MMMMM (Me Merrily Meeting Mr. Money Mustache)

Monday afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite bloggers, Mr Money Mustache. Along with blogger pal Erica from Northwest Edible Life, he hosted a little get-together here in Seattle for his readers. There was even an offer of free beer if you rode your bike, but unfortunately I couldn’t take advantage of it as I rode the scooter to get home in time to take the Foundry Boys to Cub Scouts.

It was really fun to see MMM and watch him dish out advice face-to-face. I didn’t hear it all but the most commonly repeated refrain of his was that everybody should be riding a bike. I wholeheartedly agree! As I told someone there Monday night, replacing most car commuting with bike rides is the 2nd biggest improvement to my quality of life (marrying Mrs Foundry is #1 of course).

I knew I was among my own kind when someone in a group asked how many people love making spreadsheets, and everyone proudly agreed “I do!”

I got a warm feeling from being able to give some investing advice, based on the Gone Fishin’ In the Foundry portfolio.

But mostly it was great meeting others who share a passion for frugality, finances, and good beer. Hope to see you again next time!

Last-Minute Frugal Date Night Ideas

As if she was reading my mind, Foundry follower Sally Ashley asked if she could do a guest post on Frugal Date Nights. Just in time for Valentine’s Day! When she’s not reading this blog, Sally writes about romance and personal finance. Her most recent work focuses on how to pick the best finance schools.

So if you don’t have anything planned for your sweetie tonight, and you want to keep it frugal, read on…

How to Plan a Frugal Date Night
Planning a date doesn’t always have to be expensive, and you can have just as much fun on a frugal date as you can on an expensive date. Below are some great ways you can plan a frugal date night and still have a great time!

Hangout at Home
You can plan a fun but cheap date night in your very own home. You probably have food there, so look up some recipes online and cook a great meal for you and your date. More than likely, you have some good entertainment in your home as well. A stereo, television, computer, video game system or just some good old-fashioned board games can be fun on a date. Simply invite your date over to hangout and listen to music, watch a movie and share a meal, or play some fun games.

Attending Local Events
Most every city has local newspapers that list local events and happenings that will be going on in the next few weeks. Some cities have their own websites that list these events. Look in those papers or Internet sites, and search for some local events that you and your date can attend. When you see something that looks fun, and go out and have some fun. Most of the time, these events are relatively cheap or even free.

Visit the Park
A romantic AND cheap date that can be a lot of fun is going to the park. If you or your date has a dog, take your pet along. You can pack a nice picnic lunch and a blanket and sit under the trees and enjoy good conversation while eating lunch. Some parks host events and activities as well. They might have a swimming pool, walking/jogging trails or some secluded areas to get some privacy. If it’s winter, there might be somewhere to go ice skating.

Cheap Movie 
Going out to the movies on a date is ridiculously expensive, and more often than not, boring. Staring at a screen and being silent for over two hours can make it tough to get back into the vibe after the movie is over. However, if there is a movie you both want to see and it is available by rental, check it out and watch it at home. You can pop your own popcorn, have your own drinks and sit down and share a movie together. Every now and again, you can stop the movie to enjoy some conversation or refresh your beverages. If you know your date pretty well, take advantage of the cheaper movie specials during the daytime, or visit the dollar movie to catch a really cheap one. [ed: Even cheaper, borrow a movie from the library for free!]

Cheap Coffee Dates
Meeting up for coffee can be a good idea if you know your date pretty well. If so, you can engage in good conversation the entire time you are there. If you do not know your date well, a coffee shop can be intimidating – trying to find something to say for a couple of hours. If you have a nice coffee maker or cappuccino machine at home, ask your date over for some homebrew, and make your own coffee at home while enjoying conversation, a meal or just watching television together. First dates at a coffee shop are easier if you go on a double-date to help break the ice. Afterwards, you can go to a cozier place alone if things go as planned.

Hopefully, you can use some of these frugal date ideas for yourself. They are easy on the wallet, and they will allow you the opportunity to get to know your date better. You can learn a lot about a person by using one of these cheap date ideas over the more expensive options.
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Thanks, Sally! Readers, how are you spending your Valentine’s Day (frugally or otherwise)? In our family, we exchange hand-made cards for each other, and Mrs Foundry usually bakes a treat for the family. This year I splurged and got her a bouquet of her favorite flowers (even though we agreed on no gifts). Oops!

Save Bling with Ting

Even a well-oiled machine like the Foundry’s finances need some tuning every once in a while.

One big offender in our budget was the mobile phone plan. We were paying $150 a month for 2 phones with data plans. I knew we could do better. Pre-paid plans look cheaper on paper, but I didn’t want the hassle of recharging minutes (or worse, forgetting to recharge and finding my phone out of service).

Ting to the rescue! They run on the Sprint network (so you can bring your Sprint phone over), and use a tiered plan. At the end of every month you only pay for what you used, in terms of minutes, text messages, and megabytes of data. For instance: less than 100 minutes is $3, 100 – 500 minutes is $6, and so on.

You can see the dashboard in the image above (that was my usage for last month), but they also have alerts you can set up. “You’re about to go into the next level of text messages,” for instance.

Here’s the best part: without changing my phone habits much, my phone plan went from $75 (my half of the family plan) to $25! I use Google Voice for long calls (or when I know I’m going to be on hold) and for outgoing text messages. And I’m almost always near a wi-fi signal.

I highly recommend taking a look at Ting to see how much money they’ll save you. Especially if you already have a Sprint phone, since your existing phone will work.

Here’s a promotion code for $25 off: https://z2qhtq7rd1.ting.com/

NB: The links on this post are referral links, that get each of us $25 off. Please click on them! It’s a nice and fully optional way to help out this blog if you choose to do so.

What do you think of this new tagline?

Not that it makes a huge difference in the whole scheme of things, but I put a new tagline up at the top of my blog. Here’s why…

I figured that there are a thousand frugal blogs out there (even though this was the only “frugalism” blog), so I needed something more unique and inspiring. The new tagline is:

Work to earn. Earn to save. Save to invest. Stop working.

It was inspired by this awesome article on what “retirement” means in this day and age. The full context is:

I demonstrated a very typical Generation X attitude to finance. Rather than thinking of it as having a pension plan, getting vested, putting in my time, and making monthly installments on my defined contribution plan, I looked at the “rules” of the game. How does the money system work? Should I work to earn and earn to consume? Or should I work to earn and earn to save and save to invest so I can stop working?

I broke it into four sections that are really the four main topics of Foundry in the Forest

1. Work to earn means Maximizing Income. Reading your average frugal blog has a diminishing return on your time, since there’s a limit to how little you can spend (Jacob, the guy who wrote the above article, seems to have found that limit, $7k a year per person). On the other hand, there’s no limit to how much you can earn. That’s why I recommend most people focus their efforts on maximizing income. Once you’re past 6 figures, you’re probably good in this department.
2. Earn to save means Minimizing Spending. Figure out how much is enough and don’t spend a penny more. If you increased the frequency of your breathing, you could gulp up so much more oxygen. But you don’t because you have all the oxygen you need.
3. Save to invest means Educating yourself about Investing. I wrote a series of posts on this topic that will help start your investing education. But never stop learning!
4. Stop working means Becoming Financially Independent, and no longer requiring paid employment. That part should be self-explanatory. But maybe not, since smart people are still re-working the definition of “retirement” these days.

So that’s the new tagline. What do you think?