Category Archive

My apartment doesn’t have air conditioning, so I’m sitting out on my balcony as I write this (Thursday night). It is still 77 degrees and it is 9:12 pm. Usually I don’t even miss A/C since I’m close enough to the ocean that it doesn’t get too hot. I got a report from my old apartment, summarizing my energy costs throughout the year. I spent roughly $30-$40 in the temperate months, and up to $80 in the cold of winter (slightly less in the summer). How much does an old box fan cost to run per and hour? Did you know that L.A. actually has a rather small carbon footprint for its population? This is mostly due to the temperate climate, not to any real efforts of the citizens.

Speaking of my balcony, I love it, even if it just has two camp chairs and an empty flower pot (maybe I should try a cactus). My hummingbird feed has been extremely popular in the last few weeks, since the near-by flowers on the sidewalk went out of bloom.

Speaking of heat, it is going to be 80 this weekend, even close to the coast. We were going to go for an easy hike, but I think a day at the beach is in order instead.

By the way, I had ice cream for dinner today. Yes, that is it. No, not a lot. I wasn’t hungry so I went straight on to desert. I had tuna salad on crackers plus a healthy serving of steamed (microwave) veggies for lunch, so the veggies are covering for the ice cream. So it is alright. Besides, it was absolutely FREE because I was a winner in Sugarlaws Häagen-Dazs giveaway, worth $3! (Sorry, it is over, but she does offer many nice recipes for free!)

That’s all for today. Since it is Friday, no serious topics will be covered today.

I don’t spend a lot of money on entertainment. Not because I hate going out and don’t like doing things, but because it just adds up so easily and I just don’t have the budget for it right now. I’ve cut my savings to what I feel is an appropriate balance between fun and security. T doesn’t have that large of a budget for things either, so we spend our weekends doing less expensive things. The beach, swimming, scrabble (seriously), sitting on my roof, cooking, hiking, visiting the farmers market, museums, walking 3.5 miles down the beach on empty stomachs (that wasn’t a very good plan, actually)….

Except when parents come to town, bearing generosity.

T’s mom was in town and treated us to a day at Universal Studios. I hate to admit it, but being out in mainstream society doing non-frugal things was absolutely a blast. Sure, we also had fun walking along the beach the day before, but Universal Studios was just so… entertaining! It was such a treat for us. I had a blast, from the Mummy roller coaster to the studio tours (the Waterworld show was quite lame though). It was a really great day. I smiled, laughed, screamed and took a lot of pictures. I visited Wisteria Lane, T got squirted in the face by a dinosaur, and I remembered that theme parks aren’t just for little kids. I loved it.

Frugal bloggers like to wax poetic about evenings on the porch with loved ones, card games with friends, and sunsets on the beach. Those things do have immense value, but…. Universal Studios is fun too!

It reminds me to plan for these things, and do them. The tickets were $54 each for the day (ouch!) and $12 to park, but that isn’t a unaffordable amount. (I did jump in and pay for lunch for T and I before his mom could get to the register, and it was a shocking $20 for cafeteria style crap. Recommendation–bring your own food, and go to the newest most popular ride first.) It isn’t in my average weekend, but we could have made it happen on our own.

[Note: I didn't even have a post category for "fun" or "entertainment". Gosh I'm boring! I filed this under "My Favorite Things", which I know I originally intended to use to write a post about iGoogle and other neat web tricks I love. Oh well.]

I have been learning how to sail! I have some pipe dreams of cruising around the world on a sailboat, though at this point in my life, that isn’t really an option. I don’t spend a lot of money on entertainment, going out, or gym memberships, so I selected sailing as my newest hobby. It is a bit more expensive than I anticipated, but to be honest, I didn’t think much about it. It sounded fun, so I signed up.

First there are the lessons. They cost $385, but I was able to pay about $150 instead of full price. This includes 3 lectures of 3 hours each, and six on the water days of 3+ hours each. I can now take the second round, which is the same price but more advanced topics. There are also some fees to get “certified”, which I was not originally aware of.  It is about $95 for a written exam and on the water exam, plus another $30 or so for a log book. I think there is one of these certifications for each of the first 2 classes, so I’d have to pay the fees two times. If I want to go further, the next step would be $445 (!) for a weekend trip that certifies me to charter my own boat.

Then there is the “gear”. I didn’t go overboard and buy a bunch of actual sailing gear, but I did purchase a $50 windbreaker, $20 sunglasses, and $20 white soled deck shoes. I could have just wore regular sneakers, but mine had black soles. If I were to get really into sailing, I might have to get “foul weather gear” but I haven’t found the need.

Between the classes and the gear (mainly the classes) I could easily spend $1000 this year learning how to sail. Then what? What am I going to do with my knowledge? T is going to take the class I just took, and we could take boats on little trips around here. However, sailing seems to be expensive and time consuming and neither one of us has a lot of time or money right now. Purchasing a sail boat is only realistic if I intend to live on it, which sounds a bit romantic but is a little to extreme for this point in my life.

I can’t afford to regularly rent boats, I really can’t afford to go out and buy a boat. Is sailing a wealthy person’s hobby? It seems like there is a mix of wealthy people and people who are free spirited. My sailing teacher has given up his life in the “rat race”, as he said. After spending a year cruising with his family, he has taken to making a living by writing on the weekdays and teaching sailing on the weekends. Not a bad life, if I don’t say so myself. (This is helped by the fact he sold a home in the L.A. area at the peak of the real estate bubble. I wish I did that.)

I don’t know what to do from here. I could continue taking classes, but I have no real goal for my sailing hobby, other than fun. It is apparent I won’t be buying a yacht or chartering a cruise to South America anytime soon. I could call my $200 spent so far a fun entertainment/educational expense, and put my sailing career on hold. I could pay $150 more for another session of six lessons. I could pay another $200 on top of that to get fully certified. But for what purpose? I can afford to learn to sail, but I can’t afford to sail on a regular basis after that. It would be kind of like how T, two summers ago when making decent money, learned how to fly private small planes for perhaps $3000 or so. He loved it, but he hasn’t been up in over a year because it is too expensive for a grad student to keep up. (I hated it. I got airsick and small planes are actually pretty dangerous.)

After moving and putting my degree on hold, I found myself with a lot more free time than I was used to, so learning to sail was one thing I chose to explore. Next fall, I’m going to be continuing my M.S. degree and I won’t have time for these hobbies. I still have a whole summer left to explore other interests, and now is the time to decide if I want to continue sailing or spend my time doing something else.

Despite my financial woes in April, I found something to be happy about:  Easter candy.

I adore Cadbury Mini-eggs, partially because they are only available around Easter.  I found them last week for just $0.87 instead of the usual $3.75 or so.  Today, I was buying some ibuprofin for my knee, and thought I’d pick up another bag.  There was some scuffle at the register as the lady asked her coworker about a special on them, and said something about “an hour”.  They must have had some sort of crazy sale on them that I didn’t know about.  As they were chatting, I was concered that they were full price after all!  They again rang up for .87, but she cancelled it out and re-rang them for just a quarter for each of the two bags!

Wow.  So, apparently now is a great time to buy easter candy.

By the way, I promise to freeze both of these and savor them over time.  I’m stocked up on chocolate for awhile now!  For fifty cents!!!!!!!

I have big plans for the weekend.  Well, when I tell you what my “big” plans are, you probably will think I’m lame for considering them “big”.  Ha.  First, the fun happy stuff.

I’m going shopping!!!!!!  Mostly for a present for my mom, but I’ll keep my eyes out for quality work clothes within my budget.  I’m dying for some nice button down work shirts.  Which again, proves my lameness.  Couldn’t I at least lust after some fashionable spring dresses?  (Well, I do that too, but am unable to justify the purchase.)    For non-stalkers familiar with the LA area, I think I’m heading to Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade–they seem to have the widest selection of stores and it’s a nice area. If you are a psycho stalker, then I’m going to Inglewood, so stalk me there.

Happy Hour:  The new hire/young people group at my employer is sponsoring a happy hour in one of the beachy cities after work on Friday.  I’m naturally a bit shy, but I figure I better force myself to go and socialize with some of my coworkers.  If I totally hate it, I can always leave, right?  I’m sure I’ll have fun once I’m there, but is the kind of thing I can easily talk myself out of going to.  I imagine I’ll incur costs of $15 or less for 1-2 beers and perhaps a snack.

Cooking:  I’m on a mission to find a more frugal breakfast.  I’m currently in love with the boxed granola cereals from Trader Joe’s, eaten with vanilla yogurt.  Yummy.  However, I feel like granola should cost less than the $3.29/box I’m paying.  I’m willing to make my own, so I’m going to Google some recipes and try one out.  (I’m also open to suggestions on places to buy granola in bulk for cheaper.)  I also have been craving bran muffins, and want to bake a batch.  This recipe looks delicious, but this one is much cheaper more basic.I shouldn’t need any groceries outside of ingredients for these two things.

Fitness:  I’m sure I’ll run once or twice, and I’m going to try out a new Yoga DVD I got on a Netflix free trial subscription (which I foolishly started right before a long weekend away, so I’m not getting much out of it.  Four movies, max.)  I got some of suggestions on how to do classes for cheaper (thanks!) and certainly want to give classes a try eventually.  For now, the Nameste Yoga on FitTV is completely fulfilling my needs.  I just love it.  It is only 20 minutes (fast forward commercials), but if I want to do more than one session, I already have like 10 on my DVR.  In fact, it is fulfilling my needs so much that I wanted to buy season 1 and 2 from the internet for a total of $100, since my DVR goes back in July.  But I won’t, I promise.  I could get 2 months of classes for that price!

And then, the less exciting stuff. . . .

Car:  I’m going to deal with that pesky check engine light.  This could eat up an entire day, but it also might be as simple as getting the code read and finding out my gas cap was loose.  :::crosses fingers::::

Clean:  Boring, but necessary.  I also might start thinking about packing for next weekend.

Organize:  I need to do some financial housekeeping and throw away some stuff.  The nice thing about moving is that you get rid of a lot of extra stuff and everything gets put in a place.  But in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve managed to clutter up some areas, and want to declutter before it becomes a problem.

What are you doing this weekend?

I’m a lot less anxious today than I was last week when I sought out advice on how to cope with the stress of the new job and the cross country move. Thanks for all the great tips! I took the following evening to take a nice bath, complete with candle, music (ok, NPR), and a glass of red wine.  That alone got me back to a place where I no longer felt like a ball of stress.

My favorite recommendation to deal with stress was yoga. I took a yoga class one semester in college, but at the time it didn’t do much for me. I usually spent the session wondering when I could get out so I could go do my homework and I found the teacher slightly hokey.   Now that I’m older and wiser (ha), I’m willing to give it another shot. Being personal finance minded, I thought about the most frugal yet effective way to try it again.

Internet: I gave YouTube a try for the ultimate free video, and while I came up with these cute little morning and bedtime yoga routines, but they aren’t really what I had in mind. The were too short and more instructional than relaxing.  I also did found a couple free videos elsewhere on the internet, but they also weren’t quite what I was hoping for.

Classes: Classes seem to run about $15 per a class (a little less if you buy in bulk). My workplace has noontime yoga on Thursdays for $10, but Thursdays is my free lunch day. Ooops, I mean, it is my lunch recruiting meeting day. I swear I don’t do it for the free food!   I found a studio relatively near my work that offers a $5 special each time you go to a new teacher’s class, so that could get me a couple cheap classes.  However regular classes just aren’t a sustainable addition to my budget.

Self Study: I have a book on Yoga that my instructor convinced us to purchase when I was in the class. It was pretty much a waste of money, but not worth selling on Amazon. Really, once you develop a basic routine, you don’t need any guidance, just perhaps some nice music.  This could work, but reading about yoga seems a little tedious.

DVD: This probably is the best option, though I haven’t done any checking on prices or selection. I’d be most comfortable with someone guiding me through routines with some soothing music.  For my long term solution, I will find a nice yoga DVD.

TV: This is my near term solution. I’m have an introductory period in my cable package where they give me a lot of channels and a free DVR for six months. (When the promo is up, I’m going to return the DVR and cancel cable, but for right now I feel that it is worth $30/mo.)  I found the fitness channel, searched for yoga classes, then I set my DVR to record them for several days.   I already have about 4 different half hour routines (though I have to fast forward the commercials).   This will help me determine if yoga is really for me long term before I purchase a DVD or a class.

It is too soon to tell if yoga is helpful to me.  I’ve only done two TV sessions (plus about 5 minutes this morning) and I’m generally not stressed on the weekends.  It definitely feels like a good balance to my running routine–I really hate stretching, but yoga adds a little spice to the stretch.

My second favorite recommendation came from a friend who recommended home dance parties:  Pick a song, blast it, and dance it out!

Money can buy me a lot of thing that I really like, but there are also a lot of free things that I enjoy in my life. Here is a few that I enjoy on a regular basis

National Public Radio: I’ve been a huge fan for years–I originally discovered it when I started making long road trips during a long distance relationship. You really can only listen to music for so long, especially if you aren’t that into music. These days I listen to NPR in the car on the way to/from work to stay on top of the news. love the non-news programming as well: This American Life, Science Lab, Marketplace (especially Marketplace Money, which inspired my initial pf love), and a ton of other great shows (available as podcasts too!). Technically, this isn’t free–they rely on contributions from listeners like me, as they like to remind me during pledge drives!

Public Library: We all know about borrowing books, but don’t forget that most libraries also will loan DVDs and music. You can catch up on your magazine reading there rather than subscribing, or surf the net if you don’t have your own connection. Many cities also let you download audiobooks (though good luck getting them onto an iPod legally/free) for your enjoyment. Again, paid for by your taxes, but essentially free.

The Ocean: Coming from the landlocked Midwest, the ocean still inspires awe in me each time I visit it. I’ve already gone several times, though it hasn’t been warm enough to go in.

Reading: I quit pleasure reading in college (too much school work) but now that I have free time again, this is a great way to stay entertained and to keep your mind sharp. This ties in with the public library, but I also read a lot of blogs which is also free. I do pay for internet, but in theory you could use publicly available wi-fi (see library).

Running: You do have to buy the shoes, but other than that, there is no cost. This is a love/hate relationship. In theory, I hate it, but when I do it, I love it. Similarly, there is also the option of swimming, rollerblading (so 1990s) , hiking, oga and long walks on the beach.

Other: I also love walking around the city, good conversations, writing, and I just adore sitting on my balcony (though if you add a cup of coffee, there is a small cost).

What free/frugal things do you love?