Tue, March 10, 2009 The DH Site Of The Day is a personal favorite that I love to browse for hours on end.
This site is all about repurposing relatively inexpensive ikea furniture to serve other purposes and look fantastic while doing it.
One of my favorites is this dog bed that they made out of two ikea desk-ends.
Mon, February 23, 2009 Some of these are common sense, but often we still fail to avoid them anyway. I found it to be a good reminder, so I thought I'd post it here for everyone else.
The biggest one for me?
6. Missing Payments - It’s one thing to not have the money to pay; it’s another to forget to pay. Dumb, Dumb and Dumb!
[Source: thetruthofcredit.com]
keith tagged bills, credit, credit cards, debt, frugal, internet, lesson learned, retirement in debt Sat, February 7, 2009 If I were to offer you $1200 for you to cancel your cable bill, would you take me up on it? Think about that for a second. Are you so attached to that monthly bill, that you'd turn down $1200?
Umm, don't you mean "cancel your cable?" Not "cancel your cable bill?"
No, I meant what I said. I'm not suggesting that you cut out your favorite shows. Just that you be a bit more flexible about how you watch them. Now, more than ever, it's possible to keep up with your favorite shows and break free of that expensive monthly cable bill.
Cable bills today easily top $100 a month, or $1200 a year. Wouldn't it be nice to free that up and use it to pay down some debt instead?
Here are some low-cost to no-cost alternatives:
- Hulu.com - Many popular shows are available, generally, the day after they air. NBC? Check. Fox? Check. FX? Check. Comedy Central? Check. SciFi, Bravo, PBS.. the list goes on. The interface is great and the commercials are minimal. After you watch your favorite show, check out the movies section. Best of all, it's completely Free!
- TV.com - A site very similar to Hulu, but includes content for ABC and CBS. I'll admit that I don't like the interface here as much as Hulu, but it's come a long way and it's still a viable option. Again, complete Free!
- Netflix - Plans starting at $4.99. HUGE selection of movie and TV shows. And with the new ability to instantly watch online, Netflix is a great, cheap alternative to a traditional cable plan.
- Video Podcasts - Video podcasts and internet-based shows are becoming more and more prevalent. You'll have to hunt these out a bit to find some you like, but they are out there. Miro offers a very nice client to watch these on your desktop. May I recommend: quarterlife (great show, but no longer taping new episodes) or ANY show on Revision3.
note - I am in no away affiliated with any company mentioned above.
Thu, February 5, 2009 I was browsing through various PF blogs and stumbled on a post that really stuck a chord with me. It's about a very simple concept - Saving any extra money that comes your way. It's so simple, it borders on the side of "duh, of course you should be doing that."
- Find $20 in your back pocket - Save It!
- Get a bonus at work - Save it!
- Get a rebate check - Save it!
- Go under budget one month - Save it!
So simple, yet this is one concept that gives me the biggest trouble in my attempts to carry it out. I will trick myself and come up with any excuse I can that will let me spend any windfall that comes my way. In fact, I have never once saved a bonus from work. I "reward" myself with some item or another that I probably don't need.
Yet for some reason, I never think to reward myself with lower debt or a higher networth. I think until I come to terms with this, I'll never get out of debt (or it will take a LOT longer than it should).
If I have any goals for 2009, it would be this: Save my windfalls!
Sun, February 1, 2009 As mentioned in an earlier post (Ask Me How I’m Saving $100+ Each Month), my wife and I have recently cut our dining-out budget in half. It used to be $100, so now it’s just $50 – yes, I’m that good at math.
I know many people out there might spend triple this amount, if not more, each month. But, this is an area we have always been pretty conscious about. When we do eat out, we try to stay in the $15-$20 price range for the both of us. On the expensive side, we very rarely (once every two months) go above the $40-$50 total range. And maybe once a year, we’ll treat ourselves to what I’d consider a very nice dinner in the $100-$150 total range.
However, with times being tight, we’re cutting back even more than we’re used to. Even if we stay on the cheap end, eating out once a week will blow our new $50 monthly budget. To help resist the urge to cheat on the budget and still not feel like we’re depriving ourselves, we started making a list of the places we used to go eat and what we’d normally get and figure out a way to make it at home. It tends to be a bit of trial and error on getting the recipe right to match the taste and style of what we get at the restaurant, but all in all, we’ve been very successful with our recreations.
- Panera Bread – Sierra Turkey w/ Broccoli Chedder Soup – For the health fanatics out there, trust me, I know how absolutely awful this meal is for you. You’d think with turkey, it would be a nice healthy option.
- Chipotle – Burrito w/ Barbacoa, Pinto Beans, Guacamole, Hot Sauce, Sour Cream, Lettuce, and Cheese – It’s very sad that I didn’t have to look up their menu…
- Generic Pizza Place – Large Sausage Pizza w/ a side of Cheese Fries – In our experience, making pizza at home never ends up being as good as what you’d get eating out. So we tend to alternate between making our own pizza and buying a cold house-brand pizza from Sam’s Club. Their pizza is much cheaper than we would be able to find eating out and we’re not really sacrificing anything on taste.
A very nice side benefit of making these items at home is in addition to saving money, we’re making items that taste just as good as what we’d get eating out, but are much much healthier.