Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

5 Ways to Save Money When Your Schedule Is Very Busy

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Most of us have busy schedules, but for some of us, certain times of the year are busier than other times.  Maybe you’re a tax accountant and are swamped from January through April.  Maybe your kids play soccer in the fall and you’re busy with practices and games.  Whatever the reason, the busiest times of your life are also often the times when you spend the most money.  However, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Right now, I’m working from home part-time, teaching three classes at our two co-ops the kids are attending during the week, homeschooling the kids, and shuffling my children to extracurricular activities.  Life is C-R-A-Z-Y!, and it will be until mid-May.  However, my husband and I have put a plan in place to avoid spending extra money during this time.  Our strategies include the following:

Save money when you're busy
Save Money When You’re Busy

Utilize the Slow Cooker

Every year, I love my slow cooker more and more!  On busy days when I know we’ll be gone all day, I put something in the crockpot in the morning, and voila, when we return at night, we have dinner waiting for us.  With such an array of great recipes on the Internet and Pinterest, I always have yummy meals to try.  We are typically using the slow cooker at least three times a week.

Utilize Freezer Meals

In December, before the craziness began, my husband and I spent about four hours spread over two days making approximately 40 freezer meals.  Now, when I’m too tired after a busy day or at the end of the week, I simply pull out a freezer meal and reheat it.  Seriously, it can’t be any easier!

If you don’t want to have a big freezer cooking session, simply double a recipe you are making and put the other half in the freezer for another night.  Easy, and you’re future self will be so glad when you use that meal in a few weeks or months.

Let Some Standards Slide

You may want a clean house, homemade meals, and time to relax, but during a busy season in life you may not be able to have all three.  I refuse to compromise on homemade meals, and I need time to relax and read a book or I can’t sleep, so the clean house is sliding a bit the next few months.  We have more clutter than we usually do, and the kitchen doesn’t get swept and mopped as much as I would like right now, but as long as I’m keeping up with laundry, dishes, and minimal cleaning, I’m okay with it.

Find Cheaper Convenience Alternatives

If you don’t have time to cook, you may decide to go out to eat.  Rather than doing that several times a week, find cheaper alternatives.  Maybe instead spring for a frozen family meal from the grocery store.  Yes, you’re still spending more than you may have wanted to, but it’s less than you would have spent going out to eat.

Find Other Ways to Relax Than Shopping

During stressful times, many of us are susceptible to retail therapy.  Some people may feel that is the only way they can de-stress and unwind.  Instead, try to find other ways to pamper yourself when your schedule is hectic like reading a book, taking a bubble bath, going for a walk, or talking to a friend.

How do you save money when you’re in a stressful, busy season of life?

 

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget

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Do you have a budget that already feels tight?  Have you cut and cut but still have more month than money? Are you struggling to find more money in your budget?

I know how that goes.  Over the last few months, my husband and I have been working hard to cut our budget as much as possible.  We thought we’d cut all that we could, but I discovered one more secret, which, depending on your budget could help you “find” another $20 to over $100 a month.

So what’s the magic secret?

Make your payments on a semi-annual or annual basis rather than on a monthly basis.

Paying Annual Can Provide Big Discounts

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget
Find more money in your budget.

We have Ooma for our home phone line.  I pay $17.99 a month.  Recently I had to call Ooma because I was having an issue with the service.  After the customer service rep had finished helping me, she asked if I wanted to pay annually instead of monthly.  An annual payment would be $105, the equivalent of $8.75 a month.  In other words, I was paying an additional $110.88 a year for the convenience of monthly payments.

Our life insurance is the same.  When I checked into it, I realized that we would save $22 a month if we paid annually instead of monthly.

We already pay our car insurance semi-annually, but if we opted to pay monthly, we’d be charged a $2 per month fee.  Other car insurance companies charge as much as 5 to 10% more for a monthly payment.

Convenience is expensive.

Take a look through your monthly bills.  Are there any that you can choose to pay annually or semi-annually?  If so, how much will you save per month if you pay annually instead of monthly?  In our case, we “found” an extra $32 a month.  Sure, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a year, it adds up to an additional $384 we now have that we didn’t have before.

Two Caveats

Before you change your payment method, it’s important to consider two factors.  First, if your budget is already tight, you may need to wait to switch to an annual payment until you have a windfall like a bonus at work or an income tax return.  If you’re used to paying $80 a month for car insurance, even with a discount for paying annually, you may still be looking at paying $800 or $900 in one swoop, which can be difficult on a tight budget.

Second, only use this method if you know you’ll be disciplined enough to set aside money every month for the annual payment.  If your annual car insurance is $800, then set aside approximately $65 a month so you’ll have enough to pay the annual payment when it comes due.

Making payments annually or semi-annually can be a great way to find extra money in your budget, but before you change to this method, make sure that you have the discipline to set aside (and not spend) the money each month for the annual payment.

Do you pay bills like your insurance monthly or semi-annually or annually?  Which do you prefer?  Why?

Would You Pay $25 a Pound for Vegetables?

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My husband and I have been trying to garden for a year now.  I say trying because we recently relocated to Tucson, Arizona, and gardening here has a STEEP learning curve.  However, it’s something we both enjoy, so we’ve kept at it, and we’re finally starting to see some rewards. Due to our gardening failures while learning to garden in a new climate, we’re currently paying about $25 a pound for vegetables, but I’m okay with that because I know this hobby will likely pay for itself eventually.

Those Gardening Expenses

Vegetables for $25 a pound?
$25 a pound for Vegetables?

Starting our garden has not been cheap.  We had to create three garden beds, which included the dirt, the pavers for the sides (they’re slightly raised garden beds), and the soil amendment.

We planted in October when the temperatures finally dropped into the 80s, but we planted the wrong vegetables for the season, and we planted in a shady spot when we should have planted in full sun.

All we ended up with last winter was one kale, one Swiss chard, and two lettuce plants.

In the spring, we planted tomatoes that were just starting to blossom when the summer hit with 100+ degree days and scorching sun.  We covered the tomato plants with a homemade sun shade, but we only got 6 cherry tomatoes.  All summer long they didn’t even flower.

Next, we amended the soil further and planted watermelon and cantaloupe starts.  Every time a baby watermelon developed, one of the many birds in our yard ate it.  This continued until September when the birds finally went away.  Since then, we’ve gotten 4 watermelons.

Now, it’s fall, and we are finally getting some produce.  We have baby bok choy that are growing strong, 4 Swiss chard plants, and 8 green pepper plants that have more than 20 peppers on them in various states of growth.

Hopefully our costs will drop or moderate as we learn more about how to garden in the desert.  However, so far, we’ve easily spent $200 for the few veggies we’ve been able to harvest.

Sticking It Out Through the Learning Curve

For someone like me who doesn’t like to spend money frivolously, these gardening expenses bother me.  But there are two reasons we keep trying to garden:

My husband really enjoys it.  I think my husband has discovered his inner farmer.  He loves spending weekends outdoors, puttering in the garden.  Every evening, he comes home from work and waters and takes care of the garden.  It’s a great hobby for him.

The costs should equalize–eventually.  As we learn more about gardening here, we should be able to produce more vegetables.  We won’t have to create the raised beds again.  Our only expenses going forward will be soil amendment each season (so necessary with our desert soil), seeds, and water.  The longer we garden, the lower our costs should be.

Even though it doesn’t feel like it now, gardening will eventually be a hobby that at least costs us only a small amount out of pocket or that pays for itself.

Do you garden?  How steep was your learning curve?  Do you find that the garden pays for itself eventually?