New Glasses from Warby Parker!

I’ve always bought my glasses the “traditional” way. I get my prescription from my optometrist and then head over to the nearest Walmart where I can purchase glasses using my insurance and getting the cheapest deal possible. The quality of glasses you get stuck with sucks. They’re obscure and strange brands and not at all stylish. As of right now, I’m sporting some Paula Dean frames that are much too big for my face and this odd pink color and the glasses just don’t fit right. No matter how many times I take them in to get tightened, I always end up with loose fitting glasses that slide down my nose.

Now that I’m making my own money, I’m in charge of budgeting it and I’m splurging on some new glasses. The company that I’m going to get them from is Warby Parker! It’s a start up that my company happens to work with but I’ve wanted to get a pair for a while now. I’ve just never put my foot down to actually do it.

The company was started by four Wharton grads that upset the glasses industry by making affordable frames that are still stylish and wearable! They also offer a “try at home” option where you can pick up to 5 frames and they’ll ship them to you for free. Then you can try those frames on at home, see which ones you like best, and then order those. You can then upload your prescription, have them call your optometrist for your prescription, or just give it to them later.

I tried my first pair on at one of Warby Parker’s traveling bus stores and fell in love with the Colton frames. They’re smaller frames that sit much better on my face and they come in four different colors. I’m going to get the tortoise colored ones for now. Who knows, I might order more!

I can’t wait for my glasses to come and I highly recommend that you check out their website! It’s super cool, beautifully made, and who doesn’t like to shop for glasses!

Reddit Freebies

In order to cut back on costs, I’ve taken to religiously stalking the Reddit freebies page (they also have an e-freebies page). I found the page a while ago while looking for free stuff for college students (I’m such a sucker for free anything) and it’s actually a good resource for some basics or fun stuff (e.g. stickers, calendars, water bottles, t-shirts). People post links of free samples that they find, along with an expiration date, and you can sign up for whatever freebies you want. Most of the freebies need a Facebook like or maybe your email or a survey response but if you create a dummy e-mail, you can avoid the spam. Or just unsubscribe; most companies are good about not sending you e-mails if you ask them not to.

You do need to enter your address so they can send you the free samples but if you do some research on the companies ahead of time, you’ll see if it’s a legit company or not. Reddit is also pretty good at curating the forum so there aren’t any referral links, illegal things, self-promotion, etc.

I found it really useful while in college to grab samples to help tide me over and take care of the small things. Some of the things they offer are soaps and shampoos and sometimes, small food samples too, like coffee. They’re good to have around for when you run out of shampoo and haven’t had the chance to get to the store or for traveling. It also helped me keep an eye out for those bigger, well-known stores, like Target, that gives out pouches of samples and coupons.

It does take a few weeks for the items to ship, but by that time, sometimes you’ve forgotten you ordered it and you get a little surprise in the mail!

What are some of your cost saving techniques?

Mint.com

So I’m starting my new job in two weeks and one thing I’m pretty terrible at is budgeting my money. Now that I’m out of college, I can’t exactly rely on the United Bank of Parents to fund my every need and wish and whim. So what does an individual of the “Me Generation” do when they have a problem? Download an app!

I remember reading about Mint.com a while ago on Tumblr. A friend had mentioned it as a way of keeping track of money and I filed it away for later. Now that I know I’m going to have a pretty fixed income, I figured it’s probably smart to set aside certain amounts of money for different things and put some away in my savings as well.

The cool thing about Mint.com is that you can actually budget individual categories. For example, I can choose to budget about $150 on groceries a month and $50 on gas and Mint.com will keep track of my spending. It will tell you when you’re getting close to your limit or go over. Another added benefit is that you can put a password on the app so friends scrolling through your phone can’t access your Mint account and see how much money you’re spending. The only thing I wish it did was separate my checking and savings accounts so they’re not just added together at the top. I tend to only spend money from my checking account anyway so I’d rather only see that total.

My budgeting is all messed up for the month of June but since July starts tomorrow, I’ll see how well I can stick to my proposed budget. It’ll take a little bit of time to figure out how what my exact budgeting is and fall into a good rhythm but I think this will be a good start.

How do you keep track of your spending?