The FlyBuys.

I was very anti flybuys for years. I thought, I hate cards, I don't want my spending tracked. Well, I don't have to have a card because I just stuck the barcode on the back of my paywave card with sticky tape, and I figure when I pay with credit or eftpos my spending is tracked anyway.

Now I have actually started changing my spending because of flybuys. I use those vouchers for points when you spend a certain amount on fresh food. The amount is always carefully calibrated against my normal spending to raise it by a small amount. So one week I eat a lot veggies (spend $14 to get 175 points), the next week I stock up on cheese or meat. I CAN'T HELP MYSELF.

Article of my week:

No, I'm not talking about the hilarious one about the Expedit I facebooked, which you can read too if you like.

This one about Gen Y maybe wanting to leave the inner cities, against all the trends.

I wouldn't say I ever missed the suburbs, but I'm trying to see the bright side now. I'm sadly giving up my carfree lifestyle and figuring out which car to buy. Enjoying my walking-distance-from-the-beach location every swimming-weather day I can, before I go inland. Even breaking my No Takeaway rule because the days of easy access to cheap asian food are slipping through my fingers.

But on the bright side, there will be a vast improvement in my finances—the proportion of my income spent on rent will be reduced and even buying a place will be within reach one day. I'll be able to own and play a real piano as loudly as I like, no shared walls. I'll have a front door that goes outside instead of onto a corridor. I may even have a BACK door! I may have access to dirt I can grow things in, instead of a concreted common driveway area. This is all stuff I can live without, and have lived happily without, but they are upsides.

Should watch Hart of Dixie again.

Smart financial decisions I have made.

I'm a long way from being a finance guru, but my frugalness means I keep an ear out. The Barefoot Investor and Alan Kohler are handy people to pay attention to. They speak plainly. So here are three things I've actually done as per general advice/advertising. Each one involved filling out a form.

Starting a First Home Saver Account. I ummed and ahhed for a year or two when they first started. I disliked the idea of being locked in for 4 years and then if I can never afford property the money is locked up forever. But they loosened the restrictions a bit, and I decided I'd wasted 2 years and could have been halfway through the time already so I might as well stop faffing around. So what if I never buy and it only ends up in my super, the return is still great. If you save $6000 in one financial year, the governments adds $1020. That is a LOT of free money. One year I forgot to put the whole amount in and I am still grumpy about it. So even if you don't think you're in the "first home buyer" category, I say take the plunge before the end of June. No term deposit will give you over 17%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_home_saver_account

Opening an ING Everyday account for the 5% cash back on paywaves. 5% doesn't look like much, dribbling in a couple of dollars at a time, but when the 6 months is up, I will count up what my 5% savings adds up to.

https://www.campaigns.ingdirect.com.au/everyday-banking?cid=dpy:Fairfax%20Digital%20AU:DRx:AU_INGD_OE_Q3_2013:7336405:9502877#!/CashbackSavings

Thirdly, I switched my super into a high-risk high-growth investment. Because that's what you are supposed to do when you are under 35, and as you get older it shifts into progressively safer investments. No short-term benefits there but it's the proper thing to do. Although in a few years I think it will be the default anyway.

The Poorgeois.

I discovered this term last week. I love it, why didn't I know about it before? It's a lot better than hipster. Poorgeois is like bourgeois but the opposite. It's the middle class trying to look not wealthy but poor. Trendy poor. Think stubbly beards and new boots that look old. This trend is an excellent place for frugal people to flourish.

Things I always do before I go away.

Eat the perishable food in the fridge.
Wash clothes so I have the full range to pack from and clean things when I come back.

Real estate report.

I've followed real estate with interest since I was a teen. Window shopping for houses, basically. I liked the red-brick federation homes with wrap around verandahs and french windows and bay windows and so on. Those days are gone and I've realised I'm too poor for nice houses. These days I just love an smh article about real estate with lots of gloomy comments. I will spend my whole lunchbreak reading comments. Half the world things thinks Gen Y are lazy and live at home and spend all their money on overseas holidays instead of saving for a mortgage, the other half think property is genuinely too expensive and blaming everyone—the Chinese and the boomers and the government. People who think there are affordable suburbs in Sydney are pointing to half a million for 2br apartments in Hornsby. I leave that to the judgement of the reader, but I don't really think half a million is "affordable". I agree it's the cheap end of the market, but it's not cheap.

But I think both sides of the argument are have some truth.

"Generational" spending habits are an issue. I'm Gen Y, and I am relatively frugal. No car, no internet, no bought lunches, and I mostly holiday in Australia with friends. But I live in the Eastern Suburbs, eat out about once a week and I've had a nice overseas trip (after uni and 6 years of FT work, and it cost half as much as my braces). However my parents haven't had ANY overseas trip (or braces). And takeaways or restaurants were only for birthdays. My grandparents were even more frugal, buying a house with savings, or building a house themselves, growing food, recycling clothes. The generation before, I don't know, they probably thought themselves lucky to own a second pair of shoes and only got lollies at Christmas time. People have historically lived pretty lean lives and home ownership has never been a walk in the park. But the trouble is, when the bar is set too high, people don't try. If it was a matter of struggling to afford a unit, I would happily struggle to afford a unit. But no amount of struggle will afford me a unit in Sydney. The gap is too wide between what I could struggle to afford and what things sell for. And if there's no hope, why bother?

"In Sydney" is an issue. I think a lot of people are in my boat. I'm torn between wanting to stay where I am with the friends and church and the support of lots of single friends and stuff to do, and wanting live somewhere near my family where I can grow veggies. And the thing about my profession is there aren't many jobs in other areas anyway. I glance around from time to time when I feel discontented. Number of page views for a design job in Newcastle recently: 1600. That's slim pickings. There is some kind of grant paid to people who leave Sydney and go to a regional area, but what good is that going to do if you don't have a job out there? Decentralisation is a bigger issue than helping with moving costs.

Anyway, nobody ever said you can have it all. It's not some unfair conspiracy, just a massive supply and demand discrepancy. Baby boomers downsizing into units in the city at the same time as Gen Y want to get a foot in the market buying those same units in the city, and one of those groups has a lot more money. Meanwhile people with nice detached houses don't want their streets razed to make way for ugly flats. If the demand is coming from investors, which is apparently is, the bright side is that they'll rent out their properties, and the more rentals the cheaper the rent will be and we'll still be able to live where we want for the time being.

Giftcards on sale.

This is a website that tells you what gift cards are on sale. I subscribed to the rss emails, which is good because every week or two, not often, I get told where the iTunes cards are on sale and what percentage off they are. It's really useful and not spammy. I told my flatmate and she loves it.

My Bathroom "Go Bag".

Yes. I am proud of this. I have organised my travel toiletries! It's fully set up independently of my normal bathroom supplies. If you're going away a lot, you ought to have a ready-to-go pre-packed bathroom bag. It's a lot quicker, you won't forget anything, and when you get home at night and you're tired, you just want to jump in the shower without realising halfway through that you haven't unpacked your shampoo yet. Also, if you do the little bottles thing it's lighter to carry, and OK for airport security when you go carry-on.

The frugal thing is to put in your almost-finished things***, and your little samples of things, and your second best things. Almost empty toothpaste tube or sunscreen. Hotel shampoos. The crappy nail clippers and tweezers. And then after you've collected as much of that stuff as you have, go out and buy anything you don't have, like little bottles to fill up from your big shampoo or whatever.

I've got one of those roll-up bags you can hang on a hook and see everything. I think it's called a valet. It's got 2 small pockets for things like bobby pins and tooth stuff, and one biggish section for bottles of things. I used to fit just 2 x 200ml shampoo bottles plus bodywash but now with smaller shampoo bottles I fit the whole kit and kaboodle, sunscreen and deodorant and hairbrush etc.

*** How can such little bottles last so long? And especially at the nearly empty stage, when they no longer squirt and you have to stick your finger up the neck or cut them open? And I'm so BORED of them and I've got a newer, better sunscreen/moisturiser/hand cream and I don't want to spend 2 months finishing the old things, but I'm frugal! I feel like letting everyone know whenever I finish a product. It's a triumph worthy of a facebook status at least.

Obsessed with lemongrass.

I really want to grow lemongrass. This is the take-home application from my holiday… I really like tea made from ginger and lemongrass.

http://www.growingherbsforbeginners.com/how-to-grow-lemon-grass/

And mint.

I think these herbs are pretty hardy/weedy, so I could probably grow them in pots in my own kitchen which hasn't got ideal gardening conditions, and then I could have my own supply of fresh tea.

Envelope recycling.

Work had a pile of C5 envelopes to get rid of. I took them and thought I'd spend a day thinking about what I could use them for. If nothing comes to mind, I'll bin them. I have thought of something! Sandwich bags. Paper sandwich bags. Instead of gladwrap. I have to trial one.

Frugal tip: rag bag.

When something cotton wears out, ie a towel, a piece of clothing, or a sheet, don't throw it in the bin. Chop or tear it up into hanky-sized squares and keep them in a bag or box. Obviously, then, you can use them for cleaning. We haven't bought paper towels for the kitchen for ages, because we just use these scraps of cotton for cleaning the sandwich press and everything. They're disposable single-use cleaning cloths, for free!

The other thing I've just discovered is that when you are sick, this giant supply of old cotton squares serves as free giant stash of disposable hankies, saving you from buying tissues or washing a pile of gross hankies.

DIY ugboot refurbish.

The sad thing about old ugboots is that the wool on the inner sole wears out but the top of the foot and ankle are still thick and fluffy. Your feet are no longer cushioned by delightful fleece, they are simply standing on a balding foam sole. But you still have warm ankles. It is really a waste to buy new ugboots just for the sole.

You can actually buy new sheepskin inner soles. I've seen them at that sheepskin shop on the side of the highway in the blue mountains. Which gave me an idea. I can be frugal, and cut up some old ugboots to make my own sets of inner soles for my newer ugboots!

I finally got to do that this week. I've been keeping my old ugboots for years, waiting for the moment of need. Their time has come!

I made a template by drawing around new ugboot sole. I then drew a line inside it a bit smaller so that it would fit inside. (I just fished a cereal box out of the recycling for my template material.)

Then I cut the sole off my old ugboot. Sheepskin is a bit hard to cut, I suggest doing little snips through just the skin, not through the wool as well. The wool pulls apart once you've snipped through the skin.

Drew around my template on one side of the boot, using a texta.

Then I flipped the template over and drew around it on the other side of the boot. You have to flip the template over so that you get a left and a right foot.

Here they are! They are a perfect fit and my feet are happy.

Not much left over from the old boot. I'll cut a spare pair from the other boot and put them away somewhere for when I need to replace again. If you have a family of ugboot wearers, you could do this all the time and share out new inner soles whenever a pair gets holes in it.

Some free fun.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the posts coming.

First: I went to IKEA (with team jelssievision) for the first time. I planned to spend no money, and ended up buying 2 packets of coat hangers and 2 Skubb storage things. That is The IKEA Effect. Plan to buy nothing, buy 4 things. Plan to buy 1 thing, buy 5 things. Anyway I have wanted to have matching coat hangers since I read about them in a book as a child, so that's a childhood dream come true.

Second: A link to 56 things to do instead of spending money. I'm leaning towards deep frugality again. http://andthenwesaved.com/things-to-do-instead-of-spending-money/

Third: I have been having intense, crowded dreams recently. The scraps I can remember from last night are pretty good though. I dreamed, amongst some kind of camping in blanket fort situation I forget why, that a young possibly Benedict Cumberbatch who I thought had Aspergers was dating me by doing nice things but pretending not to care. Like he said "do you want to go for a walk? I've got a book called 'Pointless But Nice Walks'." That was how we were dating. And the walk included the Thames at Oxford and an Asian food court (that does sound like a nice walk actually), and then I woke up.

Ladies maid.

Women are able to talk while they work. Today the office was pretty empty so the 3 girls in the corner barely shut up. Lots of jelssie inspiration. For instance, what I would like is a ladies maid. Who wouldn't want a ladies maid! We should bring them back. I want someone to do my hair, make my elaborate breakfast and lunch, and get my clothes ready for me in the morning—especially, to warm them up for me in winter by hanging them on a heater or in front of a fire, depending how rich I am. One of these days (in the real world) I'm going to get a heater, put it next to my bed, drape my clothes over it every night, and then in the morning do the Michael Scott thing (he does it with bacon) and wake up, turn on the heater, go back to sleep, and then wake up again and get dressed into toasty warm clothes.

Frugal is as frugal does.

I'm somewhat famous for my frugal talents, delayed gratification challenges and jessenomics in general. I think, though, that this is not because I'm naturally very frugal. I don't like spending money on boring things, but who does? I do see money as worldly security, but, well, it's basically better to be secure than insecure, isn't it? And I live in the Eastern Suburbs, where my frugal looks like a real squeeze—but compared to the rest of the world I've got way too many clothes. I don't like getting blinded by the lifestyle around me.

But I also know that new clothes, music and concerts, nice food and craft things as making me happy happy happy!!! I can spend money alright. So the "frugal talents" stuff is what I have cultivated to balance things out. Really frugal people don't make a song and dance about it, they don't "Spend no money on clothes for 6 months" and then make up for it the next 6 months. They just dress like dags and cut their own hair and never go to the movies and eat homebrand cheese.

Cheese without a cracker.

If you have many sorts of cheese but no crackers, this may be a solution. One of the cheeses here is a low-fat cheddar. Boring. Might as well be yellow cardboard. Use a piece of low fat cheddar as a cracker, and put tasty blue cheese on top of it, and voila! A pleasing cheese-on-cracker substitute. Using up tasteless cheese and being resourceful about lack of crackers. Ticks so many jelssie boxes. Thank me later.

Saucepan lid.

A nifty handle repair. Wire is my favourite tool.

Avoiding iTunes.

I like to buy music, but I like to make my money go further. So buying an album full price on iTunes is my last resort. Partly because I don't like the fixed prices when the exchange rate is so different, and partly because I don't like a monopoly and Apple is just a little bit too big for its boots. Here are some other resorts I investigate, before spending $16.99.

1. Direct from the artist. A quick google might turn up an artist or record label website where you can buy direct. If it is an artist from the US, you get the US price which is usually at least 30% cheaper, and the artist doesn't miss out on the cut iTunes takes. Even if they don't have a webstore, they might point you to their preferred retailer like bandcamp.com. Indi artists and labels seem more likely to sell direct or bypass iTunes. Big names not so much.

2. Check if JB hifi has the physical album for a good price. I wanted the Paul Kelly album Foggy Highway, it was $13 at JB which is a few dollars cheaper than iTunes, plus you get the album art.

3. Wait for an iTunes sale. I ended up getting Foggy Highway for $10 cos he released a new album so iTunes did special prices on the back catalogue.

4. Bigpond is slightly cheaper than iTunes. If it comes down to the principle of the matter, avoiding iTunes and saving money, it's a good option.

5. If I'm buying on iTunes, I only use iTunes cards which I buy on sale.

Shoot.

Check if there will be food before RSVPing No.

Useful little pots.

I TRY not to keep random junk JUST IN CASE it's useful one day, but when I see something useful I try to quickly match it up with an immediate need. I've had a bit of recent success with tiny little containers. I love tiny little containers.

I tipped out some yucky moisturiser that came in a bathroom gift pack present, peeled off the labels so it is now plain, and scooped some of my nice moisturiser into it from the big tub. Big tubs are good value, but I used to buy tubes so that I could travel easily with them, keep them at work and so on. Now I have a small one for the desk drawer which I can refill from my long-lasting, better value, tub at home.

Then there was a little blue pot of eye cream I bought once to see if eye cream really did reduce dark circles and puffy eyes. Not really but it was such a convenient pot that I now use it to keep a small squirt of medication cream in at work. Itchy fingers are now never far from cortisol calm, and I don't have to keep the big ugly chemist-looking tube around. Could also use this size pot for a squirt of paw-paw lip balm. In the past I have actually used it to squirt cosmetic samples into, you know the foil packets you rip open. Make free samples of eye-cream last longer!

This is a maggie beer quince paste tub. The lid fits well. I use it to keep a small handful of nuts at work, and I refill it from my big stash at home.