But that’s not frugal!

Today was our first day back at school after break. It’s a lot of fun to chat with students and colleagues in between interesting tasks and dreary paperwork. Since it was on the cold side today (cold for this area, I hasten to add, not compared to the upper midwest), I wore boots. Since it’s too early in the semester for much intellectual content or conversation, some students admired my boots. After saying thank you, I said “Oh, wait till I wear my Uggs. I wrote some blog posts about trying to get Uggs on sale.”

To which the students exclaimed, “But Dr. F, Uggs aren’t frugal.”

This scenario was repeated several times through the day. So let me take this as a “teachable moment.” My students equate frugality with not spending money. No. No. No. Frugality has to do with getting good value for your resources (money, time, stuff) in accordance with your values.

So, just to be totally transparent here, I will admit that in addition to my Uggs ($78.00 plus a ridiculous shipping charge), I bought a neat pair of black boots (from Garnet Hill, on sale for $49.00) and a memory foam mattress pad (around $100.00 from Costco).

I think these purchases are totally frugal and the boots, in fact, constitute ALL my clothing purchases this year, except for a jacket my mother bought me at Forever 21 and a few items from thrift stores. And when I say “this year,” I mean my school fiscal year, which started mid-August.

Besides, my birthday is January 20, Inauguration Day, so Happy Birthday to me.

Ask Dr Frugal: How do I Save Money

How Do I Save Money?

Another question from a college student. It seems so simple, but there are questions behind the questions.

So I said: “How much do you want to save?”
Answer: “I don’t know.”

“What do you want the money for?”
Answer: “I don’t know.”

“When might you need the money?”
Answer: “I don’t know.”

After some discussion, we discovered that she wanted an emergency fund (for car breakdowns and other unexpected expenses) and that she thought $1000 would be “awesome.”

So I said, “Well, each time you skip a fast-food meal and bring a lunch instead, you save $4-$6. In a year you could reach your goal.”

Then I said, “Each time you bring a lunch, you can count it as a small victory. Keep track of the number of times you do this.”

A listening bystander said, “Small victory! I never thought of it like that.”

These are good students! They have academic and professional goals. Yet they did not know how to set financial goals. They did not know how to break a big goal into small parts. They did not know how to see rewards along the way.

Now they do.

Ask Dr Frugal: unwanted cds

What do I do with my unwanted cds?

Now that I am getting slightly famous at work for my frugal tips (mostly because I have been telling people I have lots of frugal tips), students have been asking me questions.

Question #1 is from Alexandra: “Dr Frugal, what should I do with cds I don’t want?”
Answer: Check on Amazon to see if they have any value. If so, sell them there! It’s so easy. You can get little padded envelopes when they are on sale at Walgreen’s for 3/$1. Or make your own.

For those that don’t have enough value for Amazon, list on swapacd.com. Also easy. You can set up a wishlist of cds you want.