The Digerati Life

The Frugal Duchess talks about her frugal memoir and her favorite money saving tips.

As you may already know, The Frugal Duchess, Ms. Sharon Harvey Rosenberg, is currently holding a book tour around the web. Sharon writes for the Miami Herald on financial topics and also runs The Frugal Duchess blog, which you no doubt have seen mentioned here on our site throughout the years. As some background, I’d like to mention that Sharon’s blog was one of the handful I found inspiration from to start my own blog. You can pick up her blog feed here.

We’re truly honored to be one of the stops on her book tour! When Sharon contacted me about her book, I jumped at the chance to check it out. Her book weaves money saving advice along with stories from her life, and is called “The Frugal Duchess: How To Live Well and Save Money”, which you’ll find listed in Amazon.

So what we’ve got here today is an interview with Sharon, which I thought would be a wonderful way to learn more about her and what she’s worked on.

An Interview With The Frugal Duchess

SVB: Do you have objectives for your book? What inspired you to write one?

The Frugal Duchess: That’s a great question. I wrote a book that offers a memoir with frugal tips. The book tells the story about my parents’ Depression Era childhood. I discuss and demonstrate how the Depression shaped my parents’ lives during the 1930s-1940s and how the Depression influenced the choices my parents made when they raised me and my siblings during 1960s and 1970s.

In the Frugal Duchess, I also offer a literary tour of the homes and towns where my family has lived over the last four generations.

I wanted to deliver a frugal living book that people would want to read for pleasure. Writing a book was been a childhood dream.

SVB: Do you find that frugality is something that is “built in” rather than taught? Do you find that frugality is a trait that doesn’t come naturally to everyone? (Sometime ago, I wrote about the science behind money behaviors and the influence of genes on how we spend (or save), and I thought to explore this topic a bit here.)

The Frugal Duchess: Very interesting question: Nurture versus nature? Some folks — of course — are hard-wired for thrifty living. From the cradle, some people are natural savers. I see that trait in my children. One child may be thrifty and hold onto every penny of a birthday check or allowance.

Other kids, however, are big spenders even in preschool. They’ll run after the ice cream truck and spend their last dollar on a Popsicle.

Fortunately, frugality is also an acquired habit. Kids and adults can be taught to live frugally. I’m not naturally frugal. But I’ve taught myself — and my kids — to spend mindfully and to save willingly.

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Do you use green food saver bags as a way to make food last longer? Here are some ideas to make produce last.

We all want to minimize waste and lower our grocery bills, right? We can achieve this to some degree by preventing our produce from spoiling before we’re ready to consume these food items. This was one interesting question that brought up many good responses at the Wesabe forum discussions. One community member wonders whether green food saver bags (as seen on TV) were worth purchasing. I can only assume that she was referring to the “Debbie Meyer Green Bags” that are hawked in infomercials, the greenbags.com web site, the Home Shopping Network and other channels.

These green bags are intended to slow the decay of fresh fruits and vegetables when you put them in storage. The claim is that these bags will prolong the life of your perishables by absorbing any gas released by the food items. The ethylene gas released by fruits and vegetables actually speeds up the ripening process. At last check, 20 bags were going for about $10 plus $7 for shipping — that’s $17 for 20 bags or around 85 cents a bag!

Now, it would be great if something can be done to make our produce last longer, but are the bags worth the money? Would the “investment” in these bags be offset by the money you save when you prevent produce from spoiling?

How To Make Food Last Longer

Some responses to this question have come from the Wesabe community:

1. The best way to keep food from going bad? More frequent trips to the farmer’s market or the grocery store. Also, buy what’s in season as they will last longer, will taste better and will usually cost less!

2. Go for grocery delivery if you can, which will bring your produce to your doorstep, cut down on your shopping time and save you money on gas. A delivery service like Door To Door Organics in Michigan or in Orlando would help.

3. Consumer Reports claims that the green bags don’t do the job. They performed a test using a variety of fruits and vegetables stored in various ways: they stored the foods in the green bags, in regular Ziploc bags, on a counter, in a fridge and in plastic supermarket bags. They got unfavorable results for the green bags except when it involved bananas, as they report here:

From Consumer Reports: We saw green inside the Green Bags, but often it was mold. Blackberries became moldy after three weeks, strawberries and basil after a month, and peppers and tomatoes after five weeks. It was a tough test, but the same foods stored in other ways nearly always had less mold or none after the same time. Only bananas fared significantly better in Green Bags: After two weeks, they were firm and had not turned black.

4. Some people freeze their fruits and vegetables and say that thawed berries and frozen banana pops taste great. Hmmm…. maybe I should try this out!

5. Some ways to keep herbs longer: store them in olive oil, or blend them with a bit of water, puree then freeze them into ice cubes.

6. If you store food in Ziploc bags, make sure you date your bags so you know how long something has been sitting in your fridge. Wrap food items loosely in paper towels before putting them in bags, and wash the items right before you consume them, not before you store them.

7. Freeze foods or be creative with your items, especially when you notice them going ripe. Preserve them in jars or include them in cakes and pastries to make them last.

8. Consider using reusable glass jars and recyclable plastic containers for storage instead of plastic bags as a “greener” solution and as a way to save money as well.

If you’ve got additional ideas on how to make your perishables take on a longer shelf-life, do share!

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This tough economy getting you down? Here are some frugal steps you can take to survive this rough financial period.

There is nothing that ordinary citizens like you and I can do to solve the mess on Wall Street. Calling your congressperson every day won’t change his/her vote, because they have to follow the party line in most cases. The only weapon we have is to vote on election day for changes at the House and Senate. The presidential candidates haven’t shown much to convince us; the choice is really to vote for the less “bad” of the two.

Despite all this talk of financial bailouts and government intervention, we regular folk need to fend for ourselves in the midst of the chaos. We may be mere spectators to what goes on in the big, wide world of finance, while some of us have already become unsuspecting casualties to the sweeping economic events of the past couple of years, but we don’t have to feel so helpless (even though it may seem that way). I’d like to investigate the things we can do to limit the negative effects of this difficult economy on our financial status and well-being.

How Can We Prepare For A Tough Economy?

When it comes to your family, it’s time to circle the wagons and consider extreme measures to survive the economic crisis. You should act as if you were about to lose your job. Prepare for the possibility just in case it happens, because some banks are failing and the others are afraid to loan money to small businesses. If large companies are cutting their workforce by the thousands, imagine how difficult it is for small businesses to survive.

Don’t Emulate The Joneses

I see some of my neighbors still buying expensive and gas consuming cars and trucks, probably because they have stellar credit. This is not the time to buy anything costly, be it a car or a house, unless you are overflowing with excess cash. Even if you enjoy a good financial position, with little debt, things could turn around in a hurry. I know, because I went through it 20 years ago. I was laid off suddenly from a software company with 140 employees. I still had to come up with the mortgage and the car payments and every other expense a family has to live with.

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Within the next week or two, I’m having a fellow personal finance blogger and Miami Herald columnist, Sharon Harvey Rosenberg of The Frugal Duchess, share some of her thoughts here with you as she promotes her new book “The Frugal Duchess: How To Live Well and Save Money.” Sharon will be launching a book tour both online (and off?) to give us a chance to learn more about this project. For all you money saving mavens out there, do give this book a look see — I’m waiting for my own copy at this time with much anticipation, especially after reading a little about what went into it, in Sharon’s blog post about her book writing experience: “What I Learned About Money From Writing A Book”.

Here’s a little bit about what she says about her book:

Instead of writing a how-to book, Bob suggested that I combine my Miami Herald columns with a narrative. I took his advice on that matter and others. It was a good formula and allowed me to mix finance with stories about my family. My vault of family tales, includes portraits of my unusual grandmothers, hard-working women from the South, who left their husbands and children for assorted reasons.

I’m intrigued!

So please stay tuned for more on this book tour, which we’ll be presenting to you here over the next several weeks.

For now, let’s check out the action at a few carnivals.

Debt Kid presented a very special Meltdown Edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, with the following great reads among 56 money articles:

• Money and Fitness Blog: Renting vs. Selling your house: a cost breakdown
• Financial Blogger: A Story About Banks: They Are NOT In The Real Estate Business
• The Dividend Guy: Bit The Bullet and Actually Bought A Stock — How Absurd!
• The Wisdom Journal: Where Do We Go From Here? How About Back To The Basics

Value For Your Life hosted the Festival of Frugality, Gratitude Edition, where I enjoyed these selections:

• Simply Forties: Frugality vs Environmental Responsibility
• Cheap Healthy Good: Veggie Might: Don’t Fear The Bean Curd
• Bible Money Matters: Using Coupons Can Cost You Money!

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Is the economy affecting your spending patterns? How much effect does the economy have on how you save money?

Things must be bad when the wealthy start to tighten their belts. It appears that a lot of the rich have decided that their normal spending habits can no longer go on unchecked. With the market having sliced their asset base in a big way, some of these rich folks are having to make adjustments.

I found a rather amusing story in the Wall Street Journal about the rich deciding to economize because the economy’s been on shaky ground. Here are examples of how the rich are economizing right now:

• Postponing a nose job for a child.
• Cutting down on nanny costs from $1,200 a week down to $750 a week.
• Having second thoughts about purchasing a $25 million megayacht.
• Deciding to go with a cheaper $1,200 Botox treatment in place of a planned facelift.
• Slashing the jewelry budget in half, from $50,000 to $25,000 for an anniversary present.
• High end jewelry stores needing to offer storewide sales, with discounts of 25% off.
• Greater interest in selling off trinkets like jewelry and gold watches.
• Chasing down discounts for Armani pin stripe suits because of “shaky” finances: $500 is a superb deal at 80% off!

Is this for real? Because I don’t see this as economizing at all, at least from the vantage point that I have. Well, it’s all relative, after all; even after downsizing and cutting back, a lucky few are still living a life that is way beyond anything we can imagine having.

This story made me reflect on a few things. One thing it made me realize was the effect of wealth on most people. It’s human nature to expand our appetites along with the expansion of our incomes or net worth. If you used to make $100,000 and live on $50,000 a year, but find yourself one day making $400,000, would it be any surprise if you’ve gradually expanded your budget accordingly? How many people would actually still live on $50,000 a year even after reaching incomes that may be quadruple what they originally earn?

A lot of true frugalists will say that no matter how much their income or asset base has increased, they wouldn’t change their ways. Their spending and saving philosophy is quite conservative, which you’d label as the approach taken by “The Millionaire Next Door”.

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Take care of your financial health and become financially fit and happy with these tips.

“Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure helps” said somebody famous. There are a few common sense steps we may want to follow in order to reach financial quasi independence at age 50 or earlier and be reasonably happy if we have the four principal ingredients:

• A good wife/husband (or none whatsoever)
• Good health (you can still climb two flights of stairs without suffering a heart attack)
• A job you enjoy and
• Financial peace of mind.

If you are age 18 to 30, the following advice may well lead you to that lofty goal:

#1 Go crazy in the earlier years.

Take your risks early.

Do all the crazy things you want between 18 and 25. Don’t worry too hard about money or your financial future, as there’ll be time enough for stress later on. Get it (whatever your preferences may be) out of your system. Climb the highest mountain, go hunt the great white shark, or find out what Copacabana is all about during Carnival. A couple of important caveats: Get an education in between crazy experiments and begin developing a discipline for saving.

#2 Consider the 20 / 80 savings rule.

Save 20% of your take home pay if you are single, and save as much as you can if you are married, preferably 10% of both incomes. DO NOT, under any circumstances, touch that money. Simply forget that it exists.

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Are you thinking of installing a pool or buying a home with one? Why not save yourself many thousands of dollars and cool off with some water fun activities and the best toys of summer instead?

In many places, a swimming pool is still considered some kind of status symbol. But unless you live in the desert somewhere, or decide that money is no object for you, a swimming pool is likely more pain than its worth. A while ago, I questioned the effect a pool has on one’s home valuation and offered reasons why it just isn’t worth the cost. I’m all for following this up with some cheaper alternatives, especially if you’re eager to get wet this summer.

Swimming Pools: Water Holes Or Money Pits?

But first, here’s a look at the dollar amounts you’ll face when you decide to own a concrete watering hole (from MSN Money):

• In-ground pools add 7.7% to a home’s value, according to the National Association of Realtors, but it really depends on where you live. They’re much more popular in desert states, while not as desirable by the coasts.
• Above-ground pools take away 1.9% from a home’s selling price.
• Typical cost of installing a pool: between $25,000 to $50,000.
• Hiring a pool service may cost between $1,500 to $2,000 annually to cover maintenance, water, regular repairs.
• Heating your pool may easily add another $500 annually to your utility bills.
• Running a pool filter may add $600 annually to your electric bill.
• Liability insurance, pool fences, warning signs, a pool cover and other maintenance tools may take away several hundred to thousands of dollars from your budget.

Verdict: I added up at least $3,000 in annual costs alone to maintain a swimming pool. What more the enormous installation costs and potential hit to your home’s value?

Cheap Summer Options: Water Fun Activities and Toys

But all is not lost as there are always cheaper alternatives for everything. So if you’re hot and bothered, here are some guaranteed ways to save yourself upwards of $50,000:

Where To Go To Have Fun in the Water

1. Visit someone who already owns a pool.
2. Visit amusement parks with water rides.
3. Go to the nearest local water hole or beach (if you live near one).
4. Become a member at a sports club or YMCA or any place with the facilities you are looking for.
5. Make your own water toys. Have you tried to make a DIY slip and slide or water slide?
6. Have a ball with your garden tools: a lawn sprinkler or hose will do.

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Do you know how much you need to save for your children’s college education? Here are some simple tools to help.

How much have we thought about our children’s future? To be honest, we’re not sure where our own kids will be going yet; it may be way too early for that. Of course, we all wish they’ll be eligible for the Ivy Leagues, but that won’t become apparent until they’re much older. And even if they have a shot at attending such universities (and that’s a BIG IF, based on parameters such as how competitive the admissions landscape will be by the time they apply for college and our children’s “credentials” at that point), the question arises: can we afford a high-end university education?

Basic Strategies To Save For College

There are many ways to save for a kid’s education. Here are a couple of scenarios:

• Pay up now, and cross your fingers. Many people spend their funds on the best private elementary schools money can buy early on, in order to prepare their kids for possible entry into top-notch schools later. Once their kids are ready for college, they hope that their kids qualify for financial aid.
• Save now and pay up later. Others scrimp and save to meet the longer term goal of funding a college education for their child, while having their kids attend public schools at the lower grade levels. They make the sacrifices today to afford the costs of a high quality education at a prominent university later on.

For now, we’ve chosen the road from “public/semi-private school to top-rated college” (the latter route), although how much money we save will have an impact on the type of college or university our children will be attending.

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