How I Got Here

It's pretty much a given that most people's financial education starts at home. Some people learn what to do with money. Some people learn what NOT to do with money. I learned a little of both.

My parents aren't exactly terrible with money. They made a lot of the typical knucklehead moves like buying a timeshare or refinancing the mortgage multiple times. They probably shouldn't have credit cards as they tend to go through the cycle of:

1.) Run up the credit card balances
 2.) Do something drastic to pay them off (see multiple refis above)
3.) Close all but one "for emergencies"
4.) Rinse and repeat

That being said, they've never been evicted and they've never defaulted, that I know of.  We never went hungry.  They didn't have to worry about saving for retirement because they both have pensions, though dad did a handful of part-time gigs starting basically the day after he retired from his full-time government job.

My maternal grandparents were great financial role models. They were stereotypical children of the Depression, though my grandfather was quick to tell you that the Depression never made a difference because they were poor before it happened and poor afterwards. They used everything they could and when they were done with it, they used it for something else. My grandmother made a lot of my mother's clothes when she was a child (and a few unfortunate outfits for me as a kid). They grew food and canned/froze it for the rest of the year. No lie, when I cleaned out their deep freeze in 2010, there was frozen corn that they had grown in 1998. And he would have insisted that it was still fine. They invested. My grandfather had a monthly ritual of calling around all the local banks to see who had the best CD rates for the one that was coming due that month. I'm pretty sure I get my love of playing with my money from him.

 My paternal grandparents were...not so great role models. Though it wasn't until they passed that anyone had any idea how bad it really was. I mean, as a kid you don't quite understand the reality of the absolute mountain of gifts at Christmas when grandma and grandpa are on a fixed income. My dad was the executor of the estate when we found out that they owed something like $40k on 13 different cards and had already taken out a loan against their house and land to pay them down. I still remember the calls, and the calls, and more calls. The scummy creditors who tried to convince my dad that it was his responsibility, as the executor, to pay them even if it meant paying them out of his own pocket.  I remember some of his very...colorful...replies to that request.  It took months to straighten everything out and, in the end, they weren't able to save the house.

From all this, I can say that I probably got my saver personality from my maternal grandparents. There are quite a few skills that I wished I'd paid more attention to, but at least I have YouTube because my mom paid even less attention than I did. All in all, I'd say that I was very, very lucky to be able to (mostly) learn from watching my parents struggle. I think that my paternal grandparents situation is the one that had the most impact on me. I was 15 when it all went down, so it was still fresh on my mind when I went to college. Because of that, I resisted the credit card companies who were set up outside the university bookstore pushing free t-shirts and pizzas for filling out credit card apps.

At the end of college I fell into the trap of being married to a super-spender.  He had both a drug problem and a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses problem.  I left that marriage with between five and six thousand dollars worth of credit card debt with a foreclosure and a car repo on my credit report.  In what is now a funny side note, when I got the first draft of the divorce papers from his attorney my ex demanded that I cut him a check for "my half" of the credit card bills.  We had similar amounts on cards in each name.  No joint cards.  Seeing as how he had never dealt with the checking account or bills while we were married and wouldn't even know where to start to pay my credit cards, I not-so-politely turned down his "generous" offer.  I'll post about the shitstorm that was that time of my life soon.

After that, I moved back in with my parents.  I took a shit job and then quickly moved on to bartending.  That was about the time I decided that I had to get myself back into school.  I saved up and paid for my first two classes in cash.  Because I already had a degree, most of my general ed classes were already out of the way and there were only a handful of my new major classes that I had the pre-reqs for.  I tended bar at night and went to class in the mornings, paying as I went.

Eventually, I landed a co-op position that allowed me, nay required me, to go to school full-time and work 10-32 hours a week, depending on my school schedule.  They paid books and tuition.  That job transitioned to full-time a week after graduation.  That was 7 years ago.  I still owe them 2 more years for all the tuition they paid, but I mostly like my job so that's not a big deal.  It's also a great paying job for my area with fantastic benefits and one of the best retirement plans available.

I'm remarried with a kiddo now.  He's not fantastic with money, but understands that and lets me handle everything.  I like it that way.

Thrifty Thursday

I had intended to start doing a feature called Thrifty Thursday today to document my absolute love of all things thrift stores.  Seriously, anyone who knows me knows that I love some thrift store shopping.  I love everything about it.  The prices.  The thrill of the hunt.  The unique finds.  I really love the concept of giving new life to old things.  Now there are a few things that absolutely draw the line at.  I don't do matresses or cushioned furniture or anything else that could bring bedbugs into my house.  I also don't do socks or underwear (ewww).  There is a grey area for me and that area is shoes.  I don't like shoe shopping.  I've been wearing the same pair of work shoes for the last 15+ years and they need to be replaced.  Badly.  So, what's the big deal?

The deal is that they are Dr. Martens and they were on the expensive side when I bought them.  And in the last decade and a half, production of them has moved from England to Asia and with the move, the quality has reportedly gone down.  Now, some production has been moved back to England, but they are significantly more expensive.  What's a girl to do?

Enter Poshmark.  It's a site to buy and sell used clothes, shoes, and accessories.  I've had very good luck with sellers over the last couple of years, so I checked them out.  I hit the like button on several pairs that were my size, made in England, and listed for a price I could live with.  I even found a pair of the exact shoes I have.  Within an hour of my liking that pair, I got an offer from the seller.  She, or Poshmark on her behalf perhaps, offered $20 off and free shipping.  Yes, please.  Now hopefully I can get 15 more years out of this pair. 

Grocery shopping basics

We are a family of 3. Two adults and a bottomless pit of a 5 year-old. My goal is to average $2/person/meal. I shop every two weeks and plan about 10 dinners per shopping trip. Why 10? Because at least one, maybe two, of those planned meals will be something that I can double, triple, or quadruple and freeze. So, a few nights a week are either something out of the freezer or leftovers. Tonite is a freezer night.

The process starts by checking out what's on sale, specifically meat. I have a list of the various grocery stores in the area and what days their sales run. Most sales cycles around here run Wed-Tues, so I usually start at least thinking about my menu on the Wednesday a week before I pick up my order.

Once I have an idea what's on sale, I start building my menu. If there's something at a fantastic price I'll pick three or four meals with that and fill in the rest with other stuff. My family would riot if we ate chicken 14 straight days, so I do try to mix it up. I also buy a little extra when stuff is on sale so that I have a decent mix of things in the freezer. Speaking of the freezer, I do also like to keep that in mind when I'm picking out the menu so that I cycle through the stuff there. Also, since most of it was bought on sale, I'm cutting my per meal price down.

To organize things, I use an app called Pepperplate. It lets you collect and tag recipes and will build a shopping list for you. You can choose your own tags, but at minimum, I tag recipes with the kind of protein it has. That way if pork is on sale, I can quickly filter down to just the pork recipes. I can also create a calendar to plan which meals go on which days. I do schedule some meals, especially for meals that have ingredients that won't last two weeks in the fridge. I try to schedule those meals for earlier in the week. I also like to schedule time-intensive meals for weekends. It helps with the "what's for dinner" dilemma.

Now that the shopping list is built, check off the things that are already in your pantry, fridge, and/or freezer. There is no use buying something that you already have, unless it's something you use a lot and it's at a rock bottom price (I'll write a separate post about that later...I promise).

Next, I put everything that's left on the list into a Walmart shopping cart. This is my baseline price. Let me tell you, online grocery shopping is a game-changer. I save a ton of money just on not making impulse purchases. Do you have any idea how much less I spend just by virtue of not taking the husband and/ or kiddo into the store? Also, there's no more standing in one grocery store trying to remember if X is cheaper down the street. I can easily see if the Walmart regular price is more or less than the advertised price at the other stores. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Finally, I don't have to be that person standing in the aisle with a calculator trying to figure out what's the best deal (I've so been that person). And if I do go over budget, it's easy to look back over my cart to see what can go back without having to backtrack across the store.

But remember how we built our shopping list based on what was on sale? Now that the WM cart is full, I go back to that ad and see if it's really a good deal or not. If that item is still cheaper at the other store, and it's cheaper enough to make it worth it, I'll take it out of the WM cart and buy it at the other store. I'm not going to drive 15 miles out of my way to save 37 cents, but if it's a store I'm going to be passing anyway and I'd save $8 then I'll do it. This is also a good opportunity to check out all the other items in the ad. If there's something that's slightly cheaper than baseline go ahead and get it somewhere else, and take it out of your WM cart. For everything else, just pick it up.

I tend to not go to more than one other store a week unless it's just a smoking deal or it's something that we use a lot of. I've found that a lot of times, all the local stores will have the same basic things on sale at the same time, so it just depends on who has it cheaper and how far out of my way they are. As for this week, we're looking at pork loin roast and boneless country style ribs for under $2/lb and Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce for 99 cents (that's almost half the price of Walmart, y'all). I'm thinking we'll be doing some BBQ in the crockpot. for under $1/serving. That will leave plenty of room for veggies and starches, if you eat those, and still be under $2.

It was almost too pretty of a piece of meat to cut up...

Now's time to hit the sales items that might not necessarily be on your list.  I try to make it a game to see how close I can get to my allotted amount without going over.  This can be things that are on sale because of the sales cycle like ketchup just before Memorial Day or things that are nearing their sell-by date.  Today's find was a beautiful beef roast for just under $12, or $4.50/lb.  It's a little more than we would normally pay for meat, but it's a  fantastic price for stew meat.  To keep us under our $2 goal, we might use this for beef stew and only use a half pound per batch.  So, I took it home and chunked it up and froze it in a single layer.  Once it's frozen enough that it won't stick together, I'll throw it in a container that I can scoop it out of when i need it.

....Almost.  I'll get at least 4 and probably 5 meals out of this.

What are you doing this week to optimize the grocery bill?