Movie Night - Death at a Funeral

Tonight J is coming over and we are going to watch one of my favorite movies, Death at a Funeral. It is hilarious! It is so good, in fact, that it is one of the few movies I have ever paid full price for instead of buying from a bargin bin or garage sale. We will walk down to the pizza place down the street from my apartment and pick up one of their walk in specials (1 large 1 topping for $5.99) and head back to watch the movie. A funny movie and a delicious dinner for less than $6...talk about a cheap date!

The Grocery Store

Today was a good day at the grocery store. Trent Hamm (who writes at www.thesimpledollar.com) mentioned a trick he learned where he cut coupons that were 3 to 4 weeks old so that they aligned with the sales going on at the store. I thought it seemed intriguing so I gave it a try and you may not believe it but it works!

I found Jose Ole' mini tacos on sale at 2 for $5 and I had a coupon for $1 off. These sell for $4.19 a box generally, so I saved more than 50% on them. I usually don't buy them at all because they are so expensive but I really enjoy them as a treat now and then so it was wonderful to find such a fantastic price and have a coupon on top of that! I got 5 containers of yogurt for $2, which is an excellent price in Manhattan, and that will be an easy breakfast every day for the next week. They also had cat food and litter on sale, which works out really well since I have two of the cutest kitties in the world who need both food and litter and I had a coupon for $1 off the dry food. I spent $3 more than I budgeted for but that is okay because this will last me for 10-12 days instead of just 1 week.

Riding the Rails

I got my Metro North card in the mail the other day. Since I am buying them online now instead of at the station I save 3% on the cost of the card. On top of that the seat that I chose for the ride to work had a dime stuck between the cushions, so I fished the dime out of there and put it in my purse. I came out 10 cents ahead and I reduced the cost of my commute to work! Now I am just waiting until my first year here is up so I can find a job in Manhattan and not have to pay for the extra commute at all. That would save me an extra $187 a month!

Laundry Day

Generally I do laundry on Wednesday or Thursday nights. The place is generally pretty empty and it gives me a couple of hours to read or practice my spanish skills or whatever. This past week though I have been so busy that I put off laundry until Sunday. That will NEVER happen again! Hoardes of children, 6 broken dryers, and nowhere to sit made me realize that it is worth the time and effort to do laundry on a week night. I was going to go out with J tonight but he is not feeling well and, frankly, after that experience at the laundromat I am not feeling so hot either. We will go out Tuesday instead, thus saving us the expense of dinner and a show for tonight at least.

Central Park Tour

Today I went on the tour of Central Park and while we were exploring the area there was an activist group handing out free bottles of water to draw attention to the study of the cure for Parkinson's disease. Then on the way home from the tour I found a penny on the ground. I am ahead for the day with 1 free bottle of water and 1 cent. Not bad for a Saturday!

Central Park

Today after I go to the library and return my books and movies I am going on a historical walking tour of Central Park. With my allergies acting up the way they have been lately this may not be the best of all possible choices but it is something I have wanted to do for a long time and it is absolutely free. I can't let the opportunity pass me by so I will just pack up some store-brand benadryl and bring a few kleenex with me. Opportunities to learn about stuff and to spend time outside on a gorgeous day like today should not be ignored!

Bagelicious

Today a coworker bought bagels for everyone so for lunch I am having a bagel and some tea. I love free food at the office!

Also, today on my way to work these two men were beating the crap out of each other in the subway. I ran and got help and no one was seriously hurt but it made me wonder how much thought the two of them put into that decision. First of all, it made them look like jerks to the people around them and I can honestly say if I am ever interviewing people for jobs or potential roommates or something and one of them show up they will not be chosen for the position and I am sure the other 40 people who witnessed it would say the same. Second of all, they both now have medical bills from the injuries they inflicted upon one another and whatever tickets or jail time they got from the cops. That fight is going to cost them a lot more than the pride they weren't able to swallow on the way to work today. I hope they remember that cost next time they are in a similar position.

Free Lunch

Today my office is having a big meeting during lunch and to compensate us for our time they have ordered a vast amount of food. Sandwiches, salads, desserts, etc. all for the taking in the break room! At this point I don't even care what the meeting is about as long as I get something to eat first. Hurrah for not having to buy or bring lunch to work today!

Also, I found 6 cents on my way to work this morning. I know that doesn't have much to do with anything but anytime I find any amount of free money I get excited. I can't help it, it is the frugalvore in me.

Cat Litter

When I first moved to NYC I was spending about $16 a week on litter for 2 cats. After I realized I was going to have to start watching the finances a bit I switched to a different brand and spent about $10 for 2 cats. Then last month when I received the news of my roommate's departure I switched to a different kind of litter in the same brand that was $7 a week for 2 cats. Last night at the grocery store I found another clumping litter designed for multiple cats that was $5. So I have now gone from $16 for the baking soda laced, multicolored litter to the cheaper Tidy Cats and it works almost as well as the expensive stuff did. I can deal with it for $11 per week in savings.

Cooking Tonight

Today I had to buy lunch for $6.50 instead of bringing my lunch to work. This is because I stayed out extremely late last night and got home a little after midnight so I didn't have time or energy enough to cook anything for lunch today. Tonight when I get home I am going to prep lunches for the next 3 days and dinner for tonight to help prevent another situation where I am forced to choose between lunch and fiscal responsibility.

Picnic in the Park

This Wednesday the guy I am dating and I are going to get together to go on a picnic. We are going to pack up dinner and a blanket and head down to Central Park and enjoy this beautiful spring weather we are having here lately. We have gone out a few times and take turns paying for things but as they say the best things in life are free! I am looking forward to spending an evening together without having to worry about how we will pay for it.

11 Cents Richer

Yesterday I kept my eye out for change on the ground. Throughout the course of my day I found a penny and a dime so I came out 11 cents ahead! I know that doesn't sound like much but if I find 11 cents on the ground every day that comes to $40.15 per year. That is a week of groceries and a ticket to the movies with only the effort it takes to bend over and pick up a coin.

Working For a Living

I live in Manhattan and I work in Westchester County. This normally wouldn't be a big deal except that I live really far north on the west side of the island and the trains that take me to work leave from the lower east side, which means I have about an hour and a half commute each way on a good day. If there is any kind of delay at all it is more like 2 hours. All of this incredibly long commute takes me to a job I honestly don't like very much. It makes me sad to have to put this much effort into a job that doesn't make me happy but frankly in this economy I am lucky to have a job at all right now. In this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080418/bs_nm/wallstreet_layoffs_dc;_ylt=ArE9GBqhhNqhqSgJ60CcFfOyBhIF it mentions that 36,000 job cuts have been announced this year and it is only April! That doesn't even include Citigroup's announcement to cut another 9,000 jobs. Work is becoming more and more scarce for everyone these days and a significant portion of the jobs being cut are in NYC. This is the financial hub of the nation after all, so all of these banking, real estate, and stock broker positions have a tremendous amount of employees here in the city and this is the most logical place for many companies to start cutting jobs. This means that it will be that much harder for me to find a position closer to home because more and more well educated, qualified people will be looking for jobs over the coming weeks and months and I will be competing against them for something better. This is my plan for dealing with my job situation:

1. Stay where I am for at least another 7-8 months. I worked at my last job in TX for a year and the job before that for only 3 months. (That 3 month job was in the mortgage industry and I cried on my way to work every day. I would rather have been unemployed than continued to do that.) If I leave where I am now before I have put in at least a year and a half here I will look like a job hopper and it won't matter if I am qualified for a position because no one wants to hire someone who looks like they will quit on them in 6 months.

2. Get out and meet new people. Networking is the best way to find a job. The phrase, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" wasn't created for no reason, after all! I will make it my mission to go out and meet new people that I have things in common with over the next 7-8 months and hopefully one of the people that I meet will have the perfect job for me. If not at least I will have lots of new friends to keep me company while I work somewhere that isn't right for me.

3. Work on developing new skills for the workplace. I will pick something that I have always wanted to know how to do that could possibly be a benefit to have on my resume and learn to do that. Improve my computer skills? Learn to speak a foreign language? I have a world of options to choose from and if I choose wisely I can add another line to my resume that might make a huge difference in future interview positions.

I am hoping that while I am putting in my time at my current job the economy picks back up again and I can breathe a little easier, but if it doesn't I will know that I am doing my best to stay ahead of the game and hopefully my sunny personality and sheer determination will be enough to get me through.

Medical Studies

On Wednesday when I was at the laundromat there was a flyer advertising a medical study. You get paid $390 to take a specific birth control pill for 3 months! 3 months of free birth control AND an additional $390 would be an incredible boon right now so I called the number and left them a message in hopes that they will call me back and pay me to be in their study. I could really use the extra money and I wouldn't have to worry about paying for the other birth control pills that I take so it would be like a double plus bonus! Wish me luck!

UPDATE: I spoke to the people running the study and because I am not available to be at the hospital twice a week between 9 and 5 I can't participate. Oh well, I will keep an eye out for future studies and hopefully I will find something that works a bit better.

$30 For a Book...Seriously?

I am a member of a book club. Every month a different member gets to pick the book for the next meeting and we all go out and find that book, read it, and come back and discuss it over gelato. This month's book is entitled By George by Wesley Stace. It is a good book, but I looked for 3 weeks before I was able to find a copy. The one at the library is categorized as "missing", whatever that means, they didn't have a copy at any of the 4 bookstores I went to in Manhattan, they didn't have a copy at any bookstore I could find in TX while I was there, it just didn't seem to exist. I finally went to a Barnes and Noble and had them call every location until I found one where they had the book and I went and picked it up the other day. $30 for a book! They only had the hardback version so I had to pay as much as I normally pay for a week of groceries for this book. I simply cannot afford it but I can't miss my book club meeting either since they play a large part in my social life and provide me with intellectual stimulation as well. I had to come up with a solution to my problem and I think I have found it, though I don't feel good about it at all. I am reading the book very carefully, making sure to keep it in pristine condition and not break the binding. Then after the meeting I will go to Barnes and Noble and return the book and get my money back. I know it is wrong to buy a book, read it, and return it, but really I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am taking care to make sure that the book is in the same condition it was in when I bought it and if I damage it at all I will keep it and try to sell it on eBay or something instead but this is really my only feasible option. I won't get $30 for it on eBay, I might get $3 of $4 at best, and I can't justify that kind of money for a book I will only read once. Next month I am going to try to suggest a book and I will pick one that I already own but haven't read or that I know is available at the library!

Tribeca Film Festival

Part of the reason I moved to NYC is because of all of the art and culture available here. I may not be able to afford tickets to Broadway shows anymore but Tribeca Film Festival is taking place from April 24-May 4 and I am going to go see one of the films!

I know I probably should save the $15 and stay home or do something that is free but this is the kind of thing that made me move here in the first place. I don't want to be miserable knowing that the Tribeca Film Festival passed me by. I used to imagine going to film festivals and art galleries while I lay in bed at night in high school (yeah, I was a nerd, I know) so to me this is worth the $15. I really wanted to spend an entire weekend at the festival but that is beyond my financial grasp at the moment so I am just choosing 1 film to see on one of my days off of work. Then it is back to renting movies at the library for me!

Grocery Shopping

Last night I went grocery shopping. I limit myself to a budget of $30 per week to cover groceries for me, toiletries, cat litter, and other necessities. I had a couple of coupons (which they deliver free to my apartment building weekly...no buying the sunday paper for coupons for me!) and bought mostly what was listed as on sale. I got plenty of food for one person for a week, though some of it will probably go to feed my roommate since she is still sponging off of me financially until she moves, and 14 lbs of litter which made kitties very happy. I wish I had some other store options nearby but since I live in NYC and my grocery shopping must be done within walking distance of my house to prevent being charged a delivery fee + tip I really only have 2 stores available, one of which is an expensive specialty store that sells mostly premade soups and sandwiches along with pints of ice cream so it doesn't really count towards groceries.

I am going to try to get myself down to $25 per week for me and the kitties but that is going to take some time and it isn't really possible while my roommate is living with me. When I come home and she has eaten 2 days worth of pasta or soup or whatever I bought that week I am out of luck so I have to buy a bit more than is truly necessary to compensate. My rent will go up tremendously when she leaves but my grocery bill/transportation costs/entertainment costs will go down after she leaves so hopefully that will help make up for the jump in my rent.

Grocery bills are growing for people all over the nation. As mentioned in the news (article can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20080414/bs_bw/apr2008db20080411198152;_ylt=Agw9_O8Cq5MRrk_1g2oy.BuyBhIF) the cost of a pound of flour has gone up 26%, the cost of milk has gone up 10%, cheddar cheese has gone up 27%, and corn oil is up 9%, just to name a few standard grocery items. This is not only impacting those of us who are buying groceries for ourselves every week but also those people who had been buying to donate to food pantries. In New York The BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger, a nonprofit food pantry, has seen a 15% increase in the number of people making use of their services while they are recieving fewer and fewer donations. If you find yourself at the store with a couple of extra dollars you might want to consider buying some staples for your local food pantry to help those who are truly in need.

Laundry Night

At my house laundry is generally done on Thursday. Because I had been out of town the week before and we had other things we were doing we put off laundry until tonight. This does not mean that I had an abundance of clean clothes available, however, so I washed a couple of outfits by hand in the bathtub and hung them to dry. This isn't nearly as effective as washing clothes in the machine but it is much, much cheaper. I am looking for a drying rack for at home so I don't have to use the dryer at the laundromat. Wish me luck!

Free Soda

Last night I went out to Queens and spent some time with a couple of my friends. They are drinkers (I'm not but I don't mind being around those who do drink) so we went to a bar. It was completely empty so it was just the three of us and they ordered mixed drinks while I drank 7-Up all night. When it came time to pay the bartender told me she doesn't charge for soda when other people in the party are drinking so I got to spend the evening downing free 7-Up! Score for me!

Early Saturday Morning

It is 9:45 on Saturday morning and I have been awake for 2 hours now. I am waiting for the repairman to come and hook up our gas line again. We had a bit of a snafu in our building a couple of months ago that caused all of the apartments in our building to lose gas. We have been cooking on a hotplate for too long and now they are coming to fix it today! I can use my oven again! I am so excited I can barely stand it!

The only problem I have is with the schedule the repairman left us. We are to be home from 8 am to 4 pm so that they can come by and fix the gas. So instead of going to the library and the goodwill as was my plan today I am sitting here on the couch petting the cats and waiting for them to come fix the gas.

As I am a renter the repairs are not costing me anything at all, which is really one of the best parts of renting instead of owning property. The only thing it is costing me is time, which is really all I can afford to give right now. I am very excited about having a working stove and oven again!

Savings

Today was a very hard day for me. For years I have had my checking account set up to automatically transfer a couple hundred dollars to my savings account. I didn't have to think about it, it just happened. My savings grew and it didn't effect my day to day life at all. But now that my roommate is moving and I am going to have my rent double I can't afford to continue with the automatic savings. I will still continue to contribute to my retirement fund, of course, but now my emergency savings and vacation savings accounts are coming to a halt.

I cancelled my automatic transfers. That was the most difficult step I have taken towards living within my means I have taken so far. I teared up a little at the thought that I wouldn't be able to save like that for the next year or so because it is so much a part of who I am to set money aside for a rainy day and now that the sky is opening up and the wind is starting to blow I am hesitant to actually use the funds I have set aside. I wonder how many other people feel the same way?

Postcards

Today I sent postcards to my parents, my aunt and uncle, and some of my friends. None of it cost me one red cent though! When I went to Texas my aunt gave me a gift bag full of stuff including postcards and stamps. I tend to send postcards to family and friends once every couple of weeks and to have been handed a fist full of postage stamps and and postcards allows me to continue to be in touch with my family and friends at no cost to me. Thanks for the gift Amy!

Date Night

Last night I had a date with a very nice guy. We met at Starbucks and from there we took a walk in the park in my neighborhood. We walked by the musuem in the park and sat on the wall overlooking the Hudson river. We spent a couple of hours just getting to know one another and during our wandering we found a new restaurant in the area (well, new to us. I'm sure it has been there for a while and we just never noticed it before.) It was a nice way to spend an evening and it only cost $1.50 for the bottle of water from Starbucks. I like being able to spend time with someone without spending money.

I always think that the best dates are the ones that don't cost any money. It is easy to impress someone with money but to be able to impress someone with nothing but your sparkling personality is much more difficult. You learn a lot about people when you limit your spending and get to know what is underneath the wallet.

Eating at Work

I brought oatmeal to work for breakfast today but then in the breakroom I found a tray of cupcakes for everyone. I decided to keep the oatmeal in my drawer for tomorrow and have a cupcake for breakfast instead. Woohoo for free breakfast!

I would also like to acknowledge the wonderousness of ripe pears. Pears are my favorite fruit and they were on sale at my grocery store for 99 cents a pound so I bought several of them. I brought one to work with me today to have with my lunch and it was so good! I highly recommend pears. Go get one today!

Cat Food Frugality

Okay, I have two cats who are adorable and lovely and all, but they really push my buttons every now and again. Oliver (my orange cat) does this thing where when I feed him and Joey (my grey and black tabby) he eats a few bites of his food and then pushes Joey out of the way and eats all of his food before going back to finish his own. Then Joey is starving later and knocks things off the counter until I feed him again. They are fed in separate rooms so this shouldn't be an issue but they still seem to make sure to make it as difficult as possible. I was paying a lot of money feeding Oliver twice as much as Joey and it was getting expensive so I finally started feeding Oliver and then shutting the door so he can't get out and steal Joey's dinner. Joey gets to finish his food and Oliver still has a full belly at the end of the night. This kind of stuff is the reason I don't have kids, I swear. Well, that and I don't have a husband or a man to fill me with babies. And I am not a big fan of kids and I don't know that I would want one even if I did have a guy to knock me up. Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, it is way cheaper to feed the kitties if I put a barrier between them during meals.

Book Review - The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel

A few years ago I bought a copy of the book The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel. It is basically her blog about being broke, but in book form. She was really, really broke. Far more broke than I am, in fact, and I am about to take the plunge into the mad, crazy world of brokeness so I can appreciate her situation!

She tells hilarious stories of her banking misadventures, scamming free textbooks from the publishers, crashing a funeral for the free food, and much more. Since I was out of town this weekend I didn't get a chance to go to the library like I normally do every Saturday and I have been left to peruse my own books and DVDs for entertainment. I own quite a lot of books and DVDs so it isn't a horrible thing to be left to my personal collection, and when I went looking over the shelves I rediscovered this gem of a book. When she talks about flirting her way into keeping her electricity or going to open-mike poetry for some free entertainment you can't help but goggle and laugh at her zany misadventures. When she talks about only having 1 serving of grits in the house for food or stretching a serving of pancake batter to make it last all day I can understand her situation since I recently had a bit of a baked bean debacle myself.

While the book is hilarious and very well written what I love best about the book is that it provides me with the comfort of knowing that someone else has been there before me and survived. To know that other people have been broke and lived to tell about it or are currently broke but still happy with life in general is comforting and makes me think that this temporary blip will not turn into a forever situation.

The Awesomeness of Craigslist

If you have never been to www.craigslist.org I highly suggest you check it out. It provides loads of free entertainment! You can get a date with no online dating service fee, you can find a job, you can find an apartment, you can connect with old friends, etc. and it is all absolutely free! I am going to try to sell some extra computer parts I don't need anymore on craigslist and see if I can make a little money and then I will go see about getting a date for this weekend! (Consider yourself warned, though, that since it is free there are some scams on the site. Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is so be weary!)

Waiting

I flew back to NYC from Texas today. They cancelled my flight and put me on a different flight that took an extra two hours. Then on top of that my Super Shuttle ride that was supposed to pick me up 20 minutes after I arrived took over an hour to get to the airport. I wanted so badly to go and catch a cab to get home as quickly as possible because I had been at the airport/on an airplane for 9 hours so far and I just wanted to leave but I knew the shuttle would only cost me 20 bucks (with tip) and a cab would cost me at least 40 dollars. So I waited for the shuttle. And waited. And waited some more. They finally picked me up and took me home so that I could change and feed the cats. I am glad I got to see my family but I am so glad to be home!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday was my father's birthday. We went out to dinner at Babe's Chicken (which is the most fantastic place for authentic southern food...if you live in TX you should log off and go there right now) and then we came back and had red velvet cake while my dad opened his gifts. It was a good day, and all the food was absolutely free (well, for me that is. My parents are awesome and they understand the financial situation I am in so they didn't have a problem buying me dinner.)

Then after that I went to karaoke with my friend and her fiance. They had a lot of beer but I just ordered water so I didn't spend a dime. Free karaoke with your drunken friends is one of the best ways to spend your time in the whole universe and if you haven't tried it I suggest you insist your friends get drunk and sing with you tonight! It is saturday so I'm sure there are plenty of bars with karaoke going on tonight.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has a reputation for being an evil, soul-sucking corporation that pays shit wages and forces companies to provide products below their profit margin to sell items in their store. Generally speaking I hate Wal-Mart for all of these reasons and more, the most recent reason to hate them is because of their insurance debacle with Debbie Shank. (This article will explain in more detail http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/) Part of the benefit of living in NYC is that their is no Wal-Mart here. However, when I am back in TX I will probably be making a stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things I simply can't get here in NYC. I haven't spent a dime there in 10 months now but some things aren't really available elsewhere in TX so off I go into a store that is the center of controversy and more often than not wreaks havoc with the lives of those associated with it all in the name of frugality. A girl has to do what a girl has to do, I guess.

The Cancellation Process

A quick rundown of my situation for those who aren't familiar:

I moved to NYC in June of 2007. I found a great apartment and my roommate and I moved in together. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and my roommate tells me she is moving out at the end of our lease. I haven't found anyone who wants to take her place in our apartment so I am now left with a couple of options. 1) Find someone on Craigslist or somewhere that needs a place to live and trust that they won't steal my things in the night. 2) Move into a 1 bedroom apartment for almost as much as we are currently paying for our 2 bedroom (we found a fantastic price for a Manhattan apartment so I haven't found anything much lower than what I pay now.) 3)Pay the rent on the two bedroom myself and turn the extra room into an office/library. I have crunched the numbers (that will be addressed in a future blog) and I am leaning towards just staying where I am and paying for everything on my own. To do that though I really have to cut back on all of my other expenses. And now onto your currently scheduled blog!
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Yesterday I called to cancel my Vonage phone line. I don't need a Vonage line and my cell phone so I figured a quick way to save some money is to cancel my unused line and stop spending that $24.95 a month. The people at Vonage, however, felt differently than I did. First they asked me why I wanted to cancel so I explained my financial situation. They said they were sorry about that but had I REALLY thought about the benefits of Vonage?

I told them I had indeed thought it through but I couldn't afford to keep the service. They then offered to lower the price to $19.99 per month. I said that was nice but I needed to cancel. They offered to throw in a month of free service. I told them AGAIN that I just wanted to cancel. They offered me 2 free months of service in addition to the $19.99 per month price that would go into effect after all of my free phone calls. It took me 15 minutes to get through this conversation before they finally agreed to let me cancel my service! On one hand it was nice to know that if I had wanted to keep the service they would have helped me find a way to do so but on the other hand it was almost insane the way they would not simply let me cancel the service. I repeated the phrase, "I appreciate that but I can't afford it and I really need to cancel my service." at least 6 times before they agreed to cancel my account. I had tried to do all of this online at their website but their is no option to cancel online with Vonage.

Let this be a lesson to all of you out there who are looking to end a contract of some kind...it can be a huge pain in the butt, but if you stick to your guns you shouldn't have a problem at all. (I didn't have this trouble with Blockbuster. I appreciate that they let me cancel with only one mention of cheaper options.)

Approaching Vacation

As some of you may know, I moved from Texas to NYC in June of last year. Now, 10 months later, I am going back to visit the family. When I looked up ticket prices for an economy ticket from LGA to DFW the lowest price I was able to find (for a non-stop flight) was $455! Talk about an expensive trip to see your Dad on his birthday!

What I ended up doing was searching for all flights to Dallas within a 3 day window and finding one that would work with my frequent flyer miles so my total cost for my plane ticket ended up being $5. That is a $450 savings!

While I am in Texas I will be staying with my parents (for free, of course) and hanging out with family and friends I haven't seen in a long time. I will also be making a trip to the dollar store there since the dollar store in Texas sells things that are actually a dollar, unlike the dollar stores in New York City. Every dollar store here is named something like, "99 Cents or Less or More" and nothing in the store is actually 99 cents or less. I will get a replacement shower curtain liner and 6-12 months worth of soap, etc. to pack in my bag and take home with me. My trip back to Texas is a money saving venture in more ways than one!