Food This Week 14

Ah, serendipity! When I find myself wanting to make a meal with ingredients I don't have on hand, I add those ingredients to the "when it's on sale" grocery list. Sometimes they sit there for a while, but it reminds me to keep my eye out for a good price on those items, especially if they aren't advertised. This week, when I opened up the store flyer, I knocked off a handful of those ingredients -- one that had been there for about a month, and several that I'd recently added. Guess I can have pesto pasta, pastry, brussels sprouts, potatoes with my pot roast, and apples with peanut butter after all!

Goals Check-in: August

Here's my end-of-the-month wrap-up regarding my 2013 goals:

Making a Weekly Menu Plan

I thought I'd write a little about my process for planning a weekly menu and shopping list. No, it's not particularly library-related, but it does relate to organization of information and efficient systems. Plus, it's my darn blog and I'll post lots of stuff! Some of it will be home/life-related. Enjoy the links!

CC by LizMarie_AK (Flickr)

Get a bank fee waived just by asking customer service.

Confession time: Despite my so-far-perfect record of paying my credit card bill on time and thus avoiding interest fees, I had a little trouble this month. Strangely, it was because I was SO good at paying my bill. But I contacted my bank, Chase, and traded on my good customer history, and (like Trent suggests) they quickly waived the charge for me. Details below.

A Month of Bulk Cooking for the Freezer

It's the first time I've done more bulk cooking than simply making enough for leftovers, so there will no doubt be a learning curve in the process. Thankfully, others are more experienced at this type of thing, and many of them blog their tips and tricks as well as favorite freezer recipes. 

I started keeping a Pinterest board with likely meals and then sorting through them to find common ingredients -- that way I can buy in bulk and make the most of grocery sales. I also picked a few more vegetarian entrees than usual -- we've been keeping up Meatless Mondays all this year, but a little less meat trims the budget and encourages more veggies. As the days turn colder, soups and stews are warming and filling (and they usually freeze and reheat very well for lunch or dinner).

Feeding the Grad School Monster by Selling Textbooks on Amazon.com

We all know that textbooks are expensive. But plenty of classes still require them -- so I usually rent instead of buying. But what if the textbooks you need aren't available to be rented? Then, friends, I suggest you head to Amazon to buy a used copy. If you're interested in graduating debt-free, or with a minimum of student debt, keep this in mind as a cost-saving tip: you can resell your textbooks from the previous semester for credit toward your current textbook needs.

Free shipping on rental textbooks (and other discounts)

I have three new classes this term, and they ALL have multiple textbooks. That adds up quickly! I'll write a bit more about that later.

So, if you're a little behind this term -- maybe you didn't get your textbook lists until the week of classes -- here are some discount codes to help you with the high cost of textbooks.

10 Things I Don't Have or Buy (or Need!)

I got this idea from Melissa at Mom's Plans, and she referenced a few other bloggers' recent lists. It got me thinking about what sorts of things lots of people spend money on (and think it's reasonable or normal to do so) that I don't. That is, in which Ramsey-ish ways am I "weird"?

Easy Investments for Beginners (or Lazy People)

I'll tell you right out: I am NOT interested in playing the stock market. I don't have the nerves for it. I don't have the math skills to enjoy it. I don't have the money to have it really pay off. And I SURE as heck don't have the time.

However, one of my goals on the 101 things in 1001 days list is to invest in the stock market. I know it's good for my future to beat the inflation rate, at least. But where do I start with only a small amount to invest? How do I know what stocks to pick? How do I know when to buy more of something that's going to be the next Microsoft, or sell that Bear Stearns look-alike (I had to look that up, but it's not pretty) before it takes a dive? And what if I get it wrong? What if I get it RIGHT, even? What is that going to cost me in fees and in time?

Unsubscribing from Junk Email

One of the extra steps I've taken this month to reduce STUFF in my life is to unsubscribe from email I don't need. It's not really "spam" -- that is, it's not entirely unsolicited or irrelevant to my interests. That stuff gets filtered into my Spam folder by my email client, for the most part, and I only see it when I skim over the subject lines to make sure I'm not deleting anything I need. I'm really talking about what still lands in my inbox.

Some of the email I get on a weekly or daily basis is left over from actual purchases I've made, or from a project I was working on last year, or from companies I like. I know where to find their websites! I don't need to be notified of every sale that comes along. So I'm using this month to weed out the (very few) promotional emails I want to receive from the larger mass of junk.

Supermarket Savings

I get a little excited about saving money. It's kind of weird to most people, but a lot of personal finance bloggers understand. So here's a long part-confessional/part-bragging sort of post about what I saved on the first grocery purchases of the year.

Textbooks for Spring Semester

I'm seeing a lot of statuses on Facebook grumbling about textbook prices. It must be that time of year already!

I've already priced out my textbooks for the semester and found some good deals on used books from Amazon and on semester-length rentals from College Book Renter. (I'm waiting for payday before I buy mine, but I have them in my shopping cart already.) Even with reduced prices, it comes out to about $160 for 5 books. Oof. And I know that's really nothing compared to what I paid at the campus bookstore as an undergraduate. Why are textbooks so expensive??

This infographic explains some of the reasons:


Via: OnlineEducation.net

Okay, so say you're stuck with a list of expensive textbooks. How can you get textbooks for less?

Ahead of Schedule on Cyber Monday

Continuing in my tradition of finishing things long before they are due (why can't I apply this to school papers?), I am now 100% done with Christmas shopping.

First, like Santa, I made a list. Last year I used this spreadsheet from Lifehacker, and it worked so well that I added a new sheet (copying over the formulas from Gift List, and then changing the name of the sheet referenced for the Gift Info formulas) and brought it back this year. I wrote down all the people that I wanted to give gifts to (and also tossed in the three birthdays during December and January -- I refuse to make a holiday gift do double duty) and ideas for what to get them.

I also set a budget. Your budget is up to you -- what you can afford and what you think is appropriate. As a student with many savings goals, I found it best to minimize spending, so I discussed having a small Christmas with my sweetie a couple months ago. We'll still travel to see my family, but we skipped decorating our place this year. (The apartment really doesn't have room for a tree, anyway.) It's also understood that we'll give each other one or two smaller gifts, and nothing extravagant. This is a tradeoff for having the wedding we want next year -- and living debt-free in general.

The next step was to select gifts for each person. There are two basic approaches -- knowing exactly what to get someone and searching for the best price, or seeing what is out there and deciding whether a good deal would also make a good gift. I looked at my family's gift lists, which was easy because my cousin created a database that catalogues each person's wishes and who (if anyone) has signed up to give that gift, and keeps that information hidden from the recipient (but visible to others so there's no overlap) until after delivery. As I come across things I covet during the year, I add them to my eGiveIt list (making sure to update before my birthday and before the holidays). Others on my list had Amazon wishlists (like this one I'm shamelessly plugging for my Read Aloud program). I subtly (and not so subtly -- some of them were tough to hint to!) quizzed friends who don't have such a list. And I looked at a lot of the holiday promotional emails -- more than I usually would -- to see what was on sale. Although I'm in the demographic that doesn't take kindly to stores pushing Christmas decorations and carols before Thanksgiving, I'm up for a deep discount any time of year!

You've still got time, and the sales have just begun. Next weekend is actually a great time to shop, because retailers will have an excess of stock that wasn't sold on Black Friday. Why not make a plan and get your own list out of the way?