Frugal Friday......the September 22nd Edition

*  Eldest son experienced a change in life status recently so we went down to Va to assist him in finding bedroom furniture for his apartment.  Eldest is a not very well paid new teacher and he just bought a car(after being car-less for an entire year)so money is real tight for him right now.  There would be no perusing expensive furniture stores for a matching bedroom suite.

While he worked on Friday we visited many, many thrift stores scouting out the furniture prospects.
At the Goodwill no furniture we could use but I did find College Boy a Xmas present.........hehehe

We found 3 candidates for a bedroom night stand in our travels.  We took some photos and after viewing them later, Eldest picked this one to go and purchase on Saturday.......

It has some style, was "real wood" and sturdy and the best part it was only $8.
Sold!

After about 6 thrift stores and no luck we saw this dresser sitting out in front of a junk store across the street from a thrift store we checked out........

Again, real wood and fairly sturdy and large enough to hold his stuff.  Knowing it was a deal at $55 I went ahead and paid for it and we went back on Saturday to arrange for delivery.

After checking out some mattress stores Eldest decided on a temper-pedic type foam mattress and a platform type bed frame/headboard.
The "discount" mattress store wanted upwards of $3500 for a queen sized 14" foam mattress and frame/platform.
hahahaha
No wonder people have to make payments and buy a bed on time at those prices!

So it was either buy a cheapy regular mattress and box spring at a store, or get a good mattress for cheap online.
He opted for the good mattress online where his dad and I got ours along with a platform bed frame/headboard.
He's all good in the bedroom department(mattress/frame/headboard/dresser/night stand)for a grand total of $770.

*  Remember all these that I have been collecting(mostly at Rite-Aid for free)all year........

This past week I turned it into this..........

$80 in cold hard cash.

*  While in Va we got Domino's for dinner on Friday using an old gift card so no new money OOP.

A Stormtrooper was riding shotgun for that delivery driver.
"Keep calm and join the dark side" as the back window suggested.

*  Almost free razors at Rite-Aid, free barbecue sauce at the Shursave market, and a few items bought while on the road to VA and back as shared already are my grocery finds.

*  In Goodwill I also scored a stocking stuffer for one of the kids and it was that week's 50% colored tag so half price off a thrift store price.  Rah!
In Walmart in WV I scored some clearance clothing too.......

Sleep tank tops for Daughter for $1 each.
I also found Daughter something I had already bought at the local Walmart for $4 cheaper so I bought it and will return the one that was more $. ;-)

A Summer nightie for me for $7.

And a Wonder Woman sleep shirt for me for $3.
Because I am "Fierce" when it comes to saving $. lolz

What have you done lately that is frugal?

Sluggy

We Had To Part With Some Cash!

The last few weeks, since returning from Ohio, we've been on a mission.
A mission to find a replacement car for the car that was totaled by a 16 year old drive a year ago last May.

Daughter is home working full time now.  In August she will be commuting to college and working part time and will need a car.  #2 Son will have his license by October and will need a car to get to Marching Band rehearsals and performances.  One of them can borrow my car but if both need wheels at the same time?.....it won't work.
So we really do need a 3rd car now.

Of course we got very little for our wrecked car since it was 1 year younger than my son.....the son that turns 21 this week!lol

So we took that small check and put it with another small check(Hubs inheritance money from his mother), which gave us a grand total of $3,676.58 with which to buy a car.
This price point gave us a very limited range of inventory locally, but it was enough to give us choices.

After whittling the list of possibilities down to 6 or so, we decided on this one.....

A 1999 Buick Century.
An old person's car. ;-)
Hubs got them down to $4,100 and with the tags, taxes, inspection, etc. it cost us $4,600 Out of Pocket.
So I took $923.42 from the 2011 Savings Challenge monies I saved last year to cover that last bit over $3676.58.

Why we chose this car?
2 of the final contenders were cheaper but had no a/c and way more miles on them.
The mileage on this car was a mere 58 thousand miles.....on a 13 year old car!
While the MPG for this car wasn't the lowest of the contenders, it wasn't bad.  It's a nicer, read more substantial, car which is important, when it's your kids in there on the road amongst crazy drivers.
If they are going to get hit, I want something more than fiberglass between them and that impact.

And did I mention it only had 58 thousand miles on it?  I can picture the previous owner....an old lady who bought it new in 1999 and drove it to the grocery store, church, bingo and maybe to see the grand kids twice a year.  With that low odometer reading, that's about all the traveling she did in that car.lol

I know it's an old car.  The insurance will be lower because of it's age and the fact that it's safer because it's NOT a tiny compact car.
We don't buy cars to trade in later so we don't care about it keeping it's 'value'.
This car will be run into the ground.  After us, it will be junkyard fodder.  ;-)

It needs to last 2 years.  2 years and the younger will be done with high school and on to college or who know?, and the middle child will be done with college and on her own.
At that point if it's still on the road?, all the better.  Having to figure out what to do with it will be a happy consequence.

Now if we can just get the daughter out of the car when she isn't working!lol

Sluggy

Frugality...the New Merchandising Ploy OR Step Away From that Cardboard Dresser!

Ok, since I was able to piss off quite a few people last week HERE....let's see how many readers and retailers I can annoy this week. ;-)

A couple of weeks ago, as I dug through the Sunday paper for the coupon inserts(why else does anybody even buy a newspaper anymore, right?lol), I happened to grab a Sales Flyer for a national chain store, that will remain nameless, by the name of Target.
I'm smooth, aren't I? ;-)

Anyway, I paged through the flyer, as I leisurely sipped my morning beverage, until I got to this page.
I chuckled......
Do you see what it says there, in lime green, right in the center of the page?

I chuckled but then I got mad.

It seems retailers are taking the basic fundamentals of the Frugality Movement and are twisting it to fit their Consumerist Culture.
Or another way of putting it is....retailers are using Frugality to Sell more Stuff by equating FRUGAL with CHEAP....which it is NOT!
Big diff...
 

If you look up the definition of frugal you'll find something like this explanation from Merriam Webster Online...
"characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources".

Furnishings your home with inexpensive NEW furniture is NOT frugal.    While buying a cheap piece of new furniture is initially using your monetary resources economically(not spending much money), in the long run it isn't frugal.

Spending money on new, poorly built furniture that used up natural resources in the making of this badly constructed stuff & used up your personal monetary resources that could have been saved and used more wisely to buy quality built items or items you can find used or free is cheap.

Buying new cheap furniture is not good for your bottom line since it will not last and will break sooner and need to be replaced, thus you will end up spending twice as much on the cheap furniture you buy.

It isn't frugal for YOUR wallet, nor is it frugal for the planet!

Furnishing your home with USED New-To-You furniture, IS frugal.  Even more frugal would be to look around your home at what you already own and see if "repurposing" some other item you already own or asking friends or family if they have something for FREE that they no longer need/want will work before you start looking to barter or buy used.
By not requiring more natural resources on this planet to be consumed by having them turned into a poorly made piece of furniture you have economized or saved those resources.  You have also saved your monetary resources because you won't have to buy more furniture to replace the new inexpensive ones as they fall apart....and as an added bonus, since you didn't buy a new thing from the store, they don't have to order another one just like it to replace it, saving even more natural resources.

So, which would you rather do?

A--Spend $20 on a new press board chest of drawers(made in Bangladesh or some other 3rd world country no doubt)and have it fall apart within 2 years, necessitating that you have to buy yet another new press board chest, that has now gone up to $22.50 in price....rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat through the years?
OR
B--Spend $25 at a garage sale/thrift store/craigslist/etc. for a used piece of quality-made, real wood with mitered corners and dovetailed this & thats, etc. chest of drawers that may or may not have blemishes/need refinishing/painting/cleaning, that has been in use for 20 years or more and will last for many years to come?

Remember this....you get what you pay for.  Cheaply made products don't last and by needing to be replaced frequently they suck even more money out of your wallet.
Why feed your precious, hard earned dollars to the Corporate Machine when you have a choice?

In this same vein, I found this interesting article HERE.  Seems as people try to conserve their income, they have made many Dollar Stores boom.  This phenomenon hasn't gone unnoticed by retailers, as they have begun to court these 'low-end consumers' more vigorously by adding 'low-end' merchandise.
Walmart has even lost business to the Dollar Stores and is taking steps to reclaim that lost revenue.  I found some of the comments left after this article thought provoking as well.
Go ahead and discuss amongst yourselves.....

Be looking for much much more of this kind of marketing geared toward the frugal set to show up in the print and electronic media near you!
Just because they call something Frugal doesn't make it so.
As always, when it comes to business trying to separate you from your money it's Caveat Emptor.

Sluggy

Frugally Spending What I Saved Last Year

So what is Sluggy going to do with that $23K she saved last year?
Here is what we've done with $10K of it.....

We bought a car!

Hubby's commuting car was a 2000 Kia Spectra.  We had bought that in 2001, used obviously.  We've been tracking the maintenance costs(gas mileage, repairs, etc.)on it the last 2 years.  It finally got to the point where we were pouring more $ into it than we were realizing a benefit from driving it.  It had over 150,000 miles on it and was coming up on needing work in the $1K+ range at the end of 2009.

So hubby started researching and seeing what was available locally used.  He found this 2006 Chevy Malibu.  It was part of a rental fleet and only had 29K miles on it, had good maintenance records and a clean CarFax report.  It's a bit larger than the Kia so will be a bit more comfortable to drive, which is important for hubby.  But it gets the same good gas mileage as his old car.  It will also hold 5 passengers so we all can fit in it if need be.

I just abhor spending money on cars to begin with and I absolutely will NOT buy a new car!
Why take the financial hit for buying a new car that depreciates as soon as you drive it off the lot?  If you think Chanel or Clive Christian fragrances are expensive, try the price tag on "new car smell"!lol

While I'm not happy about spending this money, it is something we needed.  And by waiting and saving up and paying CASH we did NOT take on a car loan!  This car costs $10K cash.  It will not end up costing us over $12K because we took on a car payment of $340 a month for the next 3 years at a 6.83% interest rate.

Now we just have to decide what to do with the Kia.  We run our cars into the ground but this one still has a bit of life left in it.  Even though it won't benefit us much on next year's taxes we'll probably donate it rather than junk it for parts.

Sluggy