An exercise in frugality (part four)

My final post on the Exercise in Frugality series is on the importance of volunteerism.  By volunteering, we realize that our own problems may pale in comparison to what other people are going through.  We also realize that they may need our help.

Most people are looking for a way to volunteer sporadically, because it involves the least amount of commitment, and unfortunately, most nonprofits need consistent, reliable work.  So, as I have mentioned before, if you don’t want to sign on with a long-term commitment, approach your favourite charity with a specific project in mind that you think you would be good at. Include a timeline, or suggested dates.  If you use your existing skills, it will require less training and supervision on their part. 

Another option is to go during holidays – but sign up early!  Believe it or not, serving a hot lunch or dinner at a shelter on a holiday can be a coveted position. However, if you are too late for the “fun” jobs, there is always less pleasant but equally important work to be done, like bed-making and laundry folding.  It’s tough work, but you feel fulfilled at the end because you know you’ve done a job that doesn’t have volunteers coming out of the woodwork for.  

You can always hold 3rd party fundraising events – but be sure to contact the charity first, as they will have resources to help you, as well as regulations that you will have to abide by.  One example that I have been thinking of recently is hosting a lovely breakfast for my friends in return for a donation to one of my favourite charities.

Not sure who to volunteer for?  If you live in Canada, visit Charity Village for a list of nonprofit organizations by subject.

If you are looking for free activities to do with your family, volunteering is a great idea.  My biggest suggestion is simply to be creative and think outside the box – you don’t have to do something traditional and volunteering doesn’t have to be limited to licking stamps anymore!  When you are done, you will likely feel gratified, thankful and fulfilled – feelings we rarely enjoy when we are focused on accumulating material possessions or are heavily absorbed in our own problems.

Free Baby Stuff!

I almost forgot to mention – a great freebie from Heinz: Sign up for their newsletter and get a free baby bag, which includes a free full size sample of Heinz Nurture infant formula, free changing pad, a growth chart, and more!  And for a limited time, you will receive a bonus 12x385mL case of Heinz Nurture Infant Formula Concentrate (a $38 value) as well.  I found this deal over at Money Saving Mom.

Wow! Excellent Freebies!

Red Flag Deals has brought my attention to some incredible freebies.  I encourage you all to head to Red Flag Deals to see what else they have there – but here are my faves.

1. Get a 2009 Calendar and $5 in coupons from Ocean Spray 

2. Free sample of Goody Ouchless elastics.  This one is good for Canadians AND Americans!

3. Free Specialty coffee from Williams Coffee Pub (and free gift on your birthday!)

4. Free gift for Rogers customers – gift options include a New Release Rogers movie rental or 3-month magazine subscription to magazines like Chatelaine.

5. New Visa Perks coupons 

6. Tickets to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Nov.12 & Nov. 15 for only $17 each – promotion code NOVEMBER

Also, special thanks to Brenda for reminding me about Red Flag Deals coupons. Lots of good coupons there!

The best deals for your shopping this week

Here are my favourite deals this week:

FOOD BASICS

Classico Pasta Sauce – $2

Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail – $3 – with coupon – $2

NO FRILLS

Black Diamond Cheese, 520g – $3.97

Chicken Breasts, Skinless, Bone-in – $1.97/lb

Bella Tavola Olive Oil, 750ml – $3.99

McCain Fries, 750g – 1kg – $1.99

Heinz Soup – 39¢

PC Chips $1.69

Sweet peppers – $1.99

3lb bag, Red/Yellow cooking onions/carrots – 79¢

2.5lb bag, Clementines – $1.88

SHOPPERS DRUG MART

Gillette Fushion Phenom Razors – $6.99 - Free product if you use your $10 off coupon!!! 

(Unfortunately, Shoppers Drug Mart would not give me overage on this coupon!)

LOBLAWS

Silouette/Danone Yogurt, 12 pack, 100g each – $3.50

Avocado – 99¢

PC Chips $1.69

Ristorante Pizza $3.99 – with coupon – $3.24

So Good soymilk $2.99

Shake it up!

Josh and I used to buy smoothies from Booster Juice on a somewhat regular basis.  But that was back when we were not paying attention to our spending. Now, I can’t believe how much we used to spend on shakes! They cost about $6 each.

We make our own fruit shakes now.  They are very easy to do!  

Our recipe consists of:

Frozen fruit  - make sure you get the best deal – the jumbo sized No-Name brand has got to be the best deal around; I have price-compared over and over again and haven’t found a deal to beat it since, albeit for a brief time PC offered their jumbo pack of frozen fruit at a discount when it emerged.)

One Banana  - And now we all know you can buy ‘em at 50% off and freeze ‘em!  You can add 2 if you want the flavour to come through.

Plain Yogurt – look for sales that offer a large tub for $1.99.

Fruit Juice - definitely stock up when it’s on sale and use coupons when you can (juice is one thing I never pay full price for because it’s easy to get a good deal.)  And from concentrate is cheaper than boxed juice.

Soymilk – We try to use coupons for soymilk, too.  But if you have a real aversion to soymilk, you can use regular milk.

Ground flax seed - buy a big package and freeze the rest in a tupperware container.  It’s very healthy and lasts for ages in the freezer.  Remember to buy ground though, otherwise it’ll just go right through ya!

We find that all of these ingredients go far and it is much cheaper to make these healthy and delicious shakes at home. 

As a side note, my kitten LOVES fruit shakes.  As in, we can’t drink a shake without her climbing all over us for a taste.  We have taken to giving her a little bit in her dish.  Yogurt does not contain lactose, so I figure it’s okay.  She is so weird – she loves yogurt and fruit but doesn’t seem to care for chicken!  Next she’ll be demanding organic cat food…

Homemade lunches at 1/15th the cost of eating out

In my post, “a fulfilling frugal life” I referred to an article in the Globe and Mail. The name of the article was “As consumer confidence dips, embrace frugality.” And of course the article discussed recent trends towards cutting back, and the author revealed her own guilty pleasures that she was unable to give up. On the globe’s website, readers can post responses.  One of the comments was this:

***

Elisabeth Roejskjaer from Sudbury, On, Canada writes: When I was working, here’s how i could afford to visit family in Europe quite often, on a $10.00 pr hr job. One Co-worker spent roughly $10.00 pr day on Morning coffee, Lunch and afternoon snack in our Cafeteria – I made my Lunch at home and walked outside on breaks. 25 working days x $10.00 = $250.00 x 6 months = $1500.00 and they actually thought I was secretly wealthy – it’s the small amounts that adds up – and my own lunch was healthier too. I never thought that I was missing out on anything.

A response to her comment:

mark stephenson from Canada writes: I understand bringing lunch from home, I try for 3 days a week and usually drink the office coffee. However, even left overs or lunch from home isnt free, so you can subtract 1/3 of your $1500 for that cost, especially if you try to eat healthy with fruit and veg etc.

***

Above, Mark assumes that taking your lunch from home is 1/3rd of the cost of buying out.  I will disprove this theory by price comparing my lunches last week.  I added up the unit cost of everything I ate, divided by the portion I consumed, and came up with a number.

Monday: Ate out with colleages at a typical lunch joint near work.  Cost of one cheese sandwich and lemonade: $11.50.  Standard fare and cost for downtown Toronto (I work at University and Dundas).

Tuesday: PC dried healthy blue menu vegetable and lentil soup (80¢ – I stocked up when they were on sale) with a few whole grain melba toast crackers (20¢) and chunk of goat cheese (40¢) and an apple (10¢). Water to drink from the water cooler at work.  Total cost: $1.50

Wednesday: Butternut Squash Soup (Free sample). Four whole wheat melbas (16¢). English muffin with peanut butter (37¢) and one apple (10¢). Water. Total cost: 63¢.

Thursday: Homemade Chili (60¢) with English Muffin (33¢). Water. Total cost: 93¢

Friday: Leftovers (Free.)  While technically Mark says that leftovers cost money, I would have to disagree, at least in this instance, because it is food that otherwise would have been thrown out at the restaurant (I ordered a standard meal and was served a big portion – I took it home and put it into tupperware and into the fridge immediately.) Thus, I consider it free. 

Total cost of eating out on Monday: $11.50

Total cost of brown-bagged lunch on all four other days of the week combined: $3.06

If I had eaten out and purchased the same average lunch all four days, I would have spent $46.  That means that bringing my lunch is less than 1/15 the cost - not 1/3rd. 

Not to mention that the lunches I brought were incredibly easy (I just grabbed what was around the house) and reasonably healthy.

See what a difference it makes?  Might be enough to visit the family in Europe after all, Mark!

An exercise in frugality (part three)

I’ve realized that this will actually be a four-part series, as I have remembered a final important step.  But for now I will leave with you the third step, which is, for me, giving yourself a break.

There comes a time, when you are struggling to pay off that debt or live on a really tight budget, that you will just need a little treat.  Especially on those days, like when you find out you didn’t get that job, or you bombed that test, or you get bad news from the doctor (that happened to me today) or you are just feeling worn out from constantly restricting yourself. 

I’m not talking about giving in to every impulse, and I’m not talking about rewarding yourself with a great big shopping spree.  But a reward can be something small, just to make yourself feel special.  An example can be something you normally do not treat yourself with, but does not cost a lot, such as bubble bath, a specialty coffee, a meal out, new PJs, a small bouquet of flowers, a magazine – or something free, like a hot bath, or a relaxing night where you watch a movie instead of doing the dishes. Or maybe it’s time to use those gift cards you’ve been saving for a rainy day.

This is different than giving into Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s “gimmie gremlin,” in fact, using this trick can help you avoid splurging.

Why?  How many of us have ever been on a diet? Well you know how, when you’re on a diet, if the diet is too strict you will just break down at some point when you are really, really hungry and cram as many chips or cookies in your mouth as you possibly can?  I think being frugal can go the same way – if you deprive yourself too fiercely, you’ll just break down.

You can avoid that break down and avoid a shopping binge by treating yourself every once in a while.  And you will find, if you are consistently frugal, that smaller purchases make you happy.  You don’t need to spend several hundred dollars on shoes or clothes to feel fulfilled.  That little item will go further than you expect. 

Of course, I am not talking about using this as an excuse for every extra you buy (“oh, I’ve been good, I deserve it.”)  It’s more about recognizing your breaking point, and giving yourself a little something nice to get yourself through a rough period.  I know my limits and can instinctively tell when I need to loosen up a bit.  But if you are working with a strict budget and need everything really organized in order to manage, I would build it right in to your budget, say a bonus of $15 twice a month, or whatever works for you.

This exercise might not work for everyone, but it works for me, so I hope it helps you too!

What little splurge will you get when the time is right?

Survival Foods

No wonder cabbages are considered survival foods.  I read in the weekend paper that cabbage can actually stay in your refrigerator for months, wrapped in saran wrap.  In fact, even if it grows mould, the mould can be scraped off, much like cheese, leaving the rest of the cabbage uncontaminated.  So why not incorporate cabbage into your soups and stews, braise it, use it in a stir-fry, make sauerkraut, or make a salad with it. Although coleslaw is an obvious choice, you can add shredded cabbage to leafy salads too.  My favourite salad, when I lived in Oxford, UK, was in one of the school canteens.  It contained shredded cabbage, sweet corn, and a mixture of other salad fixin’s. I’d love to recreate this salad at home. And at 99¢, you can’t beat this nutritious survival food.

RIP BrandSAVER.ca

The very best coupon website for Canadians has now been dismantled.  I have mentioned Brandsaver a few times in my blogs, and am sad to say that Proctor and Gamble have now shut down the site, with this message: 

“Thanks again Canada!  Due to overwhelming support of this program, all of the current online BrandSAVER offers have been requested.  This offer was only available for a limited time.”

I’m assuming they meant, “suspended” not “requested.”

Sorry to have to deliver the bad news.  I’m lucky enough to have received at least one shipment of coupons from them – did anyone else get Brandsaver coupons before it shut down?

I’m still committed to finding you other great coupons so stay tuned.  I’ve also been adding more and more coupons to my two free coupon packs, so if you are a Canadian reader and haven’t yet left a comment under my “Giveaway” post, be sure that you do. 

An exercise in frugality (part two)

What enriches your life?

If you completed exercise one, now is an excellent opportunity for reflection about what you discovered after organizing all your closets and cupboards.  Think about all the purchases you have ever made and all of the stuff you have accumulated over the years.  Is there anything that has truly made your life better by buying it?  When I think about all the purchases I have made, there are only a few that I can say have truly improved my life.  One is my Macintosh computer. I really love my Mac. Other great purchases include my kitten, and my coffee grinder. When you think about it, what really matters to you?  Reflecting on this can help bring you into awareness about what truly enriches your life… and chances are, very little of it actually has to do with inanimate objects.

Please share with us – what has been a purchase that has actually enriched the quality of your life?