Tax Funk

I've been on Spring Break. One of my first tasks was to get all of our bookkeeping in order to make the annual trek to the tax preparer. Keith has collected unemployment for over a year, without any withholding, so the nice fat check I had been dreaming of in April or May is spent. AAAArgh! One discovery I made though is that I should change the exemptions on my W-2 from 4 (my kids, all grown now) to 1.

We did take time for a whirlwind road trip south to Tulsa, where we visited my daughter Priscilla & her household of 4. She and her significant other share a condominium with two other roommates and two large dogs. It calms my mother's worry that the 4 of them are sharing the challenges of making do in this economy. I took my Tightwad Gazette along and reluctantly left it behind. Priscilla tried to check the book out of her local library and fond that there were three holds on the book! While I thought I might find another $8 copy, used, at Amazon--I was wrong. The least expensive used copy sells for $14.

Priscilla and I checked out the Tulsa area thrift stores. The Goodwill Stores in that city are downright swanky. Everything is divided by size and color. I didn't buy much (I still haven't worn everything I bought on our Christmas junket), but I splurged $2 on a thigh master of all things. It proved to be great entertainment that evening and everyone complained ;) of trembling thighs the following morning.

In the meantime, I've continued to explore many of the ideas in that book. During the first week of March, I took Keith to the grocery store with me for a 3-day meat sale. Since Keith is the primary meat-eater in the household, we stocked up on enough inexpensive meat to keep us supplied for several months. One item was a HUGE pork loin, which we cut down to week-sized roasts and re-wrapped in our own kitchen. This is a tightwad idea.

The same week I stocked up on Progresso soups, a brand we NEVER normally eat because of it's price. I had $1, $2, and $3.00 coupons I had found online. Combined with the sale price, it was more akin to a can of Campbells.

Monthly, we have made trips to Dirty Don's, a liquidator of unclaimed freight, located in Raytown, Missouri. We never know for certain what we might find there, but it's generally good for cheap chips (another habit of Keith's). We've been buying 3 sacks for $1. I'm the cookie monster in our household and they were selling Archway cookies for $.50 a package. I can't make them for that. We also stocked up on dried beans--the price of these has doubled in grocery stores this past year, just when people are more inclined to eat them. I have probably stockpiled 15 pounds of beans now. In addition, we bought a large bag of cheese, which the Tightwad Gazette claims can be frozen. We'll see.

Also, monthly, we've been making trips to the City Market. I have long heard about people dumpster-diving behind grocery stores, but this time I saw an Asian woman going through discarded produce in broad daylight and no one was troubling her about it. We have not succumbed to this practice, but we found strawberries for $1 a quart, lemons, bananas, and a large sack of potatoes for HALF what a person pays in the grocery store.

Today, we borrowed a friend's Costco card just to go window-shopping. Mostly I wanted to re-assure myself that I had beat their prices on most things. Bakery-check; we can beat their prices at the local bakery thrift store. Meat-check, but Costco comes close on the cuts we like. Produce-check. Some of Costco's produce is beautiful, but the two of us couldn't eat it all before it went bad. Rice is probably a bargain there. We walked out with 6 pounds of coffee beans, 6 pounds of meatballs, some veggie burgers, a year's supply of my allergy meds (a significant savings), and a large box of Alka Seltzer. I think it was worth the visit, but perhaps not worth investing in a membership.

I very seldom get into a funk about money, preferring to see money management as a game...but Keith was being extra nice after we picked up our taxes. And when I found a solid old oak rocker at a thrift store, we splurged. He's busy refinishing the thing and soon I'll be able to retire to our porch.