Dirt Cheap: The Best Frugal Gardening Ideas On The Internet

With the price of healthful groceries going no place but up, lots of thrifty folks are starting a garden to save money on their bills this year. But what about the money to start a garden? It can be a very expensive undertaking, especially if you’ve never gardened before in your particular location.

I’ve been researching ways to start my own garden as inexpensively as possible and thought, “HEY!!! I know some other folks who would absolutely love frugal gardening ideas!” So…here they are.

Step One: What Kind of Garden Are You Going to Grow?

Of course, the very first thing to decide is what type of garden will work best for your situation. This will depend a lot on your soil, your climate, your skill set, and what you have easy and inexpensive access to. Following are some articles and books that will help you make your decision.

Pallet Gardens: Simple, Easy, Free

Straw Bale Gardens Complete

How to Build a Recycled Greenhouse

Create an Instant Garden with Sheet Mulching

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

DIY Metal Raised Beds

DIY Super Easy Raised Garden Bed for Under $30

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed for $12

For those who aren’t build-y: Big Bag Fabric Raised Beds (I have used these with great success for veggies with shallow roots and as a bonus, you can use them on concrete if you’re gardening on a patio.)

Using Pallets to Make Free Raised Garden Beds

Square Foot Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space

15 Fruits and Veggies You Can Grow in a Bucket Garden

PVC Drip Irrigation System for Your Garden

How to Save BIG on Lumber Supplies for Your Square Foot Garden

Step Two: Plan Your Garden

Now that you have figured out how you’ll grow your food, you need to figure out what to grow. A lot of that depends on your goals. Are you just hoping for salad this summer? Or are you planning to grow an entire year’s worth of food for your family? These links will help you make some decisions!

FREE Garden Planning Printables

How Much to Plant for a Year’s Worth of Food

Granny Miller’s Garden Planner for Home Preservation

An Inspiring 5000 Square Foot Garden Plan

Last Frost Date Seed Planting Worksheet

Step Three: Start Your Seedlings

While it’s easy and less hassle to buy your seedlings already started, it costs a whole lot more. One plant can be the equivalent of an entire package of seeds!  Starting your own seedlings is not that difficult and you don’t need an indoor growing operation that marijuana drug lords would envy.

Seed Starting 101

Frugal Seed Starting Station

DIY Seed Starting Mix

10 Seed Starting Hacks

20 Frugal Repurposed Seed Starting Containers

How to Make Newspaper Seed Starting Pots

Another Way to Make Seed Starting Pots from Newspaper

Chicken Manure Tea for Seedlings

Why Your Seeds Aren’t Germinating

Step Four: Amend, Create, or Prepare Your Soil

No matter how sturdy your seedlings or how efficient your beds, your garden is only as good as your soil. These tips will help you, whether you’re amending what exists, creating soil, or preparing your soil to recieve seedlings.

Know Where You’re Starting Out: Test Your Soil

How to Make Your Own Garden Soil and Compost

Create an Instant Garden with Sheet Mulching

10 Tips to Improve Your Soil

Using Eggshells in the Garden

Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden

Build a Compost Bin from Pallets

Is Your Soil Getting Enough Calories?

Bonus: Pest and Weed Control

You don’t have to break the bank to keep weeds and pests at bay.  Many of the things you need are things you’d normally throw in the trash. Other DIYs are chemical-free and thrifty to make.

Natural Pest Control in the Garden

5 Ways to Naturally Control Weeds

Natural Flea Beetle Control

The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Pest and Disease Control

Repel Insects Naturally with This All-Purpose Garden Spray

Using Banana Peels in the Garden to Repel Pests

Bonus Bonus: Miscellaneous Frugal Gardening Awesomeness

These resources didn’t fit into any of the above categories but I found something useful for my frugal gardening efforts in every single one. So, I figured you guys would like them too!

10 Things That Can Be Recycled for the Garden

Cheap and Easy Gardening Tips

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

The Top 10 Plants for Companion Gardening

Vegetable Gardening Basics

DIY Garden Hose Repair

7 Budget-Friendly Garden Tips

Build a Simple Cucumber Trellis

21 Gardening Hacks

Frugal and Free Landscaping and Garden Ideas

25 Cheap Gardening Tricks for Self-Reliance

9 Gardening Supplies You Can Get for Free

How to Start a Garden on a Budget

70+ Frugal Garden DIYs

80+ Items You Can Compost

Bonus Bonus BONUS: A Peek at My Personal Gardening Library

These are the books I have on my own bookshelf in the gardening/homesteading area. I’ve included links so you can find them on Amazon. All links are to the newest editions, so the books may not look the same as the ones you see on my shelf.

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

The Backyard Homestead

Straw Bale Gardens Complete

The Woodland Homestead

Urban Farming

Western Garden Book

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Building a Shed

Organic Gardening (There are only a few used copies of this one on Amazon)

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

Craft Wisdom and Know-How

The Taylor Guides

Not shown because I let someone borrow them or read the e-version:

All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More In Less Space

Garden Like a Ninja

What are you waiting for?

If you are into the preparedness lifestyle, I’ve mentioned again and again what a terrible idea it is to wait until after a disaster to begin learning to garden. I’ve had a couple of bad years in a row, and I’m determined to make this one better. I have that luxury now, because groceries are plentiful, albeit pricey, at my local store.

Clearly, budget isn’t an issue! There are so many things you can do on a dime that there’s absolutely no reason for you to delay starting a garden for self-reliance.

Do you have any frugal garden tips you’d like to share? Your comments could be included in a future round-up! Post them in the section below!

The post Dirt Cheap: The Best Frugal Gardening Ideas On The Internet appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

The Cheapskate’s Reader Round-Up: 25 Unusual Ways to Save Money

If you are having some difficulty with money right now, let me share one very valuable truth with you: It is a whole lot easier to save money than to make more money. Once you apply this theory, you have the keys to the kingdom, no matter what your budget looks like.

Of all the things that you can do to better prepare your family for the future, making the switch to a frugal lifestyle is the most important. But there’s a lot more to living the cheapskate dream than simply buying generic instead of name brand at the store.

You need to bring your frugal ways into your everyday activity. Find things for free (or at least a lot cheaper than other people pay), make it yourself, repair things instead of replacing them – make it a creative game and you’ll discover that a frugal score may become just as thrilling for you as scoring a designer purse is for some people.

This is what I write about every month in the Preppernomics Report. I want it to be your focus for a lot of reasons.

• Our economy isn’t as great as the reports say it is. We all know families who have lost jobs, can’t find jobs, or their wages aren’t keeping pace with the explosive cost of living.


• We are on the brink of war, and anyone who has studied history knows that war means a financial crisis for everyone except those who profit directly from war.


• The unrest in our nation cannot lead to stability. If things keep going the way they are right now, we’re likely to see even greater discord and this will affect the economy.


• The cost of healthcare and insurance has skyrocketed until it costs more than a mortgage payment for many families. Budgets that were already stretched will be broken by the increased fees we see in 2018.

And those things are just for starters. The good news is, you have at least some control over your personal situation. While we can’t always make MORE money, we can almost always spend less.

25 Unusual Ways to Save Money

Last month, I asked you, the readers, to give me your most creative and unusual ways to save money. Each idea won’t work for every family, but you’re sure to glean at least a couple of ideas from these suggestions.

1. – Kate: I don’t know if it’s unique, but we use family cloths to save money. As a family we go through crazy amounts of toilet paper, and so I cut up old t-shirts and I crocheted squares. We only use it for number 1….haven’t quite had the guts (or the need) to use it for both yet, but, it has cut back so much on the TP that we use. We don’t use them during that time of the month and boy is there a difference. 


2. – Blue: Several years ago I stopped in at a few restaurants near my home and asked them to save glass jars for me.  Some let me leave a plastic bin in an out of the way corner for collection points and I made sure to stop by frequently to keep up with the supply.  Since then, I have gathered up over 8 dozen gallon size bottles (new lids are available) and several dozen quart size, all for the asking.  They make great intermediate-term storage containers (a step-down size from 5-gallon buckets), don’t take on any odors, you can tell what they contain, and they can be made airtight.  I always get a smile on my face when I look over my own little storehouse of FREE glass preserved foods.


3. – Sherri: I buy clear, heavy duty, shower liners and put them on the windows. Light still gets in, cold stays out. If I want to see out more clearly it moves.


4. – Rhonda: I save money by never buying fertilizer, for garden or fields.  Nothing goes to waste here, so I don’t need to!  Of course, animal manure (in my case, horses, chickens, a pack of foxhounds and another of sled dogs) is composted, along with the usual kitchen and garden waste.  Lawn clippings are allowed to dry and are used for winter chicken bedding before composting (the chickens eagerly eat the tender dried clippings).  We use a “humanure toilet” which goes to compost (check out “The Humanure Handbook“–it explains how to do this safely!)  Urine, high in nitrogen, is diluted and goes on the garden, backyard orchard, or lawn.  Wood ashes (friends save them for me) are spread out on the fields all winter, adding minerals to the soil.  Leaves are composted by many–I shred ours and use it as the cover material for the humanure toilet first. Even eggshells don’t go to waste–some are fed back to the chickens for calcium, but the rest are dug into whatever bed will have tomatoes that year.  Waste not, want not!


5. – Kathy: Save your stained, holey T-shirts. Cut out napkin and paper towel sized pieces and use them instead of costly paper products, then just throw in the wash and use again and again.


6. – Mary: I’m a knitter & when I get a hole in anything knitted that can’t be repaired I unravel the damaged sweater & reuse the yarn for a new garment or socks, etc.


7. – Doug: Don’t shop the 1s & the 15th. They rise most of the prices. Pay cash when you can. Use the library. You can get books, movies, & many other services for free. Find your self a older person who has been through a lot & has wisdom. Then help them & learn all you can.


8. – Diana: Groceries are the place where most families spend a large share of their paycheck. One thing I’ve found that saves money is  this simple tip–prepare all those delicious veggies you bought when you get home from the store. Right now. They will be ready to quickly add to your meal instead being something unrecognizable in the back of the fridge that gets wasted. Plus you are more apt to eat more healthy foods if you don’t have to make a mess at each meal getting them ready. Added: all those trimmings except the smelly broccoli/cauliflower can go in a bag for making veggie broth lately. Easy and free.


9. – Carrie: We use a reel mower to mow our lawn. No gas needed!  It stays sharp for a while and it’s a great work out  The company also sent us a free handle replacement when ours was bent after a tornado hit our house.


10. – Jan: I use rubber gloves all the time with my hands in water a lot washing dishes, etc.  Being right handed, the right glove wears out way faster than the left one.  When I have a few extra lefties, I just turn one inside out.  Now it is a rightie!  I tap a little powder or cornstarch in the inside-out new rightie so it will slip on easily.  Makes a pair of rubber gloves last twice as long.


11. – Terri: My tip is this: to truly get a grip on your finances first you have to know exactly where your money is going. Set up a spreadsheet with categories that list every penny you spend. Break it down so that you can see exactly how much you spend on each thing. On the second sheet of the spreadsheet, I take each of my grocery receipts and rewrite it for that day, including size of product, cost, coupons, and total for that item. The total of the receipt is then posted on the first sheet under groceries. This allows you to see if you can get that item cheaper somewhere else. I total each month’s categories and compare it to that month’s income.Since starting the spreadsheet, my husband and I became much more conscious of how much money we were spending. We now constantly look for more ways to save money.


12. – Wandakate: Instead of using Fluoride toothpaste, just mix regular baking soda with hydrogen peroxide. It works just as well, last a whole lot longer and isn’t expensive either.


13. – Karen: We set up a drying room in our basement. There is a dehumidifier running constantly down there as well as a ceiling fan. We hung sturdy clothes lines through one entire area of the basement and can hang-dry 3 loads at once. That way, we don’t have to use the dryer all the time, saving electricity, and line-drying makes your clothes last longer.


14. – Maggie: If you or your spouse is a veteran, look into the local discounts that may be available to you. Check if you can get a veteran’s discount on your property taxes. Check if your grocery store offers a veteran’s discount (and if not, suggest it). Movie theaters may offer a veteran’s discount. Some beaches and parks with access fees offer a veteran’s discount. Everywhere I spend money, I first ask if there’s a veteran’s discount. Be patient, as the youngster manning the cash register is sure to not know, so politely ask him to call the manager. Also, even when the shop’s veteran’s discount is plainly advertised, the youngster at the cash register will most likely not recognize the proof you offer of your veteran status. If your state will print the word “veteran” on your driver’s license, get that done.


15. – Doug: Change your attitude. If your having a really bad day just look around.. you will find someone who has it much harder.
    
    And like the old song says. ” Count your blessings, name them 1 by 1. Count your many blessings & see what God has done.


16. – Tina: I sell my daughter’s and my used clothes, shoes, toys, housewares etc., on eBay or Facebook local groups. Sometimes I find thrift store finds to flip. It helps to supplement the expenses of a growing child and allows us to save up for other things we need that don’t fall in our normal budget!


17. – Guy: Buy your gold and silver coins at coin shows, the premium will likely be lower. Shop around at the show too because the table next to the door is frequently a little higher. Bring cash as coin dealers don’t accept checks or credit cards! Besides, cash makes your purchase anonymous.


18. – Beverly: Here is my tip-if you pay for trash pick-up in your area (w/o being included in your taxes) see if you and a neighbor would like to split the bill. We have a compost pile and we take our recycling to the dump (this is free in my area) so the leftover trash is very little so I just add to my neighbor’s can. save about $200 a year. [Note from Daisy: When our trash pick-up bill went up to $45 per month, we stopped the service and went to the dump every two weeks for only $8 per trip.]


19. – Dawn: We’ve used dryer lint to help insulate the attic.


20. – Beth W.: I catch the rinse water from my washer in the laundry sink (move the drain hose), then siphon it back into the washer to re-use as the wash water for the next load…unless it’s real murky. I use HALF the water!


21.  – Beth M.: I got rid of my car. I ride my bicycle everywhere. Saves me over $100 a month. I bought a trailer for it so I can do grocery shopping. I live in a rural area but the stores I need for fresh, refrigerated and frozen foods are within three miles. Most of the rest I order a online. 


22. – Doug: Buy your gas when it’s the coldest. This way you get more because when liquid is cold its condensed. Coast when you can . Saves gas


23. – Antoinette: Make own liquid hand wash soap saving about $100 annually, replant veg scraps, grow your own fruits, herbs and vegetables. Can everything and have water tank with a five filter water filtration system. Saves buying bottled water. Download free books from the Internet and have WiFi contract of 20 gigs data per month for home which we all use and saves on cost of separate data.


24. – Ken: Before I throw anything out, I remove the hardware. Hinges, screws, nuts, bolts – anything that might be useful in the future. I keep them in little baby food jars that my daughter in law gives me so that they stay organized. I also keep rubber bands and paperclips from the mail.


25. – Toni: We put curtains up to separate rooms we don’t use all time so we don’t have to heat them. I also put one in my hallway near the front door so the cold stays out in the entry and top of the stairs too so the bedrooms don’t have to be heated as much.

Do you want to come over with us to the cheap side?

You can join us by subscribing to the Preppernomics Report today. On Jan. 1 you will get the bonus book, The Cheapskate’s Guide to Personal Financewhen I release it on Jan. 1. It contains my own formula for taking charge of your financial life. (This book will ONLY be available to subscribers – at this point I have no plans to release it on Amazon.)

Start your new year off right by resolving to become thrifty this year. Subscriptions cost only $5 per month, and I guarantee that if you apply the ideas in each issue, you’ll save far more than that every month.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

 Do you have some unusual ideas for saving money?

Share them in the comments section below and maybe you’ll inspire someone else!

The post The Cheapskate’s Reader Round-Up: 25 Unusual Ways to Save Money appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

It’s Time For A Personal Audit Of Your Frugal Living Budget

When is the last time you sat down and took a very close look at your budget? And by close, I mean an accounting of every single dime you spend, including that drive-thru coffee and the paperback you bought that you could have borrowed from the library. There’s no reason you shouldn’t run your home like a business, and that includes keeping detailed financial records and performing a personal audit of your frugal living budget.

Even the most dedicatedly thrifty people can get off track, particularly when times are good. You figure that you just got a big bonus check, so it’s not going to hurt to go out for ice cream. Then you go to the store and decide, you’ve got extra money, so maybe you’ll just buy whatever you want instead of adhering to your normal weekly budget.  You decide to live a little, enjoy life, and the next thing you know, all of that extra money is gone and all you have left is a few extra pounds on your waistline or a new frivolous gadget.

And you’re right, indulgences are absolutely fine from time to time, as long as they don’t take away from your necessities. But instead of working the treats into their frugal strategies, many people get completely off track when a bit of extra money comes their way.  If you aren’t careful, indulgences can become habits that can undo your progress towards a frugal, debt-free lifestyle.

As the economies of the world take hit after hit, it’s not a far stretch to believe that it could also happen here. Michael Snyder recently issued a “red alert” for the second half of this year with regard to our economy. We’ve been watching as the price of every single item in Greece has a 23% tax added to the top while wages and pensions are cut by as much as 40%. In Venezuela, basic goods like toilet paper and laundry soap are increasingly hard to come by and outrageously expensive if you can find them. While many believe it can’t happen here, we’d all have to agree that getting a job – a good one, not minimum wage – and keeping it, is far more difficult than it used to be. As well, prices are skyrocketing due to droughts on one side of the country, increased fuel prices everywhere, and floods on the other side of the country.

After moving and incurring some unexpected expenses, I had to sit down and take another look at my finances. My expenses have changed because I’m in a different house, so I had to take this into consideration and completely revamp my current budget. But it doesn’t take a move from the suburbs to a farm to change your expenses – many times, things start creeping up so incrementally we don’t even realize it’s happened.

It’s time to do a personal audit on your finances.

Figure out exactly where you are

How do you do most of your spending? If it’s with your debit card, it will be pretty easy to get started immediately.  Simply print out your records for the last month, and then move on to the next step.

If you spend a mixture of money from your bank account and cash that you have on hand, you may have to get a notebook and start tracking your spending, then move on to the next step in a couple of weeks.

It’s vital to note every single dime you spend. Like a leaky faucet in a bathroom few people use, it’s those tiny but consistent drips that add up to an astonishing amount of gallons of waste.

Now, organize your spending into categories.

I use categories, then subcategories:

1.) Fixed Expenses:

These are expenses that don’t change from month to month, like: mortgage, rent, property taxes, cable bill,  car payment, insurance.

You can then break these down into 2 subcategories.

• Necessities


• Optional expenses

2.) Variable Expenses:

These expenses can be adapted to fit your financial situation, and sometimes even eliminated if necessary (obviously the need for things like food can’t be eliminated, but you can spend more or less money when adjustments are needed): food, utilities, clothing, gasoline, entertainment.

Again, we can break these into subcategories based on how vital they are.

• Necessities


• Optional expenses

All of your spending will fall into these categories and subcategories.

Now please don’t misunderstand. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little bit of luxury spending that you’ve budgeted for so that it doesn’t put you behind on necessary spending.  We get new clothes, take vacations, and go out to dinner from time to time – you just have to make sure the spending works within the confines of your budget.

Now, establish your minimum for living expenses.

For this calculation, add up your fixed necessities. This is the amount you need to keep a roof over your head, your car in the driveway, and any other regular payments that you make to keep those two things going.

Then add up your variable necessities. There’s some wiggle room here, because we can always dial back our groceries, the amount that we drive our vehicles, etc., but we have to add some of this in to our calculations.

So in a financial worst case scenario, this is the minimum amount of money that you need to maintain some semblance of your current lifestyle. This amount needs to be set aside each month before another penny is spent Everything you have on top of this is gravy.

What can you cut without making much of a difference in your lifestyle?

Oftentimes you’ll immediately identify numerous ways you can reduce your spending without making any major changes whatsoever. Perhaps it’s something small like taking your coffee with you in the morning instead of going through the drive-thru at Starbucks. Maybe you can switch from cable to Netflix.  Almost none of these will change the quality of your life in any substantial way, but they can add up to a great deal of money saved over the course of the year.

One mistake I often see when people are taking charge of their budgets is that they discount the small changes as not worthwhile. But really, I believe it’s the small changes that can make the biggest differences because with consistency they add up to a pretty big sum. Check out this article on small changes that result in big savings.

Not only that, but getting into the mindset of choosing the most frugal option can go a long way towards changing your life.  When you can make a game from saving money, you learn to reduce waste, be more creative, and think outside of the “normal” parameters. When my oldest girl was a newborn and my husband lost his job, I stumbled upon The Tightwad Gazette books at the library. Amy Dacyczyn’s common sense approach to frugality was a life-changing lesson that has stuck with me through 20 years of the financial roller coaster of life. (If you haven’t read these books, I strongly recommend that you do – her series has been combined into one giant compendium of thrift that every person should have on the bookshelf.)

What could you cut if you needed to make a more dramatic reduction?

Looking at your list of necessities, this baseline amount is for maintaining your current lifestyle. But what if things REALLY fell apart? What if there simply wasn’t enough money to keep living the way you have been?

That’s when you have to rethink your necessities.  And if you have a clear picture of your finances ahead of belt-tightening time, it’s going to be a lot easier to do this when times are tough.

Here are some cuts to consider:

1. Move to a smaller house.  Contrary to popular belief, no child ever died because he or she had to share a room with a sibling.


2. Relocate to a small town.  Is it worthwhile to commute to a job in the city from a smaller, less expensive location? This can give you the added opportunity of homesteading and providing for many of your own needs.  Click HERE to read about what you need to know before making such a move.


3. Get rid of your late model year vehicle.  Look for a decent used vehicle that you can purchase with cash.


4. Cut back to one vehicle or even no vehicles.  Sometimes public transit and your own two feet can provide all of the transportation you really need at a fraction of the price of owning a vehicle.  This varies by location.


5. Stop using credit cards.  This goes for any type of lending system that requires you to pay interest.  Stop accumulating debt.


6. Don’t eat out.  Limit meals out to no more than once a month or special occasions.  Even better, don’t eat out at all.  Dining out, even at a fast food place, is at minimum 4 times more expensive than the same meal prepared from scratch at home. (And far less healthy!)


7. Look for free or low-cost entertainment.  Consider a family YMCA or community center membership instead of gymnastics clubs or private tennis lessons if you need to enroll your kids in some activities. Go hiking, have picnics, explore parks, go to the library, and find out what’s offered for free in your hometown. Learn to enjoy productive hobbies like canning, carving, and needlework. Switch from cable to Netflix.


8. Use the envelope method to budget for shopping trips.  For back-to-school shopping or Christmas shopping, decide how much you want to spend.  Put that money in an envelope.  As you shop, place each receipt in the envelope.  When the money is gone, it’s gone.  If there’s something else your child desperately wants, then they need to decide what item they’d like to take back to get it.  Be firm and stick to your guns.  This has the added benefit of teaching your children to budget.


9. Reduce your monthly payments by cutting things like cable, cell phones, home phones, and/or gym memberships.  Look at every single monthly payment that comes out of your bank account and slash relentlessly.


10. Shop using the stockpile method.  Shop only the sales and simply replenish your stockpile.


11. Eat leftovers.  Have you ever stopped to think about how much food you throw out every month?  You can often provide a few “freebies” every month by carefully repurposing your leftovers.


12. Stay home.  By spending more time at home, you will spend less money.  You won’t be grabbing a bottle of water, going through drive-thru for lunch or putting fuel in the car.  Learn to treasure you time at home with loved ones – it’s worth more than money.

Of course, this isn’t a comprehensive list – when you look at your personal expenditures,  other ideas will present themselves.

It turns out, money actually CAN buy happiness.

Being frugal doesn’t have to be a sentence to a grim reality. When you relieve the financial pressure, you’ll be amazed at how much brighter your outlook becomes. When you “need” less, you will be happy with the simple things. The peace that comes from financial security can’t be matched by any number of expensive herbal calming teas, pricey gym memberships, tropical beach vacations, or meditation classes.

Money actually can buy happiness (well, peace of mind, anyway) – but it’s the money you DON’T spend that buys it.

Recommended Reading:

The The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

The Complete Tightwad Gazette

The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget

The Prepper’s Financial Guide

The post It’s Time For A Personal Audit Of Your Frugal Living Budget appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

20 Signs You Might Be A Cheapskate

Do you enjoy saving a buck more than most people?  Do you have a black belt in frugality? Around here, most of us consider “cheapskate” to be a positive word!

Here are 20 surefire signs that you are embracing your cheap side.  How many things on this list apply to you?

1. You take it as a personal challenge to see how long you can go without spending money. The game is even better if you have a spouse or friend with whom you can compete.


2. You don’t let food go to waste. You have an ice cream tub in your freezer nearly full of odd bits of leftovers, awaiting their reincarnation into “leftover casserole” or “leftover soup”.


3. It’s physically impossible for you to drive past an interesting-looking garbage pile at the curb during somebody else’s spring cleaning frenzy, much to the dismay of your children. (Although there’s always that one kid who’s excited to dig through the pile with you!)


4. Your first stop at the grocery store is the “last day of sale” rack in each department. When you get home with your stash, you immediately set to freezing, dehydrating, or canning your inexpensive score.


5. Your kid looks at a necklace or pair of earrings at the “cool” store and scoffs, “We could make this.”  Then she puts it back and asks you to take her to the thrift store for items to disassemble for the supplies to make her own accessories.


6. You don’t have cable. Your viewing, if you watch television at all, is done via an internet subscription service or even a rabbit ear antenna on top of the TV.


7. A day of yard-saling is planned out like a military invasion: you have a Mapquest route of at least a half dozen sales, a thermos full of coffee, a wallet full of small bills, and a list including measurements of all empty spaces in your home that need to be filled, kitchen items you are seeking, books your daughter wants to read, and upcoming birthdays.  Your alarm is set the night before, a blueberry muffin is wrapped up and ready to go on the counter, and your comfy clothes are laid out.


8. Before throwing anything in the garbage you take a few seconds to ponder how it might be reused. Then, you either compost it, put it aside for a re-purpose, or you turn it into a homemade “log”for your fire.


9. If something breaks, you try to fix it. If it must be replaced or purchased, you always look for a used version first before doling out the money for a new one.


10. You know how to darn socks….and you do it.


11. You have a special super-skinny rubber spatula earmarked just for getting the very last bit of whatever out of jars and bottles in the kitchen.


12. You wash and re-use sandwich baggies, and you’ve even rigged up a little drying rack for them beside your sink.


13. You are outraged at the idea of spending $18 on a jug of laundry detergent because you could make a year’s supply for that amount of money.


14. You have recently advised your child to cut off that teeny bit of mold on the brick of cheese because the other side is just fine.


15. You don’t carve the Jack-o-Lanterns until the day before Halloween so that you can cook, puree, and can the pumpkin the day after Halloween.


16. You have (and use) a clothesline.  Year round. In fact, you know from experience that laundry dries even if it freezes first.


17. You know how to repair a plastic clothes hamper by “welding it” with a bread tag and a hot glue gun.


18. The dish soap beside your sink is actually 50% dish soap and 50% water.


19. You can’t really understand how other moms spend hundreds of dollars on scrapbooking supplies, when your scrapbooks filled with reclaimed do-dads look just as awesome for mere pennies.


20. The concept of spending $25 dollars or more to get your nails done is as foreign to you as the concept of riding an ostrich around your yard.

Does the list above make you say, “It’s like Daisy knows me!!!”? What are some other signs that you might be a cheapskate? We’ll do a reader’s choice version soon!

Books to help you get your “cheap” on:

The Complete Tightwad Gazette (This is my favorite book about frugality, EVER!!!)

New Fix-It-Yourself Manual: How to Repair, Clean, and Maintain Anything and Everything In and Around Your Home

America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams

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The Average American Spends $687.72 Per Kid for Back to School Shopping

If your kids are enrolled in school, you know that back to school shopping can make this the second most expensive time of the year.

This year, the National Retail Federation expects back to school spending to reach $83.6 billion dollars. This is a 10% increase over last year’s spending. The average expenditure is $687.72 per child. (source)

Here’s the spending breakdown:

• Clothing – $238.89


• Electronics (computers, calculators) $204.33


• Shoes $130.38


• Supplies (includes backpacks and lunchboxes) $114.12

Ouch.

I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever spent anywhere near that amount of money on back to school stuff for both of my kids combined. It does not have to be this way.

When many Americans can barely make ends meet from month to month without any additional expenses, the pressure to spend money on back to school shopping can be the source of a great deal of stress.  Add to this that now, many schools send home a list with kids requiring parents to supply boxes of kleenex, hand sanitizer, and other classroom supplies that can really strain a budget. It’s embarrassing to be put on the spot like that, but don’t be afraid to say no or simply ignore the request. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.

While we, as adults, can tighten the budget relentlessly on items for ourselves, it’s can be a lot harder to enforce frugality on the kiddos. But by ignoring the financial restraints and spending with reckless abandon on our kids, I don’t believe that we are doing them any favors.  The economic outlook doesn’t appear to be improving for many families, as jobs get cut and prices continue to go up.  In a world like this, showering your children with false prosperity doesn’t prepare them to survive and thrive.

It doesn’t have to be like this. You can create a budget and stick to it.

Figure out your back to school shopping budget (and teach the kids, too)

First things first, a budget is a must.  This is dependent on your personal means.  There is one simple rule here: no matter what your children believe that they “need”, it has to fit into the budget.

For years, I have used the envelope method for things like Christmas and back-to-school shopping. It’s fair, it’s efficient, and it’s tangible.  This way, I not only stayed within budget, but I taught my kids about budgeting also.

Both of my daughters are very financially responsible and handle money well because they have been making their purchases fit the existing budget since they were old enough to perform the necessary math to do so.  There have been years that they made poor choices that they regretted, but by allowing them to do this, they learned a lesson that you just can’t teach with a verbal warning.

• Make two envelopes with each child’s name on it – one for supplies and one for clothes. Into the envelope goes a designated amount of cash – this may be $20, $100, or more, depending on your personal finances. (When making the back to school budget, be sure to keep your other expenses in mind – you still have to eat and pay your bills!)


• Sit down with the kids and a pile of back-to-school fliers, and tell them their budgets. Expect to hear lots of cheering and excitement as the large number floats around in their heads.  Then hand them a notebook so they can write down what they need in two columns.  Mark one column “supplies” and the other “clothes”.


• Once they have written up their lists, have them go through the fliers and choose the things they want.  Generally, their desires will greatly outstrip their budgets.


• No, don’t increase the budget!  This is the critical teaching moment.  This is the time to teach them to figure out which of the items are necessary and which are optional.  Have the kids consider their lists. Are there any items they have from last year that would allow them to strike some items off the wish list and free up some more funds?  Do they actually NEED a new lunch box or binder, or will last year’s suffice for just a little bit longer? If they get the $80 jeans, can they manage to purchase the rest of their wardrobe for only $20?


• Spend a couple of days brainstorming.  Let your kids think about their budgets and their lists.  You may be surprised at their solutions for stretching the money.  They can search online for deals, they can get crafty and remake some of their own items…give them the freedom to be creative and to think for themselves.


• Go shopping.  Here are the rules.  When you are in the check out line, have your kids pay out of their envelopes. Receipts go back into the appropriate envelope, which makes it easier for them to see where their money has gone or to make returns or exchanges if necessary.  If they are out of money they are finished shopping, unless they opt to take something back for a refund. This is the key element of teaching your kids to budget. If you don’t enforce this part of the exercise, you’ve completely wasted your time with the rest of it.

If your kids have summer jobs, then they will have the freedom to buy some of those expensive “want but don’t need” items. My kids always had jobs in the summer – they babysat, they did farm chores, and they did one time projects like cleaning out the garage, painting the fence, etc.  While they were certainly allowed to supplement their budgets with their own money, quite often they saved for a bigger item or for spending money throughout the school year instead of spending their cash frivolously.  Other times, they saved up for one big-ticket clothing item that they know I won’t be buying for them.

10 budget-friendly back to school shopping tips

Here are some ways to stretch your back-to-school dollars.

1. Clean your room.  Your kids might find pens, pencils, and art supplies – then instead of buying new ones, they can allocate that money to other things.


2. Check out the business supply store.  Our local Staples has a great selection of 25 cent school supplies.


3. Check the fliers for loss leaders.  Wal-Mart is famous for dirt cheap deals like loose leaf paper two packs for $1 and erasers for 25 cents.  Just don’t fall into the marketing trap of buying the overpriced items that are displayed by the loss leaders.


4. Visit thrift stores.  You can get nice things for a fraction of the price if you shop carefully. Plus no one else will be able to copy your unique vintage style.


5. Go to the dollar store.  Items like pens, pencils, sharpeners, pencil cases, etc., can be found inexpensively there, although I’ve found that during back-to-school sales, Wal-Mart and Target provide better quality items for the same price or lower.


6. Focus on accessories. Fashionable accessories can make last year’s clothes look new.


7. Look at new ways to wear old clothes. (This works better for girls than boys.)  Last year’s cool dress might be a cute top with leggings this year.


8. Refashion old clothes.  Make outgrown jeans into a purse, revamp old tee shirts, use fabric from old shirts to make headbands, scarves, or other accessories. (This book has some fantastic ideas.)


9. Do a dye makeover.  If you have some faded black items from the previous year, invest in a package of clothing dye, like RIT.  They’ll come out looking as good as new.  You can also get other colors and dye things like jeans or tee shirts.  If you have an item with a stain that won’t come out, dying it a darker color than the stain can give it a new life. These are also great techniques to use on thrift store finds.


10. Wait until after school starts.  If you wait until after the first day of school, you may find that you require different items than expected. Shop for all but the most basic needs after you have gotten your list from the school.  As well, many clothing items go on sale a few weeks after school starts, which will help your money to go further.

What tips can you share?

Have you ever spent nearly $700 per kid to get ready for back to school time?

How do you get the most bang for your back-to-school bucks?  Share your ideas in the comments below!