Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

  • Home
  • About
  • Melissa Recommends
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Genesis

How We Saved Money on Our First Camping Trip    

August 7, 2023 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Three tents together at night

The last time my husband and I last went camping was 22 years ago. We weren’t fans of the experience, so we never made camping a priority. However, several of our friends decided to go camping with their families this summer, and we somewhat hesitantly agreed to join. Even though we had no camping supplies, we saved money on our first camping trip using several different techniques. By the way, we didn’t mind camping this time, especially since our kids enjoyed it so much. We have another trip planned in October.

How We Saved Money on Our First Camping Trip

We didn’t want to buy a lot of items in case we decided (again) that camping wasn’t for us. We only purchased the following:

A Tent

We bought a 9-person tent from Amazon that was $149.99. However, we bought it on sale for $99.99. In hindsight, I should have bought it in person. I didn’t realize that the tent had large mesh openings that didn’t have flaps inside to close them. Instead, there’s a rain flap that goes over the whole tent. While the design is acceptable for summer camping, I think we’ll get cold when we go in October because we can’t close off the mesh openings.

Sleeping Bags

We had one sleeping bag at home, so we bought three more. I also purchased these on Amazon during a sale. Each sleeping bag was $22.99. After our first camping trip, our daughter’s sleeping bag already had a hole. We weren’t happy with that.

Camping Cooking Utensil Set

We bought a camping cooking utensil set for $24.99, which included a sharp knife and roasting sticks. Because we didn’t want to spend any more money on cooking gear, we cooked all our food on a stick over the fire—hot dogs, s’mores, breakfast sausage. We called it stick cooking. Anything that we couldn’t cook on a stick we ate cold.

Wood

On the day of the camping trip, we bought wood for $7.99. We went through that wood in one day, so we’ll need to buy a larger quantity when we go in October.

We spent $202 on the abovementioned necessities for our first camping trip.

What I’d Like to Buy in the Future

If we continue to camp, there are a few other items we’d like to make the experience more enjoyable:

Inflatable Mattresses

My husband and I aren’t young anymore, so we’d prefer sleeping on an air mattress rather than on the ground.

A Grill Grate

While cooking with a stick was fine for the first trip, it might get old on the second trip. If we camp more often, we’d like to buy a grill grate to put over the fire and hold a pan to cook eggs and other foods.

A Better Tent

Our tent is fine for warm weather, but if we continue to camp in the fall and spring, we’d like one that does a better job keeping us warm.

Final Thoughts

We spent $202 on our original outlay of camping supplies. We’ll likely wait until we’ve had another camping trip or two to see if we need to buy more. Meanwhile, each camping trip we take helps reduce the price of our initial outlay of supplies.

Do you camp regularly? If so, which supplies do you find essential?

Read More

Do Fitness and Frugality Go Together?

3 Benefits of Budgeting One Month Ahead

How Getting Ahead Saves Me Time, Money, and Mental Energy

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: frugal living Tagged With: camping, Family activities, family vacation, frugal

How We’re Saving on Entertainment Costs

February 6, 2023 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Saving on Entertainment

While we’ve weathered the recent bout of inflation fairly well, lately, we’ve encountered a situation that many other Americans have. Each month, we end up a bit short with more expenses than income. To compensate, we’ve had to dip into our emergency fund. I’ve resolved to stop that trend and tighten our budget. One of the easiest ways to tighten up is saving on entertainment costs.

How We’re Saving on Entertainment Costs

Even though we’re trying to save in this budget category, we still want to have fun with our kids and build memories. So, we’re trying to do that as frugally as possible while recognizing that sometimes we have to spend money to save. Here are the strategies we’re employing.

Buying a Museum Pass with Reciprocal Privileges

We bought an annual membership to our local science museum for $90. This museum participates in the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) Travel Passport Program, which means we can visit any of the 350 museums that participate nationwide for free or at a discount. We’ve already visited another museum 90 miles away, so in two visits (including one to our local museum), the membership has paid for itself. Any other museums we visit this year that participate in the program will not cost us anything.

Combine Frugality with Fun Activities

Saving on Entertainment

We plan to visit farms in the spring and summer to pick blueberries and strawberries. The kids enjoy picking the fruit, probably because they like eating the fruit fresh off the tree.

We also live in an area that frequently has festivals, so we plan to attend some.

Finally, our area also shows free movies outside during the summer, so we will attend several of those.

Utilize Our Library Card

Yes, you read that right. Our library card can help us save money on entertainment. Sure, the library offers us free books, movies, music, and presentations, but it does even more than that. Our library card offers discounts or free admission to 19 different area attractions. For example, with one purchased admission to our local art museum, we get one free entry for another family member. Of course, we first check what our library perks offer whenever we want to visit a local attraction.

Hiking

Recently, our family has been hiking every weekend. We did have to invest in hiking boots for all of us, but since then, we’ve not had to pay anything to hike local trails. This is an activity the kids enjoy and that we plan to continue year-round.

Final Thoughts

With a bit of research, we’ve discovered saving on entertainment costs for our family isn’t difficult. Of course, we need to be flexible with our plans and our activities, but this year we should cut our entertainment costs while still making memories with the kids. They grow up so quickly, and we only have a few years left before they go to college, so even on a budget, we still want to have fun with them.

Read More

Do Fitness and Frugality Go Together?

Find Your Frugal Tribe and Save Even More Money

8 Fun, Frugal Activities to Enjoy This Fall

Editors note: This article was made possible by Rebate Fanatic.  Rebate Fanatic is founded on the vision that users need a centralized location for the best coupons and deals online.  Visit Rebate Fanatic and start saving today.

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: Children, Married Money Tagged With: entertainment, Family activities, frugal, frugal fun

Start the New Year by Finding Money

December 26, 2022 By MelissaB 1 Comment

Start the New Year by Finding Money

The last few years have been difficult for most people. First, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the country, causing many people to lose their incomes and livelihoods. Then, when the country opened up again, inflation took hold. The United States, and much of the world, battled inflation in 2022. As a result, money is tight for most people. If this is the case for you, I invite you to join me; I plan to start the new year by finding money.

Why Find Money in the New Year?

Like many Americans, I am struggling to stay within our grocery budget. Looking at the USDA’s cost of food, I see why I’m struggling. Grocery prices increased sharply in 2022.

In addition, fuel costs and interest rates on loans are up. Everything is expensive.

To give our family a little breathing room, I plan to start the new year by finding money.

How to Find Money?

You can find or reclaim money in your budget in various ways. For example, I found money in these ways:

Cell Phone Expenses

My husband and I use Ting to keep our cell phone expenses down. The monthly bill for the two of us combined averaged $40 to $45. Then we added our teenage son to the plan, and suddenly our bill shot up to $100 to $120 a month. After some sleuthing, I discovered I could limit how much data he uses a month. Once I added that limit, our bill dropped to our average amount, saving us $50 to $75 a month.

Cutting Streaming Services

We have several streaming services including Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, Netflix, Peacock, and Discovery+. I have ended or paused them all except Netflix and Hulu, which I’m temporarily keeping to watch Kindred. When we finish that, I’m pausing it again. With this action, I save $35 a month.

In the new year, we’ll only have one streaming service at a time. So, after we watch every show we want on Netflix, we’ll end the subscription and subscribe to a different one for a few weeks or months. By rotating streaming services, we’ll pay no more than $6 to $18 a month.

Pausing Services

I have a monthly Audible subscription that costs $14.99. I have several books I haven’t listened to yet, and I have nine credits. Therefore, I’m going to redeem my credits and pause my subscription. I have plenty to listen to for the next few months, so why keep paying? I can pause the subscription for at least six months before I run out of new audiobooks to listen to, so I’ll save myself $90.

I also have a $26 monthly fee to Ancestry.com. Genealogy is one of my hobbies, but there are some months, especially in the summer and fall, when I don’t have time to warrant the expense. So, my plan going forward is to gift myself a six-month subscription in November when they go on sale. Then, at the end of the six months, I’ll cancel my membership until next November. That gives me the winter and spring months to do my research. Using this technique, I’ll save approximately $150 a year.

Evaluating Memberships

Likewise, I’m evaluating memberships to see if we should keep them or let them go, including the following:

Amazon Prime

Start the New Year by Finding Money

We’ve been Amazon Prime members for years, but the price increases each year. We’ll need to pay $139 in February to renew our subscription. We’ve been members for so long I’m not sure what perks we’re benefiting from. In the new year, I will spend some time researching how much we spent on Prime, what savings we reaped (especially from Whole Foods as Prime members), and what we would miss if we let the membership go.

Life360

Life360 costs $20 per month. I like this because it’s on all of our phones, so if someone needs help, we know exactly where they are. In addition, Life360 offers emergency roadside service. I’ll likely keep this service for now.

Other Places to Find Money

There are two other places to look to find money. One applies to us, and one doesn’t:

Refinancing Our Home

I don’t know if 2023 will be the year for this, but as soon as interest rates drop, we’re refinancing our home. We bought our new home in September, and our interest rate is 5.375 percent. However, I’m not sure if 2023 will be the year. We might have to wait until 2024 to do this.

Negotiating with Credit Card Companies

My husband and I don’t have credit card debt, but if we did, I would call up the credit card company and make two requests:

Can They Drop the Annual Fee?

When I did have credit card debt, they couldn’t drop my annual fee, but they did offer to give me enough points that I could redeem them to pay the annual fee. This essentially made the annual fee free. It’s worth asking if they can waive the fee or make you a similar offer.

Can They Reduce the Interest Rate?

Start the New Year by Finding Money

Interest rates are so high now that paying down the balance is difficult because so much money goes to interest. If you call the credit card company t*o ask to reduce the interest rate, remind them what a loyal customer you’ve been. They may say no, but if they say yes and drop your interest rate a few percentage points, you have more money to apply to the balance or to add to your budget.

Using Cash Back Sites

Another way to save money that a lot of people don’t consider is using cash back sites.  Cash back sites are older, web 2.0 technology, but they work reliably to save money.  How they work is you open an account with the site, and click through the site when you’re shopping online.  If you buy something, the retailer send a commission to the site, who splits it with you.  Its a reliable way to slash 1% to 3% off your budget.   Good sites to check out are: www.rebatefanatic.com, www.swagbucks.com and www.dollardig.com.

Refinancing Our Home

I don’t know if 2023 will be the year for this, but as soon as interest rates drop, we’re refinancing our home. We bought our new home in September, and our interest rate is 5.375 percent. However, I’m not sure if 2023 will be the year. We might have to wait until 2024 to do this.

Flip Old Comic Books

Do you watch Storage Wars? Or Antiques Roadshow?  Those shows are about people vetting junk and forgotten items to hopefully find valuable collectibles to sell. You can use the same concept with comic books.  There is a big market out there where collectors pay top dollar for certain comic books.

You don’t need to be a comic book expert to understand what makes comic books valuable or worth a few bucks.  It should be rare, aesthetically in good condition, signed by a creator, written or drawn by specific creators, or feature fan-favorite storylines, amongst some other factors.

If you have a stash of old comic books or want to go looking for cheap ones to flip, there is a way to check their current market value online for free. Use a comic book price guide. The main idea is to check the value of your stash before you try and sell it.

Then, once you have a sense of the rough ballpark value, you just sell the comics to a dealer or you put them out on Facebook Marketplace, or eBay. Ebay is probably the best as its fee structure is lower than Amazon and you get more buyers than Facebook Marketplace.

Final Thoughts

Inflation is hitting most Americans. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about the high grocery prices besides altering your diet to eat cheaper foods. However, you can start the new year by finding money and eliminating services and subscriptions you no longer need or use. Doing so will give you extra cash to increase the grocery budget, pay down debt, or give yourself extra wiggle room.

Read More

Our Favorite Small Ways to Save Money

Save Money with Buy Nothing Groups

How We Save Money with Ting as Our Cell Phone Provider

4 Ways to Find Extra Money to Put on Debt

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget Tagged With: budget, frugal, grocery budget, saving money, tight budget

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 20
  • Next Page »
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Improve Your Credit Score

Money Blogs

  • Celebrating Financial Freedom
  • Christian PF
  • Dual Income No Kids
  • Financial Panther
  • Gajizmo.com
  • Lazy Man and Money
  • Make Money Your Way
  • Money Talks News
  • My Personal Finance Journey
  • Personal Profitability
  • PF Blogs
  • Reach Financial Independence
  • So Over Debt
  • The Savvy Scot
  • Yes, I am Cheap

Categories

Disclaimer

Please note that Beating Broke has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here. Beating Broke may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.

Visit Our Advertisers

Need to change careers? Consider an Accounting Certificate Program from WTI.