...that I did not do last year:

[*]Keep a price book.
[*]Every two weeks, do a freezer and pantry inventory.
Plan meals around weekly specials. I make six meals a week, usually, one day being "Use up Leftovers".
[*]Or sometimes I will make one meal for six, something like a stew or a meal that tastes better the next day, and serve the remains the next day!
[*]Used only 2 tablespoons of liquid detergent for full laundry loads.
[*]I use a third of a laundry sheet for two dryer loads.
[*]Rely on a friend to e-mail me AcrossLite versions of the New York Times Friday and Saturday crosswords (savings: $13)
[*]Shop every now and then at the discount grocery outlet. Only for items we use frequently.
[*]I will buy a whole fish, especially fresh, and have the supermarket folk fillet it for me for free. I put 10 - 12 oz of fish into a plastic freezer bag. I divide bulk meal purchases by threes.
[*]Used a friend/acquaintance to buy Microsoft Office 2010 Ultimate. $200 savings.
[*]I refinanced my mortgage last year, so this year I saved just over $1000 on interest alone. $1465 monthly payment in July 2011, $1346 monthly payment in October 2012.
[*]My local county transit organization has mailed me eight bus tickets, one week after the downtown ride-free area was eradicated. $20 saved.
Use the boy's 6% APR savings account for stashing up to $200. He doesn't mind: more interest for him.
[*]I use a Target RedCard.
[*]Found a hairstylist whose rates are 60% of what I got used to paying for me and the boy. $150 savings
[*]Heat water for tea in a microwave instead of using the gas range.
[*]Ground beef was recently recalled, which may be why I do not see it much on sale. Right now, pork is on sale. So I may buy some pork. When chicken, whole, is on sale, I buy that. The further down the food chain I go, the less processing goes into making the food, the less it costs and often the food is better for me and the planet. I still love beef though.
[*]Meat takes up 25 - 33% of the plate, the rest vegetables.


Factors Conspiring Against Me
[*]GEICO insurance. Never mind the discounts for safe driving, age and multiple policies: GEICO's premiums go up every year.
[*]Petrol/automotive fuel prices. I am sure I need not say more.
[*]Money Market account and Certificates of Deposit interest rates downgraded by 0.05%
[*]Comcast Business Internet went up $2.40 a month. Yes, we need it: real work goes on in the house. The commute time is twenty-five seconds.
[*]Old cars still cost a lot to run when you have to replace the parts. General Motors does not count on anyone keeping its cars beyond fifteen years. Next time I will buy a vehicle made by a manufacturer whose cars are old enough to vote.

Tips I Wish Other People in My Household Would Use
[*]It is not rocket science to make pancake mix at home. We HAVE maple syrup.

http://beingfrugal.net/frugal-breakfast-from-scratch/ - Homemade pancake recipe from beingfrugal.net
[*]Make a lunch or bring some flavoured oatmeal mix with you to work. I used to do this and went to the kitchen area to get a bowl and hot water and voila! Breakfast without shelling out $5.
[*]Cold cereals are costlier and less nutritious than oatmeal.

Mind Hacks
These do not actually save me money. They alter my perspective and reframe my thinking.
[*]Keep a large jar by your door, when you get home from work, drop all of your change into the jar, empty your pocket book and pockets of change into the jar.
[*]I have found a pay-what-you-can coffeehouse. I do not go very frequently now, every five weeks or so, but rarely do I pay full price for a cappuccino.
Just take your credit card (or loyalty card, or gift card), place it on your paper at an angle, and tear along the edge for a perfectly straight tear. Easy, clean, and quick. Works when I do not have scissors around.

And lo! No mention of cutting cable, ditching a landline, or forgoing gym memberships, going from two cars to one, or easy-peasy baby-la-la budget alterations.

I must have done well at not eating out this month because I fantasized this afternoon about fish'n'chips and tacos, none of which is a mainstay menu item at my house. We used to go out for fish'n'chips when the English lived with us (my stepfather and his mother, from Liverpool).

Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner paperback died in the car. I braked, my purse and its contents plummeted to the floor, the paperback in several pieces. I relied on it a lot! It had nutritional data: protein, carbohydrates, fat, and suggested side dishes, and weekly menus that always included one vegetarian dish, and some slow-cooker recipes. I need the more durable spiral-bound edition. My Canadian cookbooks are decades old and still in use because they are spiral bound. Tangentially, I notice every Canadian cookbook I have has a recipe for butter tarts and for Yorkshire pudding, except for my ultra-regional Vancouver cookbooks.

We did eat out for lunch twice: once because my spouse earned a leisurely lunch through enduring enough stress that he felt entitled to one at our favourite cafe; another because our friend from British Columbia was visiting. And we ate Chinese food takeout from the supermarket: got two meals each for two people out of $20, and that time earlier at Billie On Burgers.

We ARE going out for my son's birthday next Friday. And I have enough food in the freezer and pantry now to last at least a week.

Outfitting boy for his field studies is DONE, with an exception of a 2 ounce bottle of Dr. Bronner liquid soap for his toiletry! I thank JC Penney for coming through with flannel jammies and bathrobe for less than a third of what I would have paid at Land's End.

Serendipity: $15 haircut for boy today in an instant walk-in, instead of $25 at the hipster two-hour-wait-on-Sundays barbershop my husband likes to go to (truth: my husband gets buzzcuts for about $15). So that is $46 saved from haircuts this month.

Food was probably around $700. Gas only $55 for the month (including scooter). Coffee we cheated, probably $46 instead of $40.

Car Fund: $278 less than August 18 balance
Stocks: up $150 from September 1
Debt: down $916.43 from September 1


I need a challenge for October.

Yesterday I made a freezer inventory, a list of entrees for this week, and needed ingredients, plus a list of items we are low on.

Early this morning the beau and I went shopping. Today is Mayor's Day of Concern, when food bank drives dominate most supermarkets, even the ones just outside our city. We bought 80% of what was on my list, three impulse buys of salami, cheese, and olive oil. $111.43 prior to the box of oatmeal for the food drive. Most of it was vegetables: I plan for a lot of juices, soups and salads this week. What was nice: the checker was patient while my beau scouted for a food bank item, and she deducted the cost of the five bags we brought (25 cents) even though we used three.

We cheated on the coffee budget and had espresso at the supermarket. I wanted to spend less than $100, but that wasn't going to happen with the impulse items.

The bulk Spike (seasoning salt) went up in cost from $11.49 to $17.69 a pound. Yikes!

Then I started early on Christmas presents shopping, and bought a CD for myself, which I hardly ever do. I did in this case because I would like the artist, who won a music award in the UK, to see royalties, and from what I heard on our local listener-powered station, the cuts on this album are more cosmic and less melancholic. The boy received a MAD Magazine. Who doesn't love MAD?

Also bought weedblock fabric pegs and mulch/bark cover. Did not take as much time as I thought to spread.

Went to the corner supermarket to see what they had for coconut oil and apple cider vinegar, but was distracted by chips on special, and yet another group collecting food for food banks. Bought two cans of vegetables to donate, and kept chips for myself.

So that is about nine days' worth of dinners in the freezer and pantry and refrigerator. I do not normally purchase groceries in excess of $100 anywhere but Costco, but at this rate, I only drive for groceries once a week.

I made chicken stock last night: not the big 36-hour production Sally Fallon does, but the quickie 90-minute version neighbour Cynthia Lair makes. Another use for those jars is to freeze and store the stock. I like the stock for quinoa and rice. I kept the chicken shreds for lunches.

We also visited the university surplus store at lunch and sprung for some desk chairs. I was using one of those folding chairs used for public meetings for typing little mental mastications (bet you thought 'urb' would be there instead if 'ic') like this. Another wooden folding chair seems chewed at one of the joints, so getting a slightly stained foam cushion high-backed triple-levered office chair for $15 seems like a real bargain. DH took a red one with armrests for $25. They were released into general sale on Monday, the store opens only on Tuesdays: office chairs go fast at the surplus store, as ours were the fifth and sixth chair to be sold within a half-hour.

Neighbour gave us Italian prunes. I am tempted to try a prune spice cake and offer him a few slices.

I have several 16-ounce clean jars that used to contain coconut oil. I learned I can screw the top of one of those jars onto the black container cushion. So I placed the gasket, then the blender blade, on the container cushion, and put my smoothie ingredients in the 16 ounce jar, enough for one serving. Then, yes, screwed the container cushion onto the jar top, turned the whole thing over, put it on top of the blender, and plugged in.

100% Success without the Mess!

I also like to use those jars for storing seeds, nuts and grains.

What I will try next, now that the temperature is getting colder, is use one ice cube tray to freeze buttermilk, so we can have pancakes, blueberry muffins and other baked goods in the winter.

I am slowly starting on tidying up the house. I am supposed to call the agent in three weeks and start looking for rentals, but all I want to do is dump out the ugly furniture, put the rest in storage, and be like Eloise in some ExtendedStay America place until the house sells. Maybe I will go relearn what a contingency loan is. My son's best friend is moving to one of the islands. We would not go to an island: still considering somewhere just directly north of Seattle, or maybe even just north of the lake if my husband goes back to a large aerospace company. I like Bellingham but I may be the only one.

$256.97 spent on groceries and meals/treats out this month so far. Half of the groceries were purchased at a Big Box warehouse store as mentioned: pantry items like canned tomato products, quinoa, brown rice, sugar. We buy a lot of fruit, apparently, as I need to refill our fruit bowl every five days. Sadly, we saved on average 23% per purchase too. So keeping a price book, planning meals, using coupons, making inventory lists of pantry, refrigerator and freezer still are not sufficient in helping me meet my goal to bring food spending down. Without the eating out, the grocery spending is $198. But we are still $5.00 away from meeting our $40/month coffee quota!

I also bought a cheap bottle of Riesling for poaching trout, used a cup of it and then brought it to book club, where it found several good gullets to go to. For fellow book nerds, we discussed _Anna Karenina_.

We bought Guinness Stout cans at 75% discount, to be used in some

FANTASTIC beer bread.

DS goes on a three-day outing to Olympic National Park in November. I must find the handout he brought home and check his wardrobe for needed items, then budget for them.

DH's grandmother died last night but as we were over there last month, when she was confined to her room and unable to recognize her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, we get a pass on returning, especially as there is no service, only one of us could go during the school year (obviously the husband) and she was cremated hours after the death certificate was signed. I nudged my husband into sending flowers to his parents, in sympathy.

I don't know that there is a lot of grief left in the in-law household: two septuagenarians, one working full-time, the other recovering from knee surgery, spending shifts at her bedside, getting little sleep. They got to go together for coffee once the body was carted away, something they used to do daily before the lengthy languishment, and that they did once while we were there. But now they can rest and sleep and order danishes and nonfat lattes.

I need a new pair of walking shoes that do not crush nor fracture my toes. Also in need of replacement: our chairs -- I can get a desk chair for $10-$25 at the university surplus store. In the meantime, I shave off my VISA balance.

$30 school supplies for boy
$37.10 Safeway (saved $13 through coupons)
$55.85 electricity bill
$3.00 shell account

Annual insurance for motorcycle, plus license tabs taken care of. Also Signature Visa card thankfully paid five days before the due date. I learned that if I do not use the return envelope Bank of America sends me, my payment can be delayed, even though I print the correct address in a highly readable typeface at 11 point or larger size on a properly stamped #10 envelope.

Now only $703.56 left on the credit union VISA, and $61 on the Signature Visa, and $120.83 on Target RedCard. Apparently my husband uses our credit union for PayPal on occasion, and as PayPal monitors credit card usage, its algorithm-controlled PC decided that the spate of charges for our vacation expenses was reason enough to suspend my husband's account. He should have used the Signature Visa, I agree, as we use that once every two years. So don't go on vacation on the credit card you have linked to PayPal, because OMG! Gas Fillup! Fraud!

Payment for boy's teeth extraction went through. I have about $210 remaining until Friday.

Giving us $40 a month coffee budget. This includes beans we buy for personal use, as well as replenishment of coffee card, and tips. That is for two people. I would like to cut down a bit, so I can afford a Virtual Private Network that can give me a Canadian IP address.

Learning (or rather re-learning) statistics. Scores for end-of-year statewide student testing released, but individual scores not. I have told boy that if he scores outside one standard deviation for both reading and math, he can have dinner at his favourite pizza place.

First, to inaugurate my new category, I saved forty cents (not .40 cents, that is hundredths of a cent, not hundredths of a dollar) a gallon at a Safeway gas station. As this is the second consecutive time I have mentioned the supermarket chain you could suspect I am paid to blog about it. Not true. If I did not have my price book I would not notice the savings, and there are many items I prefer to buy at Target, due to location and price.

I don't deny I am addicted to petrol. I looked at my 2012 Savings page and saw that in April we spent $120+ on gas refuels. That is 750 miles.

About coffee: I know I am an addict. I have a Turkish coffee set, Turkish coffee, Canadian coffee (not a type but a product name under the Murchie's brand), 5-lb whole bean bag from Costco, Folger's for emergency situations (no electric power for grinding the beans). I have a reloadable card from a cafe 1.5 miles away. My niece said I am a junkie. But I have limits. I would rather go through caffeine withdrawal than pay for Farmer Brothers coffee, even at five cents a cup as Wall Drug advertises.

But making coffee, tea, yerba mate a budget line item makes our consumption visible, and we can then (attempt to) cut down on purchases, maybe even consumption. I miss affording clothes.

I will budget September, including all those back-to-school expenses and Vitamin D3, sweaters, socks, gloves and hats, Christmas gifts.