frugal underground

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: 10% [?]

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: 9% [?]