Very nice post, good read. I am actually reading it on my daily commute to back from office.
I can personally verify the truth about freelance activities section of your post. Average American spends about 1 to 2 hours a day commuting. that's a lot of wasted time. I like the way you calculated it to be 40 hours a month. That's almost a week's worth of working hours that can be utilized to make some extra money in this recession.
I write out weekly menus. It takes just a few minutes, then I mentally run through the recipes and make a list of any ingredients I need to purchase. We use coupons extensively and have a sizeable stockpile, so usually our grocery list calls for fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats.
Because time has grown more limited lately, I've started planning for leftovers. For example, Saturday I made Chicken Curry with the intent of having the leftovers on the following Wednesday. Sunday I made a large pot of lima beans, which we'll have Thursday. All I need to do when I come home later the week is cook rice or a side vegetable. Other nights, we'll have salad or a simple one-pot-meal or casserole.
Clean up is reduced as well, since the bulk of the work has been done earlier, so you really only using a couple of pots later. Plus I have a deal with my partner that I cook and he cleans. We've been happy for years!
We have a rule, only homemade or recycled gifts (re-gifts allowed! goodwill, antique stores, flea market, etc. are encouraged) (the "kids" in the family are all 35-45 years old; younger ones get something off their wish list :)
Here are some ideas we have used in the past:
Food is always welcome (my husband is a chef, we own a restaurant, etc.)
Biscotti
Canned preserves with pretty labels and bows
Wine (family made)
Homemade Limoncello (easy, pretty, yummy...see sunset.com for a good recipe)
Beeswax Candles
Repurposed planters with plants, e.g. wooden wine boxes (from local wine shop, just ask) planted with herbs or flowers or lettuce
Planters with forced bulbs, still sleeping (amaryllis, paperwhites, daffodils, tulips, etc.)
Calendars (made with iPhoto or other program)
Favorite books, collected as a series
Favorite CDs or DVDs (as a theme; everyone just selects one person and swaps gifts with that person)
Margaret,
Thanks for the ideas! I was planning on making zucchini pickles and zucchini bread ... the squash bugs invaded my organic garden and ruined that idea. Then I found out the birdhouse gourds which came up nicely take at least six months to dry thoroughly. (They'll be ready for Mother's Day!)
So just as I was really beginning to wonder/worry what to do for Christmas, your article came along.
Thanks much - the amigurumi are adorable. I've had some success with crocheting turtles (use an empty, clean margarine tub and crochet around it for the shell), so I may try one of these.
I make cookies and hot peper jam for the adults. I find they like them better then store bought gifts and after their done its not going to collect dust in their homes.
I am especially addicted to audible.com where I can download all of the latest best-selling audio books. I typically listen to the most recent financial books on my iphone during my morning commute. Consider if I listen for one hour a day, at the end of one year I'll have listened to 260 hours or nearly 10 DAYS of valuable financial information!
Love this! I saw one on a dress on Etsy, but couldn't buy just the pin (and the dress was cool, but not my size). I saw some jars of petals at the craft store today and may need to warm up the old glue gun and get busy!
#4 Order apps as main courses
--Totally agree...they can make a meal
You should always tip on service and not total bill...that is the point of "tipping."
Usually ALL these rules get thrown at the window for me, because my booze bill is usually higher than the food bill...but hey, whats the point of eating out without drinking too? :)
Free Drink Hustling can be done without the proposition bet. There are many ways to increase you chances for free drinks, for instance:
Travel like Wu-Tang…
Think about it. If you go to the bar with 1 friend, the likelihood of having them buy you drinks is not as high. If you go to the bar with 10 friends, you have just increased your odds of free drinks by 1000%. Always go to the bar with a small army of potential drink suitors.
Just stumbled on your article and could not agree more. Yes, breastfeeding is THE way to go for nutrition, and also, of course, for your budget. But not everyone is able to take advantage of this option. My wife was able to breastfeed our first but when our twins came along it just wasn't going to happen.
So we did much of the research you did and learned the very same things. Our pediatrician and a friend who is a nutritionist have supported your points too. There is virtually no difference in nutritional value between name brands and store brands. You are basically paying into a marketing campaign by buying the name stuff and I don't know about you but I don't have extra money lying around to do that.
And as if I needed more to back up my decision, here comes Consumer Reports in their recent edition of their "Best Baby Products" book saying there is no reason to pay twice as much for name brands.
We are thrilled that we did the research and thrilled we can use the money we saved to help give our baby all he deserves in other ways.
Good luck to all on this crazy and wonderful parenting train. Best job in the world...
I tried the procedure which was shown to remove a small dent, but it didn't work out. I have a Acura MDX.
First I used the Hair dryer to heat the area for a minute, and I applied the Air duster (from Office Max) which I bought. Unfortunately, that didn't come out. The dent is on the door, it is a nickel size. Any suggestions... really appreciate. If I am able to get one, I have three more dents with same size and one a little bigger one. This way I can save some money :))
What a sad lonely shopping cart! Thanks for the link Carrie and I feel the same way as you do. The cashiers at my store make me wonder if I am on a hidden camera show they are so appallingly rude. I have to get my game face on and battle gear ready to hit doubles.
I found a great apron pattern at craftstylish, that uses 2 cloth napkins and a bit of ribbon. I made a sample apron yesterday to see how it would turn out and it is cute! I'm planning on making these for all my friends who cook. I'm also trying to figure out how to make matching children's apron out of one napkin, since many of my friends have daughters.
Aside from that I'm planning on giving away food (jams, pickles, and homemade cordials, etc.) They are always well received and are prefect gifts because they get used and don't just sit collecting dust.
I love the amigurumi dolls! I haven't perfected the method yet though. Perhaps a trip to the library is in order!
I would start a foundation that would focus on rehabbing some of the beautiful old brick homes in our city, by using unemployed young people in our community. The young people would be taught the work (bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work) from experienced professionals and the resulting housing would be used for low and moderate income homeowners or renters.
One other thing about humidity -- in preparation for our child care business, we had to get a radon test & found that we have radon (a problem in almost all parts of the country), which we are required to fix in order to get licensed.
One of the first things they will do is seal the sump pump to prevent the gas from entering there. They will also run an exhaust pipe with a continuously circulating fan from below the foundation out to above the roof line.
The contractor who is doing the work told us that this solves the problem with basement humidity for most people and that there are parts of the country where people use the system to solve basement humidity problems rather than radon problems.
It will be interesting to see what it does for us.
There were two modern conveniences that we did not have put in our house when it was built 15 years ago -- a dishwasher and air conditioning.
We put the dishwasher in a few years ago when we were about to bring out child home.
I am working right now on licensing as a family day care so that I continue to care for our son at home while my husband looks for work (he lost his job in the downturn) and the licensing agency requires that you have a cooling plan for when temperatures exceed 85 degrees.
We will convert one of the windows in the study to a slider and put in a room air conditioner that exhausts onto the shady side of the house. The room is about 16x12 and I figure that the four of us (me, hubby, son, and my 78-year-old mother who lives with us) can all make palettes on the floor (alright, we'll use a cot to raise up the bed for Mom if the night is really sweltering).
There are probably 4-5 days per summer in southern Michigan where this would be a real relief.
We have a full basement and in addition to closing and opening the windows and using fans as Linsey described, we run the blower during the day to further circulate the air (and the basement air is cooler when it first comes up). We also use box fans for spot relief. We live about 7 minutes from a lake, and walking down for a quick dip is another cooling option.
Before deciding to do the child care thing (and worrying that fans would not be adequate cooling for little bodies whose sweat glands are not yet operating on a real scorcher), I was looking into a whole house fan and cupolas. Still may do those things some day.
I have been a victim of astronomical bank fees. First, I had several unauthorized charges to my account. The process I had to go through to get these charges reversed involved the bank issuing temporary credit to my account while they investigated. Unfortunately, they ended up charging part of the fees back because they determined the charges were mine. I had been on vacation and didn't get the slip of paper I needed to sign returned in seven days. They refused to do anything aftwards.
I've also been a victim of the holds. The cruise line we used for our vacation put a large hold on the account. The bank held it for several days after it should have been released. Then the cruise line issued the actual payment.
My mortgage company made a draft on the wrong date, resulting in a large overdraft fee. The bank refused to do anything, even though the mistake was not mine. My mortgage company is supposed to be reimbursing me the fees.
Even being careful, there are a number of reasons people receive bank fees. Sometimes it's not the customer's fault. Most banks do nothing to help the customer out. I'm closing my account at BofA and switching to a credit union where some of this nonsense won't occur.
I’m wondering which might help me save more: Repairing the old or should I wait for the new cash for appliance prog that’s coming up soon to buy new energy star ones. Seems like according to
http://www.newsy.com/videos/the_new_cash_clunkers, it might be better to repair.
@hungrrrry Kudos for trying to go without TV during the football season. I've tried to do weeks without TV but then a Cubs game comes on and I rethink the whole thing. Although I do know that one of the happiest/most productive times I ever had in my life have happened because I didn't have a television.
Many eons ago (at least by Internet standards) I worked for a company that handled resume processing for large companies, and I mean paper resumes. At this time (and we're talking 1999) companies still placed ads in newspapers and included mailing addresses, a lot of those addresses came to us. We scanned the resumes, quality checked the OCR, and dumped all of that into a searchable database for recruiters and hiring managers to work from. But we also handled the online portions - again remember, this was 1999 - and people would regularly just copy and paste from Word into the online submission forms. What a mess that would make.
It's really not hard to have both, and when I send mine out if the posting doesn't specify a format I attach a Word format (saved in an OLD Word format to hopefully keep it readable by the widest audience) *and* include the plain text in the email itself, explaining in the cover letter that I do both to make sure they can read it. Never had any complaints, gotten a few phone calls back, so I guess it's working out that way.
Very nice post, good read. I am actually reading it on my daily commute to back from office.
I can personally verify the truth about freelance activities section of your post. Average American spends about 1 to 2 hours a day commuting. that's a lot of wasted time. I like the way you calculated it to be 40 hours a month. That's almost a week's worth of working hours that can be utilized to make some extra money in this recession.
I write out weekly menus. It takes just a few minutes, then I mentally run through the recipes and make a list of any ingredients I need to purchase. We use coupons extensively and have a sizeable stockpile, so usually our grocery list calls for fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats.
Because time has grown more limited lately, I've started planning for leftovers. For example, Saturday I made Chicken Curry with the intent of having the leftovers on the following Wednesday. Sunday I made a large pot of lima beans, which we'll have Thursday. All I need to do when I come home later the week is cook rice or a side vegetable. Other nights, we'll have salad or a simple one-pot-meal or casserole.
Clean up is reduced as well, since the bulk of the work has been done earlier, so you really only using a couple of pots later. Plus I have a deal with my partner that I cook and he cleans. We've been happy for years!
I don't see any mention of double coupons in this week's KMart ad. Am I missing something here?
We have a rule, only homemade or recycled gifts (re-gifts allowed! goodwill, antique stores, flea market, etc. are encouraged) (the "kids" in the family are all 35-45 years old; younger ones get something off their wish list :)
Here are some ideas we have used in the past:
Food is always welcome (my husband is a chef, we own a restaurant, etc.)
Biscotti
Canned preserves with pretty labels and bows
Wine (family made)
Homemade Limoncello (easy, pretty, yummy...see sunset.com for a good recipe)
Beeswax Candles
Repurposed planters with plants, e.g. wooden wine boxes (from local wine shop, just ask) planted with herbs or flowers or lettuce
Planters with forced bulbs, still sleeping (amaryllis, paperwhites, daffodils, tulips, etc.)
Calendars (made with iPhoto or other program)
Favorite books, collected as a series
Favorite CDs or DVDs (as a theme; everyone just selects one person and swaps gifts with that person)
Hi Julie - like the spreadsheet, but is there a simple way to model bi-weekly payments plus an overpayment?
Margaret,
Thanks for the ideas! I was planning on making zucchini pickles and zucchini bread ... the squash bugs invaded my organic garden and ruined that idea. Then I found out the birdhouse gourds which came up nicely take at least six months to dry thoroughly. (They'll be ready for Mother's Day!)
So just as I was really beginning to wonder/worry what to do for Christmas, your article came along.
Thanks much - the amigurumi are adorable. I've had some success with crocheting turtles (use an empty, clean margarine tub and crochet around it for the shell), so I may try one of these.
I make cookies and hot peper jam for the adults. I find they like them better then store bought gifts and after their done its not going to collect dust in their homes.
I love public transportation.
I am especially addicted to audible.com where I can download all of the latest best-selling audio books. I typically listen to the most recent financial books on my iphone during my morning commute. Consider if I listen for one hour a day, at the end of one year I'll have listened to 260 hours or nearly 10 DAYS of valuable financial information!
Love this! I saw one on a dress on Etsy, but couldn't buy just the pin (and the dress was cool, but not my size). I saw some jars of petals at the craft store today and may need to warm up the old glue gun and get busy!
#4 Order apps as main courses
--Totally agree...they can make a meal
You should always tip on service and not total bill...that is the point of "tipping."
Usually ALL these rules get thrown at the window for me, because my booze bill is usually higher than the food bill...but hey, whats the point of eating out without drinking too? :)
GREAT MATERIAL!
Free Drink Hustling can be done without the proposition bet. There are many ways to increase you chances for free drinks, for instance:
Travel like Wu-Tang…
Think about it. If you go to the bar with 1 friend, the likelihood of having them buy you drinks is not as high. If you go to the bar with 10 friends, you have just increased your odds of free drinks by 1000%. Always go to the bar with a small army of potential drink suitors.
CHEERS!
Hi,
Just stumbled on your article and could not agree more. Yes, breastfeeding is THE way to go for nutrition, and also, of course, for your budget. But not everyone is able to take advantage of this option. My wife was able to breastfeed our first but when our twins came along it just wasn't going to happen.
So we did much of the research you did and learned the very same things. Our pediatrician and a friend who is a nutritionist have supported your points too. There is virtually no difference in nutritional value between name brands and store brands. You are basically paying into a marketing campaign by buying the name stuff and I don't know about you but I don't have extra money lying around to do that.
And as if I needed more to back up my decision, here comes Consumer Reports in their recent edition of their "Best Baby Products" book saying there is no reason to pay twice as much for name brands.
We are thrilled that we did the research and thrilled we can use the money we saved to help give our baby all he deserves in other ways.
Good luck to all on this crazy and wonderful parenting train. Best job in the world...
Hello,
I tried the procedure which was shown to remove a small dent, but it didn't work out. I have a Acura MDX.
First I used the Hair dryer to heat the area for a minute, and I applied the Air duster (from Office Max) which I bought. Unfortunately, that didn't come out. The dent is on the door, it is a nickel size. Any suggestions... really appreciate. If I am able to get one, I have three more dents with same size and one a little bigger one. This way I can save some money :))
This is very true. I am glad I got my bank fees under control. I pay nothing now because I figured out the way BofA charges for their fees.
What a sad lonely shopping cart! Thanks for the link Carrie and I feel the same way as you do. The cashiers at my store make me wonder if I am on a hidden camera show they are so appallingly rude. I have to get my game face on and battle gear ready to hit doubles.
Very useful and funny. Of course I'm biased about the first recipe as a Rome resident.
More Ms. Wong please.
I found a great apron pattern at craftstylish, that uses 2 cloth napkins and a bit of ribbon. I made a sample apron yesterday to see how it would turn out and it is cute! I'm planning on making these for all my friends who cook. I'm also trying to figure out how to make matching children's apron out of one napkin, since many of my friends have daughters.
Aside from that I'm planning on giving away food (jams, pickles, and homemade cordials, etc.) They are always well received and are prefect gifts because they get used and don't just sit collecting dust.
I love the amigurumi dolls! I haven't perfected the method yet though. Perhaps a trip to the library is in order!
I would start a foundation that would focus on rehabbing some of the beautiful old brick homes in our city, by using unemployed young people in our community. The young people would be taught the work (bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work) from experienced professionals and the resulting housing would be used for low and moderate income homeowners or renters.
One other thing about humidity -- in preparation for our child care business, we had to get a radon test & found that we have radon (a problem in almost all parts of the country), which we are required to fix in order to get licensed.
One of the first things they will do is seal the sump pump to prevent the gas from entering there. They will also run an exhaust pipe with a continuously circulating fan from below the foundation out to above the roof line.
The contractor who is doing the work told us that this solves the problem with basement humidity for most people and that there are parts of the country where people use the system to solve basement humidity problems rather than radon problems.
It will be interesting to see what it does for us.
There were two modern conveniences that we did not have put in our house when it was built 15 years ago -- a dishwasher and air conditioning.
We put the dishwasher in a few years ago when we were about to bring out child home.
I am working right now on licensing as a family day care so that I continue to care for our son at home while my husband looks for work (he lost his job in the downturn) and the licensing agency requires that you have a cooling plan for when temperatures exceed 85 degrees.
We will convert one of the windows in the study to a slider and put in a room air conditioner that exhausts onto the shady side of the house. The room is about 16x12 and I figure that the four of us (me, hubby, son, and my 78-year-old mother who lives with us) can all make palettes on the floor (alright, we'll use a cot to raise up the bed for Mom if the night is really sweltering).
There are probably 4-5 days per summer in southern Michigan where this would be a real relief.
We have a full basement and in addition to closing and opening the windows and using fans as Linsey described, we run the blower during the day to further circulate the air (and the basement air is cooler when it first comes up). We also use box fans for spot relief. We live about 7 minutes from a lake, and walking down for a quick dip is another cooling option.
Before deciding to do the child care thing (and worrying that fans would not be adequate cooling for little bodies whose sweat glands are not yet operating on a real scorcher), I was looking into a whole house fan and cupolas. Still may do those things some day.
I have been a victim of astronomical bank fees. First, I had several unauthorized charges to my account. The process I had to go through to get these charges reversed involved the bank issuing temporary credit to my account while they investigated. Unfortunately, they ended up charging part of the fees back because they determined the charges were mine. I had been on vacation and didn't get the slip of paper I needed to sign returned in seven days. They refused to do anything aftwards.
I've also been a victim of the holds. The cruise line we used for our vacation put a large hold on the account. The bank held it for several days after it should have been released. Then the cruise line issued the actual payment.
My mortgage company made a draft on the wrong date, resulting in a large overdraft fee. The bank refused to do anything, even though the mistake was not mine. My mortgage company is supposed to be reimbursing me the fees.
Even being careful, there are a number of reasons people receive bank fees. Sometimes it's not the customer's fault. Most banks do nothing to help the customer out. I'm closing my account at BofA and switching to a credit union where some of this nonsense won't occur.
http://www.click2insure.in/
I’m wondering which might help me save more: Repairing the old or should I wait for the new cash for appliance prog that’s coming up soon to buy new energy star ones. Seems like according to
http://www.newsy.com/videos/the_new_cash_clunkers, it might be better to repair.
@hungrrrry Kudos for trying to go without TV during the football season. I've tried to do weeks without TV but then a Cubs game comes on and I rethink the whole thing. Although I do know that one of the happiest/most productive times I ever had in my life have happened because I didn't have a television.
So that should tell us all something....
The Writer's Coin | Follow me on Twitter
Many eons ago (at least by Internet standards) I worked for a company that handled resume processing for large companies, and I mean paper resumes. At this time (and we're talking 1999) companies still placed ads in newspapers and included mailing addresses, a lot of those addresses came to us. We scanned the resumes, quality checked the OCR, and dumped all of that into a searchable database for recruiters and hiring managers to work from. But we also handled the online portions - again remember, this was 1999 - and people would regularly just copy and paste from Word into the online submission forms. What a mess that would make.
It's really not hard to have both, and when I send mine out if the posting doesn't specify a format I attach a Word format (saved in an OLD Word format to hopefully keep it readable by the widest audience) *and* include the plain text in the email itself, explaining in the cover letter that I do both to make sure they can read it. Never had any complaints, gotten a few phone calls back, so I guess it's working out that way.