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What kind of frugal you want to be
I ran across an older piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail, a typical "here's how readers cut costs" round-up, but one insight is worth passing along:
There are actually two kinds of frugality. The first is active, where you control spending by choice to save more and stay out of debt. The second is reactive, where debt or other circumstances force you to cut back.
I liked the distinction because it recognizes that not all frugality is created equally. It's the difference between wanting to be frugal and having to be.
For example: A friend and coworker once spent a year living on half her take-home pay. She had a system: the first check of the month had to last her all month, and the second was put in her "Quit my job and go to Europe" fund. My friend overhauled her life -- no more drinks with coworkers several times a week, calculating the rare meal out down to the penny allotted for fun, not buying new clothing. And in a year, she had enough in her fund to quit her job and spend eight months bopping around Europe.
And once she came back … she cast about for her next goal and began saving all over again. (Hint: It involved an extended walkabout in Australia.) My friend sees her frugality -- all that saying "no" to expenditures lots of people don't think about twice, like beverages at restaurants -- as a way of saying "yes" to the things she really wants to do.
As for the reactively frugal, when you're forced by circumstances to cut back on spending, it feels like you're always saying no. And in many ways, you are: No more living beyond your means, no more spending money thoughtlessly, no more spending money carelessly. Those aren't bad things to say no to.
What I want to know from you, dear readers: If you've been forced into reactive frugality, was there a moment when you shifted from thinking that you were saying "no" to everything and began believing that you were really saying "yes" instead? Tell me the story at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| January 13 2011 at 09:19 AM
Shopping with a list, shopping like a man
Two seemingly unrelated news items caught my eye last night. The first: Americans are shopping again -- albeit with a lot more discipline. This time, when they step foot in a mall, they're doing so with a shopping list in hand. In the Associated Press's "For Many, Shopping No Longer a Leisure Activity," the reporter writes:
Shoppers today visit an average of three stores during a trip to the mall, according to ShopperTrak, a Chicago research firm that tracks sales and customer counts at more than 70,000 stores. That compares with an average of five stores in 2006.It's "surgical shopping," said John Gerzema, a brand executive at advertising and marketing firm Young & Rubicam, and co-author of a new book about the changing ways we spend money.
The article goes on to illustrate Gerzema's point by interviewing shoppers who talk about how they stick to specific lists.
The second article that caught my attention was the Wall Street Journal's "To Dress Well, a Woman Should Shop Like a Man." The general gist of this article: Women who are shopping for clothing would be better served if they paid less attention to logos and brands and more attention to hallmarks of quality like generous seams that have been folded before being stitched down, or well-constructed waistbands.
These two pieces would seem to have nothing in common at first glance -- but what ties them together is the notion that sometimes, you need a gimmick to justify being picky about opening your wallet. (Lists! Shopping like a guy!) Admittedly, I am slightly at a loss as to why men are positioned as more discerning consumers in the second article -- I've known men who will fling cash at something, anything if it means they can be freed from the tyranny of a shopping trip -- but the core point remains: Don't buy crap just because it looks trendy.
I have my own picky points when shopping -- If I'm buying a striped clothing item, the stripes have to match up perfectly on the seams or else it's no good, for example -- and I am not at all comfortable stepping in a store unless I have a list clutched firmly in hand (or, these days, glowing on my smartphone screen).
But what about you? What are your benchmarks for quality shopping? What are your picky points? And what sort of shopping lists do you make? Share at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| January 11 2011 at 09:02 AM
Shun the unitasker!
Anyone who's watched Alton Brown's excellent Food Network show Good Eats knows that he encourages people to forsake "unitaskers" in the kitchen. A unitasker is any gadget that performs only one function -- a stainless steel avocado pit remover, for example -- and otherwise exists to take up real estate in your kitchen.
(Avocado lovers of the world, all you really need is a chef's knife and a tablespoon. This Chow video shows you how.)
The lesson I've taken away from Good Eats and its crusade against unitaskers is that you can get away with having a small toolbox full of versatile kitchen implements so long as you acquire a variety of techniques for using those tools. It's basically a time versus money tradeoff -- you can either spend money on highly specific gadgets or you can take the time to use a few good basics to do highly specific tasks.
When you're decluttering your place -- or watching your consumer habits to prevent a build up of clutter in your abode -- taking a comprehensive "shun the unitasker!" approach can be super-helpful in saving both space and money. It can help you curb your idealistic, unrealistic intentions in both Sur La Table ("I'll be making creme brulee constantly, I know it!") and Home Depot ("I'll be crafting my own gingerbread trim for the windowboxes I build, I knows it!").
Still, there are times when a unitasker comes in handy. Avid craftspeople -- be they scrapbookers or needlepointers -- can make arguments for why they'd need a specific paper cutter or type of needle. The real criteria for whether or not you need to hang on to something that performs only one specific function is this: Do you use this enough to justify the money you spent on it and the space it takes up in your house? Only you know what "enough" is -- more than once a fiscal quarter, more than once a year, more than once a presidential administration. But be honest when defining it.
For a good giggle, I urge you to check out Unclutter's regular feature, "Unitasker Wednesday." It truly is boggling what products are out there.
What unitaskers will you hang on to, no matter how often you declutter? Share your MVPs at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| January 07 2011 at 08:56 AM
The ethics of decluttering other people's things
A few years ago, it was my privilege to help clean out my grandmother's house and help make it ready for sale. Nana was no longer living there -- she was in an assisted living facility -- and was in no condition to have much say on what she did or didn't want to keep.
The fates of some of the items were easy to decide: an enema bottle from the 1950s? Toss. A ball made of rubber bands that had fossilized? Toss. The love letters my grandfather wrote? Keep. Her set of colored Pyrex mixing bowls from the 1950s? They're in my cabinet now.
But there was a huge pile of stuff we ended up debating -- arguing the intentions Nana had when she bought it, why she may have kept it, what she would have wanted done with it, whether anyone would want it now. Trying to act honorably toward another person when their intentions are unknown is tough.
Then again, trying to act right when you're decluttering the household you share with someone can be trying. We all have things we're loath to let go of -- and as Murphy's Law would have it, those are usually the things our partners/relatives/roommates are eager to toss. (And vice versa.) I will confess that I keep a running list of things I want out of our house, but cannot pitch because my husband would pitch a fit. (I keep this list only in my head.) For the sake of marital peace, I sit on my hands.
And now that we've got a child, the decluttering issue has just become even more ethically fraught. She has lots of presents from lots of well-meaning people. Some of these things, we will never get a chance to use (like the Christmas present of a summer outfit in a size she will have outgrown by summer, i.e. next September). Some of these things -- while given with love and received with gratitude -- are just not things we want to have in the house.
The one thing stopping me from pitching them: they're not really my things. They're my daughter's. She is an infant so that certainly entitles me to act on her behalf when it comes to organizing her stuff. But at the end of the day, I feel a certain responsibility both to her and to the generous people who want to give her gifts -- it's on me to make sure everyone's intentions are honored.
I searched for tips on how to balance the need to declutter against the need for a healthy and functional family life. I found some decent blog entries on how to get your family to implement decluttering strategies, but that presumes you've a) got buy-in from everyone in the family on the need to get things out of the house and b) got no compunction about tossing the kids' stuff, come hell or high water.
How have you resolved any ethical dilemmas about decluttering your loved ones' stuff? Are the rules different for children than for adults? What about the departed? Share your stories and opinions at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| January 05 2011 at 09:29 AM
So you got a lot of stuff for Christmas. Time to declutter!
It is one of the quirks of the yearly consumer cycle: Right after the month where shoppers are encouraged to overindulge and hit sale after sale, there's the month where consumers are encouraged to organize and declutter the houses they've just packed to the rafters with gifts and after-Christmas sales bargains.
Retailers aren't stupid: many people have just come off a week or two of being shut up in their houses, up to their ears in family members, newly acquired stuff and wrapping paper scraps. After a fortnight of enforced togetherness and tripping over stuff that doesn't have a permanent place in the home yet, who wouldn't want to sweep their place clean and turn it into a haven of quiet order? And who wouldn't feel receptive to someone promoting the message of peace and organization via [whatever's on sale]?
I'm all for cathartic decluttering. Done right, it can be good for your bottom line. Here are five ways how:
-- When you aren't up to your eyeballs in stuff, you're more likely to know exactly what you own and where it is. This prevents making duplicate purchases. We've all known someone who's bought a second, third or fifth flashlight because they couldn't find the first. Don't be that someone who buys the same thing over and over.
-- As you declutter, you can tally up how much money you spent on the stuff you're now clearing out of the house. Keep that tally in mind -- the next time you're about to make an impulse purchase from Target because that hot pink galvanized tub is adorbs and you're sure you can find something to do with it, ask yourself if you're only adding to the tally of "Money I will later lose through decluttering." If the answer is at all yes, curb the impulse.
-- Decluttering makes room. You can then use this room for the things that will make your life richer, easier or more interesting in the long run. For example, decluttering your pantry, then spending a few bucks on clear storage containers and a labelmaker, lets you set up a larder that you can quickly and easily scan after work -- thus saving you on takeout, if you're organized enough.
-- You can head off financial headaches if you know where everything -- warranty cards, receipts and manuals -- happens to be. This way, when your blender goes kablooey, it's a simple matter to find the supporting documentation and take your case to the manufacturer. (TIP: One easy way to organize all this stuff is to use an accordion file folder. Just figure out how you want to organize all the manuals -- alphabetically, by room, by use, whatever -- and drop everything in the correct pocket the minute you unpack it.)
-- Finally, decluttering can be good for your tax returns. If you're holding on to a cache of old eyeglasses, you can usually drop them off at a Lion's Club or via Unite for Sight and you've got a charitable donation for your tax return. Anything you've got too much of -- clothing, toys (in good condition), books -- can usually find a home with an organization that will be happy to give you a receipt.
The rest of this week, we'll look at different aspect of decluttering -- the ethics of tossing someone else's stuff, how to keep clutter from creeping back in, when it makes sense to embrace a little clutter. Do you have strong opinions on clutter and cleaning things out? Share them at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| January 04 2011 at 08:53 AM
Oh, this old thing?
Of all the pregnancy-related expenses that cropped up, the one that I resented acutely was maternity clothing. I bought as little as possible; fifteen pieces of apparel comprised my entire wardrobe, and carried me from bedtime to exercising, from to working in an office to painting the house, from meeting with my company's CEO to attending a wedding.
At first, having a roomy closet and comparatively few options for clothing felt liberating. Packing for travel was easy. I never had any mornings where I stood in front of the closet in an agony of sartorial indecision. How freeing! Then I hit week 35 of my pregnancy and suddenly got heartily sick of everything I could fit into. The last weeks of gestation were filled with anticipation, both for meeting my daughter and for building a bonfire and using my maternity wardrobe to fuel the flames.
(Kidding! I'd never violate a Spare the Air day.)
As I shrink back down to my pre-baby body, I have had the pleasure of shopping my closet. All my old clothing is new to me; it is a pleasure to put on something that's a few years old and feel surprised by it. My prepregnancy wardrobe takes up one dresser drawer, one six-compartment sweater bag, three clear acrylic shoe drawers and twenty items on hangers; it feels luxurious to have so much choice.
My temporary apparel diet has given me a fresh appreciation for the people who embark on The Great American Apparel Diet. The GAAD is a year-long project in which participants vow not to buy any new clothing for a whole year. The reasons for embarking on the GAAD are varied -- some people do it for environmental reasons (cheap chic chains generate tons of waste as they produce what is essentially disposable clothing), some for human rights reasons (have you seen the kind of conditions in which much of the clothing available to consumers is produced?), some to curb a spending problem. The overall objective is the same: Drop out of the American clothing-shopping cycle for a year and see what you learn about yourself as you do so.
Another experiment in the less-clothing-is-more vein is Six Items or Less, which challenges people to really pare down their wardrobe. The New York Times covered them last summer, along with slide shows illustrating how people mixed and matched the six items they restricted themselves to for a month; it's an instructive look at how much more valuable the versatile items in one's closet are.
These exercises in sartorial abstention are intriguing, living as we do in a consumer culture where Old Navy dangles new, cheap and colorful wardrobe updates seemingly every week, and the changing of the seasons is hailed as an excuse to reinvent one's public presentation via new clothing. And let's not forget that folks on the GAAD had to sit on their hands as retailer after retailer slashed their clothing prices by 30-75% the day after Christmas.
Forsaking new clothing may be one of the quieter yet more radical ways of dropping out of commercial American culture. It's one thing to do so by necessity -- my pals and I did in graduate school, since we were living on grad-school stipends -- but another to voluntarily say, "Enough." And to reinvent the way one presents oneself to the world with the same old glad rags? My hat's off to those who do it.
Would you voluntarily forsake shopping for any new clothing for a year? Have you done so? Share your experiences at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| December 30 2010 at 09:09 AM
Adults and allowances
Quick question: Have you put yourself and/or your adult partner on an allowance? Do you limit the amount of walking-around cash you're allowed to take out of the bank account on a weekly basis?
We do. I can't recommend the practice highly enough. Here are the five reasons why having an allowance has been good for my family's financial health:
1. It forces me to question every little expenditure. The only reason I have not given into my impulse to have a peppermint mocha from Peet's every day is because that habit would seriously bite into my cash stash.
2. It gets us off the hook on tracking every single little expenditure. Rather than logging each purchase and adding them up, we have a line item for our walking-around money. So long as we're under that amount -- and we usually are, unless there are extenuating circumstances -- we know our spending on discretionary items is under control.
3. It helps us plan ahead and prioritize our little luxuries. I like getting pedicures. There's something indulgent about taking thirty minutes and sitting in the massage chair and reading while someone makes my toenails pretty. And in order to get a semi-regular pedicure fix, I have to plan ahead -- especially since my allowance also covers less fun expenditures like doctor-office copays. Figuring out how to swing both requires that I anticipate my expenses -- and that sharply curbs impulse spending. The same general practice goes for my husband, who has to balance his "I'd like a beer" impulse at Sharks games against the other expenditures that come up.
4. It helps us see whether or not we're spoiling ourselves or depriving ourselves. Right now, the yearly total for our allowance accounts for approximately 4% of our net income. At some point, we may decide to slice that and redirect the money to another goal -- or we may decide we deserve a bigger allowance. But we can make that decision only because we have the hard numbers on how much "play" money we have.
5. It keeps things equal. Because my spouse and I have the same weekly allowance, we've sidestepped the issue of one partner spending more on "fun" items or frivolous items than the other partner. We get the autonomy of having a chunk of money that's all ours, but we are still accountable to the family financial unit as a whole.
Are you and the people in your family on an allowance system, or did you toss that practice once you hit legal adulthood? Weigh in on allowances for grown-ups at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| December 29 2010 at 09:53 AM
Flashback: How did you do with your financial resolutions?
So last year, I suggested a few very simple resolutions for stronger personal finance habits. They were:
Keeping a log of daily expenses: "One of the simplest and most effective ways to get a handle on your everyday spending is to keep track of every penny going out."
Never pay an ATM fee again: "Simply vow not to hit any ATM that will charge you money to withdraw cash from your bank account."
Be more mindful of the little things: "The point is not to cut all discretionary spending out of your life, but to look at whether the discretionary spending you're doing is the best possible use of those resources for you."
I freely admit that I blew the ATM fee vow once this year: I wanted to splurge on a cab ride home after getting dismissed from jury duty, and since I only had $10 cash to my name, I wanted to pick up another $20 or so to cover the fare. It was a really hot September day and I didn't relish the idea of hauling my 36-weeks-pregnant self all over downtown looking for my bank's ATM. So I called an audible and hit the nearest cash machine.
The ride was a guilty delight, the same way watching a matinee when one ought to be studying for finals is.
Otherwise, I kept an eye on the little things and it worked out well enough.
How did you do with your personal finance resolutions? Share at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| December 28 2010 at 09:18 AM
Flashback: How to regift without irritating anyone
So the stockings are no longer hanging by the chimney with care, the last of the gift wrap has been crammed into an overfull recycle bin, and you're left staring at a gift basket filled with biscotti and white chocolate hot drink mix and wondering what to do with it.
Answer: hit the Dollars & Sense archives. We've covered the finer points of regifting and provided some do's and don'ts for passing along your presents to someone who will appreciate them more.
Now go forth and pass along that plumeria-scented bodywash to someone who would really appreciate it.
| December 27 2010 at 09:14 AM
Try talking your family into this one
Six days from now, nearly every retailer in America is going to launch their after-holiday sales. For those of us on the West Coast, any time after 9 p.m. PST on Christmas is a great time to begin the bargain-hunting, as that's when many e-commerce sites switch to their December 26 sales.
I usually reserve a chunk of cash for shopping the sales, and I've got a running list of things I either want or need at specific stores; this way, if the opportunity arises and the price is right, I can pounce. My mom and I also use the after-holiday sales to grab our holiday cards for the next year. Why pay full price for cards in the fall when you can just buy a few boxes for 50-75% off and keep them stashed in a drawer for the next 10-11 months?
I've been thinking: If you and your family are truly committed to wringing the maximum value out of your budget ... why not celebrate Christmas in the very last week of the month? Instead of shopping Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales and hoping that prices don't drop any further, why not wait until they've bottomed out, then scoop up your presents at their lowest prices?
To be sure, this is a hard sell for anyone who's got small children in the house. Explaining to them that Santa's not showing up until December 30 because he needs to shop the sales is probably going to diminish the magic of the season. But for folks whose circle of gift recipients are all of legal age? It's doable. And it might even be a fun way to extend the warmth and fellowship of the season -- or observe it once the hectic crush of end-of-year obligations has eased.
Would you ever consider holding off on gift exchanges until the post-Christmas sales are in effect? Weigh in at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| December 20 2010 at 09:27 AM
Dollars and Sense is about finding new ways to inject dollars, cents and sensibility into your everyday spending.
By Lisa Schmeiser, Read Bio
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