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Posted
Sep 05 2008, 01:14 PM
by
Karen Datko
Like lots of people, "The Debt Defier" and his clan jumped on the Netflix bandwagon when it first showed up. They happily ordered movie after movie, turning every weekend night into movie night. Then real life caught up, and they moved on to other things. Finally, DD reviewed their Netflix account, which cost them $4.95 a month. "Since January 2007 we had only returned/rented 10 movies," he wrote in a post at The Happy Rock. "Ten movies in 20 months. Ten movies for $100 -- $10 a movie. We were probably Netflix's favorite customers." It was time to cut the cord.
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Posted
Sep 03 2008, 06:02 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Carrie Kirby at partner blog Wise Bread. I used to consider myself a frugal shopper, without following the cardinal rule of setting and sticking to a grocery budget. Inspired by Wise Bread and other personal-finance blogs, a few months ago I finally took the plunge and set an $80-a-week budget. I know that some people manage to spend as little as half that to feed a family of four (the two kids are little enough that they don't eat much), but for us $80 has been a challenge.
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 10:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
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Kimberly Palmer at U.S. News & World Report went to the Web to find extreme savings ideas, and she came up with some doozies. At the top of her list: Baking Bites' instructions for baking cookies on the dashboard of your hot car. Our pick for most extreme is moving in with the parental units, no matter how old you are.
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Posted
Aug 12 2008, 05:21 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. It's easy to jump into the car and head to the movies if you want something to do this weekend, but it's mighty expensive when tickets are $9 to $10 and gas is about $4 a gallon. However, it costs far less if you visit your local library and borrow a movie to watch at home. It costs far less if you borrow a book or volunteer or do any of the 10 hobbies I've listed below. This weekend, instead of going for the easier, more expensive, option, try one of these.
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Posted
Aug 11 2008, 05:23 PM
by
Karen Datko
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What do you have to show for your last few pay raises (assuming you've been getting some)? Not sure, eh? Todd at Harvesting Dollars has a plan for getting real value from those raises while amassing retirement savings and preventing the insidious, invisible creep of lifestyle inflation. He calls it the Save Your Raise finance game.
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Posted
Aug 11 2008, 09:17 AM
by
Donna Freedman
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A time-honored coupon strategy is to put aside the cash equivalent of whatever you saved. If you use two 50-cents-off coupons for peanut butter, put a dollar in a jar when you get home. Every so often, you put the "extra" money toward a specific goal, such as paying consumer debt, creating an emergency fund or saving for a down payment on a place of your own.
A dollar here and a dollar there definitely add up; ask the woman who saved $1,100 with coupons in a single year. But if you're not a coupon user, try this: Pay yourself for frugal hacks. Not only do you save money with the initial cost-conscious behavior, you get to keep the "coupon" savings in cash.
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 06:23 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This guest post comes from Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life. We live with them all the time -- those money leaks that burn holes in our pockets ever so slowly. Often, we find ourselves spending a little bit here and there, and before we know it, we're scratching our heads wondering where our money went. But it could be worse: Our credit card bills can grow to the point when they can be unmanageable, a situation we should all try to avoid before debt becomes too overwhelming to handle. At my household, we're trying much harder to be economical as we face financial uncertainties over the next few years. Both my husband and I are now self-employed and facing a short-term income shortfall until we get our business ventures off the ground. This has prompted us to work on optimizing our family budget much more carefully and to keep a closer eye on those extra costs that add up. In doing so, I've realized something -- that money leaks don't just lead to growing debt. It has dawned on me that even if we can seemingly afford these small outlays -- what's an extra $2 for a pack of gum and a bottle of Calistoga? -- the money we spend actually has an opportunity cost, which in itself can be quite huge.
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Posted
Jul 24 2008, 11:21 AM
by
Karen Datko
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Every little bit helps if you're trying to stretch your money, and it's even better if you can accomplish savings with little effort. For instance: How long will it take you to put a dry towel in the dryer with a load of wet wash? Jeffrey Strain at Saving Advice says you can reduce your drying time by 10% by implementing this little trick. It's from his excellent post called "25 ways to improve your financial situation in under 10 minutes."
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Posted
Jul 23 2008, 11:08 PM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Linsey Knerl at partner blog Wise Bread. The sudden aggravation of my son's allergies became the last straw for this frugal family. While we had suffered through a summer or two in our old farm home with little to no air conditioning in most rooms, this year was going to be different. Credit card in hand (we enjoy collecting those rewards points), my husband headed to our local Pamida for the 12,000-Btu beauty. Soon after he arrived, he called me from his cell phone -- a bit more than aggravated. "Lins, it's showing $50 more than what you said it was going to cost." I reached for my sale ad and realized that the great price on the very last one in stock had ended -- yesterday.
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Posted
Jul 14 2008, 07:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This guest post comes from Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life. Our family has experienced a few changes over the last couple of years, which has required us to become much more watchful over our finances. My spouse left his job a couple of years ago to start his own company, while I worked at a stable job to assure ourselves a reliable income stream. I stayed with my job for quite a while despite a killer commute. But things got even tighter when I resigned this year due to the commute, for health reasons and in order to seek a better work/life balance. At first, it seemed like a frightening decision that would impact our finances significantly. But it turns out, we've been able to roll with the punches. Savings we built up through the years (particularly during the dot-com boom) plus changes we've made to our spending habits have helped us adjust to a life with less income.
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