Archive for the ‘Frugal’ Category

In case you a have a guy you need to buy for (I guess you could get them for a lady as well, but Paul uses them way more than me) a practical Christmas gift that wouldn’t be so costly would be to get them some cable ties.  I know you’re probably wondering why in the world would you want to buy someone some cable ties, but my parents ended up getting Paul and my brother-in-law some for Christmas a couple years ago and both Paul and my Brother-in-law ended up liking it.

At first Paul thought what am I going to do with these, but before long he realized how useful they were!   What Paul used them for was… hanging Christmas lights outside in the trees, working on cars, wrapping up excess cords, attaching tree branches to his tree stand… etc.

Paul’s advice though… when buying some, find a container with all different sizes in it like my parents did because you never know which size you will need.

I always find it quite interesting to see what people do with their tax refunds. I know I should be used to it by now, but I still get surprised when I hear people that are in debt saying they are going to put it towards big ticket items like a new big screen tv, furniture or a vacation.

Some people reading this might be thinking.. what’s wrong with that? If they want new things, why not? My theory is why not take a little aside to have fun with, but put a majority of that refund to pay off at least one of your bills off and work on getting out of debt?

I feel like today’s society thinks it normal to in debt.  If you get to far behind, don’t worry about it as you can file bankruptcy and then “start over”.  

When people hear that we are debt free they always say things like, you’re lucky or it must be nice.  The thing is yes we are lucky.  We are lucky that both of us are savers and we don’t go on spending sprees because we feel like it or because we are feeling down about something.   We are lucky that neither one of us thinks we have to keep up with the “Jones” and so what if our truck is 14 years old,  rusting out and has over 200k miles on it or our car is 12 years old as they both do the job by getting us here and there and the nice thing is we don’t have to have full coverage on them, we can get by with PLPD!

We are lucky that if we do want to get a new piece of furniture both of us agree not to automatically go to the furniture stores, but instead go to garage sales, second hand stores, discount furniture stores and even check craigslist first.   Then and if then we still don’t find what we want we will see what it would cost new and only buy it if we can pay cash for it.

It also is really nice and less stressful to be debt free, that’s why I wish everyone was.   Of course I know some people that are just not willing to give up their toys even for a couple years so they could get out of debt.  Their theory is you can’t take money with you when you die, so why not enjoy life right now?  I just keep thinking what Dave Ramsey would say, Live today like no other, so that later, you can live like no other.  We might be sacrificing right now, but to think that when we are 100% debt free, we will not have to worry if Paul gets laid off because we will have no bills except for the utility bills and thanks to having a nest egg saved up we know we will be ok.

So next time you find some extra cash laying around or you get a little extra somewhere, try paying off a bill or two and see how nice it is to not have to worry about those bills and how having them paid off will free up more money to pay off more of your bills.  Before long you too can be debt free and loving it!

What do you do to save money grocery shopping?   I usually buy off brands and try to buy things that are on sale, but last week I ended up splurging and joined Savings Angel.   This week I printed off my shopping list from there and if I follow it I will of saved $60.08!! 

If your not from the West Michigan area, you are probably wondering what Saving Angel is.   Savings Angel takes the local advertised prices (for stores like Meijer, Family Fare, Walgreens, RiteAid.. etc) and places them in a searchable database. 

Then they compile coupons that can be used towards those advertised products and adds that information (along with the coupon location) to the data.   If you want to read more about what Saving Angel does, just go here!

I just printed out my list a little while ago and if I follow it I will of saved $60.08!!  Of course I will do better once I start saving coupons from my parents Sunday paper.

The only downer is it does cost $20 a month, but you can cancel at any time!  I debated for a long time if I should do it or not and thought I can just do it myself and then I can save that $20 a month, but I never got around to doing it as with two little ones you really don’t have much time for yourself.  The time they save me from looking through all the adds and then trying to find the coupons means a lot to me. 

If you would like to check out Savings Angel to see if you might be interested, just click here!