Fun on the Cheap or Thanks Groupon, Living Social & Mulamu!

As you know, I like to do fun things and go cool places. I enjoy pampering myself and dining out. Almost as much as having fun, I like to have lots of fun for little money. In other words, I have champagne taste on a beer budget. A cheap beer budget.

The last few of weeks have perfectly epitomized my desire to have fun and do cool things with little money.

Let's look at what I did in just one week earlier this month using Groupon, Living Social and Mulamu...

Friday, June 3rd: I pampered myself on our first Friday of "Summer Hours" with a 1-hour massage, hair treatment, scalp massage, and style at Teddie Kossof Salon using a Mulamu certificate. Cost $65. $135 value.

Saturday, June 4th: I took Mom to see Bridesmaids using a 2 tickets for $9 Fandango Living Social certificate. $21 value.

Sunday, June 5th: Read the Chicago Tribune thanks to a $13 Groupon giving me a 52-week Sunday-only subscription. $51 value.

Monday, June 6th: Christopher and I enjoyed dinner at La Tasca using a $30 value Groupon. Cost $15.

Wednesday, June 8th: My Forester Friend Carolyn and I lunched at Southgate using a $30 value Groupon. Cost $15.

Friday, June 10th: Enjoyed my pre-birthday manicure and pedicure at Hair Studio 626 using a Living Social certificate. Cost $29. $58 value.

In the next few of weeks, I'll be receiving a Bitty Box of organic fruits and vegetables from Door to Door Organics ($14 Groupon, $27 value), custom framing my five Christmas cards from President Clinton and one Christmas card from Vice President Gore at Grand Frame & Gallery ($49 Groupon, $125 value), enjoying dinner with Christopher at Texas de Brazil in Chicago ($25 Groupon, $50 value) and taking mom on the Architecture River Cruise with our Chicago Architecture Foundation membership purchased through Groupon for just $25 ($75 value). Before heading off to Watervale, I'll pamper my fingers and toes at Hair Studio 626 using a second Living Social certificate. Finally, before the end of the summer, I'll take a sail on the Tall Ship Windy with a friend (2 $15 Groupons, $60 value).

In case you're not familiar with them, Groupon, Living Social, and Mulamu are all daily deal websites. The basic premise is that a minimum number of people agree to purchase a deal and then the deal is "on." When you decide to purchase a deal, you put in your credit card information, but you only get the deal (and get charged for it) if the deal reaches the minimum number of buyers. On the off-chance the deal doesn't reach the minimum number of sales, your card doesn't get charged and you don't get the deal. You must make a decision quickly, however, because deals sell out and they're typically only available for one day. So if you snooze, you lose. Mulamu is slightly different from Groupon and Living Social. While it offers the daily deals and it works the same way Groupon and Living Social work, Mulamu allows you to choose a charity and a portion of each of your purchases will go to the charity.

The verdict is still out on whether or not these daily deal sites are good for businesses (and here)and attract long-term repeat business or if they simply bring in one-time customers, but I can tell you Groupon, Living Social, and Mulamu have been good for me. Of course, I purchase only the deals I'm going to use and then I use them.

My advice: sign up for the daily deal emails from Groupon, Living Social, and/or Mulamu and then see if you could save some money on things you'd do anyway or things you've always wanted to do. And then use your certificates. You don't save anything if you don't use the certificates.

Extreme Couponing: What are the Real Costs?

I couldn't sleep last night probably because I took a nap in the afternoon. So I did what I always do when I have insomnia: watch mind-numbing television in hopes of falling asleep. Last night's show of choice was TLC's Extreme Couponing. Maybe you've seen it.

The show follows women whose entire mission is to pay nothing or next to nothing for their groceries. Having only seen the three episodes I saw last night, the show may follow some men as well, but it didn't seem that way. At the beginning of the episode, the women provide a tour of their homes, showing off their specially built shelving units that hold overwhelming quantities of food, cleaning supplies and personal care items. In many cases, toilet paper is stored under the children's beds, salad dressings fill dresser drawers, and custom armories hide soup in the master bedroom. Closets are stuffed to the gills and shelves line basements, dining rooms, living rooms, and garages. As I watched the home tours, I kept thinking, "isn't this just another form of hoarding?"

Keep in mind that all of this was bought with little to no money thanks to the manipulation of sales and coupons.

Now I'm a girl on a budget. I love getting good deals. I clip coupons. I shop the sales. But I purchase what I need and can consume in a reasonable amount of time.

The show then moved on to how the women collect their coupons. Boy, do they have systems. And they get their entire families involved. I don't think I can explain any of the systems, but they seem to consume hours upon hours of time.

Once the coupons are collected and organized, the women head out to the store. And this is where I became truly horrified. I watched the women fill multiple carts with all sorts of processed food - chips, macaroni & cheese, pasta sauce, chips, ground beef, ice cream, canned vegetables, sugary cereals and juices, bottled water, and candy, for example. One woman who wore no make-up loaded up with 87 tubes of lipstick. Another, after filling her cart with more junk food than I've ever seen, added 35 bottles of Maalox. Seriously.

Do you notice what's missing? There was no visible sign of fresh fruits and vegetables anywhere. I saw no lean meat. Just every form of processed food known to man.

The other thing I couldn't help but notice was that all of the women I saw ranged from overweight to extremely obese. I know that sounds really judgmental since I've got my own weight issues, but (1) I'm actively working to change my weight and (2) come look at my pantry - you'll find very little processed food, but lots of fruits and vegetables that I eat daily. My friends sometimes tease me that I rarely take short-cuts in cooking, instead making almost everything from scratch using fresh rather than processed foods when possible.

To the credit of each of the women featured on the show, they purchased hundreds of dollars (in a couple of cases over $1000) worth of groceries for $5 or $10 or less. They do this by manipulating the sales, making use of double and triple coupon values (evidently some stores will double or triple the value of coupons), and using multiple coupons on each item. In some cases, the double and triple coupon values allowed them to get paid to take items out of the store. I was impressed. I would love to walk out of the grocery store with enough food for a week and have only paid out a small fraction (if anything) of the actual cost.

But I can't help but wonder what are the real costs of this extreme couponing?

Food prices have been rising. Do stores keep their prices artificially high to allow them to double and triple the value of coupons? Stores aren't in the business of giving away all that food, cleaning supplies, and personal care items. Somehow they must get reimbursed for all the food, cleaning supplies, and personal care items they essentially give away. How do they get reimbursed?

What about the time consumed by extreme couponing? Spending 5 to 8 hours in the grocery store for each trip, plus the time to organize the coupons and put the groceries away seem like time that could be spent doing other things with their families. Time costs money too. One woman talked about how she wakes up thinking about how to get better deals with her coupons and goes shopping in the middle of the night to save money.

One woman had an estimated $20,000 worth of food, personal care, and cleaning supplies in her home. If you don't wear make-up, why do you need 87 tubes of lipstick? How many loads of dishes have to be washed to empty 25 boxes of dish washing detergent? Why do you need 72 bags of potato chips (the big bags, not the size to fit in a lunch box)? Even though it's all neatly organized, isn't this just another form of hoarding, which the Mayo Clinic describes as a mental illness?

Most importantly, what are the physical health costs of this extreme couponing? In a time when diabetes, obesity, and heart conditions are at all time highs, these extreme couponers seem to be teaching their children all the wrong information about nutrition and taking care of themselves by only serving processed foods high in fat, salt, and preservatives. I don't mean to sound snarky, but you don't need 35 bottles of Maalox if you have a balanced and less-processed diet.

I don't mean to sound judgmental because I've certainly written about how I save money on gas, food, and entertainment, but I just don't see how this extreme over-consumption is anything to be celebrated. Of course it's important to live on a budget, but rather than spend upwards of 10 to 15 hours or more per week clipping coupons to purchase overly processed foods, why not teach children the joys of gardening and growing your own fruits and vegetables? A $70 investment in a garden can save a family $600 annually and a $200 garden can save a family $5,000 annually. Granted, it's not the same as $100s per week, but it adds up.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Wahoo! It's a Sales Tax Holiday!

Starting today and running through August 15th, the State of Illinois is running a Sales Tax Holiday on specific back-to-school items. Granted, it's not a full holiday on sales tax because it only applies to 5% that the State of Illinois collects (and not the other county and municipal portions of the sales tax), but 5% is 5% and every little bit helps make a difference in these economic times.

ABC7 ran a great story about it and provided the list of what's included in the Sales Tax Holiday.

Back-to-school tax holiday in effect
by Evelyn Holmes, August 6, 2010

August 6, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Starting Friday morning, back-to-school shoppers can save money as the state rolls back its portion of the sales tax to help parents.

The 5-percent tax break takes effect at stores, such as Sears, that sell back-to-school supplies. It is one more back-to-school event that parents are more excited about than their kids.

Eligible items include binders, glue, pencils, notebook paper, supply boxes, writing tablets and much more. Shoppers will not get the discounts on sports equipment, art supplies, computers, computer supplies or electronics.

The 5% rollback of the state's portion of the sales tax also applies to clothing as long as each item costs less than $100.

More details on what qualifies and what doesn't:

Qualifying: Most clothing items under $100, including jeans and pants, shirts, dresses, jackets and coats, belts, etc. Bathing suits. Rain coats. School backpacks, book bags and lunch boxes. Most shoes, sandals and boots under $100, including sneakers. Many school supplies, including binders, notebook paper, pens, crayons, rulers, etc.

Not Qualifying: Umbrellas. Hair bows and barrettes; jewelry and watches; non-prescription sunglasses. Handbags, wallets and briefcases. Spiked athletic shoes. Computers and computer accessories and cell phones.

(Copyright ©2010 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

For more information on the Sales Tax Holiday, read the Illinois Department of Revenue Informational Bulletin regarding the Sales Tax Holiday. It's a little technical, but gives all the specifics.

Deerpath Was Nothing Like This

Not Deerpath 1989. This is Purdue 2009 via the Tribune.

When I arrived on Lake Forest College's picturesque setting that scorching August day in 1989, I was a wide-eyed 18-year old away from home for the first time, except for a couple trips to Nana's and one week at summer camp.

I moved into the freshman dorm, Deerpath, where I believed I'd have the best chance of building relationships with the men and women I'd spend the next four years with. Deerpath was a long rectangular nondescript 3-story red brick building. There were no elevators and only the halls were carpeted. It was a co-ed dorm with women living on the first two floors and the men on the third. The halls, along with each dorm room, were painted a light beige. Each room had a cold tile floor, 2 dressers, 2 desks, bunk beds that could be taken apart, 2 chairs and a small closet with a cabinet above. My roommate and I considered ourselves lucky because our furniture, albeit old, mostly matched.

Each floor had a communal bathroom. The sinks each had separate faucets for hot and cold water. In the basement, we had laundry facilities and a couple of study rooms with a computer or two. The dorm lounge, on the first floor, had a TV, although I don't think it had cable, a couple of tables, a few chairs, and a couch or two. To say it was sparse would be an understatement.

Oh, and we had to walk about a 1/2 mile each way to reach the cafeteria. That was fun in the warm weather, but during a snowstorm, it wasn't so cool. We made the walk anyway, because freshmen weren't allowed to have cars and we were hungry. The only delivery option was Domino's.

It wasn't much, but I thought I was in Heaven. I had never expected dorm life to be Taj Mahal living. I figured my dorm room was basically a place to lay my head when I got back from the library.

Twenty years later (OMG! It's been 20 years since I was a college freshman!), my inner circle of friends is still made up of those friendships forged in Deerpath and on the campus of Lake Forest College. I look back on the three years and a summer I spent in Deerpath (I went on to be a RA in Deerpath for 2 years) fondly and with many good memories.

Imagine my surprise when I opened today's Chicago Tribune online and the top story (it must be a slow news day) was titled "Swanky dorms lure undergrads" and it's all about the palatial dorms of today. Maid service. Tanning beds. Flat screen TVs. Private bathrooms. No roommates. And that's just the beginning. Nothing is too posh for Millennials.

Yes, these dorms are cool. But what happens when these students move out into the real world and discover that they can't afford such luxuries?

I remember after I graduated, my first apartment had some serious flaws (read: roaches), but I could afford it on my salary without financial help. I didn't have a TV, much less cable or maid service. I garbage picked my dresser and vacuum cleaner. My towels had been "bought" by saving my mom's grocery receipts at Dominick's (spend a certain amount and receive a full set of towels for free). My dishes were "bought" the same way. My pots, pans, kitchen utensils were hand-me-downs from my Gardner grandparents who had recently moved into a nursing home. My silverware was from a garage sale. I had a plastic 3-drawer nightstand. The only two things that were new was my double-bed and sheets. Eventually, I bought a loveseat, but I paid it off over 6-months at 0% interest. When a friend came to stay with me for 3 months, we garbage picked a single mattress and box spring for her to sleep on from someone in my apartment building. I held onto those until I left DC because that was the perfect guest bed. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

What a difference a generation makes.