Life in Tee Harbor, Alaska

One Step Closer to Debt Free

Last Friday, I made the final payment on my credit card - PAID IN FULL! 

It has been less than two years since I really buckled down and started to focus on getting rid of my debt.  I started with nearly $20,000 in credit card debt, $10,000 owing on my truck - all of that is gone, plus I paid $4,000 to get the woodstove installed.  It is a great feeling to have that all gone, just the house left now.  I figure it will take 3 years to have the house paid off too.

I thought it would take forever to get the credit cards paid off, but once I got started, it just accelerated.  The biggest change I made was that I use cash.  Each payday, I take out spending money for food, gas, etc in cash.  This helps me from overspending - I don't use checks.  When I make a purchase, I use dollar bills, not my change.  I collect the change in a jar and when it builds up, I deposit it and make an extra credit card payment.  It is amazing how fast that can add up!  I pay bills on payday, so I don't have that money sitting there.  Any money left over went to the credit card.  Any extra money I got would go to the credit card.  Now I will save for purchases, not charge them.  I really think about buying stuff.  I've been motivated by other blogs here and use lots of money-saving tips I've learned here.  Thank you for that!!

If you've been thinking of getting rid of your debt - find a way to do it because it is such a great feeling to have it gone.  You can do it - where there is a will, there is a way!!

Garage Sale Goodies

I love all the cool things you can find from garage sales!  Got some cool things last Saturday.  I had been thinking about getting one of those hand-crank blenders, but they cost around $65 new...well...I found a brand new one in the box for $5!  When I got home, I just had to try to crush up some ice.  This took about 30 seconds:

The other cool thing I found is a cheese press.  Actually it is labelled as a fruit and lard press, but it could probably be used for different things.  It just fits so well with my old-fashioned kitchen gadget collection that I had to buy it!  It needs some cleaning before it can be used.

Paid Off Another Debt This Week

Yesterday I was able to pay off the woodstove we had installed a couple months ago!  So I'm down to my credit card which is quite high, but not as bad as a 1 1/2 yrs ago - I've been making steady progress to get everything paid off.  I am figuring that the credit card will be able to be paid in full by the end of September ($6700).  I can't wait until that burden is gone!!!

Truck is Paid Off!

Juneau's Energy Crisis Update

I shared in my previous entry about our town's main hydropower source going down due to an avalanche and the electric company having to switch us all to diesel generated power.  So we have power, it is just alot more expensive than normal - went from $.11/kwh to $.54/kwh.  Initially they were estimating it would take 100,000 gallons of diesel a day to run the generators.  I am so proud of everyone in town who is conserving their electricity and because of everyone's efforts we are only using about 56,000 gallons per day.  They are estimating it will take 3 months before we are hooked back up to our hydropower.  Fred Meyer was out of the compact flourscent bulbs - guess this has finally convinced everyone to switch over!

Here at home we are doing everything we can to keep our next bill down.  I have been monitoring our usage and we are keeping it at about 10 kwh per day on average.  There are still a couple things we could do to get it lower if we want.  Right now here are things we are doing:

1.  No electric lights - instead we are using the Aladdin lamp and 2 Coleman lanterns, headlamp and candles.  It stays light now later, until around 8 or so, so we don't need to have them on long.  Apparently alot of others are doing the same thing.  When I was in town today I tried to find a gallon of Coleman lantern fuel, two stores were out and I bought the last jug at the other store.  I'm sure they will get more in soon, I hope!

2.  Washing all clothes in cold water - hang on clothesline and pop in dryer for just a few minutes to help get the wrinkles out.  I snapped the clothesline this morning and had to buy a new one for Rod to put up.  I was quite lucky to find a clothesline, since everyone has had this idea so the stores are out of clotheslines, clothes pins and drying racks!

3.  Turned heat down to 60 to 65.  It comes on just a couple times a day.  The past week has been great weather, so we haven't used the wood stove, but if it gets cold we will have some fires.

4.  Turned off the extra heater in the camper (this one will save alot!).

5.  Turn off and unplug computer when not using, turn off internet equipment when not using and turning off our tv/vcr when not using - we were already doing this things mostly, now we are more vigilant about it.  I bought a timer for the tv/vcr because we watch a movie before bed and just fall asleep to it - so they are on until the morning when we turn them off.  So now it will turn off at the time we choose.  Cool!

6.  Turned off grow light for my cilantro - the plants are big enough to just use the light from the window.  So far, so good. 

7.  Using less hot water - just being more aware of what we are using.  I wash my hands with cold water.  Wash dishes once a day by hand (we don't have a dishwasher anyway).  Shorter showers and no baths. 

Rod and I had different opinions about the energy required for the hot water heater and whether it was better to turn it off when we weren't using it or just let it run.  So we did an experiment (very un-scientific) where one day we read the electric meter and turned the hot water heater off from 6:30am until 5:00am the next day - turned it on and took our showers, then read the meter at 6:30am.  That day we used 10.5 kwh.  Then we left the hot water heater on, took our showers in the morning as usual and read the meter again at 6:30am.  That day we only used 8 kwh.  The only hot water we used both days was for the showers.  So from our experiment we decided it was best to leave the hot water heater on and just use less hot water so it doesn't have to work as hard.  Oh yeah, I lost that one, Rod was right  :o) 

Luckily we have a gas stove, so I don't have to worry as much about using it - although the oven does use some electricity, so I will just be careful and maybe make sure I have more than one thing to bake at a time.

So, our next experiment will be to turn off our refrigerator.  The frozen stuff we will move to the big chest freezer.  Then we will use the refrigerator portion like an old fashioned ice box.  We will make ice in the chest freezer and put it in the crisper drawers in the refrigerator to keep things cool.  We will need to keep the fridge full of stuff so the temperature doesn't fluctuate too much.  I can put jugs of water in there to help stabilize the temp.  We will need it to stay around 40 degrees - do you think it will work? 

I am making a roast for dinner - in the dutch oven on top of the stove.  Rod is working night shift and his days off are Tuesday and Wednesday, so we have some adjusting to do.  I will be working Monday through Friday, but getting off work by 3:00 or 3:30 - he leaves for work at 5:30, so we will at least get to see each other.  It should work out okay.  Hope everyone has a good week!

Our Electric Rates Increasing 400% - Ouch!

Our town's main source of electricity was damaged on Wednesday.  Our power comes from a hydroelectric plant way south of town and the lines go through some steep, rough terrain.  Anyway, there was a major avalanche that took out about  1 1/2 miles of the transmission line and damaged the towers.  The power company has us on their backup generators right now until they can repair the lines, but this won't be for another 2 to 3 months.  They have to wait until the avalanche danger has passed and until all the snow has melted before they can make repairs.  So, until that happens, the rate for our power is estimated to increase from $0.11 per kilowatt hour to $0.50 or more...  ouch!!  For our house that means our bill which was $127 last month would be about $520 next month.  The city is requesting state and federal funds and has declared it a disaster, but this may not qualify for funds, so we are not counting on that.  (www.juneauempire.com)

We have already been reducing our electrical usage over the past 2 months, but obviously we will need to do some more tightening as will everyone in town.  I think the big things we are using now are our water heater, refrigerator, forced air furnace (occassionally), clothes dryer and a heater in our camper.  The camper will probably be just fine without the heater for awhile.  We could be burning the woodstove more so that the furnace doesn't come on at all.  We talked about turning the refrigerator off and using blocks of ice in it to keep the food cool and moving all the frozen stuff to the big freezer.  If the weather would warm up I could start using the clothes line again and not use the dryer as much.  Maybe we could get more serious about changing out the water heater to an on-demand model...it might pay for itself sooner if the cost of electricity is so high!

Good Book on Frugal Tips

I picked up a book at the library called "Gene Logsdon's Money-Saving Secrets - A Treasury of Salvaging, Bargaining, Recycling & Scavenging Techniques".  I have never heard of it before and it has some great ideas in it.  If your library has it, it would be worth reading.

Here are some other favorites of mine that I like to read over and over:
The Tightwad Gazette - Amy Dacyzyn
How to Feed Your Family For $12 a Day - Rhonda Barfield
Cheaper and Better
Better Than Store Bought
Miserly Moms

Do you have any good books about saving money that you would recommend?

Old Cookbooks Online

I ran across this great link on Miserly Moms to a bunch of old cookbooks that have been put up online for everyone to enjoy:  http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html

If you haven't seen this already, it is really cool!  There is so much to explore - so far I have just been looking at The Frugal Housewife (1830!).  Miserly Moms suggested the old cookbooks to find good recipes for from scratch items.  I am slowly replacing what we normally buy from the store already prepared with a homemade version.  This weekend I was working on crackers - so far unsuccessful and not crisp, but I'm not giving up!

Saving on Our Electric Bill

Rod and I went to a Community Schools class last Saturday on Renewable Energies, Solar and Wind Power and Remote Living.  It was a great class - learned alot and came up with more things to read about.  It was put on by a guy who lives with his wife and 2 children on a remote island just across the channel from us.  He talked about how they live - what they use to generate electricity, how they get their water, how they get their fuel and groceries.

I was impressed by his knowledge of how much power each appliance used in his house, but I guess if you are generating your own power, you keep a close eye on those kinds of things.  The less power you use, the less power you have to make and possibly the smaller system you need.  He had some great tips on saving on electricity.  Our electric bill has been higher than we would like, but with winter and extra heaters and lighting needed, we pretty much accept it.  But we don't have to - we should be able to cut it down by paying more attention to the electricity we use.  I think we just take it for granted that we can use as much as we want, because it is there.  So...we have taken a few of his suggestions and we will see how much our next electric bill changes.

1.  Change your bulbs to compact flourescent.  These use so much less electricity.  We had changed a few over last summer, but Rod really doesn't like them - they aren't bright enough he says.  So we bought a few more - these ones are daylight style - and put them in - he loves them, I don't like them so much, but we will see how it goes.  I think the light is very bright/harsh with a blue-ish tint.  I much prefer the softer light.  I guess some will be the ones he likes and some will be the ones I like!

2.  Turn off your computer equipment when you aren't using it.  Put everything on a power strip and turn off the switch.  We actually already had our modem and router plugged into a power strip, so we have begun to switch it off before bed.  Then we just switch it on when we want to use the internet - usually just in the evenings.  Both our computers are laptops, so they do not stay on and I now unplug mine at night.

3.  Find your phantom loads.  These are appliances that use electricity even when they are turned off - such as your TV, VCR, etc.  Again, we already had the tv and vcr/dvd player plugged into a power strip, so we just have to turn it off now.  How easy was that?!?  There are devices that you can get to measure the power used by these appliances when they are off.  One is called a Kill A Watt - you can buy them online, or you may be able to borrow one from the electric company.  I need to call AEL&P and see if I can borrow one.

4.  Not from the class, but this will save on electricity...  Using our woodstove for heat instead of the forced air furnace.  We set the thermostat for the furnace down to about 60 degrees.  We build a fire in the evening - that keeps everything nice and toasty.  It is still warm when we get up in the morning, cools off a bit while we are at work and we just build a fire when we get home again.  Has been working great for the past few days.  Over the weekend, we kept the fire going all day and the furnace did not come on at all.  That is saving on oil and electricity!!

5.  Next, we will look at our energy use and make a plan of more steps we can take to reduce our costs.  One thing we will be looking into is replacing our electric 50-gallon hot water heater with an on-demand hot water heater, probably an oil one as we have that kind of a tank already.  Anyone have any info/suggestions on this one?  Until then, one of the suggestions from class was to use a timer so that the electric one doesn't run all day and night for just a few hours of need.

So, I will update you when we get our electric bill mid-March...

Credit Card #2 is PAID!

Monthly Grocery Shopping

Rod and I have been doing our grocery shopping once per month since last February.  This month we decided not to shop except for milk and just use what we had on hand.  Tonight we had beef stew - used a london broil that I froze Aug 2006, potatoes and onions from the garden, and celery and carrots from October's grocery trip.  I was surprised to see that the celery was still fine!  I have some Chocolate Brown Sugar Brownies in the oven for dessert too.  We are down to 1 egg now, but we only have a couple days left.  No problem! 

I did cheat though and bought pies and whipping cream for Thanksgiving.  We decided not to make the traditional turkey (even though we have 2 in the freezer).  Instead, I fixed a roast in the crockpot.  It was our harvest meal with onions, potatoes and freshly pulled carrots from the garden.  Imagine that - end of November and we can still pull them - no snow covering them yet!

Our meat supply is dwindling.  The moose hunt I had a permit for was cancelled due to the hard winter last year - bummer!  So Rod is going deer hunting Saturday and will be gone for a week.  I sure hope he has some luck - I really don't want to have to go back to buying our meat.  If we were really careful, we could probably make it to next spring with what we have - just not much variety.  Lots of salmon - not that I'm complaining cuz I love salmon, just can't imagine eating it every night! 

So I'll be doing our regular monthly trip this weekend and I need to get my list finalized. The money that we saved by skipping November will be used for our emergency stock up supplies - focusing on the basic necessities.  That will be fun to plan how to stretch those dollars the furthest! 

Credit Card #1 is PAID!!

Saturday is a Spend Day

To help me pay attention to how I'm spending my money, I have restricted myself to spending money on two days of the week - Wednesday and Saturday.  It has been working pretty well - this week I had to spend on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, but that's okay.

This system has really helped teach me not to buy impulsively, which I used to do ALOT.  Now that I do not use credit cards, only use cash, and have a spending plan, I really pay attention to how I'm spending my money.

So Today I bought cat food and pine & cedar shavings for cat litter.  We went garage sale-ing and I bought a few books, a #5 cast iron skillet, and a tortilla warmer.  The skillet had a bit of rust in it, so I cleaned that up and greased it - turned out great!  I'm thinking this one might go in the camper.  I've been making tortillas from scratch and had looked at a warmer at the kitchen store.  I passed it up because it was $15.  The one I got today was like new and only $1.  I can't wait to try it out!

I have a couple loaves of bread in the oven and they are starting to smell really good!  I need to start dinner now - making pan-fried halibut, homemade french fries, and scalloped corn.  I underestimated our butter usage this month and we are down to 1 stick - but I'm determined not to visit the store until next Saturday when I do our shopping for April.  So I pulled out an old cookbook I have from the 1950's - looking for cookie recipe that doesn't use butter - almost all of them were no-butter!  I'll let you know which one I end up trying...

Recycling

I have been thinking alot lately about needing to recycle.  About the only thing we do now is saving newspapers to use for other purposes and composting which I haven't done since it has been snowing.  I need to figure out a good spot to keep a container for things we can take to the recycling center.  Rod suggested we build something for outside, which sounds good.  We will have to keep it dry somehow.  I think we need some sort of container inside so I will be more likely to sort things as I toss them.  How do you have your system set up?

It sounds like the center accepts most everything and it is free for households.  Here is the info about it if you live here and want to start recycling too.

Juneau Recycle Center is located at 5600 Tonsgard (the landfill-gate to the left of scales-follow the signs)

Recycle center hours are 7:00AM to 5:00PM on Tuesday through Friday & 8:00AM to 5:00PM Saturday .

More items added to recycle material! You can recycle:

• Newspaper, Magazines and Catalogs

• Glass (All colors, No lids, labels ok)

• Aluminum Cans

• Steel/tin mixed metal cans

• White ledger (office) Paper Only

• Mixed paper - Other white paper, colored paper, envelopes (glassine windows ok, junk mail,cereal boxes, etc.)

• Corrugated Cardboard (Corrugated cardboard has the wavy material in between 2 pieces of cardboard)

• #1 Plastic -Bottles; all size pop bottles clear or tinted; labels okay - rings okay NO lids - Remove all lids. Other: clear containers with #1 on bottom such as fruit and vegetables containers.

• #2 Plastic - White/cloudy jugs; 1/2 gallon and gallon milk jugs, gallon water jugs - NO lids. - Remove all lids.

• #2 Plastic Bottles (No bottle with hazardous materials like oil or drain cleaner) NO lids - Remove all lids.

• Plastic grocery bags

• NOTE: For a list to print out to use to set up your recycling items click on: What to Recycle

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR RECYCLE CARD AT THE WEIGH-IN WINDOW. GET IT STAMPED EACH TIME YOU COME IN. AFTER 20 VISITS YOU GET A FREE DUMP AT CAPITAL DISPOSAL.

Remember - Everything that you and your family do to:

• Reduce

• Reuse

• Recycle

• Repair

• Rethink

• Reject

Is a contribution toward reducing the waste stream in our community? It is creating and preserving a better environment for ourselves, our children, and for the future generations.

Reducing the Waste Stream:

• Look at the packaging. If there's a lot of packaging for a little product, don't buy it.

• Donate clean plastic bags to St. Vincent DePaul, Salvation Army, or Rainbow Foods or

• Purchase re-usable canvas bags

• Compost yard and food waste year round

• Remove your family from junk mail lists:
  Direct Marketing Association
  Attn: Mail Preferences Service
  P.O. Box 9008
  Farmingdale, New York 11735-90
  

(click here for additional recycling resources here in Juneau)

3 Days of Not Spending

So far, so good - it has been 3 days since I have spent money.  I just might make it until Friday...

Rod and I went to look at a woodstove last night that a guy was selling - Vermont Castings Aspen model (click on the picture to enlarge it).  It is a little one and would have been just perfect for our little home.  I was the first to call the guy and set up a time to go take a look at it.  When we got there, he told us it was sold to someone who had just called and they were on the way to pick it up.  I was sooooo disappointed!  I'm not sure how someone got there before us?  He said he wouldn't be home until the time we had set up.  Anyway...  I believe everything happens for a reason, so I'm looking for the reason on this one.  Could it be because I'm not going to spend money until Friday?  Maybe.

Paying Down Debt and My Spending Diet

I've been working hard since December to pay off debt.  I'm following Crown Financial's Money Map - I'm on destination 2 which is to pay off your credit cards and build up savings to one month's living expenses.  If you haven't heard of them, you should go check it out.  You can listed to their radio program from their site - Money Matters.

Having a spending plan has helped so much!  I can see exactly what I'm spending my money on (lots of craft stuff!).  What I worked out for myself is to pay cash for most things - I keep envelopes in my purse.  Each envelope is labeled with what the cash in it is for - food, gas, crafts, clothing, gifts, misc., eating out, etc.  Each payday, I replenish the cash in the envelopes.  Much of my monthly income goes toward paying off debt - credit card, truck, 401k loan, home loan - $1950 per month.  Wow, just think if I didn't have any debt and could be putting that in my savings account... 

Like I said, it is working well for tracking what I spend my money on and limiting how much I spend.  I record my receipts once a week in the computer program I bought.  It just amazes me how often I buy something - whatever it is - just how many times I pull out money and pay for something.  So I have decided to try a spending diet - to limit the days I spend money.  I am going to try to go until Friday without spending money and see how I do.  I am an impulsive shopper - recovering impulsive shopper that is , so this will be a good step for me.  I'll let you know how I do!

Progress On New Year's Goals

1.  Plan dinners for the month

Finished this one - haven't been following it exactly, but using it more as a guide.  It has been working well.

2.  Limit grocery trips to 3 this month

Shopped once so far (last night).  We have a budget of $200 for the month.  Spent $103 so far.

3.  Can some dried beans - pinto, kidney, black & red beans

Canned 14 pints of pinto beans last weekend.  Four jars didn't seal, so I heated 1 1/2 jars in a pan, added some brown sugar, molasses, white wine vinegar, little mustard - and simmer for about 10 minutes.  We had it with moose backstrap steaks - YUMMY!!!

4.  Sew some more clothes - 2 skirts, 2 shirts, 1 jacket, 1 vest

I have almost finished my jacket, just need to adjust the sleeve length.  I finished a long jean skirt with buttons down the front - want to sew a lightweight cream cotton skirt with lace around the bottom to wear under the jean skirt.  I will probably work on that this weekend and then I will post some pictures!  I have the material to sew the rest of the items, need to buy bias tape for the colors of the shirts.

5.  Find out about RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) classes

I called about this Tuesday the 2nd.  Went to the first class Wednesday the 3rd.  They also have a session on Saturday evening during mass to talk about the readings and have a chance to ask questions - it's called "Breaking Into the Word".  This week there was a mission at the church, so last night I attended that.  It was very interesting and thought provoking.  Next Wednesday regular classes will resume and we will learn about the sacraments.

6.  Come up with cleaning & decluttering schedule - and follow it!

Haven't worked on this one yet.

7.  Spend within the budget I've set up - use Thursdays as desk day to pay bills and record spending

I've been keeping with my budget and have used Thursdays to sit down, pay bills, record what I've spent during the week and plan what to do next.  Tonight I listed a couple things I can do to save some money.  Need to cancel my ediets membership ($14.95/mo), see if I can put my web hosting on hold ($11.95/mo), and I want to check rates on my truck insurance.  I have my deductible at $100 right now, so I want to see what the savings in premiums would be if I raised it to $500 or $1000.  I also can remove the rental car coverage since we won't be going anywhere for awhile.

So, my progress on these goals this month are going really well.  I will check back later and let you know how I'm doing!

Payday in Alaska

Today our permanent fund dividend (PFD) was deposited in our accounts.  All Alaska residents receive this money each year.  The dividend this year is $1100.  The fund was set up in the 70's from the oil money and now each year a portion of the earnings on the fund is returned to the residents.

The money is much appreciated in our household, but it sure can go fast!  Pay the house insurance and fill up the oil tank and there isn't much left.  I wanted to buy one fun thing - homestead related - before putting the rest in savings.  I have been looking for a grain mill on ebay and found one this weekend.  It is a Lehman's Best hand crank grain mill with interchangable burrs.  It will get me started grinding my own grains.  It should be arriving this week - here is what it looks like: 

Garage Sale Finds...

I found some great goodies today.  One sale advertised an antique ice box, but they didn't open until 8am and they said early birds pay double.  So we went to a couple other sales first and waited for about 15 minutes for them to open.  The antique ice box wasn't what I was looking for - it wasn't even antique and they had converted it to a TV stand.  Oh well.  I did buy a burner for my Aladdin lantern for 75 cents - so it was worth a little wait.  At another sale I bought a box of camping pots and utinsels for $5 - set of nesting camp pots, a cast iron frying pan, old red oven mitt, a kitchamajig, an old wooden handled potato masher, a red enamelware dipper, and other stuff.  Definitely worth the money to me.  The sellers had used all this stuff in the early 70's when they came to Alaska - I love stuff that has history!

Garage sales were good today

Bought some good things garage sale-ing:  7 boxes of canning jars, a whole basket of flannel and wool fabric, compost bin, wooden planters, tomato cages…   Oh, yea, and I only spent $25!  We had a good day shopping!