For those who are currently on the job market–whether of their own free will or because they were downsized–I thought you’d appreciate this tip: today only (March 10), you can go to your local Fedex/Kinkos location (there are 1,600 in the U.S. alone) to have 25 black-and-white copies of your resume done for free. If you don’t have access to home office equipment and you’ve got some upcoming interviews, this seems like a great deal for getting your resumes copied.

So I’m at a point in writing this book where I’m a bit stumped. And if you know me, I’m never at a loss for words. Here’s what’s going on.

There is a proposed section in the book devoted to frugality in the garage, the basement and your kids’ playrooms. I’ve got a couple of tips to go on, such as turning off the electronics on the Playstation, XBox, Wii and whatever when you leave the playroom, and selling extra toys and books on eBay or Craigslist to make extra cash. But the garage and the basement? Well, besides putting up insulation or using a dehumidifier, what else is there?

My coming up empty with tips in these three areas of the house probably has a lot to with these facts:

• We do not have a garage.
• We do not have a traditional basement, in that most of it is dirt/crawl space. There is one room with a “real” floor and all it’s big enough is for us to store boxes in it.
• We have outgrown our playroom except for video games, an air hockey table, Foosball and a TV. The toys and other traditional trappings of playroom are long gone.

So dear readers with real garages, basements and playrooms, how do you practice frugality in these areas of the house?

As most of America is well aware of, we went into Daylight Savings Time (DST) this past weekend–you know, when we set the clocks to one hour later and “spring ahead.” I don’t know about you but I’ve been feeling a little jet lag today, like I’d traveled across a time zone without actually going anywhere. Well, I guess in reality, I did.

This jet lag effect was the most apparent this afternoon. Normally, around 3:00 I’ll start to feel a bit drowsy, and I’ll usually brew a second cup of coffee to perk me up and help me make it through the rest of the workday. Today, sure I felt drowsy at mid-afternoon, but when I glanced at the clock on my laptop, guess what? It was 4:00. Well, that took me by surprise. I had no idea it was that late in the afternoon, and, in my mind, it was just too late for another cup of coffee (that is, if I wanted to sleep tonight). Besides, I would be eating dinner in less than two hours. So I grabbed some water instead, which was probably better for me in the long run.

You know what else surprised me? Reading about this study in Fast Company that showed that DST increased energy usage. The notion behind setting the clock ahead an hour is to give us more light in the afternoon–originally so that farmers could work longer in the day. People once thought that this change would also save energy, because we wouldn’t have to turn on our lights until later in the evening. But these days it seems that with office buildings that have lights on no matter the hour of the day, switching to DST does nothing to save energy. But if switching the clocks really isn’t helping on the energy front, why bother changing the time twice a year?

Well, since I’m not going to go lobby Congress to make this change, I figured I’d at least help you avoid becoming an energy-sucking statistic by offering this simple reminder of the 7 ways you can save energy at home.

1. Turn lights off when you leave a room.
2. Wash clothes in cold water only so you’re not using energy to heat hot water.
3. Plug all electronics into surge protectors and then shut them off at night when not in use.
4. If you have a laptop, charge it once during the day, pull out the plug (from both ends) and run on battery power for as long as you can.
5. Clean the coils behind your refrigerator to make sure that it’s running as efficiently as possible.
6. Keep the heat or air conditioning off for as long as you can stand it on cold or hot days.
7. Replace your old incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

Even though these tips are basic, they really do work. How else can you explain the fact that our electricity bills plummeted when we moved from a new, energy-efficient home to an older, less energy-efficient house? Well, we started putting these small changes into practice, and all together, they added up to big savings.

What are some of the ways you save energy around the house, regardless of what “time” you’re in?

Today’s blog posting is actually a guest post from Danny Kofke, a teacher and author of the book “How to Survive (and Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher’s Salary.” Danny’s whole approach is about living well on a modest income, something he’s achieved as a special education teacher for the past nine years. Currently, he teaches outside of Atlanta. Here’s what Danny told me about his reason for writing the book:

“My colleagues inspired me to write my book.  I had a few teachers tell me that Tracy (my wife) and I did really well on a teacher’s salary and that I should write a book.  I really did not give it much thought but a few years ago Tracy and my oldest daughter were out of town and I decided to go ahead and try.  After a few months my book was done.  I thought it was neat to just have my words on paper for family and friends to read.  A few people said I should submit it to publishing companies.  I went ahead and Tate Publishing liked it and now I have a book.  It is so neat for me to see my name on a book.  My book was targeted to teachers but with the current economic situation, I feel it could benefit most.  I have actually gotten a few kind letters from others telling me how much my book has helped them.  That is PRICELESS and makes the effort I spent on it all worthwhile!”

Danny knows what he’s talking about, in that he walks the walk: despite living off one teacher’s salary, he and his wife “have no debt except our mortgage, have a 9-month emergency fund, invest so that we will retire with a sizable nest egg (yes, the stock market will rebound) and live a “wealthy” life on moderate salary.”

With that, Danny offers his three tips for setting a realistic budget so that you, too, can live well, even on a teacher’s salary:

1. Write Down Everything You Spend
After Tracy and I were married for a few months, we took a pen and paper with us everywhere we went and wrote down all of our purchases.  Yes, this was time consuming but well worth the effort.  I think so many people are in financial trouble because they do not know where their money is going.  For many it is not those big ticket purchases that have caused them trouble but, rather, those $5-$10 purchases (eating lunch out, drinking coffee out, buying sodas/snacks from vending machines, etc.) that add up over time.  Since the amount spent is not that much, many do not realize how fast these small purchases add up over time.  Let’s say you spend $3 every work day for snacks/drinks from a vending machine.  That adds up to $60 a month or over $700 a year!  If you write these purchases down, you can at least see how much you are spending on these items.

2. Use Cash
After coming up with a budget, use cash to pay for your purchases.  After analyzing your expenses, you will be able to see how much you need each week for items such as food, transportation, entertainment, etc.  Let’s say this amount is $300.  Every Friday (or whatever day works best for you) take that amount out in cash.  This will be your budget for the week.  When you run out of this cash, you will have to eat in or wait to buy something until the following week.  This may be tough at first but it helps you get a better control of your spending.

3. Analyze Your Monthly Expenses
We have all of our monthly expenses (mortgage, phone, utilities, etc.) written down – you would not believe how many people have no clue how much their house, car and utilities cost!  Tracy and I look over these expenses every so often to see if we can cut back anywhere.  A few years ago we realized we were paying too much for our phones.  We changed the plans on both our cell and house phones and saved over $75 a month by doing away with things we did not even use.  We never would have realized this if we had not analyzed our bills.

For more of Danny’s financial advice, visit his blog How to Survive on a Teacher’s Salary.

Thanks for a great post, Danny!

I just read a great article over at The Frugal Yankee. It’s about the good, the bad and the ugly of Dollar Stores–basically, what’s a great deal and what you should pass on by.

For example, many of the items the article points out that you shouldn’t buy at a Dollar Store have to do with the fact that these products may have been involved in a recall (peanut products, lead in jewelry) but somehow are still on the shelves there.

(Not sure how Dollar Stores get around complying with the Consumer Products Safety Commission but a search of the CPSC.gov website does show that there have been a number of products recalled from various Dollar Store franchises. Well, all the more reason for buyer beware!)

In an ode to my recent post “My Take on Your Frugal Tips–Fuggedaboutit,” here is a similar kind of post on “Dollar Store Deals” and “Dollar Store Don’ts”:

Dollar Store Deals

• Gift wrap
• Cleaning supplies
• Kitchen accessories (I need a new meat mallet for pounding chicken breasts. I never thought to check out my local Dollar Store. But, darn, I can’t go during this no-new-spending month! OK, note to self: visit Dollar Store in April.)
• Packaged food
• School/office supplies
• Organizers, like plastic bins

Dollar Store Don’ts

• Batteries
• Anything peanut butter
• Toothpaste
• Small electrical appliances and other stuff that uses electricity
• Paper goods
• Toys and jewelry

Got anything to add to the list? Let me know.

We are trying something new in the Suddenly Frugal household throughout the month of March. We are trying to make it through the month with no new spending.

In a way we are kind of like that book from a couple of years ago called Not Buying It. It revolved around a couple’s decision not to buy anything for a year except their necessities–and I think they got some grief for what they considered to be quote unquote necessities, such as a daily New York Times habit.

For us, here’s how we’re running this experiment. We are spending nothing (ideally) except to stay current on our monthly expenses–bills that we have paid automatically on our credit card or through online banking. And we are spending (albeit hopefully less) on food shopping.

Even with food shopping, we’re trying to cut back a bit by limiting how much we spend for each trip to the grocery store. On average, we’ve been spending anywhere from $800 to $1,000 a month on groceries. That just seems like too much. And even though I was trying to keep grocery shopping to about $150 to $200 per trip, once I reviewed our recent credit card statements, I realized something–together, my husband and I were making way more than one trip a week to the grocery store.

If we ran out of milk, we would run to the corner convenience store, where milk is about $1 more expensive. If I decided to bake something and needed ingredients, I’d hop over to the supermarket that’s walkable to my house but that’s also about 20% more than the farther-down-the-road grocery store where I do my regular shopping. Or if I got an email from the fundraising grocery shopping service that the school offers, reminding me to place an order, I usually would. And trust me it was never cheap.

So here’s what we did today–we being my husband and me, since he’s been accompanying me to the supermarket lately.:

1. We meal planned for more than one week at a time. We did this by not only looking to see what food was on sale at the grocery store but also by taking a dish–say grilled chicken–and discussing three different ways we could serve it (served on a bun, with a side of rice and veggies, or in a salad). Voila, three meals. We did the same with many of our favorites–breakfast for dinner, pasta and pork. In addition, I perused the A Year of Crockpotting blog to find various slow-cooker recipes that use similar ingredients.
2. We searched for coupons beyond the Sunday paper. For the longest time I’d been wanting to investigate the  notion of printing coupons out from the Internet, because that seemed like it could be a huge time- and money-saver. So today I joined CouponMom and downloaded their coupon-printing software. And with that I was able to print out a couple dollars worth of coupons, bar code and all, and use them at the checkout lane. The cashier didn’t give me any grief about these coupons. (I have to say, I was surprised. I really thought she was going to reject them. But, alas, she didn’t.)
3. We stocked up on anything that was on sale. Pork loin, for example, was $1.99/pound in the butcher department. So we had the butcher give us four 1-pound packages of it, which will give us four dinners at least. Peanut butter was also on sale (too bad I didn’t have a coupon) as were black beans. So was canned corn. Pasta? A buck a box. We got 10.
4. We froze what we weren’t going to use immediately. As of this writing I’ve got about 15 pounds of chicken and four pounds of pork in my freezer. (The chicken was also on sale for $1.99 a pound.) I’d already defrosted a previously purchased package of chicken over the weekend, and that’s what I’ll use for Monday’s dinner–maybe Tuesday, too.
5. We bought gift cards to pay for our purchase. Our idea for this month was that we were going to try to limit our grocery purchases to $600 only. While at the grocery store, we picked up six $100 gift cards. We used one full gift card and a portion of another for yesterday’s grocery shopping. (We’d spend $222.) Once these gift cards are gone, it’s going to be “clean out the pantry” meals for us. But hopefully it won’t get to that because of all of our advance planning.

We shared our experiment with our kids, who usually have more cash on hand than my husband and I do. So they weren’t too affected by our notion of not spending in March. But I could tell the message sunk in. On Sunday morning (that would be yesterday, March 1, the first day of the month), my youngest daughter wanted to get a movie On Demand. After she’d looked through the movie menu, she turned to me and asked, “I should get a free movie, shouldn’t I?” “Yes,” I replied. And she did.

Later that day my husband and I took our eldest daughter to her last softball training class (already paid for in January), and I really could have used another cup of coffee. As we drove by a Dunkin’ Donuts, I had to remind myself that, no, I couldn’t just go spend a buck on a cup of coffee. I hadn’t planned well enough to make a pot of coffee and put it in the thermos to bring with me, and tough! Lucky for me, though, the softball place had free coffee and donuts for parents and kids because it was the last day of class.

Since becoming Suddenly Frugal nearly two years ago, we’ve done a great job of cutting back on a lot of things. But after our fall off the frugal wagon last month–and then reviewing our spending in the process of getting ready to do our taxes next week–I realized something: even though we’re a lot better than we used to be with spending, there’s still room for improvement. And that’s our goal for March–actively improving our spending by not spending at all. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted as the month progresses.