Bad news on the budget frontier

Turns out my Salvation Army shirt-and-scarf combo I wore to work yesterday, while comfy and, in my eyes, at least, attractive, isn’t likely to become my copy editor’s version of a ballplayer’s “lucky underwear.” We found out some part-timers’ jobs are disappearing. Maybe mine. Not exactly surprising, given the state of the newspaper industry. But no, not lucky. Not lucky at all.

Under the circumstances, we decided not to hit the Chinese buffet this weekend, though we’ve “earned” the money by beating our grocery budget by $53.17 over the last few weeks. We’ll probably go out for a family Valentine’s Day dinner next weekend instead.

Some people might think that saving money on your grocery budget just to turn around and spend it in a restaurant is defeating the purpose of saving money.

I disagree. What defeats the purpose of saving money is letting those saved dollars wander unsupervised back into your own private budget wilderness, where they’re likely to vanish without a trace. As long as you account for it, you can put that money in whatever holding cell you think makes the most sense. That’s what a budget’s for. Establishing control. Developing the wilderness in a way that makes you feel safe, protected and happy, however you happen to define those things.

We’ve subdivided our budget wilderness over the years so that we’ve got one cul-de-sac devoted to our next used vehicle, another devoted to property taxes and insurance, another for gas, and so on. My paycheck, though limited, helps build our crisis fund, our charity fund and a long-term investment fund.

We never set up a dining fund, though. To me, it makes more sense to let the dining fund grow or wither based on our grocery-and-kitchen smarts rather than letting it siphon off part of our primary stream of income. It’s a reward, not an entitlement.

Besides, we only drop $15 per person per week into our grocery fund to begin with. Last week, when we beat our grocery budget by 17.33, we spent less than $10 per person on groceries. When we do that -- an effort that involves all six of us, especially the younger kids, who could derail our efforts with not very much whining -- I say, what the heck, we deserve to go out to eat.

No more ogling wardrobe circulars

One of the advantages of the no-new-clothes pledge is that I no longer waste time looking through the weekend clothing ads to see what’s on sale at Kohl’s or Target or wherever. Those ads always look alike to me anyway, and besides, it’s not like they advertise what’s on the clearance rack, which is where I‘ve traditionally done most of my shopping.

By the way, I forgot to post my January clothing purchase totals: $2.14, including tax, for one shirt and one scarf purchased at Salvation Army. (I'm wearing them to work today, as it turns out.)

What the Sweetbriar Rose could’ve served “Under the Dome”

Last night we had one of those end-of-the-budgetary-week dinners where I scrape together whatever I can find to avoid adding to this week’s grocery tally, when it occurred to me that our dinner was one that could easily be served at a fallout shelter, assuming you had some propane for cooking. (This is what I get for reading Stephen King’s “Under the Dome,” not to mention the occasional dose of “Coast to Coast,” that late-night radio show where the advertisers are always trying to sell you what you need to survive the end of the world.)

The menu: Mexican “meatloaf” made with texturized vegetable protein instead of meat, instant mashed potatoes and corn.

Ordinarily I crack an egg into our veggie meatloaf, along with breadcrumbs. I didn‘t have either of those on hand, so after letting the dry TVP granules soak in hot water, I added salsa from a jar, canned refried beans, a bit of olive oil, a chunk of boxed Velveeta-style spicey cheese and, for thickening, some flour stirred with a bit of water to form a paste. Tasty. And I wasn't the only one who said so.

Our corn was frozen, but it could just as easily have come from a can. And for the mashed potatoes, I mixed dry milk powder and water into the potato flakes, along with a touch of salt and a couple of bullion cubes to add flavor to make up for the missing butter. (Another possible fallout shelter-flavoring for nonbutter mashed potatoes: bottled Italian salad dressing.)

We came in 17.33 under our weekly budget of $90, by the way, bringing our dining fund tally to $53.71. So this might be the weekend we hit the Chinese buffet, if the kids are willing to forego soda and just order ice water. (The nice thing about this project is that they’re in charge of all the dining-fund decisions, so I don’t have to be the bad guy telling them they can’t order root beer.)

A new twist on cereal-box collecting

Cereal boxes are like album covers.

The cardboard frontispiece doubles as a canvas for the creative types employed by the cereal makers. They’re limited in their subject matter, but a true artist rises above such limitations. Narrowed options merely concentrate the force we call creativity, like a poet confined to seven syllables in haiku. (Or a copy editor given a tight headline count on a one-column story in the old-fashioned world of print journalism.)

I’m a sucker for pop-culture art, and early on in our frugal-living experiment I remember being so taken with a couple of cereal boxes that I felt compelled to save them. A few years later, taking a spin on eBay, I discovered my empty boxes had no value to collectors, who prefer “mint condition” packages with the cereal still inside (and no doubt still edible, even years later, thanks to all those amazing preservatives.)

Well, I’m too thrifty to let a box of cereal go to waste. So now when I want to preserve a cereal-box cover, I convert it into something I can actually use: a file folder.

Actually, my first few cereal-box file folders were pressed into duty not because the covers were cool, but simply because we needed file folders and I didn’t want to go buy some. It takes only seconds to strip the extra flaps off a cereal box -- most of the time I just tear neatly along the edge, and don’t even bother hunting down a pair of scissors -- and if you leave one narrow side of cardboard connecting the two broadsides, when you fold it into a file one side naturally rises above the other, creating space for labeling what’s inside.

Cereal-box collectors may disagree, but I believe my method actually enhances my appreciation of cereal-box art, because it cranks up the function part of the form-function ratio without destroying the form. (Assuming you consider the form to be the “cover” on the frontispiece, as I do, and not the box in its entirety, as they do.)

There’s also the occasional satisfaction that comes with matching up a cereal cover with the material that goes inside, like the Life cereal folder that contains my “Stuff to Deal With” paperwork, or the Special K folder that holds my Weight Watchers material.

Another All-Star Pantry Performer

I bought some borax last year as a home remedy for ants. Since then we've worked it into our laundry arsenal and discovered a borax-based homemade dishwasher detergent that works at least as well as the commercial brand we'd been using -- and even better when you pour vinegar into the rinse-agent well.

Apparently, though, we've only scratched the surface of potential uses for sodium borate (Na2B4O7.10H2). Did you know you can also use it to cure snake skins, clean your toilet, control the pH in your swimming pool, fertilize soil (in small amounts), turn campfires green, make an awesome batch of play slime, and even, depending on which health ministry has jurisdiction over your part of the globe, use it as a texturing agent in cooking (though I wouldn't recommend it; ingested borax can cause green vomit, diarrhea, convulsions, and even death, according to the National Institutes of Health.)

The Weight Watchers cost-benefit analysis

It’s probably too early to do one, but so far I’ve paid a little less than $20 and lost a little more than 10 pounds. If it were just a matter of paying $2 a pound to take this weight off, I guess I’d say that’s well worth the price. The extra energy that comes with even a 10-pound loss can’t be replicated by caffeine, that’s for sure.

Paying money just to eat less and exercise more goes against every frugal fiber in my well-padded body. But I’ve tasked various committees of brain cells with this assignment numerous times over the years, and never had much success. So if I’m going to pay a subcontractor to orchestrate this process, it seems I‘ve picked a good one, who’s not only generating the desired results but teaching me exactly how the job is done. Eventually this could, and should, turn into a do-it-yourself project.

As for whether I’ve eaten $20 less worth of our family food supply, that’s harder to quantify. I did notice that the takeout pizza we got last week lasted longer -- there were still a couple of slices left 24 hours later, and that feels, well, unprecedented. A jar of cheese dip that usually wouldn‘t last more than a day or two is still hanging around 10 days later. (It‘s amazing how long that stuff can last if you only apply the 2-tablespoon serving size, rather than dunking directly into the jar.) The funny thing is, I didn’t think I was the only one who scarfed cheese dip when it ventured onto the premises. But this experiment indicates otherwise.

Price recognition in the toilet paper aisle

Every few weeks Walgreen’s prices its Big Roll of toilet paper -- 1,000 sheets, just like Scott’s brand -- at 50 cents a roll. When that happens, I stop and buy toilet paper nearly every time I pass a Walgreen’s store.

On my way home from work the other day my route took me past two different Walgreen’s, and on my last stop of the day I happened to notice that just one shelf down from the sale-priced Big Roll, the store was offering four-packs of Scott’s brand toilet paper for $4.19. More than $1 per roll. Twice the cost of what I was paying, plus a little more.

I couldn’t help wondering how many times that week someone reached for the four-pack, oblivious to the fact that they could have bought essentially the same thing for half the cost just by reaching one shelf higher.

I’d like to think it didn’t happen at all, not even once, because if you’re a Scott’s brand loyalist, you’ve already weaned yourself off cushy overpriced toilet paper. (Once you’ve gotten used to 1,000-sheet rolls, it’s hard to go back Everything else just disappears too darn fast.)

But I bet it did.