How Laziness Has Made Me Rich Part III - Shopping

Hello, Dear Reader,

I am back from my brief hiatus of yesterday to continue my five part series on the Lazy way to riches. I had a great time at the concert last night; I have always wanted to see The Police but was actually too young during their mid-eighties heyday (yes, I really was), and subsequently too poor.

After posting my thoughts on Lazy Physical Fitness, I realized that I forgot to mention one additional benefit of my chosen form of exercise. I get a great tan, free! I know a few people, due to demanding work schedules, who can only manage to get that sun-kissed look by mechanical means. This is very expensive! I know, I know - too much sun=wrinkly wrinkly, but I can assure you that I always liberally apply 30spf Coppertone 30 minutes before I head out the door. I still tan very easily, even with this precaution, so I hope for the best in the future. Anyway, being a Frugal means that I will probably have the money for plastic surgery if and when I need it.

Sunlight also stimulates your body to produce Vitamin D. More and more, it seems as if scientists are finding that this nutrient plays an increasingly important role in your good health. Recently, I read in the newspaper that recent studies have indicated that a lack of vitamin D might be a factor in some breast cancers. So, as a woman who has breasts, this gives me yet another reason to get out there and walk everyday. Women of the world, I call on you to get outside and turn yourselves into Vitamin D factories!

Today, we take a look at how being Lazy at the Shopping Game can save you a ton. This one practically wrote itself:

Shopping, In General: I’m not an unnatural female. I love to shop for clothes, makeup, and “gee-gaws” (as my dad says). I may be the only mall-lovin’ tightwad in existence. But, since I am bone-lazy, the mere-thought of getting in the car, driving to the nearest mall, parking, and walking around without my dog attached to my waist to do most of the work, makes me so weary that I immediately have to lie down on the sofa and stare at the ceiling. In this instance, deplorable laziness has saved me so much money I could probably afford to take a package tour of the Mall of America, if I weren’t so lazy, of course.

I generally shop retail store sales rather than Frugal approved yard sales and thrift stores. The reason for this is because I usually know what I want and where to get it. I don’t browse too much, a practice that can lead to a lot of impulse purchases. I go in the store, get what I want, and get out. For my purposes, paying retail sale prices for an item that I will use to extinction is much more sensible.

I think I do save with this shopping-style over being a dedicated patron of the second-hand market because I find that when I shop yard sales, etc., I always buy many, many things that I have absolutely no use for only because they are such excellent bargains. Its always possible that you will find exactly what you have in mind at the very first yard sale, get in the car, and go straight home. But, this isn’t too likely, and as the big draw of yard sales to me is the thrill of the Unexpected I will most likely go from yard sale to yard sale, looking for that Widget I need, and picking up a whole bunch of widgets along the way that I don’t need. That’s what makes yard sales so fun, and so dangerous to the pocket-book. Retail stores don’t really have this same sense of adventurous “treasure hunting”, at least not for me.

I really do enjoy wandering around the mall on occasion; it is fun to people-watch, enjoy the free air-conditioning, and be amazed and horrified at the prices (it kind of gives you that tingly feeling that you get at scary movies). But at the same time there’s no denying that they’re just really uninteresting warehouses in a way. So, very easy for me to be lazy in a retail establishment.

(Also, fuel costs are so outrageous now, that I wonder if that fact alone will drive yard-sales to the brink of extinction.)

Grocery Shopping: Usually, I only shop once a month, fill up my big freezer and my pantry with bargains and staples, and I am done ’til next month. Grocery shopping is not my favorite so I’ve gotten pretty good at zooming around the stores; I know my prices well, because I tend to always buy the same things. I’ve done the advance work, so I know where I can get the best regular-prices for our everyday stuff. I will rouse myself to go out of my way for a killer sale from the weekly flyers. Then I buy a LOT. But it has to be a VERY good deal, and for something I regularly use, to make me go to all that extra effort. All-in-all a very cost-effective approach for my household. (Also, I wait ’til a Saturday to do my big monthly shopping so I can get my husband to drive me to the grocery store, push the cart, and put away the groceries.)

I have been doing this for years and it seems to work well for us. When people I know find out that this is my grocery shopping style, they always ask me about milk, fruit and veggies. Actually, you can very easily freeze liquid milk, but I prefer the less expensive powdered anyway. Of course, I eat my veggies (and fruit)! You should know by now that I think good health is good frugal sense.

I generally buy frozen fruits and veggies, that last a month or much longer. We have a fetish in this country that only “fresh” vegetables will do. However, it seems to me that frozen might actually be better for you, especially if you aren’t willing to shell out for organic (which I’m not). Right there on those stickers that they put on the fruits and veggies in your grocery produce section is a clue to this seeming conundrum. Those stickers tell you that a lot of this produce is trucked in from hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away. This takes days, and meanwhile your “fresh” produce is sitting there losing valuable nutrients. Frozen fruits and veggies are picked, cleaned, and frozen. Freezing halts or at least slows the natural degenerative process that “fresh” vegetables experience. And if you don’t believe me, what is the first thing that scientists who find 50,000 year old frozen wooley-mammoths say? They always say that they are amazed at how fresh the meat is! And, they can always tell what their last meal was (frozen leaves and berries, there you go). (Of course, this is just one woman’s opinion. I don’t have a degree in any science. I’m just a housewife who reads a lot.)

And I would just like to say right here, that I really can’t understand why organic products are so much more expensive than the alternative. You’d think that the fact that extremely expensive pesticides aren’t used would be a cost savings. I have heard that high organic prices are a supply and demand issue - i.e. supply is lower because production is lower/smaller, thus fueling higher prices (that consumers are willing to pay for the higher demand created by the smaller production). Well, just from my totally unscientific observation at the grocery store, I’m just not so sure about that. I always see lots of people walking right past the 3x’s more expensive organic tomatoes to load up on the sale-priced non-organic ones. So, where is the enormous demand that is fueling these higher prices? Also, one big draw of organic produce for consumers is that it is produced “locally”, thus is more nutritious. Well, then, these lower fuel costs should also make organic less expensive. Marketers also give organic products an earthy, down-home, salt-of-the earth spin - a call to a time when life was more “simple”. But the truth is that the true earthy, down-home, salt-of-the-earth people of this world trying to live the “simple” life can’t generally afford organic prices.True, they might grow their own which is super organic (and can be very cheap)! (Of course, I’m talking retail grocery stores here, which is my only source of veggies. I hear Farmer’s Markets can be good sources of bargain organics, but not an option for me.)