sunshinetreva:

Loveday:

I found out the same about my silly Slurpees (Coke only, by the way--they're a childish enough treat as it is without me making it worse by getting a blue one! LOL).

 

OMG!!!  I'm the same way -- Coke only!!!  There's a Casey's in town (convenience store) and they have Coke slurpees and I *love* them.  They were getting harder to find at the 7-11s back home.  We walk there about once a month and spend $3 for everyone to get a little treat and DD & I almost always get slurpees.  Here they are called slushees, but they will always be slurpees to me!

 Yeah, it's still hard sometimes to find the Coke ones here in Tidewater, but I've got my favourite 7-Elevens nearby that always seem to have them. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing! LOL!

Finally, chocolate.  DH & I used to buy chocolate.  Not anymore.  Now I make stuff like chocolate cobbler or chocolate chip cookies.  I can make a chocolate cobbler to satisfy cravings and it costs me around $2.  A bag of chocolate is around $3.  It's not a huge savings, but we eat less chocolate altogether and only really crave it once a month or so when it used to be a weekly thing.  So, based on those numbers, we used to spend $12/month and now it's about $2 a month or a savings of $120/year!

I'm not sure I WANT to know how much I'd save if I cut way back on the chocolate.

jennylyn:

Loveday:

Slurpees (Coke only, by the way

Just have to say . . . I LOVE a Slurpee myself and Coke is my favorite!!  Don't you get bummed when you get one and the machine has it too liquidy and not icey enough?? 

YES!!! That irritates me to no end!   Especially when I've been really good and have waited a whole week to treat myself to one! 

The little things definitely do add up. Our dessert treats are always home-made (like oatmeal cookies, etc). OR if it's a store-bought treat like ice-cream, we'll jazz up the grocery store items with at-home toppings vs. buying ice-cream at an outside dessert place.

Also, homemade cheese-cake is a budget buster (plus I use less sugar in it) vs. outside prepared.

Janet

I just stopped to figure out my large Sonic Dr. Pepper cost.  Even if I buy them during happy hour, which is between 2-4 pm.  I spend $ .96 each, not incuding a tip.  It costs over $348.00 a year.  What is the tip on that?  Since I havn't had one in three days, I actually feel better.  I have been having an upset stomach for the past few weeks. I never considered it was the soda until I stayed home 3 days in a row and did not get one.  Imagine that!  A product made with non real food products causing an upset stomach.  WOW!!   Old dogs can learn new tricks and save money doing it.

Pat, with our new front load washing machine my clothes take about 25 minutes to dry because they are spun so much in the washing machine. It takes me 15 minutes to hang a load of laundry. Since I do not have the time to do all the cost saving things I would like it is not an option to spend 15 minutes to save .25c or even .50c. I am much better off putting my effort to save or even make money somewhere else. As for the coffee when I think of an entire year of my favorite coffee for 300.00 it is totally worth it! Actually it costs less than 300.00 because I would be having coffee from home at a cost of about .25c. Like I said before if we did not have the money it would not be an option. There are definately things I have figured the cost of annually that have surprised me and led to changes. For instance when I realized how much money we could be saving by driving a smaller car, when it was time to to buy a new vehicle I bought a smaller much less expensive vehicle even though I wanted to continue to drive an SUV with bells and whistles.

That's like when we bought our used Tahoe. The gas mileage bothers me, but with 3 - 6ft plus men in the family, the smaller wagon with the 4cylinder engine just did not go over well at all! So its worth the comfort level for now.

I wish I could go back to a car but when you have to drive 5 people in reasonable comfort...minivan but the gas mileage sucks.  not that I am driving 5 all the time but with car seats.... if I could have a car that sat 5 comfortably with carseats I would go for it.  cheap one though! 

I see a cute red station wagon at a local lot ...$3500 sigh. 

4givennotperfect:

Pat, with our new front load washing machine my clothes take about 25 minutes to dry because they are spun so much in the washing machine. It takes me 15 minutes to hang a load of laundry. Since I do not have the time to do all the cost saving things I would like it is not an option to spend 15 minutes to save .25c or even .50c.

It takes me about 5 minutes to hang a load of laundry and then I can go off and forget about it until I'm ready, instead of having to wait around on the dryer. I can go to town, take a nap or whatever... but to each their own.

Again, the point is not what we want to spend money on, spend it however you want to. The point is that the little things we don't think much about, can add up to quite a bit over a period of time.

Pat:

Again, the point is not what we want to spend money on, spend it however you want to. The point is that the little things we don't think much about, can add up to quite a bit over a period of time.

I think a secondary point is also to be aware of how much actually can be saved by doing things a little differently.

I know when DH was laid off for a year in 2003-04, our family did quite a few things "differently".  I would never have considered buying lunch at the hospital cafeteria in Idaho, even tho I worked rotating shifts & it was often available. Our budget then required that I take my own lunch, in order for us to be able to pay the bills with a significantly reduced cash flow. With both of us working, I can afford to buy lunch at work once in a while, but I would rather take my own & use the $60 elsewhere - taking DH out for a milkshake, or something like that.

While DH was laid off, 2 of our children worked as lifeguards at the local pool.  As a result, they were able to pay their own college fees & high school fees. Both of them, on their own, chose to start showering after their work shift at the pool, which dramatically lowered the water bill by cutting in half the people showering in the household.

During DH's layoff, I didn't use the clothes dryer at all - I hung my scrubs on hangars to dry.  I use the dryer for my scrub pants now, & I still hang all whites & my scrub tops to air dry, but if we were in a cash flow crunch again, I know how to reduce that bill.  For me it doesn't matter whether it takes me 5 minutes or 15 to hang the laundry. When I had to pinch every penny, I would have done it even if it took an hour, because it let us remain financially solvent.  I was working 2 jobs at the time, since DH wasn't working at all.  Now both of us are working, & I don't HAVE to do laundry this way, but I choose to, because I want to save the extra $$ for retirement.

Since we never know when life will deal the next "low blow", it's nice to be prepared with a full arsenal of frugal responses.

Well said, zohnerfarms. You said what I was getting at much better than I did.