When Frugality Makes Others Worry

When I first started on my quest to become “frugally enlightened” I asked some friends if they would mind saving me their coupons from their papers if they weren’t using them. I discovered that none of my friends used coupons, but I also got several interesting responses. Something as simple as asking for unused coupons ended up eliciting concerns on whether or not I was doing alright financially.

This was a pretty radical change from my previous behavior and my friends immediately noticed. I had never asked for coupons before and I have always bought what I wanted regardless of sales. But was asking for unused coupons such an extreme measure that it would bring my financial health into question? It was as if people thought, “If she’s using coupons she must really be struggling”. It made me think about how people perceive spending habits, change, and frugality. Maybe I’ll have to touch on that in more detail in a future post.

Even my own mother, upon hearing of my coupon quest, filled bags with food she didn’t plan to eat! She actually gave me food that had been in her pantry for years because she thought I needed the help. It was a kind-hearted gesture, and we graciously accepted the food (well at least some of it – hate to let it go to waste), but it made me realize that perhaps my newfound frugality was causing my loved ones to worry when they didn’t need to.

After all, how many people regularly discuss their financial standing with their friends? They must have thought my new habit was brought on by a pressing financial problem rather than a desire to shop smarter and save money.

Here are a few tips to calm loved ones fears that you might be “going under” if you have decided to adopt some frugal habits.

Reassure them everything is alright financially. Let them know that you aren’t in financial distress just because you decided to tighten the purse strings. Explain that you are dedicated to saving towards achieving a goal you have set for yourself, (e.g. building up an emergency fund or saving for a down payment on a car), or simply let them know that you have decided to be more conscious of where your money goes. Just be honest.

When my friends realized that the lifestyle changes we had adopted were allowing us to save a healthy amount every month they felt reassured everything was alright. They understood our new-found frugality was a choice and not the result of utter desperation (although it really shouldn’t matter – it’s a good way to live no matter what prompted the change).

Try to resist the temptation to accept money. Unless you commonly receive money from your loved ones, accepting money now could reinforce the suspicion that you actually are in a dire financial situation. If you are in serious need that is one thing, but if you are saving for something considered non-essential, it is very satisfying to know you reached that goal unassisted.

The decision on whether or not to accept money is completely yours. Everyone’s position is different. Just realize that it could give the impression that you are sinking rather than succeeding in your new lifestyle.

Show them you are happy with the change. If they know you are happy with your new lifestyle choices they will feel better about it, even if they feel like they would never be frugal unless they had to be. If you constantly complain about how tight the budget is or how you miss your old habits it can give them the impression that you wouldn’t be careful in your spending unless you were being forced to.

Who knows; when they see you have reached your goal by implementing the frugal habits they were originally so worried about, maybe they will be asking for your unused coupons.

A Closer Look At CFLs, Part 1: Conscientiously Frugal Lighting

CFLI’m sure by now you have heard or read about how CFLs can save the world – “one bulb at a time”. Are you thinking about taking the plunge and replacing your regular old inefficient incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lamps? The reasons to do so are compelling.

In this 4-part series dedicated to the CFL we will look at the benefits and common concerns , as well as how to choose the right CFL, and how to make them last . I hope you will come along for the ride as we get to know this household rockstar.

There are many reasons to at least try a CFL in your home – here are few big ones that directly benefit your pocketbook.

CFLs use up to 75% less energy than incandescent lighting. CFLs are more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

By switching out a regular bulb for a CFL you can slash the amount of electricity used for lighting your home (and potentially even cooling your home!). We calculated the actual savings (based on wattage alone) we had last month by replacing our standard incandescent porch light with a 14 watt CFL. According to our June 2007 bill, it cost $0.099 per kilowatt hour.

Porch light w/ CFL
14 watt CFL on 10 hours a day = .14 kWh
.14 kWh * $0.099 per kWh = $0.0138 per day
$0.0138 per day * 30 days=$0.41/month

Porch light w/ Incandescent Bulb
60 watt bulb on 10 hours a day = .6 kWh
.6 kWh * $0.099 per kWh = $0.0594 per day
$0.0594 per day * 30 days=$1.78/month

SAVINGS = $1.37 in June on one light bulb alone!
That’s $16.64 a year (assuming all things equal).

The amount you can save varies from bulb to bulb but according to a box of Energy Smart 13 watt CFLs, each bulb can save $38 in electricity over its lifetime (8000 hours). Imagine what that can add up to if you switch out multiple (or even all) bulbs in high use areas of your home!

CFL’s are considered “green”. CFLs have become the poster child for many earth awareness efforts that promote them as a simple way to “reduce your footprint”. Our electric company recently advertised about the environmental benefits of lowering electricity usage and they even offered a free CFL to every customer. Replacing an incandescent with a CFL decreases the amount of electricity the nation’s power plants must generate - and ultimately - the amount of greenhouse gases that they release into the atmosphere.

Check out this thought provoking quote on CFLs from Energy Star:

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Although the actual environmental benefits of using CFLs are still under debate one thing we can agree on is that they do use less energy and will save you money on your electric bill. How about that? You can save money and potentially help the environment at the same time.

CFLs last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. You will spend less on replacing bulbs that burn out every couple of years with CFLs. This is especially useful for those frequently used lights that are hard to reach or a challenge to replace. We have “Hollywood” style bathroom light fixtures that fit 4-6 globe lights each. It felt like we constantly had to pull in that creaky step ladder to change out dead bulbs. I shudder to think how many incandescent lights we have gone through in our bathrooms alone. Now we have 2 bright CFLs in each fixture (we just leave the other 2-4 spots empty – it doesn’t have to look pretty, just save money!) and we forget about them.

You want to see numbers? Consider the following scenario:

At Amazon, a 4 pack of GE Soft White 60 watt bulbs costs $4.30 – or $1.08 a bulb.
At Walmart, a 6 pack of GE 13 watt CFLs costs $9.88 - or $1.65 a bulb.

The Soft White is rated for 1000 hours while the CFL is rated for 8000 hours. To compare apples to apples we need to level the playing field in hours. To get 8000 hours of lighting you would need:

That’s $6.99 less in replacement costs by going with the CFL.

I think you can see now that CFLs offer a powerful financial incentive to ditch the incandescent bulbs by:

Despite these positives there are complaints associated with CFLs and their sometimes quirky mannerisms. Check back tomorrow as we examine some common concerns with CFLs.

A Closer Look at CFLs Series Index
    Part 1: Conscientiously Frugal Lighting
    Part 2: Every Rose has its Thorn
    Part 3: Lumens and Kelvins and Watts, Oh My!
    Part 4: Take it to the Limit

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Printing Cash At Home: My Favorite Grocery Coupon Sites

Printable CouponsNowadays, with everything being available on the internet, it’s easier than ever to find great coupons online. Like the coupon inserts you get from the paper, you don’t need many of them but sometimes you can find a real gem. Recently, I was able to print “$1.10 off one” coupons for a delicious but expensive cereal. I paired them up with a really good sale and got each box for $.80. In fact, several of my most valuable coupons have been printed online.

The online coupon sites will require you to register and download specific coupon printing software. This software is used to track and limit the number of coupons you can print. When I first tried to use the software, I couldn’t get things to print. My husband had setup the printer on a print server on the network so we could share the printer, but the coupon printer software didn’t like that one bit. I made him hook the printer directly to my computer. Now I’m happily printing my coupons.

There are a lot of coupon websites out there but many of them use the same coupon software and therefore offer the same coupons. The print limit per coupon is often capped at 2, regardless of what site you use to print them.

So far, I haven’t had any trouble redeeming printed coupons in stores although I have had a few checkers inspect them closely. (Hint to you frugal shoppers – choose the young checkers at your grocery store and avoid the “experienced” ones that might not have seen too many printed coupons. It makes things go much more smoothly).

So get your printer ready and check out my three favorite grocery coupon sites:

Coupons.com – I’ve had great luck finding coupons I’ll use here. I check this site every couple of days to see what’s new. Sites like Boodle.com actually redirect you to this site to print the coupons.

Smartsource.com – This site offers a different set of coupons than the site above. I haven’t found as many great coupons here but some have come in really handy. Other sites that offer the SmartSource coupons include eversave.com and coolsavings.com.

Betty Crocker – This has more than just Betty Crocker coupons. The coupons change once a month and are definitely worth checking out. I always seem to find at least one valuable coupon here.

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Here We Are: A Penny Closer

My husband and I have never been the frugal type. 

I never saved any of my earnings.  I spent it on all sorts of gotta-have-it items that mean nothing to me now and really meant very little to me even then.  I didn’t really think of savings unless it had to do with buying something expensive.  The only future forward thinking I seemed to have involved figuring out how I was going to pay my cards that month. 

After graduating from college I started my first salaried position.  I wasn’t earning a fortune but it was more than I had ever earned before and I felt like I should be able to buy nicer things.  My need to consume indiscriminately only seemed to gain steam as I entered adulthood.

I know my story is not unique.  I’m sure many young adults don’t think about the future when it comes to spending money - that appears to come with the territory when we lack maturity and the feeling of mortality.  The watchword at the time was instant gratification.

I had no idea how to really handle my money.  The bills would mount up and I would face the fact that I couldn’t spend as much.  I would cut back to pay the cards down but I still didn’t actually change.  I just temporarily bought less stuff.  And although the act of buying less stuff was an accomplishment, my fundamental attitude about money hadn’t changed.  And thus the cycle continued: spending too much, having the credit card bill sky rocket, cutting back to pay it down, rinse, repeat.

My husband also wasn’t a saver although he had more restraint than I had throughout college and beyond.  Even though he wasn’t budgeting or tracking how he spent his money he was still generally moving in a positive direction.  He was doing some of the right things, like contributing to 401K, but he wasn’t monitoring his financial health or researching the best deals.  He was just coasting along, enjoying the scenery.

When we fell in love our bad habits rubbed off on one another.  Collectively, we had no idea how to budget and really didn’t have any desire to attempt to.  We were quite content living outside our means and had no idea how much we were really spending.  It wasn’t until we faced our first challenge as a married couple that we actually started to think about how we were living and our financial situation. 

I suspect that I’m not alone.  Maybe it takes a challenge, whether that is hitting a credit card limit, a new or changing relationship, or a specific desire that seems out of reach, to wake us up from this sort of auto-pilot spending pattern.

When we sat down and finally examined our bills we realized that there was no way we could reach our goal of moving into a new home the way we were spending.  Technically, we couldn’t even afford to live in our current home, never mind a newer one!  It was crushing.  Things had to change.  We had to change. 

It certainly has been a journey so far.  We have found that through making informed decisions and simply being aware of how we spend our money we have been able to make great strides in improving our quality of life and ability to save.

No, we aren’t completely debt free and no, we aren’t in that new home yet. 
But after the changes we have made, we will be. 

We still worry about money, but it is a different kind of worry now.  We are empowered by being frugal and managing our finances instead of feeling, for lack of a better word, oblivious.  The confidence we have gained in knowing we have a level of control over our money, rather than the other way around, is really invaluable. 

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