Yes I am Still Here and Still Being Frugal!

Ok, raise your hand if you thought I might have gave up Frugal February?  Come on, I know there are at least of few of you that must have thought I abandoned this project like we abandon those January diets we attempt every year.  Nope.  Still here.  Sticking to the rules except for the blogging 3 days a week part.  I am slacking on the blogging.  Yes, I admit that.

This week I walked to work 4 days of the 5.  And have stayed within my set $50 weekly budget for non-essential spending.  And in 17 days I have only put 40 miles on car.  The gas gauge needle's still way up there on full.  I absolutely love that my car still mostly has a full tank of gas 17 days into this month!  I am a bit amazed that I have managed to avoid driving so much.  This weekend I will put around 140 miles on my car driving down to my parents and back.  I agreed to dog-sit for the weekend for them.  But I think I can maybe still make it on one tank of gas for the month.  We shall see.

Homemade Gift Bags  

So what have I been up to?  Yes, I walk a lot.  I walk for over an hour on days I walk to work and to the gym but it's all in little 15-20 minute doses so it's not really tiresome at all.  I made some home-made gifts for my nieces for Valentines day.  http://homemade.tipjunkie.com/felt-heart-gift-bag-tutorial/  I love using the internet for homemade gift ideas; there's so many good ideas out there.  Not sure if mine look quite as good but I know my nieces probably loved them anyway.

 And I clean too.  I have the following schedule on my fridge with 20-30 minute daily chores.  I even set a timer to make sure I don't spend more than 30 minutes on the chore.  I really like this way of cleaning.  A little time each day really works for me.  But okay I will admit I do well say M - W but never seem to get the Thursday or Friday chore.  Maybe I need the rotate the schedule each week so get those bedrooms vacuumed and dusted.  On the cleaning note, I want to recommend this book I use for cleaning.  It's called "The Naturally Clean Home" and it filled recipes for making your own cleaning products.  Most are made with baking soda, vinegar, and essential oils.  Takes an initial cash outlay to get the ingredients to start but after that its a pretty low cost way to clean.  I really like it.

Okay time to start the drive to my parents so that's it for now!

1 Week Down!

I have survived one week of Frugal February.  Thus far, things are going pretty well.  Out of 5 work days, I walked to work 3 times, rode my bike once, and drove my car once (today).  Here are some things I have learned so far.

I enjoy walking to work.  I may need to incorporate walking to work in my regular routine at least once per week going forward.  Walking in general is an awesome frugal activity.  It is good exercise.  It is fun (must be those exercise endorphins).  It is exciting since you never know what you might encounter.  It is inspiring (see photo below for your inspiration).  Best of all, walking is FREE!

View of Lake Coeur d'Alene from Sunday's walk 

 Another thing I learned is that when I share with people my little frugal experiment, they like to chime in with their frugal tips, which I love! In fact, it made me think maybe I can turn this blog into more of a frugal tip page after the month of February is over.  Some tips I received this week include from my father who mentioned if I pay my six month car insurance premium up front instead of on a monthly payment plan, I could be saving some decent dough.  If I remember right, the average savings is somewhere around $50, maybe more.  Yes, difficult to do as most of us don't have that couple hundred dollars ready when our six month premiums are due but if you do what my dad does and pay that monthly car insurance to your savings account, then in 6 months you'd have it ready to pay upfront and would all ready have the extra money saved in your savings account.  Now that's a good idea!  Not sure if I am ready to tackle attempting it right now but its a good point nonetheless.  Next tip I got was from my massage therapist (don't worry I didn't pay for a massage, I won a free massage this month!).  Somehow we were talking about coffee and I mentioned how I buy cheap coffee since I tend to put around 2 TBS of Coffee-mate French Vanilla creamer in mine so what's the difference if its Folders when I do that?  Anyways, her tip was make your own vanilla creamer for about a third of the cost as Coffee-mate by buying half and half creamer instead and putting a little imitation vanilla flavoring in it.  Or you could skip the vanilla flavoring and sprinkle some cinnamon on top.  Genius!

In progress crafts (homemade Valentine gifts) I worked on tonight. Will share more details later. 

Third thing I have learned:  Blogging and crafting take more time than you think.  In fact, its time to turn in for the nite so this post is over.  I encourage you to share your own frugal tips with comments on this post.  Thanks for reading!

I walked to work again this morning.  I could have driven today actually and still been within my rules but I chose to walk.  Let me tell you what I've discovered.  Walking is very inspiring.  If you ever needed inspiration for some creative pursuit, I suggest walking.  It's amazing how many things you notice.  A few things I noticed.  My left shin hurting.  Which is weird.  I don't get shin splits.  I was trying to figure out why my left shin was hurting.  Hiking  too much in Chacos in Hawaii perhaps?  Running the other day in my old running shoes instead of my new, more supportive ones?  Maybe because I favor my good knee when I run, and that favoring has caused shin splints in my leg with the bad knee, the left knee with the repaired meniscus and ACL.  Anyways, obviously my left skin was hurting.

I also noticed kids walking to the bus stop on 11th street.  I think I might have blended in with these high school aged kids since we all seemed to be around 5 feet tall and wearing backpacks.  Hmm....  The next thing I noticed was this house (pictured left) that was a bank repo and I wondered what it might sell for.  I am a bit obsessed with houses in my neighbor for sale that are on the bottom end of the market.  I have dreams of  saving enough money in the near future to snag a sweet deal on a cheap house in my neighbor that I could use for an investment property.

I noticed a lot of things on my way to work and thought to myself, "Why in the world do I not walk to work more often?"  In the five years I worked in my current office, I think I walked once.  And that was when it snowed nearly two feet overnight and I was afraid my car would get stuck in the snow.  I have rode my bike to work plenty of times and the bike is a great alternative transportation method to my car--much quicker than walking.  But I never remember noticing as much while riding my bike as I did these two days walking to work.  I challenge you to try walking to work sometime if you have a manageable distance say a mile or so like I do.  I think you would be impressed with how much more you notice.  It took right about 22 minutes to tackle my morning walk to my office--exactly the same amount of time it took the other day.  Not bad at all.    

This morning's foggy view about 3 blocks from my office. 

Walking, walking, walking.  That was my theme for the day.  I walked up to my gym for my 12 noon appointment with my personal trainer.  That took about 15 minutes one way.  On my walk back down to my office I ran into a friend and we exchanged hellos.  That's the nice thing about getting out and walking.  You run into people and things that you might not have expected and that is what makes it fun. 

Walked up to Safeway for some groceries sometime after 4 PM once I finished work.  Approximate 12 minute walk from my office to Safeway.  Having to carry my grocery bags home helped me keep my purchases to minimum.  I bought one apple, one orange (I don't like to over-purchase fruit for fear it may go bad before I can eat it, so I typically stock pile fruit only 2-4 pieces at a time), a head of lettuce, a bunch of radishes, cottage cheese, sour cream, one can of cream of celery soup, 2 cartons of egg substitute, a package of corn tortillas.  Total damage $18.  Not too bad.  I wanted to buy a 6 pack of red Gatorade that was on sale for $4.50 but figured that would be way too heavy to carry with my other stuff.  I figured I could come back for the Gatorade on a day I was in my car.  Although it would have to be by Tuesday next week before it is no longer on sale!  

Church sign I passed on my walk up to Safeway.  I thought this was a good quote, especially since my house is rather small!

So thus far I have yet to drive my car anywhere for the month of February.  Boo-yah (that my celebratory term of excitement)!  

Day 1

Wed. Feb 1st

I walked to work this morning. It was about 6:45AM and somewhere in between morning light and morning darkness. As I expected, it was actually a very pleasant experience. Yes it was somewhere in the mid 30s temperature-wise but it was not snowing or raining...very much a plus. I felt sort of empowered using my own two feet to get myself to work. I had a nice moment where I noticed two squirrels racing down the power lines above the street and smiled to myself. It was my own private moment seeing those squirrels; Something no one else got to see and something I would not have seen had I been driving my car. I exchanged pleasantries with two early morning workers I ran into--one at the post office where I dropped off my Netflix return and the other near my office where he worked swapping out bags in the garbage can on the street. The approximate one mile journey took me all of 22 minutes. I started the day in a great mood even though I had the lingerings of a sore throat and cold that I'd picked up a few days ago (most likely on my recent 18 hour flight back from a week vacation in Kauai). The work day went by very quickly. Quicker than I can remember a work day going in a long time.

Around 4PM, I took my mountain bike that I'd left in my office (cannot remember exactly how/why my bike was at my office not my house) out for the journey home. It was raining/attempting snow so obviously this journey was not quite as pleasant as the mornings walk. I stopped off at the grocery store which is about half-way between my office and home for a few things. Here's where I think I goofed all ready on day one of my own personal "Not Buying It" journey. I bought some non-essential things. #1 Emergen-C, those packets of vitamin C that you mix with water which I like to take when I am sick to try to get over my sickness as quickly as possible. #2 I bought paper towels because they were on sale 3 for $1.79! I mean come on, that's just over 50 cents a roll, how could a frugalist like myself pass up such a good deal! The other items I bought were 1 lime, 1 tomato, and 1 avocado which I thought would come in handy for tacos that I tend to eat about once a week.

Around two hours of my evening, I spent figuring out how to post a live blog. Hopefully once I get this blogging down, it won't take so much time. Otherwise, I fear the free time I've discovered by not jumping in my car every evening to run errands and such will just turn into time I spend in front of the computer blogging. Let's hope not.

Day One of Frugal February is in the bag. Only 27 days to go!

(Written Jan. 31st, posted Feb. 1)

Starting tomorrow, Wed. February 1^st I embark on a month-long quest to attempt to keep my purchases to mainly essential items.  Inspired by the book, “Not Buying It” by Judith Levine where the author actually devotes a year of purchasing only essentials, I figured I could try something similar for one month.  Notice I choose the month of February which is the shortest month of the year, a mere 28 days.  I figure if Judith made it for a year, I can make it 28 days.  My boyfriend is going to attempt this feat with me so luckily I have some moral support from him.    

My goals are yes, to save money, but also to find a little extra time to devote to things I never seem to have time for.  I also hope to find some sort of spiritual realization that the important things in life are not things we buy and that happiness can be found in simple things if we take time to slow down and enjoy them.

The rules I’ve come up with thus far: 

1) 3 of the 5 days of my work week I must get myself to work, not using my car.  Since I work just over a mile from where I live, I can easily walk, ride my bike, or even hitch a ride with my co-worker or boyfriend.  Now a mile walk may sound easy enough, but remember, it’s February and I live in North Idaho where it can be a chilly and snowy more often than not. 

2) I can only use my car to run errands (get gasoline, groceries, run to appointments) 1x per week.  So I’ll have to do a little bit more planning to consolidate my errand running or choose to walk or ride my bike somewhere if I’ve all ready used my 1x per week car allotment.

3) No buying non-essentials.  No clothes, no gifts (I can make gifts if necessary), no household items (I should have plenty to make it through the month with what’s in my house).

4) To avoid going cold-turkey crazy on this “non-spending month”, I’m giving myself a $50 weekly budget to spend on non-essentials.  This budget has to cover any food I eat outside of the house (going out for dinner or a cup of coffee), entertainment, say if I want to go out to the movies or go snowboarding, and anything else.  For example, I am pretty sure I will need a hair-cut this month so $27 of my $50 that week will be spent on getting my hair-cut.  That leaves $23 left for that week…ouch. 

5) I have to blog about this experience 3x or so a week.  At this point if I cannot figure out how to make the blog live, I will at least will document it to later post online for my friends and family and anyone elses reading pleasure.

That the gist of my experiment.  I have a feeling it will be a slightly frustrating yet eye-opening experience for me.  So here goes nothing and bring on Frugal February 2012!