by Carrie on June 18, 2009
Later this summer, I’ll be taking some vacation time from work to go on a week long trip to the Midwest to visit some relatives and attend a nearby airshow.
I always start my airline ticket hunt at sites the aggregate ticket prices from various airlines like Travelocity, Kayak.com, or Orbitz. You can usually buy the actual ticket for a few dollars less from the airline’s own website, but I like to be able to compare many airlines at once and get a general idea what sort of price I’m looking at. When I searched my ideal airports and dates on Travelocity, I found that the ticket I wanted would be $190 including taxes and fees.
That flight would be with American Airlines. Lately I’ve been getting regular emails from American Airlines about how I’m only a few hundred frequent flier miles away from being able to redeem them for a ticket. I pulled up their frequent flier booking site and found that I would be able to get on the exact same flight I found on Travelocity for 25,000 miles. I had 24,542 miles (saved up over my entire life, I’ve never been able to redeem them for anything before).
I put a hold on that ticket which would leave it available to me for five days. Then I looked up the cost to buy the 458 miles I still needed. The minimum they allow you to buy is 1,000 miles and they charge tax and a $30 processing fee. “Processing fee” scared me at first. It cost me $59.56 to buy the miles I needed and I had to pay another $5 TSA fee even when booking my ticket with frequent flier miles. Total it cost me $64.56 to buy my ticket with frequent flier miles versus $190 to buy it without which saved me $125.44.
I spent some time debating if it was worth it to use the frequent flier miles now and pay the processing fee or if it was better to buy the regular ticket but in the end, I decided it was better to save that $125.44 right now.
I decided it’s best to take advantage of a discount I could use right now rather than saving it for later because who knows if I’ll have another opportunity to use it. The airline could go out of business, the frequent flier program could come to an end, I might not be flying anywhere again any time soon, or next time I do fly somewhere American Airlines might not be my best option for the trip. The money I saved now is much more flexible in terms of what I can use it for in the unpredictable future.
Any discount or coupon you can use on something you would be buying now anyway is best used now rather than saved for later. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Featured in Festival of Frugality.
Shared in Buddy’s Friday, Frugal Friday.
Mother’s Day is tomorrow. If you still need to get your mom a gift, a magazine subscription is a great last minute idea. Here are some magazines that I currently subscribe to that are not fashion/buy more stuff focused.
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Everyday Food has become my absolute favorite magazine. I started with this magazine because I found the “Everyday Pantry” checklist towards the back of each issue to be helpful in figuring out what basic ingredients I should keep stocked in my pantry when I first moved in and my cupboards were completely empty. I usually tear out 10 or so recipes from each issue and actually make them and I have acquired a few absolute favorites from this magazine in the past year. I find the recipes in this magazine to be simple and quick to make, use easily available and affordable ingredients, and be very tasty. The recipes are well formatted for tearing out and filing. I look forward to receiving each and every copy of this magazine and I have renewed my subscription. |
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I subscribed to Cooking Light after hearing raves for in on a cooking message board I read. The recipes in this magazine are a bit exotic and complicated for me, if Everyday Food is for every day then Cooking Light is for special occasions. Later on in my cooking adventures I may return to this magazine but I feel it is a bit advanced for my skills at this time and a bit vegetable heavy for my current vegetable eating efforts. I also don’t like the way the recipes are formatted. Recipes are sometimes split between multiple pages so it’s not easy to tear them out and file them for future use. I’ve only cooked a couple of items from this magazine. Some months I didn’t find anything useful in the issue at all. I won’t be renewing my subscription to Cooking Light. |
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Sunset is a western living magazine that covers cooking, gardening, home remodeling, and travel. It has a local and green orientation. Since I don’t have a huge yard or own my own home, a lot of the material doesn’t apply to me. The recipes focus on utilizing local, in season, and home grown food. I discovered a couple good recipes (particularly Artichoke Sourdough Parmesan stuffing for Thanksgiving which I will be making again in years to come) but those recipes weren’t a large enough part of the magazine to maintain a subscription just for the recipes. If I spot a cooking oriented issue on the newsstand in the future, I may purchase that issue. |
Shared in Hooked on Fridays.
by Carrie on April 21, 2009
One of the very first posts I made on this blog back in February 2007 was How To Want Less. That post was basically just a link out to a fool.com article that I found extremely inspirational. The heart of being frugal and the heart of being green is using what you have rather than buying something new. More than two years later, let’s see how I’m doing on those tips.
- Throw away catalogs without reading them. – Done. Even better, I’ve contacted the distributing companies via website, email, or phone so they aren’t even sending me their catalogs anymore (minus a few choice retailers that I do actually shop from).
- Don’t watch commercials on television. – Done. I have a TV but I don’t have cable, satellite, or even get broadcast reception. I only use it to watch content downloaded from iTunes (mostly free) or DVDs, everything I watch is commerical free.
- Don’t read the adverts in the weekly paper. – Done. I have a Sunday only subscription that costs me $0.81 cents a week that I get just for the coupons. I clip the coupons and put the rest directly in the recycling bin.
- Don’t hang out in shopping areas for recreation. – Done. I only make trips to stores when I have a specific item planned for purchase.
- Take a complete inventory of your house contents for insurance purposes. – Done. Good thing too because I actually needed more than the minimum renters insurance thanks to a fair amount of items passed down from my grandparents and great grandparents.
- Do a weekly “27-fling boogie” a la Flylady. – I don’t really do this because I don’t have much excess after moving several times in the past few years. Maybe I could improve in this area but I don’t think getting rid of things for the sake of getting rid of something is anymore frugal or green than buying things for the sake of buying something.
- Visualize moving all of your stuff to a new home, or your heirs going through everything after your death. – Done. I’ve not just visualized but actually done both of these things multiple times, both are a nightmare.
- Keep warrenties. – Done but I could do better. They’re all stuffed in a random drawer in the kitchen or in a file box. I should be more organzied.
- Perform basic repair and maintenance. – Done. I’m especially diligent about this when it relates to clothing.
- Loan things you don’t use frequently to other people. – I could do better in this department but unfortunately I am a bit stingy and have had a few bad experiences with not getting things back.
- Think about what else you might want, instead of more stuff. – Done. I’ve taken a particular interest in travel, am dedicating savings specifically so that it’s possible, and just returned from my most recent week long trip three days ago.
by Carrie on April 12, 2009
by Carrie on March 5, 2009
Earlier this week, my employer announced that everyone would need to take 5 days off unpaid every 3 month period until the economy recovers so that we don’t need to lay anyone off. In addition to my 3 weeks of paid vacation time which cannot be applied to these unpaid days off, I now have 7 weeks off per year.
In my unpaid time off, I feel that I need to focus on generating passive income. My main source of this income over the past several years has been selling my photography at istockphoto.com (it’s not easy and it does require the right equipment and technical skills, but if you’re otherwise passionate for photography it may be a good option for you too).
My favorite way to do my photography is while traveling (I love architecture, scenery, and wildlife) so it’s time to utilize my vacation fund. I’m saving $450 every 3 months which will be my budget for my trips. It’s important to have that vacation money saved up in advance of spending it, especially in the current economic climate. I don’t expect I’ll be able to travel on all 5 of my unpaid days off on that budget but I should be able to do 3 or 4 days at a time. I live in California and am looking at traveling to relatively close locations like Arizona, British Columbia, and Colorado.
These photography trips will allow me to multitask during my forced time off by vacationing while generating more passive income. That passive income will smooth over my budget while my regular income is lower than usual.
Featured in the Festival of Frugality at Funny About Money.
Featured in the Money Hacks carnival at MoneyNing.
