Half-Priced Frappuccinos Anyone?

Has anyone else noticed that Starbucks has been giving away a lot of half priced drinks lately?

Anyway, they're at it again. From May 6-15 Starbucks is offering 1/2 price Frappuccinos between 3pm-5pm.

I need to find a job soon, because there is a coconut blended creme out there with my name on it...

Going Green

I'm a supporter of the green movement.

I do my best to minimize my waste, I try to buy local organic foods, my vehicle is a gas sipper, and I try to take public transportation when possible.

That being said, I'm also a supporter of frugality.

I'm trying to be better with my money, I try to buy things that will last rather than something that will fall apart quickly, I try to repurpose and reuse things rather than throwing them out, and I try to maintain the basic skills out ancestors took for granted (cooking, sewing, gardening, etc...)

So, when I came across a post about inexpensive eco-friendly style, I jumped right in.

And I was disappointed :(

The shoes for the outfit in question were vintage, and the top and pants were sale items.

So what's the problem?

Well, I'm really wondering what we're encouraging by buying the stuff on sale. Don't beat me down with the frugal broom, please hear me out. Nearly everything we buy in North America is mass produced, and as such there are certain economies of scale that go along with it. Mass produced good are cheaper to make, because less of the production set up and cost is carried by each of the individual items. These economies can not be reproduced by small independent designers and retailers, but they still have to compete on the same playing field.

Compare an organic cotton t-shirt from a small manufacturer to a Gap t-shirt (just an example). The Gap t-shirt costs less than the organic one, and is the shirt that most people would end up buying. Most of us would wait until the organic one was on a clearance rack before we went for it, as is suggested in the post. In doing this, are we actually supporting a green movement? Nobody considers that the profit margin on the Gap shirt is much higher than the one from the small manufacturer, and by waiting for it to go on sale we're not really supporting the small manufacturer.

We've been fed a the fast food equivalent of clothing for long enough that our understanding of how much clothing costs has been skewed. Has anyone gone into a fabric store lately? The stuff isn't cheap. By constantly waiting until things have gone on sale, we're cutting into small business's abilities to grow, and I don't believe we're really supporting them that way.

I don't have all of the answers on how to mesh both movements together. By all means, they are most certainly complimentary. I'm wondering though, does anyone else see the problem with only buying certain things on sale?

*slide*

And now, for last month's slips. Needless to say, it was a little rough for me this month, especially around the middle. I'm not going to beat around this one, I slipped into an old, very bad, habit this month. I used shopping to beat stress.

I seriously deserve a beat down for this one.

After what was the hardest day I've had at work in well over a year, I went shopping. I didn't use cash. I did set myself a limit, I wasn't allowed to spend any more than 50% of my extra payments this month. That way by the end of the month I was still digging myself out, it was just slower than anticipated. Still, it's a habit I need to break.

After reading on Hi That's My Bike that the jeans I had been after were on sale at Anthropologie, I trotted down there and picked a pair up. Originally almost $220, they were marked down to $80.  While I was there I noticed the sweater I had been fawning over the weeks leading up to Christmas was marked down to $40 from $120, so I picked up the last one in my size as well. Tack on a couple small gifts for people, and a tube of mascara to replace mine (it was time), and I was done. Part of what limited the shopping (other than the fact that the mall was closing), wasn't so much the fact that it would mean my debt would take longer to pay off, but the fact that I'd have to write about it on here. Let's face it, admitting to this stuff is embarassing. So, thank you all.
Credit Card Damage: $184.64

I love music. I know what I should do here is delete my credit card information off iTunes, go out and buy an iTunes gift card with cash, and then use that. As of yet I haven't done it. Chalk this up to laziness, I'll buy one next time I'm out getting groceries.
Credit Card Damage: $3.57

As many of you probably saw earlier in the month, I signed up for the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Unfortunately there was a sizable registration cost associated with signing up for it.

That's right, I paid money to raise money for someone else.

I don't feel too bad about the cost of the registration because they feed us and provide us with a place to sleep that weekend. I'm basically paying for a weekend out now rather than in June. They only took either credit card or cheque for the registration costs, and I didn't have any cheques on me, so it ended up going on my credit card. That's the problem with having your card number memorized, its still usable even when it's frozen in a block of ice. My only saving grace on that is that while I have the loooooong number on the front memorized, the short one on the back I don't. That means I usually can't use it online. I put extra money on my card the following payday, but it would have been nice if that money went towards paying the balance down rather than just maintaining it.
Credit Card Damage: $75

That's $263.21 in non-cash spending during the month of February.

*facepalm*

That sucks.

Amazingly enough though I didn't use my debit card all month, other than to take money out of the bank machine every payday. I did however write down and track my spending all month, which was one of my other goals for February. I'll post the results of that tomorrow :)

*slip*

As some of you remember from my New Years resolution post, one of my goals for this year was to go cash only in my purchases. For the most part I've been quite successful. There were some slips in January however, and I feel that for the sake of keeping myself accountable, I should put them up here.

Our company had it's Christmas/New Years party the second weekend in January. I think they had started planning the party a little late and all of the good venues had filled up, so they moved it into the new year. We had an evening in the ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald. Absolutely gorgeous.

I love this hotel

I had a dress picked out that I planned to wear for the evening. We're not a super stuffy office at work, there's only a handful of guys that wear suits, and that's only if they have a client meeting that day. I figured it would be suitable. The day before the party I was talking to one of the ladies in the office, discussing what we were going to wear. I described the dress and her eyes got wide and she said "Oh no, that's not fancy enough. It's a semi-FORMAL cocktail party".

Well crap.

I went home and raided my closet only to discover that the dress I was planning to wear was the most formal thing I owned before it jumped to my all out formal graduation dress. So Saturday afternoon, the afternoon before the party, I was doing the mad dash power shopping in West Edmonton Mall. How bad could it be, all the New Year's dresses should be on sale, right? Wrong. Almost every store I hit had already cleared out their party gear, leaving me pretty hooped for well priced selection. I ended up scouring the racks in Winners, coming up with just 2 dresses in my size. I ended up settling on this silver silk Michael Kors cocktail dress. It was originally $225, marked down to $77. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but I was short on time. The picture doesn't do it justice, but lets face it, what more do you expect from dressing room lighting? Debit Card Damage: $80.85

The next one really was no more than lack of restraint. I should have gone home, grabbed the money, and come back. Instead, I shopped impulsively. I really need to work on that. Victoria's Secret was having a clearance sale: 10 pairs of underwear for $20. I don't remember when the last time I got underwear for $2 a pair was. Thankfully (and kinda sadly) their bras don't actually fit me, so the damage was somewhat curbed in that respect. I'd been meaning to get some underwear, so that was a plus. Right price, wrong method of payment. I accept responsibility for this one. Debit Card Damage: $21.00

This one was related to me being sick for a couple weeks. After a week of being sick, and nothing really helping to curb it, it occurred to me that what I was feeling felt more like a sinus infection than a cold. I checked online, and sure enough the symptoms were a direct match. Monday I went in to the doctor's office to be checked out. Sure enough, sinus infection. So, out came the prescription pad. Rather than going home and getting the cash out of my envelopes and picking up the drugs the next day, I bought them immediately after the doctor's appointment. I already had a raging sinus headache, and I was looking for relief. Debit Card Damage: $14.64

The last one was a case of me breaking down and buying some music on iTunes.
Credit Card Damage: $8.43

Total non-cash damage: $124.92. The rest of my spending for the month of January was done with cash: eating in, eating out, socializing, toiletries, you name it. Not good, but much better than it would have been otherwise if I wasn't trying to go cash-only. It's definitely making me rethink and plan my spending.  I'm hoping February goes a little better, because I really don't know what happened with my finances last month.

*Forgot a date. Spent $3.50 on hot chocolate. Total damage $128.42*

Up and down and up and down…

While my paycheck did come with an unexpected downfall in the form of overtime paid out as straight time, I completely missed something else on it. I got a raise. It wasn’t earth shattering, but I’m certainly not going to turn my nose up at another 3% annually. The last time I got a raise, I pledged to save it and not adjust my standard of living to include it. All was going well until my property taxes were adjusted for the year, and my mortgage (which includes the property taxes) went up another $50 every paycheck. Good bye raise savings. It’s time to institute the raise savings again.

The beef came in cheaper than expected, but the groceries and dry cleaning came in over. My coupon that would have saved me $10 on the dry cleaning (bringing me under the budgeted amount) expired 3 weeks ago, but I found 540ml cans of tomatoes on sale at the grocery store for $1 a piece (60% off!). So far over all I’m still under budget on this pay check.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I had an unexpected expense related to work that I may be able to get them to pay for. I’m applying to the university to take a couple courses which will increase my usefulness to the company. All going well they’ll pay for it. If not, it will just increase my raise potential and hopefully get me some more interesting work to do. The application fee was $75, which went on my credit card. It didn’t wipe out the entire payment I put on it this pay check, but pretty close. Hopefully work will decide to cover that.

Dilemma

I was struck with a dilemma yesterday. Take advantage of a seat sale to London to visit a friend that would have gotten me there for approximately 30% the regular price (that's including taxes), or hold fast and keep chipping away at my little (ha!) debt pile. Well, fate intervened and the flight sold out before I could go home and book the ticket. I can memorize the 16 digits on the front of my credit card, but the 3 on the back? Pffft, not a chance. It's for the best, and I really don't feel that bad about it. That does bring to my attention yet again my impulsive spending issue. One more thing to work on, like packing a lunch (which I didn't do... again *facepalm*).