Apron Thrift Girl

Coupons 2.0

Coupons 2.0 by Julie Paulling

Today’s post is about saving money, rather than figuring out where it went. Every Sunday my newspaper tells me that they provide me with ‘over $134 of savings’. I don’t know about you, but clipping coupons is not my thing. There is money to be saved for sure, but I just cannot find the time, or figure out how to use the stuff that the coupons give me discounts on. But when I hear about somebody who bought groceries worth $170 for her family of four for the week for $28 or something I am very impressed. And to nobody’s surprise coupons are making a big comeback in today’s economy.

As with everything else, the Internet comes to the rescue. There are now several websites out there that can provide you with coupons. You will still have to print them out, but finding coupons relevant to you is much faster this way, and the selection is also broader. What follows is an overview of some good websites, but keep in mind that you can also go to company websites to get coupons for specific stores, restaurants, and more.

Starting with the most conventional, www.coupons.com is the main website of the biggest couponing company in the US. This tends to be for rebates on specific and well-known consumer brands. You can enter your zip code to get offers near you, and also browse by categories such as groceries. You can also e-mail coupons to your friends. There are some real deals here: this week they have a $5 off at Walgreens if you spend $20 or more. The main downside is the limited selection.

Next is www.coolsavings.com, which gets bonus points for their logo of a pig with sunglasses. You have to register to get full access to their offers, but it only takes a minute. You can also get a daily email with new offers from this site. I don’t think this website has as good an interface as coupons.com. It does have a wider selection in more categories, but there a too many general offers and just plain advertising. There are more non-food grocery items here, but they do also have some good food coupons. They also have some pretty nifty savings tips (left hand side of website) and tips like how to save money on video games, for example by subscribing to the Netflix-like Gamefly.

And then there is my favorite, www.retailmenot.com, which takes a genuine Web 2.0 community approach to couponing, including tags and a Facebook application. On this site, people can post coupons so that others can use them. They list popular coupons for dozens of categories, including food, clothes, computers. They do not as yet do groceries, but some food items are listed. Examples include how to get free samples from Walmart every week, that Borders always has a 20% off coupon online, and $1 off Horizon organic milk. They also list success rates, which are a must for this kind of ‘social couponing’.

An added bonus to these sites, especially the last one, is that you can fritter away hours just browsing and playing. I’m sure you need something to spend all your free time on.

********************************************

Thank you Julie Paulling for your inspiring posts this week. I learned so many new things that I'm in a bit of frugal shock. And thanks to my readers who left comments for Julie. I have forwarded them all to her and she has appreciated every one. Now we need to talk her into getting her own blog.

Selena (me) returns next Monday with more frugal ideas, a book review from the Salvage Studio, swap updates and a sinfully, naughty, delicious treat that should be made illegal. Have a lovely thrift filled weekend.

where did all the money go?

Where did all the money go? by Julie Paulling

During the recent unpleasantness of the stock market, I’ve been hearing some really horrifying statistics.  One day the newspaper gleefully reported that Americans have lost 3 Trillion Dollars from our retirement accounts.  That is a number most of us couldn’t begin to comprehend, and the question on everyone’s mind is ‘Where did all the money go?’  If we lost 3,000,000,000,000 dollars, it must be somewhere!  Visions of evil old Mr. Potter stealing George Bailey’s money come to mind. 

Unfortunately, it really isn’t so simple to figure out who has our money.  I’ve had several people ask me this question lately, so I though I would try to lay it out for you, on the off chance you’ve been wondering too. 

A share of stock is a tiny piece of ownership in a company.  The stock we have today is known as ‘limited liability’ stock, which means that, even though you own a part of a company, your personal liability for what that company does is limited.  In other words, if you own stock in Inc and the management of Inc takes out huge loans, steals the money, and takes off for Argentina, you are not responsible for paying back those loans.  This seems obvious to us now, but it really was a huge advance in investment products. 

Of course, you do have some liability for the debts of the company, but only up to the price you paid for your share of stock.  That means that if the company goes out of business you most likely won’t get anything back for your worthless stock.

The stock market is a place that buyers and sellers of stock come together to trade.  It works like a big auction – the value of a share of stock is no more or less than what some buyer is willing to pay at that moment.  If lots of people think Inc company is doing well and will be in business for a long time, they may put in an order to buy some of Inc’s stock.  If there are a lot of buyers compared to the number of people willing to part with their precious Inc stock, the price goes up.  If the company has had some recent bad news and lots of people think right now may not be the best time to own Inc stock, the price will go down.

Starting a couple of weeks ago, a lot of people heard some very bad news at the same time – US Banks made far too many loans to far too many people who had little or no chance of paying them back.  This put the banks into a tough spot, and investors realized the possible bad things that could happen to the economy from here:

-          Banks have less money to lend to businesses who need loans to cover growth and expansion, not to mention daily activity

-          Companies that can’t borrow money when they need to may have trouble growing, or even staying in business

-          Companies that go out of business put people out of work

-          Out of work people spend less money at shop and restaurants, which likely leads to more companies going out of business.

-          No one has the slightest idea which companies are most likely to go out of business (no one really saw Wachovia coming).

-          People who lose their jobs might need to move to another town to find work.  Because so many other people have lost their jobs, it suddenly harder to sell their houses.

It has been said that the ‘markets’ (meaning any place things are bought and sold like oil, stock, gold, wheat, and even money) run on two emotions, Greed and Fear.  When the entire economy started looking shaky, Fear took over from greed in a big way.  Suddenly many more people wanted to sell their shares of stock than wanted to buy them, and logically, prices started to fall.  The markets move on ever scrap of news and rumor that is heard, so the stock market has been going up and down every day, and many times during the day.  But more down than up.  And no one knows how far down it will eventually go (we say that the stock market goes up or down by looking at what is happening to the shares of some or all of the companies being sold on it.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average – the most commonly sited measure of the market – is actually made up of the value of the shares of only 30 companies.  But they are 30 of the biggest and most important to our economy.)

All this is interesting (or not), but it still doesn’t answer the question – Where did the money go? 

The answer is, it was never there.  Not really.  When you buy a share of stock for, say, $10, that stock will go up and down in value for the entire time you own it.  You may look at the value in the newspaper every day, or you may just check it out in your quarterly investment statement.  But all anyone can tell you is what your stock would be worth if your sold it right now.  If you don’t sell it, you have gains and losses, but they are unrealized – you don’t really gain or lose until you sell.  What has happened to most of us over the last 4 weeks is that stocks we bought a long time ago (or even a week ago) which had gone up in value, suddenly fell.  They may have fallen below what we paid for them – that level is different for everyone – or they may just be lower than they were a few days ago.  But the truth is, if you don’t sell your stock right now, you haven’t lost anything.  It feels like you have.  If someone told you your house was worth $200,000, and when you sold it you could only get $100,000, you would feel like you had ‘lost’ money.  But that money only ever existed in potential.  It wasn’t realized.

That doesn’t stop most of us from feeling poorer, but if you choose to keep your investments and not sell them just now – while everyone is panicking – your chances of the value going up again are pretty good.  Warren Buffet, one of the most successful investors in the history of our economy announced on Friday that he is investing heavily in the US stock market right now because he thinks it has fallen so far down that there is a great opportunity to make money in the long run.  Not over a week, or a month, or maybe a year, but he believes the companies that make up the US stock market will eventually show greater value and become sought after again – so the prices will go back up.  He said he makes it a rule to ‘Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful’.  I have no idea if he is right, but it is the most optimistic thing I’ve read all week!

Please let me know if you have any questions or if this was just too boring for words.  This is a fun blog, after all.

Home Made Christmas

Home Made Christmas by Julie Paulling

Around this time of year, I start thinking about making Christmas Gifts for my family and friends.  I’m a fair knitter, make some very pretty jewelry, and can occasionally whip up a wonderful jar of squash pickles.  Particularly in a year like this one when money is tight, the thought of charging less on the credit cards sounds really good.  Of course, you still want to show everyone how much you care about them, and we all know that money spend has nothing to do with how much you care.  So it’s a perfect time to start planning all those cozy home-made gifts.

Then there is that hazy memory that suddenly jumps into sharp focus of knitting like a crazy person on Christmas eve, trying to finish the felted yoga bag.  Even though I know each row takes 4 minutes and I have about 120 rows left to go, I keep knitting.  Fingers cramping up, a couple are bleeding, and missing out on my kids’ excitement and anticipation, I keep knitting.  And knitting.  And knitting.  I finally got it done around New Year.  Not quite what I had in mind.  Same thing for my nephew’s baby blanket.  I planned to have it ready for the baby shower in December, but I was still knitting furiously in late January, around his due date.  It turned out beautiful, but I can’t say I was thinking focused and loving thoughts with every stitch by the end.  I just wanted to get the darn thing done!

And then there is the jewelry.  I think it’s quite beautiful, but it isn’t so appropriate for the men in my life.  And the women have received jewelry from me before.  Many times.  Maybe they deserve a break from that.

It has taken me 43 years to realize that all my wonderful projects and plans take way more time than I expect them to.  Call it starry-eyed optimism, or just plain poor planning, I seriously underestimate the effort involved.  Which isn’t too much trouble if I started making gifts in June, but late October is another matter.

Of course, home made gifts aren’t really inexpensive, either.  Every time I choose a project, I end up spending way more than I had planned at the craft store on supplies and equipment I need.  The equipment is an investment, right?  If these gifts go well, I’ll be making loads of the flower presses or felted bunnies or patchwork baby quilts, so spending the money is ok.  Except things usually don’t go as well as planned for me.  Those flower presses never lined up right, and I drilled the holes too small, so my nieces couldn’t get the two sides apart to put any flowers in between.  Felted bunnies look so cute in the book, but they kind of get lost on Christmas.  And I never have been able to figure out how to thread that darn sewing machine.

So I’m thinking instead of choosing carefully, not overspending, on very personal and appropriate gifts for everyone on my list.  I hope they all like the squash pickles!

More Joy, Less Stuff

More Joy, Less Stuff by Julie Paulling

Are you gathering stuff?  I’ve caught myself buying ahead lately – clothes my kids won’t grow into for a few years, bulk rice, extra printer paper.  It’s not a bad thing.  It can be very thrifty, actually.  If you can find something you know you will use at a good price, it makes sense to buy it.  Unless you are hording.

Fearful times like these make us insecure.  And we start thinking that we can be more secure by hording stuff.  Stockpiling food and clothes and money are signs of a person who does not believe she will be able to take care of herself in the future.  And it steals your joy.

I noticed years ago that the more things I have around me, the more time I have to spend taking care of them.  Every time I walk into my cluttered house, I get tired.  It’s funny, but all these individual items we once something I loved and longed for – well, not my husband’s stuff! – but once I get them home into my space, they just become clutter.  So I started to get more careful about what I buy.  Even if it’s on sale, or from a thrift store, I know that once I get it home it will cost me so much more than money.  So I’m careful about what I buy.

The economy is making it easier to buy less just now.  Credit has dried up (good riddance to that vampire!) and many of us are feeling less secure about our jobs and our retirement savings.  So being thrifty has become a new rage!  Buy only things you can afford.  But be careful even then.  Even things that are cheap can turn out expensive if they take up your mental and physical space.  And once they come into your house, they can be hard to get rid of!

A few years ago I started saving things to sell on ebay.  Of course, a few items is not enough to build a business on, so I started trolling thrift stores for stuff to sell.  Great idea, but I never got past the gathering stage.  It’s just not the job for me (though it works great for others).  But I’m finding that I can’t let go of the stuff.  I know it’s nothing but fear making me hang on to it.

It makes me feel better to give my stuff away to someone I know can use it, but even that becomes a burden to me.  I end up researching organizations and causes and looking for the perfect place for all my cast-offs.  I need more trust that the world can work out ok without my micromanaging it!

Flylady is a great help in this area.  I’ve gone through many time of being on her bandwagon and off again, but some of her wisdom sticks with me.  She says to clear out your space without trying to get back any of the money you spent.  Your sanity and peace are worth much more than what you are getting rid of.  And she is absolutely right.  I don’t need a spotless home.  I don’t need to beat myself up for the mistakes I’ve made spending money on things I don’t love.  I just need to clear them out and move on.  My joy is worth it!

guest blogger post: penny pinching

Selena is on her week long blogging break currently catching up on school auction donations and her etsy store. Here is her latest project which will be sewed onto a handbag made with this material.

Here is guest blogger Julie Paulling:

My husband sent me this link today: 

It brought back a lot of memories for me.  When  we got married straight out of graduate school, we were broke, with lots of student loan debt.  We did many of the things this article mentioned.  All our furniture was old and second hand – a tiny gate-leg table my parents used as newly weds, an ugly gold baker’s rack was our tv stand, our Christmas tree was a potted plant with lights strung on it.  Times got better and we had more money after we were both employed for a while, so we actually got some new stuff.

Then came the day I realized I wanted to stay home with our new baby.  I took to budgeting and penny-pinching with a zeal I never knew possible.  All of a sudden, not spending money became more important than anything I could buy.  It became freedom to stay home with my daughter.  That decision made a huge impact on our finances for years to come, but gradually our situation improved again.  We moved to a cheaper part of the country and my husband rose in his career and income, and I got kind of lazy about saving money.

The crazyness in our economy has reminded me of the importance of watching our pennies again.  (I keep catching myself humming the theme from The Waltons lately!)  While we never went crazy and got into debt again, we haven’t been saving as much as we could.  When I quit work, I had as my goal that we would save $1,000 a month.  I might as well have decided that we should grow wings and fly.  Dropping from to one salary from two made just getting by tough, much less saving.  But, I found that as long as we were cutting costs, it wasn’t that difficult to cut a little deeper and start putting some in savings.  I don’t remember if we ever actually hit the $1,000 a month goal, but it kept me focused on doing large and small things to keep down spending.

So today I thought I would share some obvious things that anyone can do to keep down costs.  You are probably already doing some or all of them, but, maybe, there are a few people like me who get busy or lazy and need to be reminded.  As Selena has said, thrifty is now fashionable!

 

-          Buy bulk.  I have been used to the convenience of buying just what I need from the supermarket while my kids were very small.  But now my son, a committed carnivore, wants adult size portions and my grocery bill is going up.  I pulled out this http://www.foodsaver.com/?  out of the closet (an old one bought at a discount store for way below retail) and started using it for dividing up large packages of hamburger and chicken.  Be careful, though.  Buying a lot of something you seldom use won’t end up saving you much in the long run.

-          Ditch paper products.  Years ago I was in my friend’s kitchen and saw her pull a rag out of a drawer to clean up a spill.  It was a slap-your-forhead kind of moment.  How could I not be doing that already?  Now I keep cut up t-shirts for cleaning, and cloth napkins for meals and don’t buy paper towels or napkins.   No paper plates or plastic cups, either.  Such a waste. If you buy from a thrift store, the new cloth napkins don’t have to cost more than paper ones, and you just have to buy them once.

-          Stay home more.  Can you put off your errands until tomorrow?  Driving less when gas is high is huge.  I’ve found procrastination to be a huge help in my life!  Things that get put off often don’t need to be done after all.

-          Use less.  We almost never need as much dish liquid, cleaning fluid, body wash, etc as we use.  We get conditioned to take more by advertising or habit.  I get used to pumping liquid soap twice when once would do.  Notice how toothpaste ads always have someone squeezing a huge glob of paste on their toothbrush?  You get used to thinking that’s the right portion.

-          Eat at home.  I cringe even writing that!  Even though I make better food than I usually get at restaurants, it’s still so nice to have someone else doing the dishes.  But unless you are going to eat cheap fast food every meal, you can make meals much more economically at home.  And I try to make enough left-overs for my husband to take for lunch the next day – another huge savings.

 I know none if this is rocket science, but it helps me to get reminded once in a while. These days we all need as much help as we can get.