FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Want to up your frugal game? Join one of our challenges.
HappyDaze
Posts: 4186
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:11 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by HappyDaze »

Floridacat, $2.50 is my "buy price" for cereal. I remember when it was $1.00 - wow! I do like a bowl of cereal for breakfast on work mornings when I sleep in - or sometimes even for supper in summer when it's too warm to cook.
"All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. After all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog."

Charles M. Schultz
floridacatlover
Posts: 8057
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by floridacatlover »

HappyDaze wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:48 am Floridacat, $2.50 is my "buy price" for cereal. I remember when it was $1.00 - wow! I do like a bowl of cereal for breakfast on work mornings when I sleep in - or sometimes even for supper in summer when it's too warm to cook.
I remember when $1 was my go to price for cereal, too. It wasn’t that long ago!
floridacatlover
Posts: 8057
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by floridacatlover »

I got my electric bill. (Actually I had to call because that was one of my lost bills.) It was $70.83 which I thought was high for January (covers mid-December to mid-January) and thought rising prices and it’s been a colder than normal January. But I looked back and the same month in 2022 was $85 and in 2021 it was $66. So not bad after all. I did read that all of the power companies in this area are going to ask the Public Service Commission for another rate increase in March. I expected it after reading the flyer in my bill a month or two ago.

The extra money that I’m taking from my IRA doesn’t start until next month. But still looking at my one remaining bill which should arrive in a day or two, I think I’ll be able to transfer about $330 to the account I’m calling sinking funds (insurance and travel).
floridacatlover
Posts: 8057
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by floridacatlover »

My lunch today ended up to be less $$ than budgeted by $13 ($27 instead of $40.) That’s the nice thing about having four of us to split the birthday girl’s lunch. I’m $25 under my monthly entertainment budget but plan to spend about $15 on Tuesday, the last day of the month.

Today I bought a Southwest ticket to Rhode Island for the end of May. I haven’t been up there since 2019. My cousins have so many medical appointments that I can’t coordinate around their schedule. They like me to stay at their house but honestly I’d rather stay at a hotel. So I’ll plan my trip that way and see how it goes and tell them when it gets closer. More than anything I want to visit the cemetery.

I am still hoping/planning to go to Paris for a week. Not definite even though I feel healthy. I have a $700 credit from Delta for the unused flight home from Stockholm. I could have applied it to my emergency trip home from Copenhagen - and I thought I might have money remaining - but I just wanted to get home and didn’t ask enough questions. No complaints with how it worked out.
floridacatlover
Posts: 8057
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by floridacatlover »

I have decided not to renew Amazon Prime. I just don’t want to spend the $139. I never thought it in the past, but right now it seems a waste to me. (Last year I paid $119, just in under the wire.)

I have it until the third week of February. I’ll see if there is anything I want to watch before then. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I still have Peacock and the PBS streaming app and there are the free streaming channels plus Redbox and the library (my favorite). I’ll see about the photo storage. I can buy it separately if I think I need it. They don’t start deleting photos from there photo storage for six months. I still have iCloud.

I would rather put that $139 towards “fun” day trips and travel. More and more I’m feeling certain about Paris. There is a day trip (tour) to Giverny (Monet home) for about 100 euros.
HappyDaze
Posts: 4186
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:11 am

Re: FCL’s Alternative Frugality 2023

Post by HappyDaze »

FCL, that is what being frugal is all about - spending less on what is not so important so we can do or have what is more important.

DD's SO pays for Netflix here so I am enjoying that.
"All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. After all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog."

Charles M. Schultz
Post Reply