13 Simple Tips To Make Tent Camping Easier And More Fun

Posted by The Happy Rock on August 18, 2009

Last weekend we got back from a 4 day 3 night tent camping trip where it rained for hours on two of the four days. Actually the trip was supposed to be 5 days 4 nights, but we decided to forgo the first day due to heavy rain and tornadoes that hit Northeast Pennsylvania. Despite the weather the trip was a blast and we wished it was longer!

I have talked about how inexpensive it is to go tent camping before and this time was no different. My estimate of about $60-$70 a day for our family of 4 was right about on target including entertainment. We know that tent camping is a great frugal vacation, so I wanted to give my top list of tips to help make tent camping more enjoyable. I don’t claim to be a camping expert, but I have been camping a couple of times a year since I was a baby. Here are my favorite tent camping tips:

Attitude. Attitude is everything when it comes to vacation and camping is no different. Attitude is the number one factor that will effect your enjoyment of your vacation. You can camp in your backyard, but as long as you bring your go with the flow, relaxing, happy self it will be a blast. If you have trouble relaxing or let yourself be bothered by little things, camping can be a terrible nuisance. It is imperative that you enjoy the small walk to fill up your water container not be annoyed by it. Relax, slow down, and embrace whatever comes your way.
Be Friendly. Campers are a really friendly crowd as are most of the locals. The only exception is when you go very backwoods area; you are often seen as more of an intruder rather than a welcomed guest. Don’t be afraid to make friends with the neighbor campers. Ask to borrow the can opener you forgot, or ask around to find the great places to visit. Those relationships can positively change the direction of your vacation. Sometimes you even find yourself waving at every car that passes, because they wave at you and there just isn’t that many of them. It is a weird feeling for someone who is used to city and suburb living, but it part of the camping charm. Having the simple relaxed attitude from tip #1 really helps make you more approachable and makes you more willing to share with others.
One Pot Meals. This is the Rockette’s area of expertise and this is her number on cooking tip. Make meals that can be mixed in one big pot. It helps save fuel, time, and hassle. Keep it simple and prepare it at home if you can. Some of our meals from the last trip were Moroccan Chicken and Veggies with Couscous premixed and brought in a large freezer bag for the first nights meal. Rice and beans. Marconi and Cheese with broccoli. Oatmeal with the cinnamon and raisins and sugar premixed. The one exception would be meals that you can cook on the fire/grill like burgers and corn and potatoes.
Don’t Sacrifice. Camping doesn’t have to be all about sacrifice. If you are miserable or complaining then you aren’t doing it right. Just pick and choose the things that make you the most happy and make sure you bring them. One of The Rockette’s is an air mattress. I like a dining fly so that you can eat and play games without being bothered by bugs too much. Some people like to bring their bikes. We have a special lounge chair that is bulky, but really makes chilling and relaxing by the fire amazing. Maybe it is a special meal that is hard to prepare, but just brings a smile to your face. You will find your things with some experimentation. Just remember not to overdue it, because all excess adds stress.
Organize. I am not an organized person, but a little organization can go a long way. Things like packing a dirty clothes bag or having a special food box so that everything can stay in one place. Currently we use a camping box for all the odds and ends like knives, can openers, cutting boards, clothes line, etc. We also have a crate for dry food like snacks, bread, and the like. The cooler keeps pretty much everything else. The boxes make it easy to move things around and into the car at night. Just make sure everyone is on the same page and things will be where you expect when you need them. We also created a packing checklist for camping to help make sure we don’t forget anything. We also bring the checklist and add to it if we realize there is something that isn’t on there or there is something that we need to buy. Having the list removes a lot of the stress and mental gymnastics required when packing.
Leave It Behind. For us this means almost anything that has ties to home. Laptops, work, TV, PDAs, etc. It also means that you need to mentally leave the bills, deadlines, and stress at your door step too. If you aren’t good at this, try visualizing leaving all the ‘stuff’ behind while you drive to you destination. It can be a great de-stresser. Camping is a change in pace and you need to let it change you rather than try and control it. That submissiveness to whatever happens it part of the freedom that makes camping such an enjoyable activity.
Make It Special. Special goes way beyond don’t sacrifice. It means bringing the box of Swedish fish or your favorite soda that you don’t often get a chance to have. It means bringing your favorite board game or a new family game that you can enjoy. Special food(smores and the like) is often a big part of this, but it can really be anything. If it is the laptop to watch a special DVD that may be your thing. Just make sure it is something that is worth it. Last trip we took a journey to visit an awesome free admission family amusement park called Knoebel’s in central Pennsylvania which was the experience that the kids remembered most.
Dirt. Let dirt be your friend. You will get dirty, just embrace it. Go play in the rain. Swim in lakes. Play in waterfalls. Dig holes, whatever. The key is to not only accept that you will get dirty, but embrace it. Most parks have showers now a days, so just bring some shower stuff and a towel and you can still get clean. Often times with proper attitude you might even skip shower, because the dirt doesn’t bother you. Not much feels more satisfying though than the first shower at home after a long camping trip. Bonus Tip: No shoes in the tent. The floor of the tent is where you are sleeping take extra care to keep it clean. It will also reduce your cleanup time when you leave.
Weather. Be prepared for rain. Bring an extra tarp. Bring extra clothes and bring rainy day back up plans. Again the only choice is to embrace it and prepare for it otherwise it will make you miserable. On our last trip it started to pour as we pulled into the amusement park’s lot and wasn’t stopping anytime soon. We made a call or two and found a bowling alley and waited it out. It finally stopped 6 hours later and we were able to run the amusement park from 6 – 10 for only $6.50 a person. Because everyone had a great attitude we ended up bowling and going to the amusement park for the same price as a day at the park and it was a blast.
Research. Research can take a few different forms. Talking to friends and family that have been where you are going. You can even scour the internet for suggestions or tips on your particular park or area. You can talk to the locals or other campers once you are there. Finally, note the lessons learned for next time. One of our most useful tips is to walk new campgrounds before you leave and mark the good campsites on map so that you can get great site next time you come.
Car Rides. You can’t do too many things to make your ride shorter other than avoid traffic, so just take a great attitude. I know The Rockette got a special bag of goodies(snacks, games, and toys) from her mom on long road trips. Bring a deck of cards. Pack some good snacks. Plan a scenic stop along the way. Play eye-spy or the alphabet game. Make it fun. For younger kids try and plan the ride at nap time or bed time which usually buys you a few extra hours of ride time. Finally, don’t forget to bring a map. GPSs aren’t as reliable in the back country.
Go With Others. Find some camping friends or invite people who have never been camping. Usually the more the merry assuming they all understand tip #1. Sharing meals and supplies and fees also helps cut costs. This last trip there were ten of us, four adults and 6 children under 8 all in on big tent. All the people just multiplied the fun.
Attitude. Yes, this is a repeat but only to help reiterate how important it is. It is your attitude that really makes or breaks a good camping trip, not the weather or the campground or even what you do. External things do effect your trip, but attitude will trump it all.

If you have your own special tips or additions I would love to hear them in the comments.

» Filed Under Food, Vacation

I finally used coupons – But did I save?

Posted by Debt Destroyer on July 30, 2009

I’ve never really been a coupon guy. I don’t know if this is because it seems like I never find coupons for the stuff I actually buy, or if I just don’t want to take the time to cut them out and organize them.

Besides, I buy store brands to save money on my groceries so I never felt to the need to go through all the hassle that coupons entail.

But when I saw this video on consumerist.com, I thought maybe I should give it a try.

My two worlds (store brands & coupons) collided earlier this month when my local grocery store put out a savings book full of coupons for store brand items.

I thought I died and went to heaven.

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I went through and carefully picked out the ones I knew we would actually use. I didn’t want to use coupons just because they were there. That would defeat the purpose.

My Mother in law is guilty of this. She is constantly buying stuff because she got a great deal. Or at least she thinks it is a great deal. Her freezers(yes plural) are full of stuff that she got because it was on sale. Heck, my freezer is half full because of stuff she got on sale.

But then she never eats the stuff and it goes to waste. What a great deal!

Trying to avoid that I kept my list simple.

Mac & Cheese
Cereal
Tator Tots
Tuna
Chicken Breasts
Graham Crackers
Cheese
Ice Cream Sandwiches
Frozen Veggies

All the items on this list are in our normal diet, so I’m not too worried about having them go to waste. The only one that isn’t, is the Ice Cream Sandwiches, and something tells me they will be the first to go.

So how much did I save?

I didn’t do as good as the lady in the video, but I was pleased with saving 34%.

In all honesty I thought I’d save more than I did. Just by buying stuff on sale I usually have my savings in the 25% range every week. So I was a little disappointed to only gain another 10% by using coupons. But savings is savings, so I’m not complaining too much.

Now that I’ve had a taste of using coupons will I continue to use them?

While I like the idea of saving money, I don’t think I’ll be playing the grocery game anytime soon. Instead I’ll stay on the lookout for sales and take advantage of any coupons I find for stuff I normally use.

Actually we’ve been a roll lately keeping our grocery expense in check. I think what has helped us the most is making a weekly menu based on what we already have and then only buying the extra items needed to make that week’s meals. It sounds simple, but actually having the discipline of doing it is the trick.

How about you?

What is your strategy for saving money grocery shopping? Coupons, store brands, sales? Are there tips/tricks I don’t know about? If there are, please share. I know I’m not the only one who needs them.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Spending

Cheap Eats – Meal Ideas Under $10

Posted by Debt Destroyer on July 2, 2009

A while ago I wrote about how I blew my grocery budget on a $11 hunk of cheese, I ended that post by asking for some budget friendly recipes. Only Kristy from Master Your Card took me up, and I’m ever glad she did.

Her chicken dish was fantastic!

Here it is again for those of you who missed out the first time:

4 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken (reg size is fine)
1 tablespoon of Season-All
Spaghetti noodles
butter
garlic salt

First, you boil the chicken with salt and pepper until they’re just about done. This reduces overall cooking time and keeps the meat tender.

Transfer the chicken to a crock pot and cover with cream of chicken and about half a can of water. Add the Season-All and stir. Let simmer for about 25 minutes (less if you’re cooking on high…just make sure the chicken is completely done).

While the chicken is cooking, boil water for the spaghetti noodles. I’ve found that if you add a cap full of olive oil, it enhances the flavor of the noodles, so I recommend it, but it’s not necessary. Once the noodles are cooked, strain them and put them back in the pan. Add butter and garlic salt to taste.

Put noodles on a plate. Cut up chicken over the noodles. Ladle the cream of chicken sauce over the chicken and noodles.

Enjoy!

I changed it a little (like using a lot more Cream of Chicken soup) and didn’t use a crock-pot, but it still turned out rather tasty.

About the same time I was savoring “MasterYourCard Chicken”, my favorite radio station was doing a s eries of stories of meals for under $10.

Chef Jose Andres started with a Moorish-Style Chickpea And Spinach Stew.
Chef Ming Tsai then whipped up some Chicken-And-Corn Fried Rice With Lemon Spinach.
Navy chef Michael Edwards made Sauteed Skate Meuniere with Potato Gnocchi.
Pat and Gina Neely ended the series with Cheesy Corkscrews With Crunchy Bacon Topping.

The best part of the series were all the recipes that people left in the comment section, but they are gone now

Obviously there are a lot of great meals out there that are cheaper than $10 (here’s a whole site of them for half that price).

And if $5 is too much for you, there are plenty of simple meals that get the job done. My personal favorites are:

Spaghetti & Garlic Toast
Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Mac & Cheese with Hot dogs

Or my all time favorite meal(no joke)…Hamburger & Rice.

Mix some rice with hamburger, top it with butter, and your good to go.

As you can see whether you spend $800 a year on food or $800 a month, there are many, many, ways to get the best bang for your food buck.

So how about we try this sharing thing again?

What’s your favorite $10 meal, $5 meal, or super simple meal?

I’m getting hungry just thinking about this.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality

Little Things Part 3 – Budget Practice And Correcting Mistakes

Posted by Debt Destroyer on February 24, 2009

This is the 3rd chapter is a series of posts showing how the little things can add up.

Here is part one & part two.

You might have missed it, but I dropped some subtle hints in my recent snowblower post that I can from time to time, be a pretty big baby.

Well one night after a frigid shoveling adventure, my wife took pity on me (FINALLY!).

I told her that I’d like nothing more than to have that night’s hot chocolate to be accompanied with some nachos. But you need chips for nachos and we had none. Luckily for me, my beautiful loving bride volunteered to venture out in the freezing cold to get some (which was nice because I already had my pajamas on).

She returned (quite a while later) with not only chips but with a few other items as well. She told me that she was shocked at the total of $20 for 5 things and that was with her taking advantage of a 2 bags of chips for $5 offer.

So we checked the receipt.

She ended up paying $5 each for the chips instead of getting both bags for $5. The deal was for two small bags, and she got two big bags (a mistake I might add, that she’s made before). I suggested that before she takes her coat off, she should take them back.

She gave me a rather perplexing look, but then agreed that we didn’t have $5 to waste on chips.

To make it up for her, I was the one who made the hot chocolate that night (a little groveling might have also took place, hard to say for sure).

While we were savoring our beverage watching Letterman, I rubbed some salt in her wounds by reminding her to take money out of the “grocery” envelope before going shopping. Otherwise it defeated the purpose of the envelope system (This too might have been followed by some groveling, again it’s hard to say for sure).

Now I know some out there would scoff at a going through such an ordeal for only a $5 savings, but if you add up a few of them together, you can start to see some significant savings.

And who out there couldn’t use an extra $15?

You can buy your wife some nice flowers with $15

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality, Marriage(Communication)

Deep Freeze – Freezing Sale Items To Help Stretch Your Grocery Dollars

Posted by Debt Destroyer on February 18, 2009

Now that I’m trying to limit my family’s Grocery spending to $450 a month, I’m looking for ways to get the most for my money. I’ve already mentioned a few ways I’m doing this in a couple of previous posts (here & here).

But earlier today I realized that I had another tool at my disposal that I probably haven’t been using effectively enough.

Our Deep Freeze!

At lunch time today my daughter informed us that she wanted burritos. My wife looked in the fridge and said we were out. But that triggered my memory of buying a bunch of burrito packs when they were on sale a month ago. Sure enough we had a couple of more packages ready to go. In no time at all my kids were eating burritos (well one was the other one was feeding it to the dog).

This got me wondering, what else is in there? I knew it was full of Hot Pockets (whenever my store puts them on sale for less than $2, I stock up.) And just last week, my in-laws gave some some free mystery meat (I’m never sure what they are handing out).

But when I took a deeper look I found many forgotten treasures.

Tator Tots – These must have been on sale a while ago, because I have 3 bags of them. This is good because they are one of our favorite side dishes.
Broccoli – There was a time when my daughter ate broccoli like it was going out of style. I must have stocked, because now she won’t touch it. It’s still a popular side.
Roasts (mostly pork) – I’m just guessing but I think these came from my Mother-in-law. As mentioned above she frequently gives us random frozen meat.
Random stuff – There’s a boxed lasagna, ice cream, desserts, corn, apple sauce, chicken breasts, and breast milk.

After surveying our new found booty, the Mrs & I have decided that we’re going to try to mine at least two meals a week out of the freezer. So before sitting down to type this I cut up some potatoes, carrots, and onions, and combined them all together in our crock-pot.

Hopefully it will taste as good as it smells.

After a few weeks we should be ready to fill ‘er up once again. Hopefully this time we’ll remember to keep better track of what’s in there and plan our meals accordingly.

For example this upcoming week we’ll have:

Monday – Tator Tot Hot Dish
Tuesday – Chicken & broccoli
Wednesday - Lasagna with some sort of Breast Milk dessert

On second thought maybe we’ll just have a nice side salad.

Now that you know how I use my freezer, how about you share some of your favorite itms to stock up on?

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality

Eating on $1 a day

Posted by Debt Destroyer on December 15, 2008

I’m sure by now a lot of you have heard about the couple who for a month ate on only $1 a day. If you haven’t, check out their blog. I guess they have some new projects in the works for 2009 and a book will follow.

Talk about a strict budget. I say good for them.

As you long time readers know, I too am trying to shrink down my family’s food budget. Nothing as extreme as $1/day, but when you break down the numbers, we’re not too far off. Our current budget is $4.25/day. [$425 grocery + $75 dinning out = $500/ 30 days = $16.67/day (rounded to $17/day) /4 people = $4.25]

I never thought of it that way before, but when I do, I’m impressed.

Of course, while I’m impressing myself I should remember that my two kids (age 4 & 1) don’t eat all that much so over time this number will only get higher. So I have to take measures to try to reduce that number before my kids start eating me out of house and home.

Here are some measures I’m taking that are helping me reduce my food budget:

Paying cash. Instead of just slapping down plastic after loading your cart full of goodies, try to pay cash at the checkout. This is supposed to make you feel the psychological pain of spending money. For me this has progressed to using an envelope system where I allot a certain amount (which has been a difficult transition for me, but I’ll cover this in a later post).
Only go grocery shopping once a week. I live 4 blocks away from the supermarket. This made it way too easy to run to the store for any little thing. Now I limit my trips to once per weekend.
Shop from a list. I’ve already told you that my wife loves lists, so it’s no shock that we use lists to save money. But here’s the trick, STICK TO THEM! I used to always sneak a few items here and there off the list. Add that habit to going to the store all the time and you can start to see why our food budget got out of control.

Now I realize that these are common sense tips, but when you think about it, almost every personal finance tip out there is served with a heavy dose of common sense. I wish I had some original ideas, but my role is too mainly detail my journey out of debt, not to reinvent the wheel.

But you…

The Happy Rock Readers always have lots of great ideas and this is another example of where I ask you for your thoughts. How close are you to eating on $1 a day? What steps did you take to trim your food budget? What are your tips for staying on course during the holidays? Any regrets?

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality, Money Savers

The Ingredient Experiment – Save Money And Eat Better

Posted by The Happy Rock on September 1, 2008

On the heels of Debt Defier’s commitment to attempt a cash only month I have a food related experiment that I am doing for September. Hopefully, the Debt Defier has better luck with cash only spending than I did.

I will be attempting to buy only ingredients for the whole month of September. I know that might sound a little vague, but here is the idea…buy only items that are naturally occurring and can be used to make meals. The goal is to cut out things like crackers, chips, expensive veggie burgers, and ice cream to increase my intake of fresh vegetables and fruits while being able to control the exact quality and quantity of ingredients on all the food that I eat.

The main goals are :

To Save Money. Ingredients are cheaper. A box of chips ahoy is $3.50 while you can make a batch of much more healthful cookies for much less, especially if the oven is already hot. A Lean Cuisine is $4.00 but you can make a healthy pasta meal with vegetables that will feed a family and have leftovers for the same price. A Snickers from the vending machine each day costs you about $200 a year plus it will add about 20 pounds if you don’t burn the extra calories. Eating healthier will also save money on medical bills.
Gain Energy. With the reduction of simple processed carbohydrates and sugars and increasing more healthful foods I will should feel better rested and have more energy. The food we ate is closely connected to our physical nature. I have noticed a large increase in energy and motivation as my eating habits have migrating to a much healthier diet over the years. I can now see the effects of a loose eating weekend and how it affects my overall energy and even my sleep. Hopefully there isn’t a major detox period from all the snacks and sugar. So far the psychological need to snack is the biggest hurdle.
Promote Healthy Habits. Treat my body better in order to improve overall healthfulness. Also changes like this tend to inspire other healthy changes like more physical activity. I hope to pick up with the 100 push up challenge were I got side tracked. Energy, rest, and health also contribute to overall happiness.
Encourage More Experimentation. Experiments keep you on your toes. They make life and change exciting without a long term commitment in case you don’t like the experiments outcome. Experimentation also breeds more willingness to change.

With that said the experiment will have to be a little vague, because I can’t anticipate the full range of ramifications. I will try and adhere to the guidelines and the spirit of the experiment as much as possible and make executive decisions as I go. I know ingredients for some are prepackaged food for others. Things like bread and pasta can be made at home, but for most they would count them as ingredients. For me, for now, they are ingredients as they don’t constitute a ready to ate food/meal. Maybe I will try my hand at baking my own bread, but for now I found to focus on the low hanging fruit like vending machines at work, expensive frozen foods, protein bars, etc. Anyone feel inspired to embark on a similar journey?

For those that want a crazy challenge The Happy Rockette is attempting a 100% raw vegan diet for the month of September. I wasn’t quite ready for the type of discipline needed for full raw foodism, but I am interested to see if The Rockette gets the reported major improvements in mental clarity, weight loss, energy boosts, libido burst, other overall health benefits. She isn’t planning a life long switch, since from her professional opinion(Registered Dietitian) it isn’t a sustainable lifestyle, but I love her willingness to try an extreme experiment!

» Filed Under Energy, Experiments, Food, Health

Gasonline is Cheap – Graphical Cost Of Liquids

Posted by The Happy Rock on June 28, 2008

The source was Amazon for the most part so the prices could be location independent. Some of the prices are for bulk and may be more expensive at your local grocery store. Discuss!

Source :

Oley Eye Cream
Loctite Super Glue
HP Black Printer Ink
Lovely(Sarah Jessica Parker) Perfume
Bertoli Olive Oil
Red Bull
Tide Detergent
Water, Milk, and Gasoline are local South New Jersey prices.

» Filed Under Food, Frugality, Psychology of Spending

Save Time, Gas, and Money By Training Your Grocery Store

Posted by The Happy Rock on June 3, 2008

For those of us lucky enough to have multiple grocery stores around, we usually end up with a favorite store. The frustrating part is that your favorite store doesn’t carry the exact item that you can get at other stores. I used to make quick trips to the other store for the one or two essentials that we couldn’t get at our main grocery store. I constantly wished that my main grocery store would realize how popular the item would be if they just carried. The thing is, stores would love more product feedback to help their buying decisions along, so why not help both parties and request your favorite items in store to a manager or through their web contact pages.

I wish I had done it sooner but I finally got to the point where I moved from complaining to action. Being the introvert that I am I loaded my the Shop-Rite contact page and requested that they carry our favorite bread. I clearly explained the product, the manufacturing company, and how it would be a popular item. In a week or two I got a response thanking me for the recommendation and that a manager would look into it. I had forgotten about it until two months later when the bread I wanted showed up on their selves! I was quite proud of myself, who knew I could have that much control. Hopefully I helped the store sell more product and at the same time saved the gas and time it took to stop at another grocery store.

I am now 3 for 3 after trying it recently with our new favorite grocery store Wegman’s. I requested Newman’s Own Light Honey Mustard Dressing and Martins’ Whole Wheat Potato Bread; they were on the self in a couple of weeks. Other than occasionally traveling to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’, two semi-local healthier grocery stores, I make one trip to the grocery store a week! Lots of time, gas, and money saved!