Archive results for “July 2008f 2008”

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We are Noticing a New Trend With Our Grocery Shopping

Not too long ago, my husband was told to reduce his sodium intake. We learned exactly how sodium-loaded most packaged foods are and gave up some of our favorite cheap foods (like Hamburger Helper). Instead of going up and down every aisle in the store, we tend to stick to the outside perimeter of the store – produce, meat and dairy.

I’m not sure how much this has impacted our grocery bill since I’m still working to finalize June’s spending. Even though we are skipping the really cheap foods, I think we are probably doing better with our grocery spending overall.

For instance, instead of buying french fries and Betty Crocker potato mixes, we are buying bulk potatoes and preparing them from scratch. I have learned how easy it is to make hashbrowns. Sure, the first few times left them burnt or raw, but now they come out just right. And you can prepare potatoes in so many ways! You can mash, roast, bake, twice bake, fry and season to your heart’s content. I’m still experimenting with them.

I am hoping that this change will also help with our overall health and I’ll be able to shed a few more pounds. My knees will thank me for it!

Posted by Tricia on July 31, 2008 at 11:47 PM in Spending Money | 14 Comments »
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Last Chance for the FNBO Challenge

Tomorrow is the deadline to enter the FNBO Pay Yourself First Challenge. There’s a bit of money on the line. In fact, the grand prize winner will bring in $13,000 when it’s all said and done.

*sigh*

I’ve been trying to make a video using iMovie, but I am not very creative in the movie-making department. I can make a mean cherry picker and I was able to combine green and purple for the colors for this blog, but that’s about it for creative ideas from me.

We’re also pretty boring when it comes to what we want to save for. There’s no real goal except to have a lovely cushion of cash so we can sleep better at night knowing it is there. Let’s see…if we won the $13K we’d pay off the rest of our debt (about $8K) and that would leave $5K for savings. Add that to the almost $4K in there and we’d have $9K.

I still am not used to the fact we have over $3K in a savings account. I can’t even imagine having close to $10K!

I’m hoping a creative idea will come to me tonight. If not, I guess I will not be entering the contest. There are already some really creative videos there. By the way – have any of you entered the contest? If so, please leave a link to your video in the comments. I’d love to see them!

Posted by Tricia on July 30, 2008 at 10:58 PM in Misc | 4 Comments »
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Savings Account = Down $250

Not too long ago, we managed to fully fund our emergency account to $4,000. Well, we had to pull out $250 to help make it through the month so the balance is now at $3,750.

A few things contributed to the withdrawal. First of all, I ended up needing expensive medication. When we upped our savings account to $4,000, we left things pretty tight – too tight to allow for that bigger expense that was unexpected.

Then, a good friend of ours suffered a death in his family and was less than a two hour drive away (he’s the one I’ve mentioned before that lives on the West coast that we’d like to visit sometime). We spent most of the weekend with him and spent some money as a result. I’m not complaining about that spending, though. This is exactly what an emergency fund is for. We were able to be there for him and we didn’t have to worry about money.

After thinking about it some, we are not going to fund our savings account back up to $4,000 right now. We are going to leave it at $3,750 and start focusing on our debt again. It’s time to pay off some more. I am also seriously thinking about submitting an entry for the pay yourself first challenge at FNBO Direct. The deadline is the end of this month, so I better get cracking.

Posted by Tricia on July 27, 2008 at 8:25 PM in Saving Money | 12 Comments »
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Ways I Save Money – More About Being Resourceful (with pics this time!)

Back in December of 2006, I mentioned that one of the ways that I save money is to be resourceful. I described a swing that I made for our son.

I don’t have enough pics on here, so I decided to show you how I am resourceful. Prepare yourself – I love using duct tape!!

First of all, the problem that needed to be solved…

We are fortunate to have cherry trees in our yard. We were also fortunate to have been left a decent ladder by those we purchased our house from. With that ladder, we can pick a lot of cherries. The problem lies with the last 1/4 of the tree. We cannot get to those cherries. The birds eat some, but as soon as the cherries get dark purple, they seem to stop by less often and if we don’t pick them they go bad.

The dark ones are the real juicy and sweet ones. It’s hard to see them go to waste. Sure, we could buy a higher ladder or a fancy gadget that could help us pick the high ones. We could even buy a cherry picker truck (which would thrill our son), but there’s no way we should be spending money right now. Money is tight.

What’s left? Making something new from things we already have.

I sat down the other night and started brainstorming ideas of how to make our very own cherry picker. While I won’t be rushing to patent this idea (it definitely has its flaws), it is working as I had hoped and my son cannot quit talking about how neat it is. He wants to use it every chance he can get.

Here it is (you can click on the smaller pics to see the full picture).

Here’s what I used to make it:

The handle from a Swiffer Sweeper (which can be put back after cherry season)
Cardboard to make the box
One rubber band
Two shoelaces (which also can be put back after cherry season)
And the best thing of all…duct tape

How does it work?

The rubber band on the back of the cherry picker keeps the lid semi-open. I find a cherry, get it inside the box, then pull the shoelace to close the lid. Pulling on the entire picker causes the cherry to come off the stem and stay in the box. The box is lowered to an anxious hand and a lovely cherry rolls out.

I totally impressed my son, we didn’t spend any money, I stretched my imagination a little and we have more cherries to eat this year. It may not be the prettiest cherry picker, but it works

Posted by Tricia on July 24, 2008 at 11:30 PM in Ways I Save Money | 17 Comments »
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Making Your Voice Heard – Proposed New Rules for Credit Card Companies

This is a guest post from Family Man at Build Tomorrow – Another Day of Life. He’s a married, 35 year old father of three who has some significant debt he is trying to pay off. He gave me this article, and since I don’t always keep up with current events I thought this was a great article to share.

Earlier this year the Federal Reserve proposed new rules for credit card companies. The major issuers immediately spoke out against the proposed rules, claiming that they would result in less competition, higher prices, and less choice for us the average consumer.

So what do these proposed rules mean for you? It first of all means that banks will have less opportunity to make changes to your account for arbitrary reasons. Some of these fundamental changes are as follows.

Banks wouldn’t be able to hit you with a higher interest rate on debt you already owe.
Prohibits “two cycle billing.” This is a practice that computes finance charges based on previous billing cycles.
Banks would have to apply at least a portion of payments toward higher-interest rate debt. In the past issuers put payments consumers made toward cheaper debt, like balance transfers that generally had lower rates.
Banks would have to provide consumers a reasonable amount of time to make payments.
Credit Card Holds. The proposal would prohibit banks from imposing a fee when the credit limit is exceeded solely because a hold was placed on available credit. This can occur where the final dollar amount of a transaction was not known in advance (for example, when a consumer checks into a hotel, a hold is placed for the expected cost of the stay).

This potential rulemaking is a huge step in asserting consumer rights in the area of credit. Many at the fed believe this is a necessary step toward recovering the credit market. Will this limit some of the credit available to consumers? Absolutely! Over the last 9 years credit was made so readily available to individuals, that could not afford it, it has become a major contributor to todayâ€™s economy. These rules will tighten lending to those who can afford to pay it back. While that may seem more restrictive it is more in line with consumer sentiment.

The Federal Reserve needs your help. Public comments are being requested before August 4, 2008. I plan to post mine. I believe that interest rates should be capped at prime plus 12%. This will allow those in debt to recover, while still allowing banks to make money. As consumers get out of debt, they will have more disposable income, and spend more (cash I hope). If you agree I hope you will make your voice heard.

Go to federalreserve.gov and click on “consumer information” at the top of the page. Then click on “Proposed Rules for Credit Cards and Overdraft Services” and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look for Regulation AA and click on submit a comment.

Direct link here.

Thanks, Family Man for the guest post!

Posted by Tricia on July 22, 2008 at 9:39 PM in Credit Cards | 12 Comments »
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The Debt Trap Series

The New York Times recently published a series of articles and resources about debt aptly named, “The Debt Trap.” I’ve only gone through some of it, but wanted to let everyone else know about it. Another blogger did a great recap:

Recap at I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Ramit picks out the highlights and provides direct links to interesting sections. Once I have some more time, I plan on reading through the whole thing. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of the new medications I am on or what – but I have been so tired the past few days. I lay down to relax and end up taking a 3+ hour nap. Fatigue is not a known side effect so I’ll be touching base about this with my doctor during our visit this week.

Posted by Tricia on July 21, 2008 at 11:44 PM in General Debt | 2 Comments »
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5th Graders and Credit Cards, Type of Billionaire, MPG Math and Getting Better MPG

I absolutely love the weekend. Yesterday we went out on an adventure to find a u-pick strawberry farm and ended up checking out a local museum that we’ve heard about, but never checked out. It gave a nice look into how early settlers to the area lived. I especially paid attention to the house we were able to tour. I’m into tiny houses so I paid a lot of attention to the layout and got a few ideas.

We didn’t end up picking strawberries. Instead, we found a few boys on the side of the road selling some and picked up two quarts. My son and I dug in as soon as we got home. With a few of them I made a strawberry cake today complete with strawberry frosting (yum!). As of right now, there are only a couple strawberries left.

Besides being able to go out and check out new things, I love the weekend because I can cook to my heart’s delight! During the week, I don’t have the time because I get off at 5pm and by the time I’m done cooking it would be late in the evening. I am also usually very tired after work. But the weekends – oh boy. Then it’s my turn to cook

For breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, strawberries and a bagel. In the afternoon, I cooked up some chicken breast. I put some aside for ceasar salads next week and with the rest I made chicken tacos for lunch accompanied by apple slices. For dinner, I made homemade pizza from scratch. Then we had my strawberry cake for dessert.

In a way, it’s probably best that I have to work during the week. I’ve never run the cost for my weekend meals, but it probably runs on the high side. At least it is still cheaper than eating out and I enjoy flexing my cooking chops. One of these days I plan on running the numbers and sharing a few of my recipes.

Okay, now onto some articles that caught my eye this week:

My son is still a few years away from being a fifth grader, but I still got a kick out of this article by Kristy, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader (Re: Credit Cards). I wonder how my son will answer those questions when he is in 5th grade.

Livingalmostlarge had a link to a quiz to see what type of billionaire you are. I usually don’t do these, but I couldn’t resist. It said that I would be an investor. I can see that.

SiliconValleyBlogger has an article about fuel efficient cars mpg illusion. Pretty interesting article that goes through the math behind mpg. If you are looking to buy a different car to save on gas, this article is worth a read.

Here’s another gas related article: Cleverdude was forced to get better gas mileage. His findings? He got better gas mileage when he slowed down. I can attest to that as well with our car. We can get 40mpg with going 55-60mph. Once we go 70mph, our mpg goes down to around 32mpg.

Posted by Tricia on July 20, 2008 at 11:27 PM in General Personal Finance | 7 Comments »
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