Weekend Wind-Down: Everyday Purchases

It’s finally Friday! I hope you have had a good week and are ready to have a wonderful weekend! I hope it is relaxing for all of you.

Without any more ado, here is the Weekend Wind-Down, Everyday Purchases edition! Each one of these links takes you to one of articles that I found to be the most interesting or helpful to fit with this week’s theme! If you get the chance, please go visit them and enjoy someone else’s writing!

• 1. Weakonomics – The Weakonomist has put a great, fresh perspective on the concept of saving money by cutting down on drinks, like coffee. Not everyone has an undeniable addiction. Some people may only buy something from them once a month. How much does coffee cost people like that? Read this and find out, from a witty, opinionated writer.

• 2. Pets Best – The start of this entry is extraordinarily disheartening for pet owners. 80% of new pets in shelters and pounds were given up because of job loss or other economic reasons. The article has 8 ways to cut back costs of pet care. They are well thought out, and although one of them deals in coupons, which is not my personal goal, they are all worth reading.

• 3. Adobe – This blog entry by Scene7 highlights the part of brand loyalty in the realm that I never touched – the internet. He explains how much easier it for consumers not to have brand loyalty while shopping online. It’s a different perspective (since it is told from the perspective of someone inside a corporation) and really interesting to read.

• 4. 24/7 Mom - Did you know that mosquito bites will stop itching after you put a small dab of toothpaste on the bite? Trisha @ 24/7 Moms does. She also has creative ways to use salt, newspaper, dryer sheets, and random other things that can be lying around the house. You know the 3 R’s. No, not Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic (although as a future teacher those are important), but Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!

Come back tomorrow to see some great craft ideas made from material that I 100% guarantee is in every single person’s home! Have a wonderful weekend!

Fido, Cleo, and Nemo: Licking the Wallet

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the most wonderful pain-in-the-butt of my life.  This is my dog, Cadi Girl.  She is a lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix.  She was found on the side of the road 11 years ago by a veterinary technician.  A friend of the family worked at the animal hospital where she and her brothers and sisters were taken.

My parents took me into the pet hospital to take a look at the “free puppies.”  I saw this little bundle of fur hiding in the back of the kennel (who could easily fit into my shoe at the time) and as they say, the rest is history.

Since I was only 11 at the time, my parents let me have the Beatles mentality and believe that “All You Need is Love” to take care of a pet.  Oh, and I had to walk her and feed her.  I didn’t know at the time, but Cadi had Parvo, a disease that kills over half the puppies that it infects.  My parents had to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars on surgery to save her.

Besides for that extraordinarily large expense, Cadi costs quite a bit of money for being so cute.  I looked at a table recently that tabulated the costs of keep a single cat and dog for a year.  $1200 per dog and $900 per cat.

In this recent economy, Humane Societies and pounds have reported many more animals being dropped off because of their owners being unable to afford them.  If you have a pet like I do, I cannot even imagine how devastating that would be.  So, in the hopes that giving up a beloved pet can be prevented, here are some ideas on saving.

Talk to your vet and find out if there is any discount programs and buy generic medication if possible.  Groom your animal yourself and look online for any deals that could be floating around.  Here is a list of another 21 ideas for saving on pet care.

Finally, how about making some pet toys yourself?  No Crafty Skills required.

• - For Cats: 
• 1. Safety pin some yarn to an old glove!  
• 2. Cut up an old paper towel roll into tiny strips and throw them in the air.

• - For Dogs: 
• 1. Poke some holes in an old milk carton and put some treats or kibble inside (your dog will bat it around for hours if he doesn’t demolish the bottle first).  
• 2. Line up old soda or water bottles and encourage your dog to knock them over like a bowling ball.  Give him a treat when he does!  Eventually fill them with pebbles or sand to make it harder.  Puppy Bowling!
  

I know throughout this post, I’ve mentioned several ways to cut back on pet care… but always remember that the unconditional love given to you by a pet is a reward all its own.

I Could See Trees Wilting as I Walked By...

Have you ever been able to go to one of the nicer restaurants?  I'm talking about the ones with the nice, white linen tablecloths and napkins that come decorated with a wooden ring around them.  The table might even have some nice, clear wine goblets at the table, next to water goblets and 8 sets of silverware.

What was it about the restaurant that made it special?  For me, I can definitely say it's not all that silverware - I find it intimidating.  Also, the glasses normally get taken away because I don't use them all.  The cloth napkins give the table a sense of elegance and sophistication.  It's also slightly relaxing.

So why in the world would you ever use paper towels and napkins at home?  Home is a place to relax.  You deserve something a little more elegant at home.  Also, do you even have enough space to store all those paper products that you buy?  how much do you spend on one-time-only disposable products?

Think about the businesses out there where the public is allowed in.  Think about the casinos, restaurants, bowling centers, schools, gas stations, movie theaters, stores, etc.  Can you picture yourself there?  Ok, now go to the bathrooms.  Do they have paper towels for you to wash your hands?  Or are they the push button (or automatic for fancier places) electric hand dryers?  Most likely, there are electric hand dryers.  Most businesses would have you think it was because they are trying to be green.  What they don't tell you is that it costs $.0015 per dry with the electric dryer and $.03 per dry with paper towels.  It's all economical.

That same concept works at home.  Granted, none of us are going to rewire our bathrooms to install an electric hand dryer, but paper products like those just aren't efficient.  Take this example comparison, using Wal-Mart as the retailer for both the paper and cloth versions.  An 8-pack of dish towels is less than $5.  An 8-pack of Great Value brand paper towels is $2.86.  For less than the cost of 2 8-pack paper towels, you can have towels that can be reused as many times as necessary.

When I was doing all this research, there were a surprising number of people that were arguing against regular towels as being less expensive in the long run.  Laundry fees for those who have to use a laundromat was the biggest argument.  They said it could cost over $4.00 a whack just to wash those towels.

I say this: don't you wash bath towels anyway?  Just throw the other towels in with them.  Heck, maybe you don't do a separate towel load and just throw them in with like colors.  It's not like you have to wash them everyday or after one use, like clothes.  The towels aren't very big.  They can fit in your normal loads.  Trust me.

Finally, there was an article that reported that cotton towels do not save the environment and are actually worse than paper towels.  Cotton towels emit more greenhouse gasses during production and use more water than their paper counterparts.  If you're very concerned with that as a Green-minded person, the solution is simple.  Use linen instead of cotton.  The clean-up is just slightly more complicated, but they don't cost much more.

Alright, I know that with pets, picnics, certain messes, and those friends you would never trust with something as nice as cloth, there are just times you have to use paper napkins and paper towels.  Toilet paper is also something that I would not recommend switching to cloth.  So, I'm definitely not saying you should skip buying them altogether - that just isn't practical.  Just buy them sparingly.

You will save money.  If you absolutely need paper napkins and can't seem to fork out the money for them, you can do what I do.  Keep the extras from your fast-food run.  They always either give you too many or too few.  Even though they might not match, they still do their duty.  There are also ways to reuse and reduce the products you already have!  It just might take a little thinking.

Wal-Mart May Sell For Less, But Do You Buy For Less?

Take a trip with me.  We're walking into Wal-Mart or wherever you do your normal day to day shopping, like Target or the grocery store.  We've been chanting in the car the entire ride about what we needed to buy.  We say that the toothpaste is low; we're almost out of soda; Roommate X used the last paper towel.  We know exactly what we're going to go in and get.  It's going to be a quick stop.

So we're walking in and skip grabbing a cart because we're not going to be in here that long.  We go straight to the personal care section to grab our toothpaste.  Then we remember we're almost out of razors.  We continue this way for a couple minutes - we get something on our mental list and remember something else.  I'll go back and get the cart so you can stay here, it's no big deal.

A little while later, we are at the check-out.  After we have to wait a while, because there are never enough registers open when it is not the holidays, we reach the counter and cascades of purchases flow out of our arms onto the rolling conveyer.  Finally, the cashier starts ringing.  We get more and more anxious as the total climbs higher and higher... we walk out completely depressed and $83 poorer.

If that's not your style, I will bet you that you fit into this second scenario.  We may only spend $20 each time we go shopping like this, but we go every 3 or 4 days.  I found this website where a man, for some unknown reason, kept all his WalMart receipts for almost 7 entire years!  He went to the store every couple days.  After looking at some of his totals, I panic to add them up for a month.  Frightening.

 

The point is, guys, that most people spend spend way too much on what they consider everyday purchases.  These are the things that you need to keep on living and don't really have the option to skip.  For me, it's shampoo.  If I skip one day, my hair turns into a greasy, oily mess.  I always have to have it on hand.

Plus, this is not just a problem that those Just Starting Out face... everyone does.  My mom even has an ongoing joke about it.  She says that if she spends less than $100 at WalMart, the buzzers at the front of the store will go off when she tries to leave to make her go back and buy more.  "Luckily," she's never had to worry about this fear.  She always reaches her quota.

Because of all this, I am making those everyday purchases this first official weekly theme!  There are tips, tricks, ideas, and hidden insight I've found that helps out.  But I don't know everything... if you have a better idea than mine or want to add something to them, please let me know!  I want to keep finding new ways to save money on these things.

So next time we're out making these purchases, let's chant something new.  Instead of repeating our list over and over, let's say:

Must Save Money.

Must Save Money.

Must Save Money.

Must Save Money.

PS - I belong to the second scenario.  I don't spend much at one time, but it seems like I am always going to Target or WalMart.

I Was Only Trying To Help...

A good friend came up to me a couple months ago, telling me his stories of financial woe.  His car is on the verge of a complete breakdown, school fees were eating him alive, one of his roomates lost his job, and the other roommate simply just never puts up enough money to cover both rent and bills.  He had to put all his savings into bills and rent, just so he could have a place to live.

Why did he come to me?  Although I am not quite in the same boat as he, I have been trying to save money for the past couple years, in order to save for my future.  I'm in college studying to be a high school teacher.  I'm living with roommates in an apartment near school.  I am the typical broke college student, and due to my chosen profession, I will continue to be broke for a long time.  I've learned (and am still learning) quite a few tricks of the trade.

So, he came to me to ask for some ways that he might be able to save some money.  He had three must-haves:

1. Use as few coupons as possible (he gets embarrassed sometimes)
2. Quick solutions that do not require him to spend hours upon hours Googling or hunting down specific sales or bargains
3. Not a "Quick Fix".  He wanted some methods that could turn into habits and not something that's only good at one store on one day at one time.

I had a million and half ideas for him!  I started rattling them off the top of my head.  The problem came in when they didn't stop and kept flowing like salmon during spawning season.  I really was only trying to help...

But... he quickly became overwhelmed.  He said I needed to slow down and make him a list or give him one idea at a time.  I ended up doing both.  I made a huge list.  Pages upon pages on a Microsoft Word document.  Then I started giving him one idea at a time, and I grouped them into categories, like "How to Save Money on Electricity."

He loved it!  He's reopened a savings account and passed some of the ideas onto his roommates (in the hopes to get some money back).  So, that brings us to where we are now.  I am writing the "Just Starting Out Blog."  It's for people like you, me, and my friend, who don't have time to clip umpteen coupons or go spelunking on the internet or in newspapers for the biggest sales.  Our time is valuable!  We can't have a technique that works for one day - we need to make being thrifty a habit, and not just something to do when we're short on cash.

Every week, I will have a theme for my posts, like "Coupon-Less Grocery Shopping" or "Saving Some Green: Environmentally Friendly Savings."  I'm going to do the hunting for you!  Come and join me on this journey.  Bookmark it, Follow it, Google it, or do whatever else is easiest.  Visit once a day, once a week, or once a month.  There'll always be something new; you won't be disappointed!