Cheap fast food. The best, the worst.

I fully admit that over the summer I may have indulged a little more than I should have regarding eating out, specifically fast food. I know there are health and quality concerns that need to be considered, but I consider it one of my precious few luxuries. Even while indulging, I tried my very best to stick to a reasonable budget. When I was with the missus this was difficult, as when we eat out we tend to make it a full meal. But after a number of hard mornings at the office I became quite adept at satisfying my hunger with minimal damage to my budget.

There are certain places to eat for certain things and while sometimes you have a craving you just can't shake, most often than not you can have a filling lunch for two dollars or so, if you pick your poison wisely.

Some places are better to eat at than others when it comes to a limited budget, as I'll explain below.

• Subway: This popular chain has released a new ad campaign, selling $5 foot long subs. This seems fairly reasonable at first glance and it is in the end of things. But in comparison to a lot of other fast food franchises, it isn't terribly great. You're restricted to a set number of sandwiches, and Subway isn't known for piling on the ingredients. After tax you are probably ringing up a fair bit above the advertised $5, especially if you buy a bag of chips and a fountain drink.
  
  Healthier than most other fast food chains, but by far not the cheapest.
  
  
• Dunkin Donuts: Dunkin's has entered the realm of fast food not terribly long ago with their flat bread sandwiches and personal pizzas. But in comparison to other chains they're neither cheap or filling per dollar spent. Delicious? Perhaps. Worth it? Not really.
  
  Money is best spent here with a Munchkin, Small Coffee Combo. Stay far, far away from the budget breaking Coolattas.
  
  
• McDonalds: The double cheese burger reigns king at McDonalds when you're looking for the cheapest, best thing on the menu. Typically selling for $1 it's a pretty good deal. Before you unwrap it and sink your teeth into it's greasy, condiment flavored interior. Any given bite of this baby will either taste like beef-like-substance bread or ketchup.
  
  The four piece nugget is quite delicious, but for a $1 you'll need two or three just to satisfy mild hunger.
  
  
• Burger King: In my opinion Burger King is superior to McDonalds in all ways. This includes their value menu. The best item for your dollar? Undisputedly the Whopper Jr, of course. This tiny version of the whopper actually contains more than condiments, with the full lettuce, pickle, onion and tomato you'd expect on a cheese burger.
  
  Besides that the value menu is pretty lacking. You have the standard chicken sandwich, fries and onion rings, but they're neither substantial or worth the money in a tight lunch budget.
  
  
• Wendy's: Wendy's brings a lot to the table for the cheap grease seeker. It is typically my cheap meal ticket of choice in most situations. Wendy's bread and butter value menu product is the Junior Bacon Cheese Burger. While relatively small, two easily make a filling meal for just over $2.
  
  Several new items to the value menu include a double cheese burger that is fairly decent in comparison to McDonalds and a Crispy Chicken sandwich that is best not discussed.
  
  A small chili without cheese is likely the best value, ringing in at around $1.20.
  
  
• Taco Bell: My holy grail for fast, greasy food on the go. The only reason why I'm not constantly shoveling this down my gullet is the lack of establishments in my area. The food is delicious, dirt cheap (likely because the contents are items that are essentially the cheapest on the planet) and quickly prepared.
  
  The undisputed king of Taco Bell's value menu is the simple taco. Soft flour or crunchy corn you're not spending a cent more than $0.89 for this simple cheap meal. The Taco Bell menu is highly modular, so coupling a single taco with say, the $1.00 double beef burrito is quite easy.
  
  That being said it's quite easy to be side tracked into purchasing one of the more expensive items, such as a Crunchwrap (up to $3) or a Gordita (up to $2.50).

Are there regional favorites like Jack in the Box, Sonic, Chipotle Grill, Checkers and their ilk? Absolutely. But I really can't offer an opinion on many others, despite their regional existence and lack of nearby locations.

Of course I'm in no way suggesting you eat at any of these establishments frequently. I typically limit myself to one excursion a week. Usually to Taco Bell. Used in conjunction with adequate exercise and a bit of self control the value menu at any of these establishments can be a welcome treat to the financially challenged individual.

Cut Costs This Winter: 5 Easy Tips

This time last year the biggest thing on my mind was energy costs. Whether it be electricity, heating fuel, or gasoline for my tiny car the costs pretty much erode my fun money down to pretty much nothing. This issue is only made more critical in the winter, when my relatively poorly insulated, ancient home requires vast quantities of kerosene (because my fuel lines love to FREEZE) and electricity (because my heater loves to work, work, work).

This year, surprise surprise, I find myself in a better financial situation with a worse economy. Energy costs are considerably higher, making that extra change in my pocket more or less meaningless. So, needless to say the biggest concern I have this year is the same as it was last fall.

But there are some various things I've come up with to combat the encroaching frost that don't require much, if any investment in order to get a significant return.

1. Digital thermostat: A lot of homes, older ones especially, have old style dial thermostats. This is where you set a temperature (say, 70 degrees) and forget about it. Sure, you can adjust the dial at your whim. But it requires constant supervision if you wish to best optimize your heating plan.
   
   For example, the house doesn't need to be toasty warm while you're at work. In order to accomplish these savings you'd have to turn down the thermostat every day before you walk out the door.
   
   A couple of years ago we bought a digital thermostat. It cost us $20 and was dead simple to install. We simply unscrewed the old dial and screwed a couple of wires into the new box. Now our heater works in concert with our activities. Week nights after 10:00 PM the temperature drops to a more sustainable temperature. But the heater kicks right back on at 8:00 AM, when it's time to get up. This eliminates human error and insures we never have the heater running unless necessary.
   
   
2. Turning down the heat: It's a painful thing to do, and I swear it's probably changed me in some fundamental Batman villain way. But it works. Your house does not need to be kept at a roasty-toasty 75 degrees in the dead of winter. 68 will likely suffice just fine. Last year our thermostat didn't breach 65.
   
   This year? I might even dip down to a lovely ambient temperature of 60 during the day and 55 during the night.
   
   
3. Focus the heat: This is especially true if you live in an older house with forced hot air ventilation, like my own. Or if you find yourself with more square footage than really required in the dead of winter.
   
   You can find magnetic heater vent covers at your local hardware store. Simply place them over your heater vents and close off a couple of doors. We allow our summer living room (an addition) to fall well below freezing during the colder months. It has no pluming to worry about, is relatively poorly insulated and it goes unused anyway.
   
   If you don't have forced hot air, look into disabling your radiators or closing your central air conditioning vents.
   
   
4. Strategically use space heaters: I'm not saying go out and spend $500 on space heaters and scatter them around your home. But strategically placed, 2 or 3 space heaters can mean the difference between $600 in energy costs for December or $300.
   
   If you find yourself working from home a lot, place one if your office. If you have a relatively closed off living room, deploy one there. So long as you remember to turn them off when you're not around or conscious and use them as a supplement instead of a replacement you should notice a smaller energy bill overall.
   
   
5. Seal cracks, eliminate drafts: You'd be surprised at how many cracks and drafty windows the average home has. Beneath door jams, inside windowsills, unmoved air conditioners from bygone eras.
   
   Try purchasing some weather sealant caulk from your local hardware store to seal infrequently used windows and back doors. You can even go so far as purchasing plastic sheeting (clear, so you can let sunlight in) to block off some especially drafty older windows. Close storm doors and windows. Utilize draft dodgers (neat little tubes of insulated filling) to prevent drafts under more frequently used doors.
   

So long as you use a little bit of forethought, research and common sense the approaching winter shouldn't be as bad as you think it's going to be, even with rising energy costs.

Hobbies for the frugal

Everyone has at least one hobby. Something they really enjoy doing that doesn't really have a practical and every day purpose. I've met people who like collecting retro video games, people who make beautiful music and people who love putting together elaborate model trains and villages.

The problem is, when money gets a bit tight the hobbies are usually the very first things to go, even before free time and food. Which is a shame. Hobbies define who we are. It adds a little bit of character and color into our lives. Which is exactly what most people need when they find themselves strapped for cash.

But hobbies don't necessarily have to be costly. Sure, a lot of the good ones are. But there are many things that you can do to occupy you body and mind other than mindless toiling under the gun of making an extra dollar.

Here are a couple of small suggestions. But this mind is by all means not a tell all list. There's an infinite number of things you can do to occupy yourself. You just need to be a little creative.

• Read
  So long as you're not married to any given series of books or costly periodical reading remains one of the cheapest pay for hobbies imaginable. You can find any given book type under the sun at your local library. And if they don't have it, they can order it for you.
  
  If you must permanently possess a piece of literature you can try any number of used book stores, thrift stores or book sales. Many of these places also carry older magazines. While the pop culture periodicals are probably pretty worthless you can always find those that cannot be made obsolete with time, such as National Geographic.
  
  
• Paint
  Acrylic paint, brushes and unfinished wooden doohickeys are surprisingly cheap at general craft stores. Despite my manly prowess, I've found myself on occasion painting pretty pink jewelry boxes with bumble bees and hearts. You can find a surprising amount of unfinished items, too. Everything from boxes to coat racks to chairs and wooden toys.
  
  
• Gardening / Yard improvement
  When I hear the word "yard work" I cringe. But I have to admit that after I quit my complaining I actually really enjoy getting outside and scotching my pasty white skin beneath the blazing New England sun. After spending a whole winter couped up in a tiny house with debris gathering on the yard it's good to clear some leaves and brush sometimes.
  
  
• Hiking
  If you don't live in the very center of a heavily urbanized area, chances are there's some mighty fine hiking within a half an hour of your home. So long as you have a good pair of boots, a rucksack and a water bottle you're more than capable of getting outside and enjoying some fresh air.
  
  If you need a little help in finding some local trails, try TrailFinder which is maintained by the American Hiking Society. The resource even provides locations for additional outdoor activities, such as dog hiking, biking, fishing and camping. If you're willing to shell out a hundred bucks or so on a GPS, you can always try Geocaching, too. After the original investment in the GPS device there's no direct cost involved.
  
  
• Bird watching
  Whether you're lazy and prefer to do it on your back porch with a glass of ice tea and a bird feeder or a bit more proactive with a pair of binoculars and hiking boots bird watching won't cost you a time if you're frugal about it.
  
  And if you're looking for something a bit more elaborate than stale bread in the backyard, unfinished bird feeders are pretty cheap. As are mixed seeds and hummingbird nectar.
  
  
  
  
• Some sports
  Hockey is a bad hobby for the frugal fiend because of all the equipment involved to do it safely. Not to mention the cost of using a skating rink. But basketball, soccer, baseball, softball and touch football all just pretty much require a ball and maybe a bat.
  
  
• Stargazing
  In my driveway on a clear night it's hard to make out much in the sky. A couple of the better known constellations, maybe Mars of Venus. There's a fair bit of light pollution, so stargazing is pretty difficult.
  
  But if I drive 15 minutes down the road to a cemetery in my local state park all of that fades away and suddenly I can see more stars than I ever could have imagined. I did this with the last lunar eclipse. Stargazing itself is always free. It's even better if you can find a pair of binoculars from another era and blow off the dust.
  

Regardless of what you'd like to do it's always important to keep a hobby while in financial straights. It'll serve as a release valve for all the stress that's sure to come with living on a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

The dreaded homelunch

There was a time when I used to work in an office environment for nine hours a day, five days a week, fifty one weeks a year. It was a pretty grueling experience to say in the least. My days were made up of high pressure deadlines, keyboarding and a fair amount of incompetent technophobes yelling at me because they couldn't exactly wrap their heads around the whole purpose of having secure passwords and anti-virus software.

Needless to say the best part of my day was almost always the lunch hour. Sixty sweet minutes of peace and quiet to do with what I please and enjoy a nice meal. And with the missus in the next office over we could take a leisurely break together. And maybe vent at one another as to why, exactly our boss felt the need to be such an arrogant waste of skin.

Because it was a busy office environment in an area populated by office buildings, real estate brokerages and banks there was a dangerous temptation. It was called "the strip" and it was glorious. A mere sixth of a mile down the busy seven lane artery that could have passed for a major highway were more places to eat than stars in the sky. Everything from the usual fast food garbage to upscale twenty dollar sandwiches. If you felt like anything at all on any particular day of the week, you could find it, order it and consume it in less than an hour.

And man, oh man. Would that seven lane motorway clog like a low flow toilet at 11:55 every weekday, without fail.

I'm pretty ashamed to admit that we'd waste a good $60 every week on lunch. That's more than half of our current food budget for two full weeks, breakfast lunch and dinner included. We did this for more than half of a year. Our rough estimates put this at around $1,500 of pure excess. Sure, the food was marvelous and the stress relief was great. But not only were we wasting an extraordinary amount of money, our waistlines were also exponentially increasing. I gained 30 pounds at that job, due to eating out and sitting on my ass all day, typing.

Now that I work from home for the vast majority of my work week I have full access to every household appliance in my home in addition to my fridge and pantry. Lunch is no longer a problem. There's no temptation to go out, as I live in the boonies.

But I did start to get serious about being frugal before I left the office grind. While there was still a little bit of excess involved, it was far more manageable. Here are some of the tips and tricks I experimented with.

• Don't change your life style all of a sudden
  If you're used to eating out, you're going to get withdrawals it you all of a sudden stop and switch to the loathed Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich at your desk. Going out for Thai with your work buddies is far more appealing.
  
  So continue to do it, but work on scaling yourself down. Form a rough budget and evaluate your performance on a week to week basis. But don't get depressed if you go over budget once in awhile.
  
  Start bringing your lunch on your less stressful days and enjoy a nice time out on the more head grinding days. Eventually over time whittle it down so you only go out one or two days a week.
  
  
• Remove temptation
  It's depressing to see a group of your coworkers go out to your favorite lunch canteen. It's downright torture to see (and smell) them get delivery. Curb your potential torture by taking your lunch break earlier than most of your peers, if possible. Leaving the building altogether works well if you don't mind being a little antisocial. I used to bring a good book to my car and read in the spring and summer months.
  
  
• Snack
  Okay. Not all of us can be antisocial nerds and read under a tree when the clock strikes 12. Let's say you need to go out on a daily basis, if only to chat with your friends and coworkers and get a little bit of socializing in.
  
  Have a snack about an hour before lunch time and order something relatively small when you do go out. Since you won't be famished, you'll be less likely to order something off the menu that could feed a cow.
  
  
• Don't drink soda
  Soft drinks like Pepsi and Mountain Dew are mostly carbonated water. Which is essentially tap water with a bit of gas dissolved into it. I once knew a woman who managed a restaurant for a number of years. She informed me that soft drinks have an enormous third party markup. It costs the average restaurant about $0.03 to provide you with a frosty cold Pepsi. Which is why most establishments tend to offer free refills. Likely because they're charging you about $2.00 for something that costs them three cents. The same is more or less true for coffee.
  
  So if you find yourself as a fast food joint or elsewhere, simply drink water. You'll be cutting down on empty calories and saving yourself a bit of money.
  
  
• Utilize the microwave
  Microwaves are more common than toilets nowadays. There was a time when I lived off of Hot Pockets. Granted, they were still incredibly unhealthy and still cost me $2.50 a box, but that sure as heck beat going to McDonalds and buying a $6.50 double quarter pounder.
  
  You don't even have to buy microwavable convenience meals. Microwaves in the work place allow you to bring pretty much anything you can fancy for lunch, be it left overs from the night before or something you whipped up that morning.
  
  
• Utilize icepacks
  Say you're on the run more often than not and a microwave is not always an option. There's nothing chaining you down to just sandwiches. So long as you have a lunch bag and an icepack there are a number of things you can eat cold and on the run.
  
  Some ideas include:
  
  
  • Pasta Salad
    
  • Chicken Salad (Maybe with left over chicken from the night before?)
    
  • Gazpacho
  • Waldorf
  • Veggie Wraps
  • Fruit Salad
  • Left over pizza (I prefer it cold, honestly.)
  • Left over fried chicken (Fried chicken is excellent cold, that's way it makes excellent picnic fodder.)
  • Potato Salad
  • Tortilla chips and salsa (or Spinach dip)
    
  
  So long as you can dice it and shove it inside of a tortilla or a tupperware container, you can bring it and eat it cold.
  
  
• Set aside dinner portions
  Regardless of what I'm having for dinner on any given night I try to put an extra portion into a piece of tupperware before I sit down to eat. This could be anything from mashed potatoes of taco filling. This stops us from eating it and it gives me something to work with for the next day's lunch.
  
  There's no rule saying you have the have an exact duplicate of your previous night's dinner. Roast chicken can be diced up and put into a salad. Taco filling can be mixed with rice and corn. Roast beef can be sliced thinly and placed into a wrap. Mashed potatoes can be mixed with cheese and sour cream, et cetera.
  
  
• Don't underestimate the power of carbs
  I love carbohydrates. They're tasty and extremely filling. Whenever I work outside of my home for a long period of time, I always bring some seasonal fruit and a slice of breakfast bread with me. The breakfast bread will keep me filled for a long time while I bust my hump. The same is true for any complex carb, be it pasta, potatoes or a big hunk of pumpernickel.
  

So long as you make an honest effort to try to curb your unhealthy and wasteful lunch habits you'll succeed, if only a little bit at first. But it's not incredibly difficult.

Stretching food

Most people like routine and schedules, especially when it comes to their food. I for one love trying new and different things, but nine times out of ten I typically gravitate toward the dishes I've grown to love. These include tacos, chicken cheese and broccoli, roast chicken, calzones and chicken stew. So when the going gets tough people tend to start to get nervous, thinking they don't have anything to eat in the whole household.

Say it's the end of the month. You pantry and fridge are pretty barren. There's really nothing you can throw together that'd form something you're used to. A lot of people at this point, if their budget was not set completely in stone, would go out to the corner store and buy a couple of things. Or they'd order take out. Or, heaven forbid, they'd go out to eat. Situations like these seep into budgets and crack them wide open.

When someone cries that they have nothing to eat in their household they're usually far from the truth. Even the most impoverished family is going to have some essentials that can make a surprisingly satisfying meal. Sure. It may be completely true that there isn't a lot of particularly anything, but that can always be remedied by some basics every household is usually going to have.

• Canned soup
  Need to feed three or more with a single can of soup? Easy. Add 1/3 more water to in your pot than recommended before adding one or more of the following: White rice, noodles, broken spaghetti, beans, lentils, canned veggies (peas, corn, et cetera), diced carrots, diced potatoes or left over meat. Season with a little extra salt, herbs and spices to combat a watered down taste.
  
  
• Chicken
  Have a single frozen drumstick and you're looking to make a dinner for two out of it? No problem. Cut the meat off of the bone and stir fry it with: Canned, frozen or fresh vegetables, canned water chestnuts, canned bean sprouts. Add spices and soy sauce and serve over rice or noodles.
  
  
• Beef
  Have some left over pot roast or a steak you're looking to make a big meal of? Skewer medium sized chunks between large cut vegetables like bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini and squash. Marinade in an acid liquid (citrus works great) and grill. Serve with a side of rice and beans.
  
  
• Sandwiches
  Have all the ingredients for a nice round of sandwiches, no only two slices of bread? Toast the bread lightly, cut it into cubes and toss it into a bowl with all the ingredients, diced finely. Serve it like a salad.
  
  
• Fruit
  Not enough fruit to make a decent snack? Throw it into the blender any or all of the following: Ice cubes, yogurt (single servings work just fine), ice cream, orange juice, tofu, carrots (you read me right), oatmeal (yes), and milk. If you still don't have enough you can always serve it over ice cream with nuts.
  
  
• Potatoes
  Planning on baked potatoes for dinner, only have one left in the whole house? Dice it and roast it with olive oil and vegetables. Add cheese to make it something special. Parmesan works great.
  
  
• Eggs
  By far the easiest to stretch. Looking to make breakfast for the family, only to find out you have half the eggs you need? Scramble them with half as much milk. Add anything under the sun. Left over chicken, cheese, vegetables, mushrooms, bacon bits, potatoes. You name it, it'll taste awesome inside of an omelet.
  
  
• Tortilla chips
  Mix a small amount of melted cheese, beans and salsa together to form a satisfying queso. Add left over meat. Want more of a dinner out of it? Add shredded lettuce and you'll have a fully balanced meal.
  

Have your own ways to stretch your food dollar just a little bit in the face of a sudden crisis or guest invasion? Post in the comments and I'll link back to your blog in my next post.

Taking your car the extra mile

When I read this article I immediately was reminded of the old Married... With Children episode where Al's trusty Dodge's odometer rolled over the million mile mark to zero. The joke was that Al's much beloved car was all that he could afford, so he ran it ragged forgoing all comfort, "common sense" and repairs. This sounds pretty in character, considering his son Bud often described on how to live frugal, such as making a hearty soup from the remains of an M&M found under the fridge.

While I don't think I'll ever let myself reach that level of destitute, and with all comic relief aside, Mister Bundy's logic seems to have played out well in reality.

About a month ago I blogged about what a steady discipline can do when it comes to buying and leasing new cars and the kind of money someone can save if they simply buy a car and go against the popular trend of buying another one immediately after paying it off. Sure, I'm absolutely certain that Frank Oresnik had to put his fair share of repairs into the '91 Ford pick up that he so loved. Heck, he had so many oil changes (300+!) that the plug on the drain pan had to be rethreaded a number of times.

But the pick up served him well. It's maintenance costs likely never exceeded what it would have cost him for monthly payments on a newer model. It really does to show you what kind of abuse, wear and tear many automobiles are designed to really take before shutting down altogether.

Juggling Jobs: It's okay

I've found this is true time and time again as I speak with my fellow indebted bloggers and readers. They're struggling to come up with enough money to pay all the bills coming from every which way, but they're doing it at the cost of their mental well being. They hate their jobs, but they feel they can't really afford to quit simply because of the fact that would mean even more money issues. They're getting large quantities of stress from both directions. While this can be motivating in the short term, it's really not a healthy way to live in the long term.

Everyone seems to think that you have to have a full time job and everything else has to be supplemental. That's not true one bit!

Consider me six months ago. I had a full time, well paying desk job. But I hated everything about it. I hated my boss, I hated the environment I was in, I hated the 35 minute one way commute, I hated the stupid little nit picking stress it caused.

But it paid pretty well. It was the best paying job I'd ever had. But it wasn't enough. So I returned to the drudgery of retail as a part time night job. But that didn't fix things at all. I went to my second job every night mentally exhausted. It only caused more stress, and more stress into a dire financial situation is a deadly combination.

So what did I do? I found a higher paying job that provided less hours, but I got to work from home. I bumped up the hours at my retail job that was right around the corner from my home and I put in my two weeks notice.

I'm in no way advising that you leave your current full time employer right at this moment if you're stressed beyond belief. But if you are, I'd definitely advise you to use some critical thinking about the issue.

Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Later benefits: Job juggling 2 - 4 part time jobs may lead to benefits at a later date. You always have a form of backup if you find yourself unemployed at one. If you only work one job and you get laid off, you typically have to scramble for two weeks to find another source of income.
  
  The logic also works in reverse. It also gives you the financial freedom to simply dump one job if it becomes too much of a drain on your mental well being.
  
  
• References Galore: If you're a hard worker a number of part time jobs versus one full time job may lead to an expanded resume and references sheet in the future so long as you keep them in your field of expertise (if you have one.)
  
  Remember, being a shift manager at Wendy's may not sound glamorous, but it gives you the ability to say you have managerial experience when you apply for something a bit more to your liking.
  
  
• Benefits: Many part time employers don't offer benefits to their employees. Does this worry you? It shouldn't. You just have to look a little harder. Here's a small list of part time employers that do.
  
  • Hospitals
  • Colleges / Universities
    
  • Lowes
  • Home Depot
    
  • Starbucks
  • Fedex / Fedex Kinkos
  • UPS
  • DHL
    
  • Costco
  • Barnes and Noble
  • Borders
    
  • Trader Joe's
  • JC Penney
  • Walgreens
  • Target
    
    
  Keep in mind that you can quite likely find many more mom and pop places that offer a benefits package to part timers in your local area. The fact that no part time position will come with benefits is a myth.
  
  
• Offsetting lower wages: It's likely that if you take on part time jobs you're more than likely going to take a hit in pay. That's fine. Some ways to offset it (and actually save / earn more in the process) are:
  
  
  • Save fuel. If you're used to a 30+ minute commute, restrict your new multiple job hunt within a smaller circle. Try to plan it so you only work one job a day and that job is within a 15 minute commute.
    
    
  • Save expenses. A lot of people go out to lunch with their coworkers. Cut back. Bring your own lunch. Or work while eating if possible.
    
    I skip lunch at my second job as much as possible.
    
    
  • Stay relaxed. The hustle and bustle of your new multi job life style may get to you. If you're working more than one job a day, try to schedule your commute plus a small decompression buffer in between. Bring a book or magazine and give yourself a couple of minutes to rest before jumping into the fire again.
    
    Consider a quick nap if possible.
    
    You're doing this for a reason. It can pad your pockets more and provide you with a sense of self satisfaction, but only if you let it.
    
    
  • Don't get in a rut. Again, you're doing this for a reason. Pick jobs that benefit you, not the other way around. Apply for jobs that you enjoy, or get a hidden benefit out of.
    
    For example, many food service jobs offer free meals to employees. (A quick point on this, you might not want to find yourself employed at your favorite place to eat. After 6+ months of working there you'll likely get a little tired of the menu. I'm not allowed to eat at Subway simply because of this. ) Many retail jobs offer hefty discounts on merchandise. Some may provide you with a useful skill you can add to your resume. Keep your mind open.

So long as you play your cards right you can greatly reduce the stress of your work life so you can focus on more important things (like paying that Discover bill). I know things may seem bleak, but you're not chained to any one job. You're free to do what you please, just make sure that coincides with an intelligent and well thought out decision.

Your fridge likes the taste of your wallet.

My partner in debt and I had a friendly discussion the other day. It involved the current situation of our income, our current debt, and ways to make one number shrink while the other grows. Quite the feat, if I may say so myself.

Our habits are already pretty spartan so it was fairly difficult to cut corners were none existed. We feast upon a staggering $1.19 each per meal. My plush, super expensive, gas guzzling Chevy Malibu demands an epic $10 a week for gas. Et cetera. But we came up with a couple ideas and bounced them around until we made our cost of living budget just a little bit smaller. I'll discuss each concept at length in subsequent posts. The conversation became fairly in depth.

The fridge is arguably the largest money vacuum in a household. Not only does the average refrigerator demand a steady supply of snacks, beer and lesser snacks, but it also consumes an enormous amount of electricity. Even more so if you have the habit of gawking with the door open, attempting to decide between an ice cream sandwich or a bowl of Rocky Road.

Hell, just having it sit there it eats more juice than most any other appliance.

We did a bit of research on how to reduce our fridge related electrical bill.

Keep it full!
A full fridge has more mass than an empty fridge. While the motor will work harder to bring your crammed chill chest down to an optimal temperature once it is there it'll take a lot more outside influence than previously to bring it back up to the temperature at which the motor starts working again.

This means it runs less in the long run.

But who can afford to keep it fully stocked? Certainly not us. Solution? Add something cheap, dense and preferably hard to spoil. Gallon jugs in the freezer and at the bottom of the fridge work wonders. But what about all that booze in the cabinet? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Put that vodka in the freezer too.

Have some irregularly spaced spots? Freeze pops cost about 5 bucks for 200.

If you ever need more room (and hopefully with the money you're saving on the electrical bill, you will), move out the water jugs and freeze pops. But keep the vodka in. You know, to celebrate.

And if that celebration is cut short by the power company cutting you off because you're a deadbeat, hey, you just bought yourself an extra day before everything turns into soup.

The bad kind of soup. The kind with flies.

Shut the door
Know what you want before opening it. When you take out that ground beef, would it make sense to grab the pasta sauce too? What about the lettuce? You don't need to draw up a schedule, but gawking with the door open wastes dollars.

Keep it clean
Organize. If you know where all your condiments are, you won't have to go hunting for the mustard for ten minutes, only to discover you're out because you're desperately poor and ate it for lunch two weeks ago.

And hey, I'm sure that left over poor man's pasta (small can of tomato sauce, teaspoon butter, teaspoon of sugar, discount ziti) will keep a whole lot longer if it's not sitting next to something growing fur.

You drive, she doesn't
When was the last time you looked at the thermostat on it? Do you even know where it is? Chances are it doesn't need to be set at absolute zero because you want a beer your tongue will stick to. Keep both the freezer and fridge at medium.

Let's see how much of a dent this little plan makes in our bill. Twenty cents or twenty dollars? Let's find out!