Pets with purpose: Chickens

One of my all-time favorite money-saving family projects of the past year is our cute backyard chickens. Ok, ok, we also wanted some outdoor pets, since my hubby is allergic to the standard indoor stuff (cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, etc.). But seriously, now that organic, free-range eggs are getting so spendy, our girls are definitely earning their keep!

Each of our girls lays an egg a day–fewer during the shorter days of winter. If you’ve never had a really fresh egg, it’s a real treat. The yolks are so rich they’re almost orange. And they come from very happy, doted-upon chickens.

You don’t need to have a farm to have chickens. We’re in a typical, urban neighborhood (50 x 100 lot) and we can have ‘em. In fact, two other neighbors within 5 blocks have chickens. As someone said (I forget who), “chickens are the new pug”!

This cracked me up–Manhattanites with chickens. But we actually kept ours (these folks gave up on having a coop in their co-op). And our girls seem to be putting up with us pretty well.

Recession fallout: Save like crazy or take advantage of sales?

Know what I mean? On one hand, I feel like I want to have an even larger emergency fund than usual and get really frugal with my spending. On the other hand…this is a great time to get a bargain on a car, do home improvements (since builders and other workers are anxious for business), invest in our retirement funds while prices are low, and so on!

It’s driving my consumer brain crazy! Anyone else?

How knitting cut my grocery bill

This one little tool: A hand-held row counter. (Mine is this one by Clover.) In knitting, you click it at the end of every row, and it helps you keeps track of your work so you stay on pattern. But after buying it, I realized it was just what I needed for grocery shopping! I keep it in my pocket and when I toss an item in my basket, I round the price up to the nearest dollar and click my counter.

Car accident? What not to do.

A few weeks ago, my husband was hit while he was driving to work. It was clearly the fault of the person behind him, thank God. And my husband was fine (except for a sore neck).

However, it looked like our Honda was a hair away from being totaled and we did NOT want to buy a new car. So before we called any insurance companies, I did a bit of research.

In addition to Googling like crazy, I called the Consumer Action Center at Clark Howard’s radio show. It’s a pretty cool service—2nd time I’ve used it. Trained volunteers answer consumer questions off the air all day about everything from what to do after a car accident to how to use your cell phone overseas.

Here’s what I learned not to do:

I’m not even gonna LOOK at my retirement plan balance…

Reading the horrible financial news on the front page of my newspaper is enough. I’m not going to bury my head in the sand, but I’m not going to drive myself nuts, either. The market rises. The market falls. I’ve got, oh, 20-plus years until I retire. I just can’t stress about what my retirement plan is doing today.

Need some reassurance that we’re not heading for a second Great Depression? One of my favorite financial voices of calm is Clark Howard. He goes into much more detail on his radio show, but you can read the short version here.

Living (happily!) with less

Couldn’t resist sharing this great essay on living simply from The Christian Science Monitor. It’s by my friend and freelance writing colleague Kris Bordessa. She and her family lived in Hawaii for three years and happily embraced the easy-going, less materialistic culture they found in the islands. They’ve just returned to what many of us consider the altar of materialism: California. Read it here.

I’m kind of intrigued by a simple living advocate she mentions: Dave Bruno created something called the 100 Thing Challenge. His goal is to cut his possession back to just 100 items by the end of the year. Could you do it?

Kids & Saving

MoneySavvy Pig & Cow

MoneySavvy Pig

I love these segmented banks, which I bought for my daughters a while back. They’re from MoneySavvy Generation, a Web site created by Susan Beacham. I interviewed Susan for a Parenting magazine article about allowances, and thought her banks were a great idea so I ordered them the next day. (This company also has segmented banks.)

Each bank has a slot for “Spend”, “Save,” “Donate,” and “Invest.” (We’re not really using the “Invest” slot yet, but we will.) When the girls get their allowances, the deal is that they must put SOME money in each slot. We talked about it ahead of time, so they have a regular plan for how much they’ll put in each compartment. Greg and I didn’t tell the girls how much goes in each slot; we wanted them to make that choice.

Eliminating “surprise” expenses

Ever think about the fact that the holidays come at the same time each year…yet somehow we forget to budget for them? Or that you need to fill your home’s oil tank a couple of times each year (for those of us in old houses), yet you never seem to have enough cash?

If you take a minute to consider it, there are lots of expenses that only happen a few times a year, so we don’t really plan for them. But why not? A few years ago, my DH and I sat down and brainstormed every annoying expense that had caught us by surprise. Could we somehow anticipate them?

Tracking credit card purchases in Quicken

I used to cringe when my credit card statement arrived in the mail. And, actually, not because we carry a huge balance. We pay off our balance every month. Still, there would always be a couple of purchases I had forgotten about, and they would totally throw off my monthly budget.

I admit that I’m a bit anal about our monthly family budget. My friends and family know this and tease me about it. But I can’t help it. It’s in my genes. My dad was a tax preparer and math nut. It’s a built-in idiosyncrasy in my family!

So a couple of months ago, I figured out a solution in Quicken, my financial computer program of choice. (You’ll hear about my beloved Quicken often if you follow this blog, just to warn ya.)

What I do is this: I keep track of my credit card purchases in Quicken as we make them. And I have the program deduct them from the appropriate categories (Groceries, Dining Out, etc.) in our monthly budget as we go along. That way, when our credit card statement appears, I’ve already subtracted every plastic purchase from our monthly budget. No surprises! (Well, OK, fewer surprises. I still forget to record receipts from time to time.)

Back-to-school savings

Ai, yi, yi — it’s August already! Time to buy the kids new backpacks and school supplies. How is it that an innocent little list of stuff can get so spendy? And I don’t know why, but somehow I ALWAYS forget something on the list. My eyes glaze over and I cross off “glue sticks” or some such but never put them in my shopping cart.

The one thing I’ve learned (I’m such a veteran now, with a 6th grader!) that does save me bucks is NOT to stock up on back-to-school clothing by Sept. 1. When I used to do that, I’d invariably OVERbuy. I see now that it’s OK to start the school year with just a few new items, then see if the girls really need more shirts or underwear later. And really–I have a little time before they need tights. I don’t need to have them in the drawer by the first day of school. Plus, they will definitely be on sale after the September rush is over.

Here are some other ideas on cutting back-to-school costs from “The Family Manager”–Kathy Peel. I’ve interviewed her for several parenting-related articles and she’s one smart cookie. Her books are great, too.