Frugal in the Fruitlands

This afternoon I’ll be heading off to New Mexico for vacation. The event I’m ostensibly attending is FolkMADness at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, but I’ll also be visiting a few other places, including Santa Fe. I have an article I plan to post before I leave, and I may or may not set up some to auto-post while I’m gone, but if you don’t hear from me for a week, don’t be surprised (like I haven’t gone a week without posting before!)

To update you on my monthly challenge (to walk 30 minutes daily, followed by a 5 minute stretch; plus a strength workout 3 times per week)… well, I’ve done even more poorly than last month. I’ve only walked/stretched 10 days this month, a 50% success rate. I’ve done three strength workouts total, which is far below my goal. I know I need to be working out more vigorously than this, but it seems like such an imposition on my time.

As much as I’m down on gyms, I wonder if I couldn’t use some sort of mechanism to motivate me and keep me on track. I notice that in the office park I work in, a One2One Bodyscapes is opening, a personal training facility. I think if I were to go in the direction of paying some entity to help me with my fitness goals, this is the way I would go, especially as there’s no contract or monthly fees, and you just purchase as many sessions as you want. Anyone know anything about this place and can recommend/not recommend?

No Comments »

I’m reading Peter Walsh’s book It’s All Too Much, which I just picked up from the library. Peter Walsh is the organization guru on TLC’s Clean Sweep, of which I am (not so) secretly a huge fan. Peter’s sort is my favorite part of the show. I habitually turn it off after that, unless Eric the Carpenter is having Antics. It’s like, screw this decorating shit, I want to see some people play trivia games to keep their favorite DVDs!

This quote from It’s All Too Much struck me:

… Or are you saving enough stuff to furnish a whole alternate universe in a which a skinnier you uses that dusty abdominal crunch machine every morning before inserting all your photos into a new album and then dons that old wig you’ve been storing for a costume party you’re hosting at which everyone will be lounging in the extra chairs that have been languishing in your basement for the last six years?

His point is that our stuff is supposed to represent who we are, but too often it represents someone we’ll never be. We need to let go of what’s less important to us so that what’s really important can shine through.

This book is really helping me to see the connection between clutter and the loss of control I sometimes feel in my life. For a while it boggled me that whenever I walked into my house at the end of the day, I felt stressed, not happy to be home. Then I have to take into account that the mudroom is the smallest room in the house, doubles as a laundry room, and is often (as it is right now) strewn with recyclables, garbage, shoes, empty TidyCat containers, snowshoes, coats, laundry baskets, etc. Either I need to organize it or I need to start using the front door!

4 Comments »

Our first step in solving the Subaru transmission dilemma was bringing it to a transmission specialist nearby. This, as it turned out, was the only step needed, as he confirmed what our mechanic had said (the problem was the rear differential) and told us it would cost approximately $1,800-$2,000 to replace.

All right. $2,000 is a lot less than a new car, we said. The transmission mechanic also said that the work was guaranteed for 12,000 miles or a year, and that he didn’t expect there would be future issues due to this. He was unsure why the problem happened in the first place, but suggested the differential fluid had been neglected or had been drained out and never replaced. For my part, never having had an all-wheel drive car, I didn’t even know there was a fluid to maintain. Now that I know, I’ll be a lot more cautious.

In short, we decided to fix it.

The repair took a few days, and we picked the car up this morning. The total cost was $1,850, $1,000 of which was the part itself. Ouch.

It was not, however, so ouch that we had to put it on credit. Nay, we didn’t even need to dip into our emergency fund (in part because we just received our economic stimulus rebate). That was an immense relief.

I hope this signals a new era in our financial lives - a time when other unexpected expenses can’t manage to throw us off the path to financial freedom.

5 Comments »

I haven’t offloaded any Links Relevant to Mah Interests lately, so here are a few for you:

Moolanomy is sponsoring The Best Wedding Tips and Stories Giveaway. A little over three years ago Matt and I had a relatively frugal wedding at our favorite restaurant in Burlington, MA, so my own entry to the contest will be forthcoming in a week or two.

Student economist Ashwini Agrawal wrote his dissertation on the behavior of the labor union AFL-CIO’s pension fund, finding that “the A.F.L.-C.I.O. pension funds were voting in ways that might help workers when they were A.F.L.-C.I.O. union workers, but not after they switched union affiliations.” This may be unsurprising finding to all of us, but apparently this so angered the AFL-CIO that they’ve been threatening him with a lawsuit.

Unclutterer.com brings us A Simple Way to Simplify Email, using the Remember the Milk extension for Gmail. This so impressed me that I’m in the process of switching from my beloved Tasktoy to Remember the Milk. I’m loving the ability to link tasks to specific emails, and thus keep my inbox clear, but Tasktoy still seems like it’s better for keeping track of things like what blog posts I want to write.

Euphorify is a new but promising happiness/lifehack blog that I found through the ZenHabits forums. Now, if I could break my habit of spending hours reading lifehacker-style blogs, I might actually get something done!

This Bulb Lady article on Naturalizing Bulbs caught my eye. I think I’ll try this with my scilla and grape hyacinths…

4 Comments »

I stopped at Hannaford last night to pick up a few essentials for sandwiches. We went through the express lane, because we only had a few items (deli meat and cheese, wraps, cream cheese), and I was surprised to see my order ring up at $35. I briefly thought food prices really have gone up, huh?

While Matt was swiping his card, I looked at the cashier’s screen then, and noticed the only double-digit item: Black Forest turkey ham: 1 lb @ $19.75.

Matt realized it at the same time I did. “What?” he said, at the same time I said, “That’s not right.” The sign at the deli had said $4.49/lb, but now I realized that the sticker from the deli read $19.75/lb. Why I didn’t notice this mistake when I put it in my cart, I don’t know.

They gladly fixed the error and gave me a shiny new $20 bill back. My only regret is that I didn’t catch the error before Matt swiped his card, because cash, as I’ve discussed before, has a different psychological weight than plastic.

What’s also alarming is that I caught the error simply because there was another row of digits - they could have charged me $9.95/lb and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

3 Comments »