Paula has a question for me, but before I get to that, I want to emphasize that this is about our personal finance. Our situation is based on the decisions we’ve made and the blessings we’ve received. What works (or doesn’t work) for us might be entirely different from you.
I am curious. In all my [...]

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M has two wedding-related questions for me. I’ll answer the first now, and the second one about wedding gifts in an upcoming post:
Do any of you budget for future weddings (friends’ weddings, not your own)? I’m specifically thinking about ones that will require air travel, hotel, etc. Any tips are appreciated.
Thanks for your questions! I’ll [...]

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At the beginning of March, my husband and I laid out a few goals for the month. Here’s a recap, and how it went for us:
Use credit cards for gas only. We ended up not using our credit cards at all, and put gas on our debit cards instead, since there was no “hold” on [...]

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I was a cross-country and track runner in high school, and I memorized an inspirational poem called "Don’t Quit."
On those endless runs in the middle of nowhere, I would recite it over and over in my head.
When it was 95 degrees and there was not a breeze to be found along that corn-lined road in [...]

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Our car insurance for May through November will cost $366.30. That’s a lot lower than I thought it would be, and about $65 less than last time. I’m pretty happy about that, and I hope it will continue to go down as time goes on.
Anyway, we had to decide how many payments we wanted to [...]

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I’m really amazed at how many “snowflakes” we were able to round up in March. Every little bit of discovered, unexpected or extra money went straight into our emergency fund. At first, I wasn’t sure if $3 here or $15 there would make a big difference, but it really does add up! Give a purpose [...]

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I just saw this on WiseBread, and thought I’d share with you.
You can fill out a quick survey and receive a Swingline stapler for your time.
I don’t have a stapler–so I’m really excited about this one! It’s supposed to be a $20-value. Neato!

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A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has shown that the average cost of raising a child born in 2007 to age 18 can be expected to reach $148,000 to $298,000, depending on the family’s income.
I didn’t realize raising children was considered an agricultural undertaking. Lol.
These numbers are based on a two-parent, two-child family.
The [...]

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In my bathroom, I have some clear plastic drawers to store toiletries. In my bedroom closet, I have similar drawers to store my uh…drawers, I guess you could call them.
I don’t like the "clear" look–displaying my stuff for all to see. So, I folded a sheet of computer paper in half and put it on [...]

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While I can’t recommend using credit cards or letting a balance accumulate on them, I know that for some people, it’s a way to survive. The time immediately surrounding our wedding and the first month of living in a new city (before we got our first paychecks) we put our groceries on credit cards. We [...]

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In my last post on car insurance, I mentioned that I’d be making sure we weren’t over-insured or under-insured in certain areas.
After taking a closer look at our first-party benefits, I realized that thanks to benefits from my husband’s employer, we were already covered in these areas.
I called our health insurance company to confirm that [...]

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Our car insurance is up for renewal once again, and we’re shopping for quotes. Before I start looking at other companies, I’m tweaking the numbers with our current company (Geico) to make sure we’re not over-insured in some areas and under-insured in others. I’ll probably do several posts, focusing on one aspect at a time.
If [...]

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My friend sent me this link from the New York Times:

Even at megastores, hagglers find no price is set in stone
Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also on lower-cost goods [...]

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Which strategy is better? Cutting coupons and matching them with store sales, or keeping it simple and buying items only if they’re under a dollar per pound?
Two well-known money-saving experts, the Coupon Mom and the Ultimate Cheapskate, squared off on shopping trips on the Today show last week.
They each had $100 to spend at the [...]

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Looking for new, cheap ways to travel and meet people as you go? I read a few ideas in the March 31, 2008 issue of TIME (page 61) that I’d like to share with you.
Do any of these sound appealing to you?
Guest swap
Sort of like being a foreign-exchange student, you could have a guest swap. [...]

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The other day, I moved the mini buy-a-new-laptop fund over to the main emergency fund. Why? Because we no longer need a new laptop!
Our laptop had a bunch of crazy problems–spontaneously shutting off, its monitor flashed at us, the finger mouse pad thing sometimes would go haywire, etc. I was convinced this machine was on its [...]

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On Tuesday, my post on why spring cleaning is frugal was featured in the Festival of Frugality, hosted by PaidTwice this week.
Other posts from the festival that I want to share with you include:
Something that I really love doing is calling a particular company and asking for a more competitive rate. At Prime Time Money, [...]

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Sigh. I saw this news story and I didn’t know whether to laugh, yell, or call my elected representatives.
A week or so ago, you might have opened your mailbox to find a letter from the IRS. When I first saw it, I wondered if we were being audited.
We weren’t.
Instead, the letter was telling us that [...]

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Thanks to S.B. and Crystal, I know that today, I should walk down the street to Rita’s and get myself a free "water ice"!
I’ve never had one of those before…but I’m excited! If you live near a Rita’s, go get yourself a free treat today!

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Last fall, I considered buying a winter coat to replace an old, worn out one I had. I decided I didn’t want to may more than $40 for a nice coat, but I was hoping to find one at a lower price than that.
Originally, I was searching for a wool peacoat.
After searching several stores last [...]

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