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How to Love Cooking

This article was written by Forest in Frugality. 44 comments.

This is a guest post by Forest from Frugal Zeitgeist. Forest writes about frugality, finance, minimalism and lifestyle. In this article, Forest shares his experiences in the kitchen. Cooking great meals is a great way to save money and stay healthy, but it’s a skill that I haven’t developed for myself. Passion can boost motivation, though, and this article might help me find that passion about preparing meals.

When Flexo wrote about alternative financial resolutions he mentioned the idea of cooking more often at home. Cooking at home is often described as a way to save money. It will do that if you replace your dining-out habit, but it does much more than just improve your finances. Cooking can quickly become an enjoyable hobby, and when you get into the groove you can even use it to impress your friends. The health aspects cannot be overlooked, either. Replacing processed foods and restaurant foods with home-cooked versions, where you know the ingredients, will affect you and your family’s diet in a positive way.

But you can’t just expect to fire up the stove and produce an award-winning dish. Learning to cook takes time and patience. You will fail, and you will find that at times cooking isn’t as economical as you originally thought it would be. Investing in a stock of spices and speciality ingredients can quickly blow a shopping budget!

In this post I want to share my journey into the wonderful world of cooking at home and then hopefully convince you to make it a regular activity and a beloved hobby.

How I found my passion in cooking

Toast I never learned to cook anything as a kid. My kitchen wizardry stopped at being able to “cook” a perfect slice of toast and heat an egg in hot oil. Sometimes I would experiment, but I’ll skip the tales of my candy-bar sandwich and curry hot chocolate. When I moved out of my parents’ home at the age of seventeen, I sucked at cooking.

Luckily I had a corner store within twenty seconds of my house. I became a wiz at putting plastic-wrapped steak bakes and hamburgers into the microwave, and later I even progressed to turning on the oven to warm up a frozen pizza. Breakfast cereal was a favorite dinner of mine too. Cheerios for dinner! Yum!

This went on for quite some time. When I turned eighteen and started to throw regular pints of beer into the mix, my belly decided to grow big and round. Through the age of twenty, not much changed apart from my pants size.

Weight is easy to put on and reasonably easy to fix, but the bad habits had been affecting another aspect of my life, something not immediately apparent to most around me. As my belly grew, so did my overdraft. My money situation wasn’t going too well.

In addressing the cash flow problem, I knew I had to make all sorts of cut-backs. It wasn’t exactly a secret to me that my processed food habit was costing me a lot of money and I decided to tackle it by learning how to cook at home. This was also around the same time that I became vegetarian, which seriously reduced the selection of ready-made foods I could purchase at the corner store.

One of my first trips to the supermarket after the decision involved me stocking up on spaghetti, cans of tomatoes, dried basil, salt, pepper and lots of fruit.

I remember throwing myself head first into cooking, just like the way I refused to read instructions when I got a Transformer for Christmas. I didn’t read any cookery books.

For one of my first home cooked meals, I threw a few cans of tomatoes into a large wok with a little oil. I tossed in a load of basil, a little salt and let it simmer for quite a few hours. The result was better than you may think for a first attempt, and although the work was minimal, I enjoyed throwing some stuff in a pot and coming out with an edible meal. I was intrigued enough to learn more.

I continued to develop my “tomatoes and stuff in wok” speciality and would try adding different veggies and herbs. One important thing I did do was learn the basics. This included cooking eggs in their various forms, the basics about herbs, simple stir fry, fried rice, stews and chilis. Occasionally I would follow a recipe.

The big change for me came when I quit my job and moved from England to Canada. I found food to be even more expensive in Canada, and my budget was very thin. I had left behind a high-paying job in London and was now washing dishes in a pub kitchen. Of course being around cooking all day was part of my inspiration, but working out how the hell to feed myself on minimum wage was the real kick in the butt.

I started to buy a lot of raw ingredients and had moved in with my girlfriend. A student and a kitchen boy needed some entertainment and that was where Manjula came in! We enjoyed making dinner together, even though it was stir fry most nights. Cooking with your family and friends can be a lot of fun and a motivation to push yourself forward. We both enjoyed curry so we learned how to cook it properly. I started to search for recipes online, and I discovered Manjula’s Kitchen on Youtube. Manjula cooks a lot of great Indian dishes and her lackluster commentary creates a homey, “I can do this” vibe that I found quite warming. After my first Manjula curry I was hooked.

I was being reeled into this cooking thing.

When you make that great meal, something you never thought you could make, it’s like you finally get it. Cooking can be drudgery, especially when you have to cook for many and you just don’t enjoy it. I look at it like painting. Painting a house is boring as hell, and the outcome is nice, but nothing special. Paint a picture and you enjoy the whole process and the outcome immensely. If you approach cooking like painting a picture you’ll enjoy it very much.

Next up for me was my other favorite food, bread. I had a drunken conversation with a Mexican lady who convinced me tortillas were just flour and water cooked in a flat pan. I had flour and water at home so a day or so later I mashed them together into a dough, rolled them into tortilla-shaped discs using a Snapple bottle, and fried them in a hot pan. Like my very first tomato experiment, it worked again — not perfect, but within reach of being able to be called bread!

This put me on a bread kick and I turned to the internet for a real loaf. The first recipe I ever used is one I still use today, and variations on the dough are easy to experiment with. There is something calming about kneading dough and something very satisfying about eating it hot out of the oven.

Where I am today?

I cook almost every day. Cooking is a hobby and something I do almost without thinking. I’ll happily tackle any kind of cusine and challenge myself to new recipes on a regular basis. I’m not afraid to pick up something I have never seen before and experiment with it. I still make a lot of mistakes but that is half of the fun.

Along with my confidence, my knowledge of food sourcing and nutrition has increased. I try to buy in-season foods and balance my diet with meals that contain the right amount of carbs, proteins, good fats and all of that stuff.

I absolutely adore cooking. Food is something we all need, but good food is something we all love. The smugness and satisfaction from being able to match meals at your favorite restaurants is unbelievable. Cooking isn’t an art or skill that only a few people have, it can be learned. If you keep at it, you will learn. You’ll want to share your new-found love with friends, and they’ll get the bug too.

Tips to start cooking

Starting off any new endeavor that you hope to grow into a hobby can be tough work. If things don’t work out the first time, it is easy to give up. Often, fear of failure, poor early results and lack of time push people back to TV dinners and prepared meals. Like any feat you want to achieve, you need to go in knowing that you will fail, you will make terrible food, and your journey from a person who reads recipes to a full-fledged cook will not be linear.

Making failure part of the learning process will guard your self-esteem enough to help you get through the rough patches. Set goals and make time for cooking. Instead of going to the pub, stay home and follow a recipe, bake a cake for the family, or go shopping for a cook book.

I would suggest you set goals centered around being able to cook your favorite meal or a favorite meal for your family, learning to cook a few dishes of a certain cuisine, or replacing a regular store-bought item with a homemade alternative. The goal should be something that matters to you and keeps you focused. A solid option is baking bread that is better than the store variety. It’s not easy but a skill that is a lot fun — and messy — to learn.

As your cooking progresses something will happen. Your lack of confidence will subside and you’ll fall into the groove I mentioned earlier. For me, indicators of this were being able to add ingredients without measurement and being able to open anyone’s pantry and put together a meal without a recipe book. At this stage, you won’t be a master chef, but you’ll be competent and confident enough to take on any recipe.

Experimentation is very important and is key to discovering the joy of cooking. If you think chocolate and chili pepper would be good on pork, try it. If you are bored at home, just grab some random ingredients and see what you can cook up.

Make cooking social

Keeping cooking a lonseome pursuit could stop it from progressing into a full-fledged hobby, so it’s important to share. Sharing the cooking and eating experience with friends and family is one of the best parts.

I remember baking cakes as a young kid with my grandma, and I think baking and cooking with kids is a great learning tool. I wish cooking with my parents had been a part of my whole life. Cooking with your partner also brings in a new intimacy to a relationship and shares a responsibility that is often left to one person, most often the woman.

Expanding beyond family, it’s great to host potluck meals or host a dinner party on rotation. Friends of mine set up a little club where four couples set four Saturday nights aside. Each Saturday night, the eight people would all visit one house, and the hosts would cook a three-course meal. The result was that it pushed everyone in that group to try to up their cooking game, and it was somewhat competitive. The dinner parties were successful enough that they have all improved their cooking skills.

Get started

Asparagus I hope I have you convinced to give it a try and I hope you have overcome any apprehension. You may not even enjoy cooking at first, but you’ll enjoy the challenge. Here are some tips to help you get started. Please come back to let us know how it went.

Cook a basic flat bread that can be used for lunches, side dishes and more.
Bake a real loaf of bread. This is the very first basic bread recipe I ever used, and it’s good.
Find an online video recipe for your favorite restaurant meal and try to make it.
Use the ingredients in your pantry and create a random meal. It doesn’t matter if it turns out bad, just mess around!
Try another favorite dish or two from another part of the world.
Invite a friend over for dinner and you cook. They can bring the wine.

Good luck with your new money-saving, healthy hobby.

Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions, or ask for any resources, ideas or anything that comes to mind. If you love cooking, what inspired you to start?

Photos: John McClumpha, jeffreyw, woodleywonderworks

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Avoid These Big Money Wasters

This article was written by Flexo in Frugality. 16 comments.

CNN is offering a compilation of the ten biggest money wasters. These items would be obvious to most loyal Consumerism Commentary readers, yet it would not be out of the question to disagree with some of these money-wasters in some circumstances.

ATM fees. You shouldn’t be surprised that banks will charge multiple fees for the same transaction. If you use an ATM that isn’t operated by the bank that houses your account, the ATM owners will often charge for the transaction — as much as $5, Chase’s new ATM fee — and your bank could charge you for the transaction as well. This is why, even though I strongly recommend high-yield savings accounts that are often operated by online-only banks, it doesn’t hurt to have your primary checking account at a bank that has convenient ATM locations. While many online-only and some traditional banks will reimburse you for ATM fees charged by another banks, receiving this reimbursement could be a hassle.

I visit an ATM about once every two weeks. For me, I save $130 a year by not patronizing an ATM that charges $5. According to the source quoted by CNN, many people could stand to save $500 a year by ensuring they visit free ATMs.

Lottery tickets. For the most part, people who play the lottery tend to have a lower socio-economic status, perhaps those who think that winning the lottery is the only hope of financial freedom. The odds are stacked against winning a lottery jackpot, and if the money used to buy lottery tickets was set aside in an interest-bearing account, there is a better chance for strong finances later in life. That doesn’t stop office pools from buying lottery tickets when the jackpot is sufficiently high, however, and in some cases, income from lotteries run by states can be put to some good.

According to CNN’s source, typical lottery participants spend $520 to $1,040 a year on tickets. Another downside to lottery tickets: buying lottery tickets on your credit card can reduce your credit score.

Gourmet coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I can understand why people pay $1,000 a year in order to help wake themselves at a certain time. The obvious resolution would be to save money by switching from the more expensive brands to coffee you brew yourself. This is the basis of David Bach’s Latte Factor, which illustrates how incremental savings can lead to significant increases over time.

Cigarettes. How much money you could save by quitting smoking depends on how much you smoke and how much it costs to buy each pack. In New York, a heavy smoker could save a whopping $13,000 a year! That’s just on the cost of buying the cigarettes; if you quit smoking, doctors say you will live a healthier life and a reduced risk of cancer, so being a non-smoker will result in lower health care bills over your lifetime, as well as lower life insurance premiums in some cases.

Infomercial impulse buys. According to CNN’s source, most infomercial purchases go unused. It’s not just infomercials — any impulse purchase or anything you buy that you end up not using is an unnecessary cost. I have some kitchen appliances that I have not yet used, though I hope to some day. I didn’t buy these from infomercials, but the result is the same. One way to beat this is to stop yourself from making the purchase without a night — or perhaps a week or a month — to think about it. I ended up not purchasing many things I thought I needed, after deciding to wait some time before completing the purchase.

Brand-name groceries. In many cases store-brand or generic items are of the same quality as brand-name items in the grocery store. I’m not a fan of all generic items. For example, I prefer Cotonelle over store-brand toilet paper, because I have yet to find a satisfying alternative. But rather than blindly go with name brands, I buy cheaper alternatives to discover where I am willing to compromise — if any compromise is necessary — to get buy with a lower price.

Eating out. This is a category of spending I’ve struggled with. (See my comment about unused kitchen appliances above.) For the most part, I have only myself to feed, and the healthier groceries are designed for multiple servings. As a result, I either overeat or buy the less-healthy options. I’ve improved my habits a bit, but this is something I still struggle with. Furthermore, when I spend time with my girlfriend, we often find it easier to go out to eat rather than cook for ourselves.

CNN also mentions bars and alcohol in this category. While I’m not interested in bar-hopping, the wine I may buy with dinner is often much more expensive than buying wine from a store. It’s not uncommon to pay $12 a glass when an entire bottle of wine that is just as good costs half as much.

Unused gym memberships. I haven’t yet fallen into this trap, but I know many who have. For about a month, I was getting the exercise I needed by running every other day, but as the weather turned cold, I let this habit slip. Now I plan to go back to my previous state of activity, and I’ve considered joining a gym in addition. I haven’t pulled the trigger because I haven’t been able to convince myself that I would use the membership to its fullest extent. This is similar to my experience with Netflix; I joined the subscription service to receive movies by mail after a referral from a friend, but I didn’t have the time to watch movies or TV series as often as I thought I would.

Daily internet deals. CNN comes out on my side of the argument regarding social coupons and group coupons. There are some cases where the deals work out well. In fact, I used one with my girlfriend’s family this past weekend to see a movie that didn’t interest me. But the key to these deals is that you pay up front for the deal and claim the items — in this case, movie tickets — later. Many people never claim the items even though they’ve already paid for the deal. And, as I’ve mentioned before, sometimes the deals aren’t that great in the first place.

Bundled cable or phone services. The reason these waste money is because you often result in paying for a service you don’t need. It starts innocently with bundled old-fashioned phone service, where you would have to buy dozens of features you didn’t need just to get voice mail service or call-waiting; now, the communications companies want you to buy voice, television and cable services together in order to qualify for the best prices. With cell phones, chances are you’re paying for minutes you’ll never use, so it helps to downgrade your plan to one that fits your actual usage patterns. If you don’t need smartphone features and don’t talk much, pre-paid plans could end up saving you money, but many middle class households don’t consider them because they’re marketed towards lower income families.

CNN Money

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9 Ideas for Spring Break

This article was written by Flexo in Travel. 14 comments.

My girlfriend is a teacher who never takes days for vacation, so we schedule our time away from our regular lives over the summer or during one of several of the breaks in her academic calendar. I do my best to design my schedule around hers; when I worked for a corporation, I requested vacation days to coincide with her breaks, and now that my schedule is more flexible, I don’t have to worry about being granted the days I ask for.

Today’s snow, a continuation of a winter that has seen snow on the ground continuously since December, has me thinking about spring vacation. Typically, we spend a week during the spring with my family in California. Since they moved to the west coast, I’ve generally been able to visit only twice a year, and this week is a good opportunity.

If you’re looking for spring break ideas, and whether you are a student, a family, a couple, or an individual, here are eight that might spark your interest and perhaps save a little money.

1. Rent a vacation house. If you’re going away for more than a few days and need more space than one room, it can be more economical to rent a house rather than to stay in a hotel. Browse HomeAway for a thorough selection of vacation homes throughout the world for rent. In some cases, staying for a week — a luxury you might have over spring break — can help you save even more money.

2. Go camping. If you stick to government-owned camping sites, there’s a good chance you’ll be able find deals you wouldn’t necessarily find at private-owned sites. You can visit Recreation.gov to start planning a low-cost camping trip. The website isn’t perfect, but you can browse for campsites with certain amenities and use this as a starting point for researching your vacation.

3. Travel as a student. If you’re a full-time student, part-time student, or part of the faculty or staff at a learning institution, you may qualify for better fares. Student Universe is a fare search engine like Kayak that offers student rates. A quick check shows the site offers the same fare I paid for a non-student fare for my flight to California, so it’s a good idea to double check any rates that you find. I also realized that I still have my .edu email address from my graduate school, so I could theoretically still qualify for student rates. Youth rates for non-students aged 18 to 25 are available as well.

4. Take a road trip. One of these days, I’d like to take the Route 66 drive from Chicago to Los Angeles. It may be a cliche and tourist-oriented, but I believe this is a good representative of what traveling might have been like before the advent of the interstate highway system. The Mother Road is a website dedicated to this route, and it has turn-by-turn directions for travelers who want to avoid newer road improvements like bypasses, opting for as authentic a drive as possible.

Of course, not all road trips need to be as focused as this; if you have the time, as might be the case for spring vacation, replacing a flight with an interesting drive could lead to new adventures. When I was younger, the free TripTiks offered by AAA to its members was helpful, but today you can have some of those same features using Google Maps.

5. Take a cruise. Spending your vacation on a cruise ship stopping in several ports can be a good way to experience a wide range of activities and a variety of locales in a short period of time. One of my former co-workers is a cruise aficionada, and every year she’d have new stories to share. I’m looking forward to traveling on a Mediterranean cruise at some point in the future, making quick excursions in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey.

6. Day trips in your local city. Although the travel bug often leads people outside of the United States, there’s often a lot to do and see close by. I leave not far from New York City, but if I look in the right places, I can find activities as varied as I could find anywhere in the world. This is the benefit of having such a culturally diverse, large city nearby. In major cities, it’s easy to spend a week-long vacation with something new every day.

7. Go on a photography safari. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to have a great experience with your camera. If you take an organized photography tour, your vacation could be fairly expensive, but access to superb outdoor photographers can change the way you think about the art and craft. To save money, organize your own photography safari by taking any vacation with the sole purpose of coming back with amazing images.

8. Tour vineyards and wineries. Most wine tours are a few hours long, so this isn’t an activity can take over your entire vacation. This isn’t an activity geared towards students or families, obviously. It’s better suited towards couples who are interested in what could be a romantic opportunity. Many wine tours are educational, as well.

9. Participate in a volunteering group. More for students who are looking for a different type of vacation, whether to enhance their résumé or to enhance their set of life experiences, joining an organized group volunteering event can affect life-long values and help introduce you to like-minded individuals. The United Way markets this opportunity as an “alternative spring break,” with projects such as helping underachieving children in Newark, New Jersey and learning how to plan fundraising events in Boston, Massachusetts.

What are your suggestions for spring break?

Photo: rayced

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Open a Yuan Bank Account in New York or Los Angeles

This article was written by Flexo in Banking. 25 comments.

If you visit the Bank of China’s branches in New York or Los Angeles and bring two forms of identification and your cash, you have the opportunity to open a savings or money market account denominated in yuan (renminbi), the currency of China. The interest rate you’ll earn is low, but that would not be the main purpose of opening this account.

Holding an account in yuan will expose you to the booming Chinese economy without the risk of playing in the foreign exchange trading market. If China relaxes its hold on the value of its currency, chances are it will increase — perhaps gradually, perhaps quickly. Not only that, but the accounts at the New York branches of the Bank of China are FDIC insured, so you won’t lose your money if the bank fails. That doesn’t protect you from losing money if the value of the currency decreases.

Don’t look at this as a get-rich-quick scheme. It might make sense to hedge your net worth with foreign currency, particularly when the U.S. dollar is falling out of favor with the rest of the world. A reader emailed me earlier today to ask what I thought about this. At first it seemed risky, but the more I think about it, I think it may be a smart move to get started with holdings in yuan, without sacrificing too much of my liquid investments.

Here are some of the drawbacks.

Opening the account is more work than what we’ve grown accustomed to. If you live in New York City or Los Angeles, you can get to the branch to open your account easily, but others will have to travel. Currently, there is no way to open an account online.
A global war between nations, resulting from the shift of economic power, might put investors in a difficult situation. After World War I, many wealthy Americans invested in the rebuilding of the German economy. Following the money, this capital helped finance Germany’s leaders in World War II. As China becomes closer to being the nation with the most economic power globally, will the United States push back to maintain its position?
China is accused of human rights violations and this leads many concerned Americans not to consider doing business or investing with the country. This is a difficult stance, since many of America’s favorite brands are entwined internationally, including relationships with Chinese businesses. Nevertheless, some may want to avoid doing more to actively help the Chinese economy.

Here is information on opening the savings account at the Bank of China. You can bring a minimum of $500 and exchange the cash for yuan at the bank. The bank will deposit the yuan. For a certificate of deposit, you’ll need at minimum the equivalent of $1,000. Would you consider opening a bank account based in yuan (RMB)?

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All The Ladies Are Interested Now

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When Does It Make Sense to Pay More For Quality?

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My brain is slowly re-wiring itself now that I’m finally free of credit card debt, and I’m wondering about things that I never seriously considered before. I remember many years ago talking with a friend who tried explaining to me that it made sense to spend $600 on a pair of shoes, if they were ... Continue reading this article…

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ZYNC℠ from American Express 10,000 Bonus Points

by Flexo

American Express is best known for their charge cards. In June, Tom Dziubek spoke with an American Express representative about a new addition to their charge card family, anew card geared towards young professionals. ZYNC℠ from American Express is a new charge card specifically designed for students and young adults with above average credit that ... Continue reading this article…

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How to Not Get Hired: Drink or Hold Alcohol

by Flexo

My job interview for my current corporate position included, for some reason, discussion of visiting bars on the Jersey shore to listen to mediocre cover bands. While in my future manager’s office, we were not actually drinking. It’s a good thing there was no alcohol during the interview, because rather than winning the job, if ... Continue reading this article…

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