I haven't read every post in detail, but I haven't noticed any about what happens a while later...
We made moon sand and decided to put it in the sand/water table sandbox. That was a HUGE mistake. It rotted, smelled like barf, attracted all sorts of things you DON'T want in your sandbox, grew a horrible mould, and required a large amount of work to clean up. First, we dumped the rotten sand into a pit in the backyard (we had been landscaping) and buried it. Then we had to powerwash the sandbox, then bleach & anti-bacterial soap to kill the stink, which had permeated into the plastic.
One hour of fun for hours of labour to clean up... and the "real" moon sand still has no smell months later. Not that I will ever buy that again, either, thanks to the mess.
Hopefully no one else has had such a good-time-gone-bad experience.
As a former waitress, I tip, but not always 20%--used to be 10 then 15 and now 20%--ridiculous that one should have to give a tip that is more than what many people make in an hour for waitstaff who spend less than 15 minutes waiting on you. I often made very, very good wages with tips. The arguments of some of the waitstaff on here are not legitimate. If you work in anything other than a coffee shop, even at less than minimum wage paid by the employer, with tips you make far above minimum wage--if you are good at your job and polite. (Polite is what a lot of waitstaff lack!)
Cheapest eating out story--a local restaurant gives free meals or $15 off higher priced meals on your birthday. When eating there one time, a family came in, husband, wife and 2 children. The husband said it was his birthday and made sure he ordered a meal under $15, but as close to $15 as he could get. He then asked the waitress for the cheapest meal on the menu and got one salad bar meal for his wife and two children to share. He sat there eating a good meal, while they watched. Got his free birthday meal by paying about $5 for the rest of his family. Now, that's not frugal or even being cheap, it's just stingy and rotten!
If you buy a house without an emergency fund, you are foolish. Houses are money pits. I love my house, but I had all kinds of expected and unexpected costs my first few years. It's not merely a question of mortgage vs. rent - there is so much more you will find landing in your lap once you own. Is it worth it - sure - I love my house. But if I had no emergency fund I'd have a lot of debt now, or I'd have sold it already.
And if you buy a car because you have a bad parking situation, as someone suggested they wanted to do, that's insane. I parked on the street in San Francisco for 14 years - never had a parking spot, and was able to live my life just fine. Acquiring major debt to accommodate a car is the wrong priority.
I am just shaking my head over this. This idea will trap you if you let it.
My husband and I love Costco. A lot of the big savings are on more specialty items, like the cheeses, which I would not be willing to pay the grocery per-pound price for. I also find their products to be almost uniformly high quality. Gift items are also a great deal there and can help recoup membership costs.
The other alternative is to give the money AS a gift, and make it clear you don't expect to see it again. I've done this a couple of times, and always got repaid in full, but i wasn't expecting to.
I think it's the expectation that can kill the friendship.
I am a single senior, and I definitely get my dollar's worth out of my Costco membership. I've gotten a new car, several sets of tires, and 2 cameras in the way of big ticket items. I get clothing (not much), wine (best selection around), and freezable foodstuffs (monthly). And their food samples add great variety to my diet.
I would end a friendship over $20. Paying someone back should not be difficult. Paying someone back should be a priority. But I'm also the type of person where it bugs the hell out of me if a friend floats me a few bucks for whatever reason. I never forget and can't wait until I see them again so I can pay them back. It bothers me when I owe someone even a $1.
I've only lent money to a friend once. I didn't have a choice because we were roommates. He didn't pay ~$700 of rent + utils for one month and it took him 7 months to eventually pay me back. I didn't need the money but the entire time I was stressed out because I was saving for a house. It caused several arguments and after we moved out I stopped talking to them for a year. I eventually realized it was pointless to hold a grudge because they did pay me back so all is fine now.
Like with just about anything, if you let yourself go nuts then you definitely won't see the savings. In our household, we found that our best savings came when we bought non-perishable items that were unlikely to go to waste. (We also do quite a few freezer meals—further ensuring that as little as possible goes to waste.) What was a surprise to me was how little saving (if any at all!) there were on electronics, household, and other consumer goods. When we bought our TV, Best Buy had the better deal (even after the extended warranty); when we were looking for new kitchen knives... well, we found some at CostCo but the price certainly wasn't right. What does work? We go early in the morning, with a list, and blast through real fast for baby wipes, cereal, and whatever is on the list for our freezer meals.
As a brief aside: I tracked our spending for the first 90 days of our CostCo membership, putting in the extra effort to do unit-price comparisons with the other nearby stores... Typical savings for an item were around 10-15% — though sometimes you get a ridiculous savings (60% savings on chevre!) and/but more often than seems proper the savings are under 5% (hardly worth the effort).
We have a Costco membership and are happy with it. The savings on gasoline and electronics are worth it for us. We also love the "sampletizers" -- makes grocery shopping more enjoyable.
As others have noted, Costco memberships provide peace of mind: the quality of its products are generally high, and their return policy is great too. We plan on purchasing appliances and maybe window furnishings / flooring materials through Costco if/when we become homeowners.
Many servers are required to tip-out the cook(s) bus staff, and dishwashers after the shift. AS most of these jobs are minimum wage.. which is very hard to live on... if you eat out tip.
A friend once offered to lend me money once when I was in a very tight spot. I paid her back as soon as humanly possible. I was very grateful, but I can't deny that is has changed the dynamic between us.
I am fortunate enough to have a Costco Membership through work that I am allowed to also use for personal purchases (obviously I still pay for my items myself) but even if I didn't Costco saved me a ton of money this year on new tires for my car, and on my DIY wedding flowers! They have an excellent floral selection and you can't beat 2 dozen ivory roses for $15.99. Those purchases, however, aren't things I'd buy very often so I don't know that it would be worth maintaining a membership on my own.
We have a costco membership. There are three of us in our family. We don't have a huge house or a lot of storage. Things I have found particularly well priced at Costco:
Cheese -- we go through tons of cheese at my house. It's a regular snack for everyone. I can buy brand name string cheese in an 48ct pack for $7 vs. $6 for the 24 ct pack at the grocery.
Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, etc -- The economy pack of Charmin is actually a very good price. Kirkland paper towels are also a good value. Costco also freqently has coupons on the Charmin, and a pack lasts us about a month.
Dog Food, Dog treats, dog beds, etc -- I have five dogs. I feed my dogs high quality food that I purchase from a specialty pet store. If I need to cut something though, I could switch to Costco's Kirkland dog food at $22 for 40 pounds. It's not quite as high quality as what I currently use, but it's much better than most brand names. We also buy our dogs chew treats in bulk for under $15 and we've gotten them huge, high quality dog beds for under $20.
Juice and Soda -- While I realize, buying soda on sale at the grocery store makes sense, the brand I like is almost never on sale, and is always under $10 for a case of 36. We go through tons of juice at my house with all of the kids coming and going, and it's definitely cheaper to buy it at Costco.
Milk -- There is no place cheaper, including discount groceries in my area for milk. Under $2 for a gallon.
I've been a Costco shopper for a year and I've found that shopping there saves money with the following caveat: know your prices. Some of the items are excellent values. Other items can be had for less at the grocery store on sale with a coupon. You just have to get a sense for what's good and what's not. I do find that Costco's housewares and other equipment offer excellent quality for a good price. Also their meat department offers butcher-shop quality for prices that are only slightly above the grocery store - it comes in handy when planning a dinner party or barbecue.
When we had friends wanting to borrow money from us, both my husband and myself have to agree to loan out the money. In addition, when we give a loan, we usually don't expect a pay back. If we can afford to give that money out for loan, we treat it as gift instead. We rarely loan money out (twice in the past 10 years & in both cases, it was for our best friends' medical expenses and help out to put food on the table for their young children). Instead of loaning money out, we ask if they can provide a service for us. For instance, when a friend recently needed money, I asked her to babysit & I paid for her service. This way, she did not need to worry about paying me back and I did not feel like I need to chase her to get my money back.
My rule of thumb is that I'll loan money once, but never more than than I'm willing to lose. If they don't pay me back, I write it off as a gift to them, and though I still consider them friends (unless they took the $20 and ran, or did something really stupid), I won't ever lend them money again. If they do, then I'll trust them enough to loan them money again.
I go to COSTCO about 4 times a month...but I don't buy tons of stuff.
- Milk is $1.67 per gallon! You can't beat that.
- Take and bake pizza for $9.99 each and they are huge! You can also buy them pre-baked if you call ahead to the food court! Great for sleepovers and B-day parties!
- Dog Food - cheaper than anywhere else. IAMS 40 lbs is less than $35.00.
- Wholly Guacamole - YUM! Comes in a three pack (they freeze great), for less than $8.00.
- Starbucks coffee - 2 lbs cheaper better than anywhere else.
We don't buy large quantities of anything except paper goods, but for some things if you can store it, it is well worth it.
I enjoyed reading this article but I want to know If this can be done. I don't even want to get into the legal issues of it all. I prefer to stick with internet traffic income. http://the-traffic-secrets-101.blogspot.com/
I'm single and share a Sams membership with my sister. They don't seem to mind that we have different last names, live in different states and have nothing to prove that we're related other than our word.
I figure that I save half of my membershpi fee (so, a quarter of the overall fee) buying gas at Sams (usually $0.3-$.06 cheaper than the cheapest gas station and insanely convenient on my daily commute). The rest, I save on various things. Chocolate chips (I like to bake), string cheese for my lunch, best seller paperbacks by a few select authors, cat litter, some gifts (okay, mostly Firefly on DVD). But, as others have mentioned, for many things, especially things I don't use a lot of, I have found that I can find better deals at the grocery or big box stores.
I don't save a lot having a membership, but I save a little. I also like being able to help out with church events by doing the shopping, picking up a last minute cake for a children's event, getting pizza for the youth, etc.
I think it boils down to a few simple things:
- Do you have (ample/sensible) storage space
- Do you appreciate portion-freezing foods (I love it, we have an economical freezer and is exceedingly convenient)
- Is the MadHouse-effect worth it for you ;-)
- Is the warehouse conveniently located so that you actually can use it
- Are there must-have items (I love the Kirkland trail-mix, for example and Kirkland diapers are an economical choice)
I haven't read every post in detail, but I haven't noticed any about what happens a while later...
We made moon sand and decided to put it in the sand/water table sandbox. That was a HUGE mistake. It rotted, smelled like barf, attracted all sorts of things you DON'T want in your sandbox, grew a horrible mould, and required a large amount of work to clean up. First, we dumped the rotten sand into a pit in the backyard (we had been landscaping) and buried it. Then we had to powerwash the sandbox, then bleach & anti-bacterial soap to kill the stink, which had permeated into the plastic.
One hour of fun for hours of labour to clean up... and the "real" moon sand still has no smell months later. Not that I will ever buy that again, either, thanks to the mess.
Hopefully no one else has had such a good-time-gone-bad experience.
As a former waitress, I tip, but not always 20%--used to be 10 then 15 and now 20%--ridiculous that one should have to give a tip that is more than what many people make in an hour for waitstaff who spend less than 15 minutes waiting on you. I often made very, very good wages with tips. The arguments of some of the waitstaff on here are not legitimate. If you work in anything other than a coffee shop, even at less than minimum wage paid by the employer, with tips you make far above minimum wage--if you are good at your job and polite. (Polite is what a lot of waitstaff lack!)
Cheapest eating out story--a local restaurant gives free meals or $15 off higher priced meals on your birthday. When eating there one time, a family came in, husband, wife and 2 children. The husband said it was his birthday and made sure he ordered a meal under $15, but as close to $15 as he could get. He then asked the waitress for the cheapest meal on the menu and got one salad bar meal for his wife and two children to share. He sat there eating a good meal, while they watched. Got his free birthday meal by paying about $5 for the rest of his family. Now, that's not frugal or even being cheap, it's just stingy and rotten!
If you buy a house without an emergency fund, you are foolish. Houses are money pits. I love my house, but I had all kinds of expected and unexpected costs my first few years. It's not merely a question of mortgage vs. rent - there is so much more you will find landing in your lap once you own. Is it worth it - sure - I love my house. But if I had no emergency fund I'd have a lot of debt now, or I'd have sold it already.
And if you buy a car because you have a bad parking situation, as someone suggested they wanted to do, that's insane. I parked on the street in San Francisco for 14 years - never had a parking spot, and was able to live my life just fine. Acquiring major debt to accommodate a car is the wrong priority.
I am just shaking my head over this. This idea will trap you if you let it.
My husband and I love Costco. A lot of the big savings are on more specialty items, like the cheeses, which I would not be willing to pay the grocery per-pound price for. I also find their products to be almost uniformly high quality. Gift items are also a great deal there and can help recoup membership costs.
wow they sell new cars at costco? I didn't know that
The other alternative is to give the money AS a gift, and make it clear you don't expect to see it again. I've done this a couple of times, and always got repaid in full, but i wasn't expecting to.
I think it's the expectation that can kill the friendship.
Ok guys, for all y'all who are even thinking about putting only 13% or less down, do it for us and DON'T DO IT!
I've made it an official post here: "Property Makes People Think Irrationally"
Best
I am a single senior, and I definitely get my dollar's worth out of my Costco membership. I've gotten a new car, several sets of tires, and 2 cameras in the way of big ticket items. I get clothing (not much), wine (best selection around), and freezable foodstuffs (monthly). And their food samples add great variety to my diet.
I would end a friendship over $20. Paying someone back should not be difficult. Paying someone back should be a priority. But I'm also the type of person where it bugs the hell out of me if a friend floats me a few bucks for whatever reason. I never forget and can't wait until I see them again so I can pay them back. It bothers me when I owe someone even a $1.
I've only lent money to a friend once. I didn't have a choice because we were roommates. He didn't pay ~$700 of rent + utils for one month and it took him 7 months to eventually pay me back. I didn't need the money but the entire time I was stressed out because I was saving for a house. It caused several arguments and after we moved out I stopped talking to them for a year. I eventually realized it was pointless to hold a grudge because they did pay me back so all is fine now.
wher do you recycle denim
Like with just about anything, if you let yourself go nuts then you definitely won't see the savings. In our household, we found that our best savings came when we bought non-perishable items that were unlikely to go to waste. (We also do quite a few freezer meals—further ensuring that as little as possible goes to waste.) What was a surprise to me was how little saving (if any at all!) there were on electronics, household, and other consumer goods. When we bought our TV, Best Buy had the better deal (even after the extended warranty); when we were looking for new kitchen knives... well, we found some at CostCo but the price certainly wasn't right. What does work? We go early in the morning, with a list, and blast through real fast for baby wipes, cereal, and whatever is on the list for our freezer meals.
As a brief aside: I tracked our spending for the first 90 days of our CostCo membership, putting in the extra effort to do unit-price comparisons with the other nearby stores... Typical savings for an item were around 10-15% — though sometimes you get a ridiculous savings (60% savings on chevre!) and/but more often than seems proper the savings are under 5% (hardly worth the effort).
Related - here is an article that was going around some time ago about a guy in Moab, UT living without money: http://men.style.com/details/features/landing?id=content_9817
And here is Suelo's personal blog:
http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/
His life in interesting but he's taking a lot of heat for his choices, which is apparently threatening to others.
We have a Costco membership and are happy with it. The savings on gasoline and electronics are worth it for us. We also love the "sampletizers" -- makes grocery shopping more enjoyable.
As others have noted, Costco memberships provide peace of mind: the quality of its products are generally high, and their return policy is great too. We plan on purchasing appliances and maybe window furnishings / flooring materials through Costco if/when we become homeowners.
Many servers are required to tip-out the cook(s) bus staff, and dishwashers after the shift. AS most of these jobs are minimum wage.. which is very hard to live on... if you eat out tip.
A friend once offered to lend me money once when I was in a very tight spot. I paid her back as soon as humanly possible. I was very grateful, but I can't deny that is has changed the dynamic between us.
I am fortunate enough to have a Costco Membership through work that I am allowed to also use for personal purchases (obviously I still pay for my items myself) but even if I didn't Costco saved me a ton of money this year on new tires for my car, and on my DIY wedding flowers! They have an excellent floral selection and you can't beat 2 dozen ivory roses for $15.99. Those purchases, however, aren't things I'd buy very often so I don't know that it would be worth maintaining a membership on my own.
We have a costco membership. There are three of us in our family. We don't have a huge house or a lot of storage. Things I have found particularly well priced at Costco:
Cheese -- we go through tons of cheese at my house. It's a regular snack for everyone. I can buy brand name string cheese in an 48ct pack for $7 vs. $6 for the 24 ct pack at the grocery.
Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, etc -- The economy pack of Charmin is actually a very good price. Kirkland paper towels are also a good value. Costco also freqently has coupons on the Charmin, and a pack lasts us about a month.
Dog Food, Dog treats, dog beds, etc -- I have five dogs. I feed my dogs high quality food that I purchase from a specialty pet store. If I need to cut something though, I could switch to Costco's Kirkland dog food at $22 for 40 pounds. It's not quite as high quality as what I currently use, but it's much better than most brand names. We also buy our dogs chew treats in bulk for under $15 and we've gotten them huge, high quality dog beds for under $20.
Juice and Soda -- While I realize, buying soda on sale at the grocery store makes sense, the brand I like is almost never on sale, and is always under $10 for a case of 36. We go through tons of juice at my house with all of the kids coming and going, and it's definitely cheaper to buy it at Costco.
Milk -- There is no place cheaper, including discount groceries in my area for milk. Under $2 for a gallon.
I've been a Costco shopper for a year and I've found that shopping there saves money with the following caveat: know your prices. Some of the items are excellent values. Other items can be had for less at the grocery store on sale with a coupon. You just have to get a sense for what's good and what's not. I do find that Costco's housewares and other equipment offer excellent quality for a good price. Also their meat department offers butcher-shop quality for prices that are only slightly above the grocery store - it comes in handy when planning a dinner party or barbecue.
When we had friends wanting to borrow money from us, both my husband and myself have to agree to loan out the money. In addition, when we give a loan, we usually don't expect a pay back. If we can afford to give that money out for loan, we treat it as gift instead. We rarely loan money out (twice in the past 10 years & in both cases, it was for our best friends' medical expenses and help out to put food on the table for their young children). Instead of loaning money out, we ask if they can provide a service for us. For instance, when a friend recently needed money, I asked her to babysit & I paid for her service. This way, she did not need to worry about paying me back and I did not feel like I need to chase her to get my money back.
My rule of thumb is that I'll loan money once, but never more than than I'm willing to lose. If they don't pay me back, I write it off as a gift to them, and though I still consider them friends (unless they took the $20 and ran, or did something really stupid), I won't ever lend them money again. If they do, then I'll trust them enough to loan them money again.
I go to COSTCO about 4 times a month...but I don't buy tons of stuff.
- Milk is $1.67 per gallon! You can't beat that.
- Take and bake pizza for $9.99 each and they are huge! You can also buy them pre-baked if you call ahead to the food court! Great for sleepovers and B-day parties!
- Dog Food - cheaper than anywhere else. IAMS 40 lbs is less than $35.00.
- Wholly Guacamole - YUM! Comes in a three pack (they freeze great), for less than $8.00.
- Starbucks coffee - 2 lbs cheaper better than anywhere else.
We don't buy large quantities of anything except paper goods, but for some things if you can store it, it is well worth it.
I enjoyed reading this article but I want to know If this can be done. I don't even want to get into the legal issues of it all. I prefer to stick with internet traffic income.
http://the-traffic-secrets-101.blogspot.com/
I'm single and share a Sams membership with my sister. They don't seem to mind that we have different last names, live in different states and have nothing to prove that we're related other than our word.
I figure that I save half of my membershpi fee (so, a quarter of the overall fee) buying gas at Sams (usually $0.3-$.06 cheaper than the cheapest gas station and insanely convenient on my daily commute). The rest, I save on various things. Chocolate chips (I like to bake), string cheese for my lunch, best seller paperbacks by a few select authors, cat litter, some gifts (okay, mostly Firefly on DVD). But, as others have mentioned, for many things, especially things I don't use a lot of, I have found that I can find better deals at the grocery or big box stores.
I don't save a lot having a membership, but I save a little. I also like being able to help out with church events by doing the shopping, picking up a last minute cake for a children's event, getting pizza for the youth, etc.
It's not a lot, but it works for me.
Oh yea, like someone already said, I trust Costco. I don't trust may stores but Costco is great!
I think it boils down to a few simple things:
- Do you have (ample/sensible) storage space
- Do you appreciate portion-freezing foods (I love it, we have an economical freezer and is exceedingly convenient)
- Is the MadHouse-effect worth it for you ;-)
- Is the warehouse conveniently located so that you actually can use it
- Are there must-have items (I love the Kirkland trail-mix, for example and Kirkland diapers are an economical choice)
It's not for everyone but I love it.