Maybe it's because I live in a very rural part of Oregon that my experience has always been just the opposite. Its always fresh, cheap, and fast. The coupon deals knock the price way down and the specials are usually pretty good too. I'm thinking it's because of the small town attitude that it works here. Everyone knows virtually everyone and you better not mess up a hungry lumberjacks pizza or someone will pay LOL.
1) Once you're in another country with your local SIM card be sure to ask about VOIP dialing prefixes. These are popular and use the cell system to connect you to a VOIP service with great international rates. Example; recently in China I was paying 7 cents a minute back to the US.
2) It's safer to have a cheap, second unlocked GSM phone for traveling (Craigslist) rather than using your primary US phone. Any SIM or network issues will not corrupt data on your "real" phone.
3) Have your family call into you with Skype-Out, again they save huge over a Telco long distance plan.
My wife and I had our taxes done at an H&R Block office a few years ago. We called ahead of time and made an appointment (tax offices and kids don't mix). In fact, the office manager suggested we make an appointment so that we wouldn't have to wait. Anyway, we show up before our scheduled time... and we wait... and wait... and wait... When asked for an explanation, the office manager said they had to help the walk-in traffic. The manager couldn't grasp the concept of an appointment. From that point on, we decided to do our own taxes.
We buy some 'convenience foods' and some 'ingredients.' Start with all convenience foods if you have to, but otherwise focus them in problem areas.
For example, don't eat enough veggies? Try buying prepared baby carrots and pre-washed salads.
Hate certain kinds of prep--e.g. shredding cheese for pizza--but others not such a big deal (e.g. soaking beans overnight)? Buy shredded cheese (for pizza it works fine to throw it in the freezer!) and more dried beans. If you hate planning ahead but don't mind shredding cheese, do the reverse.
We buy a lot of canned soups and Ritz crackers since those are easy for my partner to snack on when he's feeling hypoglycemic. We also keep some frozen chicken fingers on hand for "lazy" dinner nights, although it turns out grilled cheese with a tomato soup is also pretty easy, as well as the occasional "snack tray" dinner (include three to five of the following: carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber sticks, pickles, olives, little sausages, hard boiled eggs, wheat crackers, buttered toast, microwave quesadillas).
Having a few good ingredients on hand can make cooking at home a bit better. We keep good olive oil and balsamic vinegar on hand and shredded parm cheese in the freezer.We also buy big containers of baby mixed lettuce at Sams. That is a good start to a bunch of different meals.
If we are really lazy we do buffalo wings and pizza. We keep some decent frozen pizzas and chicken wings in the freezer. It ends up much cheaper than pizza delivery.
Another suggestion is to get a copy of one of the Top Secret Recipes books. Some get a bit involved and some are pretty easy but they can be a good stand in if your craving something. I also cruise Epicurious and some other newspaper websites for restaurant recipes to cook on weekends.
Even just something frozen from Sams or Costco can do in a pinch and costs less than restaurant food. Some of it is the same thing the restaurant is using.
Kate excellent review of DCA. I've read a few scientific analysis done on the merits of DCA versus lump sum investing, most studies I recall show little to no risk reduction or an increased rate-of-return – over the long haul. I think it is a personal comfort issue, especially in a volatile market like we are seeing now. Also, no one that I am aware of has a long track record of knowing when is the best time to get in the market – so I wouldn’t hold on to my lump sum for best time to get in. This can lead to the practice of trying to ‘time-the-market:’ getting in and out at the best of all possible times. Most investors do so at the wrong time, and end up with a lower ror.
This is a well written post. I liked how well you addressed the pros and cons of the issue.
One thing I would like to add is that the purpose of DCA is two-fold. The first is to avoid 'timing the market'. This is a very daunting task and even the experts are really only marginally better at it than the roulette table. The second is to make investing approachable and regular. You can put as little as $50/month into most plans found out on the web. This can get people into the market on a small time basis so that they will see some benefit from it, however small it may be. DCA is a really great way to help the average person get into the market without resorting to pulling out hair while watching your stock take a tumble.
Imagine:
Situation 1) The stock is heading downhill. You just put $10k on it! Oh no! It's worth $9k now! You've JUST LOST $1000! What are you going to do? ARG!
Situation 2) The stock is heading downhill. You just put $100 on it. Oh well, it may only be worth $90 now, but you're buying $100 more next month. Then if your stock climbs back to the $100 mark, you're back at even on the first $100, and now your second $100 is worth $111! Yippie! You've gained $11! Thanks, dip in the market!
My breadmaker pizza dough cycle is less than 80 minutes!
We have had mixed experiences with Papa Murphy's. In one city we lived the nearby one was well run, and consistently at least good. The one in our new town was a disorganized mess and the pizza was poorly tossed together the last time I went there I ended up waiting for a phone order for quite a while. Either experience they are still much cheaper than any other pizza place. But I quit using it as an option because they were that disorganized. That and we bought the breadmaker.
Fireplaces feel very warm, but in general, they're a terrible idea. Most fireplaces built after ~1900 are not built for heating, they're built to look and feel cozy. The air that you've paid so dearly to heat with traditional fuels gets sucked up through the chimney, and the heat that's given off by the fuels (which you paid for in gasoline and time to pick up) isn't enough to make up for it.
Unless you invest in something like a frankline stove or a proper wood/biofuel fired heater, you're likely to have a net loss of heat by using a fireplace. Unless you have a very old house : ).
Word of Caution they take a bit more than $20 in E :-) at 600 watts the lowest setting they will set you back $58 in electricity PER month if run 24 hours (and they only work well if you run them 24 hours)
Most medium and up homes need at least 3 to keep from being horribly frigid. Thats $180 a month in E (still cheaper than gas or propane but not nearly as warm)
Crank them upto 1500 watts like we had to a few times and now your talking $146 a month in E PER heater.
a friend sent this to me, as i am the person in my store that heads up the Price Change team. we are the ones that put the little red stickers on the clearance items. And yes, most holiday merchandise doesn't get the little red stickers, as it's easier just to mark it down in the system and put up signs with the percentage off.
The days of the week that clearance is done in certain departments, is across the board. The only difference being is that we are able, at times to work one day ahead, or, unfortunately, we can be one day behind. so all depending on the team in the store you shop in, will decide when the merchandise gets marked down.
One last thing to remember, not all stores mark down the same merchandise at the same time. it's done geographically. it depends on whether or not it is selling in a particular store, or if it's almost sold out, with one piece left.
Alyson has a point. Make it yourself at home cheaper and probably tastier. With fresher ingriedients and healthier choices.
My brother in law came over we went out bought the ingriedients, he made 6 random pizzas that were better than any restaurant within 50 miles for cheaper than 1 large pepperoni delivered.
So all y'all can send your extra money to Alyson and I if you want but make the pizzas at home.
I would love to see more of your work what is your ebay seller id? Also if you need some help creating your line I am a seamstress also and have about 20yrs expertise!!! I have lots of pics of work...I would never want my name on anything just paid per garment..I will make yours or you can specify what you want and i will create!!SHarla
I remember the old days of traveling abroad and placing a collect call to my family through an operator and asking for myself as a way of letting everyone know that I arrived safely at my destination.
and it still took 80 minutes? I can teach you how to make bread dough, there sauce probably comes from a can and the cheese is probably pre-shredded from Costco or Sam's. Open one at your house. Solicit customers from the angry masses, you'll be rich in no time. And pizza will take much less time than the 2+ hours yours did and it will probably be cheaper.
They really don't cook it? And all y'all fall for it? All y'all? I always though the whole point of pizza from the pizza place was that they had a pizza oven and I didn't, so their cheese is more gooey than I could make it and lovely and brown and bubbly. No?
This is yet another genius idea, like the pet rock, that I should have come up with. GENIUS.
Baffled. Totally, 100% baffled.
But I do have a thing for Krispy Kreme, although it's only good when you have to drive the 1.5 hours from New Orleans to Hattiesburg or Biloxi to get them (instead of studying, of course) and get a warm one and bring back dozens (I'm not kidding, like 6 or more boxes) for everyone else. Somehow, not as interesting when there was one over in Metairie. (Went to Tulane, this is what we did for fun when Northern college students were playing beer pong - beer? we can get that anywhere, I think there's a free tap around here somewhere, but Krispy Kreme, that's an event.)
I've recently become a full-time student and we're living on one income - his, thanks dear.
Two years ago, when he was deep in credit card debt and eating out every night he wouldn't have thought this possible. In fact, many times he told me he couldn't live on anything less than his current salary (alone), just look at his debts and expeditures. Now, I'm cheap, but I was also finding it hard to live on my salary (we weren't together then, just roommates, long, sordid tale with a happy ending), which was 1/2 of his. And, granted, his expenditures included a flat-screen LCD, a lovely digital Pentax camera and an XBox. Mine included lots of clothes and trips.
Fast forward to me not working, a mortgage and school. I will admit we did get some help from a sad source, his mom passed away and we got the life insurance, not a ton, like $50k. Before that, though, he started running his purchases by me - you don't need a new fancy ipod, you have two; why do we need Showtime, we never watch it, it's $10/month, we can buy shows on iTunes - an entire season for two months of Showtime, etc. The life insurance allowed us to buy some sweet furniture for our new house (a leather couch, but it's a killer couch and won't EVER need replacing) and tuition for my first semester. But, otherwise, it sits in a savings account and gathers interest (I know we should probably invest it, but it's nice to have those liquid assets there and I don't trust the stock market, too much speculation) and we live off of his income. We paid off the cars and paid off his credit card debt.
But, I think the biggest thing is that we don't eat crap take out every night. We've become very good in the kitchen. We shop sales and at Market Basket (I love that store, cheap cheap cheap). I get America's Test Kitchen recipes in my e-mail. We have a slow cooker. And, I make huge amounts of the food we like a lot and we freeze it. Red beans and rice can be relatively expensive to make (Andouille is $7/lb up here in the north)but if a big batch is made and frozen we can get 5 meals out of it, making it like $2 or less per serving. Much cheaper than even $5 chicken fingers. I do the same with soups and some sauces. It's great too, because while a lot of what i cook is pretty labor intensive the first time, with the red beans taking like 1.5+ hours of prep and 1.5 hours of active cook time and another 4 or so of inactive cook time, I get back hours by defrosting and dumping in a pot on the stove. Market Basket also has roast (already cooked) chickens for $3.99, so, we have roast chicken one night and then quesadillas or burritoes the next night with leftovers for nibbling and, in the case of the burritoes, frozen burrito filling for a whole other meal and the cost of some black beans. It's 4 meals in one, easy. For $3.99 + rice and veggies and cheese.
Most months we end up with money in the checking account, that I then squirrel away in savings knowing that my husband has a tendency to view surpluses as free money but the savings account as off limits. And, he gets some money per check for a personal checking account that he can do what he wants with, although, sometimes it's good to question those purchases too. And, rock band for the Xbox is a good investment, which sounds stupid, but a great party game, something to do when you're bored, it's collaborative and additional songs are like $1.99 - although we do not need Oasis all the hits for $15! Much preferred to the $60+ he'd been spending on games he'd get tired of in a month or a week or a few days. And when the game actually makes us rock stars we'll be set!!!
Okay, that was a lot more than just what we eat, but all of it can be easy, fun and healthier than the way we were doing it before.
If you have a fireplace but do not use it you should figure out a way to seal it up so that the heat in your home doesn't get sucked out of the chimney. The other option is to get a wood stove fireplace insert, if you have the money to do so. Once you learn how to build a proper fire in a wood stove you can load the logs once in the morning and once, maybe twice (in two smaller loads) in the evening so that the stove is constantly producing heat. The downside to an insert though is that you will use electricity to power the fan that is necessary to get the heat into the room.
The best option is a freestanding wood stove stuck in the fireplace , with insulation sealing up the chimney flue. The stove has it's own exhaust liner, so the insulation won't interfere with that. A freestanding stove is best because the radiant heat does not require a fan to move it into the room, although you can purchase fans that are powered by the heat that the stove gives off.
If you buy firewood the cost per BTU is substantially less than oil, propane, or electricity. If you get your firewood for free then you're even better off.
Used wood stoves aren't hard to find. An older model that's in good condition shouldn't be a problem so long as the firebricks are in decent shape and the metal doesn't show any signs of warping.
Chuckle . . . snort . . . the blackened chicken comment cracked me up.
I think it's really great to have a strategy list to mix and match when combining your budget with your schedule. I used to feel like a failure if I didn't do something from scratch every night. An occasional frozen pizza is a huge help, as is giving yourself permission to do less elaborate meals as you mentioned. Even grilled cheese is better than a take out burger, I guess.
The average American is almost expected to have at least one car payment these days so if you are married you should have two... oh bullcrap!
My wife and I make over 100k a year and live in a cheap area with a nice house and I still drive my paid for 1994 Tracer. She recently upgraded to a 2003 Durango - we financed about 6000 and paid the rest in cash. Not having a car payment for the past 7 years has been really nice. I don't even do preventive maintenance on my cars so I end up spending $1500 every year or two to get some major problem fixed - this is WAY WAY cheaper than any car payment.
Drive around any trailer park and look at all of the new vehicles in the driveways.
I bring my insulated mug everywhere. A good place to get one is from Borders. The ones with their logo on them are usually $5-10 and you get a free cup o' joe to go with. Sometimes the server at another coffee place gets confused, and I just tell them it's a 16 ounce, and everything is right again. It would be nice to actually see the discount though.
I ALWAYS go to my local store to get my music. It puts money in the local stores ( better for the economy then buying from a conglomerate ) I am free from DRM, used cd's start at $6 ( i usually buy used anyways ) and best of all they can usually get any cd I ask for. So what if I wait a few days. I can pay 14 for a new cd, and turn in back in a couple of days later for some more cd's.
Maybe it's because I live in a very rural part of Oregon that my experience has always been just the opposite. Its always fresh, cheap, and fast. The coupon deals knock the price way down and the specials are usually pretty good too. I'm thinking it's because of the small town attitude that it works here. Everyone knows virtually everyone and you better not mess up a hungry lumberjacks pizza or someone will pay LOL.
2 You Missed -
1) Once you're in another country with your local SIM card be sure to ask about VOIP dialing prefixes. These are popular and use the cell system to connect you to a VOIP service with great international rates. Example; recently in China I was paying 7 cents a minute back to the US.
2) It's safer to have a cheap, second unlocked GSM phone for traveling (Craigslist) rather than using your primary US phone. Any SIM or network issues will not corrupt data on your "real" phone.
3) Have your family call into you with Skype-Out, again they save huge over a Telco long distance plan.
My wife and I had our taxes done at an H&R Block office a few years ago. We called ahead of time and made an appointment (tax offices and kids don't mix). In fact, the office manager suggested we make an appointment so that we wouldn't have to wait. Anyway, we show up before our scheduled time... and we wait... and wait... and wait... When asked for an explanation, the office manager said they had to help the walk-in traffic. The manager couldn't grasp the concept of an appointment. From that point on, we decided to do our own taxes.
We buy some 'convenience foods' and some 'ingredients.' Start with all convenience foods if you have to, but otherwise focus them in problem areas.
For example, don't eat enough veggies? Try buying prepared baby carrots and pre-washed salads.
Hate certain kinds of prep--e.g. shredding cheese for pizza--but others not such a big deal (e.g. soaking beans overnight)? Buy shredded cheese (for pizza it works fine to throw it in the freezer!) and more dried beans. If you hate planning ahead but don't mind shredding cheese, do the reverse.
We buy a lot of canned soups and Ritz crackers since those are easy for my partner to snack on when he's feeling hypoglycemic. We also keep some frozen chicken fingers on hand for "lazy" dinner nights, although it turns out grilled cheese with a tomato soup is also pretty easy, as well as the occasional "snack tray" dinner (include three to five of the following: carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber sticks, pickles, olives, little sausages, hard boiled eggs, wheat crackers, buttered toast, microwave quesadillas).
Having a few good ingredients on hand can make cooking at home a bit better. We keep good olive oil and balsamic vinegar on hand and shredded parm cheese in the freezer.We also buy big containers of baby mixed lettuce at Sams. That is a good start to a bunch of different meals.
If we are really lazy we do buffalo wings and pizza. We keep some decent frozen pizzas and chicken wings in the freezer. It ends up much cheaper than pizza delivery.
Another suggestion is to get a copy of one of the Top Secret Recipes books. Some get a bit involved and some are pretty easy but they can be a good stand in if your craving something. I also cruise Epicurious and some other newspaper websites for restaurant recipes to cook on weekends.
Even just something frozen from Sams or Costco can do in a pinch and costs less than restaurant food. Some of it is the same thing the restaurant is using.
Kate excellent review of DCA. I've read a few scientific analysis done on the merits of DCA versus lump sum investing, most studies I recall show little to no risk reduction or an increased rate-of-return – over the long haul. I think it is a personal comfort issue, especially in a volatile market like we are seeing now. Also, no one that I am aware of has a long track record of knowing when is the best time to get in the market – so I wouldn’t hold on to my lump sum for best time to get in. This can lead to the practice of trying to ‘time-the-market:’ getting in and out at the best of all possible times. Most investors do so at the wrong time, and end up with a lower ror.
This is a well written post. I liked how well you addressed the pros and cons of the issue.
One thing I would like to add is that the purpose of DCA is two-fold. The first is to avoid 'timing the market'. This is a very daunting task and even the experts are really only marginally better at it than the roulette table. The second is to make investing approachable and regular. You can put as little as $50/month into most plans found out on the web. This can get people into the market on a small time basis so that they will see some benefit from it, however small it may be. DCA is a really great way to help the average person get into the market without resorting to pulling out hair while watching your stock take a tumble.
Imagine:
Situation 1) The stock is heading downhill. You just put $10k on it! Oh no! It's worth $9k now! You've JUST LOST $1000! What are you going to do? ARG!
Situation 2) The stock is heading downhill. You just put $100 on it. Oh well, it may only be worth $90 now, but you're buying $100 more next month. Then if your stock climbs back to the $100 mark, you're back at even on the first $100, and now your second $100 is worth $111! Yippie! You've gained $11! Thanks, dip in the market!
My breadmaker pizza dough cycle is less than 80 minutes!
We have had mixed experiences with Papa Murphy's. In one city we lived the nearby one was well run, and consistently at least good. The one in our new town was a disorganized mess and the pizza was poorly tossed together the last time I went there I ended up waiting for a phone order for quite a while. Either experience they are still much cheaper than any other pizza place. But I quit using it as an option because they were that disorganized. That and we bought the breadmaker.
Fireplaces feel very warm, but in general, they're a terrible idea. Most fireplaces built after ~1900 are not built for heating, they're built to look and feel cozy. The air that you've paid so dearly to heat with traditional fuels gets sucked up through the chimney, and the heat that's given off by the fuels (which you paid for in gasoline and time to pick up) isn't enough to make up for it.
Unless you invest in something like a frankline stove or a proper wood/biofuel fired heater, you're likely to have a net loss of heat by using a fireplace. Unless you have a very old house : ).
Word of Caution they take a bit more than $20 in E :-) at 600 watts the lowest setting they will set you back $58 in electricity PER month if run 24 hours (and they only work well if you run them 24 hours)
Most medium and up homes need at least 3 to keep from being horribly frigid. Thats $180 a month in E (still cheaper than gas or propane but not nearly as warm)
Crank them upto 1500 watts like we had to a few times and now your talking $146 a month in E PER heater.
a friend sent this to me, as i am the person in my store that heads up the Price Change team. we are the ones that put the little red stickers on the clearance items. And yes, most holiday merchandise doesn't get the little red stickers, as it's easier just to mark it down in the system and put up signs with the percentage off.
The days of the week that clearance is done in certain departments, is across the board. The only difference being is that we are able, at times to work one day ahead, or, unfortunately, we can be one day behind. so all depending on the team in the store you shop in, will decide when the merchandise gets marked down.
One last thing to remember, not all stores mark down the same merchandise at the same time. it's done geographically. it depends on whether or not it is selling in a particular store, or if it's almost sold out, with one piece left.
We love Target clearance merchandise !!!
Way to go! Ruin this for the rest of us. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Excellent post! Tackling that "investing" entry on my to-do list has just seemed to scary.
Alyson has a point. Make it yourself at home cheaper and probably tastier. With fresher ingriedients and healthier choices.
My brother in law came over we went out bought the ingriedients, he made 6 random pizzas that were better than any restaurant within 50 miles for cheaper than 1 large pepperoni delivered.
So all y'all can send your extra money to Alyson and I if you want but make the pizzas at home.
I would love to see more of your work what is your ebay seller id? Also if you need some help creating your line I am a seamstress also and have about 20yrs expertise!!! I have lots of pics of work...I would never want my name on anything just paid per garment..I will make yours or you can specify what you want and i will create!!SHarla
Very useful information.
I remember the old days of traveling abroad and placing a collect call to my family through an operator and asking for myself as a way of letting everyone know that I arrived safely at my destination.
and it still took 80 minutes? I can teach you how to make bread dough, there sauce probably comes from a can and the cheese is probably pre-shredded from Costco or Sam's. Open one at your house. Solicit customers from the angry masses, you'll be rich in no time. And pizza will take much less time than the 2+ hours yours did and it will probably be cheaper.
They really don't cook it? And all y'all fall for it? All y'all? I always though the whole point of pizza from the pizza place was that they had a pizza oven and I didn't, so their cheese is more gooey than I could make it and lovely and brown and bubbly. No?
This is yet another genius idea, like the pet rock, that I should have come up with. GENIUS.
Baffled. Totally, 100% baffled.
But I do have a thing for Krispy Kreme, although it's only good when you have to drive the 1.5 hours from New Orleans to Hattiesburg or Biloxi to get them (instead of studying, of course) and get a warm one and bring back dozens (I'm not kidding, like 6 or more boxes) for everyone else. Somehow, not as interesting when there was one over in Metairie. (Went to Tulane, this is what we did for fun when Northern college students were playing beer pong - beer? we can get that anywhere, I think there's a free tap around here somewhere, but Krispy Kreme, that's an event.)
I've recently become a full-time student and we're living on one income - his, thanks dear.
Two years ago, when he was deep in credit card debt and eating out every night he wouldn't have thought this possible. In fact, many times he told me he couldn't live on anything less than his current salary (alone), just look at his debts and expeditures. Now, I'm cheap, but I was also finding it hard to live on my salary (we weren't together then, just roommates, long, sordid tale with a happy ending), which was 1/2 of his. And, granted, his expenditures included a flat-screen LCD, a lovely digital Pentax camera and an XBox. Mine included lots of clothes and trips.
Fast forward to me not working, a mortgage and school. I will admit we did get some help from a sad source, his mom passed away and we got the life insurance, not a ton, like $50k. Before that, though, he started running his purchases by me - you don't need a new fancy ipod, you have two; why do we need Showtime, we never watch it, it's $10/month, we can buy shows on iTunes - an entire season for two months of Showtime, etc. The life insurance allowed us to buy some sweet furniture for our new house (a leather couch, but it's a killer couch and won't EVER need replacing) and tuition for my first semester. But, otherwise, it sits in a savings account and gathers interest (I know we should probably invest it, but it's nice to have those liquid assets there and I don't trust the stock market, too much speculation) and we live off of his income. We paid off the cars and paid off his credit card debt.
But, I think the biggest thing is that we don't eat crap take out every night. We've become very good in the kitchen. We shop sales and at Market Basket (I love that store, cheap cheap cheap). I get America's Test Kitchen recipes in my e-mail. We have a slow cooker. And, I make huge amounts of the food we like a lot and we freeze it. Red beans and rice can be relatively expensive to make (Andouille is $7/lb up here in the north)but if a big batch is made and frozen we can get 5 meals out of it, making it like $2 or less per serving. Much cheaper than even $5 chicken fingers. I do the same with soups and some sauces. It's great too, because while a lot of what i cook is pretty labor intensive the first time, with the red beans taking like 1.5+ hours of prep and 1.5 hours of active cook time and another 4 or so of inactive cook time, I get back hours by defrosting and dumping in a pot on the stove. Market Basket also has roast (already cooked) chickens for $3.99, so, we have roast chicken one night and then quesadillas or burritoes the next night with leftovers for nibbling and, in the case of the burritoes, frozen burrito filling for a whole other meal and the cost of some black beans. It's 4 meals in one, easy. For $3.99 + rice and veggies and cheese.
Most months we end up with money in the checking account, that I then squirrel away in savings knowing that my husband has a tendency to view surpluses as free money but the savings account as off limits. And, he gets some money per check for a personal checking account that he can do what he wants with, although, sometimes it's good to question those purchases too. And, rock band for the Xbox is a good investment, which sounds stupid, but a great party game, something to do when you're bored, it's collaborative and additional songs are like $1.99 - although we do not need Oasis all the hits for $15! Much preferred to the $60+ he'd been spending on games he'd get tired of in a month or a week or a few days. And when the game actually makes us rock stars we'll be set!!!
Okay, that was a lot more than just what we eat, but all of it can be easy, fun and healthier than the way we were doing it before.
If you have a fireplace but do not use it you should figure out a way to seal it up so that the heat in your home doesn't get sucked out of the chimney. The other option is to get a wood stove fireplace insert, if you have the money to do so. Once you learn how to build a proper fire in a wood stove you can load the logs once in the morning and once, maybe twice (in two smaller loads) in the evening so that the stove is constantly producing heat. The downside to an insert though is that you will use electricity to power the fan that is necessary to get the heat into the room.
The best option is a freestanding wood stove stuck in the fireplace , with insulation sealing up the chimney flue. The stove has it's own exhaust liner, so the insulation won't interfere with that. A freestanding stove is best because the radiant heat does not require a fan to move it into the room, although you can purchase fans that are powered by the heat that the stove gives off.
If you buy firewood the cost per BTU is substantially less than oil, propane, or electricity. If you get your firewood for free then you're even better off.
Used wood stoves aren't hard to find. An older model that's in good condition shouldn't be a problem so long as the firebricks are in decent shape and the metal doesn't show any signs of warping.
God bless you Julie. You have no idea how applicable this is to my life. Will (too lazy to log in)
Good luck, and LOVE the title of your domain name!
Chuckle . . . snort . . . the blackened chicken comment cracked me up.
I think it's really great to have a strategy list to mix and match when combining your budget with your schedule. I used to feel like a failure if I didn't do something from scratch every night. An occasional frozen pizza is a huge help, as is giving yourself permission to do less elaborate meals as you mentioned. Even grilled cheese is better than a take out burger, I guess.
Cool post.
The average American is almost expected to have at least one car payment these days so if you are married you should have two... oh bullcrap!
My wife and I make over 100k a year and live in a cheap area with a nice house and I still drive my paid for 1994 Tracer. She recently upgraded to a 2003 Durango - we financed about 6000 and paid the rest in cash. Not having a car payment for the past 7 years has been really nice. I don't even do preventive maintenance on my cars so I end up spending $1500 every year or two to get some major problem fixed - this is WAY WAY cheaper than any car payment.
Drive around any trailer park and look at all of the new vehicles in the driveways.
I bring my insulated mug everywhere. A good place to get one is from Borders. The ones with their logo on them are usually $5-10 and you get a free cup o' joe to go with. Sometimes the server at another coffee place gets confused, and I just tell them it's a 16 ounce, and everything is right again. It would be nice to actually see the discount though.
I ALWAYS go to my local store to get my music. It puts money in the local stores ( better for the economy then buying from a conglomerate ) I am free from DRM, used cd's start at $6 ( i usually buy used anyways ) and best of all they can usually get any cd I ask for. So what if I wait a few days. I can pay 14 for a new cd, and turn in back in a couple of days later for some more cd's.