For the last few months, I had stopped shopping at Harris Teeter. I usually want to find a bargain and stretch our dollars as far as they will go…. and the deals – for me – were elsewhere. I always like to use up my pantry items too… so it was a slow shopping period overall.

Harris Teeter this week has what they call Super Double Coupons… where they will double up to a $2.00 coupon. Yes, that means that a $2.00 coupon will double to $4.00 off! No one else around here even doubles the $1.00 ones, so it’s usually a great “event” for me to participate in! There are limitations, and rules, of course — there always are!

But even I skipped the last two Super Double Events — because usually to make the best deals, the items need to be on sale (already reduced in price) and then the coupon matches and doubles — kind of like a double play. This week they are already out of some of their sale items, and if they are, I always ask for a rain check — hoping somewhere down the line to use them. Their rain checks as far as I know, don’t expire!

This week however I spent yesterday (the day I found out they were offering the Super Doubles) checking and looking through all my coupons. Reading what was on sale and checking with the sites on the web that list what’s on sale each week at the different supermarket chains. From reading all of that, I made my list and organized my coupons. The rules at Harris Teeter include the fact, that you can only use 3 of one type of regular coupon, or 2 of any internet printed coupons per trip, with a limit of 20 coupons per day. You can use more that won’t or can’t double, but the limit for doubling them is 20.

Here’s what I was able to get –  3 Bottles of Shampoo or Conditioner (Garnier Fructis), 6 cans of Iams Cat Food, 2 Star Kist Creations, 3 Think Thin Bars, 8 Packages of McCormick Taco Seasoning (this is the only one I have found that uses Potato Starch instead of CORN products… that’s important to me because I am allergic to corn), One InkJoy Pens, 6 Yakisobi Noodles, 3 Containers of Chock Full of Nuts Coffee and one can of Chicken of the Sea Tuna.   Can you guess how much my total was? 

YES… that’s right, even with the tax, it was $3.89.  (.82 cents of which was tax!!).  I do have to add a caveat though…  I had a $5.00 credit applied to my Harris Teeter account from a previous error during my last shopping trip.  AND so, maybe because of that….  the cash register wouldn’t accept 2 of my coupons, and I think if it would have, I would have been about the same or less (there was one $2.00 and one $1.00) it just would not take them, and since I was very happy with the overall total, I didn’t press the issue (plus I can use those two tomorrow). 

I want to just say Thank You to Mary over at Sweepingme for encouraging me with all her great CVS shops! I really enjoy reading about her trips and seeing how she stretches her dollars!  I am planning on making a few trips to CVS myself to see if I can do as well!

 

If  just reading the title of this article makes you on edge,  and has you thinking about whether you could be, read on!

I can tell you, although some like to sugar coat being a cheapskate, there are others that defy human understanding when it comes to the term.  I recently watched the “Extreme Cheapstakes” program on TV and had to turn it off because I really couldn’t deal with some of their extreme ways.  I cannot fathom not using toilet paper (one gal didn’t) and I can’t count the times I flush (so I can pay my share of the water bill), or lock up my food so my husband doesn’t get any.  And while in some of those (loosely called) households it was a competition to see who could save the most, or live “happily” without – that’s way beyond my personal comprehension.

All of us could be in one way or another considered a cheapskate at some level – but certainly the majority of us deserve a nicer term to describe the ways we save money on everyday necessities.   And while some of us don’t mind spending whatever it takes on food, cars or movies – but hate spending money on clothes, shoes or dental work, that doesn’t make us a cheapskate at all.

I mention the things in the last paragraph to try and take advantage of hitting a nerve with one or two of you reading this piece.  Thinking about it you might just know that you’d buy the $200 shoes, and forget the 6 month dental cleaning.   Or you’d water down the milk and juice in your house so that you could actually get a 6 pack to take to the Super Bowl party without going over your food budget.  But would you dumpster dive for food at fancy restaurants instead of buying any food,  or would you serve that food to guests?  Some extreme cheapskates would! 

If you ever want to feel better about the crazy things you do, day in and day out to save a few dollars – your hard earned dollars by the way, to use on something else – just watch the show once.  I already feel better about reusing things around here.  And while I thought I did it “to save the environment” or for some other noble reason, I realize I do it because constantly buying new costs more than I want to spend.

And so, even though, I do reuse, repurpose, take things people have given me and use them till there is no life left in them – I now realize I am definitely not a cheapskate.  Are you?

One of the things we really needed to do a while back was to refinance our commercial property. 

Why?  Our current loan had a couple of years left, but the balance of the loan (because of the way the original one was set up) wasn’t taking down the balance of the loan at a fast enough rate.  And while we understand why it had to be written that way at the time – 100% benefiting the lender, there comes a time when you know you are in a better negotiating position and need to move on it.  My family is debt adverse.  We don’t like debt and getting rid of it is very important in the scheme of things.  It doesn’t mean we don’t use it — but we just don’t abuse it.

The reason we took the original loan was because at the time, it was the best (as new investors) we could do, based on what the marketplace was offering, what was needed on the property in question to make it function, and our financial situation.  We were putting 35% down, and it was in a prime location – otherwise we might not have even been considered.

When we approached this refinancing task – the reason was two-fold.  For one, our debt on the property was not going down as fast as we wanted, and we saw that the advantage to the bank was way more than it needed to be.   Second, we had a 10 year commitment on that loan and no matter what – would have to do something in the next few years.  So we took the initiative, and started shopping for a new loan.

There were so many variables to make this deal happen – more than I expected.  I really tried to get to the bottom of those variables with our bank, but it just wasn’t happening.   Suffice it to say, there are secrets that only the select few officers of the bank know and understand. The commercial loan people are not always forthcoming with the “details” and when you think you are ready to sign, some “issue” arises that seems always to be in their favor and is going to cost you extra money. Why does it have to be this way? Why not outline the “obvious” issues upfront and in full before the process gets started…. and why drag your feet on a modification of a loan you already hold?

We started with our current lender — of course.  But we also made sure we went out and got some offers from others – because now the property is both viable, operating, turning a profit and more valuable.  We needed to negotiate the best rate but we now had time, payment history and higher property values on our side of the equation.

Which brings me to the variables part again – can you do 5% 12 years? No 5% 8 years and then an adjustment. We can do 4.5% 6 years and then an adjustment. We can do 5.5% 12 years, or 4% 10 years. Before you are done, you are swimming in numbers and variables.   All of these numbers and variables do affect what you will pay a month, how much you will pay in interest, and how long you will have to pay it for (and in some instances, what will be due as a balloon at the end of the term).

We thought we were all set with the 5% for 12 years, after the first meeting with the bank and were given the impression all was fine but they needed to get a new appraisal.  I understand it might be a government regulated necessity, but they did it with an non certified appraiser and his value came in 400K lower than the tax assessment for the land.  We still had a stellar loan to value ratio (even with the low ball assessment) – but we know the appraisal wasn’t done by someone who knew the values of the properties like ours. We have – several times – been offered much more than the appraised value of our property. It’s a money maker, it’s remodeled and it’s in a desirable and amazing location.

We had options. We could have went to another bank, or lender – we could have written a check against the equity loan we have on our home,  we could have  mortgaged our house and used that money,  or we can just simply write a check to make the loan value lower — but none of that was in the plan for this property.

In the end, we had to get actual offers from other institutions, and basically do some hard negotiations with our current lender.  The business that runs from the property generates an enormous cash flow thru their bank each month.  If we move lenders, we will move the cash flow, and remove some of the other monies that we have in their institution.  These factors, often times are a  part of the larger dollar loan agreements.  This bank above any other, had our history of about 7 years of operation and payments to rely on.  They didn’t want to let us “move on”… and we got what we consider to be a great deal.

This process took at least 6 full months to complete.  But, we were able to modify our old loan to be a 5% fixed rate, 12 year loan which at the end of 12 years will pay off this commercial property in full.  Included in that agreement, was the fact that we use them for our banking and will not remove our deposits from their bank.  That’s do-able!