The False Economy of Fast Food

One night, a former housemate of mine came home with a couple bags of groceries. This guy never, ever bought groceries. On his days off, he loved to order Jimmy John's or run to Taco Bell. When I remarked on his grocery purchases he replied that "He finally had the money" to do some grocery shopping.

Sadly, this kind of attitude is common today. People look at the cost of buying a loaf of bread, cheese, and deli meat, mustard, and whatever else and compare it to the price of a Subway sandwich and conclude that fast food is less expensive than making food at home. Yes, the cost of all the sandwich ingredients might be $10, which seems a lot more expensive than the "$5 foot long," but the grocery store purchase makes several meals, making the overall cost per meal far, far less. According to The New York Times, the cost of feeding a family of four at McDonald's can easily exceed $25, while the same family can eat a healthier meal at home for less than $10.

When you also take into consideration the unhealthy nature of most fast food options, the true cost of fast food is clear. Sure, we all know that the high fat and sodium contents are 'bad' for us, but most people do not realize how many chemicals, stabilizers, fillers, and other additives are present in most fast food. The award-winning US Food Safety Blog points out that "...additives commonly found in many fast food items include propylene glycol, used to prevent ice cream from becoming rock solid; and silicone dioxide or calcium silicate, used to prevent caking in cheese products. Propylene glycol is similar to ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in anti-freeze. Silicone dioxide is essentially sand, and calcium silicate is found in cement and bricks." Yikes!

For years, people have turned to fast food as a 'convenient' way to get 'inexpensive' food, but what is convenient about waiting too long (realistically) to pay too much for low-quality food that may simply serve to shorten your life? Many Americans are under time pressure and feel they don't have the time to make home-cooked meals, but it is actually possible to carefully plan a menu, use the freezer, and cook once a month.

Please, for the sake of your health and wallet, stop and reconsider the next time you want to head to the drive-in because you think it's the cheaper, easier option.

First Etsy Sale!

What an awesome image to get in my email. I'm very excited and grateful to my first ever Etsy customer!

How to Become a Starving Artist - Get Yourself out There!

How can you ever become a starving artist (or, hopefully, ultimately a not-starving artist!) if no one knows who you are or has access to your creations?

Today's Internet marketplace provides unparalleled opportunities for marketing yourself and your art, writing, jewelry, etc. Of course, the world's premier source for handmade items is Etsy. Competition is stiff on the site, so you have to do your research, find a niche, and promote yourself in order to succeed. Or, so I am told by experienced Etsy user, RandomCreative, who has a series of articles on HubPages about how to create an Etsy store, sell handmade jewelry online, and develop a pricing formula. If I succeed at Etsy, it will be thanks to her knowledge and willingness to share her experiences. I'm still waiting for my first sale on Etsy, but my store has only been 'open' since Monday. If you want to become my new hero, visit my Etsy store, Stalking the Wild Snark.

Not only did I just open my Etsy store, but I also managed to get a limited selection of my items available in a brick and mortar establishment here in Charleston, South Carolina. I am deeply thankful to the store owners for allowing me the opportunity to sell my handmade coasters and doormats. The Silver Puffin is a fantastic gift shop in downtown Charleston and is known locally for its selection of high-quality, handmade items.

So, there you have it. A step on the way to becoming a genuine starving artist! If you want to open your own Etsy store, or try to sell your items in a local store, I urge you to read, read, read. RandomCreative's hubs and the Etsy blog are fantastic places to start. I read everything I could for about two weeks before even uploading a single picture to Etsy. I also took RandomCreative's advice and had professional business cards printed. They look fantastic and current online specials meant I spent less on professional business cards than I would have spent on the necessary paper to print them at home! I used Staples' online program because, as a former Staples Copy Center employee, I knew I could expect high-quality. I love my new cards and hope I have the chance to placed one in a box with a sold product soon!

Turk's Head Coasters now for sale on Etsy and at The Silver Puffin

Ways to Make Money Online - Amazon Mechanical Turk

I first discovered Amazon Mechanical Turk, called MTurk, about a year ago. I was very active on the site for about half a year (and by very active, I mean 'spent almost every minute of my free time working on MTurk'), and became quite successful. Some days I made over $100 from home, which is better than my 'day job' pays.

One day, I started to wonder about where everything I wrote went. Is it online? Is it someone's catalog? Clearly, someone planned to ultimately make more than they paid me to write articles. That is when I stopped working so much at MTurk and began trying to do my own thing on the Internet. As a result, I spend just as much time online, but make about 1/10 as much money.

If you want to make a reasonable amount of money, and are curious how to become successful on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, check out my HubPages Hub about the topic here. I share what I did, as well as how much money I made. If you follow my steps, I'm confident you can make decent money on MTurk, too.

Success takes both planning and dedication, but the payoff is worth it. If you do not have any freelance writing experience, or have no desire to jump into the world of SEO, social media, etc., writing for MTurk is a great way to get a feel for Internet writing without the hassle and stress of managing everything yourself.

Frugal Living Tip #2 - Stop Driving so Much!

Gas prices have risen a lot in the past few years, and it is unlikely they will ever fall in any meaningful way. Just as we fondly remember the 99 cent gas of 2000, soon we may reminisce about when gas used to cost less than $4 a gallon. I used to spend $20 a month on gas to get to and from work, Now, if I drive every day, I spend almost $60 to travel the same distance. Not only does stop and go city traffic kill your gas mileage, but starting your car takes a large chug of gas, which makes around the town errands much more costly than you might realize.

So how can you combat rising gas prices? By not using your car. Yes, it can take a few extra minutes, but if you make the conscious decision to bike, or walk, whenever possible, you can dramatically reduce your gas budget. Many police departments hold regular bike auctions where you can find a high-quality bike for a low price, or you can check sites like craiglist, eBay classifieds, and freecycle for bikes. 

Biking and walking save you more than gas money - they can reduce your medical costs by helping you loose weight and get healthy. Just hour of light cycling can burn over 500 calories! If you want to know how many calories you could burn biking, check out this easy to read article. If you are interested in switching to a bike commute, I wrote a series of pieces on HubPages about my decision to bike to work and tips for safe bike commute. You can learn the basics of what you need and how to plan your route by visiting this page.

Amazingly, with afternoon traffic, I actually can bike home on a Friday faster than I can drive. Switching to a bike could save you time and money!

How I get to work and save $$

Frugal Living Tip #1

It seems counter-intuitive, but if your budget is tight, avoid the $1 rack and clearance aisle unless you have a very specific plan and can stick to it. Just the other day, a coworker and I discussed how easy it is to spend way too much money at the dollar store. He said the last time he visited the dollar store, he spent over $30! Sure, he got a lot of stuff, but he also spent more than he meant to because it is far too easy to pick up an item and tell yourself "oh, well, it's only a dollar." The problem is, dollar after dollar, these items add up.

It is difficult to resist an item that is only a dollar, or anything with a clearance sticker. Unless you have willpower made of steel and need to look for a specific item on sale, avoid these 'value' bins. Stores place them near entrances and checkouts (think about it - what's the first thing you see inside almost any Target?) because they work. They are a proven way to trick people in to spending more money. Don't fall into the store's trap - avoid these money-draining pitfalls and spend your hard-earned cash elsewhere.

Avoid temptation and the $1 rack!

From Starving to Starving Artist...I Hope

I feel distinctly lied to about life. I'm not really bitter about it, and I don't think anyone tried to mislead me, but sometime between when I was a kid and when I graduated from college, the world changed.

As a child, I was told a formula: make good grades, go to college, (go to grad school,) find a job you love, and you'll have a fantastic life. When you're a girl, people also assume that marriage somewhere in your early-mid 20's and some kids is normal.

So I made great grades, went to college with a full scholarship, graduated summa cum laude, and got a job I though I would love. Unfortunately, I graduated in May, 2008 - right after the whole real estate bubble fiasco. When I told people I was about to graduate, I frequently heard "I'm sorry - I wouldn't want to graduate from college now." No, you wouldn't, especially not with a history degree!

Since May of four years ago, I've learned that many adults are really just kids, the paradigm of 'what works' no longer works because the world has changed, and no one knows really how the world of the future will work. In the past four years, I've worked up to three jobs at a time just to make ends meet!

Now, my main life goal is to take myself from starving to starving artist. I love writing, creating things, and photography. Using the power of the Internet and a strong dose of creativity, I hope to use what I love to take the place of at least one of my jobs.

So far, I've muddled through a lot of this Internet stuff on my own, but I don't want everyone else out there with a similar dream to start from the ground up. I created this blog to share my experiences, failures, struggles, and (hopefully) successes with writing online and living a frugal lifestyle that isn't depressing. I hope you come along for the ride - I'd love to have you here.