Nrthwdscrapper's Place

Woohooo! The conservation continues!

2009-03-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Well, the electric bill came last night. We saved 34% or $38.00 this month. WOW!! My goal was a 25% decrease for the year. So we are doing really good. DH accounts the additional savings to the changing of the furnace filter .....it was pretty dirty and we think the furnace was working hard to deal with this.

We paid the bills this month and have a significant amount of money left over ....into the savings account it will go. We are not shopping nearly as much as we used to. We think about every expenditure before we make a purchase and we are definitely see the significance in this attitude. We are really getting creative in our meal choices .....its a challenge to use up products in our freezer and pantry. In the process we have created some pretty fantastic meals. DH never knew he liked brown rice before, I had him hook, line and sinker.

So we continue with our conservative lifestyle and enjoying every little success and already seeing the benefits.

HUGE STEP

2009-03-02T13:58:00.001-08:00

OMG! This week I started the biggest and probably one the hardest money saving ventures. Giving up POP! No Diet Dew while at work. I know not many people will ever understand the big deal this is. But I have a serious addiction and my goal is to drop my 8-10 can a day habit down to 2 cans. One in the morning and one at night. This is seriously a big deal but also a major savings .....even though we always buy on sale. Water and Crystal light are so much cheaper ....water being the cheapest, since I only like my home's tap water ...so therefore I don't waste money on bottled water.

I figured it out its probably a savings of a minimum $450.00 a year. Can you imagine? Hey, can you imagine how much healthier I will be? Well, at least when the caffeine withdrawals stop.

Still going....

2009-02-17T14:08:00.000-08:00

Well, its been about a month and I'm still working on my goals. So far I have saved $179.00 by cancelling our Netfix subscription that we hardly ever used. We shopped our insurance around and saved $606.00 for the year. And we saw an impact on our electrical usage ....in the first month we dropped our electrical bill by 17% and saved $18.00. Small changes but all worth it.

I have also made some small changes that are hard to put dollars too but I know are saving us money. We have always put together shopping lists (although when it came to Walmart we sometimes deviated from it), but now we put together the list, then go back through it and ask the questions, "Do I really need this?" "Can I make do without it?" "Do I have something already at home that can do this?" You'd be surprised how many things you can then cross off the list. Then when we go to the store, we go off the list and don't 'shop' along the way - when we have everything on the list we head directly to the checkout and we are out of there.

I have also been mending clothes and fixing things before they are worthless. DS#3's shoe was coming apart on the velcro flap......a little bit of fabric glue and we are going strong....no need to buy another pair. And no one can tell those shoes needed to be repaired.

We still only grocery shop the sales, this is working good for us. Although the sales lately have been pretty weak, but thats ok, we are eating out of the pantry and going strong. We make sure we rotate the stock and anything that is getting close to its expiration date is put on the menu. I love allrecipes.com because I can enter in some ingredients and it comes up with a bunch of recipes that have those ingredients in and pretty soon we are eating a very nice meal and using up food from our stock. Saving money and eating good, how can you beat that!

Scrapbook shopping ......now that area would seem to be a major problem, right? So far so good, I have not bought a single thing since late December. And frankly, I have no desire too. I'm using the stuff I have and I'm really enjoying it. Its wonderful to go through my storage and find things I forgot I had, using tools I haven't used for a very long time. I feel successful.....I'm using something I already have and I'm not spending money and most importantly ....I'm scrapping. Its like a scavenger hunt ...its thrilling.

Joann's has stopped their free shipping club .....I think that is going to keep my shopping in check as well. I hate spending money on shipping, it seems like such a waste to me. So I'm sure I will be spending less that way alone.

So continues the effort. I get an amazing feeling of accomplishment everytime I do something that saves us money. We have always been careful with our money but now I'm moving towards frugal and beyond. I hope to be a closet millionaire .....you know the person that has a million dollars in the bank but no one in the world would have a clue!

Another Day

2009-01-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, so last night was not as productive as I had hoped .....I wanted to get the spare refrigerator emptied and shut off. Unfortunately, DH had it full of hamburger that he had purchased on sale. So last night was spent repackaging the burger into smaller portions and getting it into the freezer. Hopefully, tonight we will be able to unplug the fridge.

I am noticing that DH is following my lead easily and when leaving a room he is shutting the lights off. Now normally, we don't leave all the lights on but we did leave lights on when we knew we would be going back into that room after a short amount of time. Now, when leaving a room we are turning the lights off. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of a difference this behavior will make on our electric bill.

I have gotten my first insurance quote back ......a savings of $977.00 without changing any of our policies! WOW!!! We are waiting for more quotes then we will decide on a company and then start the process of increasing our deductibles. Which should be an even greater savings.

I also ran into my first "obstacle" with saving money. OH DEAR! My favorite craft store is having a sale on Cricut cartridges .....a good deal. I so wanted to place an order!!! I thought about it good and hard and decided that I didn't need to spend that money at this time. Although I have been scrapbooking more .....I have not been using my Cricut alot. So I decided to hold off for now......will I ever buy a Cricut cartridge again? Yes, I'm sure I will and my main thought was that this sale will come along again. So why not save the money now and when the time comes that I will feel better about ordering it, not just because it is on sale.

Along with this sale flyer came a 50% off coupon AND another company's catalog. So many wonderful things that I would love to buy. BUT ......for now! I intend to use what I have and try to not purchase any new products until I've made a significant dent in my significant stash! I'd like to say that I will not buy scrapbooking supplies for one year ....NOT! It would be a substantial savings, I'm sure......but a girl can't get too carried away. For now, I'm just going to try to hold off as long as possible without buying anything new. I will save that shopping for my birthday, anniversary and Christmas when DH doesn't have the slightest clue what to buy me and I tell him to just give me "guilt-free shopping."

A New Year - A New Outlook

2009-01-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

Normally, I'm not your typical New Year's Resolution type person. I know I will never succeed, so why bother. And since this New Years I was recovering from an awful bout of the flu, the extent of my resolution was to not vomit anymore.
Yesterday, after a discussion with my dear friend who is struggling with limited hours at work and no child support because her EX is now unemployed, I was discussing with her ways to save money and cut expenses. Our household has always been very frugal and I passed on lots of advice to her. I also started searching the internet for more ideas and realized that there was so much more I could do with our household expenses.
On of the blogs I came across the woman had made the resolution last year to not be wasteful. This gave me the idea .....I need to stop being so wasteful and to save my pennies anywhere I can. I challenged my girlfriend to come up with a money saving idea everyday. And I'm challenging myself also.
So last night when I got home from work, I went room by room and unplugged any electronic items that aren't used on a daily basis or that could easily be plugged in when needed. Although our computers are always turned off, we were not shutting off the power strip (even off, a computer will draw electricity), so last night DH and I implemented the shutting off of the power strips as part of our attempts to conserve and save. My real goal would be to drop our electrial bill by 20%, this may be lofty but its something to shoot for. DH also came up with the idea of unplugging our extra refrigerator. We normally keep our refreshments in it and then have it for overflow purposes when we have dinner parties or during hunting or canning season to store things being processed. We could unplug it for most of the year and only plug it back in when necessary.
So it begins!! My resolution to not be wasteful this year....especially with my money!
Keep me honest ladies! If I'm not blogging ....then I might be slipping .....call me on it.

Challenge 1 - Music

2008-07-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

This one has given me the most frustration. I haven't given up and will be adding pictures one of these days.

Challenge 1 - Tea

2008-07-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Challenge 1 - Feet

2008-07-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

Photography Tip

2008-07-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

The way you label your discs also affects their archivability. Scrawling on them with a ball-point or other hard tipped pen can actually damage the read-side, and soft-tipped pens with solvent-based inks can make trouble chemically. To be on the safe side, write only on the clear plastic center and label the sleeve or jewel-case thoroughly. {excerpt from National Geographic The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography}