Monthly Challenge, Instant Payoff!

This morning I got a voice mail from Trader Joe’s. I knew, as soon as the dude said he was calling from Trader Joe’s, that it could only mean one thing.

I finally won.

After some dozen plus years of Trader Joe’s shopping all over Los Angeles, each time diligently filling out the raffle ticket and dropping it in a box, sometimes three or four times a week– I had finally won. It was like winning the lottery! Except for doing something I would already do anyway!

The Winnings

So I went to Trader Joe’s and picked up my prizes. Unfortunately the prize was two new plastic items- not the most auspicious start to Plastic Free July– but although I only use cloth bags for my groceries I can still use this as a beach/library/pool tote. I have two kids, I never run out of crap to schlep. And the $10 gift card doesn’t hurt. (Of course being the world’s biggest YNAB nerd I promptly created that card as a cash account with $10 in it and then budgeted that $10 to groceries. I guess I could have kept it off-budget and spent it on something totally frivolous but accountability is the new fun, right?)

I wonder, though, who gives the better rewards for bringing your own bags? Whole Foods gives you 10 cents a bag, Trader Joe’s gives you a chance at prizes. I shop at Whole Foods an average of once every 1-2 weeks and use 1-2 bags, on average. At that rate it would take me about 89 weeks- just over a year and a half or so- to “earn” $10. I shop at Trader Joe’s once a week and use 3-5 bags each time. If they paid me $0.10 a bag, I would “earn” $10 in just 28.5 weeks or so. Instead it took me over 12 years!

Obviously I don’t bring my own bags for the cash and prizes. But still, math sure manages to take the fun out of that big win.

Monthly Challenge? July…

Oats and rice…

So I am reading Plastic-Free by Beth Terry of My Plastic-Free Life and it is pretty good. Not nearly as intimidating or– shrill, I guess, as I was expecting. Yes, she has gone to great lengths to eliminate plastic from her life but most of her tips seem doable. And she usually gives a lot of choices- explaining which of a handful of options she goes with and why but not leaving you feeling like that is the only correct choice. (Of course the tip that I thought was so brilliant- tell the CSA to not use plastic!- was already in the book.)

Today I had some extra time to have a look around the bulk aisle at Whole Foods and felt quite smug since I had brought my own produce bags and so could get two of the items off my list (rolled oats and short grain brown rice) waste-free. Of course I then wondered what the mesh bags are MADE of and it’s probably plastic so there’s that. But I turned the oats into granola as soon as I got home and put the rice in a glass jar so, you know, baby steps.

Anyway. I would like to reduce my plastic consumption for July- based on my current reading and because it’s already a thing– but that’s a tough goal to set when I don’t really know what my plastic consumption is. So next week I’ll be saving my household plastic for the Plastic Trash Challenge. Then I’ll try to reduce it the following week(s).

Are you already doing Plastic Free July? What plastic packaging do you think you could never do without? (The things I am hard pressed to imagine life without: dairy [milk cartons/glass jug lids/cottage cheese containers], beauty and hygiene products…)

Monthly Challenge June 2013- Let’s Not Dine Out

So, I just crunched the numbers and we reduced our restaurant consumption by 70% in June, when compared to May. That is pretty astonishing (and way better than my goal of just staying under budget).

To be fair, like I said earlier, this was a bit of a cheat as there was some travel involved where the meals weren’t paid for by us. And Grammy came to visit, so she took the boys out for more treats than they otherwise would have gotten. But I also went to Jeni’s four times last month (a conference across from their new Easton Center, I could not resist) and the boys and Jeff got their weekend treats in, too. Looking back on June, I certainly don’t feel deprived. (I’ll have to ask Jeff how he felt about his packed lunches. I think he enjoyed them some as he has been taking more and more to work.)

Looking ahead, Jeff and I are headed out to eat tomorrow night for our anniversary- and we can do so guilt free knowing what the rest of the month will look like- a lot like June. Now that I know we don’t miss it, there’s no reason to let our restaurant overspending creep back in.

 

 

Small Step

The other week I was looking at my CSA packing slip and I saw a section I had never noticed under “Special Items.”  “No plastic,” the checkbox said.

Huh, I thought. And I emailed my lovely CSA and said, can I request no plastic in my box? What’s the deal? And they said, of course.

So this box all my veggies came loose, with the tomatoes and peppers and green beans packed in paper sacks. Less plastic with the most minimal of efforts.

Related news: I have a loooooot of tomatoes. Is it worth the effort putting up just one jar of tomatoes? Probably I will just roast them and freeze them, but I do want to can some tomatoes this summer.

Monthly Challenge: Let’s (Not) Dine Out: Week Two

This week was such a cheat, as Jeff and I both traveled with family and I can hardly consider a week in which I ate at Torchy’s Tacos twice a reduced-consumption week. (I am very glad I don’t live anywhere near a Torchy’s Tacos as that queso is my new kryptonite. Anyway.) It reminded me of two things- my kids looooooove to eat in restaurants and, um, so do I. Which is why the end goal of this challenge is not to never eat in restaurants- just to make our restaurant dollars count.

I did find that the whining for cake pops and frozen yogurt and other treats was reduced once we got home- I am hoping that by making it less of a regular treat we’ll make it more meaningful and reduce the whining for it. We’ll see.  Also that I compensated for some of my own dine out treats (lattes and Sunday night tea) by giving myself a home pedicure and paying for those out of the “Hannah” category, not the “restaurant” category– so perhaps when the kids get allowances they will blow them all on cake pops and Yogurtland.

Regardless, here at the halfway mark in the month we have only used 25% of our restaurant budget. I am a pretty lame budgeting nerd because I am excited about the prospect of what to do if we don’t use it all by the end of the month– roll it over to next month? Have a family lunch adventure? Additional date night? Distribute it to other budget categories? A little restraint here has the potential to lead to more possibilities down the road. This is why I get excited about budgeting.

Reading Log, Monthly Challenge Tie-In edition

Turns out I’m just keeping up with the youths:

…millennials tend to spend their dining dollars sparingly and in a more calculated way.

“People have talked about health and food for a long time, but I think millennials are acting on that information in different ways,” Mr. Pace said. “They want healthy food, but it also has to be interesting food that tastes good.”

Monthly Challenge: Let’s (Not) Dine Out- Week One

I am pleased to report a smashing success in this challenge so far, although it has not been without its difficulties.

Jeff took the boys out to In-n-out last Saturday and texted me apologizing, promising to take his lunch to work twice the next week to make up for it. I was like, ha ha, I win, because I had factored in one weekend boys’ meal out when doing the budget (it was a planned out in the original challenge).

Of course, the next day I was not so smug because Jeff offered to take the boys for a haircut- which they Pavlovianly associate with a Yogurtland trip after. Fortunately for all of us there was a four hour long congregational meeting at church Sunday afternoon, making the tough call of saying no to Yogurtland unnecessary. (Never has anyone been so excited about four hours spent debating the merits of using the accrual vs. cash system of accounting! I still don’t know what either of those are but boy do people have opinions.)

The rest of the week turned out to be pretty smooth sailing. James ASKED to get a cake pop and the boys brought up the idea of supper in a restaurant quite a lot but I just smiled and said no. So far we are 6% in to our restaurant budget category with 3 weeks to go. Nice work!

(Next week is partly a big cheat- we are visiting family- but I am going to try to not get any airplane/airport snacks or treats, which I anticipate being even harder than saying no to the suggestion of Mulberry Street pizza for dinner.)

Using Up the CSA Haul: 5/30 Delivery

You know what is a particularly sad California problem to have? Too many avocados. In case you were wondering, six is too many for a family of 4. Life is hard sometimes.

Here was the last week’s box:

• 1 honeydew melon
• 1 pint strawberries
• 1 head leaf lettuce
• 6 avocados
• 1 eggplant
• 6 gypsy peppers
• new potatoes

The new potatoes were the easiest to use- I made home fries for Sunday’s breakfast-for-dinner. (I added two of the gypsy peppers, diced, along with the onion.) I made a black bean and roast gypsy pepper and avocado salad with the lettuce and one of the avocados, and then put some more of the avocado in sandwiches and on top of eggs on toast and everywhere I could think of.

The melon and strawberries we just ate as snacks, and the pattypan squash were amazing with chickpeas. I could have traded half the avocados for some more of the squash. (I also figured out that you can get perfectly cooked chickpeas with no fuss in the crock pot so I made a huge batch and now have a well-stocked freezer full of garbanzo.)

The last of the gypsy peppers were sliced and put into a cruet with some cider vinegar- pepper vinegar for the summer. (The cruet did involve a trip to HomeGoods which is pretty much the antithesis of this whole blog’s philosophy- a whole store full of crap you don’t need and probably wouldn’t buy if it wasn’t on “sale.” But even I will compromise my integrity for a pretty $3 cruet.)

Gypsy Pepper Vinegar

I made an old favorite, Mark Bittman’s eggplant and scallions with miso rice with the eggplant. And, um, I still have some leftover avocado in the fridge. I think I will make this hummus.

Too much avocado is totally an annoying California-CSA problem, right? What produce have you gotten too much of lately?

Monthly Challenge: Let’s (Not) Dine Out

Let’s Dine Out on KVCR

Let’s Dine Out is not only one of our favorite local tv shows but also an unofficial family motto, I think. We don’t eat out every day but we definitely eat out more than once a week (especially if you count trips to Yogurtland or Menchie’s as dining out, which I do since they fall in the YNAB “Restaurant” budget category.)

It’s not that I want to never eat out- but I do want to be more mindful about where our restaurant money is going. I had started bribing James with a Starbucks cake pop far too often, for instance. The boys had been doing brunch out with Jeff on Saturdays *and* family brunch on Sundays. The bottom line is that we regularly overspend in our restaurant budget category despite the best of intentions. I’d rather have one quality/adventure family meal and one date night dinner each month, and while that *should* fit into the budget, the Yogurtland/Starbucks/etc. really eats into our restaurant budget. (“Eats into” it, ha ha ha.)

So this month my goal is simple: to stay under our restaurant budget for the month. I have a few strategies in place:

• pack Jeff’s work lunch once a week
• no yogurt/cake pop/other food treats during the week (I am leaving room in the budget for Jeff to take the boys out on Saturday mornings but am going to encourage them to do the park plus donuts vs. a full meal out.)
• family swim on the weekends instead of family brunch out.

At the end of the month *if* we’re under budget we’ll plan a fun restaurant outing.

The main thing working in my favor is that we’re spending almost a whole week this month in Texas with my family. The main thing working against me is Jeff- it is hard to get him on board with these little projects of mine. I probably should have started with the grocery category (our other chronically overspent category and the one I have pretty much sole control over), but we’ll see.

How often do you eat out? Do you pay attention to where your restaurant money goes?

 

Costco: Bulk Savings or Excess Consumption?

I saw this article on How To Get The Most Out of Your Costco Membership and got pretty excited– we have a Costco membership and I have always wondered if it is worth it, considering one of my superpowers is the ability to leave Costco at $50/less and I go typically every six weeks, give or take.

Of course, the very first savings tip- get the Gold Star Membership so you get 2% cash back- is only valuable if you spend over $2750 a year at Costco. (If a Gold Star Membership is $55 more a year, and you get 2% cash back, then I figure if x is what you spend a year, .02x ≥ 55 for it to be worth it. WHO SAYS YOU DON’T NEED ALGEBRA??)

As long as I’m doing the math, though, I thought I’d run through what I spend at Costco and then add up my savings at the end of the year. If they are equal or greater to $55, well, then, our memberhip’s worth it financially. Environmentally–  although the bulk buying you do at Costco is not the ultimate in environmental friendliness- almost everything there is still packaged- it is an improvement over regular packaging. And I’m all about small realistic change. As for health– the frozen waffles don’t have any artificial colors at least? Let’s get real: I am never making and freezing dozens of whole wheat waffles at a time no matter how much healthier it would be for my kids. (OK, maybe if I had a chest freezer. Never say never.)

Costco Haul, 5/28/13

Purchased at Costco yesterday:

• Tortillas $5.89/50
• Waffles $6.99/60
• Strawberry Jelly $6.99/64 oz
• Detergent $13.99/186 oz

The Tortilla Land fresh tortillas are a refined flour indulgence for the whole family– although they only contain flour, salt, sugar and (ugh canola) oil.  (The whole wheat version contains Calcium Propionate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, and Citric Acid but I’ve never seen them or the corn ones in stores anyway.) The jelly and the waffles are for the kids.

So to compare I checked out the tortillas at Sprouts (they also sell them at Whole Foods but I didn’t want Costco to have an unreasonable price advantage) and the waffles, jelly (which is also organic and reduced sugar, so not an even match) and detergent at Trader Joe’s.

• Tortillas $4.19/12
• Waffles $1.99/8
• Strawberry jelly $3.29/15.2 oz
• Detergent $9.99/128 fl oz

Then I did the math. I figured out how much each would cost me if I bought the equivalent amount I got at Costco- so:

• 50 tortillas at $0.35/tortilla=$17.50
• 60 waffles=$14.93
• Jelly=$13.85
• Detergent= $14.52– not much savings on that one, Costco!

Overall the same groceries that cost $33.86 pre-tax at Costco would have cost $60.80 elsewhere, so I saved $26.94.  One more trip like this and I’m almost at the $55 annual cost of membership- and like I said, I go about every six weeks or so.

So do you have to spend a lot of money at Costco to save money? Heck no. What’s the secret to saving money at Costco? For me, it involves only buying staples. It helps that I don’t buy much processed food– putting most of the Costco groceries off limits anyway.

Do you have a warehouse club membership? Do you think you get your money’s worth?