The Frugal Life of Miss Reba.

My money-management skills have been a roller coaster of a learning curve over my life. When I was younger, you couldn't pay me to spend money. I put everything I had into savings and didn't apologize for it.

And then college hit. My friends kept wanting to go out to dinner instead of eating at the dining hall and there was always a reason to go shopping. After the Post-Clearwater depression hit, shopping was an instant way to feel better about myself and my life, even though the euphoria was short-lived.

There was a time when I literally had $6 left in my bank account, my gas tank had about one more trip to work left in it, and I had two more days until pay day. I don't think I had ever cried so hard because I knew that I had dug myself into this hole. I knew that I had done this to myself; there was no one to blame but me and my stupidity. 

Then last year, I got my first teaching job and moved into a house with four other girls. My total bills came to about $800 a month (including car payment and rent) and my paycheck was almost three times my bills. I was truly working for profit and I was stoked. Looking back, I wish I had managed my money more efficiently and not gone out to eat as much or pour as much of my paycheck into my classroom. I wish I had paid off more of my car loan and put more money into the bank. Especially now that I am back living closer to a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, I would love for my bank account to have more digits to it.

Alas, I am back to the frugal ways that I had developed during the lean times in my life.

I'm not at all complaining (this time around). I chose my current life situation (subbing instead of teaching, living in my new house, driving my car that has a payment instead of being paid in full when purchased). I am actually enjoying my carefree life that comes with not teaching and love the nanny gig that I have that puts more money into the bank (to save, not to spend). I am challenging myself to save more money and to see which corners I can cut!

This morning, I went to Harris Teeter to rake in some savings during their "Super Double Coupon" week. For about two months (possibly more!) of non-perishable groceries, I spent $74 and saved $123! I literally jumped up and down in the check out line. I "tooted my own horn" on Facebook and let the cyber world know of my savings. I've talked to a lot of my other "broke lifestyle" friends and they begged for advice.

The easiest way to pass out knowledge to a large group of people: the blog.

Unfortunately, I don't have many tricks; most of my things are fairly common knowledge and would only really work for my life, and probably not for someone else's. However, I'll see what I can do.

Electricity bill.

1. Work with the outside temperature. I do my best to not use electricity. Most of the summer my A/C was turned off and I kept my ceiling fans on when I was home. I have only recently turned on my heat because I was getting sick thanks to literally shivering in my sleep (despite about twelve blankets). Even now, I have my heat set to 65 degrees. I keep a sweatshirt on most of the time, but my electric bill is still down and I'm not suffering from a chronic runny nose! I'm also hot-natured so I don't mind a chill in the air.

2. Use the sun. If the sun is out, I have my blinds open and I am using the sunshine as my light. I also try to use lamps instead of an overhead light. A lower wattage bulb = a lower amount of energy used = a lower power bill. The biggest slap in the face that I give myself (literally!) is when I come home and realize that I left a light on. UGH!

3. Unplug everything you're not using. The only things in this house that stay plugged in all the time: refrigerator, living room TV, washer/dryer, stove, dishwasher, DVR. The TV in my bedroom and the VCRs stay unplugged unless I'm using them. Same with the microwave. I unplug my phone charger, iPad charger, printer, etc. when they're not in use. Simply having that plug in the wall generates a small amount of electricity. Research shows that keeping eight plugs in while not being used will cost you over $100 a year. Granted, per month, per plug that's not that much. However, cutting little corners make a big difference over time.

This section might seem a bit extreme, but my light bill for this past month was $39. Jealous?

Gas.

Gas is expensive. We all know this. We all complain about this. However, there's a free app for smart phones called "GasBuddy" that will find cheap gas near you. Most gas stations now have some kind of membership club that will save you gas by having a card. There is now a Sheetz in my hometown (cue "Hallelujah" chorus) and I have a Sheetz card. My car has a 15 gallon tank and I save $0.03 on each gallon when I use my Sheetz card. $0.45 a fill-up isn't that much, but I fill up about once a week, and that is over $23 a year. That'll pay for dinner out one night. My Sheetz membership also sends me coupons that I can use to get free/reduced price food, snacks, drinks, and gas. It's a win-win. Also, fill up when your gas tank is at half-a-tank, instead of when your light starts blinking. This keeps your car in better shape and will save you money on repairs over time. Regular oil changes and checking your tire pressure frequently will also keep money in your pocket in the long-run.

Food.

1. Stop eating out. I know that sounds trite, but heavens Lord...it's expensive! I only eat out when invited. I cut out fast food as part of a food challenge I'm doing with my cousin and my bank account is already thanking me only a month in! Make a pasta dish instead of running to Olive Garden. An $8 bottle of wine from Target, a $1 box of pasta, $3 for cheese or Prego sauce and you've got the same meal at half the price. Sure you've gotta do the dishes, but c'mon people...you'll live. It's also wonderful to open your home to friends and have a party in your living room. Have everyone bring one thing and you've got yourself an old-fashioned pot-luck. You may even find another recipe that you can add to your collection without the help of Pinterest!

2. Speaking of Pinterest, get a Pinterest account immediately. Tired of making the same six meals over and over again? There are thousand of different ways to cook chicken breasts on one website. There's also some great tips for frugal cooking on there! Once you get an account, you should follow me! I'm always pinning new recipes and new coupon sites and other nifty things. I would also love for you to comment on any of my pins that you've tried before and let me know about any advice you have!

3. Most other frugal people are now screaming at their computers telling me to mention something about meal planning. Confession: I don't meal plan. Supposedly this will help cut down on grocery spending and that kind of thing, but I don't have a clue. I just buy what's on sale and make a meal out of it.

4. Cut out all soda and bottled water. I'm pretty sure some of you just fainted. Please keep reading once you wake back up. Soda is expensive and is absolutely awful for you (I learned this week that carbonation causes cellulite -- EWW). Bottled water is also a rip off. Get yourself a cute little water bottle and re-use it! If you can't stand the taste of tap water, get yourself some Crystal Light packets and calm yourself. Your body will thank you...so will your bank account.

Grocery.

This section is going to be the longest and hardest to write. Most things I've noticed over time (I've been couponing "seriously" --I could not have my own reality TV segment, but I do save a bit of money-- since August of 2010). None of these are an exact science, but they work for me.

1. Find a favorite grocery story and get their app on your smartphone or bookmark it on your work computer. For major couponing, I use Harris Teeter (Kroger is also a really good one) and I use the Food Lion in my hometown for other minor shopping trips. I get weekly emails with in-store specials from Harris Teeter and I get an app alert from Food Lion on deals. I've heard lots of people complain about not having "time" to coupon. I know very few people who don't have half-an-hour to spare over the course of a week to look over their email at what they can pick up from the grocery store at a discounted rate.

2. If it will last in your cabinet for more than a week, DO NOT BUY IT AT FULL PRICE. I love pasta. I cook a bit of pasta with almost every meal (most of my meals are pasta, chicken, and veggies thrown together in some way). Today, I picked up ten boxes of pasta for $10, plus tax. Each box of pasta will last about six servings, so consequently I purchased the bulk, if not all, of sixty meals for $10. I also picked up some frozen veggies at "Buy One, Get One Free" and four trays of chicken breasts (three breasts per tray, I eat half of a breast per serving = 24 servings of chicken) at "Buy One, Get One Free"...24 servings of meat for $15. Heck. Yes. (I freeze the chicken, that's why it lasts longer than a week).

3. Be willing to do some math. If you clip coupons, always carry a calculator, or use the one on your smart phone, with you to the grocery store. Today, Chef Boy-R-Dee ravioli was on sale 10 for $10 at Harris Teeter. Sounds like a deal, right? I think I would have saved about $3.50 for picking this up (I typically eat a can of ravioli for lunch on days that I sub). I looked over and realized that the Harris Teeter brand was $0.75 a can. It was cheaper to grab ten cans of the off-brand than it was with the discount and the coupon I had in my purse. This is true for a lot of items: paper towels, toilet paper, canned veggies. You won't see this as part of your savings at the bottom of your receipt, but it does pay off!

NOTE: It's also cheaper to buy individual boxes of tissues than it is to buy the three-packs of Kleenex.

4. Do mass shopping on super discount weeks. It was "super double" coupon week at Harris Teeter. HT normally doubles any coupon you bring in that has a value of $0.99 or below. This week, they were doubling any coupon with a value of $2.00 and below. I got some great family-size Stouffer's freezer meals (that will give me four-six meals!) for only $3.25 (with tax)! HOLLA AT YA GIRL!

5. If possible, use your coupon when the item is on sale. This allows you more savings! The Stouffer's freezer meals? They are typically around $7.25. However, HT had them on sale for $5.99. I then had a coupon for $1.25 off, which was doubled to $3! I did this for a lot of my items today. My wallet praises me.

6. Know your grocer's coupon rules. HT will only accept 20 coupons per customer per day. Food Lion doesn't double coupons. A simple phone call or some internet research will help you out with this. Thirty minutes of research one afternoon will pay off in the long run!

7. Hold on to your coupons. This one kind of goes with #5. If you have a coupon for something from your newspaper cut-out, more than likely it's about to go on sale in stores in the next week or two. Also, most "super" weeks of discounts are followed closely by more "super" weeks. I'm fully anticipating "triple face value" week at HT in the next two weeks (again, this isn't an exact science, just something I've noticed).

Like I said, I know that some of these won't be able to translate to larger households. This is my pantry. For one person, it's super stocked and will last me through Christmas, but I know that for me, a box of pasta will last a week, but for families, it will go away in about a meal. I also know that if I had tried to be this savings-savvy last year in the house with five girls, it wouldn't have been as possible simply because I didn't have the space to store as much (especially freezer space!).

I do like knowing that I will rarely have to spend money on food for the rest of 2012.  My bank account gets to stay just like it is for two more months, doing nothing but earning interest.  I will have to go back to the store once or twice if I need a specific ingredient that I might run out of, but of course I will be going with a coupon in hand!

Miscellaneous.

A few more things to think about for your "frugal" state of mind.

1. Cook ahead of time. I am most tempted to go through a drive-thru or something when I have to go home and cook. After a long day, I just want food, not to stand on my feet for another half an hour. Again, Pinterest is full of "freezer meals" (meals that you prep/begin cooking ahead of time, so you just have to re-heat them), use it as a resource! I will cook a couple of casseroles one Sunday afternoon and then divide it up in Tupperware, some to be frozen to be eaten MUCH later, and others to be put in the fridge to be eaten for lunches later that week.

2. Do very little without spliting the bill or without a coupon. If you go out to eat, most restaurants serve meals that are two portions; split a plate with your friend! Or, ask for a to-go box before you begin eating so that you can start your meal knowing what you should eat at this meal and then the rest can be used for another meal. With the holidays coming up, there are a lot of seasonal attractions; a quick internet search will almost certainly find a cheaper deal or a night where you can get in cheaper.

3. Do it yourself. I know that this is a huge fad right now but there's a reason! Make a front door decoration for Christmas instead of buying one at the store. Make dinner instead of going out. Watch a movie you already have instead of going out to the theatre.

4. Be patient. Wait to go to the $2 theatre instead of spending $10 on a ticket. Plan to do a craft and then use weekly coupons to get the pieces on sale. Wait for that fabulous new dress at Target to go on sale or hit up a few Goodwills to see if you can find something almost as perfect as the one in the store.

Story time: I love big, over-sized "comfy chairs." The ones with the ottomans. Oh, they are my love language. I deeply wanted a comfy chair, but I didn't have the spending money to go out to get one, even off of Craigslist. I decided to use a portion of my $5 Savings Plan (wait for it, it's #6B) to get me a big comfy chair when furniture goes on sale after the new year. I could rough it on the couch for another two months. No big deal. About three weeks after I decided to be patient and save my money, I got a phone call from my grandparents asking if I wanted any of their living room furniture. They had not one, BUT TWO comfy chairs in their living room and now they're both sitting in MY living room...FOR FREE! Patience is a virtue people.

5. Tithe. For any non-religious friends that may read this, some of this isn't valid, but bear with me. When we first started getting an allowance, we were told to put 10% into our savings account, and then 10% to tithe. It is a Biblical principle to tithe and give ten percent (Leviticus 27:32). I find that although I may have less money in my bank account after tithing, I never seem to stress about money afterwards. I also believe that the Lord gives us small blessings to see how we handle them (squander, save, use for Him) so that He knows how to trust us with bigger blessings. I once was driving to a job interview very confident in my ability to get this job. After the interview, I knew it was mine; I had ACED it! However, it hit me that I hadn't tithed in two months and "that little voice in the back of my head" reminded me that unless I proved faithful to the Lord, He wouldn't prove faithful to me. So, I tithed and just like in the book of Malachi, the Lord opened the floodgates and I was amazed by the blessings I received from that job. It's not always easy to give away that money, but the blessings are so worth it. Like anything that is a bit uneasy, a little practice makes it a whole lot easier.

6. Save. My parents taught us "the envelope method" on how to budget our resources (I believe Dave Ramsey is now preaching this). Cash your pay check and put your budgeted amount for each category (groceries, gas, electric bill, etc.) into the envelope with that label. It's a more visual thing; when you're thinking about catching a movie in Raleigh, and you realize that you have $3 left in your "gas" envelope and only $10 left in your "fun spending" envelope, a TV marathon at home seems like a lot more fun.  Now, my monthly allowance for food in my household is $200. I have spent $37 of that (I shopped for two months today). What am I going to do with that other $163? I'm going to keep it in the envelope until the end of the month, and then I'm going to put it in my savings account. I'll obviously have to take out some of it if I run out of eggs, or if I decide to eat out one night. However, my goal is to spend as little money as possible every month. That $163 will also come in handy in case my nannying paycheck doesn't show up in time for the bills to be paid at the start of December. Or if I have to make an extra trip to Raleigh and my gas budget doesn't suffice. I try to do as little "cross-over" between the envelopes as possible. You never know when you may come in need.

6B. The $5 Savings Plan. I saw this on Pinterest and it struck my fancy. Now that I'm doing as much as I can with cash, it's more of a reality in my life than before. The $5 savings plan is simple: every time you receive a $5 bill, you tuck it away and save it.  That's it. I try to put it in the ATM as soon as possible, because if I just had cash lying around, I would be too tempted to spend it. Out of sight, out of mind is better! I've turned it into a game for myself: it makes me excited to get a $5 bill because now it's $5 going towards my cruise in July with my Clearwater Family! I find myself praying for a $5 at a register because it's an unexpected blessing to put a bit of money back in the bank! The pin that described the $5 Saving Plan on Pinterest explained that you should try to set goals or make a list of things you would want to do if you saved a certain amount of money. My cruise certainly makes saving more desirable, but for more "short term" planners, a fancy pedicure at a favorite salon would be a good thing to save for. Think about it and enjoy your money.

I know that was super long, y'all. But I so enjoyed writing it. Am I always this perfect at saving? No, no I swear I'm not. I like a new nail polish color as much as any girl...but I'm trying. Saving and frugal living is like a muscle: you have to practice it often and use it as much as you can to make it work properly. I'd also rather eat spaghetti three nights a week (good things I L-O-V-E spaghetti!) than get to the first of the month and realize I can't pay my rent. Logic definitely favors this lifestyle.

If you have any questions or would like any advice in any other areas, feel free to leave a comment or hit up my e-mail. I would love to help any way that I can :)