Books

I love books, but they are expensive.  I spent almost $50 on books last month and I bought a lot of them used...it's crazy.  I've found a neat site that I can swap with others and earn credits for books.  If I had swapped the books I bought last month it would have cost me approximately $6 for shipping.  That's a $44 savings. 

Check it out.  www.paperbackswap.com

Necessities

I'm challenging myself for the month of February to only buy necessities, but I think what is difficult is to define necessities. 

Dictionary.com defines necessity as follows:

ne·ces·si·ty

noun, plural -ties.

1.something necessary  or indispensable: food, shelter, and other necessities of life.

2.the fact of being necessary  or indispensable; indispensability: the necessity of adequate housing.

3.an imperative requirement or need for something: the necessity for a quick decision.

4.the state or fact of being necessary  or inevitable: to face the necessity of testifying in court.

5.an unavoidable need or compulsion to do something: not by choice but by necessity.

So I should make a list then.

1.  Rent

2.  Utilities

3.  Food

I work from home so my transportation cost are very low.  I have a 6 year old and a 7 month old so I have to take in to account their necessities as well.  

W - 6 Year Old

1.  Rent

2.  Utilities

3.  Food - the only difference here is that he needs lunch money.

4.  School activities - it's Valentines Day this month so he will need to bring something to school to exchange with this classmates.  I would not deprive him of this.  

G - 7 Month Old

1.  Rent

2.  Utilities

3.  Food - ha!  I'm his food!!!

4.  Daycare - Although I work from home it's impossible to be a good employee and do my job while caring for him.  I have in home daycare for him that is reasonable and he is well taken care of.  

So the timeliness of this is great.  It's garbage day today, the last day of January, so I can clean out the refrigerator and really start from scratch.  Food is probably my biggest expense.  I will be reviewing my bank statement for February of last year and see what my expenses were then until now.  So stay tuned...

 

Chicken Broth

You buy the great big thing of chicken broth.  You use the two cups that your recipe calls for.  What do you do with this giant can of broth with 4 cups of broth in it?  Simple.  Ice Cube Trays.  You'll need 1 for each two cups of broth.  Fill, freeze and then put in to a freezer bag for future use.  Of course, measuring...well there is two cups per tray, so it stands to reason that 12 cubes would be 2 cup and 6 cubes would be a cup and well, I'll let you complete your own division.  I've never seen a recipe that calls for less than a cup of broth so you should be safe with the tablespoons and such. 

You can also do this with wine...not sure why you would, but if you have a partial bottle of wine you can put it in the ice cube trays and they will freeze and you can use them for cooking.  However, if you have a nice bottle of wine, I'd just drink it...that seems like a no brainer.  I assume this is for the bottle that you bought cause the bottle looks neat but the wine tastes like grape juice strained through an old sock, but then...why would you put that wine in your food?

Happy Saving.

Coupons

So I've learned to love coupons.  I save an average of $20 on all major grocery runs and on triple coupon runs usually about 50% on whatever I'm buying.

A couple things.

1.  As far as I'm concerned anything less than $.50 isn't worth clipping.
2.  Make use of your triple coupon days.  They are usually holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day so there's one coming up.
3.  Coupon companies are making it impossible to do extreme couponing so I don't even bother trying.  Who needs 2700 tubes of toothpaste anyway.  Be real here. 
4.  Don't buy stuff you don't use.  It's a waste of time, money and increases your carbon footprint if you just end up tossing it.  That $1.00 off coupon might be tempting, but if you'll never use it why waste your money?

I know this isn't very enlightening, but it's true and common sense.  It seems there's a great lack of that these days.  Maybe I should send my coupons to the federal government...