making money, Saving money, and Budgeting?

Fowler · #41 07/16/12, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by City Bound

Buying store bought coffee is an expensive habit. Going to starbucks five days a week, two times a day, for a year can cost up to $2,500 a year and much more then that if you buy a cake or snack there.

A dual income family of two that eats out for lunch each work day spends close to $5,000 a year on those lunches.

So, if a husband and wife are both working, taking starbucks twice a day and eating out for lunch, it cost the family around $10,000 a year.

Every decade that family spends $100,000 on Starbucks and store bought lunch.

The average modest working two person family goes out to eat for dinner at least once a week (at least that is what I think, because people like to kick off their shoes and relax on the weekend and at the very least a modest couple is going to go to dinner, or a movie, or bowling). I would say that the annual average that that couple pays to go out for a meal each weekend is $40. With gas that roughly rounds up to 5 grand a year.

So, an average couple going to starbucks twice a day, eating out for lunch each day, and going out for dinner once a week spends $15,000 a year. $150,000 in a decade.

And what about the average person that needs a snickers and gaterade everyday. Eating 3 snickers a day for lets just say 7 days is 20 dollars a week, which = 4 trips to starbucks. The average person with a sweet tooth could spend 640 a yr on snickers. Now lets throw in 5 bottles of gaterade a day. 10 bottles cost appro 5 bucks. Over a 2 week period that's 60 bucks x 32 weeks thats 1920 dollars a yr. So within a decade a person could spend 25,600 bucks just on a snack and drink. It's no differant then going to starbucks IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zong

People that go to starbucks to get coffee aren't motivated to save anything.

This is untrue.

foxfiredidit · #42 07/16/12, 08:27 AM

I don't spend pocket change. I save it. At the end of every day, I put whatever pocket change has accumulated into a glass bowl that sits atop a bureau. When the bowl gets full, that amount goes into a Crown Royal bag. I now have serveral such bags full. When and if I run out of crown royal bags I count out enough change to convert into a new bottle of crown royal. That's not my drink and I only buy it for the bag. One of these days I'm going to take them down to the bank and run the change through the coin counter. Although weighty, they probably don't have that much dollar value. This probably is not a good long term strategy for savings.

Fowler · #43 07/16/12, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foxfiredidit

i don't spend pocket change. I save it. At the end of every day, i put whatever pocket change has accumulated into a glass bowl that sits atop a bureau. When the bowl gets full, that amount goes into a crown royal bag. I now have serveral such bags full. When and if i run out of crown royal bags i count out enough change to convert into a new bottle of crown royal. that's not my drink and i only buy it for the bag. one of these days i'm going to take them down to the bank and run the change through the coin counter. Although weighty, they probably don't have that much dollar value. This probably is not a good long term strategy for savings.

lol!!

City Bound · #44 07/16/12, 09:29 AM

Fowler, I have not touched a Gatorade nor a Snicker since I got back to NY. I am drinking tap water and chamamile ice tea and snacking on summer sage hobo salad, homemade humus, and puff rice candybars from the asian market that are 5 cents a piece.

The gatorade was to stay alive down there in that heat and the Snickers was a brief laps into candybar insanity. I have a laps into candybar insanity every two years and it lasts a week or two. It must have been the bucket half moon that was in the sky down there that kicked of my Snickers insanity, but I am back to normal now.

Fowler · #45 07/16/12, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by City Bound

Fowler, I have not touched a Gatorade nor a Snicker since I got back to NY. I am drinking tap water and chamamile ice tea and snacking on summer sage hobo salad, homemade humus, and puff rice candybars from the asian market that are 5 cents a piece.

The gatorade was to stay alive down there in that heat and the Snickers was a brief laps into candybar insanity. I have a laps into candybar insanity every two years and it lasts a week or two. It must have been the bucket half moon that was in the sky down there that kicked of my Snickers insanity, but I am back to normal now.

City Bound · #46 07/16/12, 09:36 AM

Fox I save my change at the end of the day also. I have two soup cans with the labels taken off, one is for qaurters for the bus, and the other is for all the other change.

It adds up. It may not look like much but I use to save the change in a coffee can and when I brought it to the change counter I had $40 one time, $70 another, and one time it was over $100.

Bring it to your bank where you have an account so you do not get charged. One bank charged me 10%.

City Bound · #47 07/16/12, 09:36 AM

go ahead and snicker at me fowler.

City Bound · #48 07/16/12, 09:40 AM

Fowler i like your numbers and I like mine, makes me realize that i should buy little to nothing from the store and to become as cheap as possible. Frugal is nice but maybe cheap is better...or maybe sternly frugal is better then cheap.

Tommyice · #49 07/16/12, 10:01 AM

Big difference between Cheap and Frugal. Cheap you will buy the cheapest product no matter the quality. Frugal will spend money on a quality item that will last longer than the cheap one.

Cheap always reminds me of the phrase "penny wise and pound foolish"

City Bound · #50 07/16/12, 10:13 AM

I know Leslie. i tell my dad that all the time because he is cheap. He always ends up paying double because he buys the cheapest stuff.

I was trying to find the right word. It is not cheap, but it has a little ting of cheap in it, sort of like "these people are not going to rip me off anymore." I think the mentallity is "do without". I have been doing frugal for five years now and it works, but the thing with frugal is that it is relative. one can be frugal but still be very wasteful. One can buy useless things and do useless activities and be very frugal in going about it, but the overall action is idol, senseless, and fruitless so there is little economy and gain in the doing.

Consumerism is a pathetic way of feeling like I am part of a group because society just seems to live to spend.

Fowler · #51 07/16/12, 10:21 AM

Tell that to my blue eyed gnome.....LOL!!!

City Bound · #52 07/16/12, 10:24 AM

haha, the blue eyed gnome was an impulse buy.

No blue eyed gnome eating snickers here. I offered him tap water and homemade humus and he ran away from home.

**Shrek** · #53 07/16/12, 01:56 PM

In the recession of the 1980s I frequently bought overpriced coffee house cappuccino on my way to work to get a morning kick off until the price went from 85 cents to $1.25 for a large to go at the end of 1982.

That was when I bought my own four shot espresso maker / steam frother and coffee grinder and started making my own with my breakfast.

Twenty years later those $1.25 coffeehouse cappuccinos at that coffee house are $6 each and I still make my own at home currently at a cost of about 50 cents and my to go cup has an extra shot of espresso. The overhead cost of my espresso machine and coffee grinder over the years has averaged out to $3.50 a year which comes to less than a penny a day for the luxury of a coffee house in my home.

Best part is that grinding my own coffee beans is I buy whatever roast style of beans is the least expensive and if not exactly to my taste, I can roast them a bit more in my convection oven before grinding and if my house has any musty or fishy odor hanging about, grinding a pound of beans and possibly baking a two pound loaf of bread that currently costs me about 50 cents a loaf with a current equipment overhead of $1.40 a year, it works better than aerosol air freshener.

doodlemom · #54 07/16/12, 02:07 PM

I think worms like coffee grounds too because where I toss them there seems to be more worms.

**Terri** · #55 07/16/12, 02:12 PM

I USED to aallow myself a certain amount of money a week for sodas and such. If I did not spend it all it went into a drawer, and eventually I would have a small nest egg built up.

Inflation happens, and eventually that was not enough. So, now I give myself a budget of $5 a week JUST for plants and such. Last fall I bought bulbs, which used up all of the coming winters budget, but I figured the garden would not need anything during the winter!

Edited to add.

Instead of budgeting the money I have coming in, I figure out what this place needs every month. I also give myself an allowance, half of which I spend on the kids.

If it is not in the budget of what this house needs, then it goes into savings if we are out of debt or onto the credit cards if we are in debt. When you own a place, repair bills HAPPEN, some of them will be expensive, and I think I am in debt more than out of it, blast it!

doodlemom · #56 07/16/12, 02:23 PM

I'm opening the floodgates on grocery shopping to take advantage of current sale prices of non perishables to get a jump on the projected price rise toward the end of this year into next.

City Bound · #57 07/16/12, 04:05 PM

What projected price rise?

ground coffee does smell good.

Inflation stinks.

I bought some of those stainless steel kitchen bowls that have been around for some time now. I got the idea from my parents because they got a few for wedding gifts and they have had them in use for over 40 years even though my siblings and I use to bang them and sit my baby sister in them to give her a ride on the kitchen floor. I figure if my bowls last 40 years that I will beat inflation. Invest in cast iron cookware, it is immune to inflation if you treat it right. Teflon cookware stinks, it wares outs and cost money to replace.

Ramblin Wreck · #58 07/16/12, 05:24 PM

I don't know what Doodle is referring to, but I'm seeing Progresso soup on sale here now for $1.68 a can. Last year it was easy to find at 4 for $5.

doodlemom · #59 07/16/12, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramblin Wreck

I don't know what Doodle is referring to, but I'm seeing Progresso soup on sale here now for $1.68 a can. Last year it was easy to find at 4 for $5.

Grocery prices headed higher as drought lingers - Bottom Line

I watch food prices like the stock market lol.

City Bound · #60 07/16/12, 06:35 PM

looks gloomy doodle.