My wife and I have been trying to cook more often as a way to combat rising everything prices to the tune of three dinners a week (Friday is happy hour, duuuh). One unfortunate side effect of this is that we’ve been throwing out our leftovers as we discover them pushed into the back of our refrigerator. Boooo!

The solution is to use a leftover calendar. For us, we took advantage of a calendar we already have in the kitchen and turned it into our leftover calendar. We just found ourselves Sharpie and stuck it on top of a calendar hanging on the wall. As we made meals, we’d write what we made in the box for that day. As we ate the leftovers, we’d cross it off the list. With one glance, you can see what we have left as well as the priority they should be eaten in (if you really are in the mood for anything). It acts like an inventory, so we know what we have in our fridge, when we made it and roughly how long we have left until it’ll go bad.

We only started using the calendar since the beginning of the month and I’m happy to report that the only thing we’ve thrown out is a small container of homemade chicken broth. I estimate that it’s been in there for about a month, so I claim that it’s a casualty of the pre-leftover calendar system.

We don’t confine this list strictly to leftover we made ourselves, or leftovers themselves. Last night we visited our favorite Pho place and my wife brought back some leftovers, those made it on the calendar. When she eats them, they’ll get crossed off rather than tossed out because we forgot the small white box behind the milk.

Lastly, we also plan on marking raw foods we buy, like chicken or beef, so that we are aware of the limited amount time we have. We rarely throw out raw foods, maybe once every six month, because we don’t buy them unless we plan on using them.

As they say, “Out of sight, out of mind” and we hope this leftover calendar prevents that (so far so good!).

Until June 30th, get $25 off a future $100+ Southwest Airlines round-trip flight when you purchase a $100+ Southwest gift card from Southwest.com using a US-issued Visa card. The Southwest gift card has no fees and no expiration date, so you can buy it now and use it whenever.

The $25 credit will be emailed to you and will likely be in the form of a credit voucher (I ordered a gift card but the credit doesn’t come for 4 weeks, but I’ve had credits before from canceled flights). Thankfully Southwest’s credit vouchers are like cash, have no expiration date, and are usable on all flights but subject to these restrictions (including blackout dates and an expiration date); so there’s no little risk of being screwed in the future (Thanks Ceo Reom!). I know a lot of other airlines’ vouchers are much harder to use, they’re specially coded and you can only use it on the worst possible seat of the worst possible flight.

$25 off $100 is a pretty good deal, that’s like being able to check in a bag at one of the other airlines! (have we upgraded from “nickel and diming” to “five and fiftying” yet?)

The fine print after the jump:
(read full article…)

Thank you to everyone who commented on the last two garden posts ($29 kickoff and $60 worth of planters), it was based on those comments that we decided to buy some more “planters” (you’ll see why I use the quotes later) and move some tomato plants.

The recommendation was that each tomato have about five gallons of dirt to play in. Our solution was to buy five gallon buckets (we could’ve gone to restaurants and asked) from Home Depot and move some tomatoes out of the party buckets they were in. So, the huge planters now have at most three tomatoes and two five gallon buckets have one tomato each. We’ll be giving the odd tomato out to my parents.

Trip damage: $8 (lost the receipt, it’s something liek that)
Running total: $98.20

Our plants are growing pretty well with nothing too tragic yet. We’ve been having some wet days recently so the little guys are getting plenty to drink, plenty of sun, and things are progressing nicely.

MSN had an article recently about the best plants to grow yourself. They were fruit trees, lettuce, herbs, vine vegetables, and bell peppers. We are growing a few herbs, some eggplants, and bell peppers (orange and green) so three out of five ain’t bad (fruit is out of the question here). I wish we could grow fruit trees. In Hawaii, everyone had fruit trees (and chickens!). So every morning at the bed & breakfasts we would have tons of fresh fruit (that’s not even that much of an exaggeration).

The five plants you should skip: Potatoes, carrots, celery, asparagus and wheat. There’s no chance we would’ve grown any of those.

A while back I discussed how you could save some cash by cutting just one cup of coffee a week and by brownbagging it just one day a week. That’s when, in chatting with Paid Twice, she joking said “yeah… all these years of home brew coffee and packing lunches - explains why we’re broke. :)” She said it tongue in cheek but it’s a legitimate concern. So many people budget to a penny, diligently track their expenses, yet find themselves behind the eight ball and I suspect it has to do with expenses on the other side of the spectrum - the big ticket items. (I suspect this because that’s what happened to me!)

With respect to frugality, I see the world in two different categories. The first category is for those big ticket items where savings can be significant. Big ticket items are marked by lower frequency but high savings potential, such as a car. The second category are those smaller day to day expenses where there is a much higher frequency of expenses but lower potential for savings. Many times we focus on the small items because we deal with them every day but get panicky or pressured when we start talking major expenses, but those big expenses are the ones where the big savings are too.

Unfortunately, big ticket items aren’t things you can change overnight and they also tend to be more stressful. I recognize that. The two big ticket items most individuals have to pay for are housing, either renting or buying, and a mode of transportation, usually a car. The two are generally marked with higher levels of stress (what’s more stressful, buying a house or making your own detergent? duh!) in part because of the higher dollar values but also because of time constraints. With housing, you’re usually under the gun because you have to move by a certain date according to your lease or some other agreement. With a car, you’re usually under the gun because you need a car ASAP and the whole car sales business is a pressure cooker anyway.

So, how do you counter it? Remove the pressure and reduce those expenses as best as possible.

Remove the Pressure

Sales Pressure: With either a car or a house, there will always be a measure of sales pressure on the part of the agent or the salesperson. It’ll be far worse with a car dealership salesperson because they know they might not get you the next time in so they want you to buy now. Combat this by doing one thing… never sign anything the first time you walk into a place. If you meant to go test drive a bunch of cars, don’t buy that day. Always sleep on a decision and always get a second and third opinion from people you believe are both trustworthy and knowledgeable. You can save yourself from making plenty of bad decisions if you sleep on it and ask for second-party opinions.

Housing: You know when your lease will expire, so start your housing search as early as possible. If you’re buying, start it several months in advance of your move. If you’re going to rent again from another place, start a couple months in advance of your move. Chances are, if you’re renting, even if you can’t find another place to live, you can always go month-to-month on your lease and pay a small premium. Paying an extra hundred dollars a month for one month is far better than rushing into another lease or even a 30 year mortgage!

Car: What’s the worst thing that can happen if you don’t buy a car and your car is kaput? At best, you’re inconveniencing yourself and perhaps friends and family that agree to drive you around. At worst, you rent a car at about thirty or forty bucks a day until you settle on a car. What’s worse, overpaying a few thousand on a car or shelling out for a rental? There is no pressure to buy a car as soon as possible.

Reduce the Costs

The topic of how to reduce the costs of housing and a car, at the tactical level, is way too complex to go into in a few paragraphs here. If you want to know the best tactics for negotiating down the price of a car or a home/rental, you can find plenty of information online . I will however say a few words about how I view homes and cars from a philosophical level and I’m interested in hearing your opinion as well.

Housing: When I rented, I saw my apartment as a temporary location for, at most, a few years. Since it was temporary and I wasn’t building a long term solution, I tried to spend as little as possible on my housing. My end game was to buy a house, not rent a swank apartment, so I never painted or put up pictures. The point was to pay as little as possible so that I could put as much as possible towards a down-payment. To this end, I spent two years renting, always had the same roommate, and we tried to keep costs down as low as possible - I never paid more than $600 a month for rent. I’ve know people who have spent $1200 to $1500 on single bedroom or studio apartments because they wanted someplace nice. That’s $600 to $900 a month that person can’t put towards something else (which is perfectly alright, we all have our own tastes). However, if you are looking to save money, you have to make a lot of detergent to recover $600-$900 a month.

Car: My car gets me from A-to-B and I want it to be affordable, reliable, and fuel efficient. I know some people like to buy cars because it projects a certain image, they want to be able to drive their co-workers or bosses around in a nice ride, but luckily I never worked in industries where that mattered or could affect my future job growth.

Total Cost Considerations: This post is getting a little long winded but I wanted to throw in one last point about total cost. When you sign up for a house or a car, you’re signing up for years and years. A lease is often for twelve months minimum. When you make these purchases, remember to consider the monthly costs as well as the initial costs.

Frugality has met environmentalism at my local Giant supermarket as those 99 cent reusable shopping bags can now net you a five cent discount at the checkout register. It’s estimated that Americans consume a hundred billion plastic shopping bags each year and we recycle about none of them. Those hundred billion end up in the woods, in the water, and in the throats of small furry animals, so do your part and start using reusable shopping bags because it can actually save you some money too.

At 99 cents each and a nickel discount each time you use them, it’s a mere twenty visits before each bag pays for itself. After the twenty visits, you start turning a small profit on the bags and can save yourself some money while saving the environment. And if you don’t want to spend the dollar on a reusable bag and you don’t have any totes, you can always turn a tanktop into a shopping bag (or use some other feat of ingenuity).

These stores offer some sort of discount for using a reusable shopping bag:

• Giant Foods,
• Whole Foods,
• Trader Joes,
• Krogers,
• Super Fresh

If you know of a store that offers a discount for using a reusable bag, please leave it in the comments below and I’ll add them to the list.

(Photo by bsing)

This weekend we took our potentially financially viable crop and turned it into a 100% guaranteed financial loss (but no worries, we’re building for the future!). As it turns out, tomatoes need about a quarter of my body weight in dirt to grow to their full potential and we weren’t even close to having that much space for them with the existing planters we had. We knew that tomatoes grew best in the ground but we didn’t have anywhere in the ground to put them that actually got any sun, so planters were our only other option. We clearly did not have enough planters for them so we visited the local Home Depot to pick up planters and some more potting soil.

Trip damage cost: $61.20
Total cost: $90.20 ($29 spent on the kickoff of the BFP Garden Project)

We bought three big pots (two 20″ wide and one 16″ wide) for some of the tomatoes and the eggplant, plus six cubic feet of potting soil. It turns out we got potting soil that was really nutrient rich and had to be mixed in with existing ground soil (it was the type of stuff that had lot of compost in it), so we really only used about 5/6ths of the $23.31 of potting soil we purchased, but now we’re splitting hairs.

As you can see in the above, we packed in 4 and then 5 tomato plants in each of the bigger planters and then stuck a tomato with an eggplant in the smaller 16″ planter. We’ll see how the packed in party goes… we didn’t have any other place for the tomatoes so we did the best with the space we have.

I considered doing the proper corporate accounting method of amortizing the pots to make the financials work a little better but what’s the schedule for plastic planter pots? Five years? Seven years? Thirty?

Anyway, it’s possible that our $90 investment can yield, in its first year, $90 worth of vegetables but who knows. We’ll keep our eyes on the little guys and you never know!

Anyone have any more gardening advice? Both of us aren’t experienced in the ways of the green so any and all advice is appreciated!

Want to know how I was able to shave nearly 13% off my college costs?

Advanced Placement classes.

I was able to graduate college a semester early in part because I loaded up on Advanced Placement (AP) classes while I was in high school. Someone got it into my head that I could take these AP classes for free (not counting the nominal fee for the exam) and get college credit for getting high marks on the AP tests. At the time, my brain wasn’t thinking “oh, I can save money on college,” but rather “I can spend time now and have it count twice - once in high school and once in college,” so it was in part the bit of hustle inside of me that spurred me to action.

I took your standard science and math ones (Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, Computer Science) as well as a few “useless” (from a college credit perspective, not from a learning perspective) classes like Comparative Government, English, Art History, US and World History. The net result was approximately one semester’s worth of electives (and most notably skipping out on an calculus class offered at 8:30am only, you have no idea how happy I was to hear that).

For those of you looking to do this, my advice is that you do your research about colleges ahead of time to ensure that your time is spent most effectively. Also, consider taking classes that you may never get credit for but would ultimately enjoy (I was never getting any credit for Art History, but I learned a lot in that class).

Here are some tips:

• Check to see if your potential colleges give credit for high scores and in which subjects, then see what those scores are. I didn’t know this but I was never getting credit for Comparative Government or Art History.
• If they do not but you are still interested, take the class but skip the exam. You only need the exam if you want credit, if you can’t get credit even with a score of 5, just skip the exam.
• The SAT/ACT and SAT II exams are more important. Given a choice, focus on the standardized tests over the AP exams (that’s not to say you can’t focus on both) because those tests get you into college, AP scores just get you farther along once you get admitted.
• To take full advantage, you may need to load up on non-elective classes to finish early. My credits were about 50% optional electives and 50% required electives but none applied to my core or foundation-type classes (CMU accepted my AP CS marks but the class was taught in Pascal and I didn’t know C/C++, which was the language CMU used at the time, so I had to take 15-127) so I had to load up on those in the vacuum left by fulfilled electives.
• Don’t burn yourself out. If you take too many AP’s, you might overload yourself and perform poorly on the exams. Most colleges will only award credit for 4’s and 5’s, so keep that in mind.
• Enjoy yourself. The point of these AP classes is to expand your mind beyond the typical topics covered in high school. Art History isn’t something most high school students have the opportunity to take, so enjoy the classes and broaden your horizons. Without that one art history class, I would know absolutely nothing about art, I’ve never regretted taking that class (even if I got no credit!).

There you have it, AP classes are your way of shaving 13%-25% (you can get, at most, a year of credit according to the College Board) your college costs.

(photo by steven n maher)

My wife and are planning on putting together a small little garden of potted plants that have had success with in the past. Our deck doesn’t get a tremendous amount of sun because of enormous trees behind our property but it gets enough that we’ve had pretty good success growing tomato and peppers in the past. This year, we’ve decided to give the garden project another go and document our progress.

This past weekend, we visited our local farmers market and picked up $29 worth of plants and potting soil and anticipate that will be the extent of our expenses besides water. Due to prior garden projects, we have a sufficient number of planters as well as some fertilizer, so we should be set in those departments.

For $29 we were able to pick up:

• Cayenne Pepper (2)
• Eggplant (2)
• Thai Basil (1)
• Hot Pepper - Kung Poa (1)
• Sweet Basil (1)
• Orange Bell Pepper (2)
• Patio Tomato (1)
• Oregano (1)
• Super Steak Tomato (6)
• Green Sweet Bell Pepper (6)
• Roma Tomato (6)
• 40 lbs. Country Boy Potting Soil

As they grow, we’ll compare them to the grocery store prices and see if the whole garden process is “worth it.” My hypothesis is that the financials will come close and the real value is in being able to say you’re somewhat self-sustainable (and gardening is fun!).

Right now, tomatoes on the vine are going at $2.79 a pound, orange bell peppers were $2+ a pound (by far the most expensive of the bell peppers), and green bell peppers were under $2 a pound. While I don’t see us getting ten pounds of tomatoes, they’re certainly the most valuable of the vegetables we purchased.

Many people see the retail industry slumping this year because of the continuing credit crisis, meaning Americans can’t borrow as much to continue our spendy ways, and increased prices across the board, meaning Americans can’t buy as much with the money they still have. Either way, there are only a few ways that a retailer bankruptcy actually affects you. First, let’s take a look at what actually happens when a retailer goes bankrupt. Then, we’ll talk about how this affects you.

Retailers Going Bankrupt

When a retailer goes bankrupt, it’s almost irrelevant to the consumer what type of bankruptcy protection they file for because the effects are the same. Chapter 11 means they want to soldier on, restructure their debts, and try to get back on its feet. Chapter 7 means the business is kaput, everything is going to be liquidated, and there’s no hope for the company.

How This Affects You

Gift Cards: Either way, a retailer in bankruptcy protection will see all of its gift cards frozen and made worthless. This is the greatest impact on the consumer and one reason why I argue that you shouldn’t hold onto gift cards. When Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image filed bankruptcy earlier this year, both froze gift cards. There are exceptions and those often occur in the case of Chapter 11 bankruptcies, where the retailer will still honor gift cards, because they want to keep good will. If they freeze gift cards but still keep stores open, it’s less likely that consumers will shop there after they’ve been “screwed.”

Another scenario is when those gift cards are made worthless by the bankrupt retailer, other retailers may swoop in and offer discounts to those holding the worthless gift cards. It’s akin to airlines offering fare discounts to those holding bankrupt airline tickets.

Liquidation Sales: Just because the retailer is going under doesn’t mean you’ll find any good deals. CompUSA’s liquidation sales were awful, Shaper Image liquidation sales were awful, and Bombay liquidation sales were awful. When the items were overpriced in the first place, it’s hard to justify paying “normal” price for something you can never return. However, there are always deals to be found if you’re diligent but don’t expect a fire sale just because the retailer is bankrupt.

Returns: You’re probably out of luck on returns with a bankrupt retailer. Any purchases you make after they’ve declared are definitely not returnable, in fact they will probably put up huge signs in the store indicating “all sales are final” and “no returns.” As for purchases before they went bankrupt, you might be able to return it but I doubt it. If the retailer is really going away, there’s no reason to accept the return. If the retailer is restructuring, you might be able to return it but I wouldn’t bet on it.

A retailer going bankrupt is never a good thing, even if you’re a bargain-hunter swooping in, because a lot of people will have lost gift card value (in the case of Linens ‘n Things, ~400,000 lost around $42M in gift card value!), the sales will probably suck, and you lose another sales-tax, income-tax paying shop in your neighborhood.

(Photo by paul keleher)

On relatively inexpensive things, it’s oftentimes good enough to get a decent deal rather than hold out for the absolute best deal ever.

Every once in a long while, usually around large sporting events or during the hot summer months, my local Giant Food has a great deal of five 12-packs of soda for ten dollars. At $2 a pack, this brings the price per can of soda down to less than 17 cents a piece. This is compared to a regular price of $3.99 a 12-pack (I think, but I can’t be certain because I’ve never purchased it at full price before) which turns that seventeen cent piece of caffeinated heaven into a nearly 34 cent David Bach-worthy indulgence (okay, there was a bit of hyperbole involved there but you catch my drift). Those five for $10 deals aren’t very frequent and oftentimes Giant Food throws its customers a bone and offers the 12-packs at three for $10 or sometimes four for $10. At those prices, the unit cost of a can is only slightly lower but don’t carry the stigma of full price.

My strategy for weathering the droughts between good soda deals was to not purchase soda at all. It’s arguably better health-wise to skip the soda (one of my friends doesn’t drink soda on the advice of his dentist because the acidity damages your enamel if you let it linger) so I often go for more coffee when it’s cooler or plain water when it’s hotter. However, every so often I’ll crave a soda and then drop $1.29 for one of the plastic 20 oz. bottles. The end result is that it’s either feast or famine… I either get the deal and buy cans at seventeen cents or a bottle at over seven times the price (ignore the fact that I get eight more ounces because it’s not really relevant for the purposes of this discussion).

So lately I’ve been following my own maxim of getting a decent deal in the absence of the best deal. The five for $10 isn’t always available, but the 3 for $10 and the 4 for $10 is usually available and I pick up one to hold me over. By spending a little more, I prevent myself from going all the way over to the other extreme and get more value for my dollar in the long run.

Or I could quit drinking soda and stick with tap water, which costs nearly nothing.