If you’re like me, you buy the Sunday paper to clip some coupons and hopefully get a couple of good deals (or at least make up the cost of buying the Sunday paper). I am always trying to make sure that I got all of the coupon inserts for the Sunday paper; in our area, the RedPlum insert is only in the larger (and more expensive) paper. I just found this link from Slickdeals.net, and thought that I would share it. It’s the 2008 coupon insert schedule, and it just made my life easier. Hope that this can help...
Frugal Spending
I started my Christmas shopping today
We’ve been putting aside $25 a month for Christmas. I know that this doesn’t sound like a lot, but keep the following things in mind: 1. My husband and I don’t buy each other gifts for Christmas. Seriously. If one of us wants or needs something, we discuss it and then plan appropriately. Besides, with the birth of our son, we both get more joy watching him open presents. 2. We don’t spend a lot on family. In the past few years, we have sent framed pictures or photo books as gifts using gift certificates and other discounts. I...
What a great weekend!
Although we were a little worried about the cost of traveling, it was a wonderful weekend. My grandma is in her 80′s, but she is still very active. She had a pillow fight with my son on Saturday (not an all-out pillow fight, but still an official pillow fight) – this alone made the trip worthwhile. We were also able to spend a lot of Sunday outside, which was really nice. Now it’s time to return to the daily routine, but I’m so glad we took the short trip. Even with gas and food (I picked up Subway for...
We’ve met our savings goal – almost!
Our stimulus check arrived last week. I just transferred about $540 to our emergency fund to bring it up to $5000 again. This was our first Dave Ramsey goal that I talked about in a previous post. So it’s not official yet (since technically the money isn’t in the account), but it’s in the process! It feels great, but I will feel better about it once I have secured another part-time work-at-home job to bring in income over the summer (I currently tutor online, and the hours will be decreasing soon). I don’t want to have obtained our goal...
Thoughts on Dave Ramsey
I recently finished Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, and it is a quick and easy read. I would recommend getting it from your local library – I would not buy it just because there are enough blogs and information on his methods on the web (and you can use the cost of the book as your first snowflake!). I think that Get Rich Slowly has a nice synopsis of the book here if you want to get the basic idea before investing your time reading the whole book. Is Total Money Makeover going to change our lives? I’m not...
The Story of Stuff
photo credit: Manuel.A.69 A friend of mine sent me a link to a site with a 20-minute video called “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard. It took me over 3 months to follow the link an get around to watching it, being that if I don’t do something right away, it takes me awhile to get to it. I’d highly recommend watching it, and sending it along to others (who hopefully get around to things before I do!). Here is a short excerpt from the website regarding what “The Story of Stuff” is about: “From its extraction through...
Setting goals for April
I feel like February and March kind of flew by. I know that I have been sick, but I also feel like I have been busy. The problem is that I am not sure exactly what I was busy with. There’s all the daily things that have to do with life in general, but this is the first time in awhile where the fruits of my labor are not really tangible. This is why I’ve decided that it is time to set some general goals for April. It’s going to be more like a long list, but I...
Get local produce with a CSA subscription
With the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables on the rise, my husband and I have thought about purchasing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription. For a set price, and sometimes volunteer work on the farm, you receive produce on (usually) a weekly basis during the harvests. The produce is sometimes organic as well, which is a huge plus for us since we prefer to eat organic when it is available. For more information on what a CSA is, please visit http://www.localharvest.org/csa.jsp. To look for CSA farms in your area, take a look at http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. There are a couple...
Do you really need your cell phone plan?
I was talking to my friend the other day about bringing down their household costs, and he mentioned that their family cell phone plan cost $90 a month. This is just for he and his wife. They are on a network plan where they can talk to other members of their family for free (ie. their parents, sisters, brothers, etc.). However, I was still amazed at the cost. My husband and I each have a cell phone from Virgin Mobile, and they are pay-as-you-go phones. At a minimum, it costs us $160 a year to keep these phones...
Sharper Image gift cards no longer valid
I have mentioned before that we use a credit card for daily expenses that we pay off in full each month. We are currently using a Discover card because of the Cashback bonus award, which we usually redeem for gift cards. Last week, we used part of our bonus award to get 2 ($40 and $80) Sharper Image gift cards. We’re not huge fans of Sharper Image, but Discover would double your reward for Sharper Image (ie. redeem $20 to get a $40 gift card). We had picked out a new beard trimmer and headphones for my husband. When...
