I prepare all of my meals myself and freeze portions that I cannot consume.  My roommate makes fun of me because I freeze everything, but who's the one eating delicious hailbut mango fillets and who is eating top ramen.  Dig?!

Much of the time I lived in Ohio I had to walk ~2 miles up hill to get groceries, and then carry them back. This will do wonders for your shopping habits, even though mine were pretty good to start with.

 Even eating meat nearly every day, I usually only spent $20-$30 a week.

I spend massive amounts of money on food.

How do you people get by on $5 or $30/ week? Please tell me your shopping lists.

I believe I discussed this some with Nick. I do pretty well with my finances, but there are many areas I could cut back on and one of these is food. I eat out nearly 100% of the time. Average daily amount is $15-20 which includes lunch and dinner (I rarely eat breakfast). That's about $400 - $500 a month on food! It's probably my biggest expense after my mortgage payment. So wasteful, but I can't get myself to shop. I did try it a couple of months ago and was able to get two weeks of food for about $60. UGH. I hate cooking.
 

You like stir fry ? Buy a rice cooker.

In fact I shall say it now, I havent moved into a house untill my rice cooker is there.

Maybe this will sink in more... that's $4,000 per year you could be paying off your mortgage.

Even eating meat nearly every day, I usually only spent $20-$30 a week.

Does roadkill count as meat?

You like stir fry ? Buy a rice cooker.

In fact I shall say it now, I havent moved into a house untill my rice cooker is there.

The recipe I listed above is a rice cooker meal. Chop your veggies, measure your other ingredients, dump it in and walk away. When it "clicks" an hour later, eat some, freeze some, put some in the fridge. It makes about 4-6 meals for me. Less than a dollar a meal for some pretty complete nutrition.

Much of the time I lived in Ohio I had to walk ~2 miles up hill to get groceries, and then carry them back.

Uphill both ways?

He's Sisyphus.

I posted about this a long time ago, using the hot water facet for spurious rinsing needs.

I caught myself doing it absentmindedly all the fucking time.
So I cut the top off a pill bottle and slipped it over the hot water facet knob.
It acts as a reminder and I've almost trained myself to use only the cold water for quick rinsing needs or filling the cats water bowl.
Sometimes I still reach for the hot water knob but the bottle stops me short. LOL

The water heater seems to be on far less now that I'm not running unneeded cold water into it.

It's a pretty long strech from the water heater to the kitchen so it takes a couple minutes for the water to actually get hot at the facet.
Any hot water leaving the tank on these short rinse episodes was only being wasted heating the pipes.

I think this simple change will save at least some on the gas bill. 

I do not recall any rusted-out 1988 Cutlass Cieras racing within inches past Sisyphus while blasting Coldplay as such, but I will not deny a certain mythological metaphoricalness to the situation.

I hardly ever go grocery shopping. There aren't any good grocery stores nearby to where I live and I don't have a car. I had a cart to lug groceries home but the wheel broke off and I since haven't gotten another one. Therefore grocery shopping doesn't happen often. But, Carolyn is taking me in her car to Trader Joe's next week. Wooo! I love TJ's.

You're in NJ, there are Wegmans' everywhere!

PS- Tell her the wedding is on Oct. 17, if she's still interested.

There are Wegmans' nowhere in NJ if you have no car... I'm in the same boat as Tricky.

Don't tell me! I know NJ! I remember when it was all Pathmark and Shop-Rite only.

All open at two AM. Black people in the frozen food aisle, shouting words at themselves.

You're in NJ, there are Wegmans' everywhere!

PS- Tell her the wedding is on Oct. 17, if she's still interested.

I'm assuming that's a message meant for your bride.

Carolyn can't marry a man like me! She comes from Society!

Ok so let an expert help you out here.

Putting clear plastic over your windows doesn't do much but empty your wallet. If your windows are that bad, replace them. If the windows are good but you still get drafts, caulk them from the outside. Stop wasting money on a petroleum product that has a 50 year half life, and that you use for 4 months and then stuff in a landfill, asswipes.

Insulating your water heater is a waste f time and money. Modern water heaters are extremely well and efficiently insulated, about 4 times what they were just 20 years ago. And if you have a gas fired water heater you just wrapped an appliance filled with flame with a flammable material. And probably voided your fire insurance.

Want better efficiency for your buck? Insulate the pipes in your basement and get a tankless water heater. It only heats what you use, doesn't store anything, shuts off when you shut off the faucet. Costs a little more than a regular water heater but could save you $250 a year. Ask nick, I bet that's all they have in Japan.

Get a new furnace is you haven't in the last 5 years.And get one that is power vented out through the wall of the house instead of one that connects to a chimney. Try opening a window and turning off the AC. It was a wonderful summer, I only ran mine one night so far and it looks like summer is over. Get ceiling fans in every room and learn how to use them.

Insulate your attic and put on a new roof. Have all penetrations (plumbing vents, chimneys, skylights through the roof removed or re-routed so there is no heat loss overhead.

Get a point of use alternative energy system. It uses a combination of two small solar panels, a small wind turbine generator, a bank of storage batteries and a power inverter to power things in your house that run all the time. Like the refrigerator, your modem and your wifi router. Then you have complete control over how much energy you have to buy. Steeleye and I will have a prototype tested and available for install in the Spring.

Join a co-op with your friends or shop at the bulk stores. Or go to the local farmer's market every week. Two heads of lettuce at Costco cost less that one at Giant or Safeway.

If you do eat meat, Go hunting this fall. Jesus please us, several of you live in the northeast corridor. The deer are so plentiful they are like rats. Or talk to your local Amish farmer. You can get a whole chicken grown organically for $5 there. Try to get a nice one at the supermarket for less than $8.

Brown bag your lunch to work everyday. I can eat lunch, and eat WELL for a week on what one lunch in a restaurant will cost.

If you really want to eat well and inexpensively, stop cooking "American" foods and learn to cook Asian, Indian and Mexican food. Most of them are so poor but their food is good. Must be cheap, right? Look at what we had to eat at the river last month. Ten bucks a head for three meals and all that food? I didn't make any money on it, and I didn't lose any either.

Remember I was a single dad for 15+ years. We know how to pinch a penny.

I love going to the pathmark at odd hours and thats EXACTLY how it is

Zoomie is a genius!

You can also do solar water heating w/ tankless backup/booster.

Doing point of use tankless water heaters instead of doing a whole house or building can get you even more energy savings.  

The ratings on point of use water heaters are underestimated. I just put one in Steeleye's place and it's hooked to the kitchen and a three piece bathroom. So long as you're not running more than one fixture at a time it works great, the water is nearly hot enough to scald, and it works off a 20 pound propane tank like on a BBQ grill.

I made a ton of pasta tonight & froze the leftovers. I was thinking of Emp & Sasha when doing it. haha

I filled a five gallon bucket full of hot water and put it in the freezer. Then, when it reached a nice lukewarm temperature I used it to flush my toilet.

That's pretty economical.

My wife made my lunch and breakfast before waking me up this morning. It's far cheaper than just buying lunch

So you're saying that the real answer to saving money is to get a small Japanese lady to marry you?

Is there a Japanese equivalent of engrish?

Emphasis on Japanese. Stay away from the Koreans.

So you're saying that the real answer to saving money is to get a small Japanese lady to marry you?

Could work. On the flip-side, most of them take it for granted that you'll work 12 hour days for 45 years so they can stay home and buy things from TV shopping. Lord knows how that culture came up with the woman I ended up marrying.

Sandwich check: ginger-fried pork and mushrooms, lettuce, avocado & mustard on rye-bread we made overnight.

I do not recall any rusted-out 1988 Cutlass Cieras racing within inches past Sisyphus while blasting Coldplay as such, but I will not deny a certain mythological metaphoricalness to the situation.

You fuckin' RULE, dude!

i give your posts HB points, at every opportunity ~

your humour is FAB,

your intelligence UN-fucking-REAL,

AND you deign to post here, for our enjoyment!

BITCHIN!!!