Not only am I saving money in gas by my move, but I am also saving a lot more money by not eating lunch out every day! I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but at my old branch I was getting really bad about not having enough time in the morning to pack my lunches, and I’d end up leaving in the morning planning on skipping lunch.  When lunch time rolled around, I ended up being starving, and I decided I’d hit the supermarket to get the salad bar for lunch.  That ended up costing me around $10 a day because I’d buy my salad and then I’d wander the store because my lunch was 45 minutes and it didn’t take me that long to eat.  I’d end up finding something I thought I needed, and there is my $10 total.

I know one of the first things that people do when they decide to crack down and save money is brown bag their lunch.  When I got to my new branch I found out I have 30 minutes for lunch.  30 minutes? I thought that wasn’t enough time to eat!  I decided I had to pack my lunch if I wanted to eat something because I didn’t have enough time to go out and get something, eat, and come back.  It worked well Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then Thursday I went out and got something to eat (turns out I can make it in 30 minutes) and then today I ate lunch at Mr. Money’s restaurant for free.

I need to make a menu or something for next week so I don’t stray.   Part of my problem is that I get sick of lettuce with dressing for lunch.  Sure, it’s good for me, but I get tired of the same old thing.  I need to start getting creative.  I need a vegetarian tasty lunch.  Maybe I’ll spruce up my salads.  Also, if I make my lunch at night, I’ll have it ready in the morning and not worry about not having enough time.

I know this sounds silly, but I’ve also saved money by not buying bottled water.  Once a day someone would make a run to the vending machine next door to buy water. I hat e this for so many reasons: the plastic, the cost, and the idea of paying for water.  The plastic is bad for the environment, and why should I be paying for water that I can get for a very small price from my filter at home?  That’s stupid.  I bought a $26 stainless steel Sigg bottle because I don’t like supporting big oil (making the plastic bottles), and I’ll tell you, I love this water bottle.  It was worth every penny.  I thought Mr. Money would kill me for spending that on a water bottle, but he understands and for that, I am thankful.  It will pay for itself in a month!

Sometimes I feel like a frugal failure when I spend money on eating out.  I feel like that’s one of the basics on frugality, and here I am blogging about frugality and eating out and buying bottled water!  I guess we all have our downfalls, and no one is perfect.  I do the best I can and that’s all that matters.

What are some things you take in your lunch to ’spice it up’?

Posted under Food, Save Your Money

Ever since we started growing our own vegetables in our garden, I’ve been addicted. I’m addicted to the taste of my fresh organic vegetables, and I’m addicted to all the money we save by not having to pay for as many vegetables.  We’ve started drinking green smoothies to help incorporate more greens into our diet, and while it costs us more to buy more produce, we spend less on other junk food and crap and I think we end up saving money.  I am bummed because our garden isn’t as fruitful as I wished, but I’m trying to come up with some remedies to that.  I’ve come up with a few ideas.

• Buy a membership to Costco.  The one thing that is holding me back is the $50 a year for a membership.  That is a lot of money!  Right now we’re using a friend’s membership when we want to go, but that gets inconvenient, especially with the amount of greens we consume. We do buy our dog food there because it is a lot cheaper and is good dog food, but my cost savings would be in the bulk vegetables.  Of course then I also wonder if we’d use them before they went bad, and also if I’d go over board and be tempted to buy other things while I was in there.  Sometimes I think if it’s a good deal I will buy way too much.  Of note: I haven’t had to buy body wash in over a year.
• Plant a fall crop. This is realistic.  I just need to figure out when to plant it.  Maybe that will be one of our weekend activities!  I want to plant lots of leafy greens like spinach, kale, and swiss chard.  I’m afraid of mustard greens because I tried those in my smoothies once and it was spicy!  Talk about gross.  This option will be the cheapest and easiest.
• Plant a hydroponic garden.  This is something I’d really like to do in the winter.  I’m also going to research planting some greens down in our basement.  My only worry is that we’d have to buy expensive lighting and that would stink.  Of course, it may be worth it. 

What do you think we should do?  Is there anything that I’ve missed?

Posted under DIY, Food

To Can or Not to Can: that is the question.  Yesterday I wrote how we save money by growing vegetables in our garden. I decided today to take it one step further and can some of the tomatoes that were overgrowing the garden. Please call me crazy.  I am still not done and I started about three hours ago!  This takes a lot more time than I thought it would.  This is an actual picture of one of our tomato plants.  It is over 5 feet tall!

I anticipate getting more tomatoes off these plants.  There are some green tomatoes growing currently.

Look how big these tomatoes are!!  I’ve never seen any this big.

This was my process: dip the tomatoes in boiling water for about 1 minute, shock them in an ice bath, remove skin and seeds from inside, sterilize jars, put tomatoes in jar, make sure there was no air in them, seal, and put in canner.  I know it sounds easy, but trust me, it was a lot of work!  Honestly I don’t think this was a money saving endeavor, but what can I do?  (pun intended)  The first batch is sitting in my dining room and I hope they seal.  If they don’t, I’m going to have to put them in the freezer, and I really don’t have all that much space in the freezer.  Plus, all the time that I spent on doing this would be wasted!

I think I would have saved (or made) more money had I taken them to the farmer’s market this morning.  If I would have done that, I would have saved time and energy.  I hope that my efforts are not fruitless come winter, and these canned tomatoes are better than any other tomato I’ve eaten.  I can make spaghetti sauce, chili, and a whole lot of other dishes.  Plus, they are in glass jars versus aluminum and I like that.

Do you think it’s worth it to can your own vegetables? 

Posted under DIY, Extreme Frugality, Food