Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

3 Ways to Save at the Grocery Store

By 7 Comments

Are you shocked by the recent high price of groceries?  Have you noticed a jump in your grocery bill?  I have noticed a jump of about $20 a week that I am paying now for the same groceries I used to buy for much less.  Unfortunately, I am not much of a coupon diva, and I don’t see myself suddenly becoming one.

Regardless if you use coupons or not, there are ways to put the brakes on increased spending at the grocery store:

1.)     Once a week, consider having breakfast for dinner.  Eggs average out to .10 to .15 a piece.  If you have 5 in your family as I do and serve every one 2 eggs, you are looking at $1.00 to $1.50 for the main meal component.  Round it out with some toast and fruit and you have a light, frugal dinner.  Or, consider serving French toast or pancakes.  Quiche and breakfast casseroles also will work.  My kids love getting breakfast for dinner, and lately we have been doing this once a week to try to curb our grocery costs.

2.)    Have one meatless meal a week.  Meat often is very pricey.  Omit it for one meal and save yourself that expense.  You could try beans and rice, tuna noodle casserole, vegetable fajitas, spaghetti, pasta primavera, etc.

3.)    Buy produce when it is on sale and freeze it.  We love red peppers but often can’t afford them.  When I found them on sale for $1.00 a pound, I bought 10 of them and chopped them up and froze almost all of them.  Throughout the winter I pulled them out to use in stir-fries.  We have successfully done the same with bananas for smoothies (chop up, sprinkle with lemon juice and freeze individually on a pan and then place all of them on a freezer bag), green peppers, strawberries and blueberries.

With the recent high prices of both groceries and gas, many families are feeling the pinch as more money leaves their hands.  If you use coupons, you will see increased savings, but even if you don’t coupon, try implementing some of these strategies to lessen the pain you may be feeling at the grocery store.

Renting or Buying a Home?

By 11 Comments

Which is the better way to go? There are several arguments for both sides with people arguing that the added costs of homeowner-ship making renting the more expensive or that rent paid is money lost that could have been going towards building equity in your home. I’m on the homeowner side of things. We own our home. And, we do have a mortgage.

There are several reasons that we own a home.  One of the biggest is cost.  Our mortgage, taxes, PMI, and insurance all come to only about $500 a month.  To rent a home of equal size, in our area, would cost at least $650, if not more.  It’s more cost effective for us to own, if you only take that into account.  There are added costs to owning a home.  Repairs and maintenance are an added cost that is unavoidable, but I look at it as another investment into the place I live.  And, many of the improvements that we’ve done (see kitchen for instance) would have never been done had the house been a rental, and they’ve greatly improved the livability of the house. When it comes down to it, buying a home just makes sense.

I can clearly see the argument, in some parts of the country (and world) for renting over buying.  I can also see situations where renting is just the smarter thing to do.  But, for most, I just don’t see how it can work out in your favor.  Why put money into someone elses pockets, when you could be putting it into yours?  Even if your house doesn’t appreciate in value at all (or, even depreciates) you’ll still be left with something of some value when you’re done with it.  Over those same 15-30 years of renting, what will you have?  Nothing but a good renter history.

The mathematics of the rent vs. buying can get a bit complicated when people start talking about lost gains on investments and throw in interest, appreciation/depreciation, and the like.  I found this cool calculator that does most of that for you.  Hit the deluxe tab to really throw in a ton of variables.  If you’re a homeowner, punch in your numbers and see if it is worth it for you to buy or to rent.  I put our numbers in (that’s them in the picture), and, as I suspected, it’s better for us to buy vs. rent.  I have played a bit with it, and I think it’s a bit skewed towards buying vs renting, but not so much so that it makes it not fairly accurate.

I think another good thing that the calculator does, is give you a better idea of what the different variables can do to the situation.  Try playing with the appreciation numbers, or the return on investment number, or the length of mortgage, and see what that does to your situation.

Where are you on the rent vs. buy spectrum?  Do you own?  Why, or, why not?

Early Morning Reality Check

By 13 Comments

Early yesterday morning, I awoke to my wife jumping out of bed.  “Do you smell smoke?” She asked.  Let me tell you, there are few things that will pull you out of that just woke up groggy state than a question like that.  And, sure enough, I did.  A quick check told me that there was no visible fire or smoke in the upstairs portion of our house.  It wasn’t clear what the source of the smell was.  I quickly ran downstairs to check the rest of the house, fully expecting to find a smoldering spot somewhere.  Nothing.  Down to the basement.  Nothing.  Back upstairs.  Still nothing, but the smell is still there.  I went from room to room, floor to floor, sniffing the air trying to pinpoint where the smell was strongest.  The good news was that it wasn’t getting any stronger, but I still didn’t have  source for it. The only thing that I can find is that the furnace doesn’t seem to be working.

By this point, my wife has gotten the kids up, and is working on getting them dressed just in case we have to make a hasty exit from the house.  There isn’t any immediate danger, I don’t think, but you just never know.  It just so happens that a close friend is a member of the rural fire department here.  We’re in the city fire department district, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, so we called him for some quick advice.  I quickly fill him in, and he suggests that I call the city fire department and have them come check the house for carbon monoxide and also do a hotspot check with their thermal imager.  I certainly didn’t have to be told twice, so that’s exactly what I did.

A couple firefighters show up, give the house a quick once over and come to the same conclusion that I have.  The furnace has gone out.  And, for some reason, has filled the house with the smell that we awoke to.  They can find no hot spots, and the CO tester is not indicating any CO threat.  We cut the power to the furnace, and everyone agrees that there is no immediate threat.  We can go about our business.  Well, with the exception of calling the furnace repair folks in to figure out what’s wrong with the furnace.  Some of you might not think it’s a big deal, but we still haven’t seen 30 degrees in March.  The nightly lows are in the single digits.  In just the short time that the furnace has been out, the temperature in the house has dropped 10 degrees.

Gas Furnace Blower Motor -- IMG_9823I called the furnace repair company, and, to my surprise, they sent one out right away.  Luckily, I caught the guy as he was headed out the door for a call, so he could easily be rerouted to our house.  A couple hours later, and we had a working furnace again.  Turns out, the blower motor that pushes the air through the ductwork and into the house had stopped working.  It lost its bearings.  Literally.  The result was that it started to leak some lubricant oil and actually melted some of the electrical work in its housing which is what made the stink.  The company bills for the repair, so we only have an estimate as to what the cost of the repair will be.  The repairman thinks less than $200.

We’re lucky.  We’re lucky, because our house didn’t catch fire.  We’re lucky, because we aren’t trying to figure out how we can live out of a motel room until our fire damaged house can be repaired, or, worse, until we can find a new house to replace our destroyed house.  We’re lucky, because we aren’t trying to figure out how we’ll replace any of our belongings.  We’re lucky, because we’re safe.

But, to a lesser degree, we’re lucky, because we can afford the repair.  It wasn’t that long ago that an unexpected bill for $200 would have had us wondering if we were going to have to choose bills to go unpaid.  But, we took control of our finances.  We’ve got a long way to go, but, a $200 emergency doesn’t mean that a bill goes unpaid.  And, that makes us feel safe too.

photo credit: stevendepolo