Ever wonder what it takes to write a knock out blog? Check out my story on the difference between writing for print and online, published today in Media Bistro. The site requires a paid membership, but I’ll share the intro.
Succeeding as a blogger comes down to three things: creating appealing blog content, choosing a topic that has natural commercial potential, and promoting your blog to no end. The last two don’t matter a whit unless you have mastered the first. Technical hurdles aside, many print journalists struggle to make the transition to blogging. This article aims to ease that pain by outlining…
I hope you find it useful! If you’d like to know more about the transition from print to blog, I’ve lectured many times on the subject. Shoot me an email if you’d like to know more.
Here is my interview on NBC! It’s 2 mins long and very exciting!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auDtduc8ZoI
PS. I don’t normally wear that much make up, but it’s TV!
If heard about BargainBabe.com on TV this morning, welcome! BargainBabe.com has tons of great tips for saving money on everyday expenses, including:
Alternatives to pricey summer camp
A recession garden may NOT save you money
If you’d like to stay on top of all the best deals, sign up for my FREE email list.
If you’d like to advertise on BargainBabe.com, check out my Advertise page.
Otherwise, please scroll down to see what other deals I’ve featured!
~Julia
aka Bargain Babe
This week’s fabulous comment comes from a reader named l_devere, who wisely pointed out that the value in driving far for cheap gas applies to other purchases.
This same thinking applies to grocery shopping and no one thinks to mention this (hint, hint BB). Just to start the car adds $$ to the cost of errands (I was told years ago it was ~$2.00/start). Does anyone truly save by buying meat at one store and dairy at another 3 miles away, and TP at a third, all because they’re “on sale”? The cost of your time, plus the wear and tear on your vehicle must ALWAYS be weighed when bargain hunting. Unless quality differs significantly, most of the time it is not worth it.
It’s easy to calculate vehicle wear and tear. AAA puts it at $.50 per mile. But calculating the value of your time is much harder. Do you base it on the hourly rate that you earn at work? Do you think about how busy you are? Do you weigh it against the value of doing something else with your time, say, spending time with your family?
I was checking my utility bill recently and noticed So Cal Edison included stats on our past electricity usage. Our average daily electricity usage has dropped from 16 kilowatt per hour in 2007, to 14.59 kWh last year. This year our average usage is 13.33 kWh.
That’s a drop of by 9 percent from 2007 to 2008, and another 8 percent from 2008 to 2009. Not too shabby.
Here are some purposeful (and inadvertent) changes we made to reduce our wattage.
- We replaced our ancient fridge with one that is newer and more efficient
- We run our hot tub less frequently (but still often enough that our friends come over!)
- We wash our clothes on the cold water setting
- We line dry about half of each load (which is as much as the line can take)
- We updated our microwave when the latch broke, above, to one made this century
- We fixed our forced air heater last winter instead of using our plug-in heater
- We unplugged our TV and eventually got rid of it (Hulu, baby!)
What have you done to reduce your utility bill?
Call me a late adopter, but did you know that you can calculate how much juice your old appliance is costing you on EnergyStar.gov? Their handy calculator lets you see how many dollars you can save by upgrading a refrigerator or freezer and how much you can reduce your bill if you unplug an extra fridge or freezer. Cool!
All you need to know is the approximate year your model was made, the capacity (in cubic feet), and the general shape of the appliance. Or you can plug in the model number. They also have a link to your state’s average electricity price in case you are too lazy to dig out your utility bill. How practical.
The numbers are convincing. For instance, if your fridge was made before 1980 and cools 19-21 cubic feet, you could save $1,005 over five years by upgrading. The calculator says your old clunker costs $246 a year to run, but an Energy Star qualified fridge costs just $45 a year to run. That’s $201 cheaper per year!
If you are running a second freezer, you could unplug it and save $174 a year. (That’s for a 19-21 cubic foot freezer made before 1980.) Both calculations are using the average national price of $.11 per kilowatt hour. Of course, if you unplug your extra freezer you have less space to be a freezer diva, which has many money-saving attributes.)
UPDATE: Looks like the segment is slated to run between 6-7 a.m. PST Friday, June 12!
PREVIOUSLY: Woot woot! A crew from KNBC just spent more than an hour interviewing me about BargainBabe.com – I might be on TV!!!
If the segment runs it will be one between 6 – 7 a.m. PST tomorrow, June 12, on the Today in LA show on KNBC. I’ll update this post if I find out more. You never know when a story can get bumped.
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Both gift card winners got back to me very quickly yesterday. The existing reader prize went to Debbie, who started reading BargainBabe.com before it officially launched (wow!) on Jan. 26, 2009! Debbie claimed her $25 gift card with great enthusiasm. “Woohoo!” she emailed me. “Trader Joe’s would be awesome!”
Debbie also suggested a Lincoln Lunch for me to check out – super!
The contest was a great success with more than 400 people signing up! That means I will have more contests so you all have chances to win in the future!
In the meantime, thank you so much for your readership. BargainBabe.com is thriving because of your support.
Here’s a way to lower your grocery bill that I had not considered. Instead of buying meat from the butcher, buy part of a cow from a farmer.
The way it works is a few families get together to order enough beef to slaughter a cow, called cow-pooling. Each buyer pays a flat rate of about $3 to $5 per pound, which is much less than you would pay for grass-fed beef anywhere else, according to Time magazine, which has a story about cow-pooling in its June 15, 2009 issue.
“That price includes ground beef and stew meat as well as tenderloin and filet mignon, not to mention beef tongue and a cantaloupe-size heart,” the story says. (Note, heart is apparently a good substitute for bacon?!)
Jean Edwards, a woman interviewed for the story, has an extra freezer to preserve the side of beef she purchased (about 250 lb ) as part of her cow-pool. The meat lasts about a year.
Assuming you can eat that much beef – about 2/3 lb each day for a year – how much does it cost to freeze? If you don’t have an extra freezer, how much does one cost?
Let’s look into this because these costs are a real part of buying “cheaper” beef. Home Depot has a 7.2 cubic freezer for $219. Shipping is an extra $149, which brings the freezer cost to $368.
How much electricity does this freezer suck up in one year? Hubby suggested I check EnergyStar.gov, which has an easy-to-use calculator to determine how much you can save by either upgrading an appliance or by getting rid of an extra one. (Look for an upcoming blog post about this.) Energy Star says running the Home Depot freezer would cost $57 bucks a year.
That means the total cost of buying a side of grass-fed beef is:
250 lb x average of $4/lb: $1,000
Cost to buy freezer: $368
Cost to run freezer: $57
Total: $1,425, or about $5.70 per pound of meat in your first year. In your second year that drops to $4.20/lb, assuming your freezer is still working.
Is $4.20 – $5.70 more or less than you pay on average for beef? It’s much higher than I usually pay, though we never buy grass-fed beef. Apparently once you eat grass-fed beef, it’s hard to go back to the regular (corn-fed) stuff.
Related resources:
LocalHarvest.org helps you find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area if you want to buy produce and grass-fed meat.
EatWild.com has information about grass-fed meat and links to farmers who sell grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles.
Just heard about a way to buy a Father’s Day gift and donate to charity in one fell swoop. Use GoodShop.com to search for and buy your gift. The site has partnerships with more than 1,000 stores, including Amazon, Home Depot and GolfSmith, that have agreed to donate a percentage of each purchase to your (or your Dad’s) favorite nonprofit. The site also has coupons and deals.
To use the site, go to GoodShop.com and designate your favorite cause (you only do this the first time). Click through to your favorite store – shop on their site as you normally would and a percentage of your purchase will go to your cause!
Similarly, GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo powered search engine that donates about a penny per search to your favorite cause. When you first visit the site, designate your favorite cause, then search as you normally would. Each search gives about a penny goes to your cause!
Folks, I’ve very excited to tell you major development is coming soon to BargainBabe.com! I can’t share all the details just yet, other than this new development will add a lot more deals to the site.
I’m not very good at keeping secrets but I want to get (most of) the kinks out before sharing it with you. It’s going to be a lot of fun and make BargainBabe.com a lot more interactive.
So stay tuned in the coming weeks for a BIG BARGAIN announcement!
The names have been drawn! The winners have been notified!
Thank you to all the new and existing readers who participated in the $25 gift card giveaway. The winners and their gift card selection (either Target or Trader Joe’s) will be announced soon. Stay tuned!
If you did not sign up in time, no worries. You can still join my free email list and get great deals and tips sent to your Inbox.
~Julia
aka Bargain Babe
The arts and crafts chain Michael’s has some neat suggestions for gifts your kids can make for their Dad, including a tie card, tool caddy and customized kitchen apron. (Link seems to be broken right now, but could just be overloaded by requests. Try again later if it does not work for you.) As I come across more Father’s Day gift ideas, I’ll share them here.
Related:
Frugal Father’s Day gift ideas
UPDATE: Just got wind of another Walgreen coupon for 33 percent off posters, prints, and photobooks through June 13, 2009, using code 4DAD.
PREVIOUSLY: Borders has three coupons good through June 10, 2009, including 40% off the list price of any box set, 25% off the list price of one book, and a Sony Digital Reader for $199 (orig $299). The last coupon is good through June 14, 2009. Coupons are valid in store only and require Borders Rewards membership, which is free.
Get $5 off a $25 purchase in store or online purchase at Walgreens now through June 11, 2009. Print the coupon here. Some caveats.
H&M’s summer sale starts today with items for $5 and up. Join their family and friends email list for details.
ShortCuts.com lists their latest grocery coupons here.
Get an extra 20% off online purchases at J.Crew through June 10, 2009. Use code EXTRA20.
If you have a coupon to share, please add it in the comments!
Thanks Sarah and Tina!
Every month or so a fantastic catalog arrives in my mail for Yummy.com, a grocery delivery store. And every time the nearly edible pictures convince me to place an order – until I see the prices. But how much more expensive is Yummy? And does the time savings make up for higher prices?
To be fair, I thought I would compare Yummy’s prices to Albertsons, which sent me a (much less attractive) flyer yesterday. Below, Yummy prices are listed first followed by the Albertsons prices. The cheaper of the two is bolded.
Artichokes – $2.99 ea v. $2.50 ea
Cucumbers - $.99 ea v. $.50 ea
Red peppers - $.99 ea v. $.50 ea
Kiwis – $.50 ea v $.33 ea
Russet potatoes - $3.98/10lb v. $3.99/10lb
Sliced ham – $9.38/lb v. $4.99/lb
Ground beef – $4.49lb v. $3.50/lb
Ground turkey (20 oz) - $3.99 v. $3.99 (tie)
Halibut – $18.65/lb v $9.99/lb
Breyer’s ice cream – $5.99 v. 2/$6
Sliced bread loaf – $4.99 v $2.50
Orange juice – $3.99 v. $3
Yogurt (32 oz) – $4.29 v. $2.50
Cheerios (18 oz) – $5.29 v $4.99
Sugar (5lb) – $3.99 v. $2.79
Fiji water (24 5-liter bottles) – $25.99 v $23.96
Pacifico beer 12-pack – $12.99 v. $11.99
Yellowtail Chardonnay – $7.99 v $9.99
If I bought all these items from each store, my Yummy tab would come to $121.47. (Delivery is free because my Yummy tab exceeded $100.) My Albertsons tab would come to $95.01. That means shopping at Yummy is 28 percent more expensive.
Buying groceries through Yummy saves time, however. To get every thing I need at the grocery store takes me 60 minutes at Albertsons plus 45 minutes if I also run to Trader Joe’s. Calling an order into Yummy’s would probably take no longer than 15 minutes, though this is a guesstimate because I have not done this.
So I stand to save 90 minutes each week using Yummy. Is that worth the $26.46, or $17.64 per hour?
Not for me. What about you?
