Frugally traveling

My husband and I maintain some of our frugal ways while we travel. As always, we cut corners on things we don’t care about in order to have money to spend on what we do care about, even when we’re in another country. Some people don’t want to travel if they have to be frugal on the trip, but we don’t mind, because it gets us what we want while we’re there.

It’s all about setting priorities. We don’t fly first class nor do we stay in high-end hotels. We don’t want to try to afford the Georges V in Paris if every waking moment will be spent out and about and all we’re going to do at the hotel is sleep and shower; that would take money we could be spending on other things. On my last trip to Paris in 2008, I got a great deal in a small hotel for $80US a night. It was lovely, newly rehabbed, in a fabulous neighborhood, had a flat-screen HDTV and a typical Parisian balcony, and the price included a delicious breakfast buffet.

Granted, that kind of luck doesn’t always happen. We’ve also done our share of time in some not-so-lovely places that had seen better days. However, unless the neighborhood seems unsafe, we don’t change hotels, because we’re only in the room to sleep and shower, not look at the furniture.

We also save money by eating on-the-cheap and planning for just one really spectacular meal per trip. As luck would have it, we almost always have several spectacular meals per trip, because more dollar signs on the menu do not necessarily equal better food. One of our most memorable meals was in a pizza place in a little town in northwest France, where we sat at a communal table; the people were friendly, the food and wine were delicious, and the local cheeses were out of this world. At a communal table in a hamburger joint in Geneva, Switzerland, lunch became a two-hour gabfest with a fascinating Saudi family who worked for the World Health Organization.

We also picnic in public parks with food we buy at local farmers’ markets or grocery stores. We eat street food: What could be better than one of those plump, juicy rotisserie chickens from a street stall? And the memory of the vendor, a gregarious African man who spoke no English, who tried to figure out what parts of the chicken I wanted by slapping different places on his body? And of his Vietnamese wife, who was cooking noodles and vegetables over a steaming wok in the back? I can still see the steam from the wok envelop her profile and dissipate over her head.

We also take advantage of freebies. Almost every public attraction and museum in the world, including the Louvre, has a free admission day; plan accordingly. Many cities have museum passes; you can buy a week-long pass to almost every museum in that particular city that pays for itself after only one or two visits.

Before you go, study guidebooks, CDs and DVDs about your destination, borrowed from your public library. Find out about freebies and low-cost attractions. For example, after one overnight flight, I landed at dawn, went out for breakfast, and then headed to a beautiful, old church known for its free pipe organ concerts every Sunday after mass.

We rely on public transportation almost exclusively when we travel, because most cities have some form that is reliable, safe and clean, and a fraction of the cost of cabs, so buy a map, preferably before you leave, so you know where you’re going when you get there, how much it costs and how to use it. Yes, we’ve been lost a couple of times, but it’s all part of the adventure of travel. Besides, it forces you to interact with the locals, and that adds a flavor to travel that you might not get otherwise.—Carol Wiley Lorente

No money? Get creative!

During the year, there are many occasions that require gifts: birthdays, weddings, baby and wedding showers, graduations, etc. Money is always scarce, so I make something from the heart. My slogan is, when you have no money, you get creative!

When my friend recently invited me to her daughter’s baby shower, I volunteered to make the invitations and thank you notes on my computer to save her money (and as part of my present). She was thrilled and also asked me to make a sign-up sheet and a poster. The theme was “A Star is Born,” and it was easy to do. We decided on post cards, since they are less expensive to mail. Here they are: Invitation post card:

back front

Thank you post card:

back front

I needed to bring a present: I had one picture of the baby, and I had picture frames that I had bought on sale through the years. I used my computer’s photography program to reproduce the baby’s picture nine times in nine different tints: charcoal, sepia, mosaic, etc. I mounted them in a nine-space frame. It was the hit of the shower! I also explained that they could change the pictures as time went on to whatever they chose. They had just moved to a new house, and needed things for their bare walls!

My friend made a baby quilt and another crocheted a baby throw. The parents loved the extra time we put into the gifts, and other guests commented on how “creative” we all were.

Other ideas for other occasions:

I learned to crochet by watching my sister (although I was watching her from the wrong angle and now crochet backwards). Double crochet is the only stitch I know, but I can do many things with it: If you double or triple the yarn strands, you can make thick pads for hot plates and pans. (Match the yarn to the color of the china or other room décor.) I’ve also made great coasters and placemats. They’re machine washable and dryable, and you can make them while watching TV or having coffee with a friend.

I also have been known to frame old magazine covers and give them as gifts. Years ago, The New Yorker published a New Yorker’s view of the United States, a map of the United States that started with New York City and New Jersey, mentioned Chicago and ended with San Francisco, with almost nothing in between, reflecting a very “New York” attitude. I bought enough copies to frame as gifts for my New York friends. Some of them are still hanging in their homes.

For a recent wedding gift, I took three pictures of a tiger lily and, much like I did with the baby picture, changed the hue on each picture and framed them together in the same frame—very “Andy Warhol,” with one frame holding four pictures of the same lily in different colors. The couple now has it hanging in their living room.



So, use your imagination, save money, and have fun!—Alice Rose Kieft

Designs and photos ©2010 Alice Rose Kieft

Drastic measures

One of my life’s passions is travel. Many years ago, I was watching a PBS fundraiser whose host was a travel writer I admire. Someone on the show asked him how a person on a tight income could afford to travel. If you don’t have much money but travel is truly a priority in your life, he said, living a frugal lifestyle could free up enough savings for a trip once in a while. When pressed for specifics, he said he knew a couple for whom travel was so important that they owned only one car—a used one—and decided to forever live in rental property rather than buy a house. The money they didn’t spend on a second car and a house (and the upkeep) became their travel budget, he said.

At the time, I thought these suggestions sounded pretty drastic. Owning only one, used car would be preferable, but not owning a home? Just so you could travel? I figured that if that was the type of sacrifice I’d have to make, I’d never be going anywhere. But as our children have grown and gone, my husband and I have had to reprioritize, and guess what? At our age, since we don’t have the money to do it all, we’ve decided we’d rather travel than own a home. (We’ll also gladly get rid of one of the cars.)

To many people, frugality means deprivation. That’s what not owning a home sounded like to me when I first heard that notion, probably because I was in the midst of raising a family, and owning a home was a necessity, in my mind. I had sacrificed a lot for that. But owning a home is no longer necessary, and now I consider renting as an opportunity to get something I’ve wanted my entire life: my travel “bucket list.”

Living frugally is not deprivation if it gets you something you want. Cutting corners on things you don’t care so much about in order to have more money for stuff you do care about is one definition of living frugally. Another is to go for quality rather than quantity: Buy the best you can afford, but buy only the minimum number, and take care of it so it lasts.

I have a clipping from a recent New York Times article on retirement goals pasted into my journal that never fails to help me prioritize. The article suggests asking yourself the following three questions to determine what is truly important to you. I will paraphrase:

1. You have all the money you need. How would you live your life today?
2. You have only five years to live. What will you do with that time?
3. You have only 24 hours left on earth. What did you miss? What did you not get to do? Whom did you not get to be?

I would add:
4. You don’t have all the money you need. How do you find the funds and what do you give up to accomplish these goals?

What drastic measures have you taken? We’d love to hear them.—Carol Wiley Lorente

A washer in the living room

I have a love/hate relationship with the “House Hunters” and “House Hunters International” programs on HGTV. I love to see the houses and apartments as the buyers tour them and shop for the perfect house, but their complaints about things such as paint color or no double-sinks in the bathroom never fail to infuriate me. “So change it after you buy the place,” I invariably grumble.

I particularly like to watch the international version of the show, especially when Americans are shopping for homes and apartments in other countries. Americans are many times unaware of how people in other countries live and that they can’t expect to find the typical American suburban house with all the bells and whistles when they're shopping in another country.

Nine times out of 10 on the show, the Americans shopping for an apartment in France will be disappointed that the washing machine is in the kitchen or the bathroom. (My daughter, her husband and their son have bounced around rental housing for several years now while my son-in-law is completing his degree. “I’d be so thrilled to have my own washing machine,” she told me after watching one of these shows. “I wouldn’t care if it was in the middle of the living room.”)

The American buyers on the show are usually dismayed when they see the typical French setup of a toilet in a room separate from the “bathroom,” which is, oddly enough, for bathing, and for washing clothes. And, of course, there are all the usual complaints about the small rooms, tiny kitchens, “only one bathroom” (!) and no garages that I hear on both the international and domestic shows.

It makes me want to shout: “Get over it!” As a person who grew up in a one-bathroom family (can you imagine?), I think we have forgotten that some things are luxuries, not necessities, and that a good quality of life will not necessarily result because you have more than one bathroom or because there are granite countertops in your kitchen.

I once read some tips in a travel guide about how to pack light when visiting Europe. The author suggested taking only sample-size toiletries to save space in your bag. Don’t worry if you run out, he wrote; they sell those things in Europe, too, and if they don’t, you might want to think about how millions of people get along every day without it, and then ask yourself why you think you need it.

The other day at Frugal, we were talking about the philosophy of frugal living, that it is not depriving yourself of anything, but rather learning what it is you need to live comfortably and forgo the nonessentials. We talked about how liberating it feels to downsize your life and get back to basics, and how the money you save as a result can be spent on the things you really need or want. Honestly, millions of people are happy with only one bathroom, and some of us would be thrilled with a washing machine in the living room.—Carol Wiley Lorente

Awash in Plastic

At any given moment, my refrigerator shelves are a flurry of plastic. Trying to distinguish the green onions from the parsley or the romaine from the chard takes time, effort and tenacity.

I routinely use canvas bags for shopping, but, at the produce department, I tend to put my fruit and produce in plastic bags. I try to cut down on the plastic; for instance, if I buy something like a head of cabbage or a couple of onions or even just one apple, I won’t put it in a plastic bag. I’ve often wished supermarkets would provide something else for the other stuff—paper bags for things like green beans, for example, or at the least, compostable or biodegradable plastic bags. But then I get it all back home and wonder what I would store it all in if I didn’t take the plastic bags.

So I was more than a little interested when I came across a news item about the Berkeley, Calif., Farmers’ Markets becoming the first in the nation to eliminate the use of all plastic bags and packaging. The three weekly markets, a project of the Berkeley Ecology Center, are “Zero Waste Zones,” in which customers and vendors are expected to make every effort to eliminate waste to landfills. This is all quite admirable, of course, but what caught my eye was a helpful guide to storing fresh fruits and vegetables without plastic and, surprisingly, in some cases, without refrigeration.

Thanks to Andrea Willems, manager of Berkeley Farmers Markets, and Ben Feldman, Markets program manager, we can share some of the tips here:

Apples, citrus fruits, apricots, melons, nectarines, peaches, and pears can be stored in a cool place on the kitchen counter for up to two weeks. Apricots and nectarines should be stored in the refrigerator if they’re fully ripe. Cut melons should be stored in the fridge; an open container is fine. Peaches should be refrigerated only when fully ripe. Pears will keep for a few weeks on the counter or in a paper bag.

Berries, including strawberries, are fragile and should be lightly packed into a paper bag, in a single layer if possible, and stored in the fridge. Moisture is their enemy, so wash them only just before eating.

Asparagus should be placed upright in a bowl or glass of water and stored at room temperature. (It should keep about a week.)

Avocados can be stored in a paper bag at room temperature.

Leafy greens, such as lettuces, should be stored in an airtight container with a damp cloth to keep them from drying out. Some greens, such as kale, collards and chard, keep well in a cup of water on the counter or in the refrigerator. Spinach and green onions like to stay loose in an open container in the crisper.

Broccoli, carrots, green beans, radishes and cucumbers can be simply wrapped in a damp towel and placed in the refrigerator.

For plastic-free storage ideas for other fruits and vegetables, see “How to Store Fruits and Vegetables.” —Carol Wiley Lorente