Pantry Shopping

As far as I know, the term "pantry shopping" was coined by the author of the now-defunct Tightwad Gazette, Amy Daczyzn. It's a great term and an even better concept. Here's how it works.

First, you start to keep a record of what groceries and other related kitchen items (dishwashing detergent, papertowels, cleansers, etc.) cost. You do this by entering the product name (including brand), when and where you bought it, and then you break down the cost by unit. For instance, if you buy a 3.5 ounce can of tuna fish, you get out the calculator and you figure out what it costs you per ounce.

You keep this book religiously. I used a spiral-bound notebook but I suppose you could do it on a legal pad or computer. You start out recording everything you buy. You group things as best you can so you can find items easily.

Pretty soon you have a baseline. You know the going rate of an ounce of tuna fish, a pound of flour, an ounce of coffee, and the price of a tea bag.

After that, every time you go shopping, you bring the price log with you so you can tell what's a deal and what isn't. The results may surprise you. Some common myths that this book has dispelled are the "always" myths:

• It's always cheaper to buy the bigger size (no, not always)
• It's always cheaper at the discount or big-box store (no, not always)
• It's always cheaper with coupons (no, not always)

It takes a month or so to get a good baseline working but once you have it, you will find this addicting.

Now you begin to pantry shop. The goal with pantry shopping is to buy things when they are a great deal, not when you need them. The only way you can do this is to get free of the tyranny of "needing" to buy food. So you stock up. That's the pantry part.

It may take a few months to get there, but you will get there if you persist. Here's how you start. Let's say peanut butter (a favorite in your family) goes on sale. Don't just buy one. Don't even buy two. Peanut butter keeps a good long time and if your family loves it, buy a bunch. Buy six or ten. Then put them in your pantry.

When you cook, you cook out of the pantry. When you shop, you're scoping out the bargains. Don't buy peanut butter gain until you can meet or beat that super-good deal.

It helps to get a freezer. Let's say chicken goes on sale. Buy cheap chicken, pack it up in portions as you would use it for a meal, and stash it in the freezer. Now you no longer have to run out and buy chicken because you need it. You won't need it; you have a stash. You replenish that stash when you find another good deal.

If you do this for a while, you will consistently be eating the bargains: the bargain-priced tuna, the cheap chicken, the sale-of-the-century peanut butter.

What about produce? A true tightwad will grow a lot of her own, but that's another article. But the fact is pantry shopping does not work for perishables like fruit, vegetables, milk, and dairy products. You have to buy those as you use them.

It's more of a change in mindset than anything else: you're shopping for the pantry and to beat the baseline.

A couple of drawbacks. This is not a beginner's strategy! You need to be fairly relentless and dedicated to pull this off. You also need some room in your house for your pantry (this is hard for people living in very cramped quarters) and the time and discipline to keep an accurate price log. You also have to be able to cook, since the strategy is ideal for people who cook from scratch.

Chile and China

My mother loves the dollar store. She loves the whole cult and mystique of the dollar store. I think there are a lot of people like her. I'm not one of them, although I consider myself frugal. I just find most dollar stores are filled with stuff you really don't need. If you don't need something, even if you can get it for a buck, it's still not cheap.

Anyway, the other day she said to me that everything that comes from her new favorite (upscale) dollar store (which is actually called the $1.19 store, a name that is curiously hard to say) is made in China. In fact, my mother reports that so much of everything we have today comes from China it's starting to get on her nerves.

I just bought a new Macintosh laptop computer (I'm bi-platform) and I was only mildly surprised to see the sticker on the box. Made in China.

My mother then made another observation: all of the producer in our part of the world comes from Chile. We live in Texas, but we're eating what is grown in Chile.

What do we make any more? I know America has gone to a service economy (but even there, we're messing up ... look how many service centers are outsourcing to India) but food and cheap junk used to be a mainstay.

It occurs to me that a lot of this stuff ... fruits, vegetables, small everyday items ... are likely things that our Depression-era ancestors raised or made themselves. We don't do that any more. Just like getting the car washed or hiring somebody to walk the dog, we now get others to grow our produce and make our kids' toys.

Too Many Economists Can Make You Nuts

How is economic news like the psychic hotline? First, both of them try to predict the future (with intermittent success). Second, both of them are really trying to get you to spend money. And third, both psychics and economists don't know you.

My great-grandparents did not go broke in the Depression. They were living in New York at the time and they remembered stories about people who jumped out of the skyscrapers on Wall Street after having lost everything in the crash. My people didn't go broke in 1929. They went broke about a decade earlier.

While economic news has value, the problem is that you cannot take broad economic news and apply it specifically to you and your situation. As economists are making us nuts and arguing about whether this is or is not a recession ... who cares? I guarantee that some people are going to make money in this so-called recession. Others will lose money. Others will stay the same.

Sometimes we become part of the economic story. Some of us are facing layoffs, unemployment, upside-down mortgages, and even foreclosures and bankruptcies. That's bad. But to paraphrase Tolstoy (apologies in advance), every person who goes broke goes broke in his or her own way.

I hate hearing economic doom and gloom messages because it discourages some people from cleaning up their own financial house and it gives other folks the idea that financial problems may not be their own fault. I'm not saying that all financial problems are your own fault -- but the more responsibility we can take for our financial situation, the more control we have over our money.

Are we in a recession? I don't know. I don't care. I'm still concerned about reducing my spending and increasing my income. Don't let the prognosticators get your eyes off your goals!

Amusement Costs

Americans are crazy about entertainment. I've been traveling recently and I notice that Americans start to get kind of antsy if they are left without entertainment (stimulation) for even short periods of time. In the airport, I noticed people plugging in laptops, firing up iPods, and using their cell phones (plus reading books and magazines) to pass the time. There is almost a frenzy to amuse oneself, even if a wait is just a few minutes.

You can't try one of those Mommy-SUVs unless you have DVD screens in the back for the kids. Even a 20-minute drive to run errands would be insufferable for children without having outside entertainment.

My TV went on the fritz recently and we spent about five days without TV. It was sort of wonderful but in a painful way. I think I made a lot more money because I work freelance mostly and it forced me to work more. Maybe that's the wrong way of looking at it. No TV allowed me to carve out more of my time in productive ways.

But it was an uneasy feeling.

Now all of that entertainment comes at a very high price. The gizmos and gadgets aren't cheap. Cable TV (if you have it) can run $80 to $100 a month without even getting anything too special. Buying or renting DVDs, going regularly to movies and concerts. It all adds up.

If it really added depth to our lives, I would be all for it. I'm not opposed to spending money (even lots of money) on things that add worth and dimension to your life. But I think our craving for constant entertainment adds a lot of bills but not a whole lot of depth. It just makes us nervous when somebody unplugs us.

I felt that way when I was traveling. I was on a business trip, traveling alone, and here and there I found myself being asked to sit quietly (on a short plane ride, in a cab) for a brief period of time with no form of amusements available. It was a little unsettling. I think I forget how to amuse myself or just think or strike up a conversation.

Yet those are the things we remember. I have probably seen every Law & Order episode ever made, and yet what has it really added to my life? But I can remember some accidental conversations, chance encounters, that I seized upon. I have benefited from long hours spent struggling to learn German vocabulary words (I'm a translator, among other things) or sort out the meaning of difficult Bible passages. All fitting and beneficial things.

But our non-stop addiction to outside electronic stimulation ... expensive and scary!

The Equation

Talk to most people and they'll tell you that their financial woes could all be solved with one simple thing. They need money. More money. A whole lot more money.

This thinking has actually spawned an entire industry that's sweeping the world: the lottery. People play the lottery because they think a windfall is the answer.

More realistic (but equally wrong) people will assure me that it's all in the income. I've talked to families who earn, say $60,000 a year in combined income. They moan and groan. They could make it, really make it, if they could just earn $70,000 a year. Even $68,500 would do it. But $70,000 would be perfect. Easy street.

But then I talk to another family, in the same neighborhood, same demographics, same family size, everything is equivalent. The thing is, this family already is earning $70,000. Far from being economically advantaged, they perceive themselves in the same dire straits as the first family, wailing that they are financially doomed unless ... they could earn just $80,000 a year.

Don't laugh. The guy who earns $200,000 is whining that he isn't making $250,000.

What all of these poor pitiful people have in common is a delusion. It's a delusion that runs throughout the whole country. But popularity doesn't make a delusion into reality.

The fact is that your financial report card has two sides. Part of it is what you make. Don't misunderstand me, income is a big part of your overall financial picture and more is better.

But there's another side to the equation that nobody talks about. It's how much you spend.

Most people are dumbfounded that their spending habits even matter or contribute in any way, shape or form to their overall financial well-being. Most people feel helpess in terms of managing spending habits. It's almost as if spending is an uncontrollable variable in the equation and to prosper we need to increase the income.

It's the other way around.

You have tremendous control over what you spend. You have a slight degree of control over what you earn--some of us more than others. But you really don't have that much influence over what salary your company pays you. True, you can change jobs, but your income is going to be limited by the jobs available and your education and skills. Some of us just aren't going to ever earn a million a year, and that's all there is to it.

But all of us can save money. When you start controlling that part--the part you can control-- you increase your net worth, you improve your finances.

If you're working, I bet there are people right now in this country earning what you're earning and in comparable situations (geography, family size, obligations) who are quite comfortable and there are others who are massively strapped for cash. The difference isn't the income. It's the spending habits.

You've got to spend less.

Is it Hard to Save Money?

The difference between people who are successfully frugal and those who see the benefits of frugality yet never quite break through is really one of attitude.

There are a lot of pressures out there to spend. Credit cards companies can sense your weaknesses. If you've got a maxed-out card or two, they lure you with offers for other, better, newer cards or boost your limits.

The media acts like the entire American economy depends on retail sales at holiday season.

Entire industry are built on trends (fashion, electronics, show business). We're enticed to consumer restaurant food, prepackaged entertainment, and convenient lifestyles providing we can pay for them.

Frugality involves thinking about all of these things differently. Holidays become a time of getting together and celebrating rather than presents. Your entertainment is no longer a top priority as you start to put together a life that is meaningful rather than just diverting. Fads seem foolish; you need to focus on what is practical and of genuine value. Your vanity takes a nose dive.

Frugality is about being humble, simple, and resourceful. Those are the anti-virtues in our society! We're encouraged to be proud ("have it your way!"), complicated (ever seen a mom on a cell phone driving a mini van with kids watching a DVD in the back?) and needy (spa treatments, cleaning services, nannies and other "providers" give us the good life where we don't even have to clip our own toenails).

This is not good for you, not emotionally, not spiritually, not physically, and certainly not financially. But getting frugal and staying there are tough. But here is some advice.

1. Frugality is reinforcing. The more you do of it, the easier and more rewarding it gets.
2. You can get to a point where your frugality goes on auto-pilot. If you're not there yet, persist, because that mode exists.
3. You need the company of like-minded frugal folks, even if only online. Nobody "out there" understands you. Don't expect them to.

Debt Advice: Avoid It

One of the best ways to live cheaply is to avoid debt. That occasionally means that you look rich, because you buy things for cash, like cars. But it's really cheaper.

If you're confused about debt, check out www.secretsaboutdebt.blogspot.com. It's new, but it's getting some good information on debt.

Debt costs a lot of money--you pay interest on it, for one thing, and you can get hit with late fees if you miss a payment. That sounds like it's avoidable, but if you have a reasonably active and complicated life and lots of credit card bills coming in, it will definitely happen to you sooner or later. Sometimes a late fee on a credit card can be $39, which seems exorbitant.

Of course, what are you going to do? Debtors can't be choosers, at least not with late fee amounts.