Archive for the 'Household' Category
Noah’s Ark for a 1st Birthday Cake!
A great book we found back when we were earnestly baby gear shopping (can’t believe our little one is a year and a half now!) was Baby Bargains. Grab the latest version from the library to save even more! This book has a lot of reviews and recommendations on baby gear. It tells you what you need, what you don’t and which products are worth the money and which you can get on the cheap. Definitely talk to friends as well, to find out what baby gadgets are worth the money and which are not. I found tips from other moms invaluable when buying for baby. It’s amazing how quickly a baby outgrows different toys and items. Some items make your life more manageable (the bouncy seat allowed me to shower for the 1st 8 mos!) and some seem like a waste of money (I bought a little food mill and found that it always jammed. It was easier to either use a fork or get out the food processor).
Yard sales and craigslist are a great way to pick up toys and books on the cheap, typically in great condition. I have purchased a lot of great books at yard sales. Since they were 4/$1 I rounded out her collection of board books for $10! Our daughter can sit and look at her books for what seems like hours (or at least enough time to do some dishes!) I also hit the town yard sale and picked up a lot of summer clothing. Since our daughter was born in the winter we did well with presents for winter/fall clothes, but didn’t have any summer items. I was able to buy shorts, bathing suits, water shoes and t-shirts for under $20 to complete a summer wardrobe. I have also had great luck looking for specific items on craigslist. I wanted to buy the Little People’s Noah’s Ark to use for her first birthday cake. I found out that the all plastic version I wanted was no longer sold. I was able to find one locally on Craigslist. People use baby items for such a short time. There are always bargains to be had in the second hand market. Currently I’m in the market for two items: A push around trike or buggy for walks around the neighborhood and a toddler swing (we are getting the swing set as a hand me down from my sister). MITBeta is looking for a toddler trailer for his bike.
One other frugal tip I found out from a friend is, you should never spend $14 on a pregnancy test. I did not know there was any other option! It turns out that you can obtain very affordable pregnancy tests online for around $1 each! Check out Early Pregnancy Test. You can also pick up tests at the Dollar Tree for a $1 as well. For everyone who has ever spent a fortune on tests this will save you a ton of money! They are also just as accurate as the $14 versions at the drugstore.
Here are some of my top frugal buying tips:
1. Try not to get any “real” clothes for a baby under 3 mos old. You won’t want them in anything but onesies and one piece sleepers anyway. You can save the “real” clothes for when they are older.
2. Since you will be doing laundry so frequently with a new baby you probably won’t need 20 of any one item. As they get older and the laundry stretches out to every 2- 3 days you start to need more (i.e. we need about 5 pairs of spring jammies)
3. Buy things that morph or can be used for longer periods of time: our bouncy seat converts into a toddler rocker that she loves using now.
4. Skip the highchair and just get a travel seat. Our travel seat is always attached to our kitchen chair, but we had it for outings as well. Now she’s big enough for a high chair at restaurants, but the travel seat still works great at home. Space saver as well!
5. Babies/kids don’t need a million toys. Our daughter has entertained herself for days by putting her babies and stuffed animals in a cardboard box and pushing them around. It doesn’t take bells and whistles (and batteries) to entice children.
6. Since you will have the need for some battery operated items, invest in a good charger and rechargeable batteries.
7. Some safety items are not worth the money. We have all the outlets covered, tot locks on the dangerous cabinets and the door to the outside has a knob cover on it, but I found items like a toilet latch, toilet paper cover and table guards are not necessary. I found just teaching her not to touch the toilet lid was enough and since I NEED a shower every day she has spent 95% of my showers hanging out with toys in the bathroom. Some safety items actually attract the child to the hazard. Better if they hadn’t noticed it at all or learn that some things are not toys and should not be played with. Save some money but make sure you are equipped with adequate smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and have a quality car seat. Wait and see, you might be surprised what your own child gets into and what they avoid.
I went back to the data mine this week to see how our current heating and electric bills compare to those from the same period in the prior year.
In 2007, we had a number of circumstances that affect our heating and electric bills change, some for the positive and some for the negative:
- ScrapperMom was on maternity leave for 3 months at the beginning of the year. This resulted in a higher demand for heat and electricity, especially since there were now more loads of laundry each week.
- After her maternity leave ended, she took a new job that allows her to work from home. This extended the added demand for heating and cooling.
- We replaced our older boiler with a state of the art Micro-Combined Heat and Power system. This reduced both our heating and electrical costs.
- We set up an office for ScrapperMom in the basement. The basement was previously heated with electric heat, so to take advantage of the new Micro-CHP system we converted the basement over to hydronic baseboard heating.
- We decided to try an experiment:cross-tie our heating system with that of our rental unit to see if we could offer heat and hot water at a higher efficiency than the rental heating system, but still keep costs even or come out ahead.
When our rental apartment became available last fall, we listed it on Craigslist for $1250 per month. The previous tenant had paid $1200 per month for the prior 2 years. This monthly fee did not include heat and hot water. After a few weeks of nothing but nibbles at the $1250 price, our new boiler was installed. We set up the cross-tie with the other boiler and then listed the apartment for $1300 with heat and hot water included. The previous tenant paid a little under $1100 per year for gas (heat, hot water, stove/oven), so the extra $1200 per year in rent should have been enough to cover the additional costs that we would be incurring to heat the apartment — especially considering that the replacement boiler is more efficient than its predecessor.
What we found was a large increase in responses to our advertisement when we listed the apartment for more money but included heat and hot water. In this case, the difference in rent (presumably) more than covered the additional costs to provide the heat. I certainly didn’t expect it to make nearly the difference that it did. My best guesses as to why so many people were willing to pay a fixed cost for heat and hot water are:
- When moving into a new apartment, people generally have no way to tell how expensive heating is going to be. It could be a super-insulated unit with very low costs, or more likely an older, drafty apartment that costs a small fortune to heat.
- People recognize to a certain degree that they are bad at budgeting for costs that can vary dramatically from month to month over the course of the year and can handle it much better if they simply paid a fixed monthly rate all year round. I suspect it is this very concept that has prompted our local gas utility to offer what it calls “Balanced Billing” which estimates your annual bill and then breaks it down into even monthly payments so that you might still pay $125 per month in the summer, but you avoid a $350 bill in January.
Before simply cross-tying the heating systems, I thought of a couple of different ways to account for using one boiler to provide heat for the whole house. Obviously solution number one is to figure out what it cost to heat the apartment with the old boiler and then charge a flat rate based on that. The obvious downside to flat billing is that there is no “nudge” to conserve by relating consumption to payment, but since the apartment in question has a relatively low heat loss, even cranking up the heat will result in little additional fuel usage.
Another solution would have been to purchase BTU meters for each heating zone. Since there are 4 heating zones in the house, a BTU meter on each would indicate what percentage of the bill for heating was used by each zone. Once this information is known, actual bills for each apartment can be calculated. Tying the actual consumption to actual price would help on the conservation side, but the cost is over $500 per BTU meter.
Now that I have a full heating season worth of data, let’s look at the results. For the last year, our cost of heating for the rental unit has increased by about $600 (as compared to a tenant paying the bill). The cost for heating our apartment and the basement has risen by about $300. The electric cost for both our unit and the public areas of the house has risen slightly, which brings the overall utility increase for the house to $1070 for the year. Clearly this indicates that not only does the $1200 per year in extra rent cover the cost of heat and hot water, but it also covers (indirectly) the increased cost in our utilities as well.
The bottom line in all of this is that offering heat and hot water in a rental unit increases the amount of interest which decreases the amount of time it sits unrented. Also, the market will bear more than the actual cost of the utilities for the peace of mind of not having to guess what they will cost and not having to budget for big bills in the winter and smaller ones in the summer. Lastly, by tying the apartment heating into the new boiler setup, the cost to heat the apartment was reduced drastically.
What do you think?
In the fall of 2000, ScrapperMom and I made our first big purchase together: We bought a puppy. As two engineers are apt to do, we researched this purchase to the Nth degree: What kind of dog? Who from? How much? Vet? Crate? etc…
When we finally took the plunge, we ended up bringing home an adorable 20 pound Great Dane puppy (from a reputable dealer…). Two years later, we decided that one 120 pound Great Dane was not enough for one household, and that our little deer (pun intended) needed company during the day, and so we made the mistake of bringing home another Great Dane puppy.
ScrapperMom wondered recently how the dogs fit into our financial picture, and Gather Little By Little spurred me on with a recent post about the rising cost of spending on pets.
Below is the result of the report I ran in Quicken to find out just how much we have been spending on our small horses:
Cost of Unconditional Love
| Category |
Cost |
|
| Vet |
$6,589.43 |
|
| Food |
$6,555.09 |
|
| Supplies |
$4,962.79 |
|
| Training |
$3,687.50 |
|
| Boarding |
$3,645.00 |
|
| Dogs |
$1,966.90 |
|
| Dog Walkers |
$1,362.00 |
|
| Doggie Day School |
$1,102.50 |
|
| Damage Repair Payments |
$218.16 |
|
| Registrations |
$209.74 |
|
| Books |
$171.43 |
|
| Supplements |
$155.15 |
|
| Dog Shows |
$132.45 |
|
| Fines |
$40.00 |
|
Total
|
$30,798.14
|
|
Yes, you read that right. We have spent thirty thousand, seven hundred, ninety-eight dollars and fourteen cents on our dogs since the fall of 2000.
For us, this was a shockingly large number on first inspection. That’s $335/month, on average, for the last 92 months. That’s a little over $11 per day. I can think of worse ways to spend $11, but I still felt that this spending was pretty high in the grand scheme of our general finances, especially when our budget in the “Dogs” category for the past year has only been carrying about $150/month.
My next step was to see how the spending varied over time, since there was definitely a dual (large) income, no kids period where a weekly trip to Petsmart was no expense spared. So I ran a new report:
This report is really inconclusive. On the one hand, it’s looks like spending has tapered off since about early 2007. This correlates with the birth of our daughter, so it’s really no surprise that we have paid less attention to our pooches (sorry, pups!) and consequently spent less on them. On the other hand, spending was way up as recently as the middle of 2006.
In looking at ways to cut spending in the future, I identified a number of categories that are not likely to see much new spending anytime soon: Dog Walkers, Day School, and the Dogs themselves. Additionally, there are some categories that are really not fair to charge to the Dog account, such as boarding, since this is really a vacation expense that gets budgeted for separately. A number of other categories don’t see much spending in the first place.
With the elimination of all of those expenses, we’re still at a $233/month average outlay. There’s a pretty good chance that we won’t be doing as much training, since we don’t have that much time anymore, and the supply bill should stay pretty low since most of the costs there were “startup” costs of ownership. That basically leaves food and vet bills. If you count only those two categories, we’re right down under the $150/month budgeted amount.
I’m sure that we’ll have to end up spending more than this per month, since we’ll inevitably have to buy supplies and other items in the coming years. Maybe we can look for ways to save on food and vet bills for now, and bump the monthly budget up to something like $175 and see how it goes.
How much do you spend on your pets? How much have you spent on your pets? What have you done, if anything, to cut costs on them? What is your cost for unconditional love?
Obviously with another mouth to feed it might stand to reason that the grocery bill will increase. Fortunately, we have managed to keep the grocery bill in check with a few frugal baby solutions. Some of these items may not work for everyone, but these are the things that worked well for us when feeding a baby on a budget.
Breastfeeding: This one is a no brainer when it comes to saving money, but I understand that it doesn’t work for everyone. I was determined to make breastfeeding work for us and made sure I had a lot of resources ready in case I got in trouble. It doesn’t necessarily come naturally for either mom or baby. As MITBeta and I found out, it is also a multi-person sport in the beginning, so don’t worry about leaving those Dads out! We realized early on that in order to get the baby positioned correctly and to keep her awake we needed about 4 hands. Also remember in the early days that it is important to watch your baby for clues and not the clock. Breastfeeding works on a system of supply and demand, so in the early days you really want to feed the baby whenever she seems hungry. This will help build a good supply of milk. Visit KellyMom for some great tips on all aspects of breastfeeding. This website is invaluable. The first fews weeks are long and I spent a lot of time on the couch or in a chair, but just made sure the MITBeta had a little table supplied for me with snacks and a drink and I soon became a natural. In the coming months I forgot all about the hard first month as it gradually got easier and easier.
A friend gave me some great tips when I was pregnant and they all helped make the process go smoothly after our daughter was born. Make sure you get all the support you can/want/need in the hospital. Ask all the nurses to check to make sure the baby is latched on correctly. They typically have lactation consultants on staff that can make sure you are doing it correctly as well, so you can avoid problems that can quickly derail your breastfeeding experience (latch-on, supply, and pain are some common ones). Make sure you buy some lansinoh (this product is very important in the early days). We also had a nurse make a home visit (this was covered by insurance because we were in the hospital less than 48 hrs after baby was born) and that was a great opportunity to ask questions and correct any potential problems. We also had a birth doula who came to see us for a post-partum visit as well.
I also found it advantageous to have a pump on hand (you can rent hospital grade pumps, buy cheap manual pumps or invest in a pump that would be good for daily pumping sessions if you plan to pump and work). I have an Ameda pump. My milk came in a few days after we got home from the hospital and even though my little one is took to breastfeeding like a champ, she sometimes just couldn’t handle that kind of volume! Plus I was back at home and now had no one around to help me out. I found it very useful to have my pump all set to go, just to relieve some of that early discomfort and make it easier for the baby to latch on. Now even if you decide you don’t want to breastfeed, having some type of cheap pump may be helpful, since your body will think you want to make milk no matter what, at least in the beginning. Having the number of someone you can call if you run into troubles is a good idea. This could be a lactation consultant, doula or LLL leader (see below).
Your local La Leche League is also a great source of support and encouragement. They typically have meetings once a month. I have been going to the LLL group meetings in my area since our daughter was born and I find a lot of great support there for a lot of parenting issues, not just breastfeeding. It’s always good to run things by other mothers who have been in a similar situation so you can make sure that everything is normal.
If you have tried breastfeeding and have decided that formula is the way to go for your family, you should check out this post about taking advantage of the great deals at CVS. By playing the “CVS” game you can save a lot of money on formula.
Homemade Baby Food: This sounds like a lot of work, but is surprisingly simple. The nice thing is that you really only have to do it for about 4 to 6 months. I started introducing new foods around 6 mos. I tried one new food every few days. I would make a batch of one type and freeze it in small portions (ice cube trays work great for this, see photo above). After a few weeks I had built up a little stash of different items. Some examples that we typically had on hand were sweet potatoes, squash, apples, pears etc. Most things can be cooked until soft and mashed up in a blender or food processor or even just with a fork. Things like mashed potatoes, avocado and bananas are super easy. No special tools needed.
By around 10mos your baby will probably be trying to eat what is on your plate, so you can usually find something on your own plate that you can mash up and give her. Our daughter was grabbing for what we were eating by around 10 mos and by 12 mos I was not pureeing anything anymore. So it was a short amount of time and definitely a money saver. This is a great website: Wholesome Baby Food that has a lot of information on introducing new foods and recipes and tips for pureeing foods. It also gives you tips on when you should introduce different types of foods.
We took a road trip to Washington DC when our daughter was around 8 months old. I brought a lot of frozen food cubes in freezer baggies, along with yogurt and string cheese. We had access to a freezer where we were staying so it was easy to continue feeding her on the road. I was also breastfeeding so that made things easy while we were out and about sightseeing. I fed her in all kinds of places, including the Air and Space Museum and the top and bottom of the Washington Monument!
Hopefully these tips will get you off to a good start, and if you’ve got any more, let’s hear them in the comments!
Click
here for actual spreadsheet.
“Budget” is a dirty word in many households, and it’s no surprise why. Budgets are hard to create, hard to keep, and nearly always imply sacrifice. So for the sake of being pleasant, I will refer to budgets in this post as Spending Plans. A budget is, after all, simply a way to spend and earn money on paper before you actually spend and earn it, and therefore the term spending plan makes more intuitive sense to me. Answers.com defines budget:
budg·et (bŭj’ĭt)
- An itemized summary of estimated or intended expenditures for a given period along with proposals for financing them: submitted the annual budget to Congress.
- A systematic plan for the expenditure of a usually fixed resource, such as money or time, during a given period: A new car will not be part of our budget this year.
The creation of a working spending plan frustrated me for many years, primarily because I was trying to create one using Quicken’s Auto Budget creation feature. The problem I had with it was similar to the problem I had with tracking spending in the past: Too many categories. I was being asked to figure out how much money I would spend on small things like a pair of sneakers simply because I had a Clothing:Men’s:Footware category in Quicken. So if I buy (1) $75 pair of sneakers per year, Quicken would fill in $6.25 per month for sneakers. Multiply this by dozens or a hundred other detailed categories and very quickly the whole thing become unruly.
As discussed in one of my first posts on Getting Out of Debt, one must first understand where his* money goes every month. Some things are easy to figure out: gather up your mortgage (or rent), auto loan, student loan, credit card, insurance, cell phone, and any other bills that are fixed monthly expenses. My list also includes things like Netflix, water, and internet access. List each of these items with the associated monthly payment. I use a Google Spreadsheet for this. You will notice that there are some discretionary expenses in here, and that’s okay for now.
Next, I went through the last few months of expenses in Quicken, and pulled out other essentials that aren’t necessarily the same cost from month to month or even year to year: food, fuel, pet care, utilities, etc. I put 4-6 months worth of each of these items on separate lines, and then averaged the each line to get a monthly expense. Utility bills usually have a 1 year rolling history of usage, so this can also be used to predict upcoming usage. Entering all these average or estimated expense creates a starting point.
The next thing I did was to look at expenses that occur on an annual basis: excise taxes on my vehicles, life insurance premiums, disability insurance premiums, Christmas presents, etc. I took each of these annual amounts and divided by 12 to figure out how much I need to allocate to each of these each month. I listed these next.
Last, but certainly not least, I have included my savings contributions. The last place inclusion should certainly not indicate the relative importance of these entries. Indeed, these may be the most important entries in the list under the “pay yourself first” mantra. If you already contribute to a 401(k) plan through payroll deductions, you may not need to even bother making an entry here.
Having entered most of your expenses (most discretionary expenses are still absent), it is now time to enter your income. For most of us, this will be rather easy since we get paid a fixed amount on a set period from few sources. Others with irregular and/or multiple source incomes will have to figure out a way to average this income to create a starting point for now.
Now add up all of the incomes and subtract all of the expenses. What’s left is what you can afford to spend on discretionary items. Is this number negative? If so, you had better go back through your expenses and start trimming until you get to at least zero. If you have an option to earn more income, that can help too. If the number is positive, then you’re already doing better than many people today. Now you need to decide if it’s positive enough to satisfy your wants during the month. The only way to change this number is to decrease other expenses or increase income. You have to weigh priorities against each other, and I strongly suggest that you contribute as much as possible towards consumer debt and savings. My sample budget spreadsheet includes a post-tax savings percentage calculator.
Congratulations! You have now created a budget! Next time we’ll look at how to tweak the budget to be closer to reality, as well as how to manage your budget going forward.
Please see Part II here.
*Too many Web 2.0 contributors would have written “their” (or worse “there”) here because of a political correctness fear of being labeled sexist. Personally, I prefer to use proper English, and “his” won the coin flip. In all likelihood I have made a grammatical or spelling mistake in this aside simply because it would be ironic.
