Need help with clutter control and organization? Can’t seem to stay on top of your life and all it entails? Our next show is for you!  This coming Monday, September 14th at 8:30 pm EST Frugal Coast2Coast will have special guest expert & author Marla Cilley-better known to her thousands of fans as “The FlyLady“.  We will be talking about “Clutter Control and the Flylady System”.

Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley

Lynnae and I are just so excited to talk with Marla again that we can barely stand it!  We both had read her book and implemented portions of her system (note to self, get back on the Flylady system) well before meeting her online.  She is a fabulous and fun lady-the show is going to just fly by! (ha ha-fly, get it?)

You are not going to want to miss this show live, but if you MUST. . .just remember it will be available as a podcast for your future listening enjoyment! You can always find our episode player on the “Frugal Coast2Coast” blog, as well as the show notes (links mentioned on air etc) for each and every show.

Your Fabulous Frugal Coast2Coast Hosts!

While you are over at Frugal Coast2Coast don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter.  This is a joint Frugal Upstate & Being Frugal.net newsletter which will be published once a month.  It will not only include the best of both of our blogs, but also NEW material not seen on either blog.  To add to the excitement we will do a random prize drawing each month from among the newsletter subscribers.  You don’t want to miss out on all of that! So even if you already subscribe to me through email, you need to hurry on over and sign up for the Joint Frugal Coast2Coast Newsletter as well!

This is an article to follow up on my basic use of online calendaring applications. As I wrote before, I think Google offers the most versatile and user friendly calendaring application on the Internet. There are several other, like Yahoo! and MSN, and I would hope you look at each of these to find the one that suites you the best.

For the purposes of this article, I will cover both the web and mobile version of the Google calendaring systems.

Web based version:

One trait you can count on with Google is a simple and clutter free interface for most of their applications. The calendar application is no exception.

This application is made up of three different sections. The main part of the screen shows a day, week or monthly view. A left sidebar that shows the current month, and all available calendars (which we’ll discuss later), and setting options on the top. You can configure the look and feel to provide you with the best work flow.

The first things you want to become familiar with are entering calendar events, and deciding if you need more than one main calendar. As you can see from the example picture to the left, I have several individual calendars that make up my entire view. I can easily turn them on or off by simply clicking on them

A great example for the necessity of more than one calendar, is one for yourself, one to share with your family, one to share with your book club and maybe one to share with your office. Each one is independent but can be managed from the same application.

Entering a new calendar event is as easy as clicking on the day of the month, or if you are have the day view up, clicking the time slot, and you’ll notice a small bubble window will pop up. You can quickly add a new event by simply typing in the event name, location and time, i.e. Lunch with Thom at TGI Fridays 12-1PM. This entry will then show up with defaults on the day you selected. To edit the details simply click on the entry and choose the edit link.

A really cool feature Google calendar offers is how it notifies you of an upcoming event. You can choose up to three different options, an email, an SMS message, or a pop up message if you are logged into your Google account. I typically remove the email and pop-up because I’m not always at my computer, and I like getting the SMS message over email because I can see it immediately without having to load up the email application.

You can also invite others to be part of an event by simply entering their email address in the Guest section. Each calendar event has the normal settings like public or private, recurrence, date and time, where the event is taking place and ample space for a description.

Another really cool feature of Google calendar is the ability to publish your calendar, making it viewable on a web site, or imported into an application like Microsoft Outlook. You also have the option to pull down through POP for use in other web mail or desktop applications.

Google has gone to great lengths to make all of their core applications work in conjunction with each other. For example, if someone send you an email in your GMail account, and it appears they are asking you for an appointment, you will see a link on the right hand side of the email view that asks if you want to create an event from this email. One click and you just created an appointment. This is also possible if someone sends you an Outlook meeting request.

As I said earlier, you can create multiple calendars, or even subscribe to someone else’s calendar, and combine it with your own. It would depend on the permissions given by the author whether you can update their calendar or not. You can also import a iCal if you are a mac user. I personally use a Mac and have all of my calendar items published as iCal.

You can also find dozens of pre-made calendars on the Internet for events like US Holidays, TV Program schedules, sporting events, and more.

Mobile Version:

The mobile version of Google calendar comes in a couple of flavors. Mainly its web based. So if your phone or device doesn’t have access to the Internet, more than likely you wont have access to a majority of features. In my example, I’m using an iPhone, but the look and feel is similar on a Windows Mobile device.

Examples of Google Calendar on the iPhone web application. As you can see the interface is very easy to understand and navigate. You have the option to see your calendar in a day or month mode, and review individual appointments

SMS Version:

Finally, you can manage all you Google calendar items completely through SMS. By sending commands to the Google short code, which is ‘GOOGLE’ or 466453, you can get your current schedule, create new events, and see what is coming up.

Summary:

As you can see, you get more than enough features to run your life using the Google Calendar. From web, to mobile, to SMS, the product pretty much covers every base. As with any web based application, the only way it will truly add value to your life is if you use it 100%. Trying to manage more than one calendar, say a paper version and a web version, will surely leave gaps and the take more time to manage.

I suggest you give this version a try. It doesn’t cost you anything, and you can delete you account if it doesn’t meet your needs. But I would be highly surprised if you didn’t find it to be an application you can’t live without.

Thom Allen has been a technology leader for over 20 years, and is also a science fiction writer. You can get to know Thom at his web site http://thomallen.com

What does a frugal family keep in the car? Well gee! I’m glad you asked. I initially wrote this post in 2006 as a response to that very question from a reader! Today I’ve pulled it out, updated it, and presented it here for your reading pleasure

Things to Keep in the Car

#1-If you are a frequent Aldi’s or Save-A-Lot shopper, you should always have shopping bags in the car. A few summers ago I bought every one of those canvas “conference” style bags that I came across in a yard sale (never more than $.25) for reusable shopping bags. For the discount grocers, you are prepared for bagging your own groceries even if you didn’t realize you were going to have the opportunity to stop at the store. You won’t have to have the groceries rolling around the trunk of the car or spend $.05 a bag to buy them.

#2-A bag full of plastic grocery bags. If you don’t have reusable ones, you can use these for shopping. Otherwise, I really don’t need to list 101 ways to use plastic bags here. Suffice it to say that there will always be occasions when you are glad that you had a plastic bag on hand!

#2-An emergency roadside kit. This is just a good idea for everyone to have in their car with a safety triangle, first aid kit, etc. Just in case. Since I am in the cold and frozen Northeast, I also like to have a pair of jumper cables in the back of the car as well, both for myself and to act as a good Samaritan as necessary.

Note to self: Good thing about Blog, makes you check back of car to take picture and realize someone has absconded with jumper cables. Must replace!

#3-In my car, in the winter I keep 2 hand knit acrylic fiber blankets. One I made for Princess back in 2000 out of Red Heart yarn, the second was made by a friend. Knitters and crocheters out there will realize that although these blankets were made with love, the yarn is pretty much 100% plastic. The good thing about this is EVERYTHING washes off of it.

If we were ever to break down and be stuck without heat for a while, the blankets would provide an additional layer of warmth for the kiddos. Also, I usually skip the “warm up the car” step when I am only driving across town-why waste the gas and run the car for 10 minutes to warm up when you are going to be driving for less than 5 minutes? Instead the kids can throw a blanket over their lap.

#4-In the case of small children, keep a spare diaper and change of clothes somewhere in the car. Yes-I know you have a diaper bag. But lets face it, we’ve all taken trips that were “just going to take a minute” that wound up taking longer and gotten stuck somewhere without our diaper bag. Luckily this is not a concern for me any longer-but it is worth mentioning for those of you who are!

#5- I keep a Pria Bar or two in my glove box. This started out as a diet aid for me-I knew the exact calorie content and composition so it was much better than buying a cheeseburger out. Even though they cost close to a dollar each, that is still cheaper than a lot of meals out. A frugal person might want to consider keeping a few non perishable snacks stashed in the car to stave off the urge to run through the drive-thru or to buy an expensive snack out.

Note to self: Ate last Pria bar in glove box. Must replace!

Personally I don’t keep bottled water in the car because I have never had a problem with asking a fast food place for only a glass of ice water. I’ve never been refused, even if I haven’t bought anything else there. A single time about 4 years ago someone made me pay $.10 for the cup. Depending on your location you may want to keep a 4 or 6 pack of water in the back of the car.

#6- A homemade “Life Emergency Kit”. I made these for everyone in the family one year, and mine resides in the center console with the diapers and the umbrella! It includes everything that I could think of that someone might need while they were out and about and not have packaged into a small thrift store purse.

There is a mini (homemade) first aid kit-band aids, small Ziploc baggies with Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Alka Seltzer (trail size-free), Rolaids (trial size-free). I have a nail file, a duplicate of my lip gloss & eyeliner, a homemade mini sewing kit (ie small piece of felt with 2 shirt buttons sewn on and 2 needles stuck through threaded with white and black thread), a small notebook and pen, and probably some other items I can’t remember right now.

Having any of these items easily accessible might keep you from making an “emergency” purchase, such as those overpriced little packs of Tylenol they sell at gas stations. The hardest part is remembering to refill the medication etc after you use them so your not caught without the next time.

#7- An umbrella and a pair of sunglasses. I try to ensure that these items always get returned back to the car when we are done with them. Umbrellas are super cheap these days-every dollar store I’ve seen carries them- so there is no excuse not to have one that lives in your car. You know people buy them impulsively when it rains just so they won’t get wet walking back to their cars-Wally World and other retailers frequently have a stand that they pull out and place by the door when ever it rains for just such a reason!

If you are lucky enough to not have a prescription for glasses, or to wear contacts then you can buy inexpensive sunglasses too. I have to have prescription ones so they live in my car. Again-if you are out and about driving and the sun is in your eyes annoying the heck out of you, you are likely to plunk down money for some sunglasses impulsively. If you have a pair that lives and stays in your car, well, then you are good!

#8-This really isn’t something I keep IN the car to be frugal, but rather something I do TO the car. I bought plastic floor mats pretty cheap to put over my carpet ones to try to keep the nasty salty winter mud from getting ground into my carpeting.

I also bought a bench seat cover for the back seat of my car. This matches the interior color so well that most people don’t realize it is there.

My thoughts were that both of these things help protect the resale value (if I decide to resell at some point) of my car, and also keep it looking a little better so that I don’t get sick of it. (you know, that feeling where even though you know that it doesn’t make sense you want to trade in your car that runs perfectly fine because it is starting to look run down and you are “sick of it”. No! I shall resist!)

I think that while I have two kids in car seats the back seat cover is especially important, as it really protects that upholstery from all the kid induced messes.

I paid regular retail for mine at Wally World, but I’ve heard folks say that a fitted twin sheet (ie the part with the elastic on all four corners) is the exact right size to fit over most bench style back seats-you could try that out with a twin sheet, and then if it is true either buy one new or keep an eye out for one in the thrift stores or yard sales that would go with your car, or just bite the bullet and have Mickey and Friends all over your back seat for a while (the kiddos probably would like it)

Another option I’ve seen work well is to buy a very inexpensive vinyl tablecloth, and place that across the bottom part of the seat. That way you are protected against spills & stains.

So, that’s my list of things I actually do keep in my car that help me to stay frugal. What are some of the things that you do?

Lately I’ve been talking a lot about using calendars to get organized. There was Staying Organized with a Calendar and Planner Part I and Part II. I knew I had paper planners covered-after all I had used them extensively throughout my school years and military career.

Where I have wanted, needed actually, to move is into web based calendars. Although I understand how they work, I have not yet implemented one for myself so can’t really talk about the ins and outs. So I did what I find myself doing often these days-I popped on over to Twitter and asked my network of followers if there was anyone who had experience with computerized calendar systems and was willing to write me a guest post.

Enter Thom! He answered almost immediately and was happy to share his knowledge with all of you. This post is an overview-very soon he’ll come back and share some more details.

I’ve been a geek all my life. I’m always trying the latest gadgets and the latest software. I try everything. I do this because I love to see all the cool new things coming out. But I always come back to my tried and true tools for productivity and time management.

As everyone knows, the Internet has become a household name. And most of you reading this are undoubtedly looking to find the most economical solutions to everyday problems. I’ve been a geek for most of my life, and I have tried every type of gadget and played with every type of software. But what I use most is calendaring. Web based calendaring to be more specific.

For years I was a paper planner person. I felt in control of my life if I was carrying it with me. I could quickly write something down, or check my schedule where ever I was. But in 2009, I don’t use paper any more for managing my calendar. I use web based tools and will probably never use paper again.

The quality of calendaring tools available on the web is amazing. You have the choice between the ultra simple and the ultra complex. Of course the more complex the more it costs. Me personally, I wanted something easy, accessible and most of all cost effective.

There are several types of online calendaring systems. If you’re an Outlook user, Microsoft offers a desktop and web based tool, but the web tool is something usually setup by the Corporate IT department. It’s not really something an individual can setup. There are other desktop applications for email and calendaring, but I want to talk about web based tools that are easy to use and free.

The important aspects of calendaring to me are

Quickly add new appointments with out a lot of work
Ability to see day, week, month
Share with others
Available on the web or on my phone

Let’s look at one of these individually.

If I’m in a conversation or on the phone, and someone says “let’s do lunch” or “I’d like to stop by on…”, I want to know my schedule right away. But I also want to add a new appointment just as quickly. If I have to click through four or five screens, I just get frustrated. However, if I can add that appointment with one action, I’m a happy camper.

I like my calendar to be in month mode. I like seeing the big picture. That is one reason I didn’t like paper planners, I had to rummage through a bunch of pages to see out several weeks or months. I rarely work from a day view and never from a week view. For what ever reason, none of the online tools have an ascetically pleasing week view. But I like having options.

Sharing calendars is becoming a great way for family, friends, and groups to share important events on specific dates. A great example is the Birthday calendar my Family shares. I set up a calendar in Google Calendars, added everyones birthdays, then shared it with everyone in the Family. Now there is a central place to see birthdays. We’ve expanded to include Family activities so we know what each others children are doing too.

You may be a one computer person. Meaning, you typically use one computer either in your home or office. But there are many people who use computers at home, the office, have laptops, and even public computers found in places like the Library. Now, with the ability to access calendars on the web and a phone, you can stay updated just about anywhere.

I’ve used a lot of different tools. And my recommendation for calendering is to use Google Calendar. The reasons behind this are Google uses unobtrusive text based ads in their applications versus Microsoft and Yahoo!, who use very large intrusive picture ads. Google also offers the largest amount of space, public and private calendar subscriptions, and appointment sharing. But the most important thing you will find with Google tools are their ease of use. You just can’t get lost. The have worked really hard to make a clean and simple interface.

I will discuss some advanced uses of online email/calendering in a future blog post, on how to use a full suite of online tools for managing many aspects of your life.

Thom Allen has been a technology leader for over 20 years, and is also a fiction writer. You can get to know Thom at his website, http://thomallen.com

Photo by Mo Morgan

Yesterday I laid out the reasons keeping a calendar is important to both organization and frugality. I also gave some examples of the different systems that I have used over the years.

Today I am going to show the specifics of how I organize my calendar, and then cover some other calendar tips and some free downloads that I’ve found out there on the web.

As I said yesterday, Yankee Bill and I keep a joint calendar at the house, and then each of us keeps our own individual planner.

Originally our joint calendar was a standard wall calendar. That worked well when we were both working and didn’t have many voluntary activities-we were basically just keeping track of out of town trips and appointments/social engagements that occurred after work hours. As our lives got busier we started running out of room, so we changed to a standard wall calendar with the largest squares we could find. Now with 4 schedules to track (both kiddos you know) we have moved to a standard desktop calendar. In the past I’ve found them at the dollar store, but this year I wasn’t on the ball and had to purchase one at Wally World. It was about $5.

The large desk sized calendar works well for us. Here is how we manage it.

Across the top, under the days of the week I list the repetitive weekly events along with the first initial of the person who it pertains to. For example under Tuesday I might list P-Dance 3-4 (Princess, Dance Class, 3-4pm).

For individual days I write the time and the event. Morning events go closer to the top of the square, evening ones near the bottom. If there is an event that spans several days (trips etc) I draw a line horizontally through the days near the bottom of the calendar. In this picture you can see two horizontal lines-one is for my MIL’s trip to Phoenix, the other designates a week that Yankee Bill was in a training session rather than at his regular workplace.

A recent addition to my planning is to also include the name and time of any babysitters that are coming. Sometimes we have a couple of different things planned in the month that require a babysitter, and I don’t always remember who I’ve scheduled for which night.

An additional tip/trick: I’ve read about assigning each family member a color pen. Then you write in that color when you add their events to the calendar. Right now we don’t really need that, but when Buddy and Princess are older and we are tracking sporting events, after school activities etc I can see where having the calendar color coded would make it easier to tell at a quick glance what is going on.

For my personal planner I am using a “student” style, non refillable planner. I picked this one up at the dollar store. As you can see in the comparison picture below, it is only slightly bigger than a checkbook, which means it fits easily inside of my purse.

On the interior we have both monthly and weekly views. It was important to me to have a monthly view-I don’t always remember to look ahead on the weekly ones! You can see that I have used a rubber band to mark the monthly page. This makes it easy to flip open to the month. Also you can see that I use the same “horizontal line” method for multi day events. I try to use a mechanical pencil to write in this planner, so I can write smaller. I also don’t include much detail on the monthly page to save space.

Below you can see the weekly view. I tried for a while using a calendar that had a page a day, but my schedule isn’t really full enough to require that. I find for me the week works fine. In the weekly view I write multi-day events using a perpendicular line down the outside edge of the page. Again, I try to roughly arrange the events by date-writing evening ones near the bottom and morning ones more towards the top. On these weekly pages I include much more information on the event to take place. If it is an appointment I write the phone number for the office, if it is a visit to someones house I might list the address etc.

Again, in the future I can see using more of a color coded system to be able to track the various family members.

Another little calendar tip I picked up in the Army-I frequently write a reminder note several days out from an event where I have to DO something. For example, if I have “School Valentines Party-Princess” written on Thursday, then on Tuesday or Wednesday I might write “bake cupcakes for party”. This is much better than assuming that I will notice a few days out that there is an event on Thursday that needs preparation done in advance

This is the system that works for the Frugal Upstate family at this time. Things do change though, and I can foresee a day where we need to change our system. I have considered the fact that an online calendar might be the best thing for our family when the children are older. Resources such as Google and Yahoo offer free online calendars.

Can you just imagine a Frugal Upstate Family Calendar online? Yankee Bill could add events from work, Princess and Buddy could log on from one of the school computers (once they are in middle school) and add in rehearsals, practices, exam dates etc. I could power up the old laptop and add in Dr. appointments, vacation plans, etc. Then no matter where any of us is, we can log on and see the calendar in it’s entirety. And these days with smartphones you can even access an online calendar on the go!

photo by BigBlue via flickr.com

Looking for free printable calendars? DIY Planners has some great stuff. Also check out their Hipster PDA. Simply put, this is a “low tech” personal data assistant. Namely index card sized printouts held together with an alligator clip! There are tons of different styles and pages that you can print out, and it’s free! Have I mentioned that free is my favorite price?

Want more great organization ideas? Check out Organizing your Computer Files, Divide and Conquer 1 & Divide and Conquer 2.

New Years usually brings vows of organization-so I thought that this would be a perfect time to re-post this two part series (originally posted in January of 2008) on the why and how of staying organized with a planner and calendar!

It’s a New Year, and its time to talk about keeping a calendar! I know, you may be thinking “What does keeping a calendar have to do with being organized. And just how is Jenn going to tie that into frugality?”

Well, knowing what you have to do and when you have to do it is the very essence of organizing your time-and time, although free, is a non renewable resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone!

When we fail to keep our time and appointments organized we wind up being surprised at the last minute. These last minute and forgotten events can cost you money. Here are some examples

You forgot that you signed up to bring food for an event (be it children’s birthday party, church coffee hour or workplace potluck) so you have to run out and purchasing premade at a premium-rather than cooking using sale purchased items.

You forgot a birthday and have to purchase an emergency gift (which isn’t even all that great) at a local store (again at a premium), make a trip into town specifically for the item (costing time and gas money) and possibly incur priority mailing costs just to get it there on time.

You forgot that you have a meeting on a weeknight until the day of-there is no time to cook dinner before you have to leave so you buy takeout.

You forgot that your credit card was due and mail the payment in a week late, incurring late charges.

I think we can all agree that keeping track of the dates and deadlines in your life is a beneficial organizational goal-and that it can save you money.

There are so many different styles and types of calendars in all sorts of price ranges, from the $170 Franklin Covey Executive Planner, to the wall calendars your local bank gives away for free, and then the whole gamut of things in between.

At different points in my life I’ve used different styles of calendars.

Photo by imeleven via flickr.com

Through my school career (probably from about 5th grade through college) I used small “student” style planners. Big enough to keep track of assignments, work schedule, and club meetings.

Photo by arellis49 via flickr.com

note: we are not cowboy’s fans.
It was hard to find a picture of a plain wall calendar.

Once Yankee Bill and I were married, it became quickly apparent that although we both kept our own planners, we needed some method to keep track of events that effected us both. We started keeping a wall calendar where we each would mark down anything that both of us would need to know. Social events, weekend trips, business trips etc.

Photo by Cat Sidh via Flickr.com

For most of my working career I used a 3 ring binder style (5X8″ pages) with both month and daily pages. The binder style allowed me to include lots of additional information that I need to carry around-every thing from phone lists to my spreadsheet full of parts serial numbers. It was packed with stuff.

photo by Neil T via Flickr.com

My pda was not this cool

Near the end of my time in the Army I was at a desk job and used Microsoft Outlook at work-rather than having to both type in my appointments/events and then also write them in a planner I started using a palm pilot that could be synched with my computer.

When I started as a Stay at Home Mom I found that I didn’t have as much to keep track of. I was home with two preschool age children who participated in no clubs or classes (other than preschool). I was not yet volunteering for more than the very occasional event at church. There wasn’t a lot to keep track of. A small, inexpensive “checkbook” style planner that showed a month at a time was plenty to keep my schedule in line. Plus it conveniently fit in my purse.

Now I’ve gotten busier. I tried going back to a three ring style, but it was too big. Too big to carry around, and way more room than I needed to keep track of my life. So I’ve gone to a student style planner for my personal planner. It is a bit bigger than the checkbook style, but has both a monthly and weekly calendar. Then I use a large desk calendar too keep track of the family.

Tomorrow I’ll show you exactly how we work our calendar, and give you some other hacks and ideas for calendar management with a busy family.

Want more great organization ideas? Check out Organizing your Computer Files, Divide and Conquer 1 & Divide and Conquer 2.

Occasionally here at Frugal Upstate I branch off slightly from my main topic of frugality and discuss organization. It’s a natural progression. To be organized saves you time and money. And much of organization is just planning, which is free.

Now to me “getting organized” is sort of a fun project! Especially if it involves my beloved label maker. I love making new “systems”. It’s the STAYING organized over time that is difficult.

That’s where routines come in handy. Routines are not difficult, they are just a flow of actions that normally take place in a particular order. Once you have mastered the order and completed it several times, you cease to have to think about them. It’s almost like they just sort of “happen”

Just think about it-when you first learned to drive a car it was hard. You had to think about every single action. To change lanes on the highway you had to remember “signal, look in both my mirrors, look over my shoulder, change the lane, cancel the turn signal”.

Contrast that to now. The process has become so routine that you complete it with barely any thought at all.

Routines can be especially useful when dealing with children. Princess and Buddy might not always know exactly what time dinner is, but they know that after they eat them must ask to be excused, clear their plate, and brush their teeth before the TV comes on. Many reminders and repetitions have led to the point where it happens with little supervision-freeing me up to do other tasks.

This morning just such a routine saved the day.

I overslept.

One minute I swear the clock only said 5:45, then I blinked and it was 6:55.

I jumped out of bed in a panic. The kiddos have to hit the bus stop at 7:30 each morning! They had to be woken up, eat breakfast, get dressed, get all their stuff together and make it out the door in just over half an hour.

Believe it or not, things went pretty smoothly. I explained that I had overslept and that we really needed to get things done fast this morning without any crying or complaining.

Due to my nighttime routine, there was a full pot of coffee waiting for Yankee Bill and I (God bless whoever invented coffeepots with a timer.) I made breakfast while the kiddos got dressed (a slight routine deviation-usually breakfast is first) and then they ate and handled brushing teeth and combing hair with minimal fuss.

Due to our afterschool routine the backpacks, folders and coats were on the hook by the front door where they are supposed to be, with the school sneakers somewhat sloppily pushed under the bench (we wear old sneakers once we get home from school). Thankfully today was “Pizza Day” at school so I didn’t have to worry about packing a lunch.*

We made it to the bus stop with time to spare!

What kind of routines help you organize your life? Do you find that having routines helps you save money in any way?

*I admit it-I would have had them buy anyway today just to avoid cramming in one more thing.

Hi, my name is Jenn, and I’m a packrat.

(all together now- “Hi Jenn”)

Seriously though, I have stuff. Lots of stuff. And some of it is actually stuff that I need. So where do you put all the stuff?

We are unusually blessed because although our house was built in 1890, it is very atypical and has HUGE closets in all the bedrooms. Downstairs-not so much. When the previous owners rennovated the kitchen, they put in a decent amount of cupboards, but they also made this unusual set of cubbies in the corner near the entrance door.

Originally the spot that now houses my messy desk consisted of two compartments on the bottom and then open white plastic coated wire shelving on the top. Ick.

not the best picture, but what I had

The “closet” on the right only had two strips of pegs on each side-we installed a high and low closet bar to hold more coats and then I sewed up the curtain for across that and across the small cubby above the desk to hide the clutter (using sale purchased fabric of course).

That left this awkward space above.

Yankee Bill ran electrical and cable through the wall and set this older small TV we have (which used to reside in the garage) up there. I rarely turn it on, and wouldn’t have spent money to buy a tv just to put there, but since we already owned it, it is kind of nice to have it there when you do want to watch something while doing kitchen work.

But the rest of the space is wasted. I tried storing kitchen stuff in plastic tubs up there, but it looked so cluttered and junky that I moved those items to some shelving at the bottom of the basement stairs. I didn’t want to buy “object D’art” just to stick up there. So I decided that I needed some enclosed storage that looked attractive.

Have you ever priced attractive storage containers? Let’s just say that they aren’t particularly frugal. So I decided to do what any good frugalite would do-figure out how to make some.

I selected a nice strong box from Save A Lot-they keep a ton of boxes stacked by the door, free for the taking. If you don’t have that option ask at your local grocery store, they are likely to have some nice strong boxes that fruit or such came in.

I knew that the locally owned dollar store in Norwich regularly carries rolls of wallpaper, so on my next trip there I looked through the bunch for something that would coordinate with my kitchen. I found a green and white stripe that matched the walls almost exactly. If you want to purchase wallpaper, you could check at your local store for rolls of discontinued patterns that sell for a reduced price, or ask around to friends who may have paper left over from projects in their homes. Also you could use wrapping paper, fabric or contact paper. Find whatever is available and cost effective for you. I liked using wallpaper because it is thicker and will withstand more abuse when I pull the box on and off the shelf to access the stuff inside.

I used a kitchen steak knife to cut off the top flaps on the box. Like I said, this was a nice sturdy box and the scissors just weren’t going to do it.

Then I cut a piece of wallpaper long enough to wrap all the way around the sides. From there on out, it was like wrapping a large birthday gift. I used regular old clear packing tape to secure the paper. This box will be pulled on and off the shelf, so I made sure that all of the seams on the bottom were taped down securely, with nothing that would catch and tear as the box was dragged over the shelf.

If you were using fabric for your covering I would consider using something like duct tape to ensure that it stayed. Another option might be a glue gun, but I’m not sure how that would stand up to repeated abuse.

I knew this box was going to be up high, and that the interior and bottom wouldn’t really be seen by anyone except me. Because of that I wasn’t concerned with covering the inside or the bottom. If I had been I could have cut a square piece that would have completely covered the bottom, and somehow figured out how to line the inside.

Here the box is in it’s new home. It may not be the most beautiful thing in the world, but it is far from the ugliest. I can live with it!

We all know that eating at home can save you money! Even if you buy expensive ingredients and cook gourmet meals, in most cases you will save money over eating the exact same meal at a restaurant. But what frugalite worth their salt would want to purchase expensive ingredients (save for a very special occasion)? Keeping our grocery bill down is the name of the game.

There are really 3 ways #1-saving money buying the same things, #2-saving money by buying something different.* This week we are looking at #1.

So here we go, heading out to the grocery store for a week’s worth (or more!) of shopping. We get in and we are instantly bombarded by colors, shapes, advertising, specials. . . all cleverly created by people who make their money figuring out how to separate you from yours! 10 for 10! By one get one free! Different prices on different brands and different sizes. It is all quite confusing. How do you make it all make sense?

Enter the all important Price Book! I’ve written about this before, back in March of 06 to be exact. But it is important enough to rehash-especially since prices on groceries have been increasing and are likely to continue to increase dramatically this summer. Knowing what is really a good price on each item, and saving as much money as possible will be even more critical.

A price book is simply a list-a list of items that you normally buy, and what their lowest prices are at the stores you typically shop at. With this list, when you happen upon a possible “deal”, you will be able to quickly and simply tell if it will actually save you money.

But there is a tiny bit more too it than that. Since items come in different size cans/bags etc, it is difficult to compare. To truly get to the bottom of an item’s cost, you need to know the unit price.

Picture by me-I don’t actually buy these, it wouldn’t be frugal! I buy the
24 oz can of peaches and divide it up into reuseable plastic containers.

Here we have a picture of a typical store shelf. You can see that the price of the item is listed in yellow-$1.48. Then there is a little orange box on the right-this is the unit price. In this particular case it is $1.48 a lb. So the unit price is $1.48 a lb.

While that is true, it is also unhelpful, unless you happen to run into another can/box/bag that is also in lbs. And in the case of peaches, most cans are measured in oz. The best thing to do is to break this unit price down to the smallest unit size possible-an oz.

This is where the math comes in. There are 16 oz in a lb, so you divide $1.48 by 16 to get a unit price of $.0925 per oz. I usually round up to 3 decimal places-so I would consider it $.093.

Can you see how doing this math each and every time you go shopping would be tedious? Not many of us would keep it up. Hence the price book!

Each person has to find the format that is comfortable and works for them. Some folks use a spreadsheet in excel and then print it out, others keep a notebook of some sort, or even index cards (which is my current choice). But the information contained on each one is the same: Name of item (specific) across the top, columns for store, brand, size, price, unit price. (Don’t worry, there are pictures further on) Why the size, price AND unit price? Well because typically I jot down the brand, size and price in the store, and do the math for the unit price at home.

To keep it simple, use abreviations for the stores. In my area I use the ones below. I also like to distinguish between a price that is the sale price and the everyday price. Personally I highlight any sale prices by putting a start next to it.

I can see you out there, shaking your head and thinking of all the work involved in compiling all this information for all those stores! Well-it doesn’t have to be that hard. Right now you probably don’t even have a price book, and are just doing your shopping willy nilly. So anything you do for the book, even in stages, is an improvement for you. Let’s do this in pieces and not kill ourselves with the process.

I like to start with the stores that I know are almost always cheaper-in my case Aldi’s and Save a Lot. Non sale price to non sale price these guys usually win hands down. So I record all the prices for my most commonly purchased items at those stores first. You can either do this by wandering around the store looking like some sort of espionage agent scribbling things furiously in a notebook, or you can do it the easy way and just go shopping and save your receipts.

As you can see, a can of corn at Aldi’s is $.39. The receipt doesn’t have a unit size, so I go to the cupboard and pull out a can and see that it is 15.25 oz. Doing the math ($.39 divided by 15.25) you find that the Aldi’s brand of corn is $.026 an oz. I do this for each item on the receipt. Each shopping trip I can do a quick check to see if I have bought any new items to add to my list.

Next I keep an eye on my sales fliers for the next few weeks. I see that corn goes on sale at both the Price Chopper and the Great American for the same price. 5 cans for $3. Doing the math that comes to $.60 a can or $.039 and oz.

With that information I can fill out my price book page. These two prices are the sale prices so I put a star next to them.

But I’ll let you in on another little secret. Even that is too much work for me. I’ve gotten to the point where I only record the price if it is LESS than what I pay for it full price at Aldi’s/Save a Lot. After all, if it is more expensive, who cares? I don’t plan on buying it there!

I simply scan the sales fliers, do the math if necessary (in this case, they were all 15.25 oz cans, so as long as the per can price was over $.39, then I didn’t worry about even figuring out the per oz price) and then only write it in if it is less. So my price book page actually looks like this:

Now you may find it necessary to go into a store to research a few specific items-or to check out a store that doesn’t send out fliers. Once you’ve built the bones of your price book, this is just a stroll down aisles marking down the brand, size, etc. Sometimes the store actually has the unit price already listed in oz or whatnot on the shelf. In those cases I mark down the size of the can, skip listing the price and just copy the unit price from the sticker.

And there you go, a price book! Once you have one, you won’t have to wonder if that 60 can of corn you found at the discount grocers is really a bargain or not!**

So what about sales and coupons? Well, I would only consider using either if the unit price winds up cheaper than the lowest price in your price book. Otherwise you aren’t really saving any money!

For more on Starting Frugality, read about discerning between wants and needs, and eating at home/eating out less!

*Note: Really there is a #3-not buying it. But we sort of covered that when we discussed discerning between wants and needs back in the initial article in the Starting Frugality series.
**Another Note: Please be cautious with huge sizes. If you can’t use up all of it or store it correctly you may wind up throwing it out. That is not frugal at all! A smaller, but more usable size may actually wind up cheaper for you in those cases.