I tend to put way too much stock in online reviews. I obsess and obsess and obsess, reading everything possible on every possible site. Recently I was trying to buy A. a raincoat for his birthday. I wanted to find a good deal on one of the fancy name brands, so I was checking several sites frequently for sales and coupon codes. In the meantime, I saw one at Target that was considerably less expensive, but I refrained from buying it. I read and read some more about taped, water-tight seams, drawstring hems, under-arm zipper vents, and inner pockets.. All the raincoats started to sound alike after awhile, which, hello, they kind of are. Customers had good and bad things to say about all of them, which was little to no help at all. And you know what? I eventually stopped the madness and went to buy the one at Target, which seems to work absolutely fine. I keeps the rain off, which was the whole point to begin with.

I do the same thing with restaurants. I have several apps on my phone that provide reviews and information about restaurants and I usually check ALL of them before I try a place out. One of the apps, I’ve learned, tends to be more promotional, so its reviews are always glowing. I had really poor customer service at one place that it raved about. But other times, I’ve been pleased with a restaurant that had mixed or so-so reviews from a lot of people. On Saturday, I was craving sushi, which happens to me with some regularity. I looked up sushi places near me and did what I do: obsessed. Neither of the two closest to our apartment had particularly positive reviews. One thing I’ve noticed about online reviews is that reviewers tend to latch on to one thing and harp on it. So, for example, at one of the sushi places they apparently play weird techno-ish music, which is what multiple reviewers complained about. But I don’t necessarily care about the music; I care more about the food and the service! It taints my first impression of something if I have these preconceived expectations that I’ve gleaned from random people on the internet. The sushi place with the music is in the same shopping center as my Kroger, so I decided to chance it for convenience’s sake. I took myself there for lunch after church and was pleasantly surprised! There actually was weird music playing, and all of the staff seemed a bit frantic and rushed, but the food was good and cheap. I was slightly intimidated by the sheer number of choices on the menu, but that’s my problem, not the restaurant’s. The other nice thing is that I sat at the sushi bar and I was not the only person sitting alone reading! I felt like I was part of a club or something. And the next time I’m craving sushi, I’ll be quite likely to head back there.

However, I didn’t rush online to write a review. That’s one reason I’ve learned you need to take online reviews with a grain of salt: people are much more likely to write negative reviews than positive (or if positive, then it will be GLOWINGLY positive). No one writes a review to say, “Yeah, it was fine. I’ll probably go back there some day.” There’s none of that middle ground. But what I try to look for is consistency among negative (or positive) reviews. If multiple people mention that they got food poisoning from the same dish, or if a couple of reviews point out the same nuanced flaw in an electronic item, I’m going to take note. And if a review is well-written, I’ll give it more credibility. When we were looking for an apartment, A. found numerous well-written reviews of one of the places on our list that had the same specific complaints, so we took those to heart and removed that complex from our list.

I think online reviews can definitely be useful (that’s probably why they exist in the first place), but I think there’s a lot to be said for just trying stuff, too. If you have reasons for being really interested in something, I’m not sure online reviews should sway you against it until you’ve checked it out for yourself. But if you’re on the fence, a comprehensive set of online reviews might be just the ticket. Only you probably don’t need to obsess the way I do and read 13 pages of them. :-)

Do you read or write online reviews? What do you think about them?

I had a great trip to Publix on this week’s ad, a few good finds at Kroger, and an utter failure of a trip to CVS.

Here’s my Publix haul:

(not pictured: 1 Cover Girl Cheekers blush)

Total: $8.00, including tax

•  Chex Mix: regular $2.59 each, on sale Buy One, Get One Free used 2 $0.50/1 coupons which doubled to $1.00/1 paid $0.59 for 2 bags
• Chobani Yogurt: on sale 10/$10.00 or $1.00 each used 1 $0.30/1 coupon which doubled to $0.60/1 paid $0.40 for 1 (which is the price of store brand yogurt all the time, but I prefer the more expensive Greek kind. Sigh.)
• Glade Candles: regular ~$4.00 each, on sale 2/$5.00 used 1 $1.50/2 coupon paid $3.50 for 2 candles, or $1.75 each
• Baby Carrots: on sale for $1.25, a great price for baby carrots!
• CG Cheekers blush: regular ~$3.75, on sale for $1.59

Saved $11.34 (including coupons and promotional pricing) or 58.6%

I do my full grocery shopping at Kroger, so my savings percentages aren’t usually as impressive. This week was lacking in coupon matchups, but there were some good prices on things even without coupons.

My favorite finds included:

• Valencia Oranges: 8 lb bag for $5.99, or $0.75/lb!
• Green Bell Peppers (which I buy anyway): 20 for $10, or $0.50 each
• Oscar Mayer Turkey: 1 lb family sized bag 2/$6.00 or $3.00 each (I bought 1)
• Mueller's Whole Grain Pasta: $1.65 used 2 $1.00/1 coupons that I got in the mail when I complained to their customer service about not being able to print their coupon in Google Chrome paid $1.30 for 2, or $0.65 each

There were also some good markdowns in the Manager’s Special meat section. Do you know about Manager’s Specials at the grocery store? They put low prices on items when they are close to the expiration date. I have found bread, meat, and salad mixes for rock bottom prices by looking for that special orange price tag. As long as you freeze it immediately or know it will get used quickly, this is a great deal. Often, even when it is marked down, it’s 2 or 3 days away from its sell-by date, which is fine by me. I got two packages of boneless pork chops for under $4.00 each and a package of sirloin tip steak for $4.67! Often this section is bare bones, but I caught it on a good day this week. The meat is currently labeled and frozen away for when I’m ready to use it.

Bolstered by those successes, I headed to CVS to play some drugstore game that ultimately failed. My plan was to use $1 Extra Care Buck I had from my last visit (4th scan of my Green Bag Tag!) and a few coupons. There were some Colgate Multipacks of toothbrushes that were advertised as starting at $2.99 that would print $3.00 Extra Care Bucks. So, I was going to buy one pack in my first transaction, using the ECBs I had, and then buy 2 more packs in separate transactions using the $3.00 ECBs to get them for free and donate them to a homeless ministry. Sadly, though, none of the packages I saw were marked anywhere near $2.99, so I would have been paying a good deal out of pocket. Also, the item I had planned to use my coupons on was not yet marked down. I’ve been really frustrated with this particular CVS for the delayed posting of current ad prices and for the attitude I’ve gotten from checkout clerks when I’m trying to use coupons and do multiple transactions. But it’s the closest one to me, and I like being able to walk there. So this week, I just used the free Dove coupon that printed out at the Scan Center and my $1.00 ECB to get a Dove chocolate bar and a Suave deodorant (marked at $0.99) for only $0.06 tax. Not bad, I guess, but I was disappointed about not being able to get the toothbrushes to donate.

Have you had any great frugal shopping trips lately? What are your favorite tricks for saving money at the store?

I don’t feel like I laugh enough.

The other day, A. was listening to a podcast while doing the dishes, and I could hear him laughing hysterically even though I was in another room and the water was running. I might chuckle at things, but hearing him let loose made me realize having a deep laugh like that, especially by myself, is a rarity for me. I tend to like serious things: tear-jerker movies, romantic novels, blogs about reality. In fact, I actually tend to dislike comedies, especially movies. I hardly ever want to sit down and watch one, and if I’m compelled to watch one in the company of others, I often think that I am laughing at it “in spite of myself.” I don’t like slapstick humor. America’s Funniest Home Videos makes me cringe, and Who’s On First? annoys me.

I think even my face is serious. My whole life people have asked me if I was okay when I’m perfectly fine. I guess what I think of as my normal face must look troubled to the casual observer, and I’ve never understood why.

I recently read a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben. One of her month-long happiness goals was to “be serious about play,” with a sub-resolution to “find more fun.” She discovered one of her “Great Truths of Adulthood” through this resolution, which is that “just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it is fun for me–and vice versa.” When I read that, it really resonated with me. I find reading a book fun; I don’t find getting dolled up and going out dancing at a club fun. I find eating gourmet food at fancy restaurants once in awhile fun; A. does not. The key here, with which Gretchen and I both struggle, is not beating yourself up for not finding something fun! It’s easy to think you should enjoy comedies or that you should want to listen to jazz music. But it’s more important to be honest with yourself. If something is not fun to you, it’s not necessary that you force yourself to do it as a leisure activity. (I exclude from this things like vacuuming and taking out the trash that are things we must do that hardly anyone finds fun.) Both Gretchen and I struggle with defining exactly what we do find fun and enjoyable.

Maybe my baseline emotion tends more toward the melancholy than some people’s, and maybe my idea of fun is more low-key. But that doesn’t mean I can’t laugh. I think I have a decent sense of humor, especially when it comes to puns and plays on words. Humor is just rarely my choice of entertainment. I don’t want to force myself into doing things I don’t find fun, but I want to seek out more moments of laughter in my day to day life.

A good example in my mind is being tickled. I hate being tickled…kind of. The kind of is because, while it is an unpleasant sensation, it sure does make me laugh. Hard. The kind of laughter that leaves me spent, gasping for air and…happy. I need to find tickle analogies in my life: tickle movies, tickle books, tickle blogs. I need to decide that laughter is a worthwhile pursuit and convince myself to indulge in it more than occasionally. Because maybe it really is the best medicine, even for ailments you don’t realize you have.

What makes you laugh, and how do you feel about being tickled?

Georgia Power recently released a document about surviving a hurricane. While we’re inland enough that we likely won’t be hit by one, it is possible for us to receive spin-off storms that could potentially be severe. (In fact, we’re getting rain from Lee right now, and the entire state of Georgia is under a tornado watch.) And, you never know. Katrina was as strong as a tropical storm even far inland into Mississippi, and the city where I grew up was without power for quite some time. Plus, there are disasters other than hurricanes that can leave residences without power, as A. and I well know from the rash of tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and the rest of the Southeast on April 27. We had the distinct advantage of moving to our new apartment that weekend, but we still had a few days without power for which we were woefully unprepared. So, in light of all that, we decided to follow some of Georgia Power’s guidelines and create ourselves a disaster preparedness kit including 3-4 days’ worth of food.

 A. ordered a portable propane stove from Amazon. After the tornadoes, we went to his parents’ house and were able to have a hot cup of tea because they had a stove like this. While you can’t cook a gourmet meal on it, it makes it much more possible to eat “real food,” as opposed to the bread and peanut butter we were able to eat at home.

Knowing we had that, we stocked up on non-perishables, some of which require cooking. The kit includes:

• 6 cans of soup
• 5 packages of Ramen noodles
• 2 cans of baked beans
• 1 package Lipton Cup o' Noodles soup (which I actually love and kind of want to eat right now)
• 3 cans of vegetables
• 4 cans of fruit
• 1 jar of peanut butter
• 4 cans of tuna
• 1 box shelf-stable soy milk
• 1 bag trail mix
• 1 box granola bars
• 1 package beef jerky
• 1 bag rice
• 1 bag kidney beans

We checked the expiration dates on everything, and I think either things have changed since the 1960s or the nuclear fallout shelter in the movie Blast From the Past that fed a man for 35 years is an impossibility. Most of our stuff expires within the year (though some is a bit longer). A. added a to-do on his calendar to check on the stuff in April or so of next year, and we can either get rid of it or add it to our circulation of “normal food.”

In addition to the food, we threw in some duct tape and most of our flashlights. Georgia Power recommended having disposable plates and utensils, but we decided not to worry about that. If it is cold and we need this kit, we have plenty of blankets and things around, and if it is hot, we have a small cooler that could hold ice and a few perishables. We also have a 5-gallon water storage bladder that is full of tap water should the need for that arise.

Our experience with the tornadoes in April also taught us the importance of having a battery operated weather radio. We had no such thing during the hours we spent huddled in our laundry room. We had the I Heart Radio app on our phones that allowed us to listen to the local radio, and thankfully we had a car battery starter that could charge our cell phones, but without that, we would have been in the aural dark. (We’ve made sure to keep that charger charged itself should a similar situation ever arise.) The weather radio we bought lives by our bed and goes off occasionally when there are weather alerts in our area.

Though it’s unlikely we’ll need most of this, it’s good peace of mind to have it all on hand in a convenient underbed storage bin. The most likely thing that could happen to us is losing power, and we’d be well-covered with this kit. I’m not sure much of anything can prepare you for sustaining drastic damage during a storm, but every little bit of thinking you do ahead of time probably can’t hurt.

Do you have a disaster kit or emergency plan? What are some tips you’ve had to learn the hard way, or things you wish you’d known before going through some type of disaster situation?

 

 

I know many of you may be wondering how I can categorize this post as Tasty Tuesday when it is about something as stereotypically reviled as steamed cabbage. It seems like the stuff of a Dickens novel. Trust me–A. thought the same thing the first time I asked him whether or not he liked cabbage. But stick with me! Cabbage is often on sale for SUPER cheap (i.e. the cabbage pictured in this post was purchased for a meager $0.50/lb at Kroger), and it can be a delicious, quick side dish.

First, cut your cabbage into little bits. I don’t know a great way to do this. This picture shows half a cabbage, which is all I use to feed A. and me. There is a pretty substantial core in the cabbage that you want to do your best to get out. Again, I am not great at this. Sometimes I just cut it all up and pick out the particularly sturdy bits as I transfer to the pan. I think the accepted method for de-coring is to make a diagonal cut on either side of the core after you’ve cut the cabbage in half. This removes a sort of triangular prism shaped piece that encompasses most of the core.

Once your cabbage is chopped (sliced? shredded? insert appropriate descriptor here), transfer it to a large skillet that has a lid. I add about a half cup of liquid for this amount of cabbage: 1/4 cup water and an additional 1/4 cup consisting of some combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. Once it’s in the pan and all tossed to coat, you can add more of any ingredient to taste. This particular batch turned out a bit weak for my tastes, but it’s not rocket science. Just play around with combinations until you like it; I think mine is different every time!

Place the lid on the pan and turn burner to high. As the liquid comes to a boil, steam will build up inside the pan, and that’s what you want! Let it steam for about 6-8 minutes or until desired level of floppiness is reached. I try to be REALLY careful to catch it before it turns to mush because A. doesn’t like soft vegetables (he would eat them all raw if given the choice). I’ve played around with turning the heat down or even off while it steams, but I really think leaving it on high works the best. As I said earlier this particular batch wasn’t my best, because in addition to not being flavorful enough, it was a mite undercooked. But again, it’s not rocket science!

The cooked cabbage won’t look a whole lot different from the uncooked cabbage, so don’t be alarmed.

Give it another toss to make sure all the sauce is evenly distributed and then plate it up! Quick and easy.

Are there any foods you’re surprised to enjoy? What’s your favorite easy side dish?

I’m linked up on the Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods!