Couponing for the Dumb and Lazy

This blog post is called "Couponing for the Dumb and Lazy", but it's not because I think my readers are lazy dummies. Far from it!

I gave this that title because I can be one clueless, lazy broad, at least when it comes to things like exercising, target shooting, and couponing. I've read about the awesome savings people like my blogging buddy Organized Prepper get from couponing. And I've watched the people on TLC's "Extreme Couponing" get $600 worth of groceries for only $2. Invariably, this leads me to castigate myself for being such a spendthrift with Hubby Dear's hard-earned money. I'm fortunate that Hubby Dear makes a good living and we live comfortably, but everyone has a budget. (Or should have a budget. Did you read this?) I could definitely make our budget stretch further if I bargained shopped, but I don't always give it my best effort.

Although I fall far short, I try to live up to the example of the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31.  Most of the verses of Proverbs 31 are applicable to the prepping lifestyle, but consider verse 27 in this instance:

She watches over the ways of her household,

And does not eat the bread of idleness.

If the Proverbs 31 woman lived in 2011, would she coupon? Quite possibly.
 
OK, I've admitted that I'm not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to spotting the best deals. And I definitely do not want to spend a lot of time on couponing. I've got better (read: more fun) things to do. Even so, I have saved LOTS of money with couponing over the past few months and you can, too, with only a modicum of effort.
 
How, you may ask? It's easy.
 

Subscribe to the RSS feed of The Krazy Coupon Lady. Most of the hard work will be done for you!

 

I get the feed sent to Google Reader and every day I learn about all the bargains that are out there.

 

For example, today they posted that you can buy bottles of Motrin for 78 cents at Wal-Mart using a coupon. They posted a direct link to the coupon, which I printed off and added to my coupon file. Easy Peasy! All I have to do is remember to put Motrin on my shopping list and bring the coupon with me.

Stockpile OTC meds for pennies

 

Obviously, you need sources for coupons. I get a Sunday paper and my extended family has started saving their coupon inserts for me since none of them coupon. You can print a ton of coupons at sites like coupons.com, redplum.com, and smartsource.com. I find that there are a wider variety of coupons available online, but unfortunately there are some stores that act like you're trying to cheat them by using computer printed coupons. My nearest Wal-Mart will not accept BOGO (buy one, get one free) coupons that are home printed, but my little mom and pop grocery store does, so I just use them there.

 

Each week, The Krazy Coupon Lady site gives a rundown of the coupons that are available and the best places and ways to use them. If you live somewhere where there's a Walgreens or CVS, you can score a lot of free stuff. Since I live out in the boonies, I'm unable to take advantage of those offers, but even so I've saved a lot of money.

 

There! That's my lazy method of couponing. I let other people do the hard work (finding the bargains) and with a few coupons printed and clipped later, I've got some significant savings off my grocery bill. That makes me feel like I'm a better steward of our money AND I get to stockpile some preps in the meantime.

Financial Preparedness, Part IV

This is the four part of my Financial Preparedness series. You can find Part I, Part II and Part III here.
---------------

I'm debt free so now what?: The Rest of the Baby Steps and What that Might Look Like for a Prepper

You saved up $1,000 for a baby emergency fund and then you started working your debt snowball. You put your debts in order from smallest to largest and paid them off with lightning speed. You've made a budget and, remarkably, you even followed it! Congratulations! You're better than 95% of all Americans.

Now what?

There are still five more Baby Steps to financial freedom if you follow Dave Ramsey's plan, many of which have implications for your prepping.

Keep working those baby steps!

Baby Step Three: Save up 3 to 6 Months of Expenses.

The next step is to save up some serious cash. Dave says that if you have a secure job and lifestyle (ie. no serious things looming on the horizon that could zap your cash), you can aim for cash to cover 3 months' worth of expenses. If things are more uncertain, you should have more money saved up. Other financial experts think you should have more like 8 or 9 months of salary saved up in this economy. Honestly, you really can't save too much as long as you are meeting your other financial goals (See Baby Steps 4-6).

It is important to note that this money is NOT to be invested. This should stay safe and easily accessible in a place like a Money Market Account. You should also have a good amount of it in cash at home. Obviously, you should not advertise the fact that you have a bunch of cash in your home. You should also buy a water- and fire-proof safe to store it in.

You might also consider your food storage to be part of this Baby Step. Hubby Dear does, and he has reduced the amount we are putting into Emergency Fund accordingly.

Baby Step Four: Retirement

Dave Ramsey says you should invest 15% of your income into a mix of growth-stock mutual funds with proven track records. No matter what the stock market is doing, Dave has consistently said that he believes in American capitalism and that all things will work out in the end.

Dave is against buying gold or other precious metals and certainly would not advocate putting some of your emergency fund in gold. In fact, he says gold is "the new Snuggie" - just a fad. You can read what he says about gold here.

What I didn't understand until recently is that a gold purchase isn't so much an investment as it is insurance. The difference is that you expect an investment to consistently increase over time. Insurance isn't there to make you money, its purpose is to protect what you already have. Read this piece on the SurvivalBlog for more about tangibles.

So with such different advice, what are we to do to prepare for the future?

Frankly, I doubt things like the Roth IRA are going to be around when we reach that age. The government is simply spending too much money to allow growth in Roth accounts to remain tax-free. I expect tax rates to increase exponentially.

We are going to hedge our bets and do a bit of both approaches. We're going to do some traditional investments and think about getting some tangibles as well.

Baby Step Five: College for your Kids

Many people make the mistake of taking care of their kids' college funds at the expense of their retirement savings. Your kids can find a way to work through college. Not so with your retirement!

We have 529 plans set up for each of our children. Our goal is to have enough money saved for four years at a state university. If our children choose to go elsewhere, great. They need to figure out how to make up the difference either with scholarships or by their own hard work. Hubby Dear and I were accepted to several "elite" universities but chose to go to a state school for financial reasons. We're doing just fine today, thank you very much! :)

Baby Step Six: Pay off your house

This is the Holy Grail of financial preparedness, in my opinion. Owning your house free and clear would give such peace of mind. Think about it. If you have no consumer debt, no mortgage, and a year's worth of food storage, how confident would you feel? If you lose your job or the economy tanks even further, you would be far more secure than the Average Joe.

If you currently have a 30 year mortgage or adjustable rate mortgage, you should think about trying to refinance into a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. You should take advantage of the low interest rates if you can.

Baby Step Seven: Build Wealth and Give

Dave Ramsey advocates giving during all stages of his plan. We believe in tithing and beyond, and I encourage others to do so as well. After you are completely debt free, however, you will have an abundance of money to give freely. You might consider buying extra food storage and supplies at this time. Should the SHTF, you will be in a position to give charity to others who are not prepared. This is also when you can really step up your investment in tangibles and other wealth vehicles.

-------

So that's my quick and dirty run-down of Dave Ramsey's BabySteps, prepper style. Read The Total Money Makeover for many more details and wise counsel.

Get debt free, and save, save, save. You can do it! We have paid off nearly $80,000 in the last 18 months and we're finally DEBT FREE!!! It feels awesome!

Remember: The borrower is slave to the lender (Proverbs 22:7). You should be no one's slave.

The Long Winter

The Thinker has been reading through the "Little House" series of books over the past few months. I cannot count how many times I read the "Little House" books as a girl. Heck, I still read the series every year or so. There is so much to learn from and love about these books.

The Thinker is in the middle of The Long Winter and I have been looking forward to discussing this book with her ever since I got into prepping.

For those of you who may not have read the "Little House" series, shame on you! Get thee to a library and check them out.  In the meantime, here is a quick summary of The Long Winter,which is a mostly factual account of a real event:

The people of the tiny town of De Smet, South Dakota nearly starve to death during the "Long Winter" of 1880-1881. A cheerful topic for a children's book, eh? Back to back blizzards mean the trains cannot run, stranding the townspeople for months without food and fuel. Laura's family heats their home by burning hay and survive on plain brown bread made from wheat laboriously ground in a coffee mill.

There are so many lessons and modern day parallels in this book that I'm not going to attempt to detail them all. These are simply the first ones that struck me.

Provisioning:

The endless cycle of blizzard after blizzard meant that the stock in the grocery stores was depleted rapidly. Folks nearly starved, avoiding this only because of the bravery of two men who managed to find some wheat for the townspeople. It was months and months before a train could finally make it through.

I've heard it said that the average grocery store in America only has enough stock on hand for about 3 days. If there's ever a disaster that disrupts the food supply, a critical situation will assuredly develop. You need to have food storage and be prepared to feed your family for a length of time.

Ingenuity:

The Ingalls family would have frozen to death except Pa Ingalls had the foresight to harvest a huge amount of hay the previous summer. Normally, hay burns up very quickly, but Pa figured out a way to twist the hay into sticks to extend their burning time.

You need to be able to think outside the box and be creative enough to find solutions in a crisis. To be able to do this, you need to have your head on straight, which leads me to my third point.

Mental state:

                   "It can't beat us!" Pa said.

                         "Can't it, Pa?" Laura asked stupidly.

                         "No," said Pa. "It's got to quit sometime and we don't. It can't lick us. We won't give up."

                         Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like

                         a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it

                         would not give up.

                    

                                                         -From the chapter entitled "It Can't Beat Us", The Long Winter

The difference between a victim and a survivor often is a matter of psychology. Your will to survive, the belief that you will make it through whatever trial besets you, and a faith in a higher power are key. You can have all the survival gear and gizmos on earth, but if your head isn't right, you'll never make it.

You need to believe you can survive in order to survive.

--------------

I've barely scratched the surface of this book. The Long Winter may have been written for children, but there is enough in this book to interest and educate any adult. Pick up a copy and draw your own conclusions.

Financial Preparedness, Part III

In the previous installments of this series, I've covered Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps One and Two. Today I'll discuss budgeting.
---------------

Budgeting. The dreaded "b word". Few words can cause simultaneous consternation and boredom like the word "budget" can.

Budgeting causes wailing and gnashing of teeth, but it's the only way you can take control of your money. And it's definitely the only way you're going to accomplish Baby Step One (saving $1,000) and Two (paying off your debt).

Hubby Dear, being the sexy geek that he is, put our finances into Quicken for years. He'd categorize all of our expenses and enjoyed shocking me with some of the facts of our excessive lifestyle.

"Hey honey, did you know that we've spent $2,500 on dining so far this year?", he'd say. My hair would stand on end, we'd promise to do better next month, and then promptly forget all about it.

Then I started listening to Dave Ramsey. We've been following a budget for 16 months now and seen the power of writing out a budget ahead of time and sticking to it. Budgeting has allowed us to make sure we have extra money each month that we can put towards savings or debt.

So how do you make a budget? It's one of those things that can be intimidating to approach, but it's not really that hard. Sit down with your honey and decide how much money you will spend on each category of life during the next month.  Look back at what you have been spending, think of anything you can do to economize, and then write the resulting number down. Don't forget to keep some money in your budget for prepping. It's not officially part of the Dave Ramsey plan, but as I heard directly from the man himself, he's OK with that.

Here is a link to Dave's online budgeting forms:
http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-forms/

This is a great place to start. Dave's book, The Total Money Makeover, also has a bunch of these forms and much more information on budgeting.

You might wonder what is a reasonable amount to be spending in each budget category. You can plug your monthly income into this calculator and get an idea of what your food allowance should look like, for example.

When Hubby Dear and I were first married, our goal was to spend about $75 dollars or less on food and toiletries per week. That was OK for a couple of childless twenty-somethings in the 90s, but that would definitely not work for us today! Sometimes people (usually men) think you can feed and clothe a family for pennies. If you can manage that, more power to you, but try to be reasonable in what you allow for each category in your budget.

The first month you try budgeting is going to be tough. You'll want to meet with your spouse frequently and review how things are going. It does get easier as you go along, I promise!

If you're not already budgeting, take the time to learn how. Then tighten up your spending and put your plan into action. It's the key to getting debt free and moving on down the road towards financial preparedness.

Read much more about the Baby Steps in The Total Money Makeover. You can buy it on amazon.com or daveramsey.com. You may also be able to listen to Dave on his syndicated radio show. I love me some Dave Ramsey!





Coming Soon: Financial Preparedness, Part IV: I'm debt free, so now what?

Financial Preparedness, Part II

Previously, I discussed the first Baby Step towards financial freedom: a starter emergency fund of $1,000. Today I'll pick up with Baby Step Two: Paying off all your debt except your mortgage.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Debt will drown you.

In America we have this idea that debt is OK and a natural part of life. This attitude has only been around for the last 60 years or so. Credit cards as we know them did not exist until 1950 when Diners Club was introduced.

Credit cards may be convenient, but I think having real money in my pocket is even better! Some people try and play the system. They will charge up a low interest rate card and use OPM (Other People's Money) to invest and hopefully turn a profit. Others use credit cards for frequent flyer miles or rewards points and promise they will pay off their card faithfully every month.

I was one of those people, too. That was until I realized that until you are debt free, you cannot truly have financial freedom. Dave Ramsey often quotes Proverbs 22:7: "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave of the lender." This is very true and the more debt you have, the more true it will become for you.

What if you lost your job? What if that monthly payment got lost in the mail and all of a sudden your cushy interest rate gets jacked up sky high? What if you decide to have a mid-life career change and you have to go back to school? What if you get tempted at Pottery Barn and charge up way too many useless knick-knacks? Debt puts far too many "what ifs" in your life. Preparedness is about getting rid of as many "what ifs" as you can and debt has no place in the equation.

So what is the best way to pay down your debt? There are several schools of thought about this, but I subscribe to Dave Ramsey's plan. Baby Step Two is paying off all your debts, in order, from smallest to largest. Once you have paid off your smallest debt, you add the amount you were paying for the first debt to the minimum payment of your next highest debt. This is called building a debt snowball. Over time, the amount of money you will have available to attack each successive debt will grow, enabling you to pay off those big debts like vehicles and student loans.

Some people object to this plan and say you should pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, regardless of how much it is. This does make sense in that you will save money in interest if you follow that plan all the way through. The problem with that isn't the math, it is you (and me and every other person out there who thinks it's more fun to spend money than pay down debt). If you pay off your debts smallest to largest, you will build momentum. You get quick gratification as you swiftly move through your debt snowball. If you start with the debt at the highest interest rate, you may stagnate if it happens to be one of your larger bills. It's like going on a diet and not seeing any change in the scale for 2 months. I'm much more likely to stick to my diet if I'm consistently losing a little bit every week rather than losing a big chunk all at once at the end of the two months.

This is the Baby Step Hubby Dear and I are currently on. We've been working our debt snowball for the last 18 months and we'll be done by the end of this year, having paid off nearly $80,000. Gulp. Momma knows how to shop.

Although we are not yet done with this Baby Step, we are already starting to have a greater sense of peace and control over our income. We have gotten rid of all of our credit cards and only use cash and debt cards.

Get rid of your debt! Pay off those bills permanently and don't get back into debt again.

Read much more about the Baby Steps in The Total Money Makeover. You can buy it on amazon.com or daveramsey.com. You may also be able to listen to Dave on his syndicated radio show. Dave's the man!


Coming Soon: Financial Preparedness, Part III: The Dreaded "B" word.

Financial Preparedness, Part I

The American people are feeling pretty light in the pocketbook at the moment. I don't have any solutions for our national economic problem, but I do know a way you can build a strong financial future for your family. Dave Ramsey has come up with a common-sense plan you can use to become financially prepared. Over the next few weeks I will be discussing Dave Ramsey's Seven Baby Steps and applying them to preparedness.

Baby Step One: Create an $1,000 emergency fund

The first step towards achieving financial freedom is saving money for an emergency. Dave says you should start with the amount of $1,000. You are not to touch this money unless it is a true emergency.


Your furnace dies in the dead of winter = EMERGENCY
Your car needs a serious repair = EMERGENCY
You lose your job = EMERGENCY
You run out of Diet Coke Zero and you have spent all the money you budgeted for soda = NOT AN EMERGENCY

That is something I have to repeat to myself regularly.

The reason you should start with this step instead of immediately tackling your debt is that the unexpected WILL happen. We have had a ton of medical expenses in my family this year. Some were expected (the birth of Baby Dear), some were not (two family members needing an MRI). If you don't have any money on hand to deal with life's little (and big) emergencies, chances are you will add to your debt. You'll never climb out of the pit of financial insecurity if you don't build an emergency fund. Keep in mind that this is only a starter emergency fund and you will need to save even more money after you become debt free.

Now for the prepping aspect of Baby Step #1. Having cash on hand is essential for preparedness. Consider this:

• During the Great Depression, FDR declared a bank holiday. All banks throughout the country were closed for several days. If that was to happen today, you would definitely want to have cash at your fingertips.
• If the grid goes down in a short or long-term emergency, cash or barter will be the only way you can buy goods. ATMs won't work and neither will your debit or credit cards.

I do keep the bulk of my emergency fund in the bank, but I am starting to keep a stash of cash at home. Some of it will be in our BOBs and in our vehicle kits. The rest of it will be kept in a fireproof safe hidden in my home. You should make sure that the bulk of your cash is in small denominations unless you relish the prospect of paying for a $7 pack of batteries with a $50 bill! There may not be change available when you need to use your cash in an emergency.

In his book, The Total Money Makeover, Dave relates the story of one of his listeners who put her $1,000 emergency fund in a cheap glass picture frame. She wrote "Break in case of emergency" on the paper she displayed in the frame. The frame was then hung on the wall behind the coats in her coat closet.

Many survivalists and preppers think that precious metals are an emergency fund essential. That is not a priority for me at all. I have way too many other things I need to spend my prepping money on at the moment and I'm not sure gold will end up being a quality investment outside of preparedness over the long haul. Read more about why you may or may not need to buy gold here. Dave Ramsey doesn't think gold is a great investment, but then again he thought I was a nut for storing food.

Saving money for an emergency is key, whether that emergency is TEOTWAWKI or simply everyday life.

Read much more about the Baby Steps in The Total Money Makeover. You may also be able to listen to Dave on his syndicated radio show. Dave's the man!