Frugal Archives - Page 4 of 15 - Lazy Man and Money

Homemade Hummus: Easy Recipe!

July 23, 2013 by Lazy Man 25 Comments

About five years ago, I was grocery shopping with my wife when she picked up some hummus and added it to our cart. Being the ~~jerk~~ price-conscious person I am, I inquired to why it was so expensive ($3.99 for around 12 ounces), “Isn’t hummus just ground up chickpeas?”, I asked. My wife kind of shrugged her shoulders and I said, “I think so, but it’s soooo good. It’s healthy too!” That logic was a good enough for me given the time and the place, but I had a feeling that I was onto another money-saving idea.

It turns out that I was mostly right about hummus being ground up chickpeas. In fact Wikipedia lists typical ingredients as: “mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic.” If you look at those ingredients, you probably already have the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and garlic in your kitchen. If that’s true, you only need to find the chickpeas and the tahini. We found our chickpeas at Trader Joe’s. “Joe” prefers to label them as garbanzo beans and I must give my wife credit for realizing that they are the same thing. Tahini, I would later learn is ground up sesame seeds. The tahini was originally found at Whole Foods. However, Whole Foods is pricey so we dropped by a local Mediterranean market that had tahini in almost any size that you might want at a reasonable price. (Seriously, it almost went up to a Costco keg size.)

Update: We’ve moved to a place that doesn’t have a convenient Mediterranean store. We had a craving and ended up going to a super health store and paid $10 for 16 ounces for Woodstock organic tahini. At nearly 63 cents per ounce, it cost us $2.50 for the four ounces of Tahini in the recipe below. Throw in the beans and the other ingredients and it isn’t a great savings. However, Amazon comes to the rescue with Lior Tahini All Natural Tahini… a well-reviewed product that is only 22 cents an ounce… or $0.88 for the whole recipe.

My wife found a recipe online at All Recipes, but has modified the ingredients a bit to the following:

2 cups canned garbanzo beans, drained (or 1 Trader Joe’s can)
1/2 cup tahini – even though All Recipes says a 1/3, my wife’s tastes prefers the 1/2 cup
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
two cubes of frozen garlic… or two fresh garlic cloves. Update: Now that I’ve tried minced garlic, I can say that is easier than the other options. It’s simply one teaspoon. Amazon has a great price on minced garlic, too – $0.21 an ounce (note the recipe requires a lot less than an ounce, this is just pricing information for those curious).

If you are doing this at home, we’ll wait here for you to gather all the ingredients. In the meantime, the rest of you talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. The chick pea is neither a chick nor a pea. Discuss! (I’ll be taking a phone call from the SNL producers for stealing their joke and not properly attributing it to their Coffee Talk skit.)

Now that we have all the ingredients it’s time get out your favorite Blender/Food Processor. I use the food processing section. (You’ll also notice I have a slightly older version.)

Open up your can of garbanzo beans, drain them, put them in your food processor:

Next up grab your garlic. We use this frozen garlic because keeping fresh garlic around (and fresh) is a pain. Like the garbanzo beans, we found ours at Trader Joe’s. You’ll note that with Dorot’s crushed garlic, one cube is equal to 1 garlic clove… and you get 20 cubes in a package. Two cubes is all we’ll use here. (Update: Or the minced garlic and ignore this image.)

Now it’s time for the lemon juice. We are just using a 1/4 cup. We use ReaLemon because it’s cheap at our local commissary. If you aren’t affiliated with the military, I recommended a generic version to save a little money.

The next big ingredient is the tahini. We’ll be using a half cup here.

I’ll save you a picture of a teaspoon of salt. Just don’t forget to add it. Not that a picture of tahini is exciting, but a picture of salt… well, that would set a new low on this website.

Just put everything in the food-processor and process until creamy. Here’s the final product:

Homemade Hummus Savings

Now, since this about saving money, it’s time to look at the price of the recipe. Many of these are well-known, common ingredients. Since I didn’t have the prices of these handy, I simply decided to estimate the prices. The one rare product was the Tahini which I did confirm was $4.49 for 16 ounces (though it could have been cheaper if bought in larger sizes.)

Garbanzo Beans – Total: $0.75? per can – Cost Per Recipe: $.75?
Tahini – Total: $15.49 for 70 ounces – Cost Per Recipe: $0.88
Lemon Juice – Total: $2.00? – Cost Per Serving: $0.15?
Garlic – Total: $10.00 for 48 ounces – Cost Per Serving: $0.03 (I actually did the math on this one)
Salt – Total: $0.75 – Cost Per Serving: fractions of pennies
Total for the recipe: $~1.81

This savings between $3.99 and $1.81 may not seem like much. However, for $1.81 you get 20 ounces when you make it at home and with the $3.99 I was getting only 12 ounces. I’ll glad pay 9 cents an ounce vs. 33 cents an ounce. It certainly makes a difference when you can go through 12-15 ounces in a sitting like my wife and I can.

It’s worth noting that we could probably shave costs further by buying dried garbanzo beans in a bag in bulk, but I’m inclined to take the Lazy way of grabbing a can. I’ll leave cheaper chick peas as an exercise for the reader.

Also this hummus is extremely easy and can be made in about 3 minutes using mainly ingredients that you have around the kitchen. For a lot of people, that’s not a bad return for the time spent.

Earning More vs. Saving Money

November 28, 2011 by Lazy Man 11 Comments

Last week, Ramit from penned nearly 4000 words on 5 surprising insights on earning more money. When I saw that it had A) surprising insights and B) earning more money, I rushed to read the article. In fact, I don’t know anyone who isn’t interested in those two things.

Before you can get to the 5 surprising insights on earning more money, there is a lengthy introduction. Included in that is over 900 words on why one would want to earn more rather than cutting back. If you read Ramit’s site, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s never been one to parade around about how frugal he is. While I appreciate the attitude of earning more, I’m often confused when it’s pitted against saving money (hint: click that link for about 1,000 ways to save money). The two concepts are not at war… they are not mutually exclusive. You can do both.

Ramit makes some good points for earning more verses saving money. Here are the ones he points out…

For instance, he correctly points out that saving money gets harder and harder. For example, once you cut something out (let’s say your daily latte), you can’t cut it out again. Ramit then points out that as you make more money it gets easier to earn more money. His example is a 10% tweak in pricing negotiations can lead to hundreds of dollars per month. His main point here is “There’s a limit to how much you can cut back, but no limit to how much you can earn.”
My take here is that the later isn’t necessary true. Some of the ways he suggests earning more include dog walking, organizing, utilizing your high school math skills (I’m going to assume tutoring on that one). Each of these do have limits on how much you can earn. Are you going to walk dogs 24 hours a day 7 days a week? Are you going to be able to convince someone to pay you much more than the going rate for someone who walks dogs? How much is your time worth at your chosen career? Is it better than what dog walkers typically make? If not, could it be better if you put more time into it?
(Side Note: As a dog owner, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about dog walking business. It seems to me that if you get a bunch of small dogs who don’t pull too hard, you can do well. If you get a few dogs like my 70-pound Husky-Labrador mix, you are likely to have a long day.)
The other point he makes is that “cutting back on everything [is not fun]”. His language was a little more creative than what I like to use on this blog. His example was that to save an extra $1000 a month you’d have to go through and make major cuts including “No eating out, cancel gym, cancel cable, no going out, reduce cellphone minutes – etc.” But to earn an extra $1000 you spend a little more time tweaking your business in minor ways to get 50 more leads and one good client that will give you $1,000/month. He suggests that tweaking will be 5 hours a week. I have no problems with that idea, but unless your businesses are high-earning, the couple of dog-walking clients aren’t really going to add up to $1000/mo.
The flip-side of the saving money argument is that it often doesn’t take any more time to save money. I reach for generic aspirin instead of brand name and that’s saved money in my pocket. Did one reach of my arm take any more time than another reach? I may have had to scan a couple of prices, but that takes mere seconds. I’ve written about cutting cable television in the past, but that’s largely because I don’t watch a lot of cable. I dislike paying for things that I don’t use.

The biggest argument that I have against the earning more philosophy (and I’ve been a huge proponent of it since the start of this blog), is that it typically does take time. Dogs don’t walk themselves. Garages don’t organize themselves. Kids don’t tutor themselves in math. At the end of the day, earning more in these ways require trading your time for money. That, in my opinion, isn’t exactly earning more, but earning differently. It may not be much fun to save money, but coming home from work and walking a dog or organizing a garage, doesn’t sound like my idea of fun either. If your grand plan is to quit your job and just do these side jobs, I fear that you won’t be earning more for a little while.

I understand Ramit’s perspective though. To some degree I live in that world. We both have blogs. We can spend a little time tweak our blogs and producing more earnings. He has a best-selling book. He can spend time promoting it and see earnings multiply. That’s just leveraging the existing hours of work we’ve put forward in more efficient ways. However, even those avenues of growth are limited. If I make $40 a day from Google AdSense, I may be able to increase that, but chances are that I’m going to be limited by the amount of traffic I have. At some point, I need to reach bigger audiences or look into other forms of monetization.

In the end, I’m not 100% sure what the answer is. I think it lies in the 80/20 rule. If you can cut out the expensive things that have little impact on your life, you should do it. If you can build a business in your spare time without making it feel like you are working 100 hours a week, perhaps that’s worth looking into as well. Where the two concepts collide is probably the sweet spot of having more money and having the time to enjoy it.

[Note: I realize I didn’t even get to the 5 surprising insights… perhaps another day… for now I’ll celebrate that I wrote around 1000 words, even if that leaves me 3000 shy of Ramit’s article.] [Note 2: Check out some tips from Reader’s Digest on how to save money.]

Drive-in Theaters – A Money-Saving Movie Experience

June 8, 2010 by Lazy Man 11 Comments

A couple of weekends ago, we had a yard sale. If you have a yard, I recommend it. It is a good way to get rid of some old stuff and make a little money. You won’t get rich… you might not even make your hourly wage. However, we met some neighbors and learned a lot of tips. We learned two tips from someone who stopped by for less than two minutes… and she didn’t buy a thing. Without looking at what we had to offer she asked if we had two things, an older shredder (without cross-cut), and an old boombox.

I was confused by the shredder. Why would someone want a security device, with obsolete security features? The answer… she’s into crafts and the straight old shredders are great for making filler for gift baskets. When we told her we didn’t have one she moved on to the boombox. There are a number of reasons why one might want a radio, so we didn’t ask, but she offered… “they are great for drive-ins.” Whoa, there are drive-ins near Silicon Valley where a two-bedroom fixer-upper can run you $700K?!?! That just didn’t compute to us.

My wife and I did some research and found out that there is indeed a drive-in movie theater in San Jose – about a half hour from where we live. We did a little more research and decided to go the following night. We found it an outstanding value for the following reasons:

Cheap Tickets – It was $6.75 a person for first run movies. We saw Iron Man 2, but we could have seen Sex and the City on the opening weekend… but I wasn’t having any of that. Kids under 5 are free. Kids from 5-11 are only $1.
Double Features – Each ticket is for two movies. We could have stayed after Iron Man to see Date Night, but we got tired. We’ll bring the coffee and soda next time (the second feature started at after 11PM).
Cheap Concessions – While popcorn is still $4.50 for a bigger-than-a-toddler sized “small”, there were deals to be had. For instance, their burritos are handmade to order for $5.75… and they are a meal. It would ranked in my top five all-time burrito values (I’m a huge burrito fan), if the person making my burrito wasn’t being trained to make his first ever. It fell apart when I got to eating it, but even with a fork and knife it was good.
No Need for Concessions – It’s a drive-in. Bring your own cooler. Pack a picnic-dinner or bring a pizza or sub with you. Bring your own soda…
…or Beer – It’s against the drive-in policy, but you could easily bring your own beer or wine. No one is going to see anything in your car at 9PM and no one was policing the theater anyway. I’m not saying you should break the policy, just that I think you could without repercussions. Of course, as with any drinking, standard disclaimers apply: be safe, designate a driver.
Family Friendly – They had a number of kid-friendly movies. Add in the kid prices of free or $1 and it’s a steal.
Pet Friendly – We didn’t know that it was going to be pet-friendly, but we’ll bring our dog next time. It’s a big selling point for us because we don’t like to leave him alone for too long at night.
Extra Comfy – We don’t have a flatbed truck, but a number of other people did. They inflated an air mattress, pulled out some blankets and pillows and had probably the most comfortable movie watching experience possible.

It’s not all rainbows and puppy dogs, though. The drive-in isn’t a place to watch Avatar. There’s no 3-D option and the audio is pumped through your own car radio with a noticeable hiss. I got used to the hiss and the picture was good enough for me considering the value. I think this would be a good way to see a movie like Date Night or Grown-ups where you are just going for the laughs or focusing on the plot and not the specially effects.

When you add it up, the typical family of four could got to the movies for about $15 of admission. Admission for two movies at a typical cinema would probably be around $65. Eating and drinking costs can be the same as what you’d have at home, probably saving you another $25 or $30. More importantly, my wife summed it up this way, “I think it will be awhile before I think about going back to a regular theater again.”

Frugal Father’s Day Gifts

June 25, 2016 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

I usually give you very little notice on how to plan for an upcoming frugal holiday. I’m trying to be a little more proactive this year. With that in mind, the calendar flipping to June seems like a time to start thinking about Father’s Day. I’ve never been one to send mushy cards or lavish gifts for Father’s Day. Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel that dads in general are not big fans of sappy cards. Plus cards are overpriced for what they are. Since some dads would feel awkward about accepting anything expensive, it’s best to look for frugal alternatives. Fortunately, many options exist for those of us who want a simple, thoughtful Father’s Day gift to make dad’s day special.

Smaller children can really have fun with Father’s Day. Handmade gifts and anything involving pictures are great gifts from the younger set. I remember giving my dad a smooth rock with the words “Happy Father’s Day” on it that I made in first or second grade. That always got displayed prominently on his desk (despite how ugly it was).

Here are some ideas that would be appropriate for young children to give to their dads:

Change Jar – Clean out a glass jar (or purchase one new from a hobby/craft store). Punch a slot in the lid ““ when I’ve done this before I’ve used a slotted screwdriver and a hammer or mallet. Position the screwdriver so that the slot will be in the middle of the lid and tap on the handle with the hammer to punch a hole in the metal. Be sure to turn the lid over and hammer down the pointy bits after you’ve made the slot. Then, make a sign that says “I wouldn’t CHANGE anything about my Dad!” and let the children go to town on decorating the jar. They could use stickers, paint, glitter, ribbon ““ whatever will make the jar festive and whimsical. Practical and fun!
A Day Off – A day off is especially appreciated by the younger Dad with small children. Relieve him of his usual household duties for the day and let him go play golf, or go fishing, or any activity of his choosing.
Handmade Greeting Card – Ah yes, the old standby. Still, a handmade card is always appreciated. Especially when it involves a handprint! It can be fun to reminisce and look through several years’ worth of cards a few years down the road. There are no rules to creating a handmade card ““ just have fun!
Anything with Pictures – These days you can get portraits of your kids (or their artwork) printed on anything! Mugs, calendars, T-shirt, mouse pads ““ the possibilities are endless. You can walk into Wal-Mart (or go online) and order a photo mug for under $10.

Let’s say, however, that you’re no longer in elementary school but you want give your Dad a respectable but not over-the-top gift. Here are some suggestions:

Car Detailing – What dad wouldn’t enjoy a freshly washed, waxed and vacuumed car? Gather together all of your cleaning supplies and tackle your dad’s ride. Wash the car, apply tire cleaner, clean the windows inside and out and vacuum the interior.
A Custom Playlist or CD – Cater to your dad’s musical tastes and make him a playlist of his favorite tunes. If you make a CD, you can add dad-centric cover art to the case. Every time dad listens to his special playlist, he’ll think of you!
Ratcheting Screwdriver – Maybe your dad hasn’t bought himself some new tools in a while. If he’s still using old-school screwdrivers, upgrading him to a ratcheting screwdriver will be easier on his hands and allow him to do those little repairs much quicker! Even the fancier ones with the interchangeable bits can be under $25.
Charging Station – Like everyone these days, your dad probably has an array of electronic gadgets. This Gomadic Universal Charging Station is a great way to charge all of those devices without a tangle of unsightly cords.
Time – Time with our loved ones is finite. If you’re not in the same city, give your dad a call. Listen to what’s going on in his life and share what’s happening in yours. If you’re lucky enough to live near your dad, perhaps promise him a week of special lunches. These don’t have to be expensive ““ this is more about the company than the atmosphere.

Hopefully these suggestions are helpful – happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there.

The Key To Living Frugally

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

This guest post comes to you from The Digerati Life, a site that covers financial topics that range from which online brokers to choose, to how you can teach your kids about money. The blog is up for a Plutus Award for best career blog… I encourage you to vote for The Digerati Life in the category of Best Personal Finance Blog for Careers. The following piece focuses on why many people are broke and what they can do about it.

Yeah yeah, you’ve heard this before, but it’s always worth reviewing the basics, in my opinion. And what exactly is the secret to becoming financially secure? In my mind, it’s living within your means. It’s the key to good personal finance management — seems so obvious yet if you look around you, it’s basic advice that many people don’t really bother to follow.

But the fact is, living within your means is the first step towards successful budgeting and getting your financial house in order. It’s simple enough — you can do this by controlling your spending a couple of ways: either by sheer will power, or maybe by being more organized and strategic about how you spend your money.

Many people have fallen into financial trouble to the point of having to file for bankruptcy when they become credit card addicts, or when they decide to take on too many low-interest rate loans or commit to a mortgage when they just don’t have the kind of income to support it all. Balance transfer credit cards and 0% interest credit cards are tempting to carry, but those 0% offers don’t last forever. Eventually, the card rates shoot up and you’ll be paying a lot more unless you’re able to wipe out your balance before those rates adjust.

But here’s some good news: since the implosion of the real estate market, we’ve learned a whole lot, as a nation. We now understand the importance of living within our means and of working with a budget. Some people have now changed their habits and have begun making changes in the way they manage their money. It may have taken a financial crisis for folks to sit up and take notice of their finances, but some gradual changes are afoot in many households. Here are a few steps we’ve taken to join the frugality bandwagon and add more to our high interest savings accounts:

Living Within Your Means: Some Steps To Frugality

Cut your telephone bill.
Here’s one area where I’ve actually saved some money. Those services that offer a variety of packages such as your cable bill or phone bill may actually be one area where you can save a good amount. By finding the right custom “package” for your family based on your service usage, you can get the best value for your money. So analyze your phone bill and see if you can make do without the extras. Often, you’ll find that going with a basic telephone service may be sufficient; also your telephone bill can be reduced by a lot if you know your calling patterns well and decide to stick with billing packages that are a fit to your patterns.
[Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Landline Phone and Save Money on Cell Phones]

Reduce your electricity bills.

Simple changes to how you use energy at home may help with bringing down your energy costs. For instance, switching off power when you don’t need it, keeping your thermostat low and even switching to CFL bulbs are some popular ways to cut down on your utility costs. Some people go beyond this by really adapting the green mindset: they invest in things like a solar roof for their homes and Energy Star appliances to help conserve energy at home. [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Utilities]

Take a look at your entertainment costs.

These days, you can find a lot of free and cheap alternatives for your entertainment needs. This is also one expense category that you can easily cut down on. To cut costs, people have replaced watching movies at the theater with more family time, and long distance travel with visits to the local park or zoo. When you think about it, these alternatives can prove to be just as fun as the more exotic activities that may come to mind. [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Movies , Music, Television, and Books]

Cut your dining and restaurant bills.

These days, people are chasing after too much convenience and often find themselves hanging out at fast food joints and restaurants instead of cooking at home for the family. Over the long-term, this can become both a costly and unhealthy habit. In our household, we enjoy the occasional take out night, but we do our best to control our food tab! [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money at Restaurants.]

Control your transportation costs.

Take a look at how much you’re spending on transportation. Are you happy with it? If your gas usage is bugging you, then try for some practical solutions and see if they’re worth pursuing. Will carpooling work? How about using your town’s public transportation system? Sure, it may mean having to make adjustments in your schedule or routine, but if it’s worth the savings for you, then it’s something you should try to consider. [Editor’s Note: For more tips see Save Money on Cars and Save Money on Gas.]

So if you really want to find that extra $100 you’ve been meaning to invest with an online discount broker or mutual fund company for a while now, then by digging a little deeper, you may be surprised by some of the extra trimmings you can do without. It just takes a little flexibility and a tad bit of discipline to keep your expenses in check.