I don’t purchase subscriptions outright very often, but there’s a promotion going on right now that might be a good deal if you like the right magazines. Meredith Corporation publishes scads of magazines, and they’re running a “Read for the Cure” special where you can get some of the magazines at a discount. In addition to being a good deal (on some of the titles), 10% of the subscription price goes to  Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

As you’ve probably picked up already, some of the magazines are a great deal, and some are not. You’ll have to compare to your usual outlet, whether that’s a subscription card from the magazine, or (my usual choice) Amazon.

For instance, Fast Company and Inc. are cheaper at Amazon. Wired and Taste of Home are the same price. But Real Simple and Craft & Home Projects are cheaper.

You also have to keep in mind the number of issues that are included. Many of the Read for the Cure subscriptions are 6 or 7 issues, so make sure you’re comparing apples to apples.

With those caveats in mind, if you really enjoy a particular magazine, take a minute or two to see if it’s a good bargain.

photo credit: bravenewtraveler

At a store like Amazon that sometimes has good promotions but doesn’t do traditional discount coupons, it’s easy just to add the book to the cart and move on.

What works for me is a simple bookmarklet that checks two sites for me. I just click it and can tell at a glance if there’s a better option.

The bookmarklet

Shop for book

Simply drag the “Shop for book” button to your bookmarks bar, or right-click on it and choose “Bookmark this link” (the wording might vary slightly depending on your computer setup). Then when you’re on an Amazon book page, you can go to your bookmark and you’ll get two new windows, with the two sites described below.

ISBN.nu

ISBN.nu is a simple tool that compares book prices across a bunch of stores. I like it better than some alternatives because it includes shipping in the total, which is important if you’re looking at just one book and won’t be eligible for Amazon’s Super Saver Shipping deal.

PaperBackSwap

Many frugal folks are already familiar with PaperBackSwap (and other similar sites, like Frugal Reader), but whether or not you are interested in swapping your own books, it’s worth a quick check to see if the book you want is available, because you can also buy credits in lieu of swapping.

For instance, at PaperBackSwap, a credit costs $3.45 (at the moment, anyway), and that covers the book and the shipping. Compare it to paying $3.99 just for shipping at Amazon, and you can see

Of course, this is only helpful if you don’t mind a used copy, and the book you want is actually available, but considering the potential savings, I like to include it in my routine check. It’s only one click, after all!

What next?

Do you find information and tools like this helpful? What other tools would you like to see?

photo credit: chefranden

It’s simple: just take the victim’s toothbrush, put it upside-down in a Dixie cup (or similar) full of water, and freeze it. When it’s solid (and your victim is likely to brush their teeth soon!), remove the toothbrush-sicle from the cup and put it in its normal place.

Thanks to my mom’s encouragement, I did this to my mister, too. What I like best about this prank is that it’s totally harmless (a little hot water restores the universe back to its former standing).

In case it’s not obvious, I’m not entirely sold on the logic. Lattes might be frivolous, but they’re not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, and I’d rather spend my time thinking of creative ways to add ten or twenty-thousand to the bottom line than feeling perfectly satisfied because I managed to deprive myself and save a tenth or a twentieth of that.

But I don’t think the concept is useless. I just think many folks don’t use it to its full potential (and I’m not talking about giving up all caffeine).

I have a one-year-old, and for the first nine months of his life, Benjamin would periodically go from crying into full nuclear runaway. It was if, once he got to a certain point down the meltdown path, he couldn’t turn aside, and his unhappiness turned to panic. If we couldn’t calm him down before that point, there wasn’t anything we could do.

Until we discovered the pantry.

There is nothing magical about our pantry, at least not to our adult eyes. But when we carried Benjamin into the pantry and faced him toward the shelves of colorful boxes and cans, suddenly his panic stopped and he would just stare in wonder (okay, more likely, over-stimulation–but he calmed down).

We called the pantry “the interrupt switch.” Even though it was irrelevant and did nothing to address whatever originally started him crying, it was like it created a fork in the road and he was able to stop the downward spiral.

That’s what I think the latte factor is good for.

In and of itself, giving up a latte is probably not going to take you from rags to riches. But consciously giving something up, particularly something that’s part of your daily routine, is an interrupt switch of sorts.

If you just give up the latte or cable TV or the unlimited text plan or whatever your particular “latte factor” is, and you feel like you’re done, you’re missing the main benefit.

What if you were able to use the sacrifice as an interrupt that kept your valuable, meaningful goals at the forefront of your thoughts? That could be the difference between staying motivated and just another good intention. What if it helped you shift away from the attitudes that have been slowly pushing you downward, and helped you focus on a better alternative?

That might be worth the latte.

photo credit: josh.liba

Of course, we all know that different people have different expectations, but it can be a little hard to relate when they’re too different.

I don’t want to do that here. I’m planning on featuring some yummy-yet-budget recipes, and want to make sure I’m hitting the mark and giving you ideas you’ll actually want to use. So tell me what will help you most!

photo credit: [cipher]

I know you may have thought you’d never hear the words good news and recession in the same sentence but that time has perhaps finally arrived. Financial experts are saying that signs are pointing towards an economy finally on the path to recovery, however long and arduous that road may be.

Now I’m no finance analyst, and this is not going to be some boring discussion about the factors that brought the country to the brink of depression, but what I’d just like to explore is how Americans have come out of this crisis. One thing’s for sure, though. We didn’t emerge unscathed. More resilient maybe, and with a few lesson tucked under our belt. Gone is the shop-’til-you-drop, devil-may-care mentality that was more often than not, dependent on easy credit from (then) low interest credit cards to home equity loans. But no sir, not anymore. The new America is now frugal. Here’s how I know that this is so:

• Carpooling or public commute is in. Prices of gasoline are slowly eating up a big chunk of our daily expenses. Because of this, it has become more practical to just take public transport or arrange for carpooling with colleagues. Compared to last year’s figures, the number of people who carpooled grew by 0.3%, while those who commuted jumped by 5%.

• Dollar stores are showing strong sales. Been to a Family Dollar, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree outlet lately? If you’re like most of us, you probably have. At a time when most retail businesses are cutting back and even closing shop, dollar stores have finally become mainstream for most consumers.

• More Americans are saving. From being nation of big spenders, America has become one of prudent savers. Five years ago, the rate at which people have been saving was at less than zero percent. As of May this year, the savings rate is already at 6.9% — and that’s even with interest rates at a record low.

• Less people are borrowing. Not that we could if we wanted to. Qualifications and terms for availing of credit have become so stringent that those who do want to borrow money find the proverbial doors slammed in their faces. Still, the general attitude prevailing with most people is to stay away from credit as much as possible.

• We don’t find sunny climates as tempting now. Or maybe we still do; but in the face of a slump of this magnitude, people have opted to stay put rather than move around. For the first time in so many years, Florida’s population is actually decreasing. And the same goes for taking family vacations too.

• We’ve learned to make do without many conveniences. Families have discovered the joys of just eating in on Friday and Saturday nights, and then watching a DVD. Some are canceling their cable subscriptions, bringing lunch to work, and taking advantage of events like the National Museum Day (free admission on that day) instead of sending their kids to science camp.

Whether saving just $5 or $500, it’s apparent that many Americans have realized that sometimes, the basics are just all we need.

photo credit: Rich B-S

Pros

• You can get a free flight to Europe just for signing up and using the card once
• You can get another free flight by spending $2000 (see the note below to learn an easy way to do that)
• These rewards are double what most cards offer

Cons

• Requires a little more effort than just buying a flight
• The card has a $75 annual fee, so you had better make sure you get your benefits
• You’ll still have to pay the taxes and fees that come with any airline tickets

Note: one trick that many credit card gamers use to meet spending requirements is clever and not difficult…

1. Use the credit card to meet the requirement by buying $1 coins from the US Mint (they’re sold at face value and with minimal shipping charges)
2. Deposit the coins into your local bank
3. Pay the credit card from your bank account

photo credit: cod_gabriel

But wait just yet. Holidays or no holidays, it’s always a perfect time to save or cut back on expenses too. So before you go on a spending frenzy and rack up additional credit card debt, take a step back and see where you can buck tradition without skimping on the things that really matter. Here are some tips that might come in handy:

Trimming the tree (or not)

True, having decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas may be one of the highlights of these occasions (especially for the kids) but it doesn’t mean that you’d need to order 7 lbs worth of tinsel for your tree. Remember that the decors will only be there for a few days or few weeks at most, so putting up a lot will be a big waste of time, money and effort. Instead:

• Buy your decorations from dollar or thrift stores.
• Go walking through the park or around the neighborhood for pine cone varieties rather than buying them.
• Use LED lights to save on energy. You may have to spend more upfront for this type than traditional lights but you get to save up to 90% on energy costs.
• Make homemade decors. I usually bake a batch of gingerbread cookies (or any of my kids’ favorite characters in gingerbread dough) and have the little ones decorate them to hang up on the tree.
• After the holidays, look for marked down decorations (some can get as low as 75% off!) for use next year.

‘Tis the season for giving

While being an age-old tradition of Christmas, giving gifts is again, more of a kids’ affair. Now I’m not saying that friends and family wouldn’t appreciate getting a present or two, but as cliché as this may sound, there’s really truth to the saying that it’s the thought that counts. That said, you could save on gifts this Christmas by:

• Narrowing down your gift list. Save for immediate family and really close friends, we rarely give out gifts to anyone else on Christmas. However, I do send out Christmas cards to far-off friends and relatives, and prepare some baked sweets my co-workers can share.
• Sharing a gift with someone else for someone close to you both. For instance, siblings can split the cost of gifts for dad and mom, or for nephews and nieces.
• Exchanging, rather than simply giving gifts. Alternately, you can also broach this idea to your family or group of friends. And I mean the exchange where you take out a name from a hat and just give to that one person. That way, all of you save a ton on gifts yet everyone, and not just the kids, still gets to open a present. (Admit it, we never lose the thrill of such moments!)
• Offering your services or expertise as a holiday present. Mind your best friend’s toddlers for a day, offer to lead in the games and entertainment at the local orphanage holiday party, fix that computer your brother hasn’t gotten to bring to a repair shop yet, or help out your elderly neighbor on his own holiday errands. Whatever skills or talents you have, I’m pretty sure they can be of good use to the people around you.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Hanukkah are long-standing religious celebrations we would never think of giving up just because times are hard these days. But if we can take out some of the commercial value attached to them, we’ll find that these holidays can be enjoyed just as much without needing to spend a lot.

photo credit: Darwin Bell

I admit, these are my reasons, and they may not apply to everyone’s situation, but I think it’s worth going through my thought processes to see why sometimes what appears to be the most frugal alternative isn’t always the best one.

I should also mention that I haven’t actually used the product – but I don’t think that matters in this case because my reasons for not using it have nothing to do with the quality of service – and everything to do with the circumstances of our household.

Let’s start with a simple description of the device:

At base it looks like a fat USB key with a phone jack. In spirit it’s almost like a reverse modem.  You plug the device into a spare USB slot on your Windows (XP or Vista) or Mac computer, and use its internet connection to access the telephone network.  You can get a local number in many areas, and once it’s up and running you have a perfectly usable phone as long as you have an internet connection:

So, why didn’t we take advantage of it?

(Answers after the cut)

One reason is that I don’t like putting everything on one wire.  Currently, we have two phone lines coming into the house – one for the main phone and our DSL connection, the other for the kids’ line.  Given the reliability of our phone service, I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the idea of putting the kids’ phone onto the same wire as the house phone and our DSL.  If we lost one we would lose everything, and that happens a bit more often than I really care to admit.  So, that’s strike one.

Strike two has to do with how it works.  Basically, you only have phone service while the computer it’s connected to is up and running with an internet connection.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that; but it doesn’t work for us.

You see, the only computer that we keep up and running all the time is my desktop – which runs Linux.  MagicJack doesn’t support Linux, so we’d need to use it on one of the other computers.  In principle that’s fine, we have two Windows desktops and a couple of laptops we could use:  They’re older systems, but they could do the job.

The only catch is that they’re the teenagers’ systems, and we lock those down so they only have internet during certain hours of the day.  We also shut them down at night.  That would mean we’d either have to let a teenager who would rather spend time on the internet than breathe have 24/7 access to the web, or accept that we could only make 911 calls when the kids are allowed on the internet.  I’m also not keen on the idea that we’d have to wait for Windows to boot before we could make a phone call in a late night emergency.

Ummmm, yeah, no.

Anyway, that’s a brief explanation of why we didn’t go with MagicJack.  It’s a perfectly useful product that doesn’t meet our needs – and there is nothing less frugal than buying something that doesn’t meet the need you bought it for.  That, for me, was MagicJack.

It’s a great idea, and if you keep a Windows machine (or a Mac) connected to the internet and running 24/7 it’s probably a really good way to save money.   If you don’t you probably won’t find it quite as useful.

What I would like, is if someone who does use it and reads this blog could give us a brief review in the comments.  That way, people who are considering it will be able to get a bit of a heads up before they spend the money.

photo credit: freephotos70

The important thing is not whether you choose Netflix, cable, satellite or any other entertainment provider, but whether your choice both meets your needs and makes good financial sense.  That’s the key, you need to do both.

We’ve all seen the deals:  Six months of service for this low introductory price, with three months of six movie channels for free and an automatic upgrade to a “free” DVR.  It sounds great.  Everyone wants free and everyone wants a good deal.   It all reminds me of a term from an old Robert A. Heinlein novel: TANSTAAFL.

• There
• Ain’t
• No
• Such
• Thing
• As
• A
• Free
• Lunch.

At this point you’re probably thinking of all the hotels that offer free continental breakfasts and all the other “free” things you’ve received from various companies.  None of it invalidates TANSTAAFL.   Companies give you free stuff for one reason and one reason only:  (answer after the cut).

They want to make their money from you somewhere else.

If a hotel provides a “free” breakfast, the rooms cost a little more.   If a bar gives you “free” snacks it’s always salty foods like peanuts and pretzels to make you thirsty in the hope you will buy more beer.  There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s not evil, it’s just part of doing business.  Businesses exist to transfer money from your wallet to their coffers – the more the better.

That’s what all the special deals are for:  give  you a good deal now, and collect more money later.

They load you up with more channels than you could possibly watch, then bring the price up gradually as the additional packages move from free to pay.  Most people take the free movie packages at the start, and then just don’t cancel them. Some cancel the packages a month or two after the bill hits, and almost no one cancels them before they start to charge you.

It may not sound like much, just $20/month for cable movie packages, but if you really look at it, there’s a lot more to it than first appears.

This is exactly the kind of thing that got us into the current economic mess in the first place!

It’s the housing collapse writ small.  People bought houses on two-step mortgages with a low initial payment that later ballooned beyond their means and drove them out of the houses and often into bankruptcy.  Get them in cheap, and jack the price up later.  It’s been good business, lots of profit to be had doing things that way.  The problem from my point of view is that once you run all the nunbers it usually ends up costing more than it would otherwise – and spending more isn’t frugal.

My own advice is that if you do think about getting one of those deals, you sit down and do all the numbers first.  Make sure you know what you are getting into financially and when the charges will hit.  Don’t take the movie packages:  that way you won’t get used to watching them or get hit with bills because you didn’t cancel add-ons in time.  Phone companies are the same way:  these companies are literally banking on the fact that you won’t cancel a feature before they can start charging for it.

Take your time and think it through.

In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to use the comment box at the bottom for your thoughts, rants, and responses.