Convenience costs a lot of money over time. To start saving money again, you have to get inconvenient again. Easier said than done …. A while back I bid on a new Keurig coffee machine at a silent auction. I bid $80 and won. (They went for $120 new.) Predictably, the $40 savings went out … Read more
I’ll be one of the first to admit that I’m a pack rat. I come from a proud line of pack rats. Not quite hoarding-level, but that’s just one floor up from where I am. 🙂 My wife, talented woman that she is, has a lot of materials and tools that she uses to create … Read more
I know that I’ve mentioned before that my wife knows how to do many things well. She’s very handy. And today, she managed to put something together that not only got rid of some dried beans that were a bit past their use-by date — OK, over three years past — but made some money … Read more
Odds are excellent that you’ve seen this happen, or had it happen to you. You go to a vending machine (hungry), stare over the array of junky food and candy inside, make a selection, put your money in, and … … the machine jams, or your selection gets wedged in between the coil and the … Read more
Being careless with spending on food can be a budget-buster. If there’s enough cushion in your budget that you can be a bit careless, that’s great, but when a pinch happens, careful grocery purchasing could be the difference between staying out of the hole and getting into one. Cutting the fat out of a grocery … Read more
Utilities make up a dependable expense in a family’s budget. Along with grocery expenses, it’s also a place that usually has a bit of slop that can be removed if things get tight. And if cleanliness is next to godliness, certainly we all take regular showers or baths. The extent to which we do this … Read more
Printers have sure come a long way. I fondly remember by Commodore MPS-801 dot matrix printer with 42 pixels — total — for each letter. It used continuous fanfold paper and only printed in one direction. Fast forward thirty years. (Yikes!) Now our current printer does full color, two-sided, in pretty much any font I … Read more
As I’ve mentioned before a couple of times, we live in an area that could likely see a lot of furlough activity. Though there is the possibility of using the furlough days to good benefit, a lot of my friends are looking for good ways to save money as they are looking unlovingly at thousands … Read more