Category Archives: Frugality

Frugal Activities

Good Cheap Lunches

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When going out for lunch, I use to eat whatever I wanted without regard to the price.  This was good, but usually once I found something I stuck to it, and whenever going to that restaurant, I would buy that menu item over and over.

Unfortunately, what the food that I liked was also typically one of the more expensive items on the menu, with the exception of steak meals.  Lately, I’ve discovered that I can make my dollar stretch farther, if I buy soups at the more expensive restaurants.  The good news is that the soup at better restaurants also taste better.  For instance, when I go to Macaroni Grill, I now buy 1 of their soup menu items.  They are extremely taste and very reasonably priced ($3.49 for a cup of Macaroni Grill’s tasty soups) plus, their free bread that comes with the meals is superb.  I have to admit, I’m not sure that I would get the bread if I went alone and ordered just soup, but since I always go with my buddies, and they still eat large, I reap the rewards… 🙂

So in an earlier Post, I mentioned that I’m doing an experiment where I only spend $12 a week on eating lunch out.  If I buy soup meals instead of the more expense meals, I can eat out 2 times a week for lunch! Booyah!

I win multiple ways with the above approach:

  • I still get to save the same $40 a week for the allowance experiment.
  • I get to enjoy the socialization aspect of lunch with my buddies at work.
  • If I only eat out once that week, I get to save an additional $6 that week.
  • I get to escape from work for an hour!
  • restaurant food taste even better, after being on a diet of noodles, peanuts, and eggs.

Buying soup when going out for lunch should be considered!  Try it you might be surprised…

Beware of Electric Vampires In Your House

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My computers suck… literally!

At one time, I use to have up to 6 computers plugged into power strips sucking electricity nonstop.  Looking back, now I realize what a needless waste of money that was.  By my calculations, I was probably wasting $25 to $30 extra per month on them sitting doing nothing.  What many people don’t realize, is that when the screensaver shutdown mode is on, the computer is still pulling the same amount of energy as if a user was surfing like usual.

Here are my calculations for my computers:

Computer Mode Watts Used per Month Cost per Month
Standby 17280 $2.22
On/Screen Save On 223200 $28.63
Total Cost per Month———-> $30.85
  • Notes about the table above…
  • I’m using a 12 cents per kilowatt hour cost base for electricity.
  • I made my numbers conservative (I didn’t include monitor electric usage).
  • I used the following site to figure most of the math for my calculations above: michaelbluejay.com.

I didn’t include any other appliances that are draining electricity in standby mode, like TVs, DVD/VCRs, home entertainment systems, etc…

Now that I have wised up, I only have 1 desktop computer on full time, and 2 desktop computers in power save mode (oh well, at least that’s a little better…).  If you have any computers that are on and not doing anything useful, it might be worth your while to turn them off.

Don

Freegan’s lifestyle isn’t for me.

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I take great personal pride in being frugal and green both at the same time.  I try to put a green spin on my frugal ways, but I will never have the courage (or health) to be green in the freegan way.

If you’ve never heard of a freegan (free + vegan) before, basically they are people that hate waste and they hate that way people waste resources.  To counter the waste of other people, they will go dumpster diving for food and other items that they believe still have value.  Now don’t confuse freegans with the homeless, most of the freegans have jobs or other sources of money.  These people just care about the environment and are doing something (extreme as it might be) about it.  I think of freegans are kind of like the ultimate modern-day hippies (minus the association with drugs aspect) kind of…

The vegans part of the freegan’s name is becoming more optional than the rule of thumb.  After all, why waste meat products?

I’m not against this, and I commend them for doing so.  But when it comes to getting food in a dumpster, I have to personally draw the line there.  Some of the freegans are very clever.  So have informal arrangements with restaurants, so that when the restaurants discard their trash, some of the better pieces of food are separated in plastic bags separated from the rest of the regular trash.

freegan

freegan.info picture – Saiya

The closest I’ve come to this kind of activity is when I sometimes get a bowl of popcorn when a co-worker goes down to our cafeteria.  He brings a big bowl of leftover popcorn from the cafeteria back to his cube and offers it to us surrounding cubicle dwellers.  He doesn’t do it because he needs the money (he’s rich compared to me, he does it because he hates to see it wasted).

On the other hand, I think I might consider using freecycle.org.  Especially if I was younger and on a limited budget. 🙂

This freegan wiki provides further descriptions of the freegan way.

Carpooling to Save Money and Reduce Gas Prices

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During the winter of 2008, I was amazed when gas prices crept over $3.50 a gallon (not to mention when it went over $4.00).  When this happened, I asked a buddy from work if he wanted to start car pooling.  We have the perfect scenario, he only live 2 miles from my house, and his house was on the way to work for me.

The arrangement was, we would alternate weeks of driving, so for first week, I drove, the next week he drove, then me, then him…

My Benefits from Car Pooling:

  1. Lowered my monthly gas spending from $180 to $90.
  2. Reduced the wear and tear on my car by 1/2.
  3. I did my part to try to reduce oil prices by car pooling.
  4. I cut the carbon emissions I produced by half.
  5. Cut down on traffic on the highway by 1 car.
  6. Freed up 1 parking spot at work (our lot is pretty full, or was…).
  7. It’s nice to ride some mornings, instead of driving.

Once the gas prices fell to the low $2 range, we stopped car pooling at that time because of conflicts in schedules.  However, if prices creep back up to the $3.50 or higher, we said we would start car pooling again.

Near the end of our car pool trips, we both started telecommuting once a week, and that was even better!

Below is the ultimate solution to high gas prices, if the weather and distance permits (which in my case, it doesn’t).

Don

Update, I forgot to add a few additional benefits:

  • If you’re in an accident, you have a captive witness (unlikely, but still nice).
  • Forces you to adhere to a more strict timetable, you don’t want to be late or pickup your buddy late.