Dear Readers, This will be our last Small Change post, and we are sad to have to leave you to work on other projects. But we’ve really enjoyed coming up with ways for you — and us — to slog through this recession. I hope we have helped — or at least provided some entertaining company along the way! We also appreciated all of your comments. You gave us many great ideas as well. We’ve covered everything from credit cards to cheap eats together, and our posts will still be archived here in case you want to revisit your favorites. Now we will be waiting, hoping and watching for signs of the recovery. We hope you will still keep in touch and share your stories of how the economy is affecting your lives. Ylan will continue to write about consumers and retail, and Nancy will keep covering personal finance. You
One of my favorite things to do on a summer evening is to sit outside and have cocktails with my friends after work. But hitting a bar a few times a week can be very costly in this town. Our intern Emma L. Carew has come up with some fabulous ideas for enjoying cocktails with your friends without going broke. Here they are: The weather’s nice and there are tons of great drink specials. So it’s tempting to wander from bar to bar each night. But think about this: When you get home the next day and look at your receipts, you’ll probably wonder how you managed to rack up so many tabs. One idea? Bring the bar crawl home. Sure, you can snuggle up with a case of cold ones for cheap but where’s the fun in that? Get more creative. Buy some booze, preferably in bulk for the
A couple of Saturdays ago, our frugal intern Emma L. Carew wrote about making private-label purchases at the grocery store. A lot of you commented and e-mailed Emma with some suggestions. She'd like to share them with you. Here goes: Wow, props to the commenters out there. It seems like a lot of you make your own salad dressings. I’ve never had much luck in the past with that (and I actually home cook a ton of things most people probably buy each week! Pasta sauce, chicken stock and cake frosting, to name a few), but I’m willing to give it another try. That’s the beauty of the topic, which was sorting out that each person has his or her own quirks and priorities when grocery shopping on a budget. Sharon from Gaithersburg had some thoughts about this: The one thing that I will NOT compromise with is my Hershey
Today, we have another guest post from our frugal intern Emma L. Carew. She's figured out a way to make delicious lunches on an intern's budget. Her lunches put the turkey and cheese sandwiches I often bring to the office to shame. Here's what Emma has to say: As a college student working for my campus newspaper, I frequently had 12-hour days. After rotating between Chinese takeout, Chipotle and the $5 foot-long at Subway when I “didn’t have time” to pack a lunch, I decided to get smarter about brown-bagging. It’s definitely a commitment — you can’t “not have time” four days a week. I've learned a few things along the way, which I'd like to share with you. First, invest in some plastic containers. I’m a plastic container junkie. I usually have three or four lunches worth of food in containers just waiting in my fridge. Second, devote some
