Tag Archives: frugal

Are Cigarettes Keeping You Poor Both in Wealth and Health!

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Cigarettes really do keep you poor both in wealth and health!

If you live in New York, cigarettes can cost you over $10 a pack!  For a carton, that would come to $100 since there are 10 packs of cigarettes to a carton.  In the rest of the country, the average pack of cigarettes cost about $5.00.

On the surface, It’s easy to calculate the annual cost of cigarettes.  If you smoke a pack a day, it could cost you $5 x 365 = $1,825 a year.  And if you live in New York, it would cost you $3,650 a year.

Since my grandfather smoked about 2 packs a day, it also cost him about $3,650 a year.  Both my grandfather and grandmother smoked about the same, it would have cost them $7,300 a year if they were still alive today.  In the end, my grandmother did wise up and stopped smoking about 5 years before she died of a nonsmoking related illness.

But my grandfather (who never stopped smoking) had emphysema, and eventually died of lung cancer.  To make matters worse, their friends also smoked, so when I would visit them, the house would be filled with so much smoke that it actually would look like fog inside of the house.

With respect to wealth, my grandparents didn’t do all that badly since they had a few small businesses that they were running.  However, I have to wonder if they would have had a lot more money if they invested that money they spend on cigarettes instead.

If they had invested $5,000 a year in a decent mutual fund for 30 years, they would have had at least an additional half a million dollars of wealth.  Cutting out the cigarettes would have extended their livespan and improved the way they lived!  This would have enabled them to do more in retirement than they did.

They did do some traveling, even visiting Hawaii back when it wasn’t nearly as common.  But they never went to Europe, like my grandmother always wanted to do.  Perhaps with that additional half a million dollars, they could have squeezed in.

Other cost associated with cigarette smoking are the following:

  • Limited dating partners.  I dated one girl who smoked, but after that experience, I weeded out females that smoked out of how I would consider dating.  I’m sure there are females that would do that same as I did.
  • Decreasing physical fitness.  It’s hard to jog when you smoke.  Eventually you start to become more sedimentary and settle to mainly watching TV after your day job.
  • You health declines in almost every area.  There are too many health ailments to list, check out this smoking info site if you are interesting in learning more!
  • You constantly smell like smoke.
  • If your hair is white, it will start to yellow, as will your teeth.
  • Since you smell like smoke, people will dislike the smell of you, so you limit your pool of potential friends.
  • If you go on a job interview, the interviewer might know that you smoke base on visual cues and may be more inclined not to hire you.
  • The list goes on and on.

Since there are so many negatives, I’ve never considered smoking.  Even when many of my family members did and still do.

Is it possible to become wealthy while smoking?  Sure, but you have a better chance of being wealthy if you don’t, not to mention the healthier life you’ll live!

-MR

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Frugally Fight Higher Gas Prices

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High gas prices

Fight back against gas prices!

Well, the oil companies are increasing oil prices again…

What are you doing to frugally fight higher gas prices?

Should we just say “There is nothing we can do” , and just be an innocent victim to the onslaught of the oil companies on our wallets and purses?

Last night while driving home, I noticed that my local gas station’s price per gallon has risen to $2.999 (which is effectively $3.00)!  Ouch!

I talked about one option in my article called: Carpooling to Save Money and Reduce Gas Prices, and this is a great way to for the consumers to lower gas prices to a great extend, at least if we all do so in mass.  One problem may exist though… China!  China is still growing like wildfire compared to the growth rate of the developed countries.  It’s not that they want oil prices to rise too, it’s just that their economy needs that resource to support their growth rate.

Another great option to consider is Telecommuting! In case you lived in a cave for the past 10 or so years, telecommuting is where you stay at home and connect to work (or do work) by connecting to work via a computer and internet connection (called a VPN – Virtual Private Network) to your place of employment.

Now granted not everybody can take advantage of the telecommuting option because of the type of work they perform, but you can talk to your boss if there isn’t a policy that your employer is using already!  Perhaps you can start a pilot program, working 1 day a week as a test to see if it work for you and your company.  In fact, the place that I work at takes an hybrid approach, where we work onsite a few days and have the option to work offsite for a few day.  It’s a great mix!  Even better would be to walk or ride a bike if possible to work and at anytime really…

My final suggestion would be to be aware of the expense of too many car trip taken during the day/week!  Running out 20 miles to this store and then later that store during a normal day can really adds up!  Know the mileage your car can achieve and calculate how much those trips cost (including the drive back home).  For instance,  I know that it cost me $15 to drive to my parents house and back (they are almost an hour away from my house)!

What I do is consolidate my non work trips into 1 per week (when possible, which is not always the case with kid sports and activities)!  What this means is during one drive, I do multiple things within that drive.  So instead of driving out for milk, then driving out to pick up driveway salt (snow, yuck)…  I’ll just make 1 trip instead of 2!

I know that we  all think of carpooling when we go to work, but perhaps it’s not a bad idea for a neighborhood carpool too?  Maybe a stay-at-home mom could do a similar action with other neighboring SAHMs?  There could even be other beneficial gains in doing such a carpooling activity such as social, safety and backup coverage in driving kids to sports!

Can you think of any other ways to combat the rising prices of gas?

–MR

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Wealth Tip #3: Be Cheap, Don't Show Off

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Frugal is a new word I started hearing in the last 5 years. Before that word became popular, frugal people were lumped together will people that were mostly called cheap.

And this brings me back to my rich friend Jay (I mentioned him in Wealth Tip #2).  Now, you might think since he is worth over 7 million dollars, that he would have the best of everything… but he doesn’t!

 Perhaps you might hear about his fancy vacations, after all, he’s been to the following places:

  1. Alaska cruise
  2. Mexico
  3. Hawaii
  4. Ireland
  5. Las Vegas

What you don’t realize is that he gets most of those vacations from rewards via his credit cards, or through prizes offered from suppliers for buying their product.  Even when he is on vacation, Jay and his spouse buys cheap, and even stocks the refrigerator at the resorts they stay in.  Yes, during vacation he will play golf, but usually it’s at a cheaper course (golfing is an activity he has picked up during the last 10 years).

He does have newer cars, but they are domestic SUVs that are used for his job.  Even though they are typically bought new, he’ll hold onto them for at least 5 years.

Does he tips well?  Not really, usually if he likes the service he’ll tip 15%, but if the service is crummy, expect either a 10 or 5% tip (in cases where the service is really bad, no tip at all, but this is rare).

With as cheap as he is with everything, you’d expect him to be cheap with charity too, right?  Wrong, he give over 10% of his gross wages to the church, and is generous with his family and friends.  Ironically, while he is giving thousands away, sometimes his jeans will have holes in them (albeit small ones and in good taste).

When he does eat out, it’s usually one of the cheaper meals on the menu.  I’ve never seen him eat a porterhouse, or New York Stripe steak.

So, what have I learned by observing his spending behavior?  Being Cheap (or really frugal), is part of the wealth building equation…  My friend has increased his lifestyle a little more over the years, but he still lives more frugally than my poorer friends. 

If he can do it, then so can I!

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.