two jars of an heirloom family relish a few Christmases ago—sentimental, yummy and useful all at once).

Consider what you have available to you—I scan my kids’ classroom art projects to make calendars for grandparents. I upload the pictures to a service like Shutterfly and can inset a photo of “the artist” and for twelve months a grandparent can treasure the images of the artwork without worrying about the damaging side effects of stray glitter, pasta or the goldfish crackers involved in creating the art. These are especially handy for out-of-town relatives, as the calendars mail easily.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.