Twin Cities Frugality Report

From somebody who thinks George Costanza isn't cheap, but really rather reasonable.

My week spending no money.
I last spent money around 8:30 last Sunday. Today I went grocery shopping at 10:30 (I could have waited until 8:30, but since I was buying fresh produce, and the produce sitting out in the morning would be the same produce sitting out at night, I thought it better to get it early and make use of it through the day).

By the end of the week, we were out of canned green veggies (if you've lived day to day in our home the past few months, you know how ridiculous that is), no fresh lettuce (also ridiculous in context), no fresh broccoli (painful), and no fresh fruit (oddly, I did discover a forgotten bag of fresh baby carrots). For a vegetarian household, that is untenable.

So how much did I spend at the grocery store to make up for a week of buying no groceries? Under $37. If there's a frugality hall of fame, I would like to nominate myself for membership.

Is it ever worth it to buy coupons?
Coupons are everywhere. They get mailed to your house, they come in products you buy, and they come in the newspaper. So should you ever buy a book of coupons?

We did (well, since it was a week of spending no money for me, I left this decision entirely up to Possible Flurries, and she did). For $26, PF bought a Papa Johns coupon book featuring 3 free large pizzas (meaning if we use nothing else, we got 3 large pizzas for $8.67 each), four 50% off extra-large pizzas, and probably a dozen buy a pizza-get one menu item free (including another pizza as far as we can tell) coupons.

So was it worth it? We hope so.

Semi-offensive confession about ethnicity.
Along with being cheap (I don't think there's any ethnic reason for that), I have an absolute obsession with punctuality. I cannot abide being late for anything. I hate it. This may be because I am German, and I have the German adoration of punctuality (I also have the German desire to be drunk, which is like the Irish desire to be drunk, but a lot less fun).

This morning Possible Flurries and I were running late for church. But in addition to being German, I am Scandinavian, meaning I am intensely passive aggressive. I rarely express my anger directly, but instead express it in passive and indirect expressions. So while I may have angrily blamed the rest of my family for our tardiness, I couldn't directly express my anger at PF or little Fox. Instead I said things like, "Gosh, I wonder how we can be just two minutes late. Five minutes I could understand, but two minutes? If we just got up two minutes earlier, or rushed through something, or skipped something, we'd make it." There's the passive-aggressive nature: I substituted "we" for "you" to make it seem like I was complaining as much about myself as anybody. PF often gets to deal with my passive-aggressive remarks about all sorts of things. When she complains, I say, "Hey, I'm Scandinavian."

At one point I said, "I just hate being late for church." PF said, "People are late for church every week." "I know," I said, "but I always judge them" (I'm actually a very non-judgmental person, I think--it's not my Lutheran self-righteousness but my German surliness that leads to this judging of tardy church-goers).

So we arrived late, I was angry enough to snap at PF when she asked if we should put the car seat in the coat area, and we snuck into the wing. Every few minutes another family would come in late, and I refrained from judgment since I also was late. Of course, it became clear that every single group that was late had small children, and so it is quite clear why some people (including us) could be late for church.

So there you have it...
Boy, has this blog devolved from a lame commentary about local weather reporters into a semi-journal about PV's stupid life of cheapness and punctuality. We'll try get the focus back on Sven.