Guest Post: Quick Tips for Saving Money on Groceries and Eating Out

I chose to take a few years off after earning my undergraduate degree before I returned to graduate school. I needed time away from school and to decide exactly which field I wanted to pursue. During my time away from school, I grew used to a higher standard of living. As a graduate student, my income is about 50% of what I made a year ago. In order to accommodate this drastic reduction of income I had to made serious changes to spending habits. I have really cut back on the amount of money that I spend eating out and at the grocery store.

In order to save money on eating out, I
• Eat out less often.
• Don’t order a drink.
• Order an appetizer or side.
• Split an entrée with a friend.
• Use coupons from the back of grocery receipts, the Entertainment book, or the internet.

In order to save money at the grocery store, I
• Check out the sale flyer before I go to the store.
• Create a list and stick to it.
• Avoid buying processed foods.
• Buy in season produce.
• Eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

I’m still trying to reduce my food budget, but these are a few things that have helped me decrease my monthly grocery spending to about $200. I’m trying to get it down to $150 in the next few months.


Thanks to Saving Diva @ Saving to Pay Down My Home for this guest post. I'll be back soon. MDT and I just arrived in St. Louis Friday, and we're still unpacking and reorganizing like mad. We just got internet this evening. Whew!

Guest Post: Stretching Your Travel Dollars

Image via Wikipedia

Thanks to Shai at Converting a Spendthrift for the following frugal travel tips:

I travel a lot for work. You would think a humble researcher like myself would just live in her musty cubicle, but I don’t. Fortunately and unfortunately, I attend conferences, conduct site visits, make and attend presentations, moderate and facilitate at roundtables, and more. I receive a per diem to cover my expenses while I am on the road and have learned to stretch these dollars as far as possible. I know most people don’t get paid to travel, but the same principles apply.

Do Your Research
Research activities to do in your destination. Do a web search for “cheap and easy things to do in [fill in your destination].” Finding cheaper alternatives to the popular attractions will trim money from your budget.

Packing your bags
Before you even leave the house, the first thing you should do is pack light. You do not want to check multiple bags especially as the price often climbs exponentially after the first bag.

Second, if you know you will be purchasing souvenirs (more on this later) then leave room from the beginning. The thing you want to avoid the most is having to pay overweight bag fees (sometimes up to $300 a bag!). Weigh your bags before you leave home, adding a few pounds for souvenirs, to make sure your bags won’t incur overweight fees.

Airports: Prepare for Delays
If you are in the airport and become delayed (weather, mechanical, personnel – this happened to me once; my flight didn’t have a flight crew and we had to wait for a crew to come from three hours away) for any reason, you are frankly screwed. You could even be kept waiting all night, and we all know how much airport food costs. Here are some types of snacks you might want to keep with you when traveling:

1. Salty – any type of nut falls in this category
2. Sweet – snack cakes, fresh or dried fruit, applesauce
3. Crunchy – crackers, chips (banana chips travel really well), pretzels
4. Sour – pickles
5. Savory – what is your personal flavor?
6. Meaty – jerky, anyone?
7. Healthier – energy bars and cereal bars work well here. Besides they travel the best of anything.
8. Peanut butter (the best travel food ever, great on apples or crackers)

If you come prepared, you can stay away from the food courts and reduce how much you spend when the urge to eat descends. I have seen plenty of people carrying sandwiches and fruit but even more people have nothing with them. My old boss was one of these people; she would rather pay seven dollars for a sandwich than take five minutes to make several at home. My new co-worker seems to be the same way. When we went to Albuquerque she used almost all of her per diem; I had enough left to take the kids out to dinner and hit up the library sale. Also, if you bring your snacks with you, that will leave you something to snack on for the rest of your trip. I eat my snacks the entire trip; leaving me more time to sight see and less money spent than my initial investment.

All liquids must be purchased in the airport.
I suggest you buy Crystal Light On the Go packs or similar products that can be added to a bottle of water. Reusing your water bottle or bringing your own reusable bottle that can be filled from fountains or at the food court will keep you from making multiple drink purchases.

Other costly things to avoid in the airport:

1. Paying for internet access: Go to Travel Post to find out which airports offer free Wi-Fi access.
2. Purchasing single-use movies: Don’t fall in this trap. If traveling with kids pack a deck of cards and a movie. If you have Netflix or other subscription movie services this is the perfect time to watch one.
3. Books & magazines: Purchase books from the dollar store or take library books (I always fear leaving these behind, so I am extra careful.)

Travel from airport to hotel and around the city

1. Car rentals vs. Hotel Shuttles: If you plan on renting a car, don’t just yet. Instead, call the hotel ahead of time to find out if they offer shuttle service! Knowing this would have saved me at least $75 or more in cab fees in the past. Now this is one of the first things I ask of a hotel: “How extensive are your shuttle services?” Some shuttles will only go between the hotel and airport, but I have tipped a driver who has taken me on several detours to a supermarket, a museum, and elsewhere. Other drivers, however, will only make a pre-determined loop through the city.
   
   If you must rent a car, your hotel might be able to get you a discount. Several of the hotels I have stayed in offer a discount if you rent a car through them. Ask ahead of time if the hotel can shave a few dollars off your car rental in a package deal.
   
   
2. Taxis: Find out the meter rate for taxis in the city you are visiting, plus what they charge for extra passengers and baggage and wait times. Never trust the cab driver to have the quickest route, some (NOT all) are unethical and will try to take you the long way. I was once taken on a $27 dollar cab ride; the return ride was $12.
   
   
3. Buses and Trains: Find out the scope and breadth of public transportation in the city where you are going and use it. Get a map, and don’t be afraid to ask the bus driver to let you know when your stop is coming up.
   

Cheap Eats
The biggest travel expense, besides airfare and accommodations, is usually food. To save money, you’ll need to modify the way you eat. My peers on these trips (whether they are federal employees, contractors, consultants, trainees and co-workers) love to eat heavy meals all day. They want to go out for a sit-down breakfast when the hotel we are staying in has a perfectly decent continental breakfast. Why waste ten to twelve dollars when you can eat for free and save time too?

When you book your hotel, ask whether breakfast in included. If so, take advantage of it. Eat before you leave and grab an extra yogurt, muffin, or piece of fruit to stash for a midday snack. Have a heavy late, late lunch or eat lunch in your room using your handy dandy peanut butter and a bagel you grabbed from the hotel breakfast. Then have a light dinner or eat off the appetizer menu or make a sandwich using the food stuffs you brought with you or purchased at a market along the way.

If you are going to eat out, search for coupons for local restaurants. Go to Restaurant.com and purchase discount gift certificates that you can use for yourself—but only do this if you know for sure that you want to go to that specific restaurant. My advice, however, is it avoid restaurants all together by purchasing your meals from a nearby supermarket or farmer’s market. Before you leave home, go to YellowPages.com enter the zip code of where you will be staying and search for markets and food vendors and plot them on your map, so you’ll be prepared when you’re out and about.

Shopping
Everyone always recommends places for you to shop when you go on vacation. But remember, shopping is not entertainment! You shop to buy things you need. This is not to say you can’t go shopping on vacation; just be aware of what you’re buying. If you like having souvenirs, have a pre set amount of money that you will spend on them. I ask my children to pick one item they would like (t-shirt, baseball cap, poster, etc.) If you’re buying gifts, assign a monetary value for each person or a total of what you will spend. Think of your purchases beforehand. I bought my in-laws food produced in the local area. This is more thoughtful than just another item stamped with a city name, I believe.

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If you have never watched your money while traveling or always end up spending more than you expected, the tips in this post are a great starter tool for travel budgeting. Happy trails!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Travel To Hawaii On Limited Budget (theinnatwildwood.com)
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Adventures in Cake, Installment One

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being poor. There are two ways to fix that, the one we spend most of our time on here at TAiMH is how to save, find deals, and just generally spend less money. The other side of that coin is making more money. If you, like me, have found yourself in a situation where a new, better-paying job is not on the horizon and the chances of a raise are almost nonexistent, increasing your income seems impossible.

Second jobs can be a life saver; they can also be a life sucker. Minimum wage for ten to twenty hours a week can ruin your social life even as it barely helps you squeak by. What’s a nearly broke person to do? This one decided to start a small business.

The second step after deciding that I was up for the small business challenge was determining what goods or services I could provide to my community, be it actual or virtual. The most important aspect of this decision was whether or not I felt I could make a profit. If I’m not going to make a profit, it’s just another hobby. So I looked at my life, what kinds of things did I do for free that other people get paid for? In my case it was baking. I make cakes and bring them to my office or to parties; just about anywhere I go I take a cake, or cupcakes, or brownies, or cheesecakes. . . . Other people get paid to bake, why shouldn’t I? This wasn’t too much of a stretch for me--my mother baked cakes out of our home for my entire childhood. And yes, it was a wonderland.

After figuring out what I wanted to do, I needed to come up with the numbers to prove to myself that it could really work. Lucky for me I already have quite a few of the supplies that I need, so that helps reduce my initial costs. The less it takes to start making money, the lower your risk.

Check back soon for more Adventures in Cake and we’ll see how far down the road to business ownership I've traveled.

Update: Thanks to Financial Highway for including this post in The Carnival of Twenty-Something Finance.

Groupon How I love Thee

What is a Groupon you ask? Essentially it is a coupon, a deal, a steal, a magic cheese wheel. Companies approach the website (http://editorial.thepoint.com/) with a proposition that goes something like this, “If you guys can get 20 people to sign up to get LlamaRides©, we’ll give them 60% off.” Then the website puts this amazing opportunity up and waits to see if there are 20 people interested in riding llamas. Here’s the catch, if only 19 people sign up for the Groupon, the deal is cancelled, no one is charged anything, but they also don’t get their quality time with a member of the Camelidae family.

Unfortunately Groupon is only catering to Chicago, Boston, and New York. But if you live in one of these cities (and probably others soon, the Boston site has only been operating since mid-March) there are some opportunities to get awesome deals on activities and services you use anyway.

I find there are great ways to treat myself without breaking my budget. A haircut and mani-pedi for 70% off at a shi-shi salon? Comes out to about what I’d normally be willing to pay for just a cut at the place in the strip mall. I’m not paying more, but I’m vastly increasing the quality of services that I’m getting. Now, 40% off radial tires? Not my thing, but if you need radial tires I bet you’d be stoked.

As always don’t get caught up in the deal. Just because something is cheap that doesn’t mean you need it. If, however, you need it and it’s cheap then you’re golden. Happy saving!

Reviews: Online Money Mgmt Tools: Mint, Quicken, and Rudder

A couple weeks ago I reviewed Mint.com, but I've recently been trying out two other free online money management tools, Rudder and Quicken.

Here's the rundown:


Speed
Of the three sites, Rudder loads and updates the quickest, and it's also the fastest at adding new accounts. (Mint is the slowest--it's kind of a pain.)

Account support
As I mentioned in my review of Mint, I can't for the life of me add my Dollar Savings account, even though their support team says it's been fixed. It must be something with the DS login system because Quicken doesn't support it either. Rudder technically does support it, much like Mint, and it even found and added my account. The problem? None of the info loads. Obviously, not very helpful.

As for types of accounts supported, Mint still comes out on top. Mint and Quicken both support various types of bank accounts, credit cards, and even PayPal! Very cool. But Mint is the only one that supports my Nelnet student loans. Rudder again, falls short as it only supports bank and credit card accounts. I did manage to add my Nelnet account, but it shows up all wacky because Rudder categorizes it as a credit card.

Interface
Rudder's interface is the least intuitive, and incidentally, the least functional. It offers no budgeting capabilities, which is my favorite thing about Mint. Quicken has good budgeting features, but they don't display as nicely as Mint--you can't see all your categories at the same time. Also, the Trends section of Quicken seems to be off--at least in my case, the graphs are highly inaccurate.

My verdict: I'm sticking with Mint, at least for now. It's definitely the most functional. And I like the interface a lot more than Quicken.

Review: Mint.com, free online personal finance service

If you haven’t heard of it yet, Mint.com is a free, online personal finance service (and according to their "About" page, “#1 in America”) that organizes all your bank accounts, loans, and investments—including retirement plans, brokerage accounts, vehicles, and real estate—in a place where you can view them all together. You can’t actually conduct transactions through Mint, but it allows you to use one login to view all the transactions, balances, etc. of all your accounts and to categorize your transactions for budgeting purposes. It can make organizing your tax deductions a hell of a lot easier, too, since you can tag your transactions as tax-related so that when you’re ready to file, you can easily find and list them all. And did I mention it’s totally free (and without any annoying ads or pop-ups)? I’ve been using it since November, and for the most part, I’m a fan.

Services
The most valuable service Mint offers is its highly visual budgeting features. It’s quick and easy to set up your own categories and specify spending limits for each category. Once you’ve done that (providing you do a good job of categorizing your transactions), Mint creates a bar graph of your spending for each month and even a date marker so you can see how much of your budget you’ve spent proportional to the time length of the budget. I find this very helpful in preventing the easy trap of overspending early in the month that leaves you without enough budget to get through the rest of the month. If you want, you can also have Mint send you alerts when, for example, you’ve gone over budget, your credit card bill is due, or one of your accounts has a low balance.

There’s also a Flash-powered pie chart you can view under the “Trends” tab that shows how much you’ve spent in each category (even in ones you didn’t list in your budget) relative to the total amount you’ve spent. This is a helpful feature, but it can be misleading because it doesn’t account for returns, refunds, or other income that specifically offsets your spending in a certain area. I’ll talk more about this towards the end of the article.

How can it be free?
Mint makes its money from referrals to banks, investments brokers, and credit card companies through the “Your Ways to Save” bar, which is unobtrusively placed at the bottom of the overview screen. If you’re interested, click on it and see what kind of deals Mint is advocating; they only suggest accounts that are “better” than your current accounts of that type in interest rate, cash rewards, etc. Of course, if you’ve already done your homework and gotten accounts with the best deals for you¹, Mint’s sponsored suggestions might not offer much improvement. Personally, I check the suggestions every once in a while, just in case they’ve found something I haven’t, but for the most part I ignore them.

Room for Improvement
I only have a few complaints about Mint’s services. First and most importantly, there are a few banks/investment companies they don’t connect with. They’re constantly adding connectivity, so hopefully this won’t be a problem for much longer, but at the moment it’s quite frustrating. I have my savings account with Dollar Savings Direct, and while Mint has recently added a link and form with which to add accounts from that bank, the link doesn’t work. (The error seems to have something to do with the way the Dollar Savings login page works, which is fairly complicated.) Not being able to add one of your accounts to Mint really screws up its functionality because you’re missing a big part of the equation.

There are two other malfunctions on Mint that are troubling as well. One is that, in my experience at least, sometimes the category labels you attach to individual transactions revert to default. I don’t know why this happens, and it doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s definitely aggravating. The second is that there seems to be a fairly sizable delay in the display of transactions; transactions will show up on the online banking pages of my account institutions as much as two days before they show up on my Mint page.

This last complaint is more of a suggestion for added functionality than a gripe about existing malfunctions. As I mentioned earlier, several factors can throw off the pie chart, including returns and refunds. This problem could be solved easily by offering an option to factor in categorized “income” (or have it done automatically). It would also be nice to have an option to view a pie chart of average monthly spending by category and to be able to view or exclude selected categories from the mix.



[1] See the specific suggestions and how-to’s for each type of account on TiredofBeingPoor.net