Frugal Finds and Fixes: The Apprentice Does the Math

In this edition of "Frugal Finds and Fixes," we interview our resident university student, The Apprentice.  

Mama Squirrel:  You are a busy full-time student, and a lot of money-saving things (the housekeeping, cooking kind) take time. You also have the problem of limited/shared space. How do you manage to do all that and stay sane?

Apprentice:  You're right, a lot of money-saving things do take time. To be honest, I'm definitely no Amy Dacyczyn. I do what I can, but am fine with spending a bit more money to save time or frustration..

One of the biggest examples of this is my living situation. Last year I was living in a student house with five other students. This year I've moved to an apartment shared with two people. The rent and utilities are significantly higher, but the advantages I have living here are worth the money. I have an above-ground room, quiet study space, and a large kitchen with tons of cupboards and a full-size fridge. I'm also closer to school. This living situation is more conducive to sleeping, studying, cooking, and travelling to school from, which are what my house is for! For me, frugality isn't about spending less money, it's about getting the most out of the money you do spend.

A smaller-scale example is food. I really like cooking, but often coming home after a late class I can be fairly tired and not feel like cooking. I know I could spend less on food, but having a few convenience foods around for a quick dinner is still cheaper than eating out when I don't feel like cooking. Yesterday I bought 2 kg of chicken fingers for $10, which will last me for many many meals and costs the same as going to a restaurant and ordering chicken tenders once. I do cook actual healthy meals most of the time, but the point I'm trying to make is that there are less frugal things and more frugal things that you can do. Both of them will save you money compared to a non-frugal thing like eating out.

At the same time, I certainly try to use frugal strategies that take a little (but not too much) time. Examples include baking my own treats, taking lunches and snacks to school, and fixing things that break. What I'd recommend most though are frugal strategies that don't really have a time element to them, just frugal thought. Since I was little I've learned that store brands are just as good as name brands, just without a fancier package. You can find clothes and household items at the thrift store for a tenth of the price, sometimes even new with tags. Textbooks are cheaper bought used from another student, and when the next year I just sell them to someone else and make most if not all of my money back. Taking a walk or bike ride outside costs much less than a gym membership.

Entertainment is a tricky category. It depends on what you like to do. Lots of activities have lower-priced alternatives, but those alternatives are not really the same thing, so it may be worth it to you to spend the extra money if that's something you really want to do. Going out to a movie and watching a movie at home are both fun, but a different experience. There are lots of free concerts and music festivals, but if you want to see a big name artist, you'll have to pay the big money for a ticket. Staying in is always cheaper than going out, but don't let that limit you every time.

Mama Squirrel:  What have you learned since being on your own that you didn't know before?

Apprentice:   Honestly a lot of the things that I do now are things that I picked up growing up, it's just that I didn't need to apply them until I started living on my own. I've tagged along with my parents at all sorts of activities, and helped out a lot at home: I often surprise myself by just doing something I didn't even know I knew how to do. I can pick out a cut of meat at the store, paint a room, bake a birthday cake, and build furniture. None of these things were something I had ever done on my own until I had to, but the knowledge was there and I just had to retrieve it.

Mama Squirrel: Any advice for the young and frugal?

Apprentice:  If there's something you don't know how to do, websites like eHow are incredibly useful. Even just Googling "what temperature bake turkey legs" will help you out a lot.

Definitely make smart choices at the store. If you're not much of a cook, that's okay. But buying a case of drinks, box of cereal and some lunch supplies will save you hundreds of dollars even if you're still eating out for dinner. A 500mL bottle of pop out of a vending machine costs about $2.50 around here, whereas cases frequently go on sale for $3, which works out to 25 cents a 355mL can. That's $5/L versus 70 cents/L. A box of cereal and litre of milk will give you breakfast for over a week for $6 or so. Buying store brand will save you even more.

Mama Squirrel:  Thanks, Apprentice!

What rainy day are YOU saving for?

Maybe not the same one as these people:

"MONTREAL - An online poll has found that Canadians were planning to save almost $10,000 this year, but 66 per cent say they're tucking the money away for vacations, luxury items and entertainment."

More here.

They should probably read the Snowball Effect article in The Complete Tightwad Gazette.  About the Allbrights and the Smucksters?

P.S.  Here's a different twist on the Allbrights--they do everything right, but then the government gets its hands in their pockets. [2018 update: I loved this, but the site seems to have disappeared. Sorry.]

Tightwad Gazette Revisited: On Used Things and Hacks

In Tightwad Gazette III, Amy Dacyczyn wrote:

"Even frugal parents who bring home yard-sale toys for their kids still give them only new toys for Christmas.  The new merchandise is given with more honor and enthusiasm, even when the quality is the same.  Kids learn that new is better...."

In the same article ("A New Way to Look at Used Things"),  she wrote:

"Conversely, it's also wrong to assume that used is always a better value.  Each has benefits."

And on one of our Abundance posts a few years ago (linked below), Alison commented:

"This is one of my pet peeves as well. I'd love to be like my grandparents, using household items 40 and 60 years after purchase but as you all have pointed out, that's not easy to do these days even if you are well-intentioned and determined."

Has anything changed since Amy's mid-90's musings on the mystique of new stuff?

As far as we Squirrels are concerned, no.  In fact, I'd say we're even more likely to be spending our money on certain types of used things than we were back then, thanks to Ebay, online used booksellers, and so on. "Vintage" has become a funkier cousin of "used."  And in some ways it is easier now to hang on to older things we still have, because it's now easier to find parts to fix them. 

I think our family has even moved to a level of used-stuff-appreciation beyond what we might have considered normal fifteen years ago...particularly in the area of gift-giving to each other, or in acquiring what you might call more frivolous, optional, or hobby items.  That comes partly out of the fact that what's out there in new stuff (for instance, toys) in our price range is pretty junky.  If you have a lot of money to spend, there are things out there of higher quality; but if you have to choose, say, between one new $10 item from the discount department store, and $10 worth of nice thrift-shopped stuff,  the used stuff usually wins out, and not just because you can get more of it.  When we're buying gifts for people outside our own family, though, we almost always buy something new, unless we know them really well.

And that's the catch.  I don't think our way of looking at stuff is very well accepted outside of the circle of people like Frugal Hacks fans and Treehouse readers.  If you're reading this, the odds are that you're probably a bit out of the mainstream too.  If you go, for instance, onto a forum discussing the Tightwad Gazette books, you'll read a lot of "ughs" and "that's borderline child abuse" and so on, especially from parents who I think are a bit younger than I am.  When we talk to people starting families, they take it for granted that they'll be buying all-new baby gear. Ecology is big and all that, but at the same time, kids growing up in this century are more conditioned than ever to be entitled to all the new toys that they want.  And that includes toys for grownups--electronics, huge amounts of clothing and shoes, new furniture whenever the old stuff gets a bit tired, fancy sports and exercise equipment whenever we make a new fitness resolution, and so on.

Amy pointed out some of the benefits of used stuff, when you can find it:  that, as I said, you can simply get more of what you want (a big bucket of used Lego vs. a small new package), or that you can find an older, better-made item from a used source.  I've heard people complain about newer slow cookers, that they often cook too hot and burn food, and that older ones are actually better.  As the commenter to our post said, you might find something older and still working, and find that it keeps on going practically forever.  (In the case of our older cars, though, current legislation forced them off the road even though they were still running fine.)  Or you might find that you can solve a problem or have more fun without buying anything at all...or just choose to keep using something even if it's no longer shiny or perfect.  I've posted about some of Crayons' "toy hacks," such as the time she took her own toys and set up something similar to a widely-advertised dolls' winter cabin.  At Christmas time, she set up one of her dolls in a shoebox sleigh, tied to (yard-saled) plastic horses...Mama Squirrel contributed a dollar store "snow blanket" for the snow.

And as Amy says, there are times when we buy new because that makes sense.  We bought some homeschooling books new this year because they were what we needed, and because we chose to support a family-run homeschool store with our purchases.   We bought Crayons' new boots at the discount department store, because we didn't have any bigger ones that fit her and we didn't feel like fooling with used boots.  We bought brand-new heavy-duty plastic shelving for storage (on sale), because we were tired of restacking cardboard boxes and we had no source of comparable used shelving.  We bought a couple of new snow shovels (for obvious reasons).  

But we'll keep on buying as much as we can used...both for our own needs, and just to prove that, often, you can get more for less.

Related posts:
Second-Hand Pants Song (link to You-tube video)
Abundance Post: Make It Do
Abundance Post: Wear it Out
Postscript to Wearing it Out

Tightwad Gazette Revisited: Notebook of Frugal Triumphs...and blessings

In the Tightwad Gazette Volume 3, or the Complete Tightwad Gazette, there is a note from a newsletter subscriber, who said that she had begun keeping a "journal of frugal triumphs." She found that documenting and then reviewing small successes and "scores" was an encouragement on the days that didn't go so well.

I remember reading this at the time (around 1996) and keeping a similar list...I don't have it now, but I remember such things as finding not one but two dressy dresses in my size at a yard sale, right before a cousin's wedding; a neighbour passing on some extra milk to us (she didn't know we had just finished up the last of it); and Mr. Fixit bringing home free milk and juice that he got at the gas station for filling up his work van (it was okay to do that--the company he worked for didn't want the milk and juice).

I never counted those things as triumphs, though; I thought of them more as blessings than boastings. I read a quote--I think it was in the Os Guinness book I just finished--about atheists being in a pickle when they're feeling thankful and have nobody to thank.

And though I don't always keep a list on paper, I do remember many of the small and large blessings, of the frugal and financial sort, that we have seen over the years. Things like finding something useful at the back of the cupboard; finding a recipe that just matches what's on hand; having something offered to us that we needed; finding a good sale at the supermarket or a treasure at the thrift store. Here are a few of the most recent:

A black skirt for Mama Squirrel from the thrift shop, part wool, suitable for church. Price: $1. (Back in December, MS also found a couple of holiday outfits there for a total of less than $10.)

An extra week's wages for Mr. Fixit; he didn't take enough sick days over the past while, so it was made up in pay. That is a blessing in more ways than one.

Three thrift shop books on Saturday: two by Philip Yancey, and Becoming a Woman of Excellence by Cynthia Heald, something I had wanted to read. Also a copy--a bit battered--of Teddy Jam's Night Cars.

Marked-down chicken and other meat at the supermarket--it wasn't even about to expire. Mr. Fixit cooked the chicken last night for Sunday dinner and it was very good.

Marked-down chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies. Marked-down Italian bread at the more-expensive-supermarket on a day that was too stormy to go to our usual discount store.

Ponytails got 25 Mabel's Labels free with a coupon on the laundry detergent. And a free pair of cupcake earrings on a blog giveaway.

The Apprentice won a free t-shirt and a price card good for store discounts.

Sheets on sale.

Ponytails found a good sewing section in a recently-opened Walmart (somewhere we don't usually shop, so just her being there was kind of unusual); and they had the webbing she needed for her sewing project.

Finally: do you remember the story of Crayons' Crissy doll, how when we bought her she smelled so badly of cigarettes and how her original green plaid dress didn't survive the cleaning? Crayons found the same dress on E-bay last week (Mama Squirrel was helping her look at Crissy clothes) and she got it for less than a dollar--nobody else bid on it. When Mr. Fixit mentioned to the seller that the dress was for his little girl's doll, she cancelled the shipping charge. There are some very, very nice people out there.