Note: This originally posted in July but I’m moving it to now because it’s a GREAT way to start the New Year. I don’t actually expect you to do much on actual New Year’s Day … I’m certainly not planning on it … but at least print out a year’s worth of calendars from your word processing program or from an online calendar program and then this weekend, go through the rest of the exercise …

Like most people, I hate putting together budgets. Blech.

You sit down, you know you SHOULD do a budget. Heavy sigh. You make spreadsheets of income and expenses, most of the time not all that accurate because you didn’t take the time to go back and see how much you actually spend in categories like gas, dining out, and food in the first place so you just toss a number in there and hope for the best. You promise to follow it and within a week, it’s at the bottom of a pile of mail and the next time you look at it, you realize that you’ve totally gone off course and you feel like a weak-willed loser.

In other words, budgets are like diets. And do you know what else? Just like most diets, they’re simply not realistic because they don’t fit in with our actual lives. In the case of budgets, the issue isn’t only about the net inflow and outflow, it’s about WHEN the money comes in and goes out.

So guess what - I don’t want you to do a budget. Yay!

Don’t get too excited, I still want you to write down your income and expenses, but try this instead of using a spreadsheet:

1. Get a monthly calendar with plenty of space to write in the date areas. Please don’t go spend a lot of money on a calendar, a free giveaway one from a store will work just fine as long as it’s big enough. I actually just print out a bunch of months from Word, punch holes in them and put them in a three ring binder.
2. Pull together a copy of any bank or credit card statements that note regular monthly expenses - mortgage, credit card payments, direct deposits, utilities, insurance, etc.
3. Write the payment for each bill in pencil on the day that the money is set to leave your account (not the due date). For example, if your water bill is usually about $100 per month and it goes out on the 15th, write that in on the calendar on the 15th, with parentheses around the amount to denote a debit. If your regular bills change monthly (water bills tending to be higher in the summer if you have a yard, for example), either remember to adjust them for an estimated upward amount in the appropriate months or see if your utility company has some sort of level billing program (if they don’t, you can still set up a level billing program - just send more than necessary in low payment months and let a credit build up).
4. Enter any irregular (special) upcoming expenses, such as summer camp tuition or annual car registration expense.
5. Enter your income on the dates that you receive/deposit your paychecks.
6. Add up how much you spent in the last month on groceries, gasoline, eating out, and other things like clothing and entertainment, multiply it by 12, divide it by 52, and enter that amount as a debit (parentheses) on each Saturday.
7. Get your calculator and write down a running balance in each day - I usually put all of my debits and credits at the bottom of the box and keep my running balance (again - in pencil!!) at the top of the box.

What you’ve done is essentially lay out an actual cash flow for your household. I want you to do it in pencil because things change over the course of a year, but I guarantee you that having a year’s worth of cash flow written out.

Why is this preferable to a simple, “we make this much, we spend this much” monthly budget?

• It gives you an opportunity to look forward and see where in the month you will have quite a bit or not very much money at all.
• Keeping the running total at the top of each day gives you a bit of a goal - if you overspend, you won’t be able to hit that number, right?
• Sharing this calendar with your partner can help show him or her that even though it looks like there is a bunch of money in the bank when they look at the ATM receipt right after payday, that money is already “spent” in the future.
• Seeing where you tend to accumulate funds might offer you an opportunity to send extra to credit card companies or savings accounts before it gets spent little by little on lunches, entertainment, etc.

E-mail me at info@foolsandsages.com if you would like for me to send you an example of what this type of cash flow calendar looks like. I scanned one but it ends up being so small on the page that you can’t really see the writing.

I know it’s not even New Year’s Eve and technically, resolutions don’t go into effect for a couple of days, but this first one is nice and painless. It will give you a sense of accomplishment, which is always good in the resolution keeping arena.

In fact, if your bank has the ability to set up automatic transfers, this will be the easiest New Year’s Resolution you have EVER undertaken.

Set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account for one dollar per day.

That’s it.

Mostly, anyway.

Your bank probably doesn’t have an option to set up a $1 transfer every single day, so you’ll probably have to set it up to do $7 on a weekly basis.

Just lik having a percentage of your check taken out for retirement savings or direct deposited into an investment account, setting up an automatic transfer puts your savings in an “out of sight, out of mind” category and you’ll find that you can adjust easily - you may not even notice the missing money, actually.

In case you do find that you need to cut back though, it shouldn’t be terribly painful. One lunch out per week, maybe not having a latte and scone, taking a peek at your cell phone plan and seeing if you can drop down a level, same with cable or Netflix.

One dollar a day doesn’t sound like much, but don’t be tempted to increase it now. We’ll do that incrementally throughout the year. Remember - “baby steps.”

If one of your goals in 2009 is to be financially healthy, there’s really no way to get around looking at your physical health as well. Bad habits cost money in the short and long term, and can have devastating impacts on your financial security.

Although there are probably different definitions of “vice” out there, depending on what you choose to believe or the latest scientific study on whether wine or chocolate is good or bad for you, I’m going to go out on a limb and list the following behaviors and “products” that you might want to cut back on if you’re looking to take control of your finances this year.

Don’t try to cut them all out at once, you’ll make yourself and those around you miserable and probably won’t succeed. Either take baby steps to cut back on them all at the same time (say, skipping a morning cigarette in January, and then a morning and lunch one in February, etc) or pick one and take an accelerated path to quit for a month and then move on to the next one.

1. Smoking - I think a pack of cigarettes costs about $4 in Denver, but I have friends in New York City and they say it’s more like $9 there. Assuming a middle range of $6.50 a pack, someone who smokes a pack per day is spending $2,372.50 per year on cigarettes, which is about $72,000 over the course of twenty years at 4% interest.
2. Drinking- This is a tough one, and totally subjective. I know there are people who really find a glass of wine to be an actual part of dinner, as much as the entree or side. I know the “experts” say that moderate drinking is actually good for you, regardless of your drink of choice. You know if you’re drinking too much, though, and if so, cut back. Drinking too much doesn’t just impact one evening, either. It can cause you to eat foods that don’t exactly support your health (and cost money) and people do stupid things when they’re drunk, like decide to go to Vegas or buy cars on eBay. Or so I’ve heard.
3. Eating Out - Is this a vice? It depends. If you have debt and/or are overweight, have bad blood numbers or a family history of things like heart disease or diabetes, it probably is. Of course, you can also eat poorly at home, but let’s face it - a couple of frozen White Castle sliders with a side of box mac & cheese and a Nutty Bar for dessert is less expensive than going out for a burger at Chili’s. Do either one of them too often and you’re still probably at higher risk of needing a bypass, but at least if you ate at home, you might have a little money set aside.
4. Coffee - Seriously, it’s water over crushed beans. How in the world did that get turned into a $5 per cup industry? And in the course of becoming so, it stopped being coffee and started being morning and afternoon sugar buzz dessert - have you looked at the calorie counts in a Venti Pumpkin Spice 2% milk latte with whipped cream? 470, my friends - FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY. Make it at home or drink the stuff at work if you really can’t cut back, but ideally .. cut back. It’ll be OK, I promise. Studies about caffeine being somehow good for you aside, coffee is has an acidic effect and not good for your tum-tum.
5. Soda - It’s not as expensive as coffee, but it’s still overpriced bubble water with no redeeming nutritional value.

Cutting back on any or all of these habits and replacing them with more healthful options will not only save you money, it may positively impact your health. That in turn can save you thousands of dollars over the course of your life in medications and insurance premiums. Of course, you can probably find an example of someone who drank vodka for breakfast and smoks two packs a day for forty years before peacefully in his or her sleep after running a marathon at the age of 95, but for the most part, you know I’m right. And to reinforce the amount of money that you can save, please review this post from early July - High Cost of Being Unhealthy - Life Insurance.

If you’ve been visiting the Fools and Sages community for a while, you already know that one of my favorite websites is The Grocery Game. I’ve written about it here, here, here and most recently, here. I hope you have been able to carve out some time and check it out.

If you haven’t, I humbly implore you to go to the site right now (well, after you finish reading this post), see if there is a program in your area and at least sign up for the $1 five week trial. I’m begging, because I saw the video version of this story tonight on the news:

With just a few weeks until Christmas, the Salvation Army says they’re worried about the lack of food donations, which are down about 30 percent in just the last year. Last month, the charity was forced to turn away 300 families who showed up to their food pantry looking for help.

This is in the Denver area, but I’m sure the same story is playing out all across the country.

You can make a difference, and The Grocery Game can help.

For example, quite often you’ll find that turkeys and hams are on sale, but there are limits of one per shopper’s club member. If you are planning on having turkey for your holiday dinner but there are hams at a great price, see if a local soup kitchen could use a fresh donation and pick one up … or pick up a super cheap turkey if you’re planning on having ham.

Look through the list for inexpensive non-perishable goods that you can pick up with coupons while they’re on “super sale” and take them to your local food bank. Even if you can’t get some of the great sales the first couple of weeks because you haven’t built up your stock of coupons, these organizations are still going to be in great need after the holidays when people pressed for cash are going to have to decide between paying for heat or paying for food. And if there are toiletries on sale, pick those up too. Most food banks welcome non-food items for their patrons.

Some examples of great prices from this past week’s sales from King Soopers/City Market/Kroger:

• Cook’s Spiral Sliced Ham - regularly $3.79 per pound, on sale for $1.49 per pound. … 61% savings.
• Olay Quench Therapy Hand and Body Lotion - regularly $7.69, on sale for $3.84, plus a coupon for $2. …. 76% savings.
• Arm & Hammer Antiperspirant and Deoderant - regularly $3.99, on sale for $1. … 71% savings.
• Kroger Anti-Plaque Dental Rinse - regularly $3.49, on sale for $1. … 72% savings.
• Goody Stay-Put Headbands - regularly $5.99, on sale for 50% off.
• Betty Crocker Brownie Mix - regularly $2.99, on sale for $1. … 67% off.
• Manischwitz Potato Pancake Mix - regularly $3.99, on sale for $1. … 75% off.
• American Beauty Pasta - regularly $2.49, on sale for $1. … 60% off.
• Mrs. Cubbison’s Stuffing Mix - regularly $2.39, on sale for $2, plus a coupon for $.55 (doubled up to $1). … 58% off.

That’s just a small sampling of this week’s specials, most of which are 50% off or more. And, as you’ll notice, most of the sales don’t even require a coupon, so you can make a difference THIS WEEK.

Just imagine, though .. if you got one each of the items above, assuming a five pound ham, you would spend $18.29 for merchandise regularly priced at $51.97, including some items that could be real food treats for a family, plus some that could help with hygiene, and even a couple of items that could be a small gift or stocking stuffer for a family that has fallen on hard times.

If you use the Grocery game for your own shopping, that $18.29 would probably VERY easily be covered by the savings you can glean from your own needs.

This weekend before you do your grocery shopping, I urge you to sign up for The Grocery Game and print out some items that you can pick up for those in need.

Please pass this post to friends as well, and let them know that if they use your e-mail address as a referral, you can earn free months with The Grocery Game. They can too, if they recommend this simple and inexpensive program to friends.

I am grateful to you in advance, and so are those who are in need of these wonderful charitable organizations this season.

Several months ago, I wrote a post about Freecycle, a grass roots organization formed to keep items out of landfills and money in your bank.  As the owner/operator of our local Freecycle group, I see all of the posts that go through the group - offers, requests, some heartbreaking, some amusing. It’s a great group and I hope you’ve at least looked into your area’s Freecycle group, especially as we come up on the holidays. If you haven’t, you can find the national information here - Freecycle.org - and drill down to find a group in your area.

In the last few months, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in requests for items, reflecting the economy in a couple of ways. First of all, there are more people who are truly struggling to make ends meet, but there also seems to be a very real shift in the general mindset from “if I need/want something, I’ll go buy it” to “if I need/want something, I’ll see if I can get it for free before I spend money on it.” This is GREAT, in my opinion, and in a twisted way, I hope that the economy stays tough for long enough for it to stick.

One thing I’ve encouraged in our local group is for people to use Freecycle as a way to clean out toy chests and game closets before the holidays, and to look at Freecycle offers as regifting opportunities. It’s been a great success, as far as I can tell, and we still have a few weeks to go. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve had a flood of offers come through the group - at least a dozen Christmas trees (those things aren’t cheap!!), gobs of holiday decorations, furniture, appliances, clothes, toys and games, puzzles, craft supplies for people making gifts, various home accessories and lots of other stuff.

Clearly, people are using Freecycle to regift and save holiday money in other ways, and I’m joining in. Over the weekend, I picked up an Oscar the Grouch plush toy and a t-ball set for my toddler. They’re wrapped and under the tree already, although I may have made a mistake when I decided to wrap the plush toy in Elmo wrapping paper, thereby rendering it completely irresistable. I also picked up a 2,000 piece puzzle for something to do while my parents are here, and some Christmas holiday wrapping paper that a Jewish friend said she didn’t need anymore.

In return, I’ve given away several boxes of holiday cards, an exercise machine that I received via Freecycle in the first place but never quite got the hang of, and will be posting a few very gently used home accessories and board games that could be given to someone in “like new” condition.

Do you have anything that you could post to your local Freecycle group? Doing so could relieve some of your clutter and really make a difference to a family in your area.

A friend told me about a show he watched last night called Half Ton Dad. It is a documentary about a man named Kenneth Brumley and the lengths he went to in order to lose weight and regain his life. I haven’t seen the show (no cable) but apparently after undergoing surgery to remove over 200 pounds of fatty tumors and then gastric bypass surgery, he is now down to a  little over 500 pounds and can stand on his own for a few minutes at a time. That’s fantastic and I wish him the best.

So how did he get so large? By eating too much, of course. His case is obviously extreme, but just to give you an idea, he ate 30,000 calories per day. According to the McDonalds nutrition chart, and with a quick note that I’m not picking on McDonalds but am just using them as a familiar reference, a Big Mac, large fries and large regular Coke is about 1,350 calories and 54 grams of fat. He was eating the equivalent of a little over twenty-two of those meals per day, on average.

Seriously, sit back and ponder that for a moment. 22 Big Macs, 22 large fries, and 22 32-ounce sodas per day. It’s mind boggling.

What’s even more mind boggling is how much money it must cost to feed someone 30,000 calories per day, and why the people around him continued to kill him by bring him this much food. Not to sound cold here, but he couldn’t walk so his food intake was dictated by what others would bring to him. It’s not like he could get up and get his own burger if his family chose to only bring him salad …

… but I digress.

Back to the topic at hand, there is a KFC commercial currently in rotation that mocks anyone who would get a puny little burger and fries combo because their new box combo, branded by Guitar Hero, is bigger and manlier.

From the a friendly blogger in Michigan (I’ll include his video at the bottom of this post - thank goodness he went and bought it because I never will!), here’s what you get in your Guitar Hero fully loaded box meal, which will run you about $8:

• 1 Snacker (mini sandwich)
• 1 piece chicken (leg or thigh, Original Recipe or Extra Crispy)
• 2 Crispy Strips
• 2 sides
• 1 biscuit
• 32-ounce drink in flimsy “collector” cup

Alrighty.

According to his site, this meal has about 1,200 calories, which actually makes it a more slenderizing choice than a Big Mac, large fries and a Coke. There are, however, quite a variety of choices to be made with this meal. The only fairly consistent calorie numbers come with the Snacker sandwich, Crispy Strips and biscuit. If I put together a meal with a Snacker, 1 Extra Crispy thigh, 2 Crispy Strips, Baked Beans, Coleslaw, 1 biscuit and a 32 ounce regular Pepsi, I can easily plump that calorie count up to about 1,800 calories and 73 grams of fat.

Since this meal is aimed at young males, I found a calculator that would calculate the average calorie needs of a 6′0″ tall, 200 pound, lightly active 20 year old male. The calculator popped out that to maintain that weight, my fictional young man would need about 2,800 calories per day, including 95 grams of fat. One of these meals would provide about 65% of caloric needs for the day, and 77% of his fat. In other words, he’s theoretically OK if he eats this meal every day, depending on how the rest of his daily calorie and fat content plays out.

Of course, weight and nutrition is not all about calories and fat content. Besides the cabbage in the slaw I chose for him and a piece of token lettuce on the Snacker sandwich, there’s no vegetables in this meal, and no fruit at all. I can’t imagine he would be getting a decent amount of vitamins and minerals either, and just looking at the foods in that list makes me tired - eating all of it at one sitting would probably require a nap afterwards, don’t you think?

So, while I wouldn’t personally choose to pay $8 for this meal, it’s certainly not a killer as an occasional expenditure. If you want to splurge and KFC is your thing, I guess this is a great way to get a wide variety of treats in one box - just don’t make it a daily habit.

KFC Guitar Hero Fully Loaded Box Meal unboxed from Tim Agne on Vimeo

Although fuel prices have dropped precipitously - I saw $1.90 per gallon in my neighborhood yesterday - restaurants are still expecting to see much higher food prices and are changing their menus accordingly.  If you have a favorite restaurant that you frequent regularly enough to be able to recognize alterations in portion sizes or prices, it might be fun to see if you can see where they’re making the adjustments.

From the Associated Press:

CKE Restaurants Inc., which operates the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. chains, stopped offering Double Cheeseburgers in its 2 for $3 promotion at the end of August and replaced them with Jumbo Chili Dogs and Hot Ham ‘N’ Cheese Sandwiches to avoid selling pricey beef at a lower price.

Even fast-food leader McDonald’s Corp. is considering making some changes to its popular dollar menu — either by changing the items on the menu or bumping up prices — saying the cost of selling meat at such low prices might be too high.

I feel sorry for the resturants, in a way - they’ve gotten used to Americans eating out constantly. Over the last year, though, dining out has cut back quite a bit and food prices have gone up, so the restaurants are hit with a double whammy. If they raise prices or cut portions (and therefore, “value”), they’ll lose even more business, but they really don’t have any choice.

“This is the most challenging environment for restaurant operators regarding food price inflation on the wholesale level for almost 30 years,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association.

Riehle said wholesale food prices have jumped 8.7 percent year-to-date through August. That’s on top of a 7.6 percent increase in 2007.

In 2006, in comparison, wholesale food prices climbed just seven-tenths of one percent, Riehle said.

Those numbers understate the increase in beef costs by quite a bit - the article states that beef and veal have gone up almost 20% from August 2007 to August 2008 - which probably means that you’ll get a little less meat in your taco salad or a few more fries on your plate to make up the difference.

There’s a lesson in here, and I’m betting you know what it is - Meat Is Expensive.

The easiest way to save money on your grocery bill is to eat less of it. Stretch your meat use with more veggies.

Instead of having a steak at home with a salad and maybe some potatoes on the side, slice up half a steak and throw it on top of the salad. A spicydressing made by combining about half and half ranch and salsa will “kick it up a notch” and help fill you up.

Other ways to stretch your meat without getting too much flack from the family …

• If you use ground meat in your pasta sauce, just use less. They probably won’t even notice.
• Make soups. Stew meat is cheaper, and if you have lots of veggies in there, they provide texture to compensate.
• For those soups, add beans - you see this with chili already, it’s helpful in regular soups as well. Barley is also a good addition to soups.
• If you’re making stir fries or Mexican dishes, slice up some mushrooms and combine them in with the meat. Portobellos provide some good “bite” but even button mushrooms can help extend enchilada or taco filling (chop up the mushrooms really small for taco filling).

Switching out beans and veggies for meat is not only less expensive, it also cuts back on fat. Don’t worry about missing out on your protein. For almost all of us, low dietary protein is simply not an issue.

I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news, but for the first time in a decade, Americans actually paid off some debt!

From Marketwatch:

Seasonally adjusted consumer debt — including credit cards, auto loans and other unsecured debts — fell by a record $7.5 billion, or a 3.7% annual rate, to $2.58 trillion in August. That’s the largest percentage drop since January 1998, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday. Consumer debts had risen 2.4% in July.

That’s only about twenty bucks for every man, woman and child in the country, and the numbers don’t include mortgages or home equity loans. While any decrease in debt is good, these numbers don’t provide a lot of context and I have a couple of questions …

Did consumers CHOOSE to spend less or were they not allowed to spend more? One other point the article makes is that automobile borrowing dropped sharply, but there’s a difference between borrowing being down and applications for loans being down. Did consumers try to buy a car and get denied?

Well, let’s see. Here’s a notice from HSBC on August 6, 2008:

HSBC has made the decision to exit the Auto Finance business in the U.S.. As a result, HSBC Auto Finance will discontinue offering auto loans to its customers effective August 6, 2008.

And then there’s this article from bnet on September 29,^, 2008:

In 2008, about 81 percent of prime-risk loan applications eventually got approved, down from about 91 percent in the year-ago period, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 20, CNW said. Near-prime approvals fell to 77 percent, from 86 percent.

[CNW President Art] Spinella said subprime approvals fell to only about 23 percent, down from 67 percent a year earlier.

What did credit card rates do in August?

I couldn’t actually find some quick information on this, which surprised me. I’ll update later if I find it. My guess is that the probably didn’t go DOWN.

From a related article in the Wall Street Journal, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke did note that lenders are lowering credit card limits, which might have startled a lot of people and prompted a bit of a payoff just to create a cushion.

I did find this bit in an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on October 7, 2008:

Revolving credit, which includes credit cards, has grown faster than nonrevolving credit, or installment loans such as mortgages, since May 2006, according to the Fed. But that growth rate has been slowing for most of the year, suggesting it may fade as a source of consumer-spending power.

“Banks are starting to see increased delinquencies on their credit-card portfolios and are trying to raise rates and tighten terms on payment,” says Richard Moody, chief economist at Mission Residential. “It’s an implicit way of tightening credit.”

Is this going to cause even more problems with the economy?

Quite possibly. If people spend less, companies lose money and jobs go away. I would like to point out, though, that many of the jobs lost could be overseas. It doesn’t help bring back any jobs here but for those who have been seething at the outsourcing of their livelihood to another country, there might at least be a bit of a sense of payback.

Even if it is bad for the economy, it certainly doesn’t mean American citizens should take one for the team and keep shopping. I mean, really – the debt of Americans went down $7.5 billion in August, but it went up $800 billion or so in September and October, right?

By the way, I saw this news yesterday:

The National Debt Clock has run out of spaces to display $10 trillion in red numerals.

By adding $100 billion to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and $700 billion to bail out banks and the credit market, there’s no room for more zeroes.

As I went through some actual paper mail this morning, I came across yet another letter from Bally’s asking me to renew my membership. It looks like a magazine renewal thingie and the text makes it sound like I’ve never NOT had a Bally’s membership, even though I haven’t set foot in one of those places in years.

I actually did have a membership at Bally’s from way back. Remember Richard Simmons? Back in the 80’s, he opened a line of aerobic studios in strip malls and I would go a few times a week with a group of high school friends. At some point my Richard Simmons studio was bought by President’s Health Clubs, and they eventually turned into Bally’s. This chain of events was a great deal for me because I had a really cheap renewal rate and had gone from being a member of a small aerobics club to a full fledged health club with those classes and much, much more.

It made sense, I thought, to keep the membership because I’d never be able to match it again, which is a really STUPID way to look at expenses. I kept that silly membership for years, even when I lived in areas where there wasn’t a Bally’s within 100 miles of my home. Silly, silly, silly behavior.

Flash forward.

My husband and I currently have a gym membership and we’ve definitely gone often enough to get our money’s worth (about $16/month for the two of us), but gym memberships in general are a big numbers game. Gyms know that lots and lots of people sign up with great intentions but never follow through - that’s why most places don’t let you just go month to month. They want a steady stream of income that goes well beyond your initial burst of “no really, this time I MEAN it, I’m totally going every day.”

Now, think about this - there ARE people who go every day, and if you’re not one of them, not only are you not getting in shape, you’re almost kinda subsidizing that chick with the buns of steel or the guy with the killer biceps. Harumph!

So anyway, to the point of the post - there are lots of free exercises you can do that don’t involve trying to lie to yourself by saying, “but if I pay for it, I’ll surely use it - that’s my motivation.”

• Go to the library and see if they have any workout DVD’s - ours has a few hundred, I could do a different one every week and probably never get through them. Yoga, pilates, aerobics, strength … pregnant, seated (for those with mobility issues), workouts with your kids, the list goes on and on.
• I know you’ve heard this one - go for a walk! Take the kids, use it as a time to talk.
• If you have access to a great trail system or bike route lane, break up the walking with a bike ride every so often.
• Walk the steps in your home, and take the stairs at work.
• Yard work.
• Don’t walk when you can run, don’t stand when you can walk, don’t sit when you can stand, don’t lie down when you can sit.

You can also do many of the strength exercises that you do in the gym, but without all of the equipment, such as …

• Wall squats - if you have an exercise ball, try putting that behind your back and do some reps of up and down wall squats with one leg out at a 45 degree angle. Owie.
• Tricep dips on a sturdy chair or the side of a bathtub.
• Calf raises on a step or raised mantle - try them one leg at a time for a minute each if you really want to feel a bur.
• Push-ups and sit-ups - how old school!

I could go on for a while, but you get the idea. Anything you do that means you move more than you are now is good. Find a video you like that involve mostly floor exercises so you can do from memory while you watch TV. And smile as you think about all of the money you’re saving.

So, I’ve been sick the last few days. The toddler had it last week and it looked like the rest of us were going to dodge the bullet but Sunday morning middle child and I woke up with sore throats.

By Monday, after a day in the fields and canning at home, my throat was much worse and I could feel it moving into my ears. Meanwhile, middle child sounded like Squeakers in Toy Story, so he stayed home from school. Going to bed at 8:00 and getting 10 hours of sleep seemed to help tremendously and I thought I’d escaped it … but no.

Tuesday was spent in a cold medicine haze, and by Tuesday night I felt the familiar symptoms of bronchitis, my particular disease that shows up when I’ve pushed too hard.

This morning I caved to the antibiotic gods and got a course of azithromycin for myself and the middle child. I am one of those people who really doesn’t like antibiotics and besides ACL surgery and giving birth, it’s probably been about three years since my last need for antibiotics.

I am a walking NyQuil commercial - well, a sitting NyQuil commercial, I haven’t really walked much today or done anything, really. But still - stuffy and runny nose at the same time (how is that POSSIBLE?!), burning itching eyes, headache like you wouldn’t believe. The only thing I don’t have is a fever, hallelujah.

Hopefully this will all pass by this weekend.

In the meantime, I got to thinking about frugality in terms of illness. Is it frugal to try to tough out an illness to the point that your productivity at work suffers, you’re too tired to cook so you order out, or you don’t get to spend nice time with your loved ones? I don’t think so. I think that’s just being cheap, and it doesn’t do you or anyone else any good.

If you have the coverage, take advantage of it when you get sick. Get in and get it taken care of and hey everybody, let’s stay healthy out there.