His Hers Money

When we go grocery shopping we don’t go empty handed. We have a list, our coupons and a plan. This weekend’s grocery shopping trip is an excellent example of what our bill looks like. This is for two people and we are not starting from scratch as we have things in the freezer / pantry / fridge at home already that we are augmenting. I look at what’s on sale, what coupons I have and what we need.

This week’s trip was to Safeway but we don’t always shop there. It all depends on who has the rights things on sale that week.

• Ketchup $.99
• Cheez-Its $1.47
• Cranergy Juice $2.50
• Canned Cat Food 6 - $.33 each
• Kraft Cheese Singles - 2 - $1.50 each
• FF Half & Half $4.49
• Yummy mini ice creams 2 - $1.00 each
• Limeade $1.25
• Duracell 8pk AA $2.49
• Men’s Shave Gel $1.50
• OM Hotdog - 3pks for $1 total
• Lean Hamburger $6.11 for 4.8lbs
• Jumbo Raw Shrimp $5.39 for 0.9lbs
• Green Onion $0.99
• Ginger Root $0.25
• Cinlantro $0.99
• Beer 24pk $12.99 (July 4th parties)

Our total was $50.24 and obviously the beer at $13 was the biggest item but with July 4th parties coming up next weekend we grabbed it at a good price to bring to a big party we are attending. The shrimp was a treat for us which we will grill up for dinner and the hamburger has already been mixed up and made into hamburger patties and in the freezer for later use.

Our receipt claims that we saved $61.34 (56%) off of our bill which in fact we did but we wouldn’t have bought some of the items if they weren’t on sale and had coupons to go along with them. The hot dogs for example we couldn’t pass up at 3 Oscar Myer packs for $1, I just threw them in the freezer for later use. The same thing with the cheese slices, I’m not a huge fan of that kind of cheese but at that price I’ll make so for a couple weeks!

So as you may have read previously in this space, Hers and I will be heading to Jamaica in less than two weeks for a much-needed vacation. Neither of us has been there before and we are very much looking forward to. In order to be able to relax more we decided to go the all-inclusive route and will be staying at Sandals.

The price is most definitely not cheap. However, if we do it right and do not go adding on extras once we are there then I think it is reasonable. We get 3 meals a day and all drinks included while at the resort. Our plan is to mostly just relax on the beach or by the pool for the majority of our time there. This is not one of those vacations where we have a strict schedule of things to see. We just want to sit and enjoy each others’ company.

Now about those extras. Sandals offers everything from guided island tours, horseback riding, dinner ON the beach, and in-room massages. These are all great and obviously we would love to do them all. However, that is where most people make the mistake. They think “We’re on vacation, we should enjoy ourselves and do whatever we want!” The problem is that usually this is where they will pull out the plastic to pay for it as these were unplanned expenses on the trip. If you have things that you absolutely MUST do while on vacation make sure to budget for those expenses so that the month after you get back there is not a huge charge on your credit card that you can’t remember what it was for.

Once we return from our trip I’ll share with everybody how well we were able to limit our expenses.

So in our lovely new apartment I finally have a room to myself to call an office. It’s actually our second bedroom which is quite spacious. We also have an office area which is a smaller alcove which HIS uses an office. I decided I would like a tv for my office space in hopes that I would spend a bit more time getting stuff done in there if I had a tv.

Now, there’s many options available to me to procure said tv. I could go to the mega mart and by a shiny new flat panel tv which would cost a fortune but that’s really not in my budget nor is there really any reason to go that route. We do have a nice new flat panel tv in our living room and that’s really all if not more than we need.

So I went onto craigslist today and simply searched for a tv for sale. Let me tell you, there were a ton of them! With everyone getting their new mega mart slat panels it seems there are a ton of those old fashioned tube tvs out there for just pennies on the dollar. I got a 27″ name brand tv with a dvd player, a stand and all the necessary cords for $75. I am more than pleased. The guy even carried it from his apartment to the elevator and then out to the car for us. This tv will more than fill my need and I paid about 10% of the cost of a new one.

I really do like craigslist and have gotten a number of things off of it. Most notably my KitchenAid stand mixer which was always a dream of mine. I was so happy the day it became a reality for me especially since I got it for only $100. I have also sold a couple tickets on there that we were unable to use as well as a spare dining table and chairs. I also got my wedding dress on craigslist for only $260! Brand new, never worn and it fit nearly perfect requiring only $75 in alterations (I found the women who did my alterations on craigslist as well). We also have gotten a bike rack for the car and sold a nearly new cell phone.

No matter what I am looking for I always turn to craigslist first! If you can find what you want it’s almost always worth it.

After reading a couple articles about Crissy Thompson, the Coupon Queen I can honestly saw that I am in awe. This woman spends like $10 on a week’s worth of groceries for her family of five, not one but five. It seems that I can’t even get by with $10 a day for the two of us let alone for a week.

Basically Crissy spends about an hour each week combing through the grocery store fliers and clipping coupons from four Sunday papers. She only cuts the coupons for items that she uses and combines them with the current sales items. After reading the article about Crissy and her extreme couponing I did learn a few great tips and facts that I didn’t know about.

My favorite tip is that you can use one coupon for each item you purchase. If there is a buy 1 get 1 free sale you can use a coupon on both of the items. I think the key here is to get multiple papers and/or have a good stash of coupons so that you do end up with multiple coupons for the items.

I don’t buy multiple papers each week but every once in awhile I do end up with two sets of coupons. I live in a high rise and one of my neighbors puts their Sunday paper in a pile outside the trash room on my floor to be recycled and if I see it I’ll grab the coupons books out of it.

I do try to keep an eye on the sales and what coupons I have. We actually got about $30 worth of groceries for $16 this weekend when we combined the sales and coupons. This isn’t nearly as good as Crissy does but it’s not too shabby.

Do you use coupons? Are you embarrassed using them or too embarrassed to use them?

So I received my direct deposit “stimulus” check this week. It was a big whopping $296. Let me tell you, I wasn’t overly stimulated when it arrived. Yes, it is certainly better than nothing but really what am I going to do with $296? I guess I could buy five weeks of groceries, or maybe get my hair done twice (not including tip) or pay a fourth of my car insurance bill. None of which are very exciting if you ask me.

I really think they missed the mark on this one and I’ve thought this since they announced it a few months ago. I think a better program would have been a “Pick a Pot Hole Campaign” where each taxpayer could pick the pot hole they hate the most on the under maintained roads and they would come in a fix it. I personally hate pot holes.

How about a “Cow for Everyone Program” where you could get a cow’s worth of steaks per person, enough to last the entire year. I would even kick in the cost of the A-1 out of my weekly grocery budget!

So, what will I really do with my humungous stimulus check? Probably nothing. I’l put it in the checking account, add it onto the current balance number and move on. HIM should be getting the entire $600 which will be a bit better but we still aren’t going to be hitting the local mall armed with fistfuls of cash ready to stimulate the heck out of the economy!

After a long weekend in the coding trenches, immersed in the inner-workings of Wordpress, it looks as though I’m finally 99% happy with our little website. There’s still a little tweak or two to be made at some point but I’m not fretting about it. So what exactly was done?

Well, with Wordpress 2.5 released, I upgraded to that. Easily done as we were already running the pre-release version here. I also had become less than happy (already!) with the look of the site and rebuilt it by modifying the freely available Xplosive Reloaded theme from Blog Oh! Blog. Make sure you try out the different color schemes by using the links on the top-right! In trying to not completely geek out on everyone and in keeping with the personal finance theme, here’s a list of the tools I used and the cost associated with them. Note that I use a Mac so these programs may not be available to you.

• CSSEdit - Shareware - 29.95€ - A wonderful CSS editor that lets you extract styles directly from websites and edit them in real-time to see the results.
• GIMP - Open-Source - Free - If you don’t need to do a ton of image-editing or if you’re just too poor (like me) to purchase Photoshop, the GIMP is an excellent free alternative.
• Yummy FTP - Shareware - $25 - My favorite FTP program ever. Performance is good. Their folder sync feature is what I use to backup my websites. Transmit is another good yet more expensive alternative for Mac users and Cyberduck is an open-source alternative.
• TextMate - Shareware - 39€ - One of the leading text editors around. Fairly expensive, in fact the most expensive piece of software listed. But if you do any coding, from HTML, PHP, C++, etc… this is a great program. The best part for me is that it interacts with YummyFTP and lets me edit files directly on the web server. TextWrangler is a free version of BBEdit for those looking to save money.

You’ll notice that I use mostly shareware or open-source software. I find the quality to be just as good if not better than that of the giant software publishers. It also normally is much cheaper and I end up supporting small business owners that are passionate about their products.

For you other bloggers out there. What tools do YOU use to keep everything up and running?