As I wrote previously, we recently made plans to purchase a new MacBook for my wife. After much consideration and planning, we made the trip to the Apple store and came home with a shiny, new laptop. This plan generated some good reader comments, both on the aforementioned post and on the post I wrote recently asking, when is it okay to spend money.

I received some support for the purchase and some advice to not go through with it. I think we made a frugal purchase, though I will say it was probably borderline frugal. We could have bought a comparable Windows based laptop for less money, but we really don’t want any more Windows computers and we are already thrilled with the new Mac operating system (Leopard). We also waited for the MacBook hardware upgrades to go through, which happened about a week ago, so we got even more for our money.

Here are the details of the transaction. The retail price for the model we chose is $1,299. However, I work at a University and I saved $100 with my education discount. (Savings -$100)

We added a DVI to VGA adapter for $19, though we noticed that we did not get the education rate of $17 I had seen on the Apple store the day before (I didn’t notice or bring it up as we were paying). (Savings +$2)

Now for an unplanned part of the purchase, it turns out that Apple is offering a $100 rebate when you buy a computer and a printer, conveniently priced at $99.95. We went for that deal since our office printer has been running rather poorly for a while now. That was $100 more than we had planned to spend, yet if I assume we actually get the rebate (I already have it in an envelope ready for the mail) we are really only out the extra sales tax on the printer’s portion of the total. (Savings +$6.10 extra sales tax)

We went to the Apple store outside of the city sales tax area (8.1%), and only had to pay the county tax rate of 6.1%. On a side note, it’s rather sad that the rich part of town has a lower tax rate than the rest of the city, but we used it to our advantage. (Savings -$26.36)

I used my PayPal debit card with 1% cash back bonus to save an extra $13.98 on the final purchase price of $1,398.34. Hopefully we will receive our $100 rebate in 4 – 6 weeks without any problems. The printer is probably the worst part of the deal, but if we actually get the rebate it will turn out to be a good price for what seems to be a good printer (so far).

It is also worth noting that I was ready with an answer of ‘no’ for all of the extras the Apple salesperson was trying to get us to buy. She actually seemed visibly upset that I didn’t want Apple Care or want to pay for some service that would make me ‘first in line’ for the ‘genius bar’. I guess they must get nice commissions on those services, but they should really focus on being more helpful and friendly.

I budgeted $1,400 this month for the MacBook so we managed to stay just below that even with the extra cost of the printer. If the rebate works out as planned, we saved a total of $132.24 for our efforts.

So that’s it. That is our frugal (or extravagant) purchase for the month. I think we got a great quality computer, one that we really wanted and really enjoy. It’s a solid piece of hardware that if we take good care of will give us many years of great service. My wife is already letting her creativity run wild with the incredible software Apple includes for free and I think this is going to be a tremendous help to her at work (she’s a middle school teacher) and it will give her a great deal more flexibility to do her job (lots of grading and planning that she has to do at home).

The frugal/cheap/quality debate will continue- I think we made a wise purchase. What do you think?

By Eden, Sun 11 Nov 2007, 10 Comments, Categories: Frugality, Spending

Yes, that is right. I’m roughly $262K in debt and I’m buying a brand new laptop. Am I stupid or what?

We can make a pretty good case for why we need the new MacBook, but who really NEEDS a MacBook. We are making the choice to buy one in order to make life a little easier on my wife give her more productivity at work. We also want to play with iMovie!

We will be replacing an old desktop computer with the MacBook and selling an old iBook to help chip away at the price a little bit. Not only that, but I have the cash to pay for it, above and beyond our normal expenses and debt payments for the month, and I am saving $100 by getting the eduction price because I work at a University. We are also waiting for the rumored announcement of an updated MacBook before we pull the trigger on a purchase.

So how do you decide if you can afford something? I can pay cash for it. Yet I am also deeply in debt so the money should really be going toward debt payments. However, if I follow that logic to it’s end I really shouldn’t be buying anything. I should cut the cable TV, eat only Ramen noodles, and work by candlelight in my living room. Okay, that is a bit extreme, but my point is that I have chosen to spend money on certain things, even while I’m faced with this mountain of debt. I am choosing to extend the amount of time it takes me to become debt free, yet I am doing so to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. I have made a lot of lifestyle cuts already (believe it or not) and I keep trying to cut more each month, but I can only go so far. It’s not that I deserve these luxuries, but I can pay for them so I guess that is my choice. Spending $1,200 on the MacBook may not be the wisest move at this point in my life, but all it really means is about one more month to get all of my credit card debt paid off (my primary financial goal right now), so I can live with that for now.

What do you think? Is this stupid, acceptable, or something in between?

By Eden, Tue 30 Oct 2007, 12 Comments, Categories: Frugality, Life, Spending

I’ve made a lot of progress on this frugal lifestyle concept, but I still have a long way to go. Today is trash day in my neighborhood so I took a few moments to clean out the refrigerator before taking the trash out of the house. Sadly, I have to admit that I am still throwing away food!

At my last trip to the grocery store I bought some extra turkey because it was on sale and today I found some in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator that I had forgotten to either use or freeze in time. There were a few other things here and there, nothing too extreme, but it is a frustrating problem none-the-less. Would I be more careful if I actually had to put three one dollar bills in the trash can instead of a package of turkey? I think I would, but I’m not sure how to really fix the problem. It’s sad that I have so much food in my house that out of pure laziness or forgetfulness I have to throw it away. I know one thing for sure, when I get home tonight I will go through everything in the refrigerator and figure out what needs to be eaten first to avoid any more food being wasted. Perhaps I can guilt myself into fixing this problem or make a donation to a homeless shelter when I do this. I don’t know, but I hope I can fix this some day.

By Eden, Tue 23 Oct 2007, 10 Comments, Categories: Food, Frugality

I posted previously about how much junk I have and how I’ve wasted money on ‘stuff’. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve started work on getting rid of this stuff and turning it into some cash for extra debt payments. So far this month I’ve brought in an extra $267 by selling stuff that was collecting dust on a shelf or hidden away in a closet somewhere (you know, in case I needed it some day). I can’t say that I miss any of it. Well, I do miss my Seinfeld DVDs a little, but I already watched them once and it was unlikely I would watch them often enough to justify the cost (could always get them on Netflix later). This money will be going straight to debt and that actually has me excited to find more junk to turn into cash.

I took some books and DVDs to a local used book store to save some time over listing all of them on Ebay. They don’t pay a lot, but for not-so-popular items, this is really a time saver. I also listed some items on Half.com. Only one has sold so far, but the price is decent and the fees you pay to Half.com are much lower than on Amazon.com. I listed the higher value and more popular items on Ebay. I tried a few new things on these listings, with mixed results. I started the prices really low and I don’t think that worked out so well for me. I’ve never done this before and I felt like most of my auctions didn’t finish as high as they could have. I also listed on a Saturday and I’m not sure that was a great move either- I’ve always listed on Sundays before. I can’t tell which change resulted in the weaker results, but I’ve always felt better about my Ebay sales in the past so I will be going back to my old ways next time.

I still have a fair amount of stuff to sell, but I’ll be very busy wrapping up a project this month so it may be a little while until I can get the rest of it sold. However, this will give me some time to take a few more looks at the shelves and closets and see what else I can do without- do I really need those Simpsons DVDs? I’m afraid I don’t.

By Eden, Sun 14 Oct 2007, 3 Comments, Categories: Debt, Frugality

Recently, I posted about my poor budgeting and spending at work. Now I would like to share some tips on how to reduce spending on food at work and what I have done to save about $100 a month compared to my old ways.

Skip Starbucks and drink coffee at work- a lot of offices have coffee available for free. If so, that is obviously a great chance to save some money. I don’t have that option at my office so I bought a Senseo coffee machine and brew my own coffee at my desk. The Senseo machine is about $60, but you could pay for that by skipping lattes for a month. Admittedly, you could get a less expensive coffee maker, but the Senseo does not require filters and is easy to clean up. I think it payed for itself very quickly for me. The Senseo doesn’t brew the greatest coffee, but it’s not bad and for less than $0.50 per cup it gets the job done. Whatever your substitute, the goal is to cut out the $4 lattes.

Brown bag it- again, an obvious solution, but if you haven’t tried it you will truly be amazed at how much money you can save by doing this. My favorite ‘brown bag’ lunch is leftovers from dinner, preferably pasta or something easy to heat up in the microwave at work. Another easy option is sandwiches, which can even be made the night before to save time in the morning. I also keep an emergency stash of Hot Pockets (Lean Pockets) for days that I don’t feel like preparing anything or days that I forget to bring food (I keep some in the freezer at work). A lot of these options depend on having a refrigerator at work, so hopefully that is possible for you. If not, your variety may be limited a bit, but perhaps an insulated travel bag with an ice pack would get the job done. Even if you have to go out and buy something, it will quickly pay for itself.

Keep snacks and favorite drinks at the office- I’m trying to cut snacks and sodas out of my diet as much as possible, but if I am going to indulge, I don’t want to pay the prices at the vending machine. Your money goes so much farther on these items at the grocery store, so stock up on the things you like, but don’t let yourself go crazy with it. For example, I try to allow myself either one cup of coffee or one diet soda per day at work. Sometimes I’ll skip one or the other for the whole week. My desire is to avoid becoming dependent on these drinks and form a habit that could get pricey. Some of my coworkers will go through four or more sodas per day, and buy them at vending machines- paying a huge premium over the grocery store. The other part of this tip is to replace the foods you like with low calorie options- I try to go for some Baked Lays or the new Nabisco 100 Calorie snacks. I’m not going for perfection here, just trying to make the best choices I can while I’m away from home.

Drink water- most offices have a water cooler, which makes this so easy (and free). I don’t have that option at work- only a drinking fountain. I’m not thrilled with drinking tap water, and even less thrilled with the germs that may be floating around it, but I just bring a bottle of water to work each day and refill it. I’m really tempted to bring in a gallon of purified water each day, if for nothing else than to avoid the germs around the fountain, but I haven’t bothered yet and I’ve survived on the tap water so far.

Tell your coworkers you’ll never eat with them again! Okay, that’s a joke, but you definitely can’t make it a habit to eat out every day if you want to save money on your lunches. If saving money isn’t important to you or the camaraderie is worth more, then by all means go for it. I work with programmers, who tend to be a quiet bunch, so we are fine with going out to lunch together every couple of weeks or so. That works for us and makes it easy on the budget. If going out to lunch can somehow better your career or help you get ahead (maybe going to lunch with the boss) then I would consider it money well spent, you’ll just have to look for other areas to cut back.

A typical month in the past would have seen me spend about $80 – $100 eating out at work (that’s after I had kicked the latte habit). There is nothing inherently wrong with spending some money on lunch. However, for myself I found that I was often just picking up something convenient and fast and eating it at my desk in a hurry. There just wasn’t a good reason to spend $5 – $10 to do that when I could bring food from home about a fourth of the cost and get the same result. If your office goes out to lunch and you want to be part of the culture then make that part of your budget and have fun. At the very least, I think everyone can benefit by spending less on coffee and skipping the vending machines. I practice all of these tips and it has made a big difference in my budget. Good luck!

By Eden, Wed 10 Oct 2007, 1 Comment, Categories: Food, Frugality, Spending