Chief Family Officer and I go waaaay back: we both started blogging in 2005. She, being the consummate CFO, has been far more regular with monitoring her routines than I have. (By contrast, if you were to count the number of times I start something up on here, and then never hear about it again, … Read more
A colleague at work was twisting my arm to get an Xbox 360 so that I could “play with all the cool kids” and get my butt handed to me in the new Halo game. This was after telling him that I already had a Wii. As a parting shot — he knows I write … Read more
Beks over at Blogging Away Debt is now officially finished with a self-imposed 60-day-long moratorium on dining out. She had a few hiccups along the way but overall had great success with the program. Even as early as week three she was getting into full swing of the new meal regimen, wasn’t tempted much at … Read more
My wife and mother-in-law are doing some painting in our new house, in addition to a few other things. I have the color coordination sense of a doorknob but my wife more than makes up for this. She’s very creative, and loves to make things pretty. She’s able to do wonders re-purposing items by dressing … Read more
Earlier today I was walking around our subdivision with my family. Once around is about 0.6 miles, so it’s at least a little bit of exercise for me. We had walked only a few houses down the first bend when we saw a gas grill and a patio furniture set lined up at the curb. … Read more
This article on MSN MoneyCentral puts the (usually) tried-and-true advice of buying in bulk on the chopping block, and lists fifteen things that are probably better not bought in bulk. A few of them surprised me because they were items that I thought were great to buy in bulk. I’ll reorganize the list a little … Read more
Our new subdivision has a lot of families with kids, which is a great thing for our five-year-old daughter. Her new playmates, of course, have lots of new toys that they’re often very happy to share. At our previous house, the owners had bought a slide and swing playset that our daughter used a fair … Read more
Cutting costs anywhere that makes sense adds to that budgetary cushion that can be used to pay off debt, add to an emergency fund, save for college, or anything else. One fairly easy way to do this is to reduce, or eliminate, trips to the vending machines down the hall. The markup in our building … Read more