Category Archives: Frugality

Frugal Activities

Frugal Ways to Save on Shower Costs

by

I use to live my life unaware of hidden costs such as those that exists when taking a shower or using other bathroom facilities.  I would like to say that I was naive and just considered them fixed costs… but that would be a lie.  I really just chose never to think about the cost associated with anything in the bathroom.

Since I grew up with these fixtures, I just thought that the cost associated with bathroom activities (like taking a shower) were extremely low and not worth considering.  However, being a self-proclaimed “Green Frugal Blogger“, I now have to take in consideration of such costs and patch them up like I would a hole in a bicycle inter-tube.

An Estimate of the Costs

Current Shower Costs

There was no easy way to calculate this number quickly, so I wisely choose to google “average shower cost“, and use a great calculator at the “Pay to Live Green” website.

After entering my numbers into the calculator based on our current consumption, and I came up with a following costs estimate:

Duration: Costs:
Day $1.77
Month $53.21
Year $647.42

These above figures are based on a total shower time of 50 minutes a day for my family of four.

Past Shower Costs

My wife and I didn’t always take the quick 10 to 15 minute showers.  Once I timed her showers and they were averaging 30+ minutes, and mine were at least 20 minutes (shower time was a great time for us to get lost in thought).

So using the same calculator that I used above and a shower time of 90 minutes, the following numbers was our old cost:

Duration: Costs:
Day $3.19
Month $95.78
Year $1,165.36

A significant increase in costs, obviously…

Frugal Ways to Save on Shower Cost

The following are some of the ways that I now save on shower cost in addition to taking shorter showers:

  • In the summer months, I take a Navy Shower
  • Since I telecommute some days, I try to skip a shower on those days.
  • Stagger my shower time with my wife.  The idea being that it won’t take as long to heat the water tank when the take if half full.
  • Have the kids shower ever other day or even a longer interval.
  • Keep my hair and the kid’s hair cut short so shampoo time is short too.
  • Take the TV/radio out of the shower (just kidding)…
  • Take showers at the gym or work (if one is provided) instead of at home.

Sometimes a long shower is worth it!

Have a hard day at work, or just went thought a grueling physical workout session or something bad happen during your day?  Feel free to take a “longer than 10 minute” shower that one time!  Sometimes, a long shower is a luxury worth taking!  Just try not to make it a habit…

-MR

Did you like this Article?  Then please subscribe to my RSS feed so you can check out new articles when they become available.  You will help this blog grow by doing so.  Thanks!


Telecommuting Benefits

by

Telecommuting benefits both the employee and the employer, it’s the perfect win-win situation if both parties do it correctly!  I decided to write about my experiences with telecommuting and the benefits there within.

I’m going to start out with employee benefits, because this the area I know the most about.  Since I telecommute a few days a week, it’s an area that I know and feel I can speak about with a high degree of accuracy.  While I only telecommute a few days a week, other bloggers work sole by telecommuting to work.  One of my favorite blogger, Kris @ Everyday Tips is a perfect example of an employee that only telecommutes to work.

Employee Benefits

  • Time savings from not commute into work.
  • Car accident avoidance from not commute into work
  • Sleep time savings from getting up later because of no need to get a shower in the morning.
  • Gas cost saving from no commute.
  • Car “wear and tear” reduction from no commute.
  • Reduction in work cloths wardrobe.
  • More satisfying degree of focus on work at hand, if done correctly.  This is because of the reduced social opportunities and the lack of friendly chit-chat walkbys from friends and peers.
  • Reduced eating cost, since food can be prepared at home vs a restaurant.
  • Able to be a mobile worker.  You can even be on vacation and work remotely, if you have a fast enough internet and cell phone connection.

Employer Benefits

  • More productive workers from reduced chit-chat
  • Reduced space requirements because of shared cubicle space.
  • Employees willing to extent their workday and work at odd hours
  • Employees feel more engaged.

Reasons Not To Totally Telecommute

Telecommuting has some great benefits, but I don’t think I would want to do it everyday.  I think the old saying “Out of site, out of mind” still applies.  It’s also easier to layoff someone if you don’t see them occasionally, not to mention subcontracting your job out, or even offshore the position.

Personally, I like to telecommute a few times a week.  To go to a total telecommuting work schedule would be hard for me, especially from a social interaction standpoint.

-MR

Did you like this Article?  Then please subscribe to my RSS feed so you can check out new articles when they become available.  You will help this blog grow by doing so.  Thanks!

Using Technology to Optimize Christmas Shopping

by

Shopping via the Internet

I use the internet to shop frugally all the time. In fact, if you don’t use bargain sites (like woot.com, and  PriceGrabber.com ), you are missing out on potentially big savings.

Then there are sites like Craigslist and Ebay that offer great deals, or in eBay’s case, hard to find items that may be impossible to find otherwise (for example, trying finding: “The Hootin Hollow Haunted House” at Walmart)!

Often in the cases of the big stores with many physical locations, you can use the internet to find something at a remote store, and have it delivered to you at your local store shipping free!  It’s a great savings to you.

There are other ways to optimize buying online as well, but today I’m going to mention an uncommon method that my friends and I sometime use to buy things in sharp demand during the Christmas season!  First, as you well know, the hard to get gifts are posted on ebay but often at a premium.  The markup can get kind of crazy via ebay actually…  My friends and family use a cheaper solution!

System Used by Family, Friends and Neighbors:

  • We use the internet to locate any shipment of the “hard to get” product (sometime even calling a store, and asking them to check their inventory online system) that one of us is interested in.
  • Next, we go call that store and ask if they can put the item on hold for a few hours.
  • Then we call the  friend that lives close to that store and ask them to purchase the item.
  • Finally, depending on the distance of where the friend lives, we either have our friend ship it via a postal service, or coordinate a picking the item up the next time we get together for lunch or dinner…

I know the 4 steps above doesn’t see like much, but it is!  The alternative would be tor keep trying for days to get the item from stores in the area, or pay a huge premium on ebay…

Readers, do you have an optimal system you’d like to share?

-MR

Did you like this Article?  Then why not subscribe to my RSS feed so you can check out new articles when they become available.  You will help this blog grow by doing so!  Thanks!

Frugally Fight Higher Gas Prices

by
High gas prices

Fight back against gas prices!

Well, the oil companies are increasing oil prices again…

What are you doing to frugally fight higher gas prices?

Should we just say “There is nothing we can do” , and just be an innocent victim to the onslaught of the oil companies on our wallets and purses?

Last night while driving home, I noticed that my local gas station’s price per gallon has risen to $2.999 (which is effectively $3.00)!  Ouch!

I talked about one option in my article called: Carpooling to Save Money and Reduce Gas Prices, and this is a great way to for the consumers to lower gas prices to a great extend, at least if we all do so in mass.  One problem may exist though… China!  China is still growing like wildfire compared to the growth rate of the developed countries.  It’s not that they want oil prices to rise too, it’s just that their economy needs that resource to support their growth rate.

Another great option to consider is Telecommuting! In case you lived in a cave for the past 10 or so years, telecommuting is where you stay at home and connect to work (or do work) by connecting to work via a computer and internet connection (called a VPN – Virtual Private Network) to your place of employment.

Now granted not everybody can take advantage of the telecommuting option because of the type of work they perform, but you can talk to your boss if there isn’t a policy that your employer is using already!  Perhaps you can start a pilot program, working 1 day a week as a test to see if it work for you and your company.  In fact, the place that I work at takes an hybrid approach, where we work onsite a few days and have the option to work offsite for a few day.  It’s a great mix!  Even better would be to walk or ride a bike if possible to work and at anytime really…

My final suggestion would be to be aware of the expense of too many car trip taken during the day/week!  Running out 20 miles to this store and then later that store during a normal day can really adds up!  Know the mileage your car can achieve and calculate how much those trips cost (including the drive back home).  For instance,  I know that it cost me $15 to drive to my parents house and back (they are almost an hour away from my house)!

What I do is consolidate my non work trips into 1 per week (when possible, which is not always the case with kid sports and activities)!  What this means is during one drive, I do multiple things within that drive.  So instead of driving out for milk, then driving out to pick up driveway salt (snow, yuck)…  I’ll just make 1 trip instead of 2!

I know that we  all think of carpooling when we go to work, but perhaps it’s not a bad idea for a neighborhood carpool too?  Maybe a stay-at-home mom could do a similar action with other neighboring SAHMs?  There could even be other beneficial gains in doing such a carpooling activity such as social, safety and backup coverage in driving kids to sports!

Can you think of any other ways to combat the rising prices of gas?

–MR

Did you like this Article?  Then subscribe to my RSS feed so you can check out new articles when they become available.  You will help this blog grow by doing so!  Thanks!