New Year, No Fear

We're into the year of 2016, and it's correspondingly time for all of us to make our New Year's Resolutions, give up on them, and reflect on our muddling around in the last 12 months.

I'm not going to do any of that here with you.

Instead, I'm just going to keep on updating my different sites with new content, and hopefully I'll be able to keep you guys and dolls reading for at least a little while.

Thanks for sticking around with me through 2015, and hopefully I'll have something interesting to show you this year.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to staring at the moon.

My Grocery Shopping Philosophy: How to Live Well on less than 100 dollars a Month

For the longest time, I've been spending much less on food than other people, but eating both a higher quality diet and enjoying the food that I eat. While I would attribute at least a portion of  this success to my character, I think that it might also have something to do with what I choose to eat and how I shop for food. I have been on a higher than average calorie diet in order to gain some weight, so keep in mind that I am not shopping to minimize calories, but rather to maximize nutritional value at a relatively low price.

It is also worth mentioning that there is a significant portion that could, in a crisis or if my circumstances changed, be reduced or removed from this spending plan without negatively impacting my health, but this is a comfortable way for me to shop for food without spending a great deal of time to do so.

I spend about 100 bucks on food for myself each month, and I'm finally gaining a little bit of weight.

I recommend getting in a good high fiber carbohydrate to use as your base for calories. I like to mix rice with beans, but potatoes are also a good base, and are quite economical. I actually recommend getting both potatoes and rice, since they are cheap and keep well. Oats are also nice.

Next up we should tackle vegetables. I don't know what you like, but you probably do. Buy those and cook them cheaply, by steaming or baking them until edible. I usually pick a price that I am willing to pay per pound or unit, and then only buy vegetables in amounts that I am definitely going to consume when under that unit price. In general, I get leafy vegetables and root vegetables of some kind every month.

Fruits are also subject to the unit price phenomenon. I like to buy under 1 dollar per pound for fruit, but for certain things I will go over that, like berries or dried fruit, either because I love them (dried fruit) or I can use them sparingly compared to other fruits (berries).

Meats are a great way to hit a number of nutritional goals and potentially gain weight, but there is a lot that you need to be concerned with when it comes to meat from both a procedural and a budgetary standpoint. Comfort with the supply chain that the meat takes from conception to the market, handling between your purchase and your storage, and processing in your home can be somewhat daunting, especially if you are not a confident cook or have some qualms with the current state of things. And on a purely budgetary basis, meats can be really expensive if you don't shop smart. I try to pay well under 5 dollars a pound per meat, and prefer to stay as close as possible to 1 dollar per pound. I like to buy chicken (bone in if possible, so that I can make soup), beef (also bone in if available, because marrow is delicious), and lamb (bone in if possible, which is almost all the time because I usually get lamb from an abattoir). If you watch for sales or have good relations with a slaughterhouse or butcher, meats are eventually available for around a dollar to three dollars per pound depending on the type of meat (chicken, beef, etc). That is when I stock up. Once I get meat home, I usually do one of a few things with it. I will either immediately put it into the refrigerator for use within the next 2-3 days (before the sell by date on the package), put it into the freezer for use within the next couple of months (food in the freezer is good for up to a year if processed correctly), or I will prepare it immediately for use that day. I like to poach or bake my meats, to ensure that they are thoroughly cooked.

Dairy is a great way to improve the variety of your meals, and add additional vitamins and minerals to your diet. I buy milk at its regular price, which is already pretty low considering that a gallon of milk is 3.7 liters and less than 4 dollars for me no matter where I shop. Cheese is pretty expensive, but if you use it sparingly it lasts for quite some time. I recommend being price conscious when buying any dairy other than milk though, because most other forms are ridiculously expensive.

I like to buy eggs, for several reasons. I enjoy using them to add additional protein and exciting textures to a dish, they are very quick and easy to cook (5 minutes or less, stovetop or microwave), and nutritionally they are quite valuable sources of essential B vitamins.

It is important to note, however, that fresh fruit, vegetables, and milk will usually not last a month in your home, so you might want to schedule several trips or buy more durable forms of those (dehydrated milk, dry fruit, frozen vegetables) to use after the fresh ones are consumed.

Taking the Fine Grained Approach to Budgeting Can Yield Fantastic Results

In the majority of the United States, minimum wage is about $7.25 per hour.

A person that makes this wage, working 40 hours a week, 4 weeks a month, with no taxes included, makes about $1,160 dollars every month.

In my current setting, I actually spend more than the gross income of a minimum wage worker every month, and I am considered frugal compared to most people living in the United states. As a result, I consider it well worth my time to manage my spending, since I have the potential to save just as much money as a minimum wage worker earns, every month, just by paying close attention to spending.

By taking the time to investigate the details of your expenses, you can identify higher value options, patterns of behavior that are likely to become destructive to your financial wellness, and opportunities to reduce expenses in a way to save the most money with the least effort.

For illustrative purposes, I will share three examples from my own recent budgeting efforts that highlight these principles.

Identifying Higher Value Options

As a creature of habit, I tend to like to cook certain things at certain times, and this manifests itself in my purchasing a number of staple groceries. One of the most highly acclaimed among them is the humble chicken egg, which I buy every week or two. After gathering price data over a few months, I found that eggs, when not on sale, are reliably 1-2 dollars cheaper at store A than they are at store B or store C for the number of eggs that I buy. Only buying eggs at store A results in monthly savings of 3-6 dollars, and offers virtually no opportunity cost since store A is collocated with stores B and C in the same complexes. I actually do the same math for all of my groceries, and as a result average slightly less than $1 per pound, on average, for all of the food that I buy.

Identifying Patterns of Destructive Behavior

If you are like me, you know the value of good habits, but you also can recognize the damage done by bad habits. Bad financial habits can eat deeply into your overall financial well-being, erode your savings, and lead to negative cash flow.
After I relocated to my current town, I rented a car to get around town. I quickly realized that I couldn't afford to continue to do so for even a single week without spending far too much money, so 16 hours after I rented that car I drove to the bus station and bought a bus pass. I ended up making it a 1 day rental, instead of the 7 that I had anticipated, and the savings financed 3 months worth of bus passes, three cab rides, a stay at the hotel, and my first month's utilities.

Keeping a close eye on the expenses of transport allowed me to save myself from the massive waste that I could have made of this resource.

Identifying Opportunities to Reduce Expenses

One of the most powerful means of taking control of your finances is minimizing your repeated expenses, which are more effectively visualized as annual or biannual costs instead of monthly costs.
I was looking at purchasing a car, and even though I would come out ahead on a financed vehicle in terms of resale value and operating expenses, the cost of insuring a financed car was well over four times the cost of insuring a cash purchase, which would obliterate not only the lower cost of operation but also any potential resale value if I kept the car for over two years.

It was (and is) actually much cheaper for me to purchase a car with high maintenance costs and low fuel efficiency, but cheaper insurance costs, than it is to purchase a car with no maintenance costs and high fuel efficiency.

Not only car insurance, but utilities, fuel, maintenance, mortgages, rental fees, cleaning services, and many other recurring expenses can be reduced or eliminated to reduce your expenses. You don't need to be a poorly dressed hobo shuffling down the street, but there is a tremendous comfort knowing that you have positive cash flow every week, month, and year.

I recently looked into the average cost of living in the city where I live, and on a monthly basis the average single person spends nearly twice as much as I do. The funny thing is, I'm looking to save even further!

An Analytical Approach to Grocery Shopping Can Save Serious Cash

I currently shop around at a mix of convenience grocers (Safeway, etc) and more expensive stores (local co-op, more expensive department store)

I recommend having a set of goods you like to purchase, and investigating the prices for those goods. The creation and analysis of this set, called a "market basket", is actually the same method used to generate consumer inflation data and analyze changes in food pricing. You can be "hard" about this by carrying a smartphone or a notebook to the different local stores to document prices, or you can be "soft" and just try to remember how much things cost wherever you are shopping (my preferred method), but it's a good way to find out whether you're getting a good deal on your regular items.

For instance, the stores in my area are pretty ridiculous on eggs right now.

One store charges around 5 dollars for an 18 pack, the next store charges $4.00, a third charges $3.3x, and the last store charges $2.1x for 18 eggs.

So while store 4 is a great choice for eggs, it's also across town, and store 1 and 2 have better prices on potatoes and milk.

Also, keep in mind prices of goods and derivative goods for perspective on value.

I can buy cheese for 3 or 4 dollars a pound on sale, or I can buy milk for 42 cents a pound but I'll get about 8 pounds of it (1 gallon). For the nutrition (from my perspective, anyway), milk provides a better value for the money in this case.

This also applies to a whole meal. Buying a pizza is the same as buying the cheese, sauce, crust, toppings and seasonings for a pizza and then paying someone to cook it for you. If all you want is to eat pizza, you can usually save money by cutting out the part where you pay someone to cook the pizza for you, and you can enjoy eating all of the leftover ingredients in other recipes.

Just look for value in your expenses and you'll do fine.

I've applied the technique above to my own expenses after moving to a brand new area, and I've managed to keep my food costs under 100 dollars per month for just myself without depriving myself of anything, really. Comparison shopping and buying groceries at the place where they are least expensive, along with keeping my eyes open for below-market pricing on items that I personally value, allow me to eat quite well on under 1200 dollars per year.

Self Storage costs can really add up. Finding room at home can save you over $1000 per year

In the US it is extremely common to pay for one or more storage units on a month to month basis.

If you can find a space that is cheaper or you can make room in your home, you can save yourself hundreds per month and potentially thousands over a couple of years.

In this town, a cheap unit costs 110 dollars per month, so every year that you can avoid it you save yourself $1320.

Wouldn't you like that as a raise?

Are the Japanese going extinct?

There are a lot of stories across the web over the past few years potentially attributing a loss of population to the small towns in Japan, and there are a lot of people choosing to delay or to go without children.

A recent picture by Journeyman Pictures shed light on this issue, with some personal stories that highlight the challenges that face the Japanese population in the modern age. The economic environment is such that the places with jobs are usually less amenable to raising a family, and the small towns and villages are losing population quickly.

There are fewer children now than there were in the past, and the economics of Japan don't provide significant financial incentives to parents to enable women to take time away from work to raise their children or men to take time away to raise their families.

Here is the piece from Journeyman Pictures, feel free to judge for yourself.

Looking to Save Money on Haircuts? Consider doing them at home and pocketing an extra $250 annually.

I cut my own hair, and I've been doing it for years.

If you go for a haircut every three weeks and pay $15 a cut, you can end up spending 15-30 dollars each month or $270 a year on haircuts. As long as you're willing and able to take the time to learn to cut your hair and actually cut it at home, you can save nearly all of that money for the price of a set of equipment, some electricity, and your time.

I and my trusty set of clippers have likely saved well over $1000 in haircuts since In left home, and my father likely saved a similar amount on my haircuts by cutting my hair himself when I was a lad.

If you're not sure how to get started, I recently came across a great site for buzzing your own hair called Buzzcut Guide that offers a great illustrated reference for four classic home hairstyles and a rationale for the use of clippers at home.

According to the site authors, even if you don't want to cut your hair at home all the time, if you can maintain a cut and stave off going to the salon for twice as long without sacrificing your looks, you can realize savings of 50% over the standard of barbering.

So, if you're at all interested, I suggest taking a look and seeing what clippers you can find in your area.

You might be happier with a simple cut and a lower barbershop bill!