If your New Year’s Resolution was to be more frugal in 2010, like many of us, you may be getting sick of it by now. There are good reasons for this. Being frugal is an exercise in discipline–telling yourself no over and over again for the benefit of a larger goal. This routine can become oppressive over time and lead to a sense of malaise, listlessness, and mild depression. There is a name for this phenomenon. It’s called frugal fatigue.

Frugal fatigue just means you’re tired of being thrifty. You want to have some fun and spend some money instead of always saying no to yourself. But experiencing this temporary emotional state doesn’t mean you have to fall off the frugal wagon completely. It just means that you have to acknowledge and deal with the feelings so that you can get on with being thrifty. Here are five ways I have found to battle frugal fatigue:

1. Remember Your Goals. It helps to reassess why you are doing this in the first place. Look at the positives, not what you can’t do–go out to dinner, go shopping, buy a new car, etc.–but what you will be able to do because of this lifestyle–save for retirement, go on a trip, pay off your debt (which, while unglamorous, means more freedom in your life). Look at what you have achieved so far and what you will achieve if you keep on with this.

2. Try Something New. Frugal fatigue comes from routine. You end up feeling trapped in your house and like you aren’t allowed to do anything. So, try something new. Cook a new recipe, try a new sport, go thrift store shopping with a tight budget, or have friends over for board game night. Make some fun for yourself that doesn’t focus on spending a lot of money, and you will feel better.

3. Get Some Frugal Inspiration. I just read the book Possum Living by Dolly Freed–who I recently posted a short documentary on–and it got me all gung-ho about self-sufficiency again. It’s important to have things like that. Read some frugal forums or The Tightwad Gazette or stare at growing your savings account or talk to your favorite frugal friend. Do something to get excited about frugality and it will feel more fun.

4. Count Your Blessings. You could just think about all the things you have in life, or you could literally count your blessings–for example, open your refrigerator and look at all the food you have, and then make a plan on how you’re going to use it up. Or look at all the paint cans in the garage and make a new project around them. The idea is to focus on what you have, the blessings, and then use them. Why? Using your resources makes you feel richer.

5. Buy Something. If frugal fatigue is really bad, go out and do something that costs money. That’s right. Treat yourself. Unless you are desperately poor, you can probably afford to go out to one dinner or buy yourself one item at the store. This could backfire and reignite your love of spending, but I’m guessing that if you have been wanting to do something for awhile and you’ve been telling yourself no, doing it will be enough to keep frugal fatigue at bay. Any discipline system needs small rewards as much as the big ones to keep you motivated. If you have been doing well, maybe it’s time for one of those small rewards.

Besides, it is cheaper in the long run to do something you really want and then go back to frugality than it is to fall off the wagon altogether because you feel discouraged. So, unless your goals are unbending, I say it’s time to bend a little.

And then, onward, frugal bunnies! You thrifty bees, you.

Here’s a way to cut back on using plastic: make some reusable bowl covers.

Re-Nest has a how-to on creating your own bowl covers with cotton laminate/oilcloth and elastic. The resulting covers can be washed and re-used as much as you want, thus reducing the amount of saran wrap you use in the kitchen. Along with being environmentally friendly, that will save you money in the long run.

Of course, I’m not convinced these covers can completely eliminate saran wrap–they aren’t going to keep air out of your food as well as plastic can, and so may not be ideal for all situations. However, for general food saving, reusable bowl covers are a great idea.

The above clip is from The Daily Show. First it very effectively–and hilariously–demonstrates the problem with the credit crisis and then it has a devastating segment about how ruthless Bank of America is at charging fees on credit cards. Basically, Bank of America comes out looking less reasonable than a loan shark. (Skip ahead to 4:56 if you just want to watch the Bank of America segment).

The Daily Show is talking about Bank of America’s credit card, but I want to talk about my experience with it as a bank. Bank of America is one of several big banks I used when I was younger. At the end of my time with them, I was constantly being charged fees. I was charged to talk to a teller in person, if I called the banking line more than a six times in a month, and one time for exchanging some rolled coins for cash.

The last straw happened like this: We deposited a paycheck on a Friday. On a Saturday, we bought something–I don’t remember what, but it was covered by the paycheck. Bank of America held the paycheck until Monday but pushed the purchase through first so that we were technically overdrawn on our account. Then they charged us a $50 fee for being overdrawn.

Of course, we should never have been overdrawn. We put the money in the account and THEN we purchased something. But Bank of America would not refund the fee, so I marched down and took every penny of my money out of that bank. I haven’t been back since.

That was 7 years ago. These days, I use a local bank. Since switching over, I have never once been charged a fee that I felt was unfair. I can talk to as many tellers as I like. I can call the company whenever I need to. And my checking is free–really.

Not every small bank is as good as mine. You have to look into how convenient they are–do they have enough ATMs? Can they accommodate online banking?–and how stable they are–how long have they been in business? Are they FDIC insured? But assuming that we are talking about a normal, small-to-medium-sized bank, I think they are a better choice than a big corporate bank like Bank of America or Chase. Here’s why:

1. The Money Stays in the Community. People who live around you are more likely to be dealing with your money. That means that by putting your bank into your community, you are enriching where you live. Local jobs, local money. Personally, I would rather my money stay in the place I live than have it go to Wall Street where some banker will put it in commodity trading where it can help perpetuate a system I find unstable and immoral.

2. Fewer fees. Of course it depends on the bank, but you are not as likely to be nickled-and-dimed by a local bank as by a big one. Why? In order to compete, small banks often focus on customer service, which means fewer fees.

3. Conservative Practices. You really have to prove your income to get a loan at my bank. But on the flip side, during the banking fiasco last year, there wasn’t even a hint of my bank struggling. No layoffs, no branch shut downs, nothing. A well-run small bank tends to take fewer financial risks because they can’t afford them. So when times are rough, they keep going. This is good for peace of mind.

4. Friendlier. The girl who opened our account still works at my branch, which means she has been there for at least 7 years. I see her sometime when I go in. And if I wanted to say hello to her, I would not be charged for the privilege. You will not find this kind of thing at your Bank of America mall kiosk. Not that there aren’t nice people working at those banks, but the bank doesn’t care about them sticking around and they don’t care if the customer likes them.

Banking is complicated and obviously, I am not a financial expert. However, it angers me to see big banks mistreat people. If that’s how they are going to be, let’s all take our business elsewhere.

Kristin from Pomme Frites has a clever way to enhance photography–make your own reflective umbrella light.

To do so, she “took a dollar store umbrella and sprayed the underside with white spray paint, then clipped the umbrella and a lamp onto Tom’s mic stand.” The light points up at the umbrella, and that in turn reflects the light evenly over the object being photographed. Not bad! (Via Craft)

We have decided to get chickens. I have three reasons for wanting to get chickens. They are:

1. Fresh eggs—Obviously, chickens lay eggs.
2. Free manure for the garden—Chicken manure is the richest in nutrients of the animal manures and is a great fertilizer.
3. Bug control—Chickens eat bugs. If they do their job, I should be able to curtail using pesticide.

However, I will not be eating my chicken. My chickens will be pets.

There are tons of varieties of chickens. So far, I’m leaning toward having two chickens, a Rhode Island Red:

(Courtesy Wikipedia)

And a Silver Laced Wyandotte:

(Image Courtesy Fowl Visions)

So, does having chickens save money? I eat a lot of eggs and I love the idea of having a source of protein in my own backyard, but is it worth all the trouble from a financial point of view? Let’s do a cost analysis.

The Cost of Owning Chickens:

Upfront Costs:

Coop: It depends on the coop—they come in all different sizes and price range. But let’s assume we get this one for $550.
Chicks: $10 for two chickens.

Ongoing Costs:

Food: A 50 lbs bag of chicken scratch costs $10. A chicken eats about 2 pound a week if you don’t supplement its diet with table scraps. (And why wouldn’t you do that?) However, assuming no extra food, that’s about one bag of chicken scratch every three months, or four bags a year.

At $10 a bag, that is $40 a year in food. Assuming both chickens live a full 7 years, that’s $280 total for food, $40 a year.

Water, nesting supplies, etc. are free to cheap, so we’ll ignore them for now.

Total Cost Of Owning Chickens (with fancy coop): $550 + $10 + $280 = $840 total for seven years, or $120 a year.

That is, if you buy a coop. If you make a coop, the cost drops significantly. Let’s say you build a coop for $100 in supplies (a nice round number). That’s $100 for the coop, $280 for food, and $10 for the chickens.

Total Cost of Keeping Chickens (with DIY coop): $390 total for seven years or $56 a year.

Now, let’s look at the cost of things if I don’t get chickens:

Eggs: If you buy organic, local, hormone-free eggs at some place like Whole Foods, they cost $4.50 a carton. My husband and I go through about 10 eggs a week, or 43 cartons a year. That is $193.5 a year. Multiply that by seven years, and we’re talking $1354.5 for eggs, $193.5 a year.

(Of course, I don’t really spend $4.50 eggs. We buy local eggs for $3 a carton, or $129 a year. But since the chickens would be producing something akin to the Whole Food eggs, I am comparing apples to apples.)

Manure: Chicken manure is one of the best fertilizers for your garden. It costs $4 for a bag, which seems to weigh about 25 lbs. The University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences estimates that each laying hen produces about 20-30 pounds of litter per year. So let’s say the chickens produce 50 pounds of poop, 25 lbs per chicken. That’s a savings of $8.

That’s $56 total for seven years, or $8 a year.

Pesticide: I use insecticide soap. It doesn’t work very well but I am hesitant to try anything stronger. I buy about two bottles a year, so about $16 for pesticides.

That is $112 total for 7 years, or $16 a year.

Totals Cost Without Chickens: $1522.50 total cost for 7 years, or $217.50 a year

Okay, so now it is time for the cost analysis. I will look at the cost of owning chickens compared to the cost of not owning them.

Total Savings Of Owning Chickens:

With Fancy Coop:

Cost Without Chickens: $1522.50 total for 7 years, or $217.50 a year
MINUS the Cost of Owning Chickens: $840 total for seven years, or $120 a year.
Total Savings: $682.50 or $97.50 a year

With DIY Coop:

Cost Without Chickens: $1522.50 total for 7 years, or $217.50 a year
MINUS the Cost of Owning Chickens: $390 total for seven years or $56 a year.
Total Savings: $1132.50 or $162 a year.

But! There are also insubstantial factors to weigh. For example, if chickens eat as many bugs as I hear they do, then their being in my yard means fewer pests without my having to do anything. This is an organic, chemical-free, and efficient form of pest control. Or–another example–fresh eggs apparently taste better than grocery store eggs, plus they have lower cholesterol and a higher nutritional value. That is another huge benefit of having chickens.

On the other hand, you have to care for chickens by feeding them, cleaning their cages, worrying about their safety, etc. But really I don’t mind, except for the cleaning poop part.

And I can deal with that.

All in all, it looks like you come out on top.

A question that came up on the post on carrying your food and entertainment budget in cash is, how do you determine your food and entertainment budget in the first place? I’m no financial expert, but I can take you through the steps that worked for us:

(Of course, we have an overall budget that encompasses all of our expenses, but food and entertainment is worth talking about by itself because it is a place where a lot of people lose track of their money.)

1. Set Your Goals. Food and entertainment are a lot of things–fun, educational, delicious, exciting, life enhancing–but they don’t tend to be lasting. After you eat food, you don’t have anything to show for it except the memory of the experience. And while that has its good points, spending too much on food and entertainment can become excessive and wasteful. I would like to have things to show for our money besides memories of meals, things like, you know, a retirement account and a paid mortgage.

So the first thing to do is to look at what you are getting in exchange for keeping the food/entertainment budget. That means, looking at the big picture. In our case, we wanted to a. increase our savings account and b. pay off all our debt. Those are our goals, what we would get for tightening down on how much we spend.

2. Define What Food and Entertainment Is. Next, think about what you mean by food and entertainment. For us, it meant either food we eat or amusement that has no lasting value beyond the experience of doing it. So obviously movie tickets, grocery bills, and restaurants fall into that category, but what about buying toilet paper? We buy it at the grocery store but we don’t eat it, so we don’t include it in the budget. What about sporting goods? We use them for entertainment, but they are things that we use again and again (lasting value), so it’s not in the budget. You get the idea.

3. Track Your Spending. Now that you know what expenses the budget would encompass, the next step is to get a sense of what you are actually spending on food and entertainment. This means recording every single purchase you make in the food and entertainment category for at least a month. You can either write every purchase down or you can use a tracking program on your computer or online. I have found Mint.Com to be a useful tool for tracking spending. Some people also track their spending on their cell phones. Be militant and honest with yourself about this. This isn’t about feeling bad, it’s about gathering accurate information so you can do better in the future.

4. Set the Budget. At the end of the month, add up how much you are spending on food and entertainment. Warning: this number may upset you. You may be shocked at how high it is or feel out of control or ashamed. This is normal. Try to ignore the feelings and carry on.

So once you know how much you are spending, it is time to cut that number down to how much you actually should be spending. For us, this had a lot to do with Step 1, our goals. So for example, say that after tracking our spending, we discovered that we were spending $1,000 a month on food and entertainment. That’s $12,000 a year just for eating and having fun. We would then look at that number and decide to spend only $6,000 a year on food and entertainment so that the other $6,000 could go into savings. Therefore, we would divide that $6,000 by 12 months and end up with $500 a month. We then divide that $500 by 4 weeks and end up with $125 a week allowed for food and entertainment. That is the budget.

How do you know if $125 a week is the right number? Well, you really don’t until you try it for a few months. You have to look at your family size, how much everyone eats, how much you cook at home vs. eat out, and a host of other factors based on your situation. It’s about finding a balance between both what you really need (essential groceries) and how much fun you allow yourself (what keeps you from feeling deprived) vs. larger goals like saving money, getting a college education, having a retirement account, paying all the bills, etc. It’s a soft science, so you have to try it out for awhile and see if you are being too hard or too easy on yourself.

5. Stick To Your Budget. This is the difficult part. There’s going to be an adjustment period where you feel deprived or a little sad that you can’t go out as much. However, resist temptation and it will flee from you. After awhile, you will get used to the new amount and start to like the benefits of having a budget. Focus on what you are gaining, not what you are losing. Not only are you gaining your goal in Step 1, you are gaining control over your money and, by extension, peace of mind. And one thing I know for sure about finances: those who control their money are on the path to financial freedom.

So that’s how I do it. Oprah has a good how-to on creating an overall budget if you want more information. And please leave any tips/thoughts you have in the comments.

I’m trying a new thing with our food/entertainment budget, and it seems to be working. At the beginning of each week, we withdraw our budget in cash. Then we only spend out of that pile when buying food or entertainment. When the money is gone, we don’t get to spend anymore until next week.

So far, this method is keeping us from going over budget. Even better, since any extra money gets rolled over into the next week, it is encouraging us to save and spend less money. Likewise, when we are done, we have to stop because there’s nothing left.

A few point about carrying our budget in cash:

1. It is keeping us honest. We were surprised to find that we were almost out of money by Thursday. My husband and I thought we were keeping close to our budget, but it turns out that we had been regularly overspending without realizing it. This method showed us that in no uncertain terms, and it was a good thing to learn.

2. We learned what our budget feels like. Now we know how it “feels” to spend the amount of our budget. In the future, I will know approximately how much food/entertainment I can have in a week for that amount of money.

3. I am spending less. When I have $20 left in my wallet and that’s all I get, I am more likely to shop for bargains and weigh every penny before spending it. It is keeping me frugal.

4. It is making me more creative. Instead of spending money, I am more likely to use what I have or to do without. Instead of going out for a bottle of wine when I had a friend over, I improvised cocktails. Instead of going out for breakfast, I made a satisfying one with oatmeal and mulberries. My incentive here is to save as much money as possible so I can have more fun with what’s left.

5. No surprises at the bank. Although we never overdraw our bank account, this way it’s not even a possibility. The money comes out at the beginning of the week and that’s that. No surprise dinners that I forgot about and have to transfer extra money from savings to cover. (A rarity, but it has happened!)

This method only works if you are disciplined about spending cash. But if you are, I suggest trying your budget in cash, if only for a few weeks. It simplifies the matter and forces you to keep to it.

In the 1970s, teenager Dolly Freed wrote a book called Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money. It was about how she and her father decided to reject that they called “money living,” i.e. consumerism, and live a self-sufficient lifestyle growing their own food and reusing and recycling and so on. That way, they could live without having to work at a “boring, meaningless, frustrating job to get […] money,” Freed wrote.

Freed had such a practical, logical approach to her lifestyle that she appealed to many people, even though she was essentially saying what Thoreau said back in the 1800s–if you live simply, growing a garden and not over-consuming, you can live a free life without having to work. Of course, you need a house and some land first, but once you get started, the concept seems to work pretty well.

Anyway, writer Paige Williams tracked Freed down, and it sounds like she is still pretty awesome. She’s a former NASA aerospace engineer and an environmental educator. She composts. She has a wildlife sanctuary in her backyard. She makes homemade gin and rabbit sausage. She gets free fruit from an abandoned orchard. She put minnows in her neighbor’s swimming pool to take care of the mosquito problem. I hope she writes another book.

From the article:

“The best way to save money is not to spend it,” she e-mailed the other day. “We might see something in a magazine or at the store, but just because we like it doesn’t mean we have to buy it. Think of it as going to a museum and seeing pictures—you can admire them, but you don’t have to own them. It also helps to stay out of places of temptation. Bookstores and kitchen stores, for me, and electronics stores, for Pete, are dangerous places. Except for the used-books store, we never, ever use shopping as entertainment.”

Here’s a short documentary on Freed made in the 70s after her book came out. It is worth watching. (Via Jezebel)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Here are a few resolutions I made to save money and be more frugal in 2010:

1. See how long we can go eating out of the freezer and cupboard before I have to do a serious grocery run. By serious, I mean more than four items. I will need to replace things like milk and eggs, but how long can I go without having to go full-on grocery shopping? I will let you know.

2. Pay off the student loan. I am still in debt for college even though I graduated 10 years ago. Can you believe it? Time for that to go.

3. Get a financial advisor. I need to fix up retirement savings and make other financial plans. I have been putting this off because, frankly, it sounds boring. But I need to do it, and so I will.

4. Use it or lose it. I am still on a tear where I use up all my craft supplies, read all my books, eat all my food (see above), and so on. Doing this frees up space and saves the items from becoming a waste of money. In general, my rule is: no new things until I use up the old.

What frugal resolutions did you make for 2010?

(Image courtesy Mennonite Girls Can Cook)

As I mentioned on my list of presents I’m making for Christmas, I am giving some herb and spice mixes this year. These are simple gifts that are especially perfect for the cook in the family. And herb/spice mixes are easy and cheap to make, especially if you have a garden. It’s just a matter of mixing the spices, putting them in decorative jars, and labeling them.

Among the mixes I’m giving this year is a poultry rub. Here is a per-serving recipe. If you want to fill a jar, you can adjust by making the measurement into parts, tablespoons instead of teaspoons or cups instead of teaspoons, depending on how much you want.

Sage and Lemon Poultry Mix

Ingredients:

1 tsp crumbled sage
1 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp salt, preferably kosher or sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp lemon zest

Directions:

Remove the zest of the lemon with a grater or a zester. Spread the zest out on a plate and put under a paper towel. Let it sit a day or two in a cool dry place until the zest dries out. You don’t want to put moist zest in the mix, or the salt and powder will cling to it and it will clump.

Now, put all the seasonings, including the zest, in a bowl. Mix together.

Taste the seasoning. If it doesn’t seem balanced, adjust with more salt/garlic powder/pepper.

Put the seasoning in an air-tight jar and label accordingly.

A note on salt: Some people don’t put salt in herb mixes. I do because I feel that you should be able to shake it right out onto the meat and cook it. You can always skip the salt if you want.

The cost of this present is easily under $1. Salt, pepper, and garlic powder are among the cheapest things in the grocery store, especially if you buy in bulk. The sage and lemon are free from my garden. I am either re-using jars or using ones I picked up from thrift stores. All in all, a great gift for almost nothing, and something the recipients will enjoy.

Here are some other seasoning mixes that look good:

* Herb spice rub
* My own Taco Seasoning
* Recreate Emeril’s Bayou Blast Seasoning Mix
* Garden Herb Mix and Cajun Spice Mix, pictured above.
* This Italian Herb Mix looks good, although I would add salt.
* Herbs de Provence, for a French touch. Some people also add dried lavender to the mix. I haven’t tried it that way, but it sounds intriguing.