Free Parking

Here at The Provident PhD we like to offer suggestions that are sometimes specific to student families. Graduate school has many unexpected expenses. For us one of them was the cost of parking at the school. Here at William & Mary, it’s currently $340/year. For most of my time here I went ahead and forked it over, but recently I discovered some free street parking near the school. There are relatively few spots, but since I’m typically at school by 8:00 AM each morning, there are still plenty of spots left.  No, it’s not as convenient has having a pass and the ability to come and go whenever, but I’ll happily sacrifice some convenience for the money. It’s another example of how we should never assume that a cost is inevitable. Even just a little creativity or homework can reveal great alternatives. I wish I had discovered this one earlier.

Certainly other possibilities include getting a ride each day from your family or riding your bike to school, as Jeff suggested here. Bike licenses are typically free, and some schools (including William & Mary’s business school) facilitate this by having lockers and showers available in the building.

A commuting approach somewhere in between the car and the bike is a scooter or moped. We have friends who do this and although they require a parking pass, the pass is half the cost of a car pass.

Mint

Justin commented awhile back about Mint.com. We took the challenge and have been using the website for several months now. We have found it very helpful in organizing our budget, tweaking it when necessary, and reducing the hassle of using a spreadsheet to keep track of finances. Also, because Mint allows us to view all of our financial accounts in one spot, It helps us pay better attention to our 401(k)s, pension plans, and other investments that we used to view only occasionally. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a step up from where we were.

Airline Miles for Magazines

Several months ago I started getting ads in the mail from Delta and United Airlines inviting me to use my award miles to buy magazines. I took them up on the offer and have been enjoying subscriptions to The Economist, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. It was a great deal for two reasons: first, I don’t fly often enough to accumulate enough miles to use them for air fare before the miles expire; and second, using rewards miles to fly is a pain in the neck anyway. So I got subscriptions that, even at the discounted student rate, would have cost me hundreds of dollars for essentially nothing.   I’m always skeptical of stuff from airlines, but this has proven to be a great deal, and there wasn’t even the catch of having to give them my credit card number and have to remember to cancel the subscription in a year. The website is magsformiles.com and includes a number of major airlines.

What We've Learned So Far About Saving

Natalie and I laugh that we have adopted somewhat of a pioneer-ish life-style over the last few months, but we have been having a lot of fun with it, and saving a lot of money. When we were invited to contribute to "The Provident PhD," we started thinking about things that we have been doing to help save money as a couple still trying to get through college with a new baby.   Following are several practices that have helped us save.

The first way we have been saving money is that we do not buy a ton of expensive furniture.  Let go of the need to impress and be okay with letting things be a bit tacky.  It doesn’t have to match itself or the caliber of your parents house.  When people offered us old furniture, we took it even if it didn’t match (and it definitely didn’t).  Our kitchen table is from the DI.  Our end table is a cheap basic one from IKEA.  The only thing that is very consistent about our apartment is that nothing matches, and guess what, we’re still happy!  And what about the latest flat screen?  Get this, we don’t have a TV.  There is so much more time in a day when you don’t have to stay up on a series.  We don’t buy movies.  We rent them for free from the library or even our parents houses and watch them on our laptop.  This has worked out just fine for us.

I know when you first hear this it may come as a shock that people still do this, but something that has helped us save a ton is switching over to cloth diapers for our little boy. We have heard several different estimates for how much a couple could end up spending on disposable diapers for one child, and most of them have been upwards of $1,000-$2,000. We talked to a friend recently who is a cloth diaper fanatic, and she recommended several different stores and websites to us that have been very helpful, like the Quilted Bear and Cotton Babies.com.  Over the last few weeks, we have ordered all the reusable diapers we will need for our little boy for less than $200, and these will probably last for many more children. Even when you add in the cost for detergent and laundry expenses for three years, you’re still getting a huge cost reduction by going cloth.

Another thing that has helped us save on costs is that we had our little boy through a midwife practice, instead of through a hospital. We loved our experience!  The midwives offered a comfortable atmosphere with a lot of  personal care, at a substantially lower cost.  In addition, we were able to have a lot more control over what was going on without having to abide by hospital protocol.  The midwives at the birthing center provided us with answers to all of our questions along the way and the books and resources we needed to get the knowledge that would prepare us for the experience.  This allowed us to have the birth experience we wanted and feel peaceful and ready.  This may sound like an old-fashioned way to have a baby, but the midwives are well-trained to handle whatever may come their way and, along with a handful of other perks, there are some definite cost benefits.

Walk, run, or ride your bike.  Old school, I know, but things like gas, car repairs and the money you spend buying bigger sizes of jeans every couple of years can add up.  The health benefits can be a big deal in-and-of themselves.  Your exercise can be your life, instead of needing to get a monthly renewal on your membership to Golds Gym.  Gotta love the sun-shine vitamin D of experiencing the outdoors too!

A couple other tips we’d add are to shop at the DI (Deseret Industries or equivalent used clothes store) and/or Craigs List.  Buying things used can save a lot of money.  This applies to cars too.  Further, buy generic brands instead of name-brands on food.  Buy in bulk when the price is low.  Eat less meat.  Meat is expensive and there are many health benefits to limiting your intake of meat as an added bonus.  Use soap refills instead of buying a new bottle every time.  Turn off your lights when you aren’t using them to save on electric bills (and replacement light bulbs).  Buy cheap plastic dish-ware.  It doesn’t break!  Freeze your bread so it doesn’t go bad.  Use coupons.  Be careful about impulse buying.  Sometimes it’s good to wait a day and see if it still seems like a good idea the next day.

Another thing that will help you a ton is to stay out of debt.  Loans cost a lot more money to pay back than it costs if you can pay the money up-front.  Be willing to save up for things, if possible, before resorting to loans.  It’s easy to think that you will have more money later.  I have found that most times, expenses rise as life goes on, so even if you will have more money later, it won’t necessarily mean that it will be easier to pay later.  It may be harder.  If you do have loans you are working to pay back, pay extra each month and work to pay it off as quickly as possible.  Interest builds quickly and you will save a lot of that cost if you can pay if off early.   

Some of these ideas may sound like we have gone crazy, but we are happy, healthy, and loving life.  Happy saving!

Natalie, Jeff, and Baby Brian Larsen

Buy in Bulk

We haven’t touched much on food storage and its potential to not only help families be prepared for emergencies but to also save a lot of money. I’ll start off that topic here by pointing out the benefits of buying things in bulk, particularly when they’re on sale.

My dad would always take full advantage of “case lot” sales that grocery stores would have. He would come home with large boxes of canned goods (soups, fruits, veggies, etc.), cereals, hamburger helper, and many more goods that had a shelf life of at least a year or two. With a family of seven, there was no concern about the food going bad.

I’m not aware of any stores around here that do those same type of case lot sales, where they deeply discount a bunch of goods for a day or two, but the same principle applies. When you see a sale for an item your family uses frequently, consider buying a bunch of it. Of course this requires you to have a budget for items that come on sale but aren’t necessarily on your list, because it’s tough to predict when stuff will go on sale.

I’ll point out one exception to his and that is for items that you know your family will go through much faster simply because there’s more of it in the house. For example, if you see it a great deal on potato chips, it may not be a great idea to buy 20 bags if that means that you’ll go through the chips twice as fast as you would normally.

Library Movies—More Cheap Entertainment

We use Netflix—the $8/month plan with unlimited one-at-a-time DVDs—and it seems to work well for us. It’s certainly cheaper than the days of $4 movie rentals every weekend, but there are definitely even cheaper options for those of us who enjoy movies. For those willing to sacrifice a bit of convenience and selection, the library is a great option. I’ve been impressed at how many movies you can get at both the law school library and the local public library. Both have a fairly current selection as well as a lot of good children’s films.

Thrift Store Shopping

Most of the clothing that I purchase for my 15 month old comes from a thrift store. I also purchase clothes from garage sales and consignment stores and I shop clearance deals at stores like Target. The bulk of what he wears, however, comes from a thrift store. Children's clothing are, in my mind, one of the easiest ways to save money. Children do not stay in one size for very long, so if you're paying $10 for a shirt, you aren't going to get the same value out of that 2T size shirt as you would a shirt for yourself simply because your child won't be wearing it more than a few months to a year. I've been surprised at how quickly my son grows into the next size clothing. If I were buying his clothing at full price, I'm sure I'd be paying hundreds of dollars for something he'll only wear for a short time.

Though thrift stores are a great way to buy inexpensive children's clothing, not everything is a sparkling deal at a second-hand store. It's important to locate the thrift stores in your area and make several visits to each one, taking time to get a feel for how their items are priced, what kind of items they sell, and when or if they ever have discounts and specials. After doing this, you'll probably find one or two that seem to have better deals and carry more items. You'll also begin to learn what really constitutes a good deal for a piece of child's clothing. I've seen thrift stores charge upwards of 2 and 3 dollars for a simple shirt, but I won't pay more than $1, and typically I can find them for 50 or 75 cents. I will, however, pay $2 for a good pair of pants or shoes. It's worth it to me because I know those are harder to find.

It took me some time to learn where to find these deals. Also, I've learned that I can't wait until I need an item and expect to find it immediately at a thrift store. So I'm typically looking for clothing in the next size up for my child. I visit the thrift stores I like at least once a month and when I find items that are a good deal, even if they're too big for my kiddo, I'll purchase them and put them away for later. This method has worked really well for us. And it doesn't feel like a huge investment because I'm typically paying 75 cents or $1 for each item.

Capri Coupons

So, we left the wonderful Williamsburg where awesome coupons were in abundance (and relatively affordable-$.75 per paper) and moved to the coupon wasteland of KY. I was quite discouraged for the first few months here as the coupons in the paper weren't nearly as good as the ones in Williamsburg (there are a lot of regional coupons) and a Sunday paper cost $2--more than twice what I was used to paying!!!! Oh the indignity! Well after some research, I found a coupon service that seemed to fit me well. I hated scouring eBay for individual coupons and then having to calculate what the actual cost was and if it was really worth it. I would like to introduce you to capriscoupons.com She sells whole inserts (in sets of 5) Then you can clip what you want/need. We decided to join her $50 a month plan. It gives us 5 sets of each insert and this includes shipping. So for roughly the same cost of newspapers, they are delivered right to our door, and the coupons are better than what I can get here. I hated going out on Sundays to the little boxes and stuffing in $10 in quarters to get my inserts, especially because most of the time the boxes woudl be empty by the time we got home from church. Furthermore, she sends out a preview every week of what the next week's inserts are going to have in them, so If there are some that I won't use at all, I just tell her not to send them to me for that week, or I can substitute in her region 2 inserts for the region 1 inserts (that come with the standard plan). By all means if you are couponing in The Burg, keep going on Saturdays to get the The Gazette, but once you leave, this site is a great tool to get coupons.

Gardening

I could never understand why my mom enjoyed gardening so much until I had a job sitting behind a desk. It dawned on me that gardening, and seeing the fruits of labor, gives us the chance to feel satisfied about having achieved something substantive. It’s a feeling that can be missing from school and white collar day jobs.

And of course gardening is also a great way to save money. I’ll admit that it’s not something I do well, but it’s something I’d like to do well. Fresh fruits and veggies taste better than stuff from the store and growing your own costs much less.

With pretty minimal effort, we’ve had success with tomatoes and peppers, but I’d like to expand that to carrots, broccoli, potatoes, onions, squash, lettuce, strawberries and others. At some point, it’d be cool to have some fruit trees too—peaches, pears, and apples. Maybe even a pecan and or walnut tree...

The next step would be canning— another skill I need to acquire, but which I think pays off pretty quickly.

I’d love to hear gardening success stories and advice for what grows well in Virginia or other areas where readers are located.

Craigslist

Probably at this point, most people are familiar with Craigslist. Last year, we had an awesome success story with using it. I had been wanting to get Little People toys for my two little boys. A building for Little People costs around $40 at Walmart. The people come in a pack and a pack costs about $20. It's the type of toy that's fun to have quite a bit of to play with, but the cost to get enough for my boys to share well with (okay, well that's like 50 million toys . . . but anyway, that's another issue) was too excessive for me to be able to justify.

It occurred to me to check out Craigslist. To my surprise there was a huge listing of different Little People sets all by the same lady! My husband emailed the woman who had listed them and suggested an amount for all of them. She brought up the price a little and said if we took it, it was a deal. (Note: This was back in August some time, so I can't remember the amounts now.) I believe we paid about $40 for the airport, bus, airplane, carnival, carnival rides, a tea time set, and a bunch of people. This is an incredible deal! So this find covered for both our boys' birthdays last year and will do for this year's birthdays too. Hey, and if we're really good at spreading out the presents, maybe we'll make it do for next year too.

Of course, I realize this was a great, lucky find (how likely that there would have been all that great stuff from one lady of just exactly what I wanted?!), but I figure one person's success story can lead to someone else seeking success too . . . and possibly having the good fortune to find it. So my advice is to check out Craigslist when there's something you want.

A few things about Craigslist:

1. It's not necessarily a better price than in stores, but you can often bargain down. A year and a half ago, we compared prices on toddler beds compared to a bed at Walmart and found that what people were posting on there was equivalent to the price at Walmart anyway. We didn't try to bargain, but looking back, we probably should have.

2. You have to take into account the gas money required to get the thing you're purchasing. The woman with the Little People products turned out to work in our city, so I just went to her work and got them from her there. When we were expecting our second baby, we learned about a deal on Craigslist on the double stroller we were interested in. The woman with the stroller lived a distance away. Going to get it might not have been a good deal for us. A friend-- Gordon actually--was regularly commuting past her city on weekends, though, so he met up with her and picked it up for us.

Now, good hunting, and may you have all the Craigslist success that you desire!

Living the Student Life after Graduation..sort of

As recent grad school alum, I wanted to do a quick post to give those of you still in school a little heads up. :) However, this is not a Debbie Downer post it is simply some really useful information! We have discovered that our student way of life has not really ended. The reality of the debt you rack up officially hits about 6 months after graduation. Our house payment and our student loan payments differ by about $200.....It is important to remember this when you take that first job. It is also really important to remember to plan for this payback well in advance. I guess my main point is that for the first 6 months in a new job, you can be feeling pretty financially secure. Secure enough to maybe make some big purchases. But don't strap yourself down to things until after you see how your loan repayment is going to fit into your budget. Some things might be a year long contract on Internet or signing a contract for housing--we lived in my parents basement for the first few months we were in KY. I would suggest calculating what your loan payment is actually going to be (there are a lot of calculators online and we have found them to be pretty accurate) and budget this in from the get go. Another suggestion is to put this amount in savings for the first six months (before the government actually asks for it back). Then when you first payment is due, hit your loans with this amount as a big down payment. All of that goes to principal and you have just taken a chunk out of your loan with out much extra effort. In addition, you have been living in "payback" mode from the start so there is no false sense of security in the beginning.

One other thought on payback: put as much of your extra income into getting those loans paid off as you can. The interest rate on Rick's student loans is is double the interest rate on our mortgage..hence the very close numerical value on the payments. The more you put towards those the quicker that debt can be eliminated. An extra $100/month turns into $1200 a year and can cut your payback down by 10 years!

Printer Cartridges on Amazon

We've had a couple of good posts in the past about using Amazon to its full potential. I just discovered yet another product—one crucial to us students—that's significantly cheaper from the online retail beast: ink cartridges for our printer. They even include Amazon's "free super shipping." They're still outrageously expensive but much less so than at Walmart.  I can't say whether that holds true for every brand and model of printer, but I'm guessing it's probably often the case. It's worth checking.

Trim the Cell Phone Bill

Last year we decided to reevaluate the $100/month we paid to our cell phone company for unlimited minutes and texts. It turned out that most of our minutes were to family, most of whom had the same carrier and thus wouldn’t count against minutes. So we called up our carrier and asked to be switched to the 750 minute plan, where we would share the 750 minutes between our two phones. They were obnoxiously persistent that we needed more minutes, even after I repeatedly pointed out that we always used less than the 750 after accounting for nights and weekends and the minutes with other customers of the same carrier. We were stubborn though and finally got switched to the cheaper plan. It has saved us about $30 a month.

It’s worth noting that there are certainly even cheaper options. We considered using MagicJack or other similar technology for a home phone, and then switching to prepaid cell phones. We also considered switching to google voice. For a variety of reasons (perhaps a topic for another post) we went the route we did. The point, though, is that the phone bill is often an expense ripe for restructuring.

Priceline Name Your Own Price

Having two young children, my wife and I tend to cringe at the thought of driving more than a few hours at a time because we know there will be a lot of whining, screaming, and seat kicking. Since we are currently going to school about 16 hours away from both our families, though, we frequently have to make these kinds of trips. For us, the thing that has worked best has been to take about three days to make the trip, whenever our schedules allow. That way we only drive about five or six hours each day, and the rest of the time can be spent walking around with the kids or taking them swimming in the hotel pool. The obvious downside, though, is that we have to pay for two nights in hotels.

The best way I've found to save money on hotels is through Priceline's "Name Your Own Price" feature. There you are able to select what city you're looking at, your dates, and the quality hotel you're looking for (one star to five stars). I've been able to get us rooms in very nice three star hotels for $40 a night. There are a few important things you need to know when bidding, though.

First, you aren't allowed to bid on the same search twice within 24 hours if the only thing you change is the price you're bidding. For example, if you bid $30 for a three star hotel within a certain location and they don't take your bid, you can't bid $35 for the same location and star level again right away; you have to wait 24 hours. If, however, you decide you could settle for a two-and-a-half star hotel, or you're willing to stay in a different area a short distance away, then you can bid again right away.

Second, when you submit your bid, you have to fill in all of your credit card information, and if they accept your bid it is binding. Once you click the button to make your bid there is no turning back, and your card will get charged.

Finally, be aware that if you are used to staying at less expensive hotels, higher quality hotels might charge you for things that you expect to be free. For example, we recently needed to go to D.C., so we decided to drive up Friday, stay the night, then come back home Saturday after we finished what we were doing. I also planned on getting some homework done while we were there on Friday night. I thought we had a great deal, because we got a room at the three-and-a-half star Hyatt-Regency Bethesda with a $50 bid. After Priceline's taxes and fees we paid about $65, which was great for a room that normally goes for close to $200 a night. When we got there, though, we immediately found out that parking was $15 per night. Later, when I tried to do some homework, we found out that internet was $10 a day. Then, when we got up the next morning we found out that even the continental breakfast actually cost $10 per person. We skipped the breakfast and went to McDonalds, which was $15 for the four of us, but we did end up paying for parking and internet, so our final price was around $105. Still a lot better than paying full price at the Hyatt, but not so hot when you consider that there are some two stars that you could probably get for around $4o that include free parking, breakfast, and internet.

In the end, Priceline is a great tool to save money, but learn from my mistake and don't let the temptation for discounted luxury lure you into spending a lot more than you need to.

Save on Gas

We usually realize we’ve spent a bit on gas when we go for a long drive, but we tend to be less conscious of how all the little trips add up. For example, we were recently discussing the local YMCA. For a great price it has a gym and a pool, and they’ll even watch the kids in the day care while you exercise. However, the Y is 12 miles from our home. That means a round trip of 24 miles, which is roughly a gallon of gas for our cars. With the current price of gas, that means one trip to the gym is $3.50 in gas. If you go three times a week (okay, that’s optimistic for me but we’ll assume you’re better), that’s $10.50/week and nearly $50/month. When you add that to the cost of the gym membership, it doesn’t seem like nearly as good a deal. That doesn’t mean we will drop our membership, but knowing the true cost of the gym helps evaluate potential alternatives that might cost more in membership fees but less in mileage.

This is also another reason to follow Keegan’s advice about planning out trips to the grocery store. If you can go shopping just once a week (or even once every two weeks) and avoid all those little trips to pick up stuff you forgot, you’ll not only save shopping time and money, you’ll also save a lot in gas. It all adds up...

Cloth Diapers

To some, the idea of using cloth diapers may seem archaic and backwards. Or it may just seem like it would be too much work. I admit - I was definitely in that pool of thinking at first. Having a good friend who's been using them for 5 years and having used them for over a year myself, I can vouch that they really aren't that bad. Admittedly there are days when I'm annoyed with dunking the diaper in the toilet or having to re-adjust my laundering routine. Overall, however, I've grown to actually love using cloth diapers on my baby. And I don't seem to find myself more annoyed than any other parent I know of who uses disposables when it comes to diapering.

I chose to start using cloth diapers almost right away after my son was born. We put him in disposables for the first month and then plunged into cloth after that. I put in a lot of research before he was born to learn about cloth diapers and decide which type I wanted to purchase. There are many, many options of cloth diapers from prefolds (the standard square or rectangle piece of cloth that typically comes to mind) which must be used with a separate cover to what are called All-In-Ones (a prefold sewn into a polyurethane cover) that you just throw on the kiddo, Velcro or snap on, and go. I chose to go with the most economical choice (the prefolds). My first purchase of cloth diapers included 24 prefolds, 2 snappis (they hold the diaper together), and 6 covers. When my son was about four months old I made my second purchase of 24 larger prefolds and 6 larger covers and 2 more snappis. Along the way I also purchased a few extra absorbent liners to place in the cloth diaper for the night time as well as 4 All-In-One diapers. All-In-Ones are more expensive (at least twice the cost of prefolds). I found some used, however, on craigslist and gave them a good disinfecting wash when I brought them home. I just wanted to try a different type of diaper out and see if I preferred them over the prefolds.

So far I have spent approximately $280 on on all my cloth diapering materials. I also use re-usable cloth wipes (this was my husband's suggestion). I purchased a couple packs of cotton detailing rags from the car section at Wal-Mart for $3 each and cut them up into wipe-size strips. They have lasted me 15 months and counting. Most of these materials I'll be able to use for my second and most likely my third child as well. I may have to replace a few covers here and there, but the prefolds will probably last us forever because they're so well-made.

Since cloth diapers have to be laundered, there is also an expense for the water and energy required to do so. It's possible to wash cloth diapers by hand, but I have no desire to attempt this. I own a used washer and dryer which cost us $125 for both. I don't include that in my cost for diapers because I would have purchased those regardless.

When I decided to write this post I hadn't actually crunched numbers to determine exactly how much we were spending per month on laundering our diapers. It seems that utilities are higher here than where we moved from, so I decided it was time to know for sure how much we were really saving by using cloth diapers. This wasn't easy. In a nutshell, I figured out how many gallons of water my washer used per wash cycle, I multiplied that three times since I do a pre-wash, a regular wash, and a rinse, and then I multiplied that by 15 since that's the approximate number of washes I do per month. Then I multiplied that by cost- per-gallon of water. Cost per gallon is easily obtained by dividing your water bill by number of gallons used. This told me that we spend approximately $6 per month for the water used to wash diapers. To determine how many kilowatts per hour we used to launder our diapers, I recorded our kwh reading prior to starting a load of diapers. As soon as both the washing and drying were finished, I recorded the kwh reading again. Then I recorded it once after the same time interval it took to launder the diapers had passed, except without running the washer or the dryer. I then subtracted the difference between the two time intervals and determine that was how many kwh it took to launder my diapers. If I were to be more precise, I would do this over again several times to get a consistent figure. It came out to 3 kwh. I multiplied that by how much each kwh cost and then multiplied that by 15 (number of loads a month) and it comes out to about $6. So it cost us approximately $12 per month to launder our diapers.

So over the course of two years, I will have spent approximately $568 total on cloth diapers. In addition, I keep disposables on hand for any time we're traveling, at church, or away from the house longer than a couple hours. I probably spend approximately $5 a month on disposables. Sometimes less, sometimes more. So total cost for diapering my baby for 2 years comes out to around $688 to $700. We're looking forward to that price going down on our second kiddo since we won't have to purchase a whole new lot of cloth diapers. I've read estimates that diapering a baby in only disposables for two years can be in the ballpark of $1200 to $2000 depending on what kind of diapers you're purchasing.

Pros:

- They're cheaper.

- They help you be more self-reliant. I don't feel like I'm a slave to always looking for deals on diapers.

- Some babies experience less diaper rash in cloth.

- They're better for the environment.

Cons:

- They require a little extra work.

- Laundering can get tricky because you have to use certain detergents that won't ruin the cloth.

- They require a decent amount of research before you plunge to make a purchase.

In House Barbershop

Mens’ haircuts are really overpriced. I don’t know of a place in town that offers one for less than $15, and with the expected tip, it’s even more. Of course that’s a lot less than a woman’s cut, but men’s cuts are so ridiculously simple (at least the clean-cut, classic type) that paying $15 seems silly. My wife does a great job of cutting my hair and I actually trust her more than the barber to do it right. And she doesn't charge me a cent. Crazy.

The tradition actually started when I was a teenager and my brothers and I talked mom into buying us clippers and letting us teach ourselves to cut hair. She cringed at the first few attempts, but we got better with practice and saved a lot of money. Even with a conservative estimate of a haircut only once every two months, and using the $15 figure, that’s six cuts a year = $90 in savings. The only up front cost is the clippers, but you can get a great set with lots of attachments for around $40.

Maybe if grad school doesn’t pan out, I’ll become a barber :).

Finding Deals Online

There are many couponing websites out there. Ones that teach you how to use coupons or what things may be on sale. I have two websites that I use quite frequently. One is hip2save.com and the other is groupon.com. I love hip2save because you can get a lot of free stuff off of it. It tells you about freebies going on, or great online sales or deals as well as in store sales and which stores have coupons available, etc. I used this site a lot while Christmas shopping and got most of my Christmas gifts at least 25-50% off. Last year I even got some things for free because they posted about a store having a coupon for $10 off any purchase.  I've also received other free products for signing up for emails or liking different companies on facebook. Great website for saving money.
Groupon is another favorite. They provide discount coupons for local places. They have many different coupons for restaurants, spas, entertainment, hotels, etc. The deals are usually at least 50% off but usually even more. We have used groupons that I've bought for cheap dates.
I highly recommend that if you are in looking to save money using these websites can really help out!

Switch to CFLs

A couple years ago I was helping a friend move. He handed me a box of incandescent light bulbs and asked me to remove the compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) throughout the house and replace them with the incandescent ones. He explained that when they had moved in, they had installed all CFLs and had saved a lot on their energy bills. Because CFLs are more expensive, they wanted to take them along as they moved. The next time we were at Sam’s Club, I bought a package of CFLs, noting that they put out the same amount of light with less than a quarter of the energy use. As we’ve gradually transitioned to the CFLs, there has been a decrease in our energy bills. Now, I’m not sure how much of the decrease is attributable to the CFLs and how much to my increased awareness about energy use in general, but I’m positive it has helped.

There are disadvantages to CFLs. They take a couple minutes to reach full brightness, and the light they emit is not as warm and pleasant as that from incandescents. As mentioned above, CFLs are more expensive, but that seems to be more than offset by two factors: they don’t seem to burn out as often and they use far less energy. Unfortunately, they contain a bit of mercury, so you have to be careful when one breaks, but you have to be careful when any light bulb breaks, right? For me, the energy savings outweigh the downsides.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m absolutely NOT in favor of Congress forcing us to move from the incandescent to CFLs. It’s none of their business and one of those things that would largely happen over time without a mandate anyway. I use CFLs because the savings in energy use translates into saving me money.