quote:

Times being how they are and just about everyone I know meeting new financial challenges maybe folks could list some ideas, tricks, whatever, for stretching a dollar (I guess the Lincoln metaphor works there too).

Aguantar posted this on Loui's thread, but it deserves its own space in these difficult times. I hope others will also post their ideas!

Aguantar posted these great tips to Loui, and I think lots of us can benefit from them, so I'm putting them here as "feed" for everyone to think about their approaches to meet financial challenges. One of these days (when I don't have eighty-three things to do), I'll add to it as well.

quote:

I am sorry you guys are going through a rough patch. Before I was divorced, even as a child, I never really had to worry about money, or so I thought. But, somehow God made me very careful. Even when I was very young my grandfather always said, "_____, you can pinch a penny so hard you make Lincoln cry." How true!

I've learned even more about managing a household, kids, and bills. I have two part-time jobs, ponies, dogs, chickens, cats and three kids. I also proud to say I pay child support. My kids are with me half of their time and when my ex has to work or is out of town when I support them as well. And we do okay.

Some of our tricks for getting by might be specific to my region, but these little changes in life really help.

1. All the old standbys from grandma still work. Always hang laundry to dry, winter or summer, turn off lights, turn down, way down, the temperature (today that's hard), carpool or save all trips and go out once, freeze and can foods, repair what's broken (youtube has lots of how tos), use everything till it wears out and then find another use for it.

2. Trade with friends. I've traded big items, like a sofa or enough firewood for a whole year, accounting help and small items like food from the garden, hair cut and color, clothes for the kids and me. I also remember to trade both goods and services. Kids can trade too.

Trading is also a great way to build community and friendships. It's just plain fun to take care of each other and a great lesson for the kids.

3. Never, ever go shopping. This may sound strange but it's true. If I don't see it I don't buy it. Obviously, I need to buy things, but I look at ways not to buy and certainly not to buy new. Even food, okay, we need new food, but I shop for food every two weeks, WITHOUT the kids who tend to shoot the budget and shop only at a discount, pack your own market. Every two weeks I spend $50 on food and other stuff typical of the grocery store. I visit no other stores. (There's also a great store with dented items, they call it grocery salvage. It's great!)

4. Be open to people who want to help, and accept it with a smile and a thank you. A friend put new tires on my car when he borrowed it, another friend built a chimney for my wood stove.

5. Let folks know what you need and accept free stuff. I mentioned doing some yard and garden work. One friend gave me old fencing, another vegetable plants and still another a couple of trees. People have given me slate and bricks. I have been given a half a cow, four turkeys (alive, I traded two for someone to butcher them), several large portions of pork, half a deer and I bought 40 pounds of sausage from an Amish neighbor for $1.00 a pound. Yes, I love my freezer.

6. Always look for opportunities to give to others. To whom much is given, much is expected. Luke 12:48

No doubt you know all this stuff. But, my grand parents were part of the greatest generation and they taught me much, mostly to pass it on and hold on tight.

Good luck.

Well I've still got a lot of work to do in this area, but what's helped me...

1) Withdraw only a set amount of money each week/month and survive on that (rather than withdrawing cash when you run out)

2) Quarantine your savings/mortgage/etc. money first so it's not sitting in the bank - then you are forced to survive on the rest

Oooo, those are good, mags! I do something similar -- I use a system of envelopes to help allocate the budget every month. There are online systems that do it, like Mvelopes, and you can also use plain old ordinary paper envelopes to do it.

I was thinking, myself, about the old phrase "a chicken in every pot." That was a New Deal phrase, wasn't it? (Just looked it up. Herbert Hoover campaign slogan from 1928, right -before- the crash and the beginning of the Depression.)

Last week while I was at the store, I bought a chicken. A college friend was coming to visit, see, and he's both gluten and casein intolerant. And he's allergic to soy. (Gluten is in wheat and many other grains. Casein is the protein in milk.) So cooking for him is simple -- meat, veggies, fruit, rice, beans.

So I went to the store with that in mind, and noticed that whole chickens were on sale for $0.89 a pound. Not a -great- price, but better than usual. So I looked through them and picked out one that was $5. I roasted it with onion, carrot, and potatoes. I let my friend pick out the herbs -- he picked tarragon, rosemary, sage, and salt & pepper.

HoFS made gravy to go with it, and we had sliced vegetables to go with it (celery, peppers, snap peas).

The total cost of the meal, when I add up all the bits and pieces, is about $10. Not bad, I thought.

And that chicken was nowhere near gone by the time 3 adults and DD were done eating, though DD was so tired that she didn't eat anything.

So the next day at supper time, I had a chicken sandwich with the roasted chicken and home made bread. I love my breadmaker. DD had rest of the leftover meatloaf. She ate ALL of it. Making up for the day before, I guess!

I had chicken wraps on Monday and Tuesday for lunch, too. And we made broth with the carcass, which I made into soup with all the vegetables that were about to go bad -- cabbage, onion, carrot, and lots of peppers. I ate that on Tuesday evening, and again today at lunch and supper. Yes I know, I need more variety in my diet. With just one adult in the house most of the time, though, it takes a while to go through a chicken.

With those meals, I had various vegetables and fruit, and some yogurt.

So all in all, if I could do this regularly, it would cost me about $21 for a week of lunches and dinners.

The trouble is, I -don't- do this every week. And every week there are extras. Particularly, as Aguantar says, when I'm shopping with kids. An example of that last one: DD and I went to get milk the other day after school and ended up spending $34.93. The milk was $3.49, for pete's sake! Or when I'm buying supplies for my family, who come into town for a week 3 or 4 times a year. Or when I'm picking up cleaning supplies. Aguantar, have I mentioned that I am in awe of your shopping skills?

I do know some tricks to keep the bills down, though. The first is to never ever ever go to Target (probably this would be true of Walmart, too, but the closest one to my house is nearly an hour away). It costs $100 just to walk in that door.

The second is to always always always go to the cheapest grocery store in the area -- Shoppers Food Warehouse.

The third is to plan my meals before I leave home, shop once a week, with a list, and without DD.

The fourth is to buy real, minimally prepared food. By which I mean fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, meat, and baking supplies. I'm much worse at this than I was before DD was born. Back when I lived in Seattle, I went to the co-op before the grocery store. Bulk peanut butter, bulk dried beans and lentils, bulk brown rice, bulk spices (the best part), bulk olive oil. And I really enjoyed the "damaged goods" bin in the produce department. Spotty carrots and potatoes still make good stew, after all.

Now? Lord above, I feed DD chicken nuggets and fish sticks, and I let her convince me that we should buy ice cream! I've lost it.

But to go back to the original point. A chicken in every pot used to be a sign of prosperity. Now, it's a sign of being an economical and careful shopper and cook.

My my my. How times have changed.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Just J_SYMC,

I have been a horrible impulse purchaser and guilty of going to the store (GASP!) hungry and we all know the results of that.

I have a huge pantry. Not deep, but with wide 6' bifold doors and about the same height for the doors, but the pantry space goes up another 1.5' or so.

That, plus my freezer...sheesh, I am one person and a cat. And said cat does not eat from pantry (ok, kitty treats are housed there) nor from freezer.

My challenge and my charge is to use what I have on hand. Be creative and use the brown rice and whole grain pasta and some of the other items...mix them up with fresh protein, vegetables, etc.

I really could live for a long time on what I have in the pantry and freezer. I merely need to pay attention and use them.

Now...more than ever.

And J...a purchase of a turkey or a chicken is such a great investment. I do exactly what you do. Freshly roasted poultry day 1, slice the remaining meat from the bone as much as possible following day 1's meal. Put the carcass in a soup pot with celery, onion, a bit of poultry seasoning, whatever you like and cook the heck out of it. Strain the results in a colander and let the wonderful broth go into a pot. Let the items in the colander cool and remove the meat from the bones.

Add veggies, potatoes, rice, noodles, whatever your likes are.

My son and his family are crazy about my turkey soup and chicken soup as well! It is such a great way to make a fairly small investment pay off in a big way.

Hi Sharon! I envy your pantry. I am actually trying to build up a litle bit of an emergency stock of food. Nothing crazy, but I've been through three different times when I couldn't get to the store for a week (two blizzards and a hurricane). And I think there's a good chance that those things will continue to happen, and that sometime in my life it will be a month instead of a week. So when I look in my pantry and see brown rice and dried beans and pasta and tomato sauce and all that stuff, I see some pretty low-cost emergency measures in place.

I also recently put an emergency kit in my car. With all the driving I do, and in all kinds of weather, the little bit that I have will either always be too much -- or it'll be not nearly enough but better than nothing.

Speaking of great purchases, I got a whole turkey, already cooked, for $5 a couple of weeks ago. There are still two big bags of sliced meat in the fridge, along with a container of turkey broth.

So I know how to do many of these things, I guess. I just apply them haphazardly.

Another good one? Take your lunch to work. I manage to do that about 9 out of 10 days, and I kick myself for that extra one, even if it's just a bowl of soup or slice of pizza at the cafeteria.

Yesss! Take your lunch to work. And here is a very cool thing I have found to stockpile for those emergency days when you forget lunch, or don't have time, or ... whatever.

Healthy Choice Meals

These need no refrigeration and I keep them in my credenza. Add water, nuke, and you have a healthy lunch (remember to eat slowly to allow the "I'm full" message to get from tummy to brain).

I find they are very well seasoned, and I believe that the most calorie laden one is about 350 calories.

When I go out to a restaurant, I have no control, even over calorie count, fat grams, portion control, to say nothing of the cost.

This is a great fallback.

Until recently I had a great friend who did my hair. The hair didn't cooperate, but she worked miracles. Her resume is a long one, with clients like Miss Universe, Columbia, a couple celebs I can't name and the first family of her country. Her brother was even better.

Well, they decided that they really didn't belong in our little part of the world and....gasp....moved to greener fields and famous clients (who pay better than I do, although we made some good swaps) and better airports.

In my disheveled appearance, I discovered that our local career center has a nice beauty school, as do a couple of our surrounding counties.

I've gone to student labor before, Cornell Vet school, a school for dental techs and a friend uses student florists and dog groomers. Somehow I'd forgotten about beauty schools. I've never been to a salon due to the cost, and until my friend got a hold of it, my hair was always fairly long. Now, I'm addicted to the help and my hair is throwing tantrums and I cannot afford to support this habit. Maybe this is a good solution.

And, allowing a student to work for me gives them practice and allows me to feel good about contributing to the body of knowledge and skills of humankind--yeah, I save lots of money too.

Aquantar...

When I was a student in Cosmotology school and in my first job...thats exactly how I got most of my first experience .. (aside from us students cutting each other's hair). There is always an experienced teacher watching what you do too. Pedicures & manicures too as a splurge are alot less expensive thru a school.

Ah.. you guys obviously have not had to shop for specialty items like kosher food and/or organic food. I've slacked off the organics except when they're in season and pretty much the same price as the regular stuff.. but anything marked with a kosher symbol or butchered kosher is outrageously expensive. Makes keeping kosher quite a challange.
An example..a 10-12 lb kosher turkey can cost as much as $40-60.00 kosher chicken between 3.50 & 5.00 a lb.. And passover (which is coming in another 2 months).. one weeks groceries, including a seder meal.. has usually cost me in the vicinity of $500-800 for the 8 days.
Its a huge challange keeping the weekly grocery bills out of the catastrophic range. And I buy very little premade, precooked meals. Some things for the girls like frozen pizzas and ramen and veggie burgers for me.

I did a great job with my visa bill this month... absolutely the bare minimum for gasoline and house essentials.

I have found the one place I can really be careful is with restaurant meals. Almost always there is enough to bring home for another meal and I rarely get anything other than water to drink. Of course this month.. we didn't go out as much as usual either, which helped tremendously in the credit card dept.

Loui