The winds around here have been insane this last week. I have Two sections of fence that need to be repaired or replaced This is why we have the emergency fund but its not what I want to be spending our money on. I guess that since we had planned on gaining intensity on paying off the debt that something had to come up and give us trials.

That’s OK! Trials are for our growth, James 1:13 points out that God doesn’t tempt us, but makes the point earlier in the passage that the trials are for our development. Development in Christ, being grown from glory to glory (II Cor. 3:18) is a good thing - I’ll take the wind and the fences because they’re good for me… even if they make the budget a wee bit tighter.

With gas prices this high you’ll have fewer problems getting friends to join you for lunch in the brown bag club.  If they drive a few miles every day for lunch they could be spending a $5.00 bill every week just to pay extra to eat out.  Then, by wooing them into the frugality club you could ease them into doing other things more efficiently.

If you find yourself at the grocery store and you find yourself buying coffee and you find yourself buying coffee out of those bins (which I should take pictures of so that you know EXACTLY what I mean) with the little pull levers that release the whole beans into the paper bags: STOP!  That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t buy that coffee as much as it is to say this: beware the funky flavored crud.

I had company in town and I didn’t purchase them the high end [high quality but not high priced] stuff I usually buy because they don’t like it (I offer and they generally refuse it).  But I did buy them what was supposed to be 10% Kona beans because I’m nice like that.  Except that the lemurs that put the coffee in the bins put the kona (read: hawaiian beans are in here) next to the hazelnut flavored coffee.  Note the word flavored.  That word should be a big warning sign.  They should label it, “Death star coffee flavored like hazelnuts so that the death will be sweet.”  But they don’t.

If you buy coffee that is supposed to be just plain coffee flavored out of the chute next to the flavored death star stuff then spill a little of the beans into the bag and then smell the beans.  Your nose should be able to tell if miracles have happened and your kona coffee smells like coffee or if the evil siths of hazelnut have taken over and your imported beans are really just polluted with bad ju-ju.

Save your money on the coffee that’s been polluted, report to a store manager that the devil responsible for putting the coffee in that chute should be chastised heavily, and then buy something else that may not be what you wanted, but will not be polluted.  Unless of course you’re into flavored coffee, in which case by all means just dump the arabica beans into the bag and proceed with your business.  I’m embarrassed to have written this post because I prefer home roasted coffee if possible.  But I’m a coffee snob and I have to deal with that burden every day.

We have purchased 90 bags of Peppridge Farms Goldfish crackers at $0.50 each.  That is to say that we have picked them up for about 25% of their retail price and now we have bags of these crackers that will last us into the winter or longer (I should hope longer, nobody needs that many cheese crackers).  I think that makes us pretty cheesy, and crazy.  We saved a lot of money, had to go through the register three times, but will be well stocked.  If we have a natural disaster that keeps us trapped in our house for a while, we’ll at least have some carbohydrates.

What’s the most extremely frugal thing you  do?   A man I know lives on a corner and he parks his car on the street and backs the car around the corner instead of going straight because it wears his tires out just slightly less than pulling a U-turn and then taking a right handed turn.  I am insanely anal about turning off lights and computer monitors around our house (we have two).  I also like to keep “fart fans” on as short as possible in the bathroom (and wish I simply had windows upstairs, though the basement doesn’t need one in the bathroom).

Tonight we bought 30 bags of goldfish crackers at the grocery store because they were on special and that was the limit.  They cost us fifty cents each and so we spent fifteen dollars on enough goldfish crackers to last quite a bit of time.  Our daughters like them and the big containers can’t compete with that per-bag price.

So… what is the most extreme frugal behavior you practice?  Have you done anything above normal like buy thirty bags of goldfish crackers?

I just paid a library fine bigger than I thought they could get.  Due to some stellar miscommunication with my bride a huge library fee was due.  I could have used her card that didn’t have a fee on it, but I pledged to be responsible for all fines on my card when I signed up at the library and so I bit the bullet, took a deep gulp and paid the fine.

The woman at the counter asked me if I knew how much the fee was and I said, “Yes.”  She was rather surprised.  I knew we’d screwed up, I knew what we owed, and I paid it.  It was the right thing to do, even if it was painful to do.  Stupid tax that, had I done this three times, could have bought me a bass guitar this last weekend in fines.  Lesson Learned most definitely

I’m not maxed out with credit cards, my time is maxed out.  Therefore blogging will be light over the next few weeks as I dig through client needs and make sure that they’re satisfied.  I’m just warning you in case you’re thinking that I’m dead or something

Look for some content to come your way, just not a huge deluge of PF podcasting or blogging.  I expect to be back to normal in two weeks or less.

This morning my girls scanned the newspaper ads.  My five year old identified coupons and with great glee declared, “Mommy is going to love this ad, it has coupons!”

We’re definitely a coupon oriented family now.  Its because it comes part and parcel with personal finance obsessions

I spent imaginary money in an imaginary way today. I really wanted to buy a new bass guitar. The bass guitar I have is broken and I really wanted to replace it. There was a used bass guitar at the music store today that was in excellent working condition, sounded amazing, and was only $149.00. I walked through the purchase process in my mind, I justified the purchase, I had explanations of where the money would come from *cough* economic stimulation *cough* and then realized that I was uber-lusting over that which I had no money for. The problem in all that I wrote in the sentence before was the phrase “would come from.” I would get money later that was wind fall income and instead of being a good little boy and doing what I should with it, I was ready to compromise my family’s income and financial future for a bass guitar that I didn’t need, I just wanted it for my own personal use.

There’s a slight chance that you’ll watch the video and laugh. Or be jealous that the Estes Park area is beautiful - pay cash and go visit Estes Park, CO.
This podcast is about how credit cards are not a great choice for most people most of the time.