Frugaling

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Frugal Articles of the Week

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Reading Nook Photo

Every week I like to feature a few frugal articles that caught my eyes. Curl up in your favorite reading nook and enjoy. Hopefully these encourage you to live frugal lives!

Families Ditch Cars for Cargo Bikes by Laura Moser
The Hoverman family lives in a ritzy neighborhood with a luxury, Audi SUV. They have it all, seemingly. But one thing that sets them apart is that they avoid driving on the weekends. Instead, they opt for “cargo bikes,” which allow for the whole family to ride in comfort and still be eco-friendly. What a great idea!

Nearly a third of savers have less than $1,000 for retirement by Vaishali Gauba
The statistic might shock you: a significant minority has little to speak of for retirement. Of the total sample population for the survey, 57 percent had less than $25,000 saved. This absence of wealth could be exceptionally difficult for future comfort, livelihood. But beyond the basic stats, I must caution readers that the solution isn’t as simple as saving more. The problem is that people are not paid enough to save enough. Then, and only then, people can be better directed to plan for retirement. Their immediate needs must be met first.

The Three Rules of Self-Sufficiency and Preparedness by The Frugal Farmer
Laurie’s a prepper. She has been storing food and goods for whatever financial straits she might find. In this enlightened article, she addresses three types of self-sufficiency: physical, financial, and spiritual.

Google launches its own mobile network by Chris Welch
This is tremendous news for all cell phone subscribers. Google has entered the cell phone network market. Now, they’re doing more than just building the operating systems and contributing to hardware development. With Google’s Project Fi, users can switch seamlessly between providers (Sprint and T-Mobile) across the world. Wherever there’s wi-fi, the phone defaults there, and then pops up to cell towers when you leave that area. Plus, the phone will work internationally, too. The best part — the frugal part — is that the monthly fee is $20 plus $10 per GB of data. If you don’t use your entire allotment, you actually get paid back as credit!

To fight income inequality, tell your friends how much you make by Meredith Bennett-Smith
It might sound counterintuitive, but income inequality calls for drastic measures! Despite this being the 21st century, there’s great income inequality between races, genders, and social classes. One author is advocating that people of all stratums rise up and say how much they earn. The hope is that people will be able to get an accurate and fair assessment of what they should be paid.

$200 Food Budget Challenge: March Edition

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Dunkin Donuts - Flickr photo by m01229

You donut-eating budget-buster!

It was Friday, March 27, and I was riding home from an interview. I felt bummed and left the offices feeling oh-so-average. I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. Traveling by bike, it was hard to miss the “DD” sign ahead; our earthly savior and lord of sugar, Dunkin Donuts. I pulled over, and ran in to buy a donut. I couldn’t resist, and bought two.

The cash register read, “$2.10.” My head rang with confusion and disagreement. My body craved a treat for a tough month and day. Despite the qualms and questions, I stood at the counter, handed over my card, and promptly smashed those two donuts down my gullet. Gosh they were good!

As I pedaled away, I knew what those donuts would mean. They would be an exclamation point on another month above $200. They would be a sugary-sweet failure and reminder that I’m not quite there yet. They would be the stench of another month over budget.

The food budget challenge rules

Over the last couple months, I’ve been working to reduce my food and drink expenditures. Friends and readers have asked tons of great questions about the rules to this challenge. They regularly ask, “What do you count, Sam?”

The answer is simple: everything. Anything with a nutritional value is thrown into the bucket. That’s meant that birthday parties, get-togethers, and random snacks count, too. Nothing gets removed from this budget – for any reason.

The $200 food budget challenge was meant to be fun, but also restrictive. I didn’t want to create other budgets for “entertainment” or “eating out.” That seemed to defeat the purpose for me; especially, because much entertainment includes eating and drinking.

Reviewing my efforts thus far

I would love to be writing today with beaming pride. I would love to say, “I did it!” I would love to say I’m the perfect food budgeter and frugal guy. Sadly, I have a lot of work to do.

I started the food budget challenge at the turn of the year. Being frugal led me to sell my car, buy a bike, and save money, but there was still this ridiculous part: food. I was shocked at my inability to save in this category. 

When I lumped in food and drink, my monthly budgets were around $400-600. That level of spending was preventing me from being able to save anything. It was an embarrassing realization. I was eating out too much, buying too many prepackaged foods, and opting for organic – when natural would do. I needed to revamp everything.

In the first month, January, I spent $362.69. While down heavily from earlier months, I realized quickly that I had to find other ways to reduce my spending. Then, much to the dismay of my friends, I decided to start up the budget challenge for February. It would mean another month of restrictive splurging and lots of meals at home. I tried to opt for other items that were gluten free, but not at a premium, which helped in February. It was a relative success, and I only spent $211.94. But I still hadn’t reached $200.

$200 food budget challenge: March Madness edition

Here’s a breakdown of my spending from March:

Day 1: $106.03 (Groceries)
Day 2: $0
Day 3: $2.77 (Groceries)
Day 4: $0
Day 5: $0
Day 6: $13.75 (Groceries)
Day 7: $0
Day 8: $6 (Brewery)
Day 9: $0
Day 10: $9.27 (Groceries)
Day 11: $0
Day 12: $4.87 (Sandwich); $5.56 (Birthday party candies); $30.29 (Birthday dinner)
Day 13: $0
Day 14: $10.38 (Groceries)
Day 15: $11.01 (Mexican food)
Day 16: $0
Day 17: $1.25 (Redvines – must have sugar!!!)
Day 18: $7.47 (Groceries)
Day 19: $17.59 (Groceries)
Day 20: $0
Day 21: $0
Day 22: $9.66 (Groceries)
Day 23: $1.52 (Groceries)
Day 24: $0
Day 25: $0
Day 26: $0
Day 27: $2.10 (D’oh! Donuts!)
Day 28: $20.75 (Groceries)
Day 29: $0
Day 30: $0
Day 31: $0

Even from day 1, you can see I was doomed to fail. I spent over $100 in a single day, as my foodstuffs had grown dangerously low in February. I needed to stock up – big time. Unfortunately, that meant spending half the budget.

After the 31 days of March, I spent $260.27.

When I first started the $200 food budget challenge, I expected a linear decline in spending. Wrongly, I assumed that I would be able to gradually drop the costs month-over-month – that it would always drop. While $260 is less than January and well below previous spending, it spiked up from February. And needless to say, moved me further away from the goal.

Lessons learned this month

1. Psychological needs will creep into budgetary needs

A danger zone this month was sugary food. Because I biked to work, school, and the grocery stores, I was constantly burning calories. Despite my experience preparing for odd hunger times, the rush for sugar still hit me. I attribute this problem to a couple unmet psychological needs this month. I wasn’t sleeping enough, which led to tired days, where I was more susceptible to crappy food.

One of the best fixes to this problem is making sure you’re balancing out some of life’s demands. The best solution would be sleep. As a graduate student that can be hard to come by, but in April I want to work on this aspect.

2. Challenges become fun, but also competitive

I call this a “challenge” intentionally. Budgets can be boring and monotonous, and the reward isn’t short-term. Budgets help people accomplish long-term goals. Challenges, on the other hand, encourage people to work towards something in the shorter-term. For me, I needed this push to reduce my food budget.

Now, three months down, I’ve realized that the competition isn’t just internal. When I bring up the idea with others, I constantly hear comparisons. Some people assume it’ll be easy to accomplish, while others doubt themselves. Let me assure you, if you aren’t regularly around $200, it’s difficult.

Then there are the negative comments from others, unfortunately. Challenges sometimes bring out the one-uppers. These are the people that aren’t providing constructive criticism and suggestions, they’re just making it clear that they can do better than you. Generally, I find this feedback to be debasing and detract from the main goal: a fun challenge that we can strive for, together.

3. Food budgets should be averaged month-over-month

When I present my results, you only see one month of activity. In reality, food budgets are averaged over your lifetime. As such, people can buy huge foodstuffs from Costco and other warehouse-style retailers for deep discounts. This bulk buying can save money over the long-term, while ostensibly increasing a single month’s budget.

Because of the power of bulk buying and saving, next month I intend to account for my food budget in servings, when possible. For example, I purchased a 10-pound bag of rice, and I’ll account by 1-cup scoops next month. Although, with more perishable foods, I’ll account for those by receipts, as I’ve done.

As I enter my fourth month of the frugal food budget challenge, I’d love it if you’d join me! Even if you fail, as I have, it’s a great test to see how much you’re spending. To those who are struggling to wean down their budgets, try it out! To those who’ve succeeded, what have you done? Cheers to April and good luck!

The Partitioned Life Destroys Creativity And Fosters Income Inequality

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Ralph Steadman Art Cartoonist
I Am Not Like The Others by Ralph Steadman

Recently, I watched a documentary of Ralph Steadman. He’s an infamous cartoonist whose work graced the covers and pages of Hunter S. Thompson’s rowdy reads. Steadman has a natural ability to start with a splash of paint and envision the result. Sometimes what starts as a mean dragon, turns into a wicked politician. It’s a beautiful form of art.

The other day I set out to write a brief update on how much biking is saving me. But something larger was calling. What I realized in crafting my next article was that biking was part of a grander picture. This article is about life, partitioned; perhaps more catchily titled, “The Partitioned Life.”

The specialized workforce we never wanted

The separated, divided, specialized life is largely due to our strict capitalistic culture. Adam Smith, writer of Wealth of Nations and oft-cited theorist about the “invisible hand” of markets, suggested that capitalism would succeed via economic specialization. Essentially, with professional expertise emphasized, we could separate the economy into different vocations. These vocations would enable society to produce at faster rates, because time would simply be spent on one’s expert area.

Lawyers, doctors, and teachers all take distinctly different directions to accomplish their career goals. Most go to graduate school and receive mind-numbing didactic training. But each is partitioned and specialized.

The days of da Vinci are gone. Leonardo da Vinci was a polymath — a man with various skills. This painter, sculptor, philosopher, and anatomist was responsible for early explanation of medicine, astronomy, art, and more. Without his versatile background, each would suffer. He was the antithesis of singular specialization. But our economic interests have destroyed this path. The generalist is less valued compared to the highly-specialized “expert.”

We are partitioned beyond our wages

With disparate workforces, specialized employees are needed for a variety of tasks. Now we need a secretary, assistant, web designer, etc. But each of those three jobs could be accomplished by one person. This is the conundrum and false growth that’s associated with Adam Smith’s legacy. The more specialization associated with our jobs, the more employees that are needed for administrative needs.

Now, we need to partition even further. Picture your local city. What do you see? I see a series of shops, restaurants, bars, research parks, industry, fast food, and gyms. Break it down even further, and I see the burger flipper, salt and pepper shaker, and checkout representative. I see management, accountants, lawyers, bosses on bosses on bosses. We are operating within this highly specialized economy that works beyond vocational structure — it fundamentally affects how we shop.

The following is highly dependent upon your age, demographic, socioeconomic status, and personal interests, but the partitioned life also affects your monthly costs. Last time I flew into New York City, I asked a Millennial what she recommended I do in the city. She talked to me about the bars, restaurants, and museums. Then, she asked if I liked exercise. I do! She suggested Soulcycle.

When I landed, I Googled the name and found the chain was all over the city. Soulcycle has developed a sort of cult following. It intrigued me until I saw the price: $39 for one class. I’m always ballin’ on a budget, and $39 for a bike class was senseless. Needless to say, I didn’t go.

That price, class, and exercise studio impacted me. Here we have an economy so separated and partitioned that people decide to work all day, go home, and then go to a workout class. This Kubrickian hallway seems to be an endless procession of work on work — working to work out.

Bike in Autumn LeavesCrush the divides for creativity, clarity, and savings

Buying and riding a bike 90% of the time has changed my relationship with our economy. Every day I choose my bike, I feel a minor pang of anarchy. I’m doing my own thing to contribute to the collective — not contributing to climate change, capitalistic malignancies, and health problems that are affecting us all.

As mentioned, I started this article with the desire to focus on a number — the true savings associated with riding a bike. Instead, I’ve decided to talk about the bigger economic effect of our partitioned lives. But let me briefly entertain some calculations. With a bike, I pay for my gym membership ($0) and fuel up with food ($0 in gasoline). If you were to analyze your car-less savings, you’d need to immediately start with a couple hundred dollars every month.

Over the last 30 days, I’ve biked about 200 miles. There have been no parking fees, maintenance costs, or police to worry about. If I drove those 200 miles, AAA estimates that that would cost me $156.60 per month. But the savings goes beyond this and works to break the traditional partitions that our economy has parcelled off for us.

Recognizing and appreciating the generalist in all of us

We currently live in one of the most unequal times in American history. We have followed the wizened advice of economic thinkers like Adam Smith, and it’s led us astray. The “invisible hand” and free market principles have led to broken roads, broken budgets, and broken families. We are a country of financial elite and impoverished masses.

Economic specialization is no longer working. We must recognize the generalist is more powerful. Knowing how to repair a bike, being fit, planting your own garden, collectivising, and democratizing are our last hope. It’s our world’s last hope.

We must create an economy and emphasize the power of the generalist. We deserve to give ourselves the opportunity to be radicalized and empowered by the next da Vinci, don’t we?

My Bike Ride Disaster: Wet, Dirty, And Full Of Road Spittle

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Bike ride through the city
Photo: Dustin Gaffke/Flickr

My first fall in fall

This summer I purchased my first bike in years. It quickly became an enjoyable habit. My body became stronger and I can now bike about an hour before getting really tired (backpack and all). It’s forced me to think about climate change and my impact on society; thankful too, because I’m individually reducing carbon emissions. But I’m also open to the elements like never before, and that comes with serious risks.

It was drizzling today, and the roads were riddled with puddles and rivers. If I still had a car, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. I would’ve been isolated from the elements. Cars are protective bubbles and creature comforts. My commute into work would’ve been simple and relatively safe. Instead, I took the first fall on my bike.

Every time I hop on my bike I realize all of the variables that are working against me: my brakes might not work, a car may hit me or otherwise cause me to lose control, a tire may pop, etc. Unfortunately, I wasn’t considering the most obvious possibility this morning: pedestrians.

As I made my way to campus, I took note of my increasingly moist bum. I reached back to check, and found a nice patty of road spittle. Yes, this wasn’t one of my favorite bike rides. Nonetheless, I had no other option at this point and needed to get into work on time. My legs peddled onward.

I crossed the river and was nearly there. The light was green and I began to turn right, when a group of pedestrians crossed illegally. My brakes squealed, as I squeezed to prevent hitting one of them. Then, the bike lost traction and I completely slid off and down. My entire right side was covered in dirt and rain and ominous road schmutz.

People called out, “Are you okay?” Despite the immediate feeling of road rash, I hadn’t hit my head or broken anything. Someone picked up my coffee mug, and handed it to me. I fixed my helmet, put my mug away, and biked another 300 feet into work.

My foreign, happy reaction

But despite this inconvenience, anger, and wetness, I’m curiously happy. Even I question that feeling, “How could I be happy after a group of pedestrians caused me to slip and fall? How could I be happy sitting in wet clothing?”

Well, I’ll tell you!

When I first bought my bike, I wondered how long it would be before I was craving a car. But that feeling never came. Aside from stealing a ride with friends here and there, I haven’t driven more than a handful of times since mid-summer. Each month, I’ve been able to save an extra $300 dollars per month by not having a car (loan, gas, insurance, repairs, maintenance, etc.). Selling the car and pocketing the savings led to a reversal in my net worth, too. I’m finally in the black! And from a future standpoint, each time I take a bike or bus, I am contributing to a different carbon economy.

Dealing with winter

The seasons are changing. And now that I no longer have a car, I feel it like never before. My clothes are soaked and my body is ice cold from the spill. Work feels a bit more uncomfortable with the growing bruise engulfing my right side.

The weather will worsen. Winter in the Midwest is a horrific tragedy of gray and cold. Biking consistently through that will not be possible. While there are some buses that run through the area, the timing of interchanges may lead to severe delays and time lost. It will be a major time to question transportation and work-life balance.

No matter what happens, I’ll be sure to update you on my choices and how they affect my budget. For my bikers out there, be safe and ride on! And, read this awesome article about bike safety from Grist.org!

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