Money, Love, and Change

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With the holidays approaching, I’ve been on the prowl for some good deals.  Although I try to make most of my purchases with gift cards, I do like using ShopDiscover (when you make the purchase with your Discover Card, you get cash back), UPromise, and Ebates.  The basic idea with all of these sites is that you shop online through their affiliate link and earn money back.  It’s great when you’re making a large purchase, and even small purchases add up over time.

Anyhow, I just received an e-mail from Ebates - if you use this link you can get $10 when you sign up (without the affiliate link, you get $5).  I also get $10, so be sure that if you do sign up that you get your own affiliate link to share (you can also send e-mails to friends and family if you don’t have a blog).  If you sign up 2 people, you get $30 instead of $20 - this could really help out when doing holiday shopping!

One thing to keep in mind that you won’t be able to cash in your $10 until you earn at least $5 cash back from purchases.  It’s not too hard to earn the $5; for example, I earned $1.43 when I spent $13 at Dale and Thomas for a gift, and $1.14 from a $38 purchase at Lands’ End.

Between the 3 programs, I can sometimes get more money back using ShopDiscover, and I have found that Ebates usually reaps the same benefits as UPromise.  ShopDiscover doesn’t have as many stores, though.  Also, if you don’t use a Discover Card, you won’t get cash back.

The $10 deal lasts until October 31st.  Enjoy!

We all know about some of the ways to save on our energy costs - having good windows, sealing up leaks, insulation, etc.  But once that is all said and done, how can we save money on our actual bill?

Until now, we haven’t worried too much about our natural gas bill.  We do what we can to save on heating costs, and have enrolled in our provider’s budget plan to make life easier.  The budget plan is really nice - you pay a fixed amount 11/12 months out of the year, and then pay the remaining balance on the 12th month.  We’ve been pretty happy - our monthly bill is about $95, and our remaining balance last month was less than $50.

We got our updated budget plan today, and were a little surprised.  We expected an increase, but were taken aback by a new amount of $150.  This increase is due to the expected rise in energy costs this winter.  Wow!

After looking at our provider’s website, I found that we have the option to choose our natural gas supplier, and that some of them offer fixed rate plans.  One supplier had a fixed rate plan for this year that was already 0.13 cheaper/ccf than our current rate, and it would be locked for one year.

I know that this isn’t going to add up to a lot of money if the rates stay where they are, but it is reasonable to expect that rates are going to steadily rise as winter approaches. I’m thinking that it might be a good idea to lock in a rate now.

Do you have a fixed rate plan for natural gas?  If so, I would love to hear about your experience!

If you’re looking for a free tool to help you at your first attempt at making a budget, I would recommend taking some time to check out The Money Case.  After taking a couple of minutes to put your initial information in, you are given a breakdown of your budget by percentages.  After taking the time to input your actual expenditures, you are able to compare them to your budget.  Good stuff!

This software is very visual, with graphs that make it easy to see where your money is going.  I currently use Microsoft Money, and most of the time the graphs aren’t accurate - this software does a better job.

If I could change anything about this program, I would like the ability to enter monthly income (as opposed to yearly).  Although my husband’s salary remains constant throughout the year, mine changes monthly.  Therefore, the accuracy of the percentages is off for our budget.

I would highly recommend this program for anyone just starting out with a budget, as well as anyone considering going from a double income family to a single income family.  Being able to look at percentages can really help one to see where extraneous expenses can be cut, and whether or not it is realistic to be able to afford to live on one income.

I am really happy - I just got myself some “free” babysitting!  I have a neighbor who is studying for a math exam she needs to pass for teaching, and I offered to tutor her.  She’s got the concepts down, but just needs some help with test-taking strategies and finding some ways to solve the problems a little faster.

For me, it’s been some time since I have tutored math, and I have forgotten how much I enjoy it.  When my neighbor insisted on paying me, I felt that it wasn’t fair to charge an hourly rate, since we discussed our kids and other topics between math problems.  So we worked out a deal where she will watch the kid (she also has a son who is close in age to mine, and the kids play well together) in exchange for my services.

This is so great for my husband and I - we really can’t justify paying for a babysitter since money is tight, but we haven’t been out on our own in a really long time (I can’t remember the last time… definitely not in 2008!) since we don’t have family in the area.

Have you ever exchanged services?  Has it worked out well?

One luxury that we continue to splurge on is Direct TV.  Both my husband and I are huge sports fans - unfortunately for us, our favorite teams aren’t local ones.  Every year, we save up and budget for both NFL Sunday ticket and NBA League Pass.

We really like NBA League Pass - there is always a game on that we’re interested in watching every night (after the kid is in bed).  NFL Sunday ticket is a little bit of a different story.  Basically, we can only watch 2 games each weekend, but that’s a pretty big investment of time, especially since the kid is up when the games are on.

The Cleveland Browns are actually a decent team this year, so we will be able to see more games on local tv.  We sat down with their schedule last weekend, and figured out that we might miss five games total if we don’t purchase Sunday ticket.  It’s possible that we may only miss three games.  There’s just no way we’re paying $50+ to watch a game on television.  So we canceled.

I’m really happy with the decision, and I was a little surprised that my husband was too.  He’s getting annoyed with the fact that sports fans have to shell out so much money these days - we can’t even tune into Cleveland’s radio station (WMMS) anymore to listen to the games online without paying a fee.

I would like to get rid of television altogether, but we have over a year left on our Direct TV contract.  I don’t really enjoy watching tv a lot (except sports), and my husband doesn’t watch a lot of tv either.  I keep waiting for the SlingCatcher to come out!

If you’re a big sports fan, what do you do?

I was on Slickdeals.net this weekend, and came across this offer.  Basically, through 7/28, if you have never signed up for Amazon Prime before, you can use this link to get $10 off your next Amazon order when you sign up for a free one month trial of Amazon Prime.  Amazon Prime allows for unlimited two-day free shipping and no minimum order size.

This is a good deal because you can use your $10 credit and still get free shipping (usually you need $25 to qualify for free super-saver shipping).  Cancelling Amazon Prime before the free month is up is very easy as well - you can do it through your account settings online without any hassle.

The original post from Slickdeals is here if you want to check it out.  I got my son a book and Hot Wheels toy car holder for $4 out of pocket.  We’ll be saving both of these for Christmas.  If you take advantage of this, what are you going to get?

These days, I know that many people are trying to do everything that they can to save money (myself included).  Clipping coupons from the Sunday paper is one popular method of pinching pennies, but I am beginning to wonder if it is the best for me.

When I go to the grocery store, I usually pick up veggies and fruits, grains (rice, pasta, bread) and dairy.  I allocate $5 for junk food (cookies, chips, ice cream), and $25 for stocking up on items that are on sale (oatmeal, canned goods, etc).  I’ve stocked up on a lot of the bathroom essentials via CVS with little or no out-of-pocket cost.

After looking over the grocery totals for the past couple of months, I’ve found that I actually spend more when I clip coupons.  We tend to have more processed food in the house when coupons are clipped, and not as many fresh fruits and vegetables.  The items I buy when coupons aren’t clipped tend to be items that almost never have coupons (ie. organic foods).

Honestly, when flipping through last week’s Sunday circular, I had trouble finding coupons of anything I would normally buy.  Is anyone else in a similar situation?  What do you do?

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 someone else out!

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 plan on using Boomertowne gift cards for family this year as well.

3.  My son (who this fund is primarily for) doesn’t need a lot of toys.  Last year, we spent $150 (toys and clothes) and he had a wonderful Christmas.  We figure that a similar amount will be good for this year, especially if we shop ahead of time (which we didn’t do last year).

Today we went shopping to get my husband the new Guitar Hero game (free after gift cards).  On the way home, we stopped at Toys R Us - I had heard that they were having a sale on Brio trains.  I was wrong - they were actually having a clearance sale!

For $60, we got our son a new train set with track, 2 extra sets of track, 2 stations (a conductor station and a repair shop), and 2 additional train cars.  This is going to be his “big gift” this year.  I’m really excited that we were able to get such a great deal, and we know that the kid loves trains already (he has a smaller Brio set).

The only thing I haven’t gotten ready is a good hiding spot for this year’s gifts!

Do you like Christmas shopping early?  Why or why not?

For those of you that are wondering, Bonnaroo is a live music festival that features a variety of bands.  If you want to go, it’s a little late, since it’s occuring this weekend.  However, you can still watch certain acts live (for free) thanks to the AT&T blue room.

We watched the Raconteurs earlier today, and are currently watching Les Claypool.  Metallica is playing tonight, and there are other bands performing over the weekend (Ben Folds, Robert Randolph’s Revival, and Yonder Mountain String Band are just a few).

Have a great weekend everyone!  Watch some music!