Archive results for “June 2007f 2007”
On this page you will find the search results for the search term that you queried.
This week has been a pretty expensive week for us. We had relatives coming in, and I am super proud to say that I only spent $20 in anticipation of their visit. In the past, I’ve gone overboard with buying things for our house to make it look “better.” One could think of it as trying to make it look like we are better off financially than we are.
I did spend the $20, though, to use to start to fix our walkway. We were going to try to see what we could find throughout the summer to use (maybe some free bricks or something), but with the impending visit, we went out and bought some new bigger patio bricks that were $2.00/each on sale.
The funniest thing about buying them? Right after we paid for them, it started raining and it pretty much didn’t stop until our relatives arrived. All we were able to do was set them down on the ground and nothing more. At least it shows that we were working on it, right?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but when we have relatives visit…we like to treat them to meals. They took the time to come up to visit (a 10+ hour drive), spent the money on gas and a hotel room, so I want to pay for their meals. Being as the relatives were my in-laws, it was a struggle to be able to do that.
The one restaurant we went to I thought I had it all set up with the waitress. When she took my order, I quietly slipped in that she needs to give me the bill. She agreed. Come bill time, it was sitting right next to me. I was reaching over for the take home container and my mother-in-law went for a mad grab for the bill. I was onto her though, and with cheetah like reflexes I grabbed the bill with my other hand. It was an awkward move, but I secured the bill. That was a close one.
Now, before everyone starts saying that we should have let them pay the bill because they appeared like they wanted to, we did let them pay for the first restaurant meal. They also had a reason they wanted to come up to visit us…they were going to help us put on new doors.
Way back when, I’ve discussed how we’ve had a hard time getting a handiman out to our house to do some much needed repairs. That repair has been our doors. At the time, I didn’t want to publicly announce it because our doors were so bad that one could break in with little force. The winters were horrible because the doors were so old and the moisture would get in them (they were wood doors) and they would swell and contract and they were splitting. I am still amazed they remained intact over the winter. It was a very bad situation, but one we lived with because of our troubles to get someone out to our house to do them. With the handiman, I thought I was getting somewhere. But again, I left messages with him and never heard back. Very frustrating.
Well, my father-in-law is a retired carpenter. He knows how to put in doors. So they decided to come up to visit for that purpose. They also live in a major metropolitan area versus the rural area where we live. They purchased the doors down there, and the grand total came to $500 for two steel doors, a storm door and good lock and deadbolt sets. For us, the cheapest we could find the same doors locally was for $500. That is only for the steel doors!
With them bringing the materials to us, we are already saving over $200. Then with my husband and father-in-law putting in the doors, we saved even more money on the labor. Now we have great working doors that will keep our home secure and help to keep us warmer this winter! Words cannot describe how happy I am to have them. They were a long overdue repair.
In total, we probably spent around $600 that we normally wouldn’t have spent in a given week. My husband does have work at the moment, so I do believe we will end up in the positive this month even after spending this money. As a plus, we didn’t have to tap our savings account to pay for the doors. We may have to tap it to pay some medical bills that I haven’t paid yet, but that’s another story developing.
All in all, the $600 was money well spent for now I can put my mind at ease when we leave the house and this winter I don’t have to worry about our doors breaking. Sometimes, peace of mind is worth it.
Happy Friday everyone! Here are some article that caught my eye this week:
Boomie from The Wastrel Show (Confessions of a Middle Aged Spendthrift) shares how she makes pizza for $1.25!
Michael’s wife found a cute pair of earrings (not what you’d expect!).
Nickel shares some moving sale tips.
Lastly, if you own an ugly couch you may be interested in a contest that Club Furtniture is putting on: World’s Ugliest Couch Contest. You can win a free couch. Do you think I should enter with the couch we found on the side of the road? It is ugly, but I’m not so sure it’s the ugliest. Maybe I’ll give it a shot anyways.
Enjoy!
A big thanks to Sarah and Chris for sending me a link to the following article. It really fits in with what I was discussing the other day about why it took so long for us to decide that it was time to pay off our debt).
New York Times: It Might Pay to Follow Your Bliss.
I was trying to figure out a portion to quote from the article, but the whole thing is great. I’ll just quote the opening paragraph since it adequately sets the mood for the piece:
REMEMBER the fable about the ant and the grasshopper? The ant works hard all summer, socking away provisions for the winter; the grasshopper frolics away each day. The ant warns the grasshopper that he’s being hedonistic and short-sighted. The grasshopper ignores the ant, and continues on his merry way — only to perish when winter sets in.
If you have a chance, click on the link and read it. It’s a great article.
A writer contacted me asking if I would post a little announcement on here. She is looking to interview a married couple where one of them was hiding debt:
Needed: Real-life story. My husband/wife was hiding debt from me and it ruined my credit!
I’m looking for a couple who’s willing to be profiled in a short sidebar to a national magazine article on credit cards. It is necessary that I use names, but using only first names may be an option. If you or someone you know has been in this situation, I’d love to speak with you.
Please contact me (Alex) at alexkay[at] frontiernet [dot] net.
Please contact her if you are interested in sharing your story.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how far we have come. Both in terms of our debt (and more recently with my weight).
Why did it take so long to decide that it was time to pay off our debt? Why did we insist on not tackling our debt and keep on charging things? Why did we just live with our debt? What was stopping us from deciding that today was the day and we didn’t want any more debt?
So many questions, and I think for us the answer revolved around a certain theme…
We thought greener grass was around the corner. In our minds, we were spending more than we made because we thought we would make more money later to pay it off. Live life now…pay later. After all, that’s what most of the credit card companies tell you. We deserved to have a nice camera. We deserved to have a nice computer. Who needs to save up money for purchases like that? We had a nice shiny credit card with available credit. Sure, there’s something called finance charges we’d have to deal with. But they can’t be that bad…right? WRONG!
Looking back, we didn’t need greener grass around the corner. We could have started working to pay off our debt when we were making less money. Even if we were only paying $20 extra a month. We could have been hitting the debt as hard as we could with what we had. I know by looking at our monthly numbers that we could have made it work.
If I had done this exercise some time ago, we could have been debt free right now. So, if you are in debt and haven’t started a debt reduction plan, try going through the questions above. Perhaps it can help you.
Before I announce those who will be receiving my copies of On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance(aff. link), I just want to again thank the authors, Manisha Thakor, MBA, CFA and Sharon Kedar, MBA, CFA, for taking the time to answer your questions. I think that is the neatest thing I have done on here!
Ok…now to the winners…
Using Random.org, it selected numbers 25 (Lori) & 16 (Kaye C). I’ve emailed you both, and I hope to hear back from you shortly.
Thank you to everyone who participated 
This week marks 2 years of the Carnival of Personal Finance, and J.D. went the extra mile to make it extra special. Instead of the usual carnival format, he asked each blogger to submit their best article for the past two years.
I was a last minute participant because I wasn’t sure what article I could include. I ended up deciding to include my article on emergency funds, rainy day funds or whatever you would like to call them. By far, that was the biggest “Ah…ha!” moment I have had while blogging. While I’m sure it’s not the last, to me that article shows that I am making progress with my relationship with money. Thank you J.D. for including it.
Now, if you read anything today, go read the carnival. It really is a “best of the best” edition:
Carnival of Personal Finance: Greatest Hits Edition
Enjoy!
Site search
About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
Finance Blogging Buddies
- Beachgirl’s Budget Blog
- Becoming and Staying Debt Free
- Boston Gals Open Wallet
- Debt Free Hispanic
- Debt Kid
- Debt Reduction 101
- Dual Income No Kids
- Everybody Loves Your Money
- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
