Skinnyflints

No buying new til 2014

After our wedding whirlwind, we are settling back in to our daily routines, and I’ve decided to stop buying new stuff for the next 6 months, excluding a few things: groceries, a new computer (which I will post about shortly), canning supplies (depending on our CSA’s bounty, i may need more jars and they are hard to find in NYC thrift shops, our rings are pretty rusty and you can’t seal jars with rusty rings, and you have to buy new lids for canning every season as they can only be used to seal food 1x (after which you can use them for storing food in your jars, just not for preserving)), and possibly crafting supplies if I don’t have enough in my stashes to make presents.
For everything else, if I can’t find it used, I’m not buying it.
The motivation behind this decision is threefold: 1) buying new crap is bad for the planet 2) we want to pay off my husband’s mortgage on his Detroit area rental house within 2 years, so we are trying to aggressively funnel all extra cash to it and 3) we live in a small apartment and have everything we need already-the more crap we have, the more cluttered it is.
I’ll post updates as this progresses, but so far, it inspired me to make my mother’s birthday present and to donate to my dad’s favorite charity instead of buying him a Father’s Day present. Now that I have time to sew and knit and make jewelry, I want to try to make all of my X-mas and Bday presents this year.

Posted by K

CSA 2013: Week 1

I’m going to try to track this year’s CSA haul, to figure out cost per pound of our delicious, biodynamic produce! 

This week, we got: radishes, turnips, summer squash, zuchini, broccoli, green onions, garlic scapes, lacinato kale, head lettuce, loose baby lettuce, arugula, tatsoi, basil, parsley, and cilantro. 

Total weight of this week’s veggies: 8.75 lbs

Cost of our summer veggie share (23 weeks of produce): $612

Cost per pound so far: $612/8.75 = $69.94

I’ll be out of town next week and will miss our pickup, so a friend of mine is going to pick it up and get to enjoy the bounty :). 

A Skinnyflintian Wedding, part 3

For more about our wedding, please see Part 1 and Part 2.

Here is where I sum up the cost of our wedding:
Food:
Dinner with 11 of my college friends at our 10 year reunion the weekend before: $750.
Croissants and Iced Coffee at Margot Pattisserie: $10
Strawberries, vegan dumplings, hummus, crackers, and Six Point beer for the park: $30
Fresh juice on the street: $12
Dinner at Candle Cafe West: $75
Grand total for food: $877

Clothes:
I bought my dress and hat specifically for the wedding but we already owned everything else.
Strapless grey cotton sundress: $20 at Second Time Around on W 72nd st NYC
Flower hat with veil: $30 from www.dollsvillenyc.com at the Brooklyn Night Bazaar

Anchor stripe high heels: $20 at Buffalo Exchange in LA

peacock print Keds by Eleanor: $10 at Housing Works
Striped purse: $6 at Housing Works
Light pink cardigan sweater: $12 at Buffalo Exchange in Portland OR (bought while there for my friend’s wedding in 2011)!
D wore the pants from a cotton suit that was a groomsman’s gift for being in his friend’s wedding. His Sperry Topsiders were also part of the groomsman’s gift.
His custom tailored in Hong Kong checked button down shirt was $25 at Beacon’s Closet in Brooklyn
Grand total for clothes just bought for the wedding: $50
Grand total for everything we wore that we bought ourselves: $123

Central Park Boat Rental: $12 for one hour

Marriage License: $25
Marriage Ceremony: $35
Folder for marriage certificate: $5.95

Transportation: we have unlimited Metro cards so it was effectively free!

Rings: my band was $625 and D’s was $550, both from the lovely folks at Anna Sheffield who busted their asses to get them made in time since we ordered them very last minute!

Photography: we splurged and got an unlimited package from our photographer, Beth Hommel of Something Cerulean, for $2,000 (yes, she said I could post the price; as she wrote, ‘the industry could really benefit from more transparency’). She was with us for 7 hours and was a joy to work with! We could have gotten a cheaper package but we wanted to document our whole day and not feel rushed. Plus we only have like 3 good photos of us from before our wedding, and we wanted professional portraits of our furbabies.  This shot alone was worth the $:

Total not including rings, photography, dinner with friends the weekend before, and clothes we already owned: $264.95
Total including rings and photography and clothes we already owned: $3,512.95
Total including dinner with friends the weekend before: $4,262.95.

The joy of a stress-free wedding day: PRICELESS! 

Posted by K

A Skinnyflintian Wedding, part 2

For part 1, please click here.

After we bought some fresh juice from a street vendor, we continued walking up to the Ansonia, where Beth scouted out what angles would work best to capture the beautiful building. We took several portraits with the dogs and chatted briefly with some people who had been hanging out outside, who asked us if we had just gotten married. All three of them commented that our simple wedding sounded like a great idea :).
After we finished with pictures at the Ansonia, we walked down 73rd street to Central Park, stopping at a brownstone for some quick photos.

We found a bench in Central Park right on the lake and the 5 of us sat down to enjoy dumplings and strawberries. We then walked to Bethesda Terrace and the beautiful archways next to it for more photos.

Then, it was time for the boat! We went to the boathouse and rented a rowboat. It was Beth’s first time in a rowboat and Tito’s too, and I think they both had fun. Nina, being the piglet she is, decided to lie down in the water in the bottom of the boat to get extra dirty :).

D and I took turns rowing and we found a nice shady inlet to chill in while we broke out the beer and toasted. We then rowed toward the beautiful white bridge for more photos and saw another pair of newlyweds in a rowboat, with their photographer in another rowboat.
After our beer was finished, we were getting a bit hot, so we decided to row back to shore and return the boats. We found some boulders to sit on while Beth photographed our rings on our hands and took some shots of my hat. Nina spent this time getting even more dirty by rolling around happily in the grass.
We said goodbye to Beth and she left while we stayed on the boulders and ate more dumplings and strawberries. When we were done, we walked home to our apartment.
Our doorman told us we had a package and went to the storage room where he got a beautiful Edible Arrangements delivery from my dad. We took it upstairs and I took a nap while D put the fruit in the fridge and read. I woke up a few hours later and we walked uptown to Candle Cafe West, a vegan restaurant on Broadway at 89th street, where we had a delicious dinner. We strolled home, walked the dogs, and I gave Nina a bath before we went to sleep.
It was a beautiful, wonderful day, and we felt so lucky to spend it with Beth and our furbabies!

Posted by K

A Skinnyflintian Wedding, Part 1

Friday, May 31st, 2013 = my favorite day of my life so far, because I got to marry my bestie!

We did it Skinnyflints style because neither of us wanted a big crazy wedding; we preferred a private ceremony. While we did kinda wish we could have our closest friends and family with us, we knew that as soon as we invited one person, the guest list would spiral out of control, feelings would get hurt, and we’d end up miserable. So instead, we married privately and will be celebrating with small dinners with our close friends and family when we see them-an excellent solution because it means we get to actually talk to them and spend time with them instead of saying ‘hello, thank you for coming, gotta go,’ all day/night.

Here’s what our day was like:
We woke up at 8:30 and I put on my dress & then walked the pups while D showered (I had showered the night before so my hair would be dry in the morning). I helped him pick out his outfit (it was a heat wave in NYC so his original plan to wear a wool suit was out)-he went with the pants from a cotton suit that was a groom’s gift to him for being in his wedding, a checked button down that he had bought at a thrift store, and boat shoes that were also part of the groomsman gifts. I wore a strapless cotton sundress, a flower hat with mini veil, and a pink sweater. We said goodbye to the puppies, and walked to Margot Patisserie in the Ansonia, D’s favorite building, where we picked up croissants and iced coffees (Margot’s croissants are one of the only non vegan foods I eat). We got on the subway and ate our croissants on the train downtown, then got out at Chambers street and walked towards the NYC Marriage Bureau. Along the way, we found a farmers’ market and decided to look at their flowers. I found a beautiful bunch of white peonies with magenta centers and we bought them. We then went to the Marriage Bureau and met up with our photographer/witness, Beth Hommel of Something Cerulean.
We had gotten our marriage license on Wednesday (NYC has a 24 hr waiting period before you can get married), so we showed it to the clerk, and they gave us a number which would be called when they were ready for us to have our ceremony.

I went to the bathroom to apply my makeup (it was so hot out, I was afraid it would melt off if I put it on before leaving the house) and D and Beth sat down to wait. Our number was called about 30 minutes later and we went to another clerk where all three of us signed the paperwork. We then sat again to wait and were called in another 30 minutes for our ceremony. We chatted with another couple in the waiting area and then our officiant called us into the purple room (there are two rooms for the ceremonies: purple & orange).
The ceremony took about two minutes and it was short but sweet! I got a little misty eyed, and my wedding band is tight to prevent my engagement ring from slipping off, so it took a little while for D to slide it on my finger.

I loved that at the end of the vows, our officiant said, “I now pronounce you married,” instead of husband and wife/man and wife/etc. D commented that he liked that too, without my mentioning it :).
We went to the little store to buy a folder for our marriage certificate so it would’t get crushed and then went to the beautiful NYC Supreme Court building across the street to take some pictures on the steps. We then walked to the Chambers street 1,2,3 subway station, stopping by a beautiful old lamppost to take more pictures. We got on the subway, and rode home to the Upper West Side. We were greeted by our doorman with a hearty congratulations and two bouquets of flowers from my sister and mom. We went upstairs to get the pups and pack a picnic, and Beth shot photos of our rings while we played with the dogs.

My peonies were suffering in the heat, so we put them in a vase and made a new bouquet from the flowers we had received. Then we headed out to the Ansonia for pictures, stopping at a street cart for fresh squeezed juice along the way.

to be continued…

Posted by K

If you’re thinking about getting a dog, read this first.

http://blog.aspca.org/content/breaking-aspca-removes-150-dogs-michigan-puppy-mill

THINK BEFORE YOU BUY A DOG! Most puppies at pet stores come from inhumane conditions like this. Puppies bought over the Internet are probably coming from this kind of situation, too. Unless you can MEET the breeder and see the breeding operations for yourself, assume it’s a puppy mill.

There are millions of animals in shelters nationwide waiting for loving homes, and not enough room for the shelters to keep every animal until it finds a home-which is why 3 to 4 MILLION companion animals are euthanized in the US every year. Vote with your wallet and your heart to end the cruelty: if you want puppy mills to end, don’t be part of the demand for their products. If you want fewer pets to be euthanized each year, adopt yours and spay and neuter your pets and encourage your friends to do the same. If you’re absolutely desperate for only one breed of dog and your local shelters don’t have any, chek online to see if there is a breed specific rescue group and do a nationwide search on www.petfinder.org.

Let’s make buying a dog something to be embarassed about like smoking or refusing to recycle.

ADOPT, ADOPT, ADOPT!!!!!!!

When it comes to saving money, lifestyle creep is the ENEMY!

The most important piece of advice I received when I was starting out in my career was “Don’t allow your lifestyle to rise as quickly as your pay increases.” I was able to retire at 32 because I am still living a lifestyle quite similar to the one I had when I was 22-and I do not feel deprived or like I am missing out in any way...

There is a phenomenon called hedonistic adaptation that we need to be aware of when we consider upgrading our lifestyles. If you’ve always made your own coffee, but find it to be an annoying task, buying yourself coffee made by someone else feels like a treat when you do it occasionally. Change your routine so you can buy yourself a premade coffee every day and eventually, the specialness of not having to make your own coffee wears off and it’s just a new routine that you are accustomed to. If you buy a new car, or a new handbag, or a new house, initially you will be thrilled about the new features of your new thing, but eventually it will seem ordinary. So before you go out and upgrade your house or car, really think about if the purchase is going to make as big a difference in your quality of life as you think it will-and how long that feeling of a boost in quality of life will last. Once you get accustomed to your new house or car and the ‘new’ feeling has worn off, are you going to feel antsy to upgrade again? What if instead of constantly upgrading and seeking the feeling of newness and specialness, you learn to understand hedonistic adaptation, and decide to be happy with what you already have? The lovely Sheryl Crow wrote the lyric, “it’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.” If you learn to want what you already have, you will feel satisfied, instead of feeling deprived.

I live in the same small studio apartment I bought at 22, and though it is 10 years later, I pay far less to live here. Rather than trading up to a bigger apartment when I got raises and could eventually afford a mortgage payment that was three times my original payment, I channelled my extra cash into paying down the principal, and paid my mortgage off when I turned 30. I met and fell in love with a wonderful man who is into living simply, and instead of us ‘upgrading’ to a bigger apartment when we decided to move in together, we decided to try out living together in the studio, and it worked! Many of our friends don’t understand how we can cohabit in such a small space, but for us the massive financial benefits of staying put far outweigh the occasional wish for a spare bedroom (or any bedroom, or that matter!). Would I be happier in a bigger place? I can honestly say, no, I wouldn’t be. A bigger place would mean more time cleaning, more clutter, and more crap to take care of. It would also mean less time in the same room with my husband who I love spending time with. I would love a garden someday, but a bigger apartment? I’ll pass.

My car is a fabulous 2001 manual transmission Corolla with 103k miles that I have had for 7 years. It’s fun to drive and, even more importantly for both my wallet & the earth, it gets 40+ mpg’s on the highway. Could I drive a more expensive car? Yes, in fact, thanks to my frugal lifestyle throughout my working years, I could now mosey on down to the Manhattan Porsche dealer and pay cash for a brand new 911. but do I want to? No! I love that I don’t feel the need to pay for collision coverage on my little corolla, and that I can street park for free and not care if it gets scratched in the contact sport that is NYC street parking. I love that my car is safe and reliable and that it will last for at least another 100k miles. I love that I am not wasting natural resources by buying a new car when my current one works so well. Would a new car make me happier than my current one? Nope, buying a new car would make me sad. I’d much rather add to my investment property collection than spend my hard earned cash on a depreciating asset!

I’ll never forget a day 4 or 5 years ago when I was making plans to go apple picking with friends. I was the only one with a car so of course I offered to pick everyone up and drive to the orchard. One friend asked what kind of car I had so she’d recognize me when I pulled up to her building, and before I could respond, another girl piped up with a snotty ‘It’s not the kind of car you would expect someone who works for hedge fund would drive.’ Her bitchy comment about my car was when it struck me how different my values were from this girl (who had a custom designed closet for all of her designer shoes). ‘Okay miss priss,’ I thought to myself, ‘ever read The Millionaire Next Door?’ Generally speaking, millionaires next door drive older, modest cars that they own outright, while people who drive ‘luxury’ cars often lease them. What’s the bigger luxury: no monthly car payment and lower insurance costs for the modest car, or no equity in your car, a high monthly lease fee and higher insurance for the BMW/Mercedes/Lexus?

The peace of mind of financial freedom is worth more to me than every designer handbag and luxury car and penthouse apartment there is. I’m happy with what I have and the life I lead, and that is an amazing feeling!

Posted by K