Small-business Advice: Developing a “Free Soup” Strategy

Living beyond your means is always a bad idea—eventually, the bills will get out of control and you’ll find yourself facing a mountain of debt.

Credit card debt can be especially destructive. Miss a payment and your interest rate could skyrocket. But even if you make all your payments, making just the minimum necessary payment could stretch out your debt for years and pile up heavy interest charges. One blogger for The Paycheck Chronicles recently calculated that it would take more than 25 years to pay off $5,710 in credit card debt while making only minimum payments!

So the best frugal living advice is simply to avoid credit card debt altogether. Don’t buy something on credit unless you have the resources to pay the whole credit card bill when it arrives.

Of course, that’s easier said than done—especially if you already have credit card debt. Then the big question is how to get out of debt fast—paying off your outstanding balances and reducing interest costs.

That’s where a recent article on Cash Money Life comes in handy. Blogger Patrick [condenses] a get-out-of-credit-card-debt strategy into a series of easy steps, including:

• Stop using your cards while you pay off the debt. You won’t save your financial ship from sinking […] unless you plug the holes that are letting more water flow into the boat.
• Transfer balance to a 0% interest card. If you can a 0% promotional rate from a new credit card, make the switch. You’ll pay down your debt much faster if you can put a brake on interest charges for a little while. Just be sure to try to pay down as much as possible before the promotional period ends and interest rates kick in again on whatever debt you haven’t managed to pay off.

Patrick’s other ideas including getting organized, setting a budget and making multiple payments each period to pay off the debt just a little faster.

Of these suggestions, the budgeting one is especially important. If you don’t have a budget, it’s unlikely that you’ll stay out of debt for long simply because you won’t have a good handle on cash inflows and expenses. So take the time to map out how much you can afford to spend each month and then stick to living within your means.

Have any of these strategies worked for you? What approaches have you used to get out of credit card debt and stay debt-free?

Supermarkets have conditioned us to believe that all fruits and vegetables should look perfect and pristine, shiny and round, but, in the real world (a.k.a. “nature”), anyone who has a garden or a fruit tree know that fruits and veggies get bumped and bruised like the rest of us. Oftentimes, these slightly battered apples and tomatoes taste just as good as their prettier counterparts, but they can cost much less.

According to the savvy folks at All You, the key is to ask your grocer or local farm stand proprietor for any “utility fruit” that may be hidden out of sight to keep up appearances. Provided you’re not too fussy and are willing to take out the paring knife to trim away any truly inedible bits, you just might be able to bring home your weekly portion of fruits and veggies for far less than you’d otherwise pay.

The “utility fruit” plan may not be the best idea if you’re putting together a fruit platter for a party or special occasion, but it could make especially good sense if you like to make fruit smoothies. After all, if you’re blending […] cut fruit with yogurt, ice and other goodies, who would know if the original strawberry or banana wasn’t ready for its closeup?

How about some other ideas for using fruit that isn’t quite ready for its closeup? If life gives you bruised apples, you can always make applesauce! […] And you don’t need cosmetically perfect fruit to make banana bread, pear butter or peach jam! As the author of the Food in Jars blog points out, with a good paring knife, you can quickly cut around the bruised parts (as long as the fruit isn’t too far gone) and make something delicious from ugly duckling produce.

Of course, there are limits even in the pursuit of frugality. Work with a grocer you trust so that you can learn to tell the difference between harmless bruises and serious spoilage. Even frugal shoppers should put safety first. Remember that truly rotten fruit and veggies belong in the trash (or compost pile), not in your kitchen.

Have you ever tried the “utility fruit” strategy? What other tactics do you use to keep the monthly food budget under control while still stocking up on nutritious and healthy choices?

Rumor has it that some rock stars only wear their clothes once before throwing them away. Throwing out clothes after a single use sounds ridiculous. It isn’t just tough on the environment, [but] it’s also a massive waste of money.

[Y]et [an] article at SavingAdvice.com makes the case that many of us practice the same economically foolish habits on a much smaller scale when we buy disposable paper towels, pack our lunch in paper bags or toss ordinary batteries into the trash.

Instead, we could use a washable cloth to clean up kitchen messes, carry our lunches in reusable tote bags and choose rechargeable batteries.

You may have to spend a little more upfront, but choosing reusable over disposables (at least some of the time) can definitely save you money in the long term.

In fact, you can apply the same logic to other areas of your life and your business. Too often, we only look at the price tag when making a purchase decision, but sometimes the cheapest piece of furniture or equipment turns out to be much more expensive in the long run if it breaks easily or requires constant maintenance to keep running.

[According to an article from GreenResearch.com], a company using 200 cups a day could save more than $2,500 per year by switching from disposable to reusable cups. The more cups the company uses, the greater the annual savings it can realize by moving away from disposables.

Of course, reusable products also have some environmental advantages over their disposable counterparts. The sidebar at the Green Starbucks blog quotes an internal Starbucks document to make the point that if 50 customers in every Starbucks store bought coffee for their own refillable mugs, Starbucks would save paper equivalent to 300,000 trees per year (using 2007’s worldwide store count).

If you want to get really clever—and save money in the process—keep an eye out for ways to reuse products that were designed to be disposable. Rather that throwing out plastic bags after you’ve carried your purchases home from the store, try reusing those bags to line your trash cans. If you’re crafty, you can even turn a plastic water bottle into a miniature greenhouse for plant seedlings, as shown on the blog, “Pop Cloche.”

Once you start rethinking the disposable mindset, you just might find opportunities to reuse almost everything, saving money and reducing waste at the same time!

What do you think? Have you found ways to save money with reusable products? Or do you prefer the convenience (and lower upfront costs) of disposable products?

Some money-saving ideas are complicated or require an obvious sacrifice. Others have the advantage of making your life simpler by saving you time while they save you cash.

According to a recent story on CNNMoney.com, you can save nearly $200 per month on average simply by limiting the frequency of your grocery shopping trips to once per week.

The reasoning here is that up to [two-thirds] of grocery purchases are unplanned impulse buys—things you don’t really need but caught your eye. Cut down on grocery trips and you’ll cut down on the number of times you’re exposed to these unnecessary temptations.

Presumably, you’ll also save even more money if you shop less frequently by using less gasoline on trips to the store and reducing wear and tear on your car—plus saving time, which lowers your opportunity costs.

Lifehacker.com endorses the idea of reducing impulse buys and saving money by shopping for groceries less often, suggesting that the ideal frequency may be twice per month or even monthly grocery trips.

But this seems a little extreme. After all, you’ll probably need to make a grocery run at least once per week to replenish your supply of the most healthy kinds of foods (fruit, vegetables, milk) with brief shelf lives.

Besides, if you only go shopping occasionally, you may find yourself ready to make dinner and faced with a bare pantry or missing a few essential ingredients. In that case, you may decide it’s easier to just go out to dinner or order a delivery, which could end up costing much more in the long run than if you stocked up regularly on weekly trips to the store.

Whether you shop once per week or prefer to pick up some fresh groceries a few times per week, another way to limit impulse buys is to use the old-fashioned grocery list, checking off items as you make your way through the store. With a little discipline, you’ll make sure to bring home the things you need, saving cash and calories.

If you prefer a more high-tech approach, you won’t be surprised to learn that there are several grocery list apps available for the iPhone.

How often do you like to shop for groceries? Do you think you could save money by shopping less frequently? Do you have a strategy in the grocery store for avoiding frivolous impulse buys and bringing home the necessities?