It’s 2016 and I’m back, baby!
 
As much as society tells me to hate 'em, I’ve always got a slew of resolutions when the new year rolls around, because I love nothing more than a fresh start. Except for Law & Order. I really like Law & Order. My resolution would be to watch more Law & Order but I don’t think that’s physically possible.
 
Anyway, while my big financial goal this year is to increase my retirement savings (I’m getting old, ya’ll) I can’t do that without being even more frugal in my day-to-day life. Pondering ways to trim my spending got me thinking about the ever-present “If you just make your cup of coffee at home every day, you can retire early”-type advice you see on financial websites.
 
I don’t know if that’s quite true, but I do know you can save an awful lot by curbing or quitting some habits, coffee-related and otherwise,  and you can put that saved money towards retirement. And who knows, you might just might be able to jump off the 9-5 hamster wheel a wee bit sooner.
 
Check it out.
 
Say you buy…
 

• Lunch at work every day ($8) …. Adds up to $2080 annually (What about just once a week? $416 annually)
• Dinner out once a week ($50) …. Adds up to $2600
• 1 pack of cigarettes a day ($7.50) … Adds up to $2737.50 annually (What about just once a week? $390 annually)
• 1 case of beer a week ($20) … Adds up to $1,040 annually (What about just once a month? $240 annually)
• 1 bottle of wine a week ($8) … Adds up to $416 annually
• Subscriptions to both Hulu and Netflix each month ...  Giiving up one ($7.99) adds up to $95.88 annually
• Drinks and snacks at Happy Hour once a week ($12) … Adds up to $624 annually
• 1 cup of coffee every work day (I know, I know) ... Adds up to $260  annually if it's $1 a day, $780 annually if you're buying the pricey stuff ($3.50)
• A monthly cable subscription ($70) ... Adds up to $840 annually
• 1 bottle of water every work day ($1) ... Adds up to $260 annually
• 1 trip to WaWa for snacks a week ($3) ... Adds up to $156 annually

Kinda scary, isn't it? All that to say, even when you think you can't save any more, I betcha if you look at some of your routines, you'll find room to cut corners - I know I have! (cough, cough, Wawa snack.) 

What are your financial resolutions for 2016?

It was about this time last year that George let me know that come January 1, he wasn’t going to have a full time job anymore. Ooooh, memories. 
 
I remember him physically bracing himself as he delivered the news, clearly preparing for the impending yelling/weeping/generalnashingofteeth. But somehow, none of that came. I calmly put down the GIGANTIC box of Runts (Banana FTW!) I was consuming, assured him everything would be fine, said a quick prayer, and opened up my excel budget sheet.
 
Turns out, remaining calm was probably the best thing we both coulda done during the period that G searched for a job. While I hope this never happens to you, ReaderFriend, I do think we learned a lot of valuable lessons during this chapter in our lives and felt it was my bloggerly duty to pass them along. Other than STAYING CALM PEOPLE, might I recommend that you:
 
Be informed: I’ve had friends who were unemployed for two weeks, others who were unemployed for two years. I spent a looooot of time reading articles and studies about unemployment, but one salient fact still sticks out: The average unemployment period is about 8 months. Eight. Knowing a stat like that and being cool with it are two very different things, but understanding that relief might not exactly be right around the corner was helpful in moving forward and creating a plan of action.  Which brings me to ….
 
Have a plan: You know me and my Type A ticks—I love a plan and firmly believe that having one is nearly always a good idea. There’s so much to talk through and figure out when you’re going through this process: What kinds of jobs are you going to apply for? What salary are you willing/able to take? What happens when Unemployment Compensation runs out? How can you use your network of friends and family to find out about opportunities that might be a fit? Is it time for a career change? GAH! There’s just so much! We found it so helpful to keep everything in the open and talk through all of our options so we were always on the same page and always operating from the same playbook. It sounds odd, but we squabbled less than ever during this uncertain and shaky period of our lives. No doubt in my mind that that stemmed from the fact that we remained transparent and honest with one another.
 
Make a budget (and stick with it for Pete’s sake!): We were fortunate in that we live by a fairly strict monthly budget, so it only took us a few days to really find out how we could carve into/around it in order to save dollars during this critical time. And because I’m such a budgeting freak already, it wasn’t too much of a challenge to stick to our new, meager spending guidelines. We also made tons of phone calls to everyone from the car insurance company to our internet provider to find out how we could save a few bones here and there. We cancelled services (sorry, Audible!) that were really not necessary, skipped any and every dinner out, and nixed birthday presents and the like. Don’t need it to live? Then don’t need it period!
 
Trust and Rely: Simply put, we could not have gotten through this period on our own. We prayed a lot while looking for answers and guidance, and we relied on the prayers of our friends and family. We looked to colleagues and neighbors to hook us up with job opportunities and help G network. We called parents and vented for hours on end. We gratefully accepted every check-in-the-guise-of-an-easter/New Years/happy summer-present that George’s mom offered. We high-fived friends who let us bail on dinners and happy hours out and who happily came over for frozen pizza nights instead. (Do I like frozen pizza better than “real” pizza? I might, friends, I might.) What a strangely amazing position to find ourselves in!
 
Be grateful: All of this to say … perspective people. Throughout this “hard” time, I remained employed; we had a cozy house to call home; and our friends, family and faith carried us through. We learned so freaking much about being grateful for what we have been given, about not mistaking work for life, and about the folly that is believing in “financial security.” It was hideous while we were in it, but looking back, I’m thankful for all the lessons we learned! Hindsight, 20/20, you know that whole thing.
 
So there’s your inspirational pep talk for surviving the uncertainty that is unemployment. Next week, I’ll be back with the nitty-gritty on that budget plan that you know I’m just itching to share with you!

I have a love/hate relationship with  “too cheap not to buy.” This is the attitude that says “I don’t really love that shirt, but it’s too cheap not to buy!” or “I don’t need two packages of Oreos, but at buy one, get one half off, they’re too cheap not to buy!”  Okay, so everyone should always have two packs of Oreos at the ready, but you get the gist. I’ve written about this phenomenon in past posts, as well as the fact that I’ve tried to curb it by keeping a list of items I really want/need and trying my darnedest not to deviate, even when something is dirt cheap. Cause really, even a buck is too much to pay for something unnecessary. (When in doubt, apply Tim Gunn's rule on bargains: Don't buy something on sale you wouldn't consider paying full price for. Oh yeah, I just invoked Tim Gunn. Zing!)

But what happens when something on the list becomes “too cheap not to buy”? Um, awesome things, that’s what happens. So say you’ve been, oh I dunno, monitoring the cost of a trip to Iceland, figuring that $1,000 all in is the average price for airfare, hotel, and a coupla Aurora Borealis-related activities. Well then I suppose you’d be an idiot not to book the trip if you saw a deal to nab it at $600. That’s 40% off, fellow math whizzes. And where I come, 40% off is “too cheap not to buy.”

I’ll admit that I wasn’t really planning on raiding the vacation fund this quickly after we got back from Key West, but the trip really was too cheap…well, you know the drill. In my book, this type of spend is totally justifiable, even though the timing was a bit off. It was on the list, I wasn’t going to go into debt by handing over my debit card number, and I was more or less saving money since I was going to go ahead and book such a trip in the near future anyway. Sometimes, I love financial justification!

What say you? What's your "too cheap not to buy" policy??

Although I’m loath to admit it, George and I … do not own a swimming pool. I know, I know, it’s a major bummer, particularly as I’m the type who could float the day (and by day I mean weekend, and by weekend I mean summer) away and be perfectly happy doing so. BIG SIGH. You know me well enough to gather that I’m not the type who's ever gonna plunk down hundreds of bucks to join a pool for the season, so how’s a  frugal girl to handle her hankerin’ for some good old fashioned chlorine?

Fortunately, I am a citizen of the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection,  which means that while my tax dollars are clearly not going to towards filling the growing pothole in the middle of my street they are going towards the operation of the city’s free public swimming pools.

What’s that you say, Philly? Free pools? Now you’re speaking my language. (Well, sort of. I still can't get behind "hoagie." It's a sub, people.) While I was kinda aware that the city had pools, I’d always been scared off by horror stories about the overabundance of chemicals in the water, of crummy facilities, and of gazillions of kids running around. 

Well, I can’t speak for the other 70 outdoor pools in the city, but I can speak to the John B. Kelly Pool (Yes! Of the Grace Kellys! Keepin’ it classy, Philly.), which George and I have become quite well acquainted with this summer. Do yourself a favor: put aside all the crap you’ve heard about the public pools and take yourself for a swim.

Nestled in a grassy, tree-lined spot beside the Please Touch Museum in the heart of Fairmount Park, the Kelly Pool is an Olympic-sized swimming hole that is just waiting for you to cannonball on in. Sure, the bottom could use a new coat of paint, sure the rules are no joke (do not even think about getting in the water without rinsing off first), sure you could be the victim of one of those cannonball splashes…but. But guys, it’s free, it’s pretty, it’s clean and there’s all kinds of different types of swims (Adult, Family, etc) so you can, for instance, avoid crying kids or preening teenagers and just hang with boring, flabby adults if that’s your thing. (Clearly, it’s mine).  Bonus: While you might have visions of super crowded pools teeming with your neighbors, we’ve never had more than a moderately sized crowd greet us at Kelly.

What are you waiting for? Hop in! CANNONBAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!

I’m sooooo over books. Don’t believe me? I’ve made a promise to myself that I’m not buying any books at all this year. Nada. Zilch.

I mean, they’re the worst.

PSYCH! I love books! Paperbacks, digital, audio; whatever. I want to read them, I want to learn from them, I want to rub my face in them. Wait, what? Weird.

But yeah, I did make myself a promise to not buy a single tome in 2015, a decision that stems from two key elements of my personality: I’m cheap and I hate clutter. (Did you…I’m sorry, did you not realize that after 9,000 blog posts to that end?)

While I try to read at least 50 books a year (It’s like my very own Book It throwback challenge! Perhaps when I hit the big 5-0 this year I should treat myself to a Personal Pan Pizza. So. Much. Dough.), most of them are not volumes I‘m going to read a second time. They’re largely books about, like, murderous milliners and/or members of the Nixon administration. (What can I say, I have great taste.) But anyway, I do 99% of my reading for pleasure, and thus the books I dig into are not ones that need to stay on my shelf in perpetuity.

In short, buying books is not a wise use of my limited funds—or a good use of space in my 900-square-foot house, which is already full of hundreds of the previously acquired little guys. So, no mo’.

Today, I get most of my books from the library, aka the greatest place on earth. (True Story: I once heard someone say: “I wish there was a Netflix for books,” and her companion responded, “Um, it’s called the library?” #fact.) Those I don’t pick up from the stacks I typically bum off of friends or colleagues, and now and then a Mama or a George buys me a special book of my very own (for which I obviously make a space exception). I have yet to stumble upon a title I’ve wanted to read this year that I haven’t been able to acquire in one of these ways.

And so, onward. I’m 6 months into my, little personal challenge, and while I’ve had moments of weakness I haven’t caved yet. I still heart books, I’m still reading as much as I always have, and I can still support authors by going to readings, by blogging about what book I’m currently into, and by recommending faves to friends. The bonus is I don’t need to drop $10 - $30 bucks every time I want to pick up my next volume.

Speaking of, I’ve got a pre-pub of the upcoming Sarah Vowell staring at me from the coffee table and, well, it’s not gonna read itself now is it? Bbye!