More on savings

Recently, I've been trying very hard to save money in every way we possibly can.

This has included everything from grocery shopping to keeping lights off as much as possible to watching bank accounts very closely.

Some things that I have learned while doing so:
1) Spending one hour per week doing coupon cataloging and meal planning according to sale fliers will always benefit me, as I never spend more than 30 minutes in the grocery store - even when I fill a cart completely.

2) If I'm going to put laundry away, I need to do so during daylight hours, so the light in our walk-in closet doesn't need to be on.

3) It really doesn't take much effort to turn off lights when you're not in a room. (Although I forgot the hall lights when I left for coffee with Tiffany this morning, and didn't notice until I came home 5 1/2 hours later after the ladies' brunch at church. Whoops! First failure in 3 months I think is allowable).

4) Making sure that I ask Robert to look through the ads and sale fliers after I have on Sunday evenings saves a lot of hassle when we get to the store and he pouts because he knows there was a coupon for some yummy treats he wanted, and I say no because we have no coupon cut for it.

5) I shower in our master bathroom now, without the light on. The window in there is opaque, so you can't really see through it (plus, our bathroom faces the woods and you'd need a 10-foot ladder to see in). The sun provides enough light (even earlier than 7am) to shower. When it doesn't, or when I have to wake up earlier, I light some candles instead. Free, and smells fantastic! Then the only electricity I use is the fan. :)

6) Monitoring our bank accounts is essential. One institution attempted to try to weasel their way out of paying me back the $ (no joke) they've taken from our joint account over the course of a month. The first problem was 3 bogus "NSF" charges. I wrote 3 checks, each for single or double-digit amounts. Since we had well over 4 digits worth of funds in there, and nothing else out, I thought it would be fine. Nope. Logged on to see $75 in NSF fees. When I called to get them reversed, I immediately got a lecture on not spending more than I have, etc. I was unhappy with this and threatened to write a letter to management, so they finally (after an hour) gave me the money back. Same institution 1 week later: I notice while balancing the checkbook, that $4.60 is not working out one way or the other. I asked Robert if he'd purchased anything, and he said no. So we waited for the charges to clear (they were pending for 3 days). Saturday morning at 9am, (3 days later), I got online and saw it had cleared. It was for a purchase outside of Florida, (like, NOT in the US), and when I called to report fraud, I got a lecture on keeping track of where I spend my money. 2nd time in 2 weeks, I was VERY unhappy. I told them so. After I forced them to research the charges, they confirmed it was from a bogus business outside the Florida Keys, as well as the fact that whoever used my card had only obtained mydebit card numbers; not Robert's. How they did it, I will never know. It took 2 full weeks to get my new debit card. The final blow was one week after thatwhen I saw a charge for $150 on our account that neither one of us made. I called and they very casually said, "Oh, that's for your line of credit payment, Mrs. Crombie." I was completely short of fuse after all this, and I said, "We don't even have one of those! Give me my money back immediately. We're taking our loyalty elsewhere." The associate confirmed that another customer had called to make a payment on their line of credit, and the representative had "transposed numbers incorrectly." When I asked about a double-checking, or heck, even a NAME-MATCHING system, they told me they didn't have anything like that. Today, I logged on to a different account (that I don't really use anymore, except to pay for my YMCA membership), to see that I had $85 in overdrafts and fees. Since I don't use the account, I was freaking out. I called them, and they've been charging me $6.95 for who-knows-how-many months for a "bill pay service fee." I don't use bill-pay there. Additionally, they had to refund the charges, fees, and money taken from my savings account to pay for it all. Lesson learned: ALWAYS pay attention!

7) I do laundry twice a week: Sundays (when I was our sheets) and Thursdays (after Awana, so our uniforms are always clean for the following week). It saves water and energy. I know Fly Lady suggests "a load a day keeps the CHAOS away," but I disagree with this.

8) We save the difference - always. Like the Duggars do. If we save $16.50 at the grocery store, I transfer that to our savings account. Yesterday, while at work (so right next to Costco - didn't have to use extra gas!), I took a 15-minute break to re-new our Costco membership and pick up some Brie that Robert requested. I was happy when I saw the price on it - $5.33. A little cheaper than usual! But when I went to the self-check, it rang up $5.99. I asked for help, and they said that I was getting the cheese for $5.00 because it was a mis-representation of prices. :) Apparently, they are super friendly for that kind of request! Of course, I messed up (big shock) and left it in the fridge at work. I hope it's still there when I go in on Monday!

9) Driving the Focus is almost always the best choice. Robert has become more comfortable driving it, and even though the battery died on Tuesday night after I got off work (long story; it's fixed now with a brand new battery), it's worth it. We now choose which cars each of us drive based on who drives further. Whoever drives the farthest from home on on any given day takes the Focus. Sometimes, it's me (since I'm working at H&R Block this season), but usually it's Robert. Some days we don't worry about it, but the fact is that it gets way better gas mileage than the Trailblazer (although the Trailblazer doesn't do too badly).

10) I love sharing how I save money with others, because I've been blessed to have others share with me money-saving tips. Just Thursday at Ladies' Bible Study, Mommy Kelley shared with me that not running the dishwasher will save some, too. :) Even though it's just the two of us here, we use a lot of dishes. As a result, I'm now doing the dishes by hand as much as possible. Which means we have to find a different jurisdiction for Robert, since I promised him that it wasn't his job to keep up with my money-saving ideas. :)

11) I feel like such a good steward of what we have.

The fruits of my efforts have paid off, too. I successfully got our PUD bill down to $49.57/ month. :)