The cost of eating

Last night, my husband and I had to make a trip to the grocery store for a few necessities, like milk, tea, lunch meat, etc. and I was just appalled at how much prices have gone up in the last few weeks.

The sale price for chicken breasts was $1.99 a pound! On Sale! That is simply insane. Generic canned corn was 79 cents a can. When did that happen? Granted, I do not buy a lot of canned vegetables since I put up most of ours, but the last time I looked they were around 50 cents a can. Some times, if the store is having a case sale, you can get them 3 for a dollar. But almost 80 cents a can is insane. For generic. I didn't even look at the name brand. I was afraid to.

All of this is convincing me more and more that I am not putting up enough food. We need to be able to eat out of jars or the freezer and not have to make bi-weekly trips to the local grocery store. I have canned some chicken and beef, but I am thinking I need to do more. I need to find a couple of bags of chicken legs and thighs for 59 cents a pound (sometimes I can still find them for that) and can them up. 10 pounds bags will make around 8 or 9 pints of meat and 7 or 8 quarts of broth. So for $5.90, that is a minimum of 8 or 9 meals, but really closer to 12 since I don't always use a whole jar of meat per meal for the 3 of us. And the broth is quite useful for a lot of things too, not just soups.

I have canned a lot of fruit this year. Mostly peaches and plums but I have done a few blueberries and some cherries. I think I have enough beans to last the year, but you never really know. I didn't put up enough corn this year but that is one of those things that sometimes we eat a lot, sometimes we don't. I don't know, I guess we will be OK.

I plan to start curing some more Canadian bacon today. My son really likes that for sandwiches in his lunch bag. And it freezes well so I might as well. And the pork loin was on sale for less than $2 a pound, which is quite a bit cheaper than over-processed lunch meat.

I really don't know how people on fixed incomes or low incomes with families can afford to eat. I realize the over-processed convenience foods are cheaper, but you don't actually get much food value out of those.

There has to be a balance somewhere in all of this.

The High Cost of Living

When I got my gas bill for December I was shocked. I couldn't imagine having used $160 in natural gas when my bill for November was only $49. I chocked it up to having a water heater that was on the fritz and running the furnace too much. So I turned the heat down to a point where it was chilly in the house and just wrapped up.

Then I got my bill for January. $190! What is going on here? We got the water heater replaced, have turned the furnace down, even had a few days that we turned the furnace completely off and the bill was even higher than the previous month. Needless to say, I am not happy. So I took a closer look at the bill. Hidden in the fine print is a happy little policy. They charge as many different fees as possible.

There is a customer charge of $9.75. The is the joy I have for the privilege of being their customer. They say it covers the cost of reading the meter, issuing bills, maintaining the gas lines, postage, blah, blah, blah. AND that even if I don't use any gas for the month, I still get the joy of that charge. Whatever.

Then there is the distribution rate charge. The first 50 CCF(hundred cubic feet) is charged at $0.34655 and any over that first 50 is charged at $0.16664 for a total on this bill of $31.33. That charge is described as..." Recovers any of our costs of doing business not recovered thru the customer charge or base amount. These costs include taxes, salaries, depreciation, interest, etc." Now correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't that all be covered in the customer charge? or in the rate charge for the product itself?

Now we move on down the bill. Gas Supply Rate. This is the only thing on the bill that I can see being an actual charge. This is the gas that I actually used. Danged expensive if you ask me, but there you have it. $127.46. OK. I will owe that I guess. But reading the fine print on that particular item just pisses me off too. "Gas Supply Rate is comprised of three disticnt types of gas supply related charges. These three charges are commodity, gas demand/inventory and LUFG. These charges are subject to change occasionally - up or down- depending on the supply of gas and current market rates, The GSR amount represents your share of (gas company) actual costs for the gas." So if I am reading this right, I am being charged the going rate of the fuel (commodity), a charge for storage by the gas company(demand/inventory) , and the LUFG whatever that is. That particular cost is $o.95119/CCF.

Now, in a nutshell, I am paying to be their customer, I pay a fee for being billed, and I pay a fee for the storage of the fuel until I actually use it. Hmmmmm, something isn't right here.

But let's continue.

Weather Normalization rate $0.55. I can deal with that amount. At least until I read the fine print. Arkansas customers are just lucky I guess. "The weather normalization adjustment lowers a portion of of your bill when the weather is colder than normal or up slightly when the weather is warmer than normal. Weather normalization adjustments apply only to bills issued November thru April." Now according to my bill, the average temperature for the billing period was 2 degrees colder this year than last year. That should mean my bill should have been credited instead of billed. Hmmm, am I getting screwed again?

But wait, do I see a credit here? A base rate adjustment of $0.17? Oh goodie! Hold on right below that is something called an EE cost rate and it is $0.50. No explanation for what that is either. And below that is a municipal franchise adjustment of $7.20. So there is a charge because I live in town, too? This is getting to be way too much.

Then there are the sales taxes broken down by state, county and city. Death and taxes are the only things you can count on. $14 and some change for that. Total bill is $191.19.

Now here is the real kicker. They have recently(within the last 10 years or so) found huge amounts of natural gas in our state. The regional gas company is pumping this gas out of the ground as fast as humanly possible and distributing it into a 3 state region. But being here in
Arkansas, you would think our rates would be lower since they don't have to pipe it so far. Wrong again. The gas company is trying to get legislation passed that can charge us the same rates as Louisiana and Mississippi by saying it isn't fair if our rates are lower. But! they are not paying the state any extraction taxes for the privilege of raping our resources. So the gas company is getting our resources for dirt cheap then turning around and charging us everything they can get away with, without the state getting anything but sales tax out of it. And people wonder why Arkansas is 49th in everything.

This is just another example of how big business is going out of it's way to pillage and destroy in the chase for the almighty dollar. The people who can least afford it are the ones who have to pay the most. It just makes me sick.

Frugal is as Frugal Does

The word frugal means different things to different people. To some it could mean clipping coupons and to others it can mean turning off lights, turning down the heat, carpooling to work, only shopping when it is absolutely necessary, etc. To me, it falls somewhere in between the two extremes.

To me, living frugally means that if we don't need it, we don't buy it. Sounds really simple doesn't it? But it does take some work and planning. Lets take school clothes for instance. At the end of July and the first part of August every year, the retailers release a massive campaign of ads telling us that our children will be ridiculed if they do not have a new wardrobe to start the new school year. I don't buy into that. I go through the kids closets at the end of the previous school year, take out anything that is too small or no longer wearable, and replace only the items that have been removed. I also do this after Christmas. You can get end of season sales for spring and fall clothing for next to nothing. If the weather isn't right to wear it yet, put it back until it is. I am fortunate that my kids are not clothes hounds or fashion slaves. For the school supplies, I stock up big time when the sales hit. This usually happens right after Labor Day in our area. School has been back in session for a couple of weeks and the stores have a ton of stuff to get rid of to make room for the Holiday season. And my kids usually wind up needing more paper or pencils or whatever again by Christmas anyway so I have it on hand for when they do.

Another "...don't buy it" at my house is soda. Just the cost of soda probably saves us $50 a month. We drink tea. Or Kool-Aid. Or water. And of course, coffee. Even when sodas are on sale, they cost way too much. If you look at the cost per ounce of that stuff, and the amount of sugar, you will just cringe. Tea will give you antioxidants, you control the amount of sugar, and it doesn't leave a sticky feeling in your mouth after you drink it. It costs me about 80 cents to make 2.5 gallons. The same amount of soda will cost you about 5 bucks and that is if you buy 2 liter bottles. If you buy it in cans, it will cost about $7. Not worth it. And we won't even talk about 20 ounce bottles from the corner store. Geesh!

The thing to keep in mind is that Frugal is a lifestyle, not a once in a while thing. And you don't have to think of yourself as a tightwad to do it. If you visit thrift stores, discount markets, flea markets and garage sales, that is being frugal. If you clip coupons and only buy the things you need and not everything you have a coupon for, that is frugal. If you don't fall for the marketing that tells us we have to have the newest, biggest, best of everything, new item on the market, that is being frugal. If you carpool to work instead of driving that massive SUV you got conned into buying, that is being frugal, ...sort of.

If you do all of those things and then some, Great! The thing to keep in mind is that you have to figure out a system that works for you and your family and live by it. Some people just don't have access to flea markets. That is what Ebay is for. Some people, myself included, are shaped funny and have a hard time finding clothes that fit off of the clearance racks. So learn to sew. Some people have such a hectic lifestyle they do not have time to shop for bargains. Hogwash I say! Can everyone say "clearance rack?"

You have to make the decision to save money. It won't just happen. And it has to be a family thing. It won't do you any good if you save $200 a month in groceries then turn around a buy a new TV when the old one still works. Everyone in the family has to be on board. If even one family member doesn't want to do it, it can sabotage the whole thing. Make a plan. Even have a jar that you put your saved money in and take a nice vacation or something to reward all of your hard work. Just don't get into it every time you need a couple of dollars for the drive thru. You will be amazed at how quickly that jar will fill up. And as you get more used to frugal living, you can shave off spending in more places. You might even wind up with enough money in that jar for a down payment on something really big.

You just have to keep in mind the big picture. Why do you want to be frugal? Do you have a goal in mind or do you just want fewer bills? What would you do if you got laid off? Would you have enough savings to get you thru until you could find another job?

Make a plan. Live it. Make it your own. And if the Joneses look at you funny, laugh back because you do not have to worry about paying for all the useless stuff they have bought.