Category Archives: Frugality

Frugal Activities

Top 10 Reasons to Telecommute During A Snowy Day

by
Snowing

Snowing

Telecommuting during a snowy day, it the best way to work for an employer!

This past December 1st , I remotely connected  into work from home, and it was a wonderful experience!  I thought I’d share my excellent time with those less fortunate souls in warmer climate areas such as San Francisco California!

My Day:

I woke up and threw on some house clothes (including my slippers), shuffled myself downstairs and hopped into the car to get a medium latte from McDonalds (one of my frugal sins)!  On the way out the door, I noticed the light sprinkling of snow on the grass, now the grass wasn’t completely covered, and it actually almost looked like frost!

So I went through the drive through, got home and went up to my small office e, that also servers as a guest room.  I drew up the window blinds and sat at my desk and started to log into work remotely.

After getting configured, I took a moment to realize that the snow was sticking and that the snow that was following was the pure fluffy style of snow that Norman Rockwell painting are made from!

I could tell that we wouldn’t be getting enough snow that I would have to shovel the driveway, so I totally enjoyed the experience!  It kind of reminded me of skiing snow.  Someday if I lose the weight, I would like to ski once again!

If you lived where I live (Mid-West area, sort of), telecommuting during a snowy day is wonderful advantage over those traveling to work!

Here’s Why:

  • I don’t have to worry about ice or black ice!
  • It save me from getting in a potential accident (It seems like the first snowy day there is always accidents!).
  • I don’t have to scrap ice off of my windows (I hate the I have to park outside of our garage!)
  • There are fewer distractions since nobody really talks to me!  Although IM is starting to get bothersome!
  • I don’t waste travel time and getting ready time out of my life!  This is an unpaid cost of time!
  • I stay warm and toasty in my little office/guest room at home!
  • Out of site, out of mind kind of works good with co-workers and managers!  It’s less common to be a new work to do victim when you are remote!
  • You can pet your pet, which is a friendly dog in my case!
  • I can turn the TV on as background noise, occasionally checking the stock market action on TV!
  • My car is a bit happier since it has less were and tear on it!

All of the above reasons makes remoting into work from home via telecommuting, the perfect solution.

What do you thinking of telecommuting to work?

-MR

Did you like this Article?  Then subscribe to my RSS feed so you can check out new articles when they become available.  You will help this blog grow by doing so!  Thanks!

10 Ways We Lose Money Without Realizing It

by

I find that at times, and although I consider myself quite frugal, that I indirectly waste money!

Typically at some point in time, we are all amazed when we look in our wallets, purse,s or checking accounst and find that we have much less than we thought!  We thinking back in time, trying to figure out what we spend the money on, but draw a blank.

Today, I’m going to try to answer the question by identifying “10 Ways We Lose Money Without realizing it”

List of 10 ways to lose money without even knowing it

  • Starting your car to warm it up in winter for 15 minutes or longer before you drive it. (not very green either!)
  • Library books that were over-due a long time ago (another frugal sin of mine).
  • Equipment rentals where you miss the contract time window and now you have to pay extra cash for it.
  • Missed Credit Card Payment (at least make the minimum).
  • I already blogged about electronics and their constant power drain, see Electric Vampires in Your House
  • Not including your spare tire when you rotate your car tires.  Using the spare tire extends the life your your regular tires by about 25%!
  • Running electronics like the AC/Heating, TV, computer, etc…  wastefully while you aren’t at home.  (Casper says thanks)
  • Not taking enough allowances from your paycheck, so that you get a huge rebate from taxes, which means that you gave the government a large “interest free” loan.  (I’m guilty of this too).
  • Leaving the house door open when the heater or air conditioner is running.
  • Bar spending!  Money flow much to easily after a few beers to tips and more alcohol.  Unscrupulous bartenders may not give you the correct change back for your purchases so beware!

There are plenty of other way to lose money without realizing it! 

Do you have any additions that I many have missed?  Please do tell!

-MR

5 Ways To Save Money When Eating At Work

by

There are plenty of ways to save money when eating at work, and today I’m going to mention my 5 top ways to do so!

5 Ways To Save Money When Eating At Work:

  1. Pack your lunch!  This is the best way to save money on lunch, but you must be thoughtful.  If you drive to the store every few days to buy the food ingredients to prepare your lunch, you are adding to the cost of lunch because of the extra gas expense!  So ideally, you would go perhaps once a month to go shopping for the food ingredients.  Buying in bulk helps too!
  2. When going to a drive-thru, only buy from the value menu!  A great disappointment of mine is that one of my favorite McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, the Sausage Egg McMuffin, is not on the value menu!  So to buy one of those, it costs $2.89 at my local McDonalds.  The dollar menu Sausage McMuffin sandwich (which is the same but without the egg) only cost $1.00!  So that one egg on the Sausage Egg McMuffin sandwich costs more than an entire cartoon of eggs, so do I still buy the Sausage Egg McMuffin?  No, I don’t think so!!!  I’ll take the Sausage McMuffin please!!!
  3. For fancier restaurants, consider soup, or soup and salads instead of the regular meal.  I’m often surprised to find that the soups are much cheaper than the other entrees on the menu.  And some soup options are down right delicious!  I’ve had my fill of surprises lately at restaurants like Rocke’s, where their soups are superb!
  4. Keep a cheap meal in your desk drawer!  At work, I typically keep a meal hidden away in my desk drawer.  I like the instant oatmeal (brown sugar is my favorite) packets, and I also keep about 10 ramen noodle packets in my drawer too.  Both are very tasty if they are only eaten once in a while!
  5. If you absolutely have to go out from lunch with a group of friends from work (networking and all), don’t spend a lot of money.  Try drinking a few glasses of water before you go out to lunch.  There is a good chance you won’t be near as hungry after drinking at least two full glasses.

I use all of these techniques when eating both breakfast and lunch on work days!  My only vice is the McDonald’s lattes, that I have 4 days a week, but at least it’s covered by the dividends that my lunch experiment stocks yield.

Did I miss any other ways to save money at lunch?

-MR

Frugal Sins Of A Personal Finance Blogger

by

I’m consider myself a Frugal Blogger, and I am mostly, but I have my frugal sins that I commit.  And now, I would like to confess some of them, please try not to hate me!  (lol)

Frugal Sin #1:

I’m like Neo in “The Matrix” when it comes to not following David Bach’s “the latte factor” advice, …the rules do not apply to me!  Or at least you would think that is what I believe.  I have a McDonalds latte at least 4 days out of the week.  On top of McDonald’s latte’s, at least four times a month, I sneak in a Starbucks latte in too!  I also go to the local cafe shop and drink a few of their lattes per month.

This sin cost me about $15.00 extra a week, ($60.00 monthly).

Frugal Sin #2:

I’m currently not carpooling!  I have a buddy at work  that I’m sure I could carpool with again (we have in the past, when gas prices went over $3.00 a gallon), but I enjoy my alone time driving to work too much to give it up.  When I drive with my buddy, I feel like I have to entertain him, but I like listening to audiobooks, music, NPR, and other things.  Sometimes I even think about blogging topics.

This sin also cost me an another $15 dollars to my weekly expenses ($60 monthly).

Frugal Sin #3:

And what may be the most outragious sin of all… We still have a landline phone!  We have 2 cell phones, and a gmail voice account… and yet we still have a landline with Verizon?  My wife wants it just in case we need to call 911, but it’s not really necesary!  I wonder at what point in time, I will start to get embarrassed by the phone?  Maybe when we have company over, I’ll throw a blanket over our landline phones, or will I grab them and throw them in the utility room?  Oh the shame…

This sin also cost me an another $6 dollars to my weekly expenses ($24 monthly).

So my frugal sins only cost me almost $150 dollar a month, but still that’s $150 dollars that I could be saving for investments!

Please don’t tell my mom…

Would you like to confess some of your frugal sins here?  I think you’ll feel better if you put those nasty sins out on the table and in the open!

-MR