Tightwad Gazette Tour | Credit cards sure have changed!

Look at me, with only two weeks between Tightwad Gazette installments. Let’s go. 🙂

Turn your jeans into a japron, a jote bag, a jorganizer, a jest…

Lots of ideas here.

These ideas probably work best with jeans that aren’t stretchy; your worn-out skinny jeans might not work as well as more traditional denim.

I was about to raise my eyebrows at the idea of teens wearing the denim vest, but then I googled and it does seem like the young and stylish might be currently wearing denim vests.

Please see screenshot:

Credit cards 30 years ago!

I don’t think I got my first credit card until Lisey was born, so…2001/2002? Thus, I have no personal experience with credit card scene at the time the Tightwad Gazette was written.

It is apparent in reading this article that credit card rewards did not exist at the time. In fact, the benefit of paying an annual fee was just that you got a lower interest rate!

And back then, the main monetary advantage of using a credit card was that you could keep your money in your bank account for an extra 45 days, to earn interest. But given the era, Amy cautions that you need to take into account the cost of the stamp it takes to mail your bill in. 🙂

I mainly use credit cards for the rewards they offer. I have my Citi card for the 5% back on groceries, my Amazon card for the 5% back on Amazon, and my Southwest card for pretty much everything else.

I charge nothing that I wouldn’t pay cash for, and I have my accounts all automatically set to be paid in full online every month (no stamps necessary!). I pay $0 in interest and just happily pocket the rewards.

Amy would approve. 🙂

Creative Deprivation

This is one of those article that I do remember reading! Creative deprivation is based on the concept that you enjoy things more when you don’t get to have them all the time.

The more you get what you want, whenever you want, the less you appreciate it. I suppose in a sense you develop a tolerance for it, or a numbness to it. It becomes the bare minimum that you expect in order to function.

(Which is, I suppose, rather analogous to the way drug/alcohol tolerance works.)

You know how in houses where the TV is on all day, the kids tend to not pay attention to it? But in households where the TV is rarely on, kids will watch a show with rapt attention.

In the same way, if you always buy your kid a toy or a treat when you go shopping, it will become the bare minimum they expect, rather than a delightful treat.

At the time, Amy believed that children were overstimulated by the constant presence of the TV, and I can only imagine what she thinks about the current overstimulation in both children and adults because of phones and tablets!

She says, “I suggest you step off the merry-go-round. Though this might seem more boring at first, eventually you’ll come to enjoy a game of checkers or trying a new bread recipe or, one of Jim’s favorites, watching the freezer defrost.” Hehe.

One thing I’d add to this article: being able to engage in creative deprivation is something of a privilege. There are plenty of people on this planet who live lives of necessary deprivation, and being able to deprive yourself by choice is a blessing in and of itself.

How to save on funerals (!!!)

This article contains some names and addresses of organizations that offer assistance with funerals, and I assume they are mostly out of date.

But still, this is an important topic because death-related arrangements tend to be pricey. And give that it is a time of intense grief, people tend not to have the bandwidth to think about money-saving options.

For me personally, the plan is this: donate whatever is useful to medical science, then cremate me and use some kind of soil amendment to make my ashes safe to put in the ground.

(Cremation ashes are very alkaline and have high sodium levels so they’re actually not good for the soil on their own.)

This method strikes me as affordable and also not wasteful. I personally do not wish for my living relatives to spend their money on preserving my dead body; I’d rather have the living use the money for themselves. I also like that cremation avoids the use of things like formaldehyde.

There are other affordable and eco-friendly burial options too, like burying an unpreserved body in a biodegradable casket, or no casket at all.

And you can make a non-legal Letter of Final Wishes document just so that your wishes are clear. 🙂

Are mixes cheaper?

Apparently back in the day, an expert was saying that sometimes mixes are cheaper than cooking from scratch.

So Amy went granular and did price analyses to find out. Her conclusion: the only mix that was actually cheaper was a Jiffy baking mix for biscuits.

But she also did taste tests, and on that front, the from-scratch versions won out every time.

Amy wonders if these mixes actually do save very much time, and I have had the same thought many times as I have mixed up a batch of pancake batter. It seriously takes just a few minutes, start to finish, and I cannot imagine that a pancake mix shaves much time off of that.

A batch of brownies is awfully quick as well, and so are biscuits (although I can see where the pop-open-a-can breads do save time!)

Anyway, I mostly avoid mixes for the taste reason; I think the homemade versions of most things just taste better.

Also relevant: You’ll be slow at first, but you can get faster!

Freezers for small households

This one piqued my interest because I am now part of a very small household of two (which is a big change from the household of six I used to inhabit.)

In the article, Amy argues for the sensibility of owning a small chest freezer even if you are a single person, and I’m on her side here.

When I first moved into this house, I had nothing but my kitchen freezer and it didn’t take me long to get annoyed with living that way.

You can’t stock up on sales (like butter at the holidays or meat mark-downs), you can’t do things like freeze homemade chicken broth and applesauce, and you can’t buy things in bulk (like bread from Sam’s club.)

So, I bought this chest freezer, which is less than $200.

And I have been a much happier camper ever since!

Note: I always use a non-self-defrosting freezer. The self-defrost cycle is what contributes to freezer burn in kitchen freezers, so to me, a self-defrosting extra freezer feels self-defeating. I want to be able to throw stuff in my freezer without worrying it’s gonna get freezer burnt in a short while.

Whoa! Amy wrote about menstrual cups

Somehow this article completely fell out of my memory, but here it is. I had no idea menstrual cups were even a thing back then.

I’ve been on the menstrual cup bandwagon for many years now, and I can vouch for the fact that it is a serious cost-saver over pads or tampons.

Period underwear on the other hand…as I wrote before, those are not quite such a clear-cut win.

I love her last paragraph:

I have personally conducted a nine-year study on the pregnancy/breastfeeding method to avoid the purchase of these feminine products. After thorough and intense calculation, I have determined that one cannot fully recoup the cost of children through tampon savings.

Hehe.

And this is even more true if you are like me and your periods come back promptly despite round-the-clock exclusive breastfeeding. Sigh.

Alrighty, guys…discuss!

(My guess: creative deprivation will be the most-discussed topic. Either that, or period supplies.)