Two Mondays ago, I mentioned that we cut back on spending in 2009, and Chez Julie asked me to share some of my tips. What a great idea!

I have a lot of tips and I bet commenters will too – so don’t feel bad if you can’t read them all – PLEASE SHARE your ideas!

I broke my tips into three categories: Shopping, Entertainment and General. Click “more” to read (skim, really) on.

Shopping Tips for Reducing Spending:

• First things first – cut out unnecessary luxuries - for us, this was bottled water. We used to use one new bottle of water a day, and we started using reusable water bottles instead. Better on the pocketbook AND environment! For other people, this may include something like cutting back on the daily Starbucks and making coffee at home, or buying soda in bulk instead of from a vending machine.
• Figure out where to buy the most economical necessities – we started shopping more at ALDI. We used to do all of our shopping at Super Target. I think we save at least $50 a week by shopping at ALDI. And if you have one of those stores where you have to have a “club card” to get the items at a discounted price, you are probably not getting the best deal overall. We have Dominick’s, Meier and Jewell Osco out here, but have compared prices and they are more expensive on everything.
• Try the “off brand,” it’s probably less costly – related to the last tip. We thought we would hate the ALDI “off brand” food, but it is fine! We mostly buy produce there anyway.
• Buy in bulk when it’s a great sale – when we see an item we purchase regularly on a heavy discount, we buy it in bulk, saving us money (and time) in the long run.
• Use coupons and watch for good deals – I like to use coupons.com to see if any of the things we buy are on sale at Target before we go there. We also look at the ads to watch for items to go on sale. And, I am not sure if other stores do this, but sometimes Target will have a deal that if you buy 2 or 3 of an item they will give you a $5 giftcard. In December, we saw that the paper towels we like were on sale for $10 each (normally $15). If you bought two you got the $5 giftcard. Score!

Entertainment Tips for Reducing Spending:

• Instead of meeting friends for dinner, host dinner in your home
• When meeting friends for lunch, bring your own – my friends know I do this ALL THE TIME. You save money, eat a healthier lunch, and still get to chat!
• Look for coupons for things you like to do – Steven and I never go bowling unless we have a coupon. If you sign up at Brunswick, you get coupons once or twice a month. Instead of paying $5 a game, we pay $1.29!
• Use Giftcards – ask for giftcards for birthdays and holidays if you can! At my office, we have a rewards program, and I use it to get movie giftcards.
• Make small sacrifices in quality to get something for less – we found a theater that sells $4 tickets! It is not as nice as a normal theater, but it saves us about $20 a trip!
• Use Netflix instead of Pay-Per-View or going to the movies – if you watch a lot of movies like we do, Netflix is VERY economical!
• Stop paying to run races - look for those you can run based on a donation, or just run for fun (this one was hard).
• Volunteer – it can be fun
• Look for free events – watch for speakers at your library or find a website like Explore Chicago (but local for your area) that showcases events (both free and not free).
• Visit local parks/forest preserves for fun – we have a massive forest preserve system out here, and there is so much to do!
• Take classes at a community center instead of at a gym
• Use the office gym, instead of paying for a separate membership – if you can, of course.
• Go to the library instead of buying new books (or borrow from a friend!)
• Choose a vacation location somewhere where you can stay with friends or family
• Travel in the off-season
• TRY NEW THINGS AT HOME! - we love cooking and trying new things at home… I think we like it better than eating out!

General Tips for Reducing Spending:

• See if you can cut back with your bills – we looked into our Verizon bill to see if it made sense to switch to a smaller plan. Ironically, we found out we were on a great plan that is grandfathered in and we would be screwing ourselves if we changed it. Ha ha. We tried!
• Stop using credit cards – only use them in an emergency.
• Pay off higher interest bills first
• Develop a monthly budget and stick to it – it will help to see where you are actually spending your money!
• Save money by working from home – this may not be an option for everyone, but since Steven works from home, we are saving money on gas, insurance and I-PASS. In 2011, I will be allowed to work from home one day a week and this should help a tiny bit (my work already pays for my transportation to work).
• Look into pre-tax pay deductions at work – some offices offer programs where you can take money out of your paycheck pre-taxes and use it for transportation or hospital bills.

And I believe you should  SPLURGE A LITTLE BIT and treat yourself everyone once in awhile! To stay sane!

To find out who is stealing people’s lunches.

I am serious.

Does anyone else find this hilarious?

Surprisingly, I have not yet been a victim. No one seems interested in my veggie sticks, hummus, and vegan hot dogs!

But instead of having a carefree, relaxing run like I usually do, I ended up stressing out about work issues and watching the clock the entire time. I had to rush to get 3 miles in, then shower and get ready to go back to my desk (in one hour).

It feels good to have the run out of the way, but it wasn’t the quality I wanted it to be. I didn’t get to de-stress at all.

My marathon training schedule starts next Monday, and I think I am going to have to fit lunch time runs in a couple of times a week. Maybe next time it will be sunny and NOT raining*, so I can get outside and enjoy the run more.

Warning: exercise seems to be one of the only things I feel like writing about right now, so you’ll probably get a lot of that.

*This is June, right?

I think that people think I am some sort of… health freak? They see me walking around with an apple, or eating my homemade granola bar, or getting fresh veggies out of the fridge for lunch, and think I am super focused on eating healthy ALL THE TIME.

Ha. Ha ha. I WISH! While it is my goal to get closer and closer to eating a healthy, fresh diet most of the time, I am totally not there yet.

I have two secrets to share:

1. I want to run the Chase Corporate Challenge 3.5 miler in 28 minutes.
2. I’ve gained 4 pounds in the last 4 weeks.

The second secret pretty much cancels out the first one.*** Because, I can feel the small amount of extra weight and it is slowing me down a bit during my runs. I can feel it shaking in my butt.

AND, it’s NO BIG DEAL! I was stressed out, I was eating emotionally, blah blah blah, what did I expect to happen? Mathematically, I knew my calories in was higher than my calories out, even when running 20+ miles a week. I just chose to ignore it for awhile. Because I am human, and I cannot eat perfectly all the time, no matter how hard I try. And I don’t even WANT to eat perfectly all the time. How boring would that be?

Anyway, it makes me laugh at work when I get SO MANY comments on what I am eating and how healthy it is, because I do not “eat healthy” all of the time and I don’t think of the food I eat during the day as “healthy,” I think of it as the food I want to eat – fruit, veggies, whole wheat crackers, granola bars, cereal, veggie dogs, etc.

The good thing is, when people keep saying that to me, it encourages me. It keeps me going. It reminds me that I do need to be making conscious, healthy choices most of the time. And not just “for show” (which it’s not), but because I want to.

So even though the comments do get annoying from time to time (I mean, come on, can I just prepare my lunch in peace?!), I am going to channel it into good – encouragement.

And I am going to quit all of that mindless gosh darn**** snacking.

*Give me a freakin’ break. I am NOT afraid of carbs.
**My punctuation kind of went to crap in this paragraph.
***So I think I will try to finish in under 30 minutes.
****This is me not swearing.

A little blurb in the April issue of Marie Claire made me think about this. They had a little chart that compared the cost of making a sandwich at home, to buying one at Subway. They concluded that the cost was so close ($5.01 vs. $5.59), it might not even be worth the effort to make the sandwich at home.

Hmm.

I bring my lunch to work every day of the week, unless I have a planned lunch date. I usually only have one lunch date a week (with my favorite lunch buddy, diane), but this week, I had THREE lunch dates – one every single day I was at work!

It’s expensive to eat out downtown every day. But some people do. I know people at my old office who did. And I am sure there are people at my new office who do as well. I’d rather have it be a treat, then do it every day. Three days in a row was too much this week.

Right.

Now that I have cut back on that (really, I have most of what I need) I realize that shopping was just a replacement for what I used to do during my lunch break to get away from work stress for awhile – eat eat EAT!

Don’t worry – I didn’t waste a lot of money, or even spend that many days at the stores, I just realized when I was out there, I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular. I was just looking for a mental break.

For a few months, I have been eating my lunch at my desk. Every day.

I hate this. It makes me feel anti-social. And it doesn’t really count as a mental break. Even if I am sitting there, reading email or blogs, or whatever.

Somedays, I don’t even leave the floor of my building.

Which must be why I liked going to shops. It just got me out of the building. And may be why I would run around outside looking for treats, before I started my healthy lifestyle quest.

We have a “break room.” But you know what? I can’t eat in there. I can’t sit still, and watch people eat their lunch. Without craving something more than mine. I am not starving myself, but I am grazing – I eat small things throughout the day. It actually feels great. But sitting down, and seeing someone eat so much more, along with trying to make small chat – I can’t do it. It makes me all nervous and antsy and depressed. It affects my ENTIRE day.

And I can’t take my small lunch back there and make it last very long. I already eat fast, and I am not eating much. So put those two together – why even go back there?

When I lived and worked in Rome, I did this as well. Only, we HAD to leave the office during lunch. So I would walk around and see the sights, eating my small lunch. Why can’t I do that here?

Yeah, ideally, I wouldn’t be this weird about food.

Lately it’s been these townhome association meetings. Well, there have only been two of them, but they are at 7:00 pm, require me leaving work at 5:00, and eat up more of my night then I’d like. But hey, if we’re going to bitch and moan about what’s going on in our neighborhood, we better make an appearance at the meetings, and become involved, right?

Anyway, I told one of our reps I would go out to lunch with her today. This will probably be good for me to learn to be social and interact with other people in the industry, but when I woke up today… I just didn’t feel like it. I think I’d rather sit at my desk and sleep eat. Or stay at home and sleep. Or something like that.

I’m sure by lunch time I’ll feel like doing it. But right now, I just feel BLAH.

Duh. That makes me feel kind of dumb. At least one is “dairy” and one counts as “fruit.”

When my class was learning about the food pyramid in grade school, our teacher gave us each a sheet of white glossy square stickers with pictures of different foods on them. He also gave us sheets of paper that had an illustration of a plate on it. Our task in class was to put “well-balanced” meals on the plate based on what we were learning.

For some reason, the local television crew decided to come and interview my class to do a little human interest story (I guess news was slow that day). They interviewed a few of us, and we showed them our little papers with our stickers on them, with the crude drawings of corn, chicken legs, apples, etc.

I eagerly awaited watching the story on the news that night. To my dismay, they showed a shot of the entire class working, with the reporter talking in front of us, then interviewed only one kid.

A few of us were pretty bummed the next day. We had worked really hard on our “balanced” meals, and thought they would show them on tv.

Our teacher was more upset about what was on the kid’s plate that they did show – mashed potatoes, french fries, and tater tots.

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Today’s Idiom: red-letter day – day of happiness, time for rejoicing (holidays are red-letter days on our calendars)

My red-letter day came when I received a job offer before graduation. I felt like I had nothing to worry about anymore.

Actually, I hate packing a lunch at all. Why can’t I just get some takeout at work? Not caring?

Just kidding. Just kidding. I care about my health. And my money (because takeout adds up!).

But sometimes it’s hard to be a healthy adult. I have the sugary appetite of a child, but the mental state of an adult who knows better.

I’m working on that…