We grouponed it and it felt good

Back at college people would pass out little punch cards that cost $20 but you could use them for various stores and restaurants around town and it could end up lasting you all semester long. I loved getting the card but I also felt my pride rise every time I pulled it out to get a deal on something. I didn't want people to think I was cheap or didn't have enough money for things....which let's be honest, I didn't always have the money.

It was so silly that my pride would go on high alert because in reality I should've been priding myself in being smart for finding deals.

Now I've become a fan of looking up deals. There are so many great deals on KSL and Groupon that you'd be a fool to pass them up.

Last weekend my husband Luke and I went to Thanksgiving Point to cash in on a Groupon deal I bought a couple months ago. It was for a $50 gift card to a restaurant and two tickets to the museum (which without the deal costs $20). The deal cost us about $39.

In order to be an even more cheapskate we chose to go to the restaurant, The Harvest during lunch hours since their menu was pretty pricey. When we found out we couldn't leave the restaurant with the left over money from our gift card we ordered as much as we could and kept pulling out the calculator to make sure we didn't go over the $50 budget.

What was our order you ask?
We ordered an appetizer (which we never usually do)
2 main dishes
2 flavored lemonades
Chocolate raspberry cake

We left with a grand total of $49.70! Lots of to-go boxes and extremely full stomachs where we thought we'd pop and throw up.

And yes we're still children and play with our food.

I wish I was the smart enough to think of Credit do

I just found out about the coolest organization. Have I mentioned I write for an online news group? So this week, I talked to Chris from Credit Do. Four take away words:

Credit Do is awesome.

Take a peak at my report on this amazing program: (The original was published at Deseret News) 

Seventh-graders in Manhattan are helping to feed their families at a young age.
With a turn to old-fashioned bartering, the high-percentage poverty schools Cornelia Connelly Center and University Neighborhood Middle School participate in Credit Do, a program that exchanges food for community service.

Students from Cornelia Connelly Center help out at the food drive

“It’s just like straight barter, but we do work service,” said Chris Hubschmann, the founder and CEO of Credit Do. “We think of it as doing something in exchange for something we need. It’s taking us back to our ancestors.”

Lower East Side Manhattan has a median income of $30,249 — more than $14,000 below the national median income, according to Zillow.

Ninety-eight to 100 percent of the students are on the lunch assistance program in these two middle schools, Hubschmann said. But Credit Do gives students the opportunity to assist others and their struggling families at the same time.

It starts in the classroom where financial literacy principles are taught in the regular math classes. Students learn earning and budgeting through coursework created by the Council for Economic Education.
The program, Hubschmann said, doesn’t add additional work for the teachers. “We’re just enhancing the curriculum and competency skills they have to have to pass exams,” Hubschmann said.

The bartering comes when students do their Work Service Saturday.
Local grocery stores hold a food drive outside of the store that is run by the students. As customers come into the store, students give them flyers on what the food drive needs.

Five hours of service at the food drive gives students $50 of grocery store credit. Following the service Saturday, the class learns the basics of saving money. Then, they participate in a contest to learn how to shop.

Students shop with their parents at the store where they received the $50 of credit. Receipts are turned in as homework to see evaluate frugality, such as how many servings the food yields.
But the program is about more than feeding families.

Students shop with the earned credit

“Our whole purpose is not only to bring the tools and raise awareness, but also to lay the groundwork in setting the participants up for success,” Hubschmann said.

When a student helps in the food drive, the grocery store matches the $50 of grocery credit with an additional $50 for education savings. The money is put into a savings account at a local credit union. The money isn’t accessible to students until after high school graduation.

After they graduate, the invested money can be used for any educational fees such as trade schools, universities or school supplies.

Eliminating impact by being frugal

I enjoy watching documentaries where people try to better themselves. For years I had been trying to watch No Impact Man, as soon as my sister had told me about it. Last year I finally sat down to watch it and I was in awe as Colin Beavan had carefully planned out ways that he and his family would slowly eliminate items out of their lives that are environmentally harmful.

Though Colin was trying to become more environmentally friendly I couldn't help but think how much money he was able to save from this. Yes, he went with more organic food -which typically tends to costs more, but he did other things that could save money.

For example, he got rid of his TV, they turned off their electricity, took their bikes everywhere instead of using cars and public transit and quit all of their magazine subscriptions.

So instead of a question about the environment (as I'm sure he'd prefer I pose) - I would like to pose the question "What are you willing to give up to become more frugal?"

I ate up to my hearts content all for free

Thursday or Friday gets a little more personal here on Eclectic Peacock. Since March is about being frugal, these are the days we look at our personal life and see what we are doing to be better about it.

Wednesday was my birthday. (Wow, they come so fast don't they?) So I was going to eat out anyway to celebrate, because what says celebration better than stuffing yourself to the brim?

Nothing.

I took about half an hour a few weeks ago to look up birthday freebies. Thanks to blogs dedicated completely to this, it was pretty easy. So I signed up for several free dinners for my birthday month. Tuesday I cashed in my free $30 birthday meal at Benihana's - and boy did we eat fancy. Yum.

Don't you love the adorable people sandwich they create? Handsome boyfriend Stephen on the left and my lovely sister Kristi on the right.

I plan on redeeming my free Red Robin burger, Free meal at Tucanos, Baskin Robbins, Krispy Kreme and free little gift at Sephora.

Yea for cheap meals and being born!

The stuff that makes you unhappy is actually stuff

In the 1990s, Graham Hill could be foun­­d in a giant house with the latest electronics, cars and appliances. Today his 420-square-foot studio apartment is populated with six dress shirts, 10 bowls for food and no CDs or DVDs.

courtesy of Crate Barrel

He considers his life today, “a bigger, better, richer life with less,” according to a New York Times article.
Hill’s motto is that you can live with a lot less and be happier. He discovered this after he sold an Internet start-up, became financially independent and bought everything he wanted. But eventually his stuff didn’t make him happy any more.

So actually more stuff makes us less happy. This inspires me to eliminate like half of my stuff.

A UCLA study showed that mothers’ stress levels increase when they have to deal with all the stuff in their homes. Based on observations of 32 middle-class families, a mother’s hormones spike during the time she spent cleaning and tidying up belongings.

“Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life,” Hill said.

When you think about it, Americans have waaaay too much stuff.

 75 percent of us can’t park our cars in their garages because they have so many things stored there. Americans' penchant for accumulating things supports a $22 billion personal storage industry.

From iheartjunkremoval

Hill said his life became fuller and happier when he ended up moving into a small apartment and he eliminated most of his stuff.

“I like material things as much as anyone,” Hill wrote in the article. “I studied product design in school. I’m into gadgets, clothing and all kinds of things. But my experiences show that after a certain point, material objects have a tendency to crowd out the emotional needs they are meant to support.”

Gene Hong

I dare say my dad is one of the smartest people I know. Some may argue that I haven't met a lot of people, but my response would be "then you probably haven't met my dad."

I am continually amazed at how knowledgeable my dad is and at times wonder what he doesn't know.

But his biggest passion - as you may have guessed it - would probably be finances. Of course that's not including family and church.

I know my last post had a little bit about my dad, but I didn't really go into detail about why having my dad's approval for being financially savvy was so important to me.

In my family my dad is known as financial guru .... okay maybe not publically but let's be honest, we all think that.

He could spend hours telling you the details about the stock market, why it's important to clip coupons, teaching you how to budget and quoting famous financial speakers such as Suze Orman.

Gifts at time tend to be book about how to be financially smart. And family meetings were us gathering around learning about how to stay out of debt, interest rates, taxes and credit cards.

Though many times these meetings would put me to sleep. I always held on to the handouts he gave because I knew he knew what he was talking about.

You see, my dad was first born in America, where his parents traveled from China. His parents owned many Chinese restaurants in Utah trying to save up some money to get by. But the business wasn't a huge money maker.

Leaving restaurant business my dad and my mom were able to put themselves through college and raise four kids. We never once went in debt, and we never once had to worry about not having a home to live in. We were able to go on trips to see the beauty of the United States and other surrounding areas and we were able to be cultured through going to museums and plays.

We lived a good life.

Unfortunately, none of us were good at sports, extraordinarily smart or anything else that would deem us a college scholarship. And yet, without going in debt or asking others for money my dad was able to earn and save up enough money to put all of us kids through college, and buy us each a working, reliable car as an aide for college life.

From poverty to a healthy financial stability, I know it was because of my dad's careful studying, perseverance and living without that helped my family feel like we had everything.

So thank you dad for giving me a life where I had everything I ever wanted and more. And for not just holding that knowledge for yourself but for taking the time to teach all of us kids how to be financial savvy so we too can help our future kids feel like they have everything.

The 3 battling F's of life

When married at 20 with still two more years of undergrad and an additional two years of grad school ahead of her, Elaine Lake knew it would mean being creative. Fortunately, she married a creative man and so started small ways to live happily on a students budget, which is generally non-existant.

Warren and Elaine Lake and me when I was 16. Oh and also their adorable first baby.

So when I lived with them when  was 16 I learned that having fun and being frugal and ... can't remember what the third 'F' was, was possible. It was a wonderful summer time and I soon learned you could have fun without spending money. These were some of our activities:
-subscribed to the month trial of Netflix and got all of our movie wish-lists fulfilled in a month.
- Went on picnics
-Used the cities free family pass that came out once a month to go to the children's museum
- went on lots of walks
- Found a fountain so we didn't melt
- Hiked
- Cooked fancy meals just because
- Made random cards for normal occasions just for fun
- Went running to the dollar store in the evenings

When I think of the other 'F' I will let you know. But thanks to the Lakes for the cheap entertaining summer.