frugal underground

If you’re in the US and want to go to Europe, you should really check out the new Chase British Airways credit card. A quick pros and cons list…

Pros

• You can get a free flight to Europe just for signing up and using the card once
• You can get another free flight by spending $2000 (see the note below to learn an easy way to do that)
• These rewards are double what most cards offer

Cons

• Requires a little more effort than just buying a flight
• The card has a $75 annual fee, so you had better make sure you get your benefits
• You’ll still have to pay the taxes and fees that come with any airline tickets

Note: one trick that many credit card gamers use to meet spending requirements is clever and not difficult…

1. Use the credit card to meet the requirement by buying $1 coins from the US Mint (they’re sold at face value and with minimal shipping charges)
2. Deposit the coins into your local bank
3. Pay the credit card from your bank account

Popularity: 3% [?]

It’s almost that time of the year again, folks! If there’s ever a good excuse and a reasonable time to go overboard on your budget, it would be during the holiday season. After all, Christmas is all about family dinners, get-togethers, gift-giving, and all other activities that somehow, whether we like it or not, call for us to shell out some amount.

But wait just yet. Holidays or no holidays, it’s always a perfect time to save or cut back on expenses too. So before you go on a spending frenzy and rack up additional credit card debt, take a step back and see where you can buck tradition without skimping on the things that really matter. Here are some tips that might come in handy:

Trimming the tree (or not)

True, having decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas may be one of the highlights of these occasions (especially for the kids) but it doesn’t mean that you’d need to order 7 lbs worth of tinsel for your tree. Remember that the decors will only be there for a few days or few weeks at most, so putting up a lot will be a big waste of time, money and effort. Instead:

• Buy your decorations from dollar or thrift stores.
• Go walking through the park or around the neighborhood for pine cone varieties rather than buying them.
• Use LED lights to save on energy. You may have to spend more upfront for this type than traditional lights but you get to save up to 90% on energy costs.
• Make homemade decors. I usually bake a batch of gingerbread cookies (or any of my kids’ favorite characters in gingerbread dough) and have the little ones decorate them to hang up on the tree.
• After the holidays, look for marked down decorations (some can get as low as 75% off!) for use next year.

‘Tis the season for giving

While being an age-old tradition of Christmas, giving gifts is again, more of a kids’ affair. Now I’m not saying that friends and family wouldn’t appreciate getting a present or two, but as cliché as this may sound, there’s really truth to the saying that it’s the thought that counts. That said, you could save on gifts this Christmas by:

• Narrowing down your gift list. Save for immediate family and really close friends, we rarely give out gifts to anyone else on Christmas. However, I do send out Christmas cards to far-off friends and relatives, and prepare some baked sweets my co-workers can share.
• Sharing a gift with someone else for someone close to you both. For instance, siblings can split the cost of gifts for dad and mom, or for nephews and nieces.
• Exchanging, rather than simply giving gifts. Alternately, you can also broach this idea to your family or group of friends. And I mean the exchange where you take out a name from a hat and just give to that one person. That way, all of you save a ton on gifts yet everyone, and not just the kids, still gets to open a present. (Admit it, we never lose the thrill of such moments!)
• Offering your services or expertise as a holiday present. Mind your best friend’s toddlers for a day, offer to lead in the games and entertainment at the local orphanage holiday party, fix that computer your brother hasn’t gotten to bring to a repair shop yet, or help out your elderly neighbor on his own holiday errands. Whatever skills or talents you have, I’m pretty sure they can be of good use to the people around you.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Hanukkah are long-standing religious celebrations we would never think of giving up just because times are hard these days. But if we can take out some of the commercial value attached to them, we’ll find that these holidays can be enjoyed just as much without needing to spend a lot.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Experts Say Economy Is Taking a Turn for the Better — What Have We Learned?

I know you may have thought you’d never hear the words good news and recession in the same sentence but that time has perhaps finally arrived. Financial experts are saying that signs are pointing towards an economy finally on the path to recovery, however long and arduous that road may be.

Now I’m no finance analyst, and this is not going to be some boring discussion about the factors that brought the country to the brink of depression, but what I’d just like to explore is how Americans have come out of this crisis. One thing’s for sure, though. We didn’t emerge unscathed. More resilient maybe, and with a few lesson tucked under our belt. Gone is the shop-’til-you-drop, devil-may-care mentality that was more often than not, dependent on easy credit from (then) low interest credit cards to home equity loans. But no sir, not anymore. The new America is now frugal. Here’s how I know that this is so:

• Carpooling or public commute is in. Prices of gasoline are slowly eating up a big chunk of our daily expenses. Because of this, it has become more practical to just take public transport or arrange for carpooling with colleagues. Compared to last year’s figures, the number of people who carpooled grew by 0.3%, while those who commuted jumped by 5%.

• Dollar stores are showing strong sales. Been to a Family Dollar, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree outlet lately? If you’re like most of us, you probably have. At a time when most retail businesses are cutting back and even closing shop, dollar stores have finally become mainstream for most consumers.

• More Americans are saving. From being nation of big spenders, America has become one of prudent savers. Five years ago, the rate at which people have been saving was at less than zero percent. As of May this year, the savings rate is already at 6.9% — and that’s even with interest rates at a record low.

• Less people are borrowing. Not that we could if we wanted to. Qualifications and terms for availing of credit have become so stringent that those who do want to borrow money find the proverbial doors slammed in their faces. Still, the general attitude prevailing with most people is to stay away from credit as much as possible.

• We don’t find sunny climates as tempting now. Or maybe we still do; but in the face of a slump of this magnitude, people have opted to stay put rather than move around. For the first time in so many years, Florida’s population is actually decreasing. And the same goes for taking family vacations too.

• We’ve learned to make do without many conveniences. Families have discovered the joys of just eating in on Friday and Saturday nights, and then watching a DVD. Some are canceling their cable subscriptions, bringing lunch to work, and taking advantage of events like the National Museum Day (free admission on that day) instead of sending their kids to science camp.

Whether saving just $5 or $500, it’s apparent that many Americans have realized that sometimes, the basics are just all we need.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Ever seen those commercials for MagicJack?  You know, the ones where they’re offering you phone service for about $20.00 a year.  I see them a lot, and I keep thinking about getting one, but I always end up deciding against it.  However, seeing as they are so cheap, I thought it might be a good idea to explain why I’m writing on a site like this, and not taking advantage of something that seems so frugal.

I admit, these are my reasons, and they may not apply to everyone’s situation, but I think it’s worth going through my thought processes to see why sometimes what appears to be the most frugal alternative isn’t always the best one.

I should also mention that I haven’t actually used the product – but I don’t think that matters in this case because my reasons for not using it have nothing to do with the quality of service – and everything to do with the circumstances of our household.

Let’s start with a simple description of the device:

At base it looks like a fat USB key with a phone jack. In spirit it’s almost like a reverse modem.  You plug the device into a spare USB slot on your Windows (XP or Vista) or Mac computer, and use its internet connection to access the telephone network.  You can get a local number in many areas, and once it’s up and running you have a perfectly usable phone as long as you have an internet connection:

So, why didn’t we take advantage of it?

(Answers after the cut) Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10% [?]

Sarah made a great post about using Netflix to replace your cable or satellite provider; and depending on your tv viewing habits that might be the best solution for many.  For the rest, well there’s still cable and satellite.

The important thing is not whether you choose Netflix, cable, satellite or any other entertainment provider, but whether your choice both meets your needs and makes good financial sense.  That’s the key, you need to do both.

We’ve all seen the deals:  Six months of service for this low introductory price, with three months of six movie channels for free and an automatic upgrade to a “free” DVR.  It sounds great.  Everyone wants free and everyone wants a good deal.   It all reminds me of a term from an old Robert A. Heinlein novel: TANSTAAFL.

• There
• Ain’t
• No
• Such
• Thing
• As
• A
• Free
• Lunch.

At this point you’re probably thinking of all the hotels that offer free continental breakfasts and all the other “free” things you’ve received from various companies.  None of it invalidates TANSTAAFL.   Companies give you free stuff for one reason and one reason only:  (answer after the cut).

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11% [?]

On the off-chance you’re not familiar with Netflix, it’s a simple concept: pay a monthly fee and get access to a huge selection of DVDs via mail, and an only-slighly-less-huge selection of content that you can watch online, instantly.

I used to think that Netflix was a good idea, but not for me because I don’t watch many movies. I still don’t watch many movies, but there are a few things that won me over and keep me paying every month.

1. We use Netflix instead of TV. The selection on “Instant Watch” is continually growing, meaning we can just decide on a whim that we want to watch something, and don’t have to depend on the (terrible) odds of something good being on TV. There are tons of TV shows as well as movies on Netflix, and when you’re talking about suspenseful shows like MI-5/Spooks, the ability to watch “just one more episode” is exactly what you want (a time sink, yes, but I think that’s a given when watching TV).
2. We share our Netflix membership. My sister used to live with us, and when she saw how many options we had on Netflix, she agreed to pay a few bucks a month to upgrade to the next-highest plan. That meant that our membership allowed several DVDs, and Netflix makes it easy to maintain separate queues that are sent automatically when a movie is returned. She’s been going through the seemingly infinite backlist of Dukes of Hazzard.

To be clear, if it was just us on our membership, and if it was just full-length movies by mail, it would not be a good deal for my family. We just don’t watch enough of them. But the Instant Watch feature is totally worth the money to us. We use Netflix instead of cable, satellite, and even a DVR (we thought about buying one but have so far put it off since there’s little on TV we’d rather watch than what’s already available to us on Netflix).

All this to say: if you think Netflix would be a good deal for you, this is a good time to try it.

Netflix periodically gives existing customers special links to send to their friends and family that allow a one-month free trial (they normally offer a 2-week free trial), so here’s mine: Netflix one-month free trial (it expires October 31, 2009).

If you do use it, make sure you put a reminder on your calendar before the end of the trial to evaluate and consciously decide to keep it or cancel it. If you keep it, decide what other expenses you can eliminate (e.g. cable/satellite/rentals).

Popularity: 12% [?]

If you’re like most of us, you’re probably not in sole charge of all the spending in your household.  While it’s easy for singles to keep complete control of all their spending– it’s not quite as easy for the rest of us to keep control of spending when one has a spouse who needs to be consider.

I doubt I’m alone in being glad the days when one spouse made all the financial decisions for the household are behind us.  Now it’s a matter of give and take, and more importantly:  Communication.

Frugality is all about controlling your spending and not letting it control you.  That’s doubly true when there are multiple people with access to a single bank account.  The question is how do you do it when you don’t know whether someone else is going to come along and withdraw money you have earmarked for something right before you need it – or worse, just after you write the check but before it gets cashed.

That’s what we call a bad thing.

Read on after the cut, for more on avoiding that particular kind of bad thing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12% [?]

Let me tell you a story.

We live in a place with mandatory annual car inspections – they cost $16 and ensure that car owners keep up with all the important maintenance on their vehicles.  I think it’s a good idea.

So our second car, a 99 Honda, was coming up on its inspection date.  It needed a new muffler, so we figured I could take it in, get the oil changed, the muffler replaced, and have it inspected all in one fell swoop.  We’d called around earlier and from what we understood a replacement muffler could be expected to run us $70 or so.   It all sounded pretty reasonable.

So, anyway, I take the car down to a local chain outlet that has usually done well by us in the past:

This time they didn’t treat us quite so well, as you’ll see after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12% [?]

Yep, that’s me – a stay-at-home mom and right where I want to be. It doesn’t exactly mean though, that this is where I’ve always imagined myself to be at. After all, “a work-at-home mom” isn’t exactly the usual answer when you ask a young girl what she wants to be when she grows up.

It would be so easy to say that full-time parenting beckoned at me, or that I simply wanted to be my own self, free from the trappings that the corporate life can sometimes hold us in, but then again, that wouldn’t be an accurate picture of it, either. To put it simply,

My being a work-at-home parent had nothing to do with noble or grand aspirations, and everything to do with what needed to be done at that time.

Calling it a lifeline or a last resort would be nearer the truth.

I started a (working) life online as a freelance writer and blogger through oDesk.com less than a year ago and haven’t looked back since. In the span of 9 months, I was able to clock in 1,000 hours already just last week. I refer to it is as my millennia moment. Yey!

So, what could be cooler than this? Well, not counting the times when I wish I could just magically disappear from a bunch of screaming kids, and excluding the sleepless nights when a deadline is looming, not much actually. I earn a pretty decent income and get to be with my kids while they are still young enough to love the fact that their mom is around all the time. The clamor for attention does get to be a pain sometimes but I always remind myself to just savor these moments before the time comes when they would prefer to hang out with everyone else except (sob) me.

If there’s one common misconception about being a stay-at-home parent, it’s that of the job being easy. You read that practically everywhere. So at the risk of being called repetitive, let me just say it one more time:

Working from home is far from easy.

If only people get it the first, second, or nth time, we wouldn’t have to repeat it so often. Let me give you a quick rundown of why the job of a full time parent and freelance online worker wouldn’t be right up everyone’s alley:

Knowing all these now, would I still go up this path given the chance to do it over again? In a heartbeat. Right now, the kids are still giggling, unable to settle down without their customary goodnight cuddles. Hmmm… looks like duty calls.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Summer never ends; at least that’s how it sometimes feels when you’re a stay-at-home parent.  The kids are out of school, and that means they need time and attention, which can be difficult when you’re supposed to be working from home.

Admittedly, we have two teens at home who can keep the seven-year-old entertained at least some of the time.  But being teens, they tend to disappear for hours at a time, themselves, leaving me to keep an eye on the youngest, as well as working. Luckily, I don’t usually have to put in a full 40 hours every week, so sometimes I can take the day and spend it doing things with my daughter.

One way to maximize that is to take advantage of my partner’s commute.  She works near DC, and we live about two hours away.  That’s just great for a day trip with my daughter.  We just ride in with my partner and while she’s at work I can take our daughter down to the Smithsonian.  We can tour museums all day, and it’s free!

In fact, we’re taking advantage of it tomorrow:  I’m going to take my daughter to the Air and Space Museum.

What’s great about it is that we don’t have to spend a lot of extra money to get there, because the trip to DC is covered by my partner’s commute anyway.  Beyond that it’s just a few dollars for the Metro to get down to the National Mall.  I’m going to pack water and snacks so food won’t be an issue.  The only expense beyond the Metro is going to be tickets to get into the planetarium.  There’s also a free children’s story time that we’re going to attend, too.

We’re getting a day out for less than $25 which isn’t bad when you consider everything.  We could cut that down to under $10 if we weren’t going to the planetarium, and just add another museum or so.

While not everyone has access to museums of this quality, you might be surprised to find what’s available in your area; especially for those who live near major cities.  Most cities have at least a few attractions that are either free or cheap, and it’s worth taking the time to check them out.

If you do decide to try this for yourself, it’s important to remember to pack a few important things.  Water and sunscreen should top the list, followed by snacks like fruit or granola bars.

We’re off tomorrow and it should be a great time.  My daughter loves space and astronomy so this should be right up her alley.

If you have similar ideas, feel free to add them in the comments section.

Popularity: 18% [?]