Dreadful Penny

Just when I get to a point where I’m satisfied with what we’re spending for food and household expenses, I find something like this: a blog written by a woman who buys the same for a family of 4 on an annual budget of $800.  $800 per YEAR, I said.  Criminy.

Now, we’ll never eat the way they do, at least not with me convinced that most carbohydrates, consumed regularly above very small quantities, aren’t healthy.  I don’t see myself ever becoming comfortable with tying up a grocery line doing transaction after transaction to build up a free stockpile.  I’m not ready to start trading coupons online or paying for a clipping service.  If I’m not prepared to make those changes, it’s not possible to reach this level of extreme saving, but I can still strive to do the best possible within my comfort parameters.

I’ll tell you this: it feels great to know that I probably never have to pay more than a few pennies — if that — for shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, hand dishwashing detergent, or cereal again.  We have sufficient stockpiles of these daily use items that I can turn up my nose at anything but the best sales with matched coupons. [Example: I could have purchased 2 boxes of Special K cereal yesterday at $.50 each (B1G1 sale plus B1G1 coupon, up to $3.99)  Normal price at Rite Aid was a ridiculous $4.99/box.  That may have been a wonderful reduction in price, but with over a dozen boxes of cereal downstairs, I’ve set my personal price limit at $.25/box for something my family really enjoys and $0 for a cereal they’re willing to try or will give away.]

Now if I could just find cheap, good quality meat and free Coke Zero, we’d be set!

Last week, I posted my estimated and actual weekly grocery/house/personal care spending.  While that was probably boring to anyone else who saw it, I thought it was a useful exercise to help me stay on track, and I’m doing it again.  This week, I’m forgoing most stock-up purchases (unless the product will be a net cost of $0) so I can free up some cash for the group meals I mentioned in my previous post. (updates in orange)

Rite Aid - After coupons and rebates, I should make a profit of ~$2.26 (minus taxes) for buying two bottles of L’Oreal Vive shampoo, Electrasol dishwashing detergent, a tube of Crest toothpaste, and 2 boxes of Special K.  My initial cost out of pocket should be under $3.00.  [Actual: my local Rite Aid was sold out of the Electrasol - I’ll try later in the week - and the Special K was priced too high to be covered by my B1G1 coupon.  Bought the other items plus a $5 wire basket for organizing cutlery and napkins on Wednesday.  Paid $7.23 out of pocket, will get $2.49 rebate, for a net of $4.74.]

CVS - No impressive sales at CVS this week — at least on things we could use — so I won’t stop in.

Walgreens - I’ll spend about $10 from my Walgreens rebate gift card to buy 2 boxes of Nature Valley granola bars, 2 packs of disposable bowls, 3 packs of index cards, 8 2-pocket folders, and 4 spiral notebooks.   [Actual: Bought cheaper paper dessert plates instead of the bowls, didn’t get the folders, found 2 Nature Valley coupons at the last minute.  Paid $6.81, using my Walgreens gift card.]

Kmart - Estimated spending of $45 for (lots of) pop, vegetables, dip, brownie mix, cream cheese, and eggs.  [Actual: Paid $59.84; including $16.24 on a Kmart gift card I bought last month to get free tickets to see The Hulk.  Bought an extra 12-pk of Coke and 3 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios above what I had planned, because of sale and coupon combinations.]

Target - I need to refill some Method hand soap and I hope it will cost less than $5.  [Actual: $8.77.  Bought Softsoap, but then added $5 impulse buy - cool 2-pocket folders for Kid Dreadful.]

Meijer - About $110 for loads of meat, pop and bottled water, fruit and vegetables, cheese, snack food, and needed ingredients for dishes I’m making.  I have a coupon from last week that will give me $4 off my entire bill at the register, but that hardly makes a dent.  [Actual: $102.06 plus an unexpected catalina (register coupon) for $4 off my next shopping trip.]

So, this is an expensive day, with a total probably over $185 (when I figure in tax and bottle/can deposits).  Ouch.  Off I go; let’s see how accurate my estimates turn out to be this week.  [Actual total: $182.77.  I still need to buy some fresh mozzarella that I couldn’t find in the stores, which will probably bring the total near $190, but I picked up 3 boxes of cereal, 2 cans of nuts, a box of Propel powdered drink, a bunch of bananas, 2 bags of chocolate candy, 1 bag of chocolate chips, a wire basket, 5 folders, and a $4 coupon that weren’t in my original plan.  I spent a lot, yes, but I stretched the expected cost further than I thought I would.]

Things tend to pile on all at once.  Good things, but eek.

Wednesday, I’m hosting lunch for about 20 people — my husband’s co-workers — and I’ve gotten out of practice at entertaining.  Everything will be fine, I’m keeping the menu relatively simple, the house is pretty clean already, but it still makes me tense.  Want to make a good impression on the boss and all that.

At the same time, I’m trying to find a food sponsor for our 48HFP team.  Figure 10 people, cast and crew, on Saturday.  I have a good list of places to try here in town, but it’s a matter of finding the time to do it.  My neighbors might know people at local businesses, which would give me a shortcut.  I should be able to kick in some leftovers (veggies, snacks, dessert) from Wednesday’s lunch; if I can find some sandwiches and maybe a case of bottled water, I think we’ll be ok.  The timing is otherwise unfortunate.

Friday we’re going to an outdoor concert, so I need to plan and pack a picnic dinner.  Small issue, but a change from the norm.

Saturday I’ll be busy with the 48HFP.

Oh, and this is also the week I need to get serious about prepping materials to audition for a musical on August 2nd.

Eeep.

I used to claim that I was very good at handling stress, but that was bullshit.  My blood pressure was through the roof and I was binge eating all sorts of crap.  Taking a year away from the work world was like pressing a Reset button - stress was no longer an issue and I was able to truly find some calm.  Nowadays, though, I think I have a lower tolerance for stress.

Once upon a time, I could go to work at 8:00, have a VP cursing me out by 8:30, deal with backstabbing co-workers before noon, explain a huge and necessary schedule delay to execs who would gladly kill me with their bare hands to speed things up by 2:00, notice that my stock options were utterly worthless even though my boss insisted they were a valuable part of my compensation package by 3:00, calm a crying staff member who has been bullied by another team by 4:00, kick someone’s ass for bullying my team by 5:00, write up tedious reports and update useless tracking software by 6:30, and by the time I left the office around 8:00, my team might have submitted a risky redesign plan for a product used many millions of times each day.

After a day like that, I’d sleep like a baby.  Now, I have to put together two meals for a total of 30 people over the course of the week and my brain is racing a mile a minute.

Last Christmas, we gave gifts that included both store-bought and homemade items — crabapple candy (including fruit from our own tree), spiced apple syrup, cinnamon apple wedges, and dolls that I designed and sewed.  This year I intend to do the same and it’s not too early to get started.

I don’t have many ideas yet, though.  I may finish some cute amigurumi-style mice that I started crocheting last year, then add on some Christmas details so they can be used as decorations.  We’ll have crabapples and cheap peaches and apples again if I want to do some canning.  I should have lavender and basil from the garden; those might be useful for homemade hand cream or soap.  I can pull out the sewing machine to make stuffed presents or pretty accessories for my young nieces.

The goal is to give everyone something they will use and enjoy.  This is also a creative outlet for me, and an opportunity to spend more time than money.  If I start when I have extra time in summer, the holiday season will be a lot more relaxed, too.

I mentioned before that I had heard from two teams, and I’ve now committed to working with one of them.  Woo!  I’ll simply be an assistant, filling in where help is needed during the weekend of the event, but that’s fine by me.  It sounds fun and I’m curious about the process.  All of the films will be screened at the Main Art Theatre on July 24th.

As planned, we spent some time on July 4th weekend disassembling, painting, and reassembling my bike.  (Ok, my husband did all the mechanical bits AND some of the painting; I bought the paint and applied a good amount of it.)  I still have some copper accents to add, but today I took it out for my first post-makeover ride and I was really happy with the results.

I’ll admit, I had envisioned something more purely Steampunk, but I’m no perfectionist and I’m not ready to spend hours getting all the details right.  There’s a lot of steel and chrome on my bike that I’d rather have in copper or brass, and the pedals, seat, and handlebars are clearly modern.  I could do more.  Instead, I’m happy to call my bike “Steampunk-inspired” and delight in the simple fact that it looks much older than it did two weeks ago.

Here’s my bike before.  I always thought that the cruiser lines weren’t a match with the sporty paintjob and detailing.

My husband took it apart and hung it, piece by piece, from the rafters in our garage for painting.

Here’s how it looks today.  The body is now Charleston Green and the rims and spokes are copper.  I’ll be adding copper wire detail around the vertical supports on the body frame; those should pull the look together.

Closeup on the basket.  I wired an assortment of vintage buttons from my collection onto a weathered basket that I picked up second-hand when I visited Nantucket.

I like that my bike is more “Murder She Wrote” now.  The paintjob looks amateurish and it’s far from perfect, and I like that, too.  In some light, it looks black; I bought the green by accident and then discovered that it was a great color.   Yep, this feels more like me.

Huh.  I had given up on participating in the 48 Hour Film Project and now I’ve heard from two teams in the past day.  I’d still love to be part of it, though I now have a conflict that Friday night (we’re taking Kid to see Weird Al Yankovic).  The rest of the weekend is still free.

One of the people who wrote asked if I had any online clips of my acting.  Nope.  Most of my experience is onstage and way back then, even VHS camcorders were really expensive.  Way back then.  Ha!  My husband suggested that I offer to scan some daguerreotypes for her.  Technology, especially video technology, has advanced so quickly in the past 14 years that a time without clips probably seems like the Stone Age.

That’s my catch-22 situation now, though.  I have acting experience — not horribly impressive, but a fair amount — which took place over a decade ago, in another state, and without video capture.  My filmed experience was either as an extra (invisible in the finished product) or in a movie that was never finished.  So, I’m starting from the ground up again.

I’ve been giving it a good shot over the past weeks as I’ve been getting my feet wet, though.  I’ve been contacting lots of people and trying to get a shot at an audition anywhere I can.  Today I’ll attend an open casting call and hopefully pick up audition materials for another opportunity.  I’ve been studying (from books) and trying to get my voice back into shape.  Plus, I’ve started seeing exercise and eating right as something I’m doing not just for my health, but also for my benefit as a performer.

What I haven’t done yet is invest any real money.  I haven’t taken any acting classes since high school.  The Motion Picture Institute of Michigan has a course of study in film acting that looks terrific, but we can’t afford $10K when we’re a one-income family and have a teenager to send to college in a few years.   My “headshot” was taken by myself at arm’s length before we left for the Duran Duran concert.  I haven’t contacted any agencies who might help me find opportunities, but would undoubtedly insist that I get a comp card or at least a professional headshot.  One step at a time.  If I can get a couple of small roles, even as an extra, I’ll have a lot more confidence that I can work my way back into the business and then I’ll find some money in the budget for photography.

“Suddenly, saving is sexy and budgeting is back in vogue.”  So says this article on Kiplinger.com (via Get Rich Slowly).  Rrrright.  While frugality is more widely accepted than it was a few years back, I’m going to need a lot more convincing to call it sexy.

I’ve seen a load of articles about how people are clipping coupons and shopping sales nowadays.  Really?  I’m unconvinced.  I visit several stores each week.  It is extremely rare that I see anyone else in line with coupons; if I stand behind 9 people in line across those 3-5 stores, perhaps one person will pull out a coupon or two.  “Do you have a CVS card?” is usually met with a shake of the head, while I glance down at my basket full of items that are free or really cheap because I have one.  The people I see with coupons are almost exclusively elderly women, though I’ve read stats that the most frequent coupon users are middle-aged and middle class.  My sample is skewed by the fact that I do my shopping during business hours on weekdays.

Even store employees are clueless about discounts.  This week at Kmart, the cashier joked with me about the six bags of Reese’s candy I was buying.  “Having a party?  You really like chocolate!”  I told her that actually, while my family does like chocolate and those bags would last a long time, the important part was that two $7 vouchers for tickets to see The Dark Knight would print out with my receipt.  “We were going to see the movie anyway, so this will mean that the candy is free.”  She looked at me skeptically.  When the vouchers printed, she took an extra few seconds to read them.  “You’re right!  Anyone can do this?”  I handed her the Kmart sales circular and pointed to the section about the tickets.

My husband jokes that the stores are going to start paying me NOT to shop there and he’s asked, “How do they make money if you can get so many things free?”  Easy: the 90%+ of people who don’t use coupons, only shop an occasional sale, and buy impulse items.  Plus, most of the coupons I use are provided by the manufacturer, which reimburses the store, so it’s in the store’s interest to keep me coming back and trading those little slips of paper for merchandise.

Here’s one thing I’ve discovered in the last month, though — concentrated frugality is sexier than just trying to spend less.  Spending less at the drugstore, for example, might mean buying cheap brands or postponing purchases.  But by combining coupons with sales and rebates, I can enjoy the luxury of premium hair and skin care products and keep my makeup supply fresh.  Spending less at the grocery store might mean buying products that were less healthy and forgoing treats.  We have plenty of interesting, nutritious, and indulgent foods in the house without spending an arm and a leg.  I trade my time for those savings, but with the amounts I’m talking about, it’s worthwhile and profitable.

For some reason, a wave of financial anxiety hit me on Saturday.  The sort that makes your throat constrict and your stomach begin to flop like a grounded fish.  It passed quickly enough.

We’re doing ok.  We’re not-by-choice landlords (we couldn’t sell my husband’s former house at a reasonable price, so we have it rented and are not quite breaking even), we spent a lot of money on home improvements this year, we took a pricey vacation in winter, and we’re getting by on only one salary, but that leaves enough.  We have six months of payments left on one car loan; after that’s paid off, we’re free of all debt but our mortgages.

We don’t manage our household budget tightly, but we keep a handle on it this way: my husband’s paycheck is directly deposited to one of his accounts.  Every other week, a certain amount is automatically transferred from there to our joint account.  We use a dividend Mastercard for most household expenses and at the end of the month, I pay that credit card bill out of our joint account.   The joint account also covers the cell phone, cable, and some other recurring bills, and it’s where we pull cash when we need it.  Meanwhile, my husband pays large home expenses — like the looming summer tax bill — from his account.  We have emergency funds stashed away, so I don’t have to panic when the amount in our joint account barely covers the Mastercard bill, but it doesn’t feel good either.  Compared to people with a pile of credit card debt, we’re doing swell, but there isn’t much margin for error.

Today I’ll do the grocery/household shopping and given my recent anxiety, I made a rule: I can only buy things we need in the next week or two, are on a very good sale and will be used in a month or two, or will have a net cost of $0.  Here’s my plan (updates in orange):

Rite Aid - After coupons and single check rebates (I’ll get a check in August), today’s trip should net out to a profit of $.25, but I’ll have to front about $7.  I’m buying two bottles of shampoo, a bottle of conditioner, a tube of toothpaste, and a tube of lip balm.  [Actual: couldn’t find the lip balm, paid $6.23 out of pocket, and will get $5.73 in rebates, for a net of $.50.]

CVS - Should have a net cost of less than $5 after ExtraCare bucks, but I’ll have to front about $10.  More shampoo (if I can get it with a $.50 overage), shaving gel, snack food, feminine products, and Lactaid tablets. [Actual: no shampoo, so I paid $9.09 out of pocket, including $5 ECB.  Earned $4.99 in ECB, so the net cost was $4.10.]

Walgreens - No rebate items, but I’m picking up some school/office supplies with folders, filler paper, and mailing envelopes for $2.39. [Didn’t get to Walgreens yet.]

Kmart - I’ll probably spend about $48.  The expensive items here are Charmin (the stockpile needs replenishing) and string cheese.  Plus, I’ll be spending $14 on Reese’s candy to stock the pantry sweet shelf, and getting two $7 vouchers to see The Dark Knight in return.  We would have seen the movie anyway, so this essentially gives us free candy.  Other purchases: veggies, chicken, bacon, lunch meat, eggs.  [Actual: paid $50.48, got two ticket vouchers for The Dark Knight.]

Meijer - I’ll probably spend about $40.  Fruit, dairy, bread, snacks, canned chicken and tuna, and frozen vegetables, potatoes, lemonade, and ice cream.  I have some good coupons this week, so I should have a nice, full cart for that $40. [Actual: spent $47.87 out of pocket, earned $4 toward next trip, for a net of $43.87.  I bought a few more things than planned because of finding last minute deals, but the final result was only a couple dollars more than expected.]

Bottom line, I’ll spend under $110, which will net to less than $100 [$98.95 actual so far, without Walgreens] after rebates/ECB and include a free movie matinee.  That’s really not bad, but I’m painfully aware that I could cut out even more.  Thing is, I can spend $100/week and no one will feel deprived — snack food and sweets are available when my husband and Kid want them (Kid knows that when he whines that he wants more of something, my reply will always be, “Well, I’ll pick some up the next time it’s on sale”), we have beverages we like and the brands we prefer where they matter, and we eat well.  We don’t have to take more extreme frugality measures.  We could… but maybe not yet.

No more procrastinating.  Off to the stores.  Yippee.

With the Friday holiday, I’m utterly discombobulated.  I have no idea what day or month this is, and it’s 2009, right?

Today I had an audition for a short film.  VERY short, judging by the script, but well-written.  I read several times for two parts; my first reading sounded particularly awkward and I can’t say I was thrilled with any of my performances, but for a cold reading, eh, maybe not so bad.  We shall see.