In my last post, we dreamed big and pondered how we want to spend our retirement. Today, let’s figure out how much this lifestyle will cost us. For many of you (especially if you’re younger) you’ll probably find you’re aiming to be a millionaire in retirement. Don’t be intimidated. This post is going to involve some number-crunching. Take your time.

In this post, I’ll help you…

• Create your ballpark retirement budget in today’s dollars
• Determine how much you’ll get from Social Security and pensions
• Convert it all to inflated dollars
• Figure out how much money you’ll need in your retirement accounts, total, to meet your goal

Some retirement calculators assume you’ll need a certain percentage of your income in retirement (some suggest 80% ). That calculation is flawed.

Say you’re fresh out of college and are earning $35,000/year. If you used the 80% rule, it would suggest you’ll need $28,000/year to live on in retirement. Ten years into the workforce, say you’re earning $75,000. The 80% rule would suggest you’d need $60,000/year in retirement. So, which is it?

Possibly neither. Your present income cannot reflect future expenses.

Here’s my retirement expenses in today’s dollars:

• Housing: Property tax, insurance, HOA, maintenance: $350/month (I’m assuming there is no mortgage)
• Electric: $100
• Gas: $100
• TV/internet: (wow, what will those things look like in 30+ years?): $40
• Phone: $65
• Water/sewer: $40 (I’m reducing this because a house of 2 people will have a lower bill than 2 adults + 2 kids)
• Groceries: $350/month (Smaller because again, two adults and no kids)
• Gasoline: $150
• Clothing/shoes: $40
• Restaurants: $200
• Entertainment: $200
• Gifts: $100
• Car insurance: $50
• Car maintenance: $50
• Car (we’ll want to pay cash for any car in retirement. The money will just need to stay invested until we need it. I’ll assume a $15k car, purchased every 7 years, though I think we’ll be able to do better than that. That gives me $200/month)
• Travel: $12k/year or $1k/month (Big spending here!)
• Long-term care insurance: $400/month? I don’t know about this one. We wouldn’t buy a LTC policy until our late 40s at the earliest, but possibly we’d wait until our 50s. If our nest egg is big enough, perhaps we can afford to self-insure. Still, I want to account for this figure in case we’ll need it.
• Total: $3,435/month or $41,220/year
• Add a 10% buffer for miscellany = $45,342/year

Note that we will not have life insurance policies anymore. We will not be saving for retirement anymore (obviously!) so that’s one fewer expense. I do not have health care listed here. I have NO idea how to predict this one. I’m speculating we’ll use our Social Security money to pay for our insurance to go beyond what Medicare will do. With the state of health insurance changing so much right now, I just don’t know how to predict it this far out. Perhaps that’s where my 10% buffer can come into play.

What am I missing? Taxes, for one. Some of our investments are in Roth (growing tax-free) and others are in traditional accounts (growing tax-deferred).

Next, calculate how much you’ll have in pension and Social Security benefits. 

If you will have a pension, find out how much you’ll get, when you’ll be eligible to receive it, and if it will be adjusted to inflation.Your HR person should have this info for you.

The same goes for Social Security, though it’s debatable how much will be available to me in 36+ years. If you have a long time before you’re eligible for Social Security, you might reduce the calculated benefit in your own calculations, just in case.

Visit the Social Security calculator to determine your expected benefit. I had to use this social security calculator because Shane and I haven’t been in the workforce for 10 years yet. Do “today’s dollars” instead of inflated. We’ll factor in inflation in a minute; right now let’s get all our figures in today’s dollars.

The Social Security calculator estimates we’ll get roughly $1,600/month ($19,200/year) if we started drawing benefits at age 62. If we wait until age 65, it estimates about $2,200 ($26,400/year). Wait until age 70, then $2,800/month or $33,600/year. Again, these figures are only my estimates, and in today’s dollars.

Your total projected annual expenses – Pension – Social Security = Nest Egg (amount needed in your investment accounts)

So. Let’s plug in my numbers.

$45,000 projected annual expenses – $0 pension – $19,200 Social Security = $25,800/year my investment account will need to fund me if we retire at age 62

$45k – $33,600 Social Security at age 70 = $11,400/year my investments will need to cover if we retire at age 70 and wait to draw benefits then

Following my math here? Do you see how to plug in your own figures? If not, let me know and I can help.

Now, we’re going to calculate all of this in inflated dollars to determine our ballpark target for our investments. It is important to consider inflation, because that reflects the true target amount in our retirement nest egg that we’ll want to hit before we retire. If we translate that to today’s dollars, it can help us conceptualize it — but the INFLATED figure is what we’re after – the inflated figure is our actual savings goal.

Assuming a 3% annual inflation rate, in 35 years when I am 62, $45k in expenses will be $130k in the year 2047. Assuming 3.5% inflation, that’s $155k/year in expenses.

Subtract out my estimated Social Security benefit at age 62 and plug in $25,800 needed per year into that inflation calculator. That becomes about $75k needed to come from my investments per year. With me still?

How much will I need total in my investment accounts?

We can use the “rule of 4″ to determine how much we’ll need in our nest egg. The rule of 4 suggests that if you have a big pot of money (i.e. your investment porfolio) you can withdraw up to 4% of the total balance each year, and you should have enough money to do that for roughly 30 years. If your investments do well or if you withdraw slightly less than that 4% (especially in the first few years!) then in theory you’ll never run out of money.

Related: A smarter approach to the 4% rule at US News for how the rule works, and adjustments you can make in retirement if needed.

Taking $75k/year and multiplying that by 25, I get $1.875M needed in my investment accounts at retirement (this is inflated dollars).

If I want to be conservative and assume I will get NO Social Security benefit, I’ll run this calculation:

$45k/year expenses at 3% inflation for 36 years = $130k/year

$130k x 25 = $3.25M needed in my investment accounts

Action steps for you:

1. Create your hypothetical expenses for when you are retired. Calculate it in today’s dollars.
2. Determine how much your pension benefit will be, if any
3. Determine how much your Social Security benefit will be
4. Calculate how much money your investments will need to cover ( EXPENSES – PENSION – SOCIAL SECURITY = NEST EGG)
5. Plug your nest egg into the inflation calculator. Try assuming different rates of inflation. The “number of years” is the number of years until you expect to retire, and this figure can change (say you want to calculate your needs for retiring at age 59, or 62, or 65, etc.)
6. Take your inflated nest egg, and multiply that figure by 25. This is a ballpark estimate of how much money you’ll need in your retirement account.

Run a few scenarios. Assume different annual budgets (for instance, I can reduce my travel expenses for some years to conserve money). Assume different rates of inflation, and different Social Security and pension benefits. Assume different ages of retirement (age 59 vs. 62 vs. 65 vs. 70 can create BIG differences). Assume different life expectancies. Create a range of investment targets.

…is up now at The Debt Princess. 5 Things NOT to do with retirement planning. Check it out, leave a comment, and learn more about Jessica’s blog. Here’s Jessica’s story and her financial goals.

Also, if you clicked over to Marissa’s blog, ThirtySixMonths from her guest post below, you might have noticed it’s a bit broken. She knows about it and is working to get it fixed!

The following post is from Marissa who blogs at Thirty Six Months. She writes about learning to invest, saving money and paying off her grad school loans.

It can be difficult to figure out exactly how you can save money using coupons. We will discuss a few different tricks and tips that will help you with getting started couponing. Couponing can be frustrating in the beginning when you are learning the ropes of how everything works together for the biggest savings. You should also note that if you are looking to save the big bucks like those on many of the popular couponing shows it can become almost a full time job with all the work that is included.

Now let’s get started by discussing the most beneficial tips for couponing.

Tip #1: Newspaper

One of the best places to find coupons is in your local Sunday newspaper. Many people recommend getting a subscription to the newspaper. If you are just looking for coupons, many newspapers offer a Sunday-only subscription. Some public libraries offer coupon exchange programs where you bring your unwanted coupons and swap them out for coupons you do want. You can also see if the library or area recycling center has extra copies of coupons you can take.

Tip #2: Online Printable Coupons

One of the next best places to get your coupons is by going to the many popular online coupon sites that offer the option to print them out right from home. Such sites include Coupons.com, redplum.com, and smartsource.com. The best thing about online printable coupons is you can choose only those that you will use to print out. Visit the Swagbucks* coupon section and print and redeem coupons to get additional Swagbucks, and redeem them later for gift cards. A similar deal is in play for MyPoints, where you can print and redeem coupons for points that can later be used to get a gift card. Print on recycled paper and change your printer’s settings to “fast draft” to use less ink.

Tip #3: Store coupons

Many stores offer their own store coupons within their weekly ads. Get a copy of your stores weekly ad to watch for these valuable coupons. Check your store’s coupon policy to see if you can stack manufacturer’s coupons with store coupons to enhance your savings. If they won’t, see if your store will price-match a competitor’s price so you won’t have to run to several stores to get the same savings.

Tip #4: Store e-coupons

There are also many stores with their own store savings cards that offer the ability to place e-coupons onto your savings card via their website. This can help to maximize potential savings but doubling up with print coupons in store. This is my favourite place to check for coupons. I generally check the week’s flyer for coupons at my desk before heading out. I normally email myself my list and have it handy on my iPad at the grocery store. No one says you can’t be techy and frugal.

Tip #5: Stores with Double Coupons

One of the best tips you can receive is to shop at stores that offer double coupons. For example if you have $0.75 off one box of cereal, doubled you will get $1.50 off that box of cereal. This is one of the most popular tips you will see with those that are into extreme couponing. Wait until the item is on sale to keep your out-of-pocket expenses to the minimum. Check CouponMom for help matching coupons to store sales.

Tip #6: Organization

Now that you understand exactly where you can go to get your coupons, you want to get some organization down. It can be difficult to go shopping with a mess of coupons, and having to search through the pile at the checkout lane. The best piece of advice one can receive about coupons is to be prepared ahead of time.

Try writing your list on a large envelope and include the coupons you will be using on the inside. Make sure to mark beside the items on your lists which ones you have coupons for. Stick to your shopping list and be sure to only use coupons for items your family will actually use.

Once you have a better understanding at how coupons work you will be surprised at the savings you will get. It is best to do a little research using these tips provided before venturing out on your first couponing adventure. Make sure you are prepared because nothing will ruin your idea of couponing then having an unorganized experience right off the bat. I want to mention that everything, and I mean every thing, goes on sales in cycles so instead of buying 30 cases of pop/cola when your family only drinks 1, buy in moderation and wait until the next sale to buy more.

Personally I look online for promo codes/coupons for any product that I want to buy. One of the best feelings when you’re shopping is knowing that you paid less than the other guy. Remember- there is a coupon for everything; you just have to look hard enough.

*Affiliate link

My son Johnny is 3. He has had money on his mind lately, and it’s neat to see how his thinking works. Here’s some snippets from our recent conversations:

“I need to go to work tomorrow,” he told me.

“Why?”

“My money is all gone! I need to get some more money.”

“What will you do with your money?”

“Give it to the people.”

Ahh yes, “the people.” He’s talking about people at stores, I think, though I’m not sure.

“What will the people do with the money you give them?”

“They’ll look at it.” Yep, I guess they will.

He likes to have a coin or two in his pocket on the way to church so he can put it in the offering plate when it comes around. When he happens to find a coin on the ground or in my bathroom or bedroom, he wants to save it until Sunday so he can “give it to God.” Aww!

And the other day, he was talking about Shane and how he goes to work.

“Daddy went to work. He needs to get some more money.”

“Yep, he needs to get more so he can buy more groceries, and get more gas for the car, and buy you more clothes, and more toys…”

He interrupted me there.

“No, I don’t need more toys,” he told me. “We need some more crackers.”

He’s right! He doesn’t need more toys. He has plenty and he’s content with what he has. Yay! He did accept that we need more money so we can buy groceries, because he knows we never have enough crackers to suit him.

As my kids get older, I hope to teach them more about how money works — how it’s earned, how it’s taxed, how to spend less, how it can grow if invested…and on and on. I probably ought to switch to cash for some of my purchases, at least the purchases I make when my kids are along. I prefer debit for so many reasons, but I think they’ll have a better understanding of how money is finite if I use cash.

Here’s an important step when planning your retirement: Before crunching numbers or setting up investment accounts, let’s step back and look at the big picture. Why are we retiring? What do we hope to accomplish with our time?

Shane and I are 26. We don’t know what our lives will look like 10 years from now, much less 33 years when we’re 59. Still, we’re going to dream a little. Join me.

• When you retire, does that mean you want to leave the workforce? Or do you want to continue part-time? I expect we’ll want to be away from the paid workforce.
• How do you want to spend your day-to-day? Reading, light exercise, a cheap hobby. Spending time together, and with friends and family.
• What do you want your special activities to be? The day-to-day stuff sounds nice to me, but I think we’d also like to go on a few vacations per year. Cruises! We’d like to go out to eat at nice restaurants, and see a good theatre production.
• What is your projected lifespan? Our calculated results think we’ll hit our upper 90s. We’ll have to eat well and exercise and generally take care of ourselves now and forever so we can not only prolong our life, but our quality of life.

I think we will have stages of retirement. If we leave the workforce in our late 50s, early 60s, we should have the health and energy to really do what we envision as the golden years. Spending winters somewhere warmer, taking regular vacations, visiting the grandkids, spending time with friends and family.

As we get older, we might find that our energy levels are slowing down. Maybe we won’t want to travel as much. That’s ok! This season of life might be a little less expensive in terms of entertainment costs. But, it could be more expensive in terms of health care.

Shane and I would like to stay active as long as possible. That’ll give us more freedom with our choices, and hopefully less stress.

• We’d like to do volunteer work with charities and our church. We’ll still have a lot to contribute to society, and it will be rewarding for us and we’ll keep a solid purpose.
• Travel! We love traveling now, and we hope to continue traveling in retirement.
• Spending time helping and visiting our children and grandchildren. Perhaps we’ll live nearby, and if not, we’ll want to budget for travel expenses to see them.
• Going out to nice restaurants. We like it now and will forever.

Taken in Sitka, Alaska. Credit: SenseToSave.com

In a lot of ways, how we’re envisioning our retirement looks a lot like our ideal time off now. If Shane has vacation time, we like to visit family, go out to eat, take in a new museum, or travel. We don’t have time to volunteer right now, but perhaps as our kids get older we can get the whole family involved.

While we are spending our working  years saving for retirement, it would be best to make time for these same activities that we enjoy.

We are not guaranteed a chance at retirement. We cannot predict how long we will live. People get sick. People get injured. Death happens at any age, we all know.

So, save as much as you can for your older years now, while keeping a balance in your present. Like nice restaurants and vacations? Don’t wait until you’re 65 to do those things, if you can afford to do them now.

It would be a shame if we had big plans for our future, yet didn’t save enough money. What if we didn’t save enough for retirement? What if we chose our investments incorrectly? What if we never got to the point where we could leave the paid workforce?

It’s one thing to keep on working because you want to. It’s another to keep on working because you have to. We can’t guarantee that our health or interests will allow us to keep on working into our 70s and beyond. That’s why it’s so key to save now. If we’re 75 years old and want to keep on working, cool. Our investments will keep on growing and we can still take time off if we’d like.

Other things to consider:

• Do you want to live in the house you have now? Another house? Condo? Renting? We won’t want to stay where we are now. We have a two-story, with no bedrooms on the first floor. We’d be far better to downsize to a smaller one-story.
• Will you have a mortgage? I hope not! Pay off that mortgage before retiring if at all possible. It’s just too expensive to keep around. Consider refinancing if it makes sense, or make extra payments to ensure you won’t have a mortgage. You could also sell and pay cash for a cheaper home.
• Will you have a vacation home? It might be fun to join the snowbirds who head to Florida or Arizona or So. Cal (or wherever!) to get away from cold weather. Depending on your goals, you could buy or rent a property. If you bought something, you could rent it out to generate income.

Many of you know how to use coupons to get toiletries and groceries for pennies on the dollar.

You know how to cut your expenses mercilessly, stretch a buck, and live frugally. You can come up with endless ways to entertain your children for free or almost free, feed your family on a few dollars a day, and make sacrifices on things that don’t matter to you (and sometimes, things that DO matter to you) to improve your family’s finances.

When it comes to large-scale money issues such as retirement, some of you are well on your way. Others are still figuring out the details.

A few years ago when I started working the drugstore deals, it was around the same time that we were starting our first retirement plans. I thought if we chose a few of the different 401k funds available to us, that we were properly “diversified.”

In reality, I picked the funds out of nowhere. “Small cap”? Ok, how about 30% to you. Nevermind that I had no idea what that meant. “Target Date”? Sounds important. Better make it 50%. And so on. I had NO idea how to choose an investment properly and I didn’t know what to do to figure it out.

Actually I can’t remember the exact investments we chose 4 years ago, or the percentages. We’ve long since made adjustments, but the above illustrates my past mindset with it all.

I’m convinced that if you can put together a complicated drugstore deal scenario, then yes you can absolutely find your way around an investment prospectus. You can select high quality, low fee investments. You can figure out how much you’ll need to retire, and take the steps needed to get there.

Even if drugstore deals aren’t your thing and you feel like you’re pretty new to this retirement stuff (or money stuff in general), you can do this.

If you are overwhelmed with retirement planning or simply don’t care, know this: Barring serious illness or a catastrophic accident, you’ll likely live into your 60s, 70s, and beyond. It’s a-comin’. Are you ready?

Unfortunately, many people cannot afford to leave the workforce, even though (or possibly because) they may not be in the best of health.

“More than three in five U.S. workers in their 50s and 60s plan on working past 65 — and 47% of that group say they’ll do so because they’ll need the money or health benefits, according to a 2011 study from the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.” — For many seniors, there may be no retirement (Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2011).

Shocked? Scared? Could that be you? Does that statistic reflect what your parents will need to do?

The reality is, saving enough for retirement impacts more than just our self and our spouse. It impacts our children, and possibly even grandchildren.

You may never want to officially leave the workforce. Maybe you love your job, and never ever want to leave. But, you can’t know for sure what your health will be like in the future. Perhaps your job has changed, or your priorities are different. It’s better to save for retirement now, and choose to keep on working for the fun of it, than get to your 50s and realize you will either retire destitute, or will need to work until the day you die.

Yeah, I’m painting a bleak picture. But we’d be better off to shudder at the horrors of what might have been, had we not prepared — than have that be our real circumstances.

Here’s where I come in. I’m no expert, you all know this already. But, I’m going to do my best in the coming weeks to post about retirement in a way that is manageable and relevant to you. I’ll be linking heavily to people who know what they’re talking about, too.

Some of you are retired already. Some intend to retire in the next few years, maybe. Many of you are in your 20s and 30s and are just starting to get some momentum on building your investments.

I’m certain there are some of you who already have a solid grasp on retirement planning and I hope you’ll be active in the comments section to help us learn from you. Actually, I hope you’ll all participate in the comments section (and feel free to email me) to help guide where this series takes us.

The  majority of you who voted in my poll told me you wanted a blog series. Ok!

I’ll have a once-per-week posting schedule for retirement stuff, starting Wednesday (and running on Wednesdays thereafter). On other days, I’ll post more my usual topics. This series will likely take a few months. I thought I’d better do it that way rather than flood you with too much info too fast and make you mad and unsubscribe.

Topics will include:

• Determining how you want to spend your retirement (Wednesday’s post!)
• Figuring out how much that lifestyle will cost
• How much will you need to save, and how to evaluate retirement calculators
• Where to invest? And how to pick your investments?
• Asset allocation, expense ratios, and all that fun stuff
• Target-date funds
• How Social Security and pensions come into play
• Inflation
• Whatever else comes up, as spurred by your comments

I’m keeping links for the series, as well as additional info and resources on a new page called “Retirement Guide.” You can find it at the top in my navigation bar.

By the time I wrap up this series, I hope that you’ll have a better understanding of your financial situation. I hope you’ll feel confident with the lingo and how to make these important decisions for yourself.

My goal is that in the next few weeks, you’ll not only have your retirement accounts opened, but you’ll know exactly what investments you want, how much you want to contribute, and you’ll know how it will impact your future.

Ya with me?

I thought Vivienne’s runny nose and fussy attitude was solely because she was cutting teeth. And then Johnny joined in on the unfun, and has a runny nose and feels lousy, too. He has all his teeth. Oh, baby colds. Hope they can get well soon. That’s all I got this week. Here’s the roundup:

I was included in this week’s Yakezie Carnival, with my post on how small amounts can have a big impact on the mortgage

Callie = Joy – You won’t want to miss this photo essay, showing a couple whose first child was stillborn. I can’t even imagine their grief. But it was great to celebrate with them when their second child was born, screaming! Beautiful!

How much is $20? @ So Over Debt. It’s not much, in theory, but can be a big deal psychologically. And saying, “Oh, what does it hurt to spend $20 on this?” can lead to financial problems.

Should I prepare my own taxes? @ LifeHacker I thought this year would be the year we hired out our tax prep services. I had always done them myself in the past with Turbo Tax or the H&R Block software. The 2011 tax year is our nuttiest by far — two states, a move (and deductions for that), my business income, buying our house, sold some stock, and on and on. And yet, I *think* Turbo Tax can still cover me. One CPA quoted me at $600-800 to do our return (um, what?) and Karen told me that was nuts and encouraged me to shop around. The next firm put me in the $250-300 range. I’ll save even more if I do it myself, but only if we can catch all of our deductions. We’ll see.

How to save money on clothing@ Saving Advice Good stuff! I’m finding that I prefer to buy shoes and scarves right now — things that fit me at any size.

11 things you may not know about retirement accounts @ Get Rich Slowly #5 was new to me! I’m going to see if we can do this.

Home workout programs can be a cost effective way to work out @Bible Money Matters. Going to a gym just isn’t going to work out for me right now, unless I can figure out how to get up early. I’ll stick with home stuff for now.

What I would feed my family on $250/month and  How I would improve my budget even more @Keeper of the Home. Wish I could have written these posts! I’m still a ways off from figuring out how to cook whole foods on a budget. I can do “budget” cooking or “whole food” cooking, but combining the two? Still working on that.

My daughter turned 1 on Dec. 17. My son turned 3 on Dec. 20. We threw a small party for them with the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” theme. I purchased wall decals on eBay (way cheaper than I could find anywhere else!) and put them up in our playroom on the night before their party. It was party decor, but also (semi) permanent decor and I’m happy with how it turned out. Roughly $45. I’ve seen other sets of VHC wall decals in the $15 range, though they have different and fewer stickers.

I created some construction paper caterpillars and wrote their names on it.

We had The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book, but I also borrowed another, larger version from the public library. And yes we had story-time while people were eating dinner and I read it to them. I wanted to explain why I had a platter of pickles, salami, swiss cheese….and a fruit salad of apples, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges…you know the drill.

We put up some balloons shaped like caterpillars and called it a day.

Between their birthdays and then Christmas a few days later, we had a toy avalanche over here.

Related: See the before shots of these rooms and how they looked in September, shortly after we moved in

I wanted to show you our playroom now. Our playroom is intended to be a dining room in this house, but we don’t care. We dine in the eat-in kitchen. We love the placement of their playroom because it’s right off the kitchen and office.

I determined some other things I wanted to add to this room and put them on their Christmas wish list. Some doting grandparents helped finish the playroom. That’s a cheaper way to do it (for the parents) — tell the grandparents what you want and if they get those things, cool! If not, no harm.

The floor puzzle mat is great because it provides a cushy surface that they can play with and take apart, but also it keeps the floor a bit warmer. This version is thicker than others I’ve seen.

I wasn’t sure if the kids would play with the town landscape floor rug or if it would just be a rug, but they play with it quite a bit and push cars around to the little stores and houses.

I bought the play kitchen from a mom in my local mom’s group.

The car/train table is particularly cool because it has hills and roads to push trains and matchbox cars around, but it also comes with a heavy-duty lid. Pop that thing on and you have a surface for coloring, stacking blocks, whatever. (pictured both ways)

The 3×3 organizer came from Target and we bought it before Johnny was born. We have it anchored to the wall in case someone ever tries to climb it. My kids aren’t climbers, but we like to have playdates and I want others to be safe here, too.

The 3-drawer blue plastic organizer holds the wooden train pieces, wooden alphabet blocks, and small toys.

We keep their board books and small toys in the cubbies. The drawers hold cars, plastic animals, balls, etc. We have a brown cube on the floor behind the train table that holds stuffed animals.

I had a plastic tote, but the lid went missing. The tote then became perfect for holding their large cardboard blocks.

They have a few toys in their bedrooms, but we keep most of the toys downstairs since that’s where we are most of the day.

Our office is in the adjacent room and there is a set of French doors that we sometimes close.

The desk came from craigslist for $50. The computer was a refurbished model from eBay (just the tower…the monitor came from Walmart). Messy desk, I know. That’s me.

The curtains came with the house (we included that in our offer), but these were originally hung in the family room. I switched them with plain brown ones because I thought it matched our rooms better. The windows were the same size, so it worked out.

The end table you see came from craigslist. We have two of them, actually, and the other is in the family room. Below is our printer which is wirelessly connected. The cherry wood chair was my great-grandmother’s.

Our awesome glider and ottoman was a Christmas present from Shane’s parents. See — put stuff on your Christmas list and let generous family decorate your house :).

All we need now is a small area rug to anchor the room, and I think we’ll be done in there. This stuff is fun!

Disclosure: I linked to some items mentioned here and used my Amazon affiliate link.

Note: The Clumsy Coquette and I are swapping blogs today. She has a guest post below, and I’m posting on her site about ways to stay warm this winter. 

Hello, I’m the Clumsy Coquette. I’m a 20-something aspiring author that just finished graduate school and is trying to take the world by storm. I have a live-in boyfriend and we have two furbabies: Penelope our cat and Daisy our dog. I blog about a variety of topics, including : frugal living tips, recipes, life stories, beauty tips, giveaways, and product reviews.

 (photo Chug)

It wasn’t long ago that I started cutting back my spending so I could enjoy other things in life and pay off some debt. Since the recession started I personally have been faced with a lot of financial decisions and budget limitations. My job has conducted a few rounds of layoffs, I haven’t been given a raise in years, and the prices of basically everything have gone up consistently. Not only did I cut my grocery budget significantly by couponing, I also started using other products in different ways.

Around my house, you will always find a lot of lemons. That’s because lemons are pretty inexpensive and they have a ton of uses. I use lemons a lot more than probably the average person. Not only do lemons have health benefits, they are a great addition to your frugal lifestyle. Here are 12 ways you can incorporate lemons into every day use:

1. Cleaning Copper.
One way to clean copper-bottomed pots is to squeeze lemon juice into a container and mix with salt. All you have to do is use a cloth to scrub the pot until the tarnish comes off. Or you can just cut a lemon in half, apply salt and scrub that way.

2. Vinegar Deodorizer.
Do you clean with vinegar? Hate the smell? Squeeze some lemon juice into your cleaner and not only will it help enhance the cleaning, it will also dilute the smell of vinegar.

3. Garbage Disposal Clean-Up.
If you have some funky odors coming from the garbage disposal used the shell or a juiced lemon or just the lemon rinds in your disposal. It won’t hurt the disposal, and it will help clear up the odor.

4. Soil enhancer.
If you are a gardener or have plants in the house, adding a lemon shell or rind to the soil is a great way to improve the quality. If your soil needs more acid, this is a cheap and easy way to get it.

5. Bleaching.
Did you know that lemon is a natural bleaching agent? If you put some lemon juice on the stains of your white linens and allow them to sun dry, the stain will disappear.

6. Cutting Board Clear-up
Is your cutting board stained or not completely clean? Cut a lemon in half and use it to clean a plastic or wood cutting board. Do you have dried-on food or red berry stains? Add coarse salt beforehand and then use lemon on it.

7. Natural Highlights.
If you are a fan of the sun and those summer blonde highlights, use lemon juice in your shampoo to help enhance those natural highlights.

8. Soften Brown Sugar.
Does your brown sugar get hard between baking escapades? If so, you can add a little lemon peel to the container and it will soften the brown sugar up.

9. Ant Problem?
A lot of insects are repelled by D-Limonen which is found naturally found in lemons. Use lemon juice on window and door thresholds. Don’t forget those holes and cracks too. If you can, leave peels in the thresholds.

10. Remove Faucet Limescale.
If your faucets are covered in limescale, take a lemon and rub it on the faucet. You can also use the inside of the lemon to hard water remove stains and soap residue. This can be used on porcelain too.

11. Soothe Sore Throats.
Mix lemon juice, honey, and warm tea together and drink before bed. You can also use honey, lemon juice and whiskey to soothe your throat.

12. Soften Dry Elbows.
Cut lemon in half and sprinkle with baking soda. Rub lemon on elbows for several minutes. Rinse, dry, and add lotion.

 Jan. 31 edit: I have had THREE calls drop in the last week. Not good.

It’s been about two months since I purchased a MagicJack Plus device for our home telephone usage. I’m happy to say that it’s going well!

Just a reminder — you use a regular telephone with the Magic Jack. You don’t need to buy a special phone to use it. I chose a cordless phone that cost about $15.

I use the Magic Jack Plus when calling my parents and my grandma, mostly. My parents don’t have AT&T cell phones so it uses my cell minutes to call them. My grandma prefers her landline. She doesn’t have long distance service on it, and my cell has a long-distance area code. My Magic Jack phone number has a 317 area code, which is local to Indianapolis.

I chose my area code and the first 3 digits of my phone number.

I use the Magic Jack phone when making local calls to businesses and any place that doesn’t have a toll-free phone number.

The call quality isn’t perfect. If you want crystal-clear phone conversations, you probably won’t get them with this device. I think the sound quality compares to a decent cell phone connection, though. I’ve never had a call drop, become garbled, or otherwise un-talkable.

Perhaps if I had a high-tech phone or a faster internet connection, I’d hear even better results.

People on the other line hear me just fine, and I can hear them plainly, too. I’m happy with it enough that I want to keep it, but I just want to caution you of what you could expect.

I paid $69 + tax for the device and 12 months of service (unlimited free calls, voicemail and other perks). Next year, I’ll pay $30 for 12 months of service. Cheap!

By using the device for most of our calls while at home, we’re able to have the smallest available family plan for our cell phones.

We still haven’t decided if it’s best for us to keep our contract plan, or if we’d be better off to switch to a prepaid cell.

The voicemail service is entertaining. If someone calls and I don’t pick up, they hear “The Magic Jack customer you are trying to reach is unavailable,” or something like that, and then they can leave a message.

Immediately, I get an email which tells me the phone number the call came from, and has an audio file I can download and listen to. Or, I could call my phone number and press # to hear the message.

I don’t get a notification for missed calls, though.

I wouldn’t recommend this as your only phone line, since it will not work if you have a power failure or even if your internet conks out. It’s best to have a cell phone as well.

Note that not everyone has favorable reviews of the Magic Jack Plus. There are plenty of 1-star reviews on Amazon, and elsewhere throughout the internet. There are complaints about customer service and porting your phone number. I didn’t port my phone number; I created a new one. And I haven’t had to contact customer service, so I can’t comment on that.

Read up on the reviews, good and bad. If you buy one, be sure to get the Magic Jack Plus instead of the plain Magic Jack. The plain version requires you to keep your computer on to be in use.

There’s a 30-day trial if you purchase from the Magic Jack site.

Do you have a VoIP phone service? How do you like it?

Related: 7 cheap alternatives to a landline phone

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for Amazon. I paid for my Magic Jack Plus myself, and have no business partnership with that company.

P.S. — I am working on the retirement series and I want to make sure I have it mostly written/outlined before I start, so that it will have a clear direction. I’m going to do a blog series and also post the links on a separate page for easy reference later. Hope to launch the week of Jan 30 but don’t hold me to it yet. Thank you!