Frugal Tips: Dorco USA Review

One of the things that I see as a necessity, but used to hate paying for was razors and razor blades. They seem so simple to make, they have been around forever, and are obviously mass produced. Yet they always seemed to cost a fortune! If you go into your local CVS or Walgreens, you may even find that the razor blades are locked up because they are so damn expensive. That seemed a little ridiculous to me.

I know they are always coming out with the latest and greatest razor blade that has an extra blade, extra close shave, etc - but I really never noticed a difference between most of the razors to be honest. I started doing some research, and then I finally stumbled across the following Youtube video:

It was humorous but also immediately made me want to check out the website to see what 'the great shaving ripoff' was all about, which then eventually led me to the official Dorco USA website. This was around last Summer - you can see the video itself was posted in April of 2012 so the Dorco website was almost brand new. There weren't many reviews on the website, maybe 2 or 3 per razor. Now there are 100s of reviews, youtube reviews, and they even sell on Amazon too.

When I saw the prices I was simply amazed! I could get 16 razor blades for around $20, it seemed too good to be true. The blades looked like standard Gillette or Schick razors but at 30-40% of the price. I decided to take the gamble, these razors couldn't be too bad, could they? I decided to pick up one of their 'Frugal Dude' packs which at the time I believe contained 1 razor, 16 blades of 2 types, and 2 disposable razors. It was just over the price of free shipping ($25) and seemed like a great value to me. Fingers were crossed that they would actually work though!

I received my razors about a week later and decided to give them a try one morning. I started off with a 4-blade cartridge and I was pleasantly surprised. I have pretty sensitive skin so shaving is never that great of an experience for me, so I was pretty skeptical from the start based on the price. You get what you pay for, right? Wrong in this case - this worked just as well as any Schick and Gillette razor that I have used and I just use standard Edge shaving gel. A week later I even received a thank you letter from the CEO for my purchase along with another complementary disposable razor. Can you tell this company is dedicated? (I was also a very early purchaser like I had said, guess I had good timing)

The blade lasted about 2 weeks worth of shaving, which is pretty standard for me. Obviously that will depend on the person but I didn't really notice them lasting any longer or shorter than Gillette or Schick. I also received 6-blade razors with this bundle, and while they provide a great shave I did notice some tug with them for sure. I finished all the blades up as it's not like I was cutting myself any more often than usual, but I've been sticking with the 4-blade razors ever since.

If you are still using Gillette or Schick products I would 100% recommend at least giving Dorco USA a try, it's worth the money you will save if you get the same results I did. Maybe the next step will be ditching wet shaving completely and trying out the trimmers, but we'll see :) I pretty much got a years supply for a little over $20 so I have no complaints.
Photo credit: David Robert Wright / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

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Cutting out that morning coffee? Congress sure isn't!

One problem that I have never had to deal with is having to rush to make sure to get my morning coffee at Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. And it's not because I make my own coffee either, it's because I'm really just not a coffee person at all. It's strange as both my parents are pretty big coffee drinkers, as well as there parents. I tried it few a times and just never really saw the need for it. Even throughout college I probably only drank it one or two times, and it's not like I even replaced it with energy drinks or tea.

I only really drink hot tea when I'm feeling sick or have a sore throat, and while I used to drink a large amount of iced tea it wasn't for the caffiene kick. I just enjoy iced tea, though I have largely replaced that by just drinking water now.

When looking to cut personal spending, many people look towards reducing the money they spend on going out to eat, including the purchase of coffee. Unfortunately when it comes to Congress they seem to have a different idea. As you can see from this article and video, Congress spent over $2 million in 2012 on coffee and food! And I'm not a fan of either party, and not trying to get into political issues here - this crazy spending is happening on both sides of the line. As the sequester effects millions of Americans, we see more and more examples of just how wildly incompetent Congress really is.

And while you technically can control where Congress is spending your money with your power to vote, right now those efforts seem to be fruitless - every single member of Congress is spending your tax dollars. So let's turn our focus to a more positive subject that we can control which is exactly how much money can you save by cutting out or reducing your morning coffee.

If we assume that there are 47 weeks in the year to get coffee while taking into account for days off, vacation, and the days where you are running late and don't get coffee that gives us 235 days to get coffee.

For the Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks pricing, I just used estimations. Obviously depending on the type and size of beverage you get the price may vary as well as your location. Often Starbucks will run at a slightly higher price premium. For the fast food and gas station estimates, I just went off the fact that many of these chains offer coffee of any size for 99 cents.

For the cost of K-Cups, I went with a 96 count of green mountain coffee at amazon which comes out to 47 cents per cup. Obviously with K-Cups there are brands that are cheaper but the lowest I was able to find was 33 cents per k-cup and some people will also end up buying more expensive brands as well. For the cost of drip coffee, I just went with a tub of Folgers that you you should be able to get in the store for around $10 or even less if you buy in bulk online. They claim you can get ~270 cups of coffee at 6 ounces, but lets say that you can only get around 180 cups as most people aren't drinking a 6 ounce coffee. This comes out to around only 6 cents per cup! I added 5 cents per cup to both of these to factor in milk/cream and sugar. I also added in another cent to the drip coffee to factor in the cost of filters. You will also have to remember that both of these solutions have an additional expense of buying the coffee machine initially.

Type Of Coffee	Cost Per Cup	Cost Per Year (1 Cup a Day)	Cost Per Year (2 Cups a Day)
Starbucks / Dunkin Donuts	$2.00	$470.00	$940.00
Fast Food / Gas Station	$1.00	$235.00	$470.00
K Cups	$0.52	$122.20	$244.40
Drip Coffee	$0.12	$28.20	$56.40

As you can see from the above analysis, it's these really small victories in the short term that can add up to be large victories for your wallet over the long term without sacrificing too much. If you absolutely have to have that coffee, definitely consider making your own as opposed to going out to get it which will save you hundreds each year. Drip coffee is the cheapest solution, although you can find re-usable K-Cups as well that cut the costs down towards drip coffee. Maybe your work offers free coffee that you can start to take advantage of? Or maybe you can work on cutting the cost of coffee all together?

Photo Credits for this post: 
Peter Griffin [1]
ABC News [2]
Petr Kratochvil [3]

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Robert H Treman State Park Camping Review

This post is going to deviate slightly from the normal theme of my posts on here, but it's definitely going to stick to the theme of trying to save money. As you may have seen from my previous weekly spending posts, I had made a few purchases in preparation for a camping trip. My girlfriend and I took a week vacation by renting a cabin at Robert H Treman State park in Ithaca, NY. I know we both like to research where we are going so I figured if there are any camping enthusiasts (or looking to get into camping) in the area I would be able to assist in your own research!

First I'd like to start out by saying that neither my girlfriend or me are expert campers, and we are definitely not talking about backpacking or parking at a trailhead and camping into the forest. The extent of our camping knowledge is just with car camping. For those not familiar, this is where you pack as much as you can into your car and usually pull into a designated camping site at a park with your car with your tent pretty much right next to it (or close enough). Since we were going for a week this time, we decided to upgrade a bit this time and get a cabin so that any potential rain would not be as much of a hinderance.

After first entering the park, we checked in at the park office. The ranger was very friendly and showed us exactly how to drive to our cabin, where the bathrooms and showers were, as well as pointing out how to get to the start of the trails and how to purchase firewood in the camp. The entrance to the camping area is pretty cool, as you actually get to "ford" your car across a tiny little stream. There is a central parking area for all the cabins and they supply wagons to bring all your stuff to the cabins.

When we arrived at the actual cabin, it was locked with a padlock and the doors slide open kind of like barn style doors. Behind that is a pretty heavy duty screen door. Maybe our expectations going in were kind of low for the cabin, but it was actually really clean. The inside cabin consists of 4 beds, lights, a (small) full refrigerator with freezer, 4 shelves to put things on, and 6 outlets to charge everything or plug whatever you bring in. The outside of the cabin has a porch, a bench, a picnic table, and an open picnic style grill.

Pictures of the Cabin At Robert H Treman State Park

If you are looking for a secluded campsite, this is not the place to go. You are definitely within shouting distance of your neighboring cabins - but don't get me wrong - at no time did me and my girlfriend feel like we didn't have privacy. They are a reasonable distance from each other. There are plenty of taps to get water from scattered about, and our cabin was pretty close to the bathrooms with some cabins being further than others. The bathrooms were cleaned daily and always stock with soap & toilet paper. The bathrooms by the cabins are cold water only and unfortunately don't have showers.

If you want to shower, you will have to walk a bit of a distance to the camping loop for that. It didn't bother us too much, and if you really wanted you are able to park right outside this set of bathrooms. These bathrooms also contain larger basins for doing your dishes and all the showers and faucets in this facility contained hot water. The showers were relatively cleaned, and you could tell these bathrooms were cleaned daily too. Everything was well maintained for a state park and we had no complaints there.

For people with kids, there are two playgrounds with one being in the day use area and an almost brand new one in the camping area near the cabins. There is also a swimming area with a diving board that is right below the falls! You will definitely need some sort of watershoes though, as the bottom is rocky. There are quite a few other state parks in the area as well. We took day trips to Buttermilk Falls State Park, Watkins Glen State Park, and Taughannock Falls State Park. There is more waterfall swimming at Buttermilk Falls, swimming right on Cayuga Lake at Taughannock Falls, and a olympic sized swimming pool at Watkins Glen. There is also plenty to see within the city of Ithaca if you get a day that doesn't have the greatest weather. 

The trails at Robert H Treman State park are really nice, as well as all of the state parks in the surrounding area that we visited. I think our favorite trails would have been the gorge trail at Robert H Treman State Park as well as the gorge trail at Watkins Glen State Park. All of the waterfalls and the gorges themselves were amazing. None of the trails that we walked were overly difficult, but The trails definitely require some stamina if you plan on doing the whole "loop" at a park, with some being around 5-6 miles in total and having hundreds of steps. Most of the time we hiked our way up the trail, had a lunch we packed at the top at a picnic area, then hiked our way back down.

If anyone plans on going to this park or anywhere nearby, feel free to leave a question and I'll try to answer the best I can!

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Frugal Tips: Bing Rewards Review

I had mentioned in my previous weekly spending post that I had made a purchase off of Amazon, and I had a $5 gift card to make this even cheaper. I'm going to give you a tip on how exactly I managed to get this gift card, and how I keep a constant supply of these coming in while doing nothing out of my ordinary routine and taking only a few minutes or less of your extra time. And we all the know the important part of being financially independent is the fact that your time in life is much more valuable than your money.

The way to do this is through the 'Bing Rewards'. Now I know what you are thinking, "Who the hell actually uses bing?" Trust me, I had the same exact reaction when one of my friends first told me about this. Whenever I don't know something, I instantly head to Google to look it up and see if I can find more information on the subject.

Enter "evil" Microsoft with Bing, offering to pay me just to use their search engine. Yes, you just read correctly - Microsoft will pay you just to use Bing in your searches. Now the payments are not just in straight cash or checks, but they will reward you for using the search engine with gift cards and rewards in several areas.

In order to do this, it took a little re-training as I would instinctively still head to Google. I changed the search engine in my browser to Bing and I also had to start going to Bing when I wanted to search, and now I end up using it more often than not. The search results with Bing are decent, and usually compare to Google pretty well. For those times I need to search for something specific in quotes, I do agree that Google is superior in that aspect.

When it comes to earning points through the Bing Rewards program, you can gain 1-2 points each day by just clicking their daily search or deal. When you initially start, there are a bunch of tutorials and videos that can be done in a short amount of time to get you started with about 300 base points (this may have changed since I first started). You can also link your Facebook account if you have one for 50 points, and then just not allow Bing to ever post or share any information. I'm not sure if you can de-link it and still keep the points. You can also get a one-time bonus credits for referring your friends. These activities are probably the most time you will ever spend on this program, after that it will all come down to earning points through searching.

Depending on the level of your account you can gain 10-15 points through searching each day. Some days they even double the max amount of points you can gain, which is pretty cool. You earn 1 point for every 2 searches, so in 30 searches you will have your maximum daily points from searching. There are always a bunch of trending topics at the bottom of Bing, so I usually just click these for a bunch of 'free' searches and then continue to use Bing throughout the day.

There are also the three 'statuses' or levels of accounts: Member, Silver, and Gold. You start as a member, and then when you get your first 200 points you become a silver member (which gives you 50 more free points). Once you buy your first reward and get 750 lifetime points you will become a 'gold' member which will give you discounts on all the rewards. So the first reward you buy must be at full price, but after that my goal is to aim to stay at the gold level by doing 150 searches each month.

The main reward that I target is the $5 Amazon gift cards, these cost 525 points for regular and silver members - once you have Gold status it will only cost 475 points. I find these to be the best value for me but you are also able donate $5 to charity of your choice, buy skype credits, Hulu plus subscriptions, red box rentals, and a few other things.

In order to reach the 475 points for the Amazon gift card, I will assume that you usually hit 15 points a day. Really you can usually hit 16-18 with the daily deals, but 15 is an easier number to work with and sometimes I miss the maximum amount of points. This means I can earn a $5 Amazon giftcard roughly every 32 days so almost a gift card a month.

To me this is a no brainer, as I accumulate these gift cards and only use them when I have to make a purchase anyways. I'm not going to Amazon JUST to use my gift cards that I have. The minimal time invested at the beginning to breeze through all the tutorials to start this program definitely seems worth it, as now I am not spending any additional time that I wasn't already using to search the internet. Some of those reward websites seem to be great, but then you realize you actually getting paid less than $1/hour - and your time is worth much more than that! For this program, I was already doing this - so why not make a little extra "cash", even if it is very minimal? I just had to switch the search engine I use, and it's not that big of a deal to me. I would recommend taking advantage of this program if you don't have a problem switching search engines!

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Frugal Tips: If you have to go out to eat!

Today I'll be continuing my weekly spending posts as a summary to keep tracking of my extra spending. My weekly spending for this week consists of the following:

I know, I know - you are probably reading the title and right away you are thinking that nobody HAS to go out to eat. Eating at home can be healthier because you are preparing the food yourself and you know exactly what the ingredients are and you can control exactly what is being added in. A lot of the chain restaurants are notorious for using a huge amount of sodium and who knows what else, and then of course it is up to actual chef. I will definitely agree with all of those points, but I feel like there are sometimes when it is okay to treat yourself.

But even after all those points, If you are inclined to eating out I'm here to give you some tips that you may have not heard of yet. When my family goes out to eat, we never spend full price if it's just us (or at least I can't remember the last time we did). The #1 reason for this is because of a great website called restaurant.com. You can always get gift certificates on this website for 50% off or even more! You just plug in your zip code or local area, then search for the participating restaurants.

If you are just two people, there are plenty of gift certificates that are $25 for only $15 or $10. At $5 a person - that's not bad at all for going out to eat. That's probably around the full price you'd pay for lunch so you are definitely getting your money's worth depending on the restaurant - thought obviously not as good as eating in. If you are in a larger group, there are plenty of gift certificates that are $50 for $25 or even $70 gift cards for only $30.

Another thing to check out is all the local deal sites like Groupon, Living Social, etc. Just make sure not to get suckered in to always buying these "deals" and the other ones they have - those expenses add up. They are always offering something like this with a lot of restaurants not featured on that website - more of one time deals.

Now the most important thing in my opinion is that if you do go out to eat you definitely want to limit those times! If you are going out once a week, make sure you are getting a good deal - but also try to cut that down to once every two weeks and so on. Before you know it - you'll be eating most of your meals at home.

I have personally cut down on going out to eat almost completely. The only time I really do it is for necessary social times, like when people from work want to go out or my friends absolutely can't be convinced to just hang out at home. I almost exclusively make my lunch from work or take leftovers from home if there happens to be any. My senior year at college I prepared a lot of meals with leftovers in mind, it's necessary a lot of times when cooking for one person. Sometimes I check out the soup in the cafeteria but I haven't bought a full lunch from there in over a month.

Photo Credits for this post: Pixabay

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Frugal Tips: Carpooling

It seems that one of the main things I read on personal finance and blogs dealing with frugality and saving money to tell you ditch the car when it comes to commuting. You move as close to possible to work and then use a bicycle or walk to commute. I fully agree that this can cut spending down tremendously especially when your cost of fuel plummets as well as the maintenance on your car for when only using it for long distance trips when necessary.

Right now that is just not in the plans for me; as much as I would like it to be in the future. So I've been looking for other ways to cut down on the costs of commuting. I have looked into a few mass transit options and while they are less than convenient, I will admit I still haven't fully researched those options.

But this leads me to a new solution: carpooling! I'm lucky that I have coworker that lives around me that is also looking to save some money and is willing to carpool with me. We are going to start out with each just doing 1 day a week, so I'll be driving 4 days a week instead of 5, not a bad way to start.

Here's the current breakdown:

• My drive to work is around 16 miles each way, for 32 miles round trip
• That's around 160 miles a week just from commuting!
• 52 weeks in a year, but I'll use 48 to account for holidays, working from home when it snows, etc: so that's 7680 miles a year - just from commuting

Here is how my new commute will look:

• 32 miles round trip for 3 days a week: 96 miles
• One day I will be getting a ride
• On the day where I drive my coworker, it will be a 44 mile round trip
• That totals to 140 miles a week, so I'll save around 20 miles a week
• That will have me end up around 6720 miles a year - almost 1000 less miles!

Just for fun, if we both decided to do 2 days a week it would like:

• 32 miles round trip for 1 day a week
• Two days I'll be getting a ride
• Two days where I drive, it would be 88 miles a week
• That would be 120 miles a week
• I would now be all the way down at 5760 miles a year

After looking at the numbers, it's really amazing that more people don't take advantage of this! Now I know it's hard to coordinate a lot of the times, and like I said - I'm lucky to have a coworker that lives such a close distance to me. But it's amazing when you are sitting in traffic and every single car only has 1 person in it. Imagine how much better the traffic would be if only 25% of those people could carpool a few days a week? Or if we stopped using the car to take 2-3 mile trips to the grocery store and instead took bicycles.

As you can see from the above picture, carpooling has gone down dramatically over the last thirty years. If you can carpool, take mass transit, or even ditch the car all together and take a bike to work - I would highly recommend it. At an estimated cost of $0.50 a mile, these savings can really add up over the course of employment.

Photo Credits for this post: Pixabay

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