In an effort to reduce my total monthly expenditures, I’ve decided to switch to Starbuck’s VIA instant coffee a few days a week. Instead of paying $2.62 a day for my iced Americano, I am only spending $.75 plus about $.20 once I add the vanilla syrup. That’s a $1.67 daily savings on the days I drink VIA. If I can stick to the VIA  4 days a week, I’ll save approximately $26 a month. In a year, I can save $312!

Too much caffeine

The only downside, is that the VIA doesn’t quite taste like my iced vanilla Americano. I’ve purchased vanilla syrup from World Market, to add the sugary flavor I’ve grown to like, but the instant coffee just doesn’t quite have the same flavor, or strength as 4 shots of espresso. Yes, you read that correctly. My Americano has 4 shots of espresso over ice with 8 pumps of vanilla syrup. Zing!

On top of the reduction of caffeine, the taste of the VIA compared to the espresso just isn’t the same. I’m sure I’ll adapt to the weakened flavor, I’ll just have to add more syrup or double up the packs of VIA (but, then I don’t think I end up saving quite as much money this way.) The reduced caffeine may give me a head ache for a few days, but this is something I can live with. If I can alternate my regular Americano with the VIA, I think I can adjust quickly and painlessly to the caffeine reduction.

The draw back to this plan is that the VIA over ice doesn’t last as long as my traditional Americano. For instance, on a regular Americano day, I sip my iced drink over a total of 4 hours. Usually finishing the drink around my recess time, it complements my oatmeal breakfast/brunch meal. With the alternative VIA drink, it already is somewhat watered down to begin with, or at least that’s what the flavor resembles according to my palate. Four hours later, it begins to taste a bit like burnt coffee that has chilled to room temperature, not a favorite taste of mine. VIA is a great hot coffee alternative, but most days, something like 360 out of the 365, I prefer iced coffee. The iced coffee holds up better to that 4-hour span than hot coffee. It is also easier for me to transport a cold drink on my bike than a hot one. My water bottle doubles as a reusable coffee mug and can’t take the heat!

As I adjust to this frugal shortcut, I’m sure I’ll make adjustments or additions to my second favorite drink.

I’m the expert on running on fumes. To be more specific, I run on fumes in a number of ways. Let me count them for you:

1. I can go about 3 hours in the morning on a Starbucks coffee alone. No food, just java juice, teaching 5- and 6-year old’s how to read up until their recess time. I run my body on a highly caffinated and sugary drink. (Sometimes this includes a 45 minute bike ride to school on a beautiful day).
2. I work a total of 12 hours a day, if I include my travel time. I start the work day at 8am (no travel included here) and finish around 6:30 pm or 7pm, depending on the day. I teach, I help my husband with his graphic design business, I post daily, and I have homework to complete. I rarely have time to breathe, let alone have a sit-down meal. (There’s a trend building here I think).
3. I can stretch our bank account dollars until our next payment arrives, whether it’s a client we’re waiting on, or my monthly (yes, monthly) paycheck. The most frustrating part of owning your own business is the infrequent payments; some clients pay within a week or two, others pay on a monthly basis, and still others take their time and pay when they feel like it, pushing 45 – 60 days at times.
4. I can hyper-mile our car until the gas light has been on for a full day running on fumes, or ride my bike if I feel like not filling that day. This isn’t as difficult for my husband and me since he works from home and rarely needs our one vehicle, and I enjoy biking to and from work or school.

I’ve always been a very active person, I can’t sit still for very long or remain unproductive. I’m not ADD or ADHD, I know what this looks like, I can actually focus on tasks and complete them. I just like to stay busy. I’ve been like this since I was a child; playing outside until the street lights came on, babysitting when I was a teenager, working two jobs or more jobs when I was attending college for my BA in my early 20′s. It’s very difficult for me to just sit.

Full Speed Ahead

Most friends and family members comment on my fast-walking pace as I zip around the neighborhood, school, or store. I physically can’t walk slowly, it hurts my hips, which you would think would be just the opposite. Whether I’ve eaten a balanced, nutritious meal, or I’ve only had my sugary Starbucks drink, my speed remains the same: full speed ahead.

When my husband and I visit our families, we become restless while the television is blasting in the background and our relatives are in a vegetative state on the couch. We fidget and squirm until we finally get up and leave for a bike ride, or a drive to the store, or a bar for a drink (not that I’m a big drinker – I’m always the designated driver, a complete tee-totatler). With the holiday season coming up, we’re making our plans and dreading the family visits. We love our families, but we don’t necessarily like how they celebrate the holidays, in front of the TV! So, we must decide how we are going to keep busy, active, and productive over the holiday season, whether I’m running on fumes or a full tank.

I consider myself a fairly organized person. I have to be. I’m juggling many balls, or wearing many hats, to use a metaphor describing my current life style. I help my husband with his graphic design business, I teach elementary school, I am attending school myself part-time to finish up my teaching credential, and I’ve started a blog because I enjoy writing. So, being organized, or managing my time wisely, is a must for me.

However, my wallet (or wallets) is/are the one area where I’m just not as organized. Now, I read years ago that a messy,or disorganized, wallet is an indicator of a messy financial situation. I don’t know how much I agree with this, though I can see where one would make that connection. My situation, though, is different. In some ways, I have achieved superb wallet organization, in others, I’ve not. For example, I have two wallets. One wallet holds all of my credit cards, which I rarely use, my AAA membership card, my health insurance, dental insurance, and pharmacy card, and a Border’s Books Club card. This is a wallet that I don’t pull out very often.

My other wallet, a small, fake-leather, coin purse I purchased in Mexico almost two years ago, holds my debit/ATM card, my Starbucks Gold Reward Card, my savings account ATM card, my Ralph’s Club card, my driver’s license, and (here is the surprise) a couple of Starbucks Gift Cards. I use this wallet on a daily basis. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket when I ride my bike to Starbucks in the morning or to the grocery store. It’s also convenient to place in a small clutch when, and this is rare, I go out and need a smaller purse. I knew I had a couple of Starbucks Gift Cards in there, but I thought they only had a dollar or less on them, so haven’t bothered to pull them out in a while.

Starbucks Gift Card, a pleasant surprise!

The other day, my husband needed my debit card to renew our AAA membership. He pulled out my small coin purse and emptied the contents on his desk (this was easier for him to do than file through the cards with his large fingers). When the two Starbucks Gift Cards fell out, along with the debit card he needed, he announced his finding to me. He even had the time to look online and check their balances. To both of our amazements, one of the gift cards still had $20.00 on it! I was shocked. Not only did I not realize I had this kind of credit on one of the gift cards, I don’t even remember saving it for future use.

A few days have passed and I still haven’t used my gift card. I am now subconsciously ‘saving’ it for a rainy day. However, that little surprise was delightful, sort of a similar feeling to finding cash in a washed article of clothing.

Do you find pleasure in surprises such as these? How many of us misplaced a gift card only later to find it? Did you use it right away, or save it?

With thoughts of purchasing a home in the next few months, my husband and I have begun to have conversations about what we like about our current neighborhood. These conversations are helping us build an idea about what we want in a neighborhood. What we like about our current neighborhood where we’re residing:

• Older homes have more character than the newer “cookie-cutter” versions (older homes may have been cookie cutter’s years ago, but subtle changes over time have given them more character)
• Within a mile of our house are some stores, a Starbucks, and some fast-food restaurants that we can bike to
• Three miles from our house are a few nicer restaurants (a college is near this area, so Chili’s is the “nicer” restaurant of that I speak)
• Two miles from our house is a park with bike paths (though, the bike paths don’t necessarily lead anywhere expect around the park)

However, our current neighborhood also has some drawbacks like low-rent apartments, graffitti, and very few clearly marked bike paths. Though I like the character of the older homes, some of the homes have been neglected for many years and, unfortunately, bring down the value of the neighborhood.

One item my husband and I would really like in a neighborhood is to be able to bike, on clearly marked bike paths, to nice restaurants or bars for an evening out. With this in mind, I began to research walkable neighborhoods using the Walk Score website. A neighborhood that clearly stands out for us is Canoga Park, an adjacent neighborhood only 4 miles from our present location. Many small antique shops, a couple of diners, and a theater have revitalized this once old neighborhood. Five blocks, on both sides of the street, are made for walking and the outlying half-mile or so are also quite pedestrian friendly. Canoga Park has a walk score of 72 out of 100, with 100 being a walker’s paradise. (see below for a comparison of cities)

On the other hand, a community with newer homes (and these aren’t really all that new) has a much lower walk score. Granada Hills is rated at a 49, anything under 50 is considered car-dependent on the Walk Score website. The design of these communities focuses on block after block of houses without a store or restaurant in sight. I can think of many contemporary suburban communities that are similar to this. Somewhere in the urban planning process, being able to walk somewhere was forgotten.

Walk Score has rated cities walkable.

Obviously, most urban communities are very walkable; think New York City or San Francisco. Yet, in many suburban cities and outlying urban areas, you can find pockets of walkable neighborhoods. Finding bikeable cities, however, is another task that I haven’t yet conquered. Of the bike-friendly cities I know of, none are within a few miles of where my husband and I live and we will unlikely move for that reason alone.

A few other reasons my husband and I prefer an older neighborhood is that they have more mom and pop type stores and not just big box stores. Since we are entrepreneurs ourselves, we like supporting other small businesses when we can. We also like that older neighborhoods have a more diverse population; cookie-cutter neighborhoods tend to draw cookie-cutter couples with their two children and their dog.

So, our search continues for the pedestrian/bike-friendly, quasi-suburban, affordable, character-rich neighborhood that may only exist in movies. Does anyone know of a bike-friendly website like Walk Score? Can someone recommend a neighborhood in suburban Los Angeles that they absolutely love?

Finding the extra money to save requires a lot of planning. In the past, whenever my husband and I had extra money, we’d apply it toward a large purchase, like a dresser or new laptop. Over the past 8 months, we’ve had to reign in our spending and live more frugally. Some of the ways we’ve done this are reducing our take-out meals. Seriously, I can’t cook. I’m not interested at all, so that leaves simple meals like spaghetti or sandwiches. Good thing we’re not picky eaters.

We don’t travel much since we work from home and we’ve limited our visits to family and friends this past year, basically giving them the excuse that we’re saving for a house. Most of them can sympathize with us knowing that it’s very expensive here in LA. Some additional ways we’ve saved money to maximize our budget are:

• recycling our cans and plastic ourselves: every 3 weeks or so we collect about $25, enough to cover the cost of a hair cut
• Starbucks Gold card: okay, this is a luxury, I know, but I need the caffeine and I save 10% everyday on my drink
• bringing my own cup to Starbucks: another 10 cents off my drink
• biking short distances: I bike to the grocery store or bank, this saves on gas
• using our Wells Rewards card: we use our points toward Shell Gas cards. We’ve only had to purchase gas a few times so far this year
• paying off our credit cards in full each month: since we’ve paid off our credit cards, when we do use them, we pay them off before finance charges accrue. Once we paid off our cards, we realized how many hundreds of dollars we had paid in finance charges, they really add up.

I’ve never been a big spender, so limiting my shopping has been pretty easy for me. My husband has struggled a little more with this since there is always something that he needs. Those big, brown, puppy eyes make it difficult for me to say no, but this year we both know it is more important to save for our goal: purchase a house.

Personal Savings 2008 vs. 2009