My SHINY Nickels

Live Smart. Save Money. Retire Early.

You Don’t Want To Know What Your LAZINESS Is Costing You

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Two months ago, our washing machine stopped working in the middle of a wash cycle.  It’s 15 years old, so we figured it may actually be time to look for a new one.  But if you know us at all, we weren’t going down without a fight.

After some googling, we found it was a simple 2-minute fix.  Literally.

How many people would have called a technician, or worse…bought a brand new washing machine?  (Strangely enough, just a few weeks later, some friends of ours had the exact same problem.  They were just a hair away from buying a replacement, as they didn’t really believe it could be as simple as we described.  They went home, and sure enough…that was exactly the problem. Saved them from spending an unnecessary $700. You’re welcome, friends-to-remain-unnamed.)

Fast forward to this afternoon.

We returned home from an anniversary weekend in Lake Tahoe, and upon walking in, noticed a slight chill in the house.  Which was great news.  Our super awesome Nest thermostat had sensed we were away so the temperature inside the house had dropped to 60 degrees.

And while 60 is not unbearable, I prefer not to wear a ski parka inside. And as I already said, because the Nest is super awesome, it detected that we were home and automatically turned on the heat to reach our preferred 69 degrees.

The efforts to unpack continued, and about 10 minutes later, I noticed something.  Or the lack of something, rather.  The heat still wasn’t on. I stood in front of the family room vent.  No cozy gusts of warmed air.  I went to our bedroom and stood in front of that vent.  No air flow there either.

So I went back to the thermostat in the hallway.

It did turn it on, didn’t it?  It says the heat is on, but there’s no air coming from the vents. Fabulous.

[Randy walks up to me as I stand at the thermostat]

Randy: Didn’t the heat come on when we came home?

Me:  Yes. Well, it’s trying to come on.  I can hear the furnace buzzing, so I’m pretty sure that at least the power is on, but no air is coming out.

Randy: Great.

Me: Yup.

We were home no more than 20 minutes, and we were already putting our DIY caps on.

I checked a few more things to help rule stuff out.  Does the fan/blower work on the manual setting? Yes.  Are the batteries in the thermostat good? Yes. Did we trip a breaker?  No.

So we knew it wasn’t the fan/blower, or dead batteries or a tripped breaker.

Randy got out the ladder, and I got out my laptop and started googling…

I googled “furnace turns on but no air blows”…

I found a few sites right away that gave a list of things to check before calling the HVAC guy.  After turning off the power at the breaker (of course), Randy climbed on to the roof and removed a few service panels on the unit.

Note: Don’t pay attention to the uncut grass. We’ve been gone, okay? I know you just looked. Dang it.

We went through those initial easy fixes, none of them did the trick.

So I googled the actual brand of our furnace, American Standard, which led to some forums on how to troubleshoot problems with that furnace brand. Turns out there’s a blinking red light on the circuit board of our furnace that helps diagnose the problem.

Me: [yelling up to Randy on the roof] Is there a blinking red light anywhere???

Randy: Yes. It’s blinking 3 times.

So I googled that, and it turns out that means it’s the “pressure switch”.  I described the pressure switch, and after a few moments, he found it.

Me: [still yelling] It says to disconnect the rubber tube that leads from that switch, and blow through it to make sure there is no debris or bugs or water.

Randy blows through the tube, and reconnects it.

See that big orange tube?

I turned the breaker back on.

I ran back in the house and switched the thermostat on to get the heat to kick in.  And we waited…then a few l-o-n-g seconds later…WHOOOOOSH!

Gloriously warm gusts of air were pushing their way through the vents…

IT WORKED!

Our house is now a balmy 69 degrees, just how we like it.

Why do I tell you this silly story?

  1. Fixing it ourselves meant we didn’t have to wait for a service technician to come out.
  2. The fix cost us $0.00.
  3. Not all service technicians are honest.  A “good” one will make the easy fix and charge you just the $50 service call fee.  But a “bad” one will make a small problem seem enormous and charge you for labor and parts you don’t even need, easily meaning a bill of $500 or more. And you can’t always tell the “good” from the “bad”.

So don’t be lazy.

The point is to at least TRY. When something breaks, gosh darn it, just Google it.  Or Bing it.  Or whatever-search-engine-you-use it.  Even just running through the “Top 10 Things to Check Before Calling the Service Tech” may help save you some cash.

 

Because the truth is that money should be invested, earning you more money, and not lining the pockets of Big Al’s Furnace Fixers.

Like I’ve said in nearly every other DIY post, we’ve saved so much money by not throwing money at every creak, clink and rattle.  Even if it means asking a handy friend to come over and look at it with you for a promise of pizza and beer, that works too.

Your laziness is costing you money.  Literally.

I’ve gotta ask, partly because I’m nosy, and partly because well, never mind. I’m just nosy.  Have you fixed anything yourself? How much did you save?

 

 

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Now for one last thing , just so I can sleep a little better tonight…

Disclaimer / Legal Mumbo-Jumbo:

DIY projects, such as those mentioned above, are performed at your own risk.

As with any do-it-yourself/DIY project, unfamiliarity with the tools and process can be dangerous. All DIY-related posts should be construed as theoretical advice and aesthetic inspiration. Improper use of tools could result in damage to your property or serious bodily injuries. MYSHINYNICKELS.com is not liable for any damage or injury resulting from the DIY projects listed or referenced.

Thrift Stores Rule. But Don’t Buy The Underpants.

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Out of our four kids, there’s just the one boy. (Poor kid, surrounded in older sisters.) And he’s all boy. Dirt. Football. Boogers.

But even with all the dirt, football and boogers, you wanna know what’s super awesome about having a boy?

I can shop for his clothes anywhere I want, and without him present. 

The girls? That’s a different story.

Me: I bought this cute pink sweater for you today.
Girl Child: That’s not pink. That’s fuchsia. I don’t wear fuchsia anymore.
Me: You wore fuchsia yesterday.
Girl Child: I know. That was yesterday.

Clothes shopping with the girls requires large amounts of time, coupled with regularly scheduled 1/2 hour breaks, and a background in negotiation tactics.

With little dude, as long as there is nothing pink or ruffle-y involved, he’ll wear it.

So every fall and spring, just before the heat of summer and cold of winter hits Northern California, I make a stop at some of the nicer thrift stores in town to see if there are any good deals to be had before I head to the department stores to round out the seasonal wardrobe.

[Side note: Some folks are really freaked out by thrift stores. I was too, until I realized that the clothes they sell come from people like…me. I donate clothing to charities all the time, and where does it end up? Thrift stores. And I’m picky…I only visit the clean, organized ones.]

But this time, I scored big. In one trip, to the first store.

I found 5 pairs of name-brand basketball pants in excellent condition, and 5 name-brand t-shirts, all for the grand total of…

$32.33

It’s good stuff too…Puma, Quiksilver, O’Neill, Aeropostale, Adidas.

That’s an ENTIRE WEEK’S worth of clothes for a little over $30!

Moral of the story?  Thrift stores are awesome.

May the odds of finding something awesome be ever in your favor.  And avoid the underpants.

Do you shop at thrift stores? Like them?  Hate them?  Have you found anything amazing, or…um, interesting?

Travel on the Cheap: FREE $25 Travel Credit on AirBnB.com!

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By now you know I’m all about being frugally cool, and living a rocking life on a budget.  But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never really been the coupon-ing type.  It’s still kind of a mystery to me, and seeing a glimpse of Extreme Couponing on TLC a few months ago revealed what looked to be living rooms full of deodorant and dental floss.  (Maybe some of you expert coupon-ers can enlighten me otherwise.)

Or maybe I’m jaded from a lifetime of receiving coupons like this…

A precious gift from my daughter Faith a few years ago. And no, I have not redeemed it. Yet.

But when my friends over at AirBnB.com said I could offer my readers a FREE $25 Travel Credit, I was ecstatic.

What is AirBnB, you ask?

It’s a website that allows travelers to book accomodations online, with people just like you and me, in over 190 countries all over the world.  You can book just about anything…a shared room,  a small cabin, even an entire ski chalet.  Both private owners and property managers upload listings, and the rates are very competitive.

Back in May, my husband and I traveled up to the Seattle area to visit our daughter and her husband.  They lived in Issaquah, a suburb of Seattle, and the hotel options in that area were between $100 (barely decent) – $200 per night.  Plus taxes, and fees, blah blah blah.   I headed over to AirBnB.com, typed in Issaquah, and I found exactly what I was looking for.

A private cabin, that backed up to a lush green forest.  A creek that ran through the trees ended in a waterfall,  completing the postcard picture that was this cabin.  It was $80 per night.  We booked it for 3 nights.  Fast forward to the day of arrival.  The owner texted me with the location of the key, and when we pulled up, we discovered a charming cabin, with a kitchenette and a goodie basket overflowing with fruit and granola bars.   At night, we fell asleep to the sound of the waterfall outside.  It was idyllic.

Randy attempted a photo-bomb on the left. Sorry honey, better luck next time.

I feel peaceful just looking at this picture of the backside of the cabin. Ahhhhh….

 

We’ve been AirBnB folks for a while now,  (I already mentioned them in an earlier travel post), but if you weren’t convinced before, now it’s time! If you’ve never explored what AirBnB.com has to offer, check it out.  Want to book a cabin in the mountains for the weekend?  $25 off! Looking for a place to stay near the beach?  $25 off!  The wine country? I could go on and on and on.  But I won’t.

As for us, we just booked a romantic weekend getaway in Lake Tahoe at the end of the month. It’s a private home, 1/2 mile from the south shore with a hot tub on the back deck for $130 per night. Perfect, private and cheaper than most other options in that area!

Now you’re probably wondering how to redeem this $25 Travel Credit, huh?  Just use the special link below, and it will prompt you to create a new AirBnB profile.  The $25 credit will automatically appear during checkout when you book your first reservation.

www.airbnb.com/c/ldobbins1

So head over there, and take a look around.  Then book a cheap getaway.

You’re welcome.  😉

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER:  AirBnB.com has agreed to compensate this blog for distributing this offer.  But rest assured, I would never recommend something I’m not using (and loving) myself! 

FUN on the CHEAP: Indoor S’mores!

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news,  but summer weather is coming to a close.  And while I’m looking forward to sweaters and boots and Pumpkin Spice Lattes, I’m going to miss summer campfires and weenie roasts and my little seasonal friend, the s’more.

But if you love these too, have no fear…when the fall and winter weather hits, just make them indoors!  Those little chocolate-marshmallow-graham confections are a favorite in our family, and the kids LOVE to help me make them.

And to the s’more “purists” who will take nothing less than the real thing, I apologize in advance for the reckless behavior.

 

Sorry Piggy, no campfire today. But we won’t let a little rain ruin the fun, will we?

What You’ll Need:

(1) Box of Graham Crackers

(1) Bag of Marshmallows (we prefer the giant-sized ones)

Chocolate Bars

Foil

A Large Cookie Sheet

 

Turn on your oven, and set it to “Broil”, at 450 degrees.

Get out a cookie tray and line it with foil.

Break the graham crackers in half, and place as many as you need/want/crave on the cookie sheet.

Then place a piece of chocolate on each graham, followed by a marshmallow (or two, if they’re small).  Don’t cover them with another graham cracker just yet.

Stick them in the oven for 2-3 minutes,  but watch them closely.  These little guys are done in no time, and if you wait even 30 seconds too long, you’ll end up with a piece of charcoal.

Once you can see the marshmallows are nice and browned, and the chocolate is melted, pull them out and press another graham half on the top to complete them.

Or, you can get really crazy and eat them topless.  (The s’more, that is.)  😉

 

I may get hate mail for this, but I’m going to say it anyway…

I like these better than campfire s’mores.

I think my daughter Faith agrees.

No smoke, no wood, the marshmallow is perfectly browned and crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, and most of all…the CHOCOLATE IS MELTED.   That was always a disappointment about old-fashioned s’mores.  The marshmallow would be soft, but then you’d reach this hard, unyielding piece of chocolate.  No bueno.

And who wouldn’t rather have this:

smoresgood

GOOD S’MORE

than this:

badsmore

BAD S’MORE

Now the kids beg me to make these year-round.  They’re simple, cheap, delicious, and it makes for a fun treat when the weather isn’t cooperating!

Every once in a while I figure something out that makes me say “Why didn’t I do this earlier?”

Enjoy!

 

P.S.  I almost posted this under recipes as well, but I don’t think it counts if it only has 3 ingredients?  🙂

UPDATE:  After a reader, Penguin, voted that I include it under Recipes, I agreed and now it can be found there too! 

 

My Top Secret Project is Complete!

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SMALLCoverArt JPEGWell, it’s official.  The top secret project I’ve been working on lately (instead of posting on this blog!) is finally finished.  After countless hours and far too much coffee, my book LIVE SMART. ELIMINATE DEBT. BUILD WEALTH. is now available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble!

I’ve been playing around with an outline for some time now, but a few months ago I knew it was the right time to start really pulling it together. While my blog certainly tells some highlights of our financial journey, and a few frugal guidelines we live by, it doesn’t even come close to revealing everything.

There were plenty of emotional and financial stages we moved through on our way from $40,000 in debt to that first $100,000 in savings.  So I wrote about our entire journey, and then pulled together a step-by-step guide outlining exactly what we did to start living an optimized life, get out of debt and on to building wealth.

If you didn’t already know, I am pretty passionate about this stuff, and the truth is that my blog only gets the message so far.  Many people who read personal finance blogs are already at least knee-deep into their financial education, either refining what they already know, or are “experts” themselves.

That’s not my target audience.  I’m really trying to reach the “former” me.  The millions of  people that work for their money, spend it, and start over again.  Or even worse,  those that spend all the money they have as well as money they don’t have.  If they only knew that spending their money and resources trying to appear successful actually has the opposite effect.

I’ll always be thankful for the wake-up call that turned our finances around, but I can’t help but wonder where we’d be if the light bulb had come on even earlier…five years ago…ten years ago.  I’ll never know, and if I did, it might be horrifically depressing to see where we “could have been.”  So I don’t dwell on it.

In starting this blog and writing this book, my intent has always been the same; that by sharing our financial transformation, it will inspire others to do the same.

How To Buy Plants for $1…and a Backyard Update!

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It’s been a backyard-landscaping frenzy the last week or so at the Nickels house, and I’ve never been so excited to have dog poop in the tread of my sneakers or bat dung under my fingernails.  Oh, you didn’t know that mulch has ‘bat guano’ as a component? Me either.

(Sidebar…What I really want to know is how much poop can a bat possibly make, and how do they get it?  I picture these large bat farms with a “professional guano harvester” coming through every so often. Now THAT’S a job.  Just when I think I know everything.  Hrmph.)

Since I recently posted about our DIY backyard deck, which was finished, ahem, MONTHS ago, I suddenly had this desire to jump-start the next phase…plants.  That’s one of the benefits of blogging.  When you realize that everyone can see your lonely (but very cool) backyard deck, bordered by some sad empty planters, it makes you want to fix it.  A sort of virtual accountability, I suppose.

This is where we last left off…

deckfinished

And if I’ve learned anything about getting things done, you gotta strike while the iron’s hot.   And right now, the iron is white-hot.  Smoking.  Glowing, even.

So I decided to buy and plant at least one new plant in our backyard, per day, for 7 days straight, and do it as CHEAPLY AS POSSIBLE.

This began last Saturday, May 3rd.  So I headed to Lowe’s, my favorite home improvement store.  See how gorgeous the weather was that day?  It was 75 degrees with a slight breeze.  Perfection.

lowes

I strolled into the garden department, and headed towards the back.  Discount carts.  Now we’re talking.

salerack

Do you see that?  $1.  (Let the happy dance commence.) But I couldn’t go crazy.  Years ago when we still lived in our McMansion, I had a bad habit of biting off more than I could chew, or I guess I should say “buying more than I could plant”.  I would get excited buying 15 (full-price) plants, and by the time I got done planting 3 or 4 that afternoon, I would quit and promise to start again the next day.  But then I didn’t feel like it the next day, and the plants would sit on the back patio, and then I’d try to make sure I watered them, and then even that eventually stopped, until I was left with 10 sad little shriveled up brown twigs sitting in their pots of now-bone-dry soil.  (The pure wastefulness makes me shiver, even now.)

So I just bought 4 little plants at $1 each, plus a 50% off pygmy palm for $7.  Not bad!  I put the palm in my back seat. That was a mistake.  It tickled the back of my neck and top of my head the entire ride home.  At a stoplight, I decided to provide a visual.  Flared nostrils and all.  Next time I decide to transport a tickle-inducing plant home, it will be sitting on the opposite side of the car.  Lesson learned.

ferntickle

When I got home, I changed into my dirties, and got to work.  Here are my $1 plants in their new home.

planter

I went back to Lowe’s on Day #2, and what do you know…they had a whole new set of plants discounted down to a dollar, and another discounted palm.  Bought it, and bought it.  I did that for the next few days, and found something new on the discount rack nearly every single time.  Some are overstock, while others are just a little challenged.  Nothing that a little water and sunshine won’t fix.

flowers

 

 

palmandbertie

 

deckplanter

I picked up more plants, every day for 7 days straight, and now I’m rewarded with a yard full of plants!   This way was far better than my old method of buying a ton at once and then letting them die.  (Yes, that was sarcasm.) And getting them at such a steep discount?  That’s even better.  Landscaping your yard can be EXPENSIVE.  But if you know where to look, it doesn’t have to be.  Go to your local nursery/home improvement store/garden center and if you don’t see a discounted area, ask a salesperson if they have any plants that have been marked down.  Sometimes all you need to do is ASK.

GRAND TOTAL?  Over the course of 7 days, I bought (and planted!) 25 plants, and paid a total of $78.  Nearly all of them were purchased at a 50 – 75% discount.

And see those landscape boulders?  I got about 15 of them for FREE off of Craigslist.

Slowly…slowly…the plants will start to fill in.   It’s gone from a blank slate of dirt, to something that resembles a yard.  Remember when it looked like this?

thebeginning

Some day in the future, once the plants really start filling in, I’ll post an update with an official BEFORE and AFTER.  The time is going to fly by…soon it will feel like the backyard oasis I envisioned so long ago.

 

The Top 10 Reasons Why I Pay Less to Travel Than You – Part TWO

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Welcome.  This is PART TWO in a 2-part series on “The Top 10 Reasons Why I Pay Less to Travel Than You”.

In PART ONE, we talked about flights.  We were introduced to the “Travel Fool”, who is planning a week-long vacation to Kauai for 2 people in mid-June. He put in his search parameters and booked the cheapest flight he saw…paying $2,256 for 2 round-trip flights.

Which is still WAY TOO MUCH stinkin’ money.  Then came the “Travel Savvy Cool Guy” who does a little tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard, and in 10 minutes, saves himself $1,270, a savings of 56%.

And it’s time to confess…for me, it’s not just about the discount, it’s the thrill of the chase…now that we’ve saved a ton of money on our flights, let’s tackle lodging, food and activities, shall we?

 

Let’s jump right into where you’re going to stay.  If I was the “Travel Fool”, I would book a hotel stay in Kauai, paying the average nightly rate for a 3-star property…$220.  Which for a week-long stay would put us at $1,320.  But we’re not the “Travel Fool”, we’re the “Travel Savvy Cool Guy”, remember?   So we keep looking.

 

5)  Where You Stay Is None of My Bid-Ness

If you’re absolutely set on staying at a more traditional hotel/resort/condo, your best bet is likely going to be on sites such as Hotwire.com or Priceline.com.   Both of these travel sites contain a function where you can either bid on travel or purchase travel without knowing the hotel name in advance.

But this shouldn’t deter you.  This is where significant savings can be had.  The reason I mention those websites specifically is because of a place called BetterBidding.com.  Never heard of it?  It’s a forum where Hotwire and Priceline bidders post their successful wins so you can see what others paid for a given hotel. The site also contains a “Hotel List”, which shows the participating hotels in any given city/neighborhood and star category.  That way you can get an idea of what hotel you’ll receive in advance, taking most of the mystery out of the decision.  I’ve used both Hotwire and Priceline numerous times, and received stays in high-end hotels (Hyatt, Hilton, etc) for as low as $50 per night in some cases.

 

6)  There’s No Place Like HomeAway

If you’re open to staying somewhere besides a hotel/resort, which I personally prefer, try sites like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and AirBnB.com.  On these sites you can find thousands of people renting out their vacation homes/cottages/condos, usually for much less than you’d pay at a hotel or resort…and it’s much more private.

I found an ocean-view guest house in desirable East Kauai just a short walk from the beach on VRBO.com for $80 / night.  A bonus with vacation homes is that they usually have at least a kitchenette, which allows you to cook some meals on your own…but I’ll get more into that later.

We’ve now dropped our lodging from $1,320 to $480…that is $840 in savings to stay in a private vacation home instead of a hotel/resort.

A difference of $840…that’s a 64% savings!

 (Last-Minute Update:  Just as I was about to publish this post, I scored a great deal on lodging for our Seattle trip next month.  For 3 nights, the cheapest ‘decent’ hotel I could find in the area we wanted to stay was $99/night plus taxes/fees, for a total of $359.  I went to AirBnB.com, and found a private cabin with a backyard waterfall for $80/night, total $259.  That’s nearly a $100 difference, for a weekend trip.  It pays to look around!)

7)  Get a Deal on Wheels

Some destinations require a set of 4 wheels to get around.  If that’s the case, try Orbitz.com and use their car rental comparison tool.  It gives you a handy-dandy comparison grid of all vehicle types across nearly all rental agencies.  It even highlights the cheapest option in each category. At the minimum, this grid will give you a ballpark figure to work from.

The other place I always check is Budget.com.  Promo codes for their website are easy to find and just as easy to use.  Just google “Budget coupon code” and hundreds of them will pop up.   I’ve received up to 40% off at times using various coupon codes.  I also recommend waiting until a few days before travel (unless you’re traveling during a busy holiday), as the rental rates are usually much lower.

So…let’s get into how this works…I found a few coupon codes for Budget, ran the numbers for a weekly rental, and pulled together the total “out-the-door” price quotes for 3 different scenarios.  The first price quote is the standard rate someone like the “Travel Fool” would pay without any discounts ($225.55).  The second price quote is after I applied the coupon code W852873 that I found from a google search ($199.96).  The last price quote is after applying the coupon code W852873 and changing my rental period to next week ($158.14).

The difference between the first and last scenarios is a savings of $67.41.  That’s a 30% savings!

 

8)  Find Deals on Meals

We’ve had some mighty fine grub on our travels.  Even in notoriously expensive places like Hawaii, we’ve been able to eat on less than $50 a day for both of us, and that INCLUDED splurging on shave ice.  We’ve packed picnic lunches from a local deli or ordered a pizza and had dinner on the beach.   If the place you’re staying has at least a kitchenette, get a few groceries and make some meals right in your room. You can always dine al fresco on your patio or pack it up and have a picnic in a local park/beach.   It’s awesome!  Whether you eat in or eat out, just get out of the tourist areas (aka “traps”) and you’ll find a world of delicious, cheap food.

Case in point…have you dined at a shrimp truck in Hawaii?  It’s fast, it’s cheap and it’s slap-yo-momma good.

 

9)  Exchange Rates Matter

If your destination is international, and you’re deciding between a few different areas, consider the exchange rate and cost of living.  That is, determine where you can get more for your dollar, and you’ll squeeze in more travel fun for less moolah.  An example would be Thailand and Argentina.  Your dollar will stretch MUCH farther in Thailand than Argentina.  For the same price as an average vacation in Buenos Aires, you could enjoy a rather luxurious vacation in Thailand.

 

10)  Get Your Groove On with Groupon

Once you know where you’re headed, check out the local Groupon or LivingSocial offers for restaurants and activities.  There’s plenty of discounts, and you may even discover places you’d never have found otherwise.  I would advise going on Yelp.com to check them out first though.  Getting 50% off of something that sucks, well, still sucks.

 

 

Now let’s recap, shall we?

The “Travel Fool” would have paid $2,268 for flights, $1,320 for an average 3-star hotel and $225 for a weekly car rental for a TOTAL of……..$3,813

The “Travel Savvy Cool Guy” would have paid $1,008 for flights, $480 for a private beach house and $158 for a weekly car rental, for a TOTAL of……..$1,646

 

I’ll do the math for you.

That’s a difference of $2,167.   A 57% savings.

In fact, you could extend your vacation in Kauai to almost AN ENTIRE MONTH and STILL PAY LESS than the “Travel Fool” paid for ONE WEEK! It’s madness.  Complete madness, I tell you!

 

So if you love to travel like we do…quit throwing your money away on things that don’t bring you joy, and instead let that cash take you somewhere cool.  Once you stop being the “Travel Fool” and start becoming the “Travel Savvy Cool Guy”, you’ll be traveling more often, for much longer, for less cash than you ever thought possible.

The Top 10 Reasons Why I Pay Less to Travel Than You – Part ONE

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You know my obsessions by now.  Personal finance.  Food.  Travel.

That last one?  Yeah, it can really wreak havoc on a budget.  We enjoy our share of cheap little weekend getaways, but sometimes you really want to get away.  You know?  Over the years I’ve found some tricks that allow us to travel for less without becoming flight attendants or drug mules.  Both would really cramp our style.  These are strategies that can be used time and time again, with very little effort, by the average traveler.  No mileage hacking or travel reward credit cards involved.

And because this topic is so broad and enormous, I’ve divided it into multiple posts; today’s post is PART ONE, and we’re talking about one of the most expensive factors of your trip…FLIGHTS.

 

Let’s get started.

I’m going to plan a virtual vacation right now, as I type this, so you can see that the discounts I’m talking about are not just random numbers I’m pulling out of the air.  These are real trips I could book today for the prices I show you.   I’m going to use my favorite destination, the island of Kauai, staying for 7 days, 6 nights in mid-June for 2 people.  A fairly standard summer vacation plan.

Let’s pretend I’m a typical traveler living in my hometown of Sacramento, California.  Many people tend to head over to Expedia.com, so I’ll start there and put in my search parameters…

Sacramento (SMF) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH), from Sunday, June 15th through Saturday, June 21st.

 

I get the following results…

CHEAPEST FLIGHT = $1,134 Roundtrip per person on United Airlines (x 2 = $2,268)

 

At this point, if you’re a “Travel Fool”, you go ahead and book it…deciding that must be the going rate for Kauai these days.  

But I know better.

 

1)  Be Like a Gymnast…and Get Flexible

First things first…flexibility is one of your biggest allies.  This is how you’ll be able to find the deepest discounts.  So do some mental stretches and get comfortable with the idea that you may not end up traveling on the day you want or the time of year you prefer.  Or maybe you envisioned staying at a resort, but you’re okay staying at an alternative property.

In fact, you may find that thinking outside the box is not only cheaper but gives you an experience that typical vacations will never provide.

 

2)  Get To Know Your Neighbors

Check neighboring cities when searching for airfare.  Often you’ll find that if you drive just an hour or two, you can reach a hub airport where fares are cheaper.  So let’s go back to our Kauai example.

If I change my departure airport to QSF (this is the code for “All San Francisco Bay Area” airports, see “Hint” below), and press “Search”…I get a new cheaper flight for the exact same dates…

San Jose, CA (SJC) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH)  $970 Roundtrip per person on American Airlines

We’ve now dropped our flights from $1,139 to $970 per person…that is $338 in total savings to leave out of San Jose instead of Sacramento (less than a 2 hour drive away).

 

Hint:  Did you know that you can often search and compare all regional airports at one time, by using what is called a “Metropolitan Airport Code”? For example, the New York City area (JFK / Newark / LaGuardia) is “NYC”.  The Los Angeles area (LAX, Ontario, Orange County, Burbank) is “QLA”.  The San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco Intl / Oakland / San Jose) is “QSF”.  Go here for a complete list.  These codes are super convenient; when I entered “QSF”, the search engine looked for the cheapest fare out of ALL regional airports, and not just one.  

 

3)  Don’t Travel With the Pack

Travel on low-demand days of the week.  I have the best luck with Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  So let me do a little tap-tap-tap on my keyboard and change my dates.  I’m going to shift my trip by just two days.   I plug in a departure of Tuesday, June 17th through Monday, June 23rd and sure enough…I get an even cheaper fare!

San Jose, CA (SJC) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH)  $693 Roundtrip per person on Delta Airlines

We’ve now dropped our flights from $1,139 to $693 per person…that is $892 in total savings to leave out of San Jose instead of Sacramento and by shifting our trip to Tuesday through Monday.

 

4)  It’s Time to Get Off the Peak

If you’re not set on traveling a particular time of the year, find out the off-peak season for your destination and travel then.  Once again, we’ll go back to our Kauai example.   Instead of traveling in June, which is during a peak season in Hawaii, we’ll go in November.  I plug in a new departure of Tuesday, November 4th through Monday, November 10th.  And…you guessed it…the price dropped…AGAIN!

San Jose, CA (SJC) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH)  $504 Roundtrip per person on Delta Airlines

We’ve now dropped our flights from $1,139 to $504 per person…that is $1,270 in total savings to leave out of San Jose instead of Sacramento, shifting our trip to Tuesday through Monday and going in November instead of June.

 

Did you catch that? Just from applying a handful of strategies, that took me 10 minutes…that’s a difference of…

$1,270…a 56% savings!

The “Travel Fool” would have paid $2,268 for 2 round-trip tickets, but since you’re the “Travel Savvy Cool Guy” you knew better and found them for $1,008!

 

You’re already on your way to vacationing at half-price…stay tuned for PART TWO…I can hardly wait…we’re just getting started!

 

UPDATE:  I’ve been using a site called SkyScanner.com recently and I love it.  It essentially does all of the steps above for you.  You can even enter parameters that will search for the cheapest place to fly in the world anytime in the next year!  So if you know you have $200  bucks to spend, just enter your departure airport, and it will tell you where you can fly and when in ascending order by price.  Any destination under your max budget is a possible vacation spot!

 

How to Feed 5 People for $5…and It’s Delicious!

By:

Dear chain-sandwich-shop-named-after-a-mass-transit-system,

I sit here laughing pitifully at your poser of a deal.  $5 foot long? Ha! I fed our family of 5 for just 5 bucks…and that’s WITH leftovers that everyone fights over later.  Top that.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Nickels

 

Last night I fed my entire family for $5.  Less than that technically, if you consider we had leftovers.  And it didn’t taste like cr@p.  In fact, it was deliciousness on a plate. What is this wonderfood?

PIZZA.

Oh that glorious concoction of crispy yet soft dough, slathered in slightly spicy sauce, with an ungodly amount of cheese and fresh toppings.  Aye aye aye.

It’s definitely a staple here at the Nickels house. It’s cheap, it’s fast and it’s finger lickin’ delicious.  And yes, the recipe is at the bottom of this post.  I wouldn’t leave you hanging, would I?

 

CHEAP

I buy my bread flour,  yeast, olive oil, mozzarella and sauce in bulk at Costco.  This saves us a ton of dough money. (Wow, that was a bad pun. Sorry.)  The toppings I usually purchase at my local grocery store.  I’ve approximated my cost per pizza in parentheses.

Bread flour $9.00 for a 25-lb bag  ($0.36)

Yeast $4.64 for a 2-lb bag  ($0.02)

Olive Oil $15.00 for a 2-liter bottle  ($0.50)

Shredded Mozzarella Cheese $15.00 for a 5-lb bag  ($2.00)

Prego Sauce $8.48 for 134 ounces ($0.25)

Sliced olives  $0.99 for 4 ounce can ($0.50)

Mini Pepperoni  $2.99 for 5 ounce package ($1.50)

My GRAND TOTAL per pizza?     $5.13

Do you understand how cool that is?  If you can get even half of your weekly dinners made for $5 or less, your grocery bill will start looking more like your phone bill and less like your mortgage payment.

 

FAST

First, if you haven’t invested in a bread machine, you should.  There’s no reason you need to pay full price either.  There are plenty on Craigslist, eBay or even on Amazon (used) for a fraction of the price of a new one.  I love mine.  Can you tell?

This is my magically-makes-pizza-dough-in-45-minutes machine

It takes me about 10 minutes to pull the ingredients together, toss them in the bread machine, and press “Start”.  Seriously.  The machine takes it from there…mixing, kneading and rising for another 45 minutes.  This is easy stuff, folks.

Once the dough is done, it’s another 5 minutes of pressing out the dough in the pan, spreading sauce, sprinkling cheese and toppings.  Stick it in the oven for about 14 minutes and that sucker is DONE.

The pepperoni and olive creation is ready to enter the oven…I’m already salivating.

 

FINGER-LICKIN’ DELICIOUS

It’s so stinkin’ good.  Seriously.  The dough is soft on the inside, crispy on the outside.  In fact, after it came out of the oven, it was sliced up and gobbled so quickly I forgot to take a final ‘finished’ photo.  So this post-dinner snapshot will have to do.

This doesn’t do it justice. But here’s a glimpse of what we enjoy here at the Nickels house on a regular basis.

 

If you’ve already started cooking more at home, then here’s a virtual high-five *SMACK*.  But if you want to get hard-core, buy in bulk and make your own pizza dough, and for $5 you can feed a small army.

 

 

 

~~~   The Nickels’ Basic Pizza Recipe   ~~~

Ingredients:

4 Cups Flour (preferably bread flour, it has a better gluten ratio)

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little extra to brush on the crust

1 tsp active dry yeast

1-1/2 cups warm water

1 cup of your favorite pasta/pizza sauce (we use Prego)

3 – 4 cups shredded mozzarella

Toppings of your Choice

Directions:

In a small bowl, pour the 1-1/2 cups of warm water (warm, NOT hot or it will kill the yeast instead of activating it) and add the yeast.  Don’t stir, just let the yeast sit on the surface of the water; it will slowly dissolve.  Set it aside.  In a medium mixing bowl, stir the flour and salt together.  Drizzle the olive oil into the flour mixture, stirring as you pour.   Now we put the ingredients into the bread machine.  (If you don’t have a bread machine, you can google ‘pizza dough recipe’ and follow the directions for mixing/kneading/rising by hand.)

IMPORTANT!  Pour the yeast/water mixture into the bread machine FIRST, THEN add the flour mixture on top.  No need to stir, the machine will take care of everything.  Set the bread machine to the dough setting, and press “START”.  It should take about 45 minutes.  At this point, if you need to prep any of your toppings, this would be the time to do that.  If not,  then go enjoy your 45 minutes!

Once the dough is complete, set your oven to 475 degrees.

Remove the dough from the bread machine and plop (yes, that’s a verb if you ask me) it out on to a heavily floured surface, stretching it a bit to fit into the pan you’re using.  Turn the dough over to get both sides floured, and then place the stretched dough into your pan.  I use a large cookie sheet with raised sides.

Once the dough is stretched out to the edges of the pan, I take a fork and poke the pizza dough just on the inside area where I don’t want the dough to rise.  So in other words, avoid the outer edges, because you want a nice soft doughy crust.  Don’t you?  Then brush olive oil on the outer crust.

Take the cup of sauce (or more if you like things “saucy”) and spread it evenly over the inner area of the crust.  Sprinkle salt lightly over the entire thing, and then add the mozzarella cheese.  Lastly, add whatever toppings you like.  (If it were just me, I’d have something along the lines of goat cheese-caramelized onions-bacon-mozzarella, but this was a family-friendly pizza, so I went with mini pepperonis and olives.  We also like switching out the pasta sauce for BBQ sauce, and topping it with barbecued chopped chicken and thinly sliced red onions. Mmmmm. Maybe next time.)

The time will vary from one oven to the next, but our pizza cooks in about 14 minutes at 475 degrees.  Don’t be afraid to let the crust get golden brown and the cheese to get that nice caramel color, it makes it so flavorful!

 ~~~

 

5 of the Biggest Budget “Leaks”…Do You Have One?

By:

As you probably know, we try to get our own plumbing done around here.  Just the other day, our shower drain was stopping up.  We pulled out our drain snake attachment (it attaches to a standard drill, very handy) and roto-rootered the heck out of that thing.   About three and a half hairballs later, it was once more draining like it should.  Ahhhh…that’s better.  Showering while standing in 3 inches of grey water ain’t nobody’s idea of a picnic.

And while this post isn’t actually about plumbing, it IS about fixing leaks…in your finances.  It’s easy to identify the big items that put a major drain on our bank account…homes, cars, dining out…but it’s the small and quiet leaks in our spending that, when combined, add up.  Whether it’s fees we could be avoiding, unused subscriptions or little pockets of extra money we’re not tapping into, they are all small-scale wastes.  What are these slow leaks, you ask?  Here’s just a few…

 

1.  Unused Memberships / Subscriptions

Look through your last few months of bank statements.  Are you subscribing to anything that you no longer use?  Be honest with yourself, and cancel them, people!  If you get sincere joy from them, then by all means, carry on.  But just be honest.  (Do you actually read those issues of Popular Science, or have they stacked up over time to the point that they have become an extension of your coffee table?)

  • Gym memberships
  • Netflix, Xbox Live or other streaming media membership
  • Magazine / Newspaper Subscriptions
  • Weight-loss memberships (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc)
  • Food-delivery subscriptions (Nutrisystem, food co-ops, etc)
  • Birchbox, Glossybox, other monthly subscription services…

2.  Floating Debt

Are you continuing to pay the minimum payment on a credit card every month, while letting a chunk of money sit in your savings account?  You figure that you need an emergency fund, right?  Sure.  But if you have anything more than $5,000 sitting in a low-interest savings account, while you sit on credit card debt, you need to wake up.  The money you have sitting in a low-interest savings account is likely earning less than 1%, while your debt is probably costing you anywhere from 10-30% in interest on your balance every month.  Quit floating your high-interest credit card debt; take your extra savings that’s making you next to nothing, and put it towards your debt. Ta-freakin-da.

3. Not Taking Advantage of the Company Match for your Retirement Plan

If you have an employer-sponsored retirement plan at work, but are not putting in enough to get the full match, you are THROWING MONEY AWAY.   Many companies, if not most, offer a partial match for contributions you make to your retirement plan at work.  At my company, for example, they match 50 cents for every dollar, up to 6%.   So over the course of a year, if I made $100,000, and contributed at least 6%, which is $6,000, the company will contribute an additional $3,000 into my account. If I’m contributing anything less than 6% of my salary to my retirement plan, then I’m giving up free money. Plain and simple.

4.  Overpaying on Insurance

If you have an excellent driving record, and you own your vehicle free and clear, consider increasing your insurance deductible to $1,000 and dropping collision and comprehensive coverage.  Your monthly premiums should drop substantially.  Also, check with your insurance company if they offer discounts for bundling; often if you combine your auto and homeowners insurance with one company, you can save.

5.  Wasted Utilities

Leaving the A/C or heat running while no one is home is a complete waste…of energy and money.  We have a “smart” thermostat, The Nest, which detects if we’re home, and has decreased our monthly utilities by 40%.  Even if you don’t have a “smart” thermostat, chances are you have at least a programmable thermostat, so take a few minutes to program it!  Aye, aye, aye.

 

At our house, we try to do an annual “leak check” every year about this time.   I thought for sure I wouldn’t find anything, but low and behold, I checked our transactions from the past month, and ACK!…I found a couple of things.

  • Last year we subscribed to an online tutoring service, IXL.com, for $10/month.  This was at a time when my daughter was having trouble focusing on math, so I found a tutoring site that was fun and interactive for her, and it truly did help.  (Yes, even a mother like me who has taken 4th-year calculus on differential equations and number theory is no help to a child who is determined to listen to anyone but me. Sigh.)  But once she improved her math grade, I forgot about it, and continued to pay the $10 monthly fee for several months after. Ugh.
  • Two years ago we bought an Apple iPad, and subscribed to the data plan through AT&T for $15/month.  I had cancelled the data plan a long time ago, but then reinstated it a few months ago while we were traveling. But we’ve been back for 2 months, and yup…still paying $15/month.
  • We were subscribing to a video game rental service, GameFly.com, for my son.  It was $17/month.  Eventually we reached a point where there were no games that he wanted to play (or could play due to mature ratings), so he slowly worked through the games in his queue, until there were NO games in his queue.  We continued paying $17/month for months until I did this check.  Yikes.

Just canceling those three above saves us $42 a month…over $500 a year.

So…I’m as guilty as the next guy (or girl).  Even when I think I’ve tightened things up everywhere I can, there are still places where I find a slow leak here and there.  So take a hard look at your own expenses…do YOU have a leak?

Plug it.