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Dealing with all this snow

It snowed on Friday here in Pittsburgh. We got 21.1″, officially. It isn’t blowing or drifting, thankfully, but it’s causing a lot of problems in the region. There are many people without electricity still. And ooh, how fun — we have even more snow coming Tuesday and Wednesday.

Another 6-10″ is forecasted. Funny, that’s about how much they forecasted we’d get on Friday.

Our power has been out long enough for me to find a candle and light it on two separate occasions. Because more gross weather is on its way, I thought I’d share some of the things we’re doing to make life a little easier on us.

• I’ve gotten the candles out of their hiding places and grouped them in an easy-to-find-in-the-dark location on my kitchen countertop. The torch lighter is nearby. I have an oil lantern that’s in a closet. I can get to it with my flashlight if needed.
• I know where my flashlight is. It lives in the same location unless it’s in use.
• I’ve filled my 9-gallon water jug with … water. It’s enough for us to drink in case the tap water becomes unsuitable for use.
• Our cell phones have a full charge.
• Our cell phone numbers are registered with the municipality emergency alert system. We’ve received a few pre-recorded phone calls telling us about locations of warming centers, conditions of roads and other pertinent facts.
• Our car is dug out (for now) and has a full tank of gas (thanks, Shane!).
• We have lots of canned goods and a manual can opener in case the power goes out for a longer period of time.
• If the electricity does go out for long, I can put frozen and perishable food in a cooler and oh, I dunno — put it outside and pack some snow around it.
• We’ve checked on our elderly neighbor to see what she needs and to let us know she should be in touch if anything comes up.

I’m going to try to get out in the morning before the next round of skyturds show up. If I can, I’ll get some more milk and maybe some extra batteries. If that doesn’t happen, we can raid a few of Johnny’s toys for batteries for the radio.

My list might sound kind of silly. It isn’t hard to get through a snow storm, especially if you still have electricity. But there really are things you can do to make it a little easier on yourself.

I do not like snow. Sure, it can look pretty. It can make you want to snuggle up and read a book by a fireplace and drink cocoa. It can taste good as a sno-cone. But it can also make getting to work a huge hassle (sorry, Shane!). It can be slippy (hi, Pittsburghese), dangerous and super obnoxious.

When all this nonsense melts? Yeah. You can bet that I’m glad we have flood insurance.

I’ll end this post on a somewhat positive note. When you’re stuck at home, it’s a lot easier to avoid spending money!

Have you been affected by this snow storm? Whatcha doin’ about it?

Viewing Netflix on your Wii or other systems

Soon, you’ll be able to view on-demand content from Netflix on your Wii! My pal Whitney told me about this, and it sounds like a decent way to have cheap entertainment so I thought I’d pass it on.

You can already view Netflix on-demand content on your X-Box 360, PS3, internet-connected Blu-Ray players and TVs, and of course your computer.

A few months ago, we bought a plain jane DVD player since ours had broken. It was $30. I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a more expensive Blu-Ray player since you could also use it to watch DVDs and watch videos on the internet (not limited to Netflix content).

Since we don’t have a big fancy HD TV, and have no plans of getting one any time soon, a Blu-Ray player didn’t seem worth an extra $100 or so.

And now, I’m really glad we didn’t get the player, especially since we have a Wii.

Sometime this spring, you’ll be able to watch Netflix on-demand videos on your Wii! Read more information about it here.

Of course, you’ll need a Netflix account. You can get the cheapest membership at $8.99/month (that’s 1 DVD out at a time, plus unlimited streaming videos).

If you’ve never had a Netflix account, you can get a free trial. ALSO — don’t forget to sign up for Netflix by using another site’s portal to get an additional discount.

Here are a few:

Swagbucks* — go to “Ways to earn” tab, click “Special offers,” and under the “more” drop-down menu item, select DVDs. You should see Netflix on that list. You’ll get 75 Swagbucks. Don’t forget, you can swap 45 Swagbucks for a $5 Amazon gift card!

MyPoints – you can get 1,000 points for starting a Netflix account. With 1,500 points, you can usually get a $10 gift. Let me know if I can e-mail you a referral link for MyPoints.

Ebates *– this looks like the best deal. You can get $13 cash back! If you’re a new Ebates member, you’ll also get a $5 bonus, so there’s $18. Remember, you need $5.01 in earned cash back to get an Ebates cashout, and the Netflix deal would certainly do that.

Know of any other deal site portals to get Netflix?

Of course, it’s only a good deal if you’ll actually use your account. You can put your account on a vacation hold if you’ll be away or busy for awhile. You might find that renting DVDs from Redbox is a better deal for your usage, especially if you use free codes. A better use of your time and money might be borrowing DVDs from the library. Or reading a book from the library. ;-)

Edited to add: You can watch seasons 1-5 of LOST with Netflix on-demand! How fantastic is that? Is anyone else super-excited for the season 6 premiere tomorrow? kthxbai.

*Referral link

Assumptions about debt-free living – response

I saw this post on Wise Bread this morning, and I could totally relate. From the post:

“Many people have exerted so much energy and time to paying off debt, that once they become debt free, they no longer have a clear sense of financial purpose or focus.”

Yeah! You’re giving all you have to getting out of debt. You hear about how great it will be for your financial future to eliminate your payments. You start to think about all the things you can do with your money. So you commit to paying off all your debt and you follow through.

But then what? The Wise Bread post outlines six false assumptions. Here’s my commentary:

1. I’ll never have to say “no.”

Sorry. “No” to taking on new debt, and anything else you haven’t saved for.

2. I’ll never have to make stressful financial decisions.

Figuring out how much to save for retirement is stressful. So is buying a house. There are smaller-scale items that are stressful. Still, I can guarantee that it’s less stressful once you’re out of debt.

3. I’ll automatically start sleeping better at night.

Maybe, if you were losing sleep over being in debt. But if stress has a history of keeping you up at night, losing sleep over being in debt might be replaced by something else. It might be better to address a sleep/stress issue head-on.

4. I’ll never have another money fight.

I don’t like fighting, so let’s play fair and call this one a “disagreement.” You may have more disagreements on what to do with your money, now that you’ve freed up so much of it from debt payments. Maybe one person wants to save for a house. Maybe another wants to just take it easy and not pay attention to the budget for awhile. The most important thing is to understand and respect your spouse’s views.

5. I’ll never have to keep a budget again.

Having some sort of budget — even a relatively unstructured one — is better than none at all, I think. You’ve gotta continue budgeting so that you can meet your family’s needs and not resort to debt again.

6. I’ll be able to give to any cause I believe in.

You can still give even if you’re in debt. You can choose to give financially, donate possessions you no longer need, and volunteer your time. There’s just room to give more once you’re out of debt.

–

So you’ve seen that I’ve had a harder time being frugal lately. Our next huge goal on the horizon is to buy a house. That’s such a huge amount of money that it’s rather daunting. So our solution is to break our goals into manageable sizes. We’re not putting attention to saving for a house at the moment. Instead, we’re putting our attention toward buying a second vehicle with cash.

We still have plenty of financial things to consider. Freeing up our debt payments has been a great thing for both our short-term and long-term situations. But it doesn’t mean that we can forget our goals.