Urban Homesteading

This week’s Thrifty Thursday tip (or tips rather) come from my long-time, good friend Juliana Gingerich.  Juliana has worked in the banking/finance industry for many years and is considered a financial expert.  I asked Juliana to share some of her expertise here on Thrifty Thursday.  While we’ve talked about some of these (like planning meals), Juliana shares some refreshing money saving tips that we can all apply!

Saving Money — Good for Your Health and it Saves you Time Too
We tend to live in reaction to life instead of planning ahead. Being proactive and organized is really the key to saving money.

1) Save on your grocery bill
• Plan your menu for the week ahead and buy only groceries for that week. That way you don’t waste any food-especially produce. Pick a meal to make every second day so that you eat leftovers the following day.
• Create a coupon file that you keep by your purse and have a slot for each of the stores you frequent and a slot for manufacture and miscellaneous coupons.
• Make a food budget and a receipt envelope for food receipts; after each trip to the store write at the bottom of the receipt how much is left for the rest of the week

2) Buy a car you can afford
• While advertisers and our consumer driven culture would probably disagree, I believe buying with cash is the way to go-with the exception of real estate and purchasing a new business. Your assets should work for you or be “income producing” if possible, and although cars can be fun-they are usually the worst “investment” you could make. That being said, we need cars to get from A to B and we need them to be in working condition. Buying a car with cash and saving the car payment you would have used allows you to buy the car you really want later without going in to debt.

3) Create an eating-out budget
• Having a plan and sticking to it- will save you TONS of money! If you don’t believe me, make an envelope labeled “eating out” and put all the receipts from eating-out including all coffee’s and drinks for a whole year—it will be in the THOUSANDS! Instead of wasting money on food that makes you feel crappy anyway -try planning ahead and always carry drinks and snacks for you and your kids (if you have any).

4) Plan out your week in advance
• Group errands together by geographic location so you save on gas.
• Planning ahead always minimizes stress and waste.
• Set out the things you will need for the day the night before.
• If you are married discuss with your spouse what he or she is doing that week so you can run errands for each other and to ensure you are both not going to the same places and not knowing it.

5) Join trading, bartering or discount buying and selling programs
There are thousands of choices, but I listed a few websites below:
• Freecycle http://www.freecycle.org
• Craigslist www.craigslist.com
• eBay www.ebay.com
• Consignment stores http://www.consignmentshops.com/

6) Before you buy something big-stop, think and clean!
• Cleaning our houses, organizing our stuff and de-cluttering reminds us of how much stuff we already have and what a hassle it is to take care of it all. We can buy many things we already have just because we are unorganized and misplaced it.
• Deep clean your house and try to find something to donate or sell; it will remind you of how much stuff you already have and what a responsibility it is to take care of it.

7) Service yourself, your car and your home regularly
• Make a schedule and put it in your daily planner (assuming you have one 🙂 ) to get your car, home and yourself serviced
• Changing your oil is around $30 instead of $3,000 for a new engine
• Getting a physical is a $25 co-pay (if you have insurance) instead of a costly surgery
• Clean out your filters: vacuums, water, heating, fridge, stove etc…it will save you the cost of replacing one of them

Written by Juliana Gingerich-retired Financial Advisor
“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy”

A retired financial advisor, and former vice president of Simsbury bank in Connecticut, Juliana is now a stay at home mom to 19 month old Savannah.  She and her husband, Jason lead the Dynamic Marriage class for their church in Granby, CT as well as help with financial counseling in their ministries.  Additionally, Juliana is on the cusp of starting her own web-based life coaching business.  You can find Juliana on Facebook, or her newly created blog: http://fullcirclejg.wordpress.com/

So today, I’m deviating a little bit from the Bills and Budgets theme I’ve been doing this month in honor of Valentine’s Day!  My post today will be about Cheap Dates!  This can still be filed under the entertainment/eating out budget, I guess (if you have a budget for those!) so maybe it still fits in with the original theme?? 

*note: sorry for the bad quality of the picture.  It’s a page from my scrapbook featuring a picture of Henry and really cute vintage cowboy valentine’s day paper.  🙂

Rick and I got married on February 22nd (SIX years ago!!), and we went and got our marriage licence from the county on Valentine’s Day that year.  That was all we did, all we could afford to do, since all of our money at the time was going to the wedding the next weekend.   Since that time though, we have come up with a few more ways to have a fun date without shelling out a ton of cash, Valentine’s Day or not. 

A fun, inexpensive date can be as close as your local community, recreation or city center.  Our city sponsors concerts all throughout the year (in the summer they are often outdoors) that are usually free or nearly free.  There are also plays and sometimes even a ballet.  The local senior center here in Englewood also shows movies for $1 and sells popcorn for only 25 cents.  Of course, they aren’t showing what’s currently in the theater, but it’s still a night out with your honey! 

Additionally, look for local/community museums.  They are usually free or very low cost as well.  Like the Littleton Historical Museum.  It’s free, and during the summer they have real animals (a pair of oxen!) as well as volunteers in period costume working the farm and blacksmith shop there and answering all kinds of questions to visitors.  And you can bring a picnic lunch! 

For the outdoor inclined (like most of us here in Colorado), you can step outside by checking out the different nature centers in your county and the surrounding counties as well.  There are often guided moonlit hikes, star mapping, snowshoeing/cross country skiing treks, and a lot more.  One center I know of is hosting a nature hike followed by an activity called The Mating Game (based on the 70’s game show The Dating Game) this Saturday!  Lots of these centers have email/snail mail newsletters that they send out regularly so you can keep up to date on their events.  Usually the events are free or have a minimal cost. 

*On a separate note, nature centers have tons of great activities for kiddos during the day.  They are usually broken up by age and a lot of fun!

One way we like to save money when going out to eat is splitting a meal.  Meals at most restaurants are so big, that really, if you share you’ll both still be full.  Especially if you get an appetizer or dessert!  We’ve often split a burger at Red Robin and been totally stuffed! 

We will also go to inexpensive places and find the most secluded corner we can to make it special for the two of us.  We love going to Wahoos Fish Taco.  It’s cheap but tasty (and healthy) and we can make it special. 

Once, my parents and their best friends had a particularly lean February.  For Valentine’s Day the wives took their husbands out for a romantic dinner at…  Taco Bell.  Unbeknown to the guys, the women had brought their own white table cloth, vase with flowers, cloth napkins, the works.  They sent the husbands off to order and quickly set it all up.  The guys returned with tacos in hand to their own romantic dinner, complete with candle sticks and funny stares from the other passing customers and employees.  🙂  Mind you, they had to get a baby sitter for the five (between both families) of us kids.  So they made a night of it.  And it makes a great memory, one which they still laugh about.

My creative cohorts have posted some other Thrifty ideas to share (in the recent past some good cheap/free babysitting ideas and other fun date ideas).  Be sure to check their blogs again this week for more:  Katie Jean, Tracy & Genny.

One last thing… if you are tempted to skip the sitter and make your Valentine’s (or any other night out) a family affair, check out these deals.

KIDS EAT FREE! (or nearly free)
(Note that the below are from a list I acquired last year, and I did not verify if they are still offered – so you should probably call ahead to verify)

Sunday:
• LoDos – $1.99
• Lansdowne Arms – after 4 pm
• La Mesa Mexican Restaurant
• Sunset Grill
• Jose Pepper’s Authentic Mexican Food
• Chartroose Caboose
• Big D’s BBQ (Parker)

Monday:
• Brothers BBQ
• Buffalo Wild Wings – $0.99 – 5-8 pm
• C.B. & Potts
• CiCi’s Pizza
• Chartroose Caboose – after 5pm
• Cinzetti’s – 5-9 pm
• Fuddruckers – $0.99 – 5-9 pm
• Gunther Toody’s
• Rio Grande
• TGI Fridays
• Big D’s BBQ (Parker)
• Bono’s BBQ

Tuesday:
• 3 Margaritas
• Bennigans
• Black Eyed Pea – after 5pm
• Brothers BBQ
• Champps
• Chick-Fil-A
• Cinzetti’s – 5-9 pm
• Denny’s – 4-10pm
• Fazolli’s – $0.99 – 5-8pm
• Fuddruckers – $0.99 – 5-9 pm
• Lone Star Steakhouse
• Perkins
• Pizza Street
• Planet Subs – after 4pm
• Ponderosa Steak House – after 4pm
• Salty Iguana Mexican Restaurant
• Big D’s BBQ (Parker)
• Treo (& ½ price hamburgers)

Wednesday:
• Applebees – $0.99
• Old Chicago
• Rainforest Café – after 5pm
• Zarda BBQ
• Big D’s BBQ (Parker)

Thursday:
• Buffalo Wild Wings
• C.B. & Potts – $1.00
• Big D’s BBQ (Parker)

Saturday:
• Lone Star Steakhouse – 11 – 4pm
• LoDo’s – $1.99

EVERYDAY KIDS EAT FREE:
• IHOP – $0.99 – 3-9pm
• O’Charley’s Restaurant
• Old Spaghetti Factory (with coupon from Kids Pages Magazine)

A couple of useful links:
http://colorado-for-free.com (thanks to Rach for this one)
Littleton Historical Museum
Lookout Mountain Nature Center

This week, in keeping with my Bills and Budgets theme, I wanted to share how we have seriously axed the entertainment area of our budget, without totally sacrificing a fun night! 

When we made the decision for me to quit my job outside of the home, we knew we’d have to cut the budget as much as possible to make it work.  One of the “easiest” areas to sacrifice was entertainment.  No more expensive sushi dinners (except on special occasions), very rare trips to the movie theater.  Even a trip to Blockbuster was just too expensive.   Cable… HAHAHAhahahahaha!  Like we need to spend THAT kind of money to be motivated to sit in front of the TV.

What we did do was rent movies from Red Box.  You know, those red movie kiosks at McDonald’s and other places (they’re popping up everywhere now).  A buck a movie worked just great.  That is, until we got a slew of DVD’s so scratched we couldn’t even watch them.  Not to mention the fact that I had to take the “drive of shame” into the Golden Arches parking lot to rent one. 

I’m sure all of you have at least heard of Netflix.  I had heard of it for a looong time before I gave it a try.  I had even set up an account for my grandpa!  But we never wanted to shell out the dough… I mean, how many movies can you watch?  But one day we realized we were hitting the Red Box for two to four movies a week.  That’s more than $16 a month for a limited selection of possibly scratched, guaranteed grease stained DVD’s!  We looked into Netflix for ourselves.  We have not looked back! 

We signed up for Netflix 1 at-a-time (Unlimited) Plan… for $8.99 a month.  We get about 2 movies a week now.  Any movie we want.  Or TV show, for that matter.  I can even reserve new releases like Seven Pounds or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button before they’ve even left the big screen.  And they have a nice little bonus feature called Watch Instantly.  You can watch TV shows or movies instantly on your computer at no extra charge.

So far we’ve watched Dead Like Me, Weeds, Dexter, and we’re getting ready to start Big Love.  All TV series’ on cable networks like HBO & Showtime.  Also, I’ve finally watched the Office and 30 Rock.  It’s fun watching a show “on demand” without paying On Demand prices.  And we only watch what we like! 

And when Friday rolls around, we run to the mailbox to grab the latest flick.  After Henry goes down for the night, Rick makes some popcorn, and suddenly, it’s date night!  There have been nights where we set up the highchair in the office, and we have “movie night” with Henry at dinner.  We eat our baked squash and watch The Incredibles or Wall-E as a family treat.  It’s a fun, money saving compromise.  🙂

We’re even considering NOT getting the DTV box when the switch happens… radio’s still free, and we can get any TV show we want on Netflix.  It’s ridiculously cheaper than cable, Blockbuster, and even Red Box (especially for movie buffs like us). 

Genny had a great blog a week or two ago about checking out movies at the library… a free movie option.  But if you need a bigger selection on the cheap, sans the fries, check out Netflix’s latest plans.   

See what Genny, Katie Jean, Tracy and Crystal have up their Thrifty sleeves this week!