Summer Savings: What I'm Doing

Summer is awesome as it usually means nicer weather and more travel. Of course that also means more spending if you are not careful. But summer does not have to equal spending. In fact, there are ways to do that normal summer fun stuff while saving!

For me, I like to travel. A lot. Seriously. That is how I got into so much debt. An easy way to cure that travel itch and save at the same time is what a lot of people are calling a "staycation."

Sure, there are a lot of things where you live that you can probably do. And you do not have to worry about hotel costs.

Luckily for me, I live within about 3 hours of 2 major cities as well as living in a major city myself. And my parents live 6 hours away in Nashville, which is 4 hours from Atlanta and other cities. Basically, I am saving money this summer by doing travel that involves zero hotel stays because hotels are expensive.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the zoo here in my city on a day that they offer half price admission to residents of this county. My local zoo allows you to bring in food and drinks. Total cost was $5 to park and $5 admission. And that was a whole day of fun!

My parents have a pool table in their home and I happen to find that fun. So, an upcoming weekend trip will be to their home. The only cost will be gas, which will total around $60 for the entire 3-day weekend.

Festivals are also a great way to have a good time close to home for little or no expenditure. Sometimes you have to pay a small fee to go in or park, but a lot of times you can find fee festivals.

So, for me, summer saving is just redefining the activities that define summer into things that are a bit easier on the wallet.


This post for the Summer Savings series for the Money Life Network

Pinecone Research is loweing payments!

I have been a member of Pinecone Research since they first came about it seems like. As a result, I have been getting paid $5 for my surveys where people that signed up in the more recent past were only getting paid $3 for doing surveys.

Typically I would get 2 - 3 surveys a month, so it was a nice little thing. And now that the surveys seem to be getting longer, they have decided to pay less!

I got a survey today asking the following:

A cash plus incentive plan is quickly being adopted by the majority of our members. In this plan, members are compensated with a $3 cash incentive for each
completed survey and entered into a bi-weekly sweepstake for a chance to win $500. In addition, members are entered into the bi-weekly sweepstakes every time that they complete household questions, which were formerly uncompensated.

We'd like to offer you the opportunity to join PineCone's new and fast growing cash plus sweepstakes panel. Soon this plan will be the only incentive plan offered by PineCone Research and the number of available spaces on this panel are quickly filling up. As a valued member of the PineCone Research community we're offering you a guaranteed spot on this new panel should you elect to switch to the new plan today. You may opt to continue to remain on the $5 cash incentive plan however, please be advised that on this plan you may not see the same volume of requests as you did in years previous and by electing to stay you may forfeit your opportunity to be a part of our new offer and panel. We value your participation and would like to make sure you continue to have the opportunity to share in the PineCone membership experience you've come to know from being a part of our online panel community.

Would you like to become a part of the cash plus sweepstakes plan as described above?

So, basically, your options are to take less money or practically none at all. What a bummer.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

The food budget looks awesome

So, the month is almost up. And my food budget looks awesome. With a couple of meals of dining out for a birthday I still came in right where I wanted to. It looks like it will be only $250 spent on food for the month. And only $200 of that was at the grocery store.

I attribute the success to finding a 5 lb. roasting chicken on sale for $4.72. I roasted it and we ate it with veggies. Then I pulled the meat off and used the carcass to make a broth. With the broth we made a cabbage and potato soup - and I had gotten the whole head of cabbage for $0.82! And that soup lasted for ever. For lunches we've been eating chicken sandwiches. Then last night we had lime pepper chicken with spicy couscous. And tonight we are having taco salads with chicken - and there will STILL be leftover chicken!

It's amazing really how cheaply you can eat at home. I will definitely be buying more chicken on sale like that. Even at full price is was less than $10.

Walgreens Take Care Health Tour

I came across this info on Slick Deals and thought it was pretty neat. They are not coming to my state though. Bummer.

The Walgreens Take Care Health Tour is on a 300-city, 12-month nationwide health screening tour that features 10 customized traveling education and health-screening vehicles. The program will travel more than 240,000 miles to offer six free screenings:

• Total Cholesterol Levels
• Blood Pressure
• Bone Density
• Glucose Levels
• Waist Circumference
• Body Mass Index

These services are worth more than $115 in value and no appointment is necessary.

The tour aims to bring free screening services and better health awareness to local communities throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. Many diseases can be detected through screenings long before any symptoms are noticed, making awareness the key to remaining healthy.

This year, the tour plans to provide 1.5 million screenings, valued at more than $35 million. After receiving results, visitors are encouraged to see their doctor regarding any concerns.

Call toll-free 1-866-484-TOUR to find a tour stop near you.

You can also look on the website to see where the tour is going. The tour schedule is available by clicking on 'tour schedule' on the right.

Debt roundup #16

Well, I am a little behind in posting this.

As of 5/31/08, here was where I was at:

• Car loan = $10,893.59 (last month was $11,502.83 )
• Credit cards = $18,423.49 (last month was $18,816.96)
• School loans = $161,225.99 (last month was $161,243.99)

So, there it is. There was some progress, but it was small progress. However, since 5/31 I have paid off a small credit card, so next month it should be under $18,000 which is pretty exciting. And my birthday is later this month so if I get any cash from anyone then I plan on using it to pay on something.

After paying off that small credit card that leaves me with two credit cards. One has a little over $1400 on it at 14.99% and the other has about $16,500 on it at 9.24%. And my car loan is at 10.05%. So the plan of attack is the 14.99% credit card and then onto the car loan and then back to the 9.24% credit card. And as an added bonus, once the car is paid off I can raise the insurance deductible which will lower the insurance cost.

And that reminds me, my 6-month insurance premium is due later this month too. Ugh. That is close to $500 right there. Sure would rather put that money towards debt paydown :(

And why can't you live on $400 in food stamps for 3 people?

Like most people, I have been reading those stories over the past few weeks about the rising cost of food and how people on food stamps can't cope. Each time I read a new article I was amazed by the amount of food stamps received and the fact that they ran out of food mid-month.

I have seen commenters on other blogs saying things like "you don't know their situation" and "they probably don't have a computer and can't print coupons" and "maybe a convenience store with high prices is all that is nearby" and so on. Personally, I think there is no excuse for not being able to feed a family of three on $400 a month. (unless there are some weird health/diet issues present)

For instance, I have a family of two adults. I just got back from the grocery store. I had no coupons for this trip. I only spent $25.98. Here is what I got for that small amount:

• 5 lbs of bananas
• 2 cucumbers
• 1 pack of Betty Crocker deep dish pizza crust
• 1 lb of red lettuce
• 1 head of iceberg lettuce
• loaf of regional name brand bread bread
• store brand large size cottage cheese
• 1 lb. family size pack of Sargento shredded mozzarella
• 1.25 lbs of grapes
• 5 'on the vine' tomatoes
• pack of generic brand margarine sticks
• 16 oz. pack of fresh strawberries
• 1 pint pack of fresh blueberries
• 6 oz. pack of fresh raspberries
• 1 lb bag Freshlike brand frozen corn
• 1 five pound bag of Green Giant yukon gold potatoes (not on my list but they were on sale $1 off)

And if I had not gotten name brand items on things like the shredded cheese, the bread, the pizza crust mix and the potatoes I could have saved even more!

This is a heck of a lot of food! So I just don't get it. People CAN live off $400 a month in food stamps. They just make poor choices.

Ugh, heat and humidity

I am not a fan of heat and humidity.

Today, it was 80 degrees outside at 7:30am. That is just so many shades of wrong. I mean, seriously.

Summer is just getting here and I am already wishing for it to be over!

It's too bad I don't live some place with a nice mild climate year round. That would be pretty sweet.

Depressing indeed

As a Hillary supporter last night was disappointing. I'm not sure the Dems can with with Senator Obama. I say this because I know some hardcore Republicans that voted for Hillary in the primaries. Those same people have said that if she was not the nominee that they were not going to vote. There is talk of people saying she should run third party. I can't wait to see what she does. It is certainly disappointing though.

Saving money rocks

I went grocery shopping this morning. I checked the ad online before leaving and saw that those boxes of Green Giant veggies were on sale. I knew that there were coupons for those on the Eat Better America site. So, I tried to print some. No go. Something is wonky with the site. It acted like it printed, only it showed me a pixelated graphic on my screen instead of actually printing. So I missed out on saving like $3.60 if I could have gotten those coupons to print. But I did manage to get a whole cartload of groceries for only $28.14.

Then I think about those stories I have been reading online lately where peope on food stamps are having problems making $250 last an entire month. I was talkng about this to my mom. She used to work in a grocery store and clued me in as to why these people can't make $250 last all month.

She said the first of the month the food stamp people would come in and load up on things like filet mignon and lobster and other costly foods. Idiots. No wonder they can't make $250 last. And I won't lie - it makes me a bit mad that they eat better than me the first half of the month and then depend on hand outs from food banks for the rest of the month. Someone needs to seriously overhaul the food stamp program.

argh, Target pharmacy

Let me just say "argh, Target pharmacy" first off. Did you know that the pharmacy at Target closes at 6pm on weekends for some reason. At least at my local Target. That is a real pain. See, yesterday I had refilled a prescription online at Target. I went to pick it up around 7pm. Pharmacy was closed. And yesterday was the last day of the month. Argh! What a pain.