I have been thinking about what $1500 could do to help mow down my mortgage (only 15 payments left - maybe 14 with the stimulation check added), and a little nagging voice has come up.  I’m not quite sure if the angel sits on my left shoulder or right shoulder.

See, the ethics of this check are confusing me.  Our 2001 check went straight into debt repayment, and I don’t think we "did our part" (think WWI propaganda videos) to stimulate the economy.  I also don’t think this year’s plan to put it toward my mortgage paydown is going to stimulate the economy.

Image Credit:  Propaganda Posters

Two questions:  If the intention is to stimulate the economy, is it okay for me to use my check money to paydown my mortgage?  Does it help our economy more for me to be a spender or a saver?

Each Wednesday, Dreamy and I are reviewing a chapter from Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, where Ehrenreich does minimum wage jobs around the country to see if she can "get by" on minimum wage.  Today’s chapter is Chapter 2, about her work in Maine.

In this chapter, Scrubbing in Maine, Ehrenreich immediately found a job on the weekends as a dietary aide in a retirement home. One of the perks of this job is that when the residents were finished with their meals, the employees were allowed to feast on whatever food was left over and not served. I think this is a great idea. Finding a job with "unknown perks" is always a frugal idea, even if the meal cost $1 it’s still a way to eat for cheap.

She applied for jobs doing anything under the sun to fill in the weekdays, and to afford the place she rented for $110 a week, which in my opinion is way too much for the one room she was renting. She found a job as a housekeeper for "Merry Maids" or something like that. After taking the personality test, this job as offered to her had a salary of $6.65 per hour. After two weeks of "exceptional work" (she even broke a clients vase while cleaning) she received a raise of $.10, to bring her salary to $6.75 per hour.

One thing that bothers me about her experiment is that she doesn’t last at these jobs for more than 2 or 3 weeks. Most people who work these jobs don’t have the luxury of "shopping around" like she does. I think it’s unrealistic to move about so much, especially if she really was a low income worker and had to forfeit her security deposit on her apartment. Low income workers have to struggle to have clothes on their backs and food in their cabinets, and to me it just seems like to her it’s a mini vacation with some work intermingled.

Ehrenreich actually doesn’t have enough money for food in one part of this chapter.  She calls several different food pantries in the area, and comes up with dinner and breakfast for one evening.  I was a little confused on how she could think this was ethical for her to take a voucher that was meant for someone that was truly poor.  I don’t know if I could have done that.  Or it is also possible that she was trying to make her work as journalistically realistic as possible - but it would still make me feel a little guilty.

Another thing that bugged me is that Ehrenreich always talked about the other workers having roommates.  If Ehrenreich really wanted her story to be as realistic as possible, she probably should have had a roommate at some point in the story.  I’m not sure if she was trying to conceal the fact that she was typing up reports each night or not, but I didn’t think this was realistic.  Everyone knows that an efficient way to save money is to start living with others, but obviously, that was "too much" for Ehrenreich.

Also, I found this article on MSN about minimum wage workers.  It is interesting to see these days how much money minimum wagers make.
 
Check back every Wednesday for another Chapter of Nickel and Dimed.

Traffic has been great since I put up my RSS Blogroll - if you haven’t had a look, you should.  Here are some great articles from recently in the PF Blogosphere that begin with A and B:

1. As a constant eBay seller these days (I must reduce my clutter), eBay’s decision to reduce fees yesterday was a sigh of relief for me!  Have a look at Boston Gal’s article about it.

2.  Boston Gal also had some interesting news stories about extreme frugal personalities.

3.  Penelope Trunk encourages us ladies that it’s okay to quit your job to have kids.  This is encouraging news for women that might be on the fence with this issue, and an eye-opener that feminism has taken this long to get even this simple idea approved in our society.

4.  Lynnae hooked us up with some ideas to use homemade cleaning products.  I’ve been thinking about doing this too, so this came at a good time. Time to start weaning myself off the bleach…

5.  At American Consumer News, Erica Barton wrote about how to finance your child’s college fund without noticing it.  I need to get on this pronto or we’re going to end up paying out of pocket, which while not bad, is not preferable.

6.  This is an older article (October), but I am working on a $3500 challenge like Lisa’s $20 challenge.  I would like to make an extra house payment off extra money by the end of the year (I make $3500 house payments to pay off my mortgage by next May).

7.  Melissa at A Penny Closer gave us 15 Random Household Tips From Cyberspace. 

Carnivals

There were a lot of great carnivals this week; here are some that Dollar Frugal was included in:

1.  Mrs. Micah hosted the Festival of Frugality.

2.  Lynnae at Being Frugal hosted the Carnival of Money Stories.

3.  The Dividend Guy hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Have a Happy Wednesday and look for a posting about Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed in a bit!

Don’t miss a thing - subscribe to Dollar Frugal RSS today!

I never win anything, but I sent in for the coupon for a free chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A and they sent me the coupon and a gift card preloaded with $100!  I’ve got visions of Grandpa from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory jumping around and singing "I’ve got a golden ticket!" stuck in my head!

Image Credit:  Prestigious Homes Flat Fee Services

I know it’s only $100, but it makes me feel good anyway!  I promised more positive posts, so here it is!

I’m going to sell it on eBay in a couple weeks…I’ll let you guys know how much I get back!

Less depressing stuff from now on on this blog, I promise!

Since I found my stoppage point for frugality, I’m always looking for a way around or a backdoor.  15 miles is way too far for me to bicycle each day, so I’ve resolved to purchase a home closer to work when we move to Arizona.  Simple.  While I’m here, I could cut down on gas usage - simple.

I work with only guys.  There are pros and cons to that.  The thing that will be difficult is that I need to ask to carpool with them.  The onus will be on me to come up with a suitable range for gas money, as I do not expect these guys to want to ride with me to work (they’re way too cool for that).

Okay, so the plan is to get a ride to work at least two days per week.  That means 60 miles of gas mileage split in half.  Does $10 sound like enough to offer them per week?  Or should I barter?  I’m thinking about going straight to these dudes’ stomachs (the proverbial jugular) and offering baked goods in exchange for the ride, but I don’t want jealous wives - that’s the last thing I need.  What else could I barter?  I could bring a hot lunch those two days (think a pan of lasagna or a casserole).  I’m just brainstorming here.  But those guys always go out for lunch to restaurants to get away from lunch, so I’m searching.  I’ll come up with something, but I’m looking for ideas, if you’ve got one!

Okay, I’ve been defeated.  Seriously, I’m almost in tears right now.

See, I’ve never come up against something that I didn’t finish just to finish it, and prove to everyone…well, you get the point.

Today was supposed to be my first ride on the bike to and from work, just to clock it and see how long it would take me.  I got there okay - it took me an hour and a half.  I sat at work for an hour, took care of a few things, and ate two apples.  I had eaten a granola bar on the way to work.  Then, I turned around and started heading back home.

Here is where the rubber met the road.  Literally.  I lost it - any gumption I had to pedal that bike was gone, and I started convincing myself that it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Talk about a sugar low!!!  Wow, I’ve never wanted to cry so much in my whole life.  But to call DH would be to admit defeat, so I kept pedaling.  I even got off the bike and started walking for awhile.  I ate two peanut butter sandwiches.

I forgot to mention that my route includes a major highway, where people go at least 65mph.  Semis were accelerating when they saw me (haters).  It was horrible.  A semi going 70mph past you on a bike is a pretty big eye-opener.

The Sandhills are called "hills" for a reason.  They’re huge!  It’s not as noticeable when you’re in a car, but on a bike, even a hill feels huge.

But I’m not an excuse kind of girl, so please don’t think I’m whining - I’m just "explaining"!

I got up to the mini-mall right before our road (our road is especially hilly) and broke.  I never go out to eat, but I stopped.  I ordered an entire pizza and downed it in 2 minutes flat.  I called DH and asked him to come get me.  I got home, cooked up an entire pan of chorizo and eggs, and ate it all.  I think I ate like 4000 calories right now - I’m surprised I’m not having a heart attack right this second!

So, today was the first and last day I ride my bike to work (while I live in this house).  I know, 3 hours of cardio - I should have planned better and eaten more.  But I think that with the way I felt today, even if the gas cost was $20 a day, I probably wouldn’t go through with the 14-mile ride again.  It’s a shame, but it taught me something:  I never want to live in the suburbs again (or at least so far away from work).

I’m sorry if I’ve let some of my readers down, but I guess I’m just not as frugal as I thought I was.  I will ride my bike to work when we move to Arizona, as I will buy a house that I can ride my bike from.

Costs:  $59 bike parts, $3 pizza, Brooke’s pride

Lessons learned:  1.  Don’t ride your bike a long distance on hills without eating a ton of food.

2.  Don’t buy a house in the suburbs.  It’s dumb as it wastes gas and your precious time.

DH always laughs and says we’re just like Lucy and Desi, especially since most of my best-laid plans end up backfiring, and since he’s Hispanic and I’m a total white-girl.  Today was one of those times that my plan almost got the best of me!

I was trying to be extremely frugal - it was like a triple whammy:  I was going to ride my bike with my son over to this lady’s house to pick up a whiteboard she was freecycling to me.  Exercise, bonding time, free stuff, stuff to teach my son on = quadruple whammy!  I didn’t realize that the whiteboard was 2.5ft by 2.5ft - way too big to fit into my backpack!  And the lady’s house was 7 miles away - probably too far for a 10 year old to ride his bike to.  Disaster!

So, I balanced this whiteboard on the handlebars and rode back excruciatingly slowly behind DS.  It worked out, but I must have looked ridiculous!  We were riding so slowly I could hardly keep my bike up, let alone balance the whiteboard.  I cleaned it up and it’s sitting in front of me now, a gleaming example of my perseverence.

I also didn’t want to pay a delivery charge one time, and my house was about 10 blocks away, so I walked a washer on a dolly all the way down the 10 blocks.  Then proceeded to walk a dryer all the way down the 10 blocks.  DH thought I was insane (we had just gotten married the week before - he didn’t know what he was in for!

Do you ever go too far and end up looking a fool because of your frugality?  What is the funniest thing that you’ve done to be frugal?

I spoke in this article about trying to convince DH about a tiny house.  DH said we will definitely purchase a much smaller house next time we buy (our current house is 2400 sq ft and we will be purchasing again in two years), but he doesn’t want to sell all our belongings to move into one of the Tumbleweed Houses.  That’s good, but I’m still bugging him about them!

Our last home was 700 sq ft, in a decent neighborhood.  We loved it.  So, I’ve been looking in our next location at homes.

What an abysmal housing market there.  It’s a college town, so everything under 1000 sq ft is a rental or trashed in some way.  I would like to get a home between the college and my work there, since DH and I could both bike to work (the two locations are about 6 miles apart; the middle would make each of us only have to bike 3 miles!!!).

There are one or two homes under 1200 sq ft in nice neighborhoods in the area, but much more prominent are 1700 sq ft and up.  It’s strange that you can find more square footage for the same price!  In case you’re wondering, I want a smaller house to decrease cleaning, heating/air conditioning costs, and just overall having.  I feel like when you have too much space, you start to packrat too many things!

How about you?  Does a larger area make you want to start hoarding?  Do you find that McMansions are becoming the norm in your area?

I’ve been talking about riding my bike to work for a few weeks here, and finally have gotten DH to agree that I’m not going to get killed on the way and that I know how to change a flat (he’s only worried about me, guys!).  It’s a 14-mile trek to work, and it’s still pretty cold here in the Sandhills of North Carolina, but that doesn’t bother me.  I got running outside all the time - you warm up pretty quickly when you exercise.

Biking is not something I had considered for awhile, since it will require quite a change in my lifestyle.  I usually incorporate changes that a person doesn’t really notice, but save them a few dollars here or there.  This is going to save me tons of money, but requires quite the effort on my part!

I finally got all the parts for the bike.  It’s an old Japanese bike, so it had odd-sized tires, and they had to be special-ordered.  Total for all the parts and maintenance supplies for the old bike:  $75.  Okay, so I kinda screwed up there:  I could have purchased a new bike for $100.  But that’s beside the point; I will make this money back in gas costs in less than a month, and $75 is still less than $100, right?

So, we started the maintenance last night.  We had to remove all the ball bearings from within the tire and re-grease them.  We will replace the tire today.  The inner tubes are still good (hopefully), so we will just need to put them into the new tires.  I have two spare inner tubes in case I spring a flat.  I have a knife and a headlamp for the trip (it’s still going to be dark for the next few months during the mornings and early evenings!).

And I have two weeks off.  Those two weeks are to find shortcuts.  DS goes to school at 8am and returns around 3:30, so I have a few hours to screw around everyday and figure out the time it will take me to get to work.  It’s perfect.

And DH is really helping me by doing this:

Wish me luck, guys!  I’m off for my first trip on Monday!

Today was my last day of work for a few weeks!  My dad is coming to visit and I’m very happy.  The only thing I’m worried about is that we won’t continue our frugal streak when he’s here.

My dad is not frugal at all.  We have lots of room for him, but I just know he’ll laugh at how "squeaky" I am.  His words, not mine.  I’m okay with him laughing at me, I just know I can’t be as frugal as I normally am when he’s around.

We’re probably going to go to some restaurants.  And drive around a lot more.  He isn’t into exercise or going to the gym like I am, so I can’t really do that.  The biggest thing I’m worried about is keeping him entertained when I’m used to relaxing on my days off!

What about you?  Do you scale back on your frugality when visitors are around? What about your family?