Category: Money Matters

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Gift Bags or Gift Wrap?

Which camp do you fall into? Gift bags or gift wrap?  As a child I loved getting gifts covered in wrapping paper and tearing into the paper to see what was inside.  It was a thrill to hear the paper shred and discover what lay waiting behind that magical paper.  As I got older I stopped tearing the paper apart on my gifts.

Instead, I very carefully peeled it away from the gift, trying very carefully not to tear it so that I could use it again in the future.  My mother was always very grateful for the extra paper.  I folded the paper up nice and neatly in a pile and handed it to her once we were finished opening all of our gifts.

You can do the exact same preserve and reuse idea with gift bags, and a lot easier too.  You don’t’ have to worry about paper tearing or opening something ever soo carefully so you don’t put added wrinkles in the paper. Unless you crush your gift bags they are easy to reuse. Simply fill the bag again and you’re ready to go! You might have to add more tissue paper, but I even reuse that in my house.  I have a big box of tissue paper that I’ve collected from all of the gifts we’ve received and I just pull it out to stuff the bags as needed.

Reusing our gift wrap and gift bags is just one of the ways I save money for our family. So my question to you is, do you reuse gift wrap or gift bags? And which do you prefer?

 

 

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Educating Myself About Annuities

I don’t really know that much about anything at all when it comes to annuities. It wasn’t something that anyone ever took the time to explain to me or teach me about. Well I keep hearing the term tossed around so I thought I would educate myself. I did a little bit of work by searching online and came across annuity advantage.com.

Annuity advantage.com gives you all kind of information for you to learn about, compare and even buy different kinds of annuities. Hopefully after a little while spent on this website along with subscribing to their annuity rate newsletter I won’t feel so in the dark when people are discussing annuities.

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10 Budget Friendly Potluck Ideas

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It’s potluck time again.  This weekend we celebrate the service of our military and in doing so many of us attend or host a potluck.  Many people are on limited budget and can’t afford to spend upwards of $40 and $50 to go to a potluck.  I’ve put together a list of ideas that will feed a crowd and won’t rob your pocket book.

  1. Big pot of chili – toss some inexpensive beans in the crock pot with some tomato sauce and chili seasoning, add a pound of ground beef and you’re all set.  You can even be fancy and get some corn bread mix and serve it along side.
  2. Pasta Bake  – pasta can be bought for pennies. Get a few pounds of your favorite shape, cook till al dente and toss with your favorite sauce.  Pour it into a big casserole dish and sprinkle it with cheese. Easy Peasy.
  3. Baked Bean Casserole – again beans are cheap.  Toss them together with onions, celery, brown sugar, dried mustard, tomato sauce and a bit of barbecue sauce and you’re all set.
  4. Delived Eggs – a dozen will usually run you under $2. Add your favorite mayonnaise and seasonings.
  5. Homemade Bread – fresh baked bread is always a hit anywhere and you can make a loaf for under $1!
  6. Corn Chowder – buy your favorite creamy potato soup mix (Bear Creek makes an excellent one) and add frozen corn.  Everyone will think it’s made from scratch.  Simple, cheap and easy.
  7. Cupcakes –  are cheap and easy to make look impressive.
  8. Hummus – beans again… garbanzo beans, a little tahini , olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and you have a winner.
  9. Melon Skewers – some honey dew and cantaloupe scooped into perfect spheres served on a stick are a nice light choice.
  10. Baked Potato Bar  – a big bag of russets goes a long way with a dollop of sour cream and chives.
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Do You Enter Giveaways?

Do you enter giveaways? Would you guys be interested in any giveaways from me and my blog, or would I totally be just wasting my time? I know most everyone likes free stuff but some times people pass up the opportunity to get it.

What deters you from participating in a giveaway? Is it that you aren’t willing to give out your contact information? Do you pass an opportunity by when you can see the number of entries so far and if it’s a large number just keep going? DO you enter if you see that the number of entries so far is low?

What attracts you to free giveaways? Is it just the free stuff? Do you only participate in giveaways for products or services that you would actually appreciate and enjoy? Or you one of the people that will take what ever you can get as long as it is free? I know a few people that enter every giveaway possible and end up with tons of free stuff, half of which they will never use. I suppose a nice thing to do with products you won’t use would be to give them away your self or donate them to a good cause.

if I were to offer a giveaway her on my blog what would you like me to giveaway?

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Mayan Calendar Ended But the World Did Not

Well it is December 22, 2012 and we are all still here. Woo hoo! I never doubted we would be but oh boy did many people think just the opposite.  I feel horrible for the people that spent their life savings thinking the world was coming to an end only to wake up today to realize that they have nothing left. Talk about a rude awakening for people.

All of these people based the idea that the world was coming to an end simply by using the Mayan Calendar because it ended on December 21, 2012. I wonder what all of these people are going to say now that we are all still here. Are they going to take things back to the store for a refund so they have some money again? What will they do if they spent every penny on consumable items and they are all gone?

What would you do if you spent all of your money and burned every bridge you had because you thought it was all going to be over and gone today? Would you go beg, plead, borrow, and apologize for your actions? Or, would you suck it up and go out and start over and do what you have to in order to survive again?

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How I Plan to Save Money This Year

This year I really need to work on saving some money.   I started using a new website to track all of my spending.  It shows me exactly where all of our money is going.  I was a little shocked to see how much money we really spend going out to eat or on fast food.  I’m setting a budget for everything.  I know we can’t cut everything off cold turkey so I’m going to have us do a step down method for our spending habits.

Right now we spend about $500 a month of groceries.  I would like to get that down closer to $300 or less but I know we need to work towards that.  To start I’m setting  a budget of $400 a month or roughly $100 a week on groceries.  I think we can manage to cut back by $25 a week to start with easily, especially if I really work to use up what we have in our pantry.  The following month I’ll move it to $75 a week.  If we do really well with that I might even be able to move it down a little further but I’m not going to go crazy.

We’re taking a closer look at television and cable services along with movie rentals.  We purchased a few pay per view movies on demand this month.  This is really silly considering we pay almost $20 a month for Netflix, we just need to send back our current DVD  to get the next one on our list.  My husband and I are thinking about turning off our cable television because just about everything we watch is available online and we do have Netflix.  We pay about $100 a month for cable so that’s more money we could save every month.

I know groceries and entertainment aren’t the only way we can save but at least it’s a start.  I was able to easily identify these ways to save and will do some digging into other ways to save that I might not be soo obvious to me.

 

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Honesty is the Best Policy

Today I went out to run a few errands. I stopped off at the bank to deposit a few checks. I always check the amount of a check before I put it in the ATM. For some crazy reason when the check was scanned, the machine read it as being worth ten more dollars than what I thought I was depositing.

I thought it was really strange, so I pressed the button for the machine to return the check. I glanced at the amount again – I was right about the amount and the machine was wrong – and resubmitted it. This time it read the check correctly.  

I’ve always said that honesty is the best policy. I’d hate to steal ten dollars from someone do I quickly fixed the situation.

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Home Business Advertising

One of the gals at work mentioned that she thinks her son needs to find a new Advertising Agency for his home business.  She said he has a great product and service but no one really knows about it.  She thinks that if he hired someone to advertise for him his business could really take off.  Right now his business is struggling to stay afloat.  He’s barely able to pay most of his bills.  He needs to start making a decent amount of money so he can pay off his loans and get in the black again and not have any debt left.

He needs a company that will create social media, viral videos, and eye catching advertisements for him.  She’s convinced that hiring someone can deliver all of these necessary components for a successful business.  If he were able to just add five more clients a month his profits would dramatically multiply.

I told her to do some research online to find some reputable companies.  He doesn’t need someone taking advantage of him.  His business is already struggling, that would only make matters worse.  It would be nice to find a company that has an impressive portfolio to look over and browse through to see how successful they have been with helping other customers.  Reading satisfied customer testimonials is always helpful.  But, it’s also important to read those reviews from customers about the companies when they weren’t happy with the results.  Reading both sides about each company can give you a great impression of what you might actually receive from an advertising company.

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Christmas Shopping

Yes… I’m already thinking about Christmas Shopping this year. I hate having to wait until the last minute to get everything and feel completely rushed. I’m going to go hit some sales this weekend. My goal is to shop for one person each day. We’re only doing the kids and our siblings this year.

I think it might even be a fun idea to have all of us do a gift exchange between the grown ups. Maybe if we all put our name in the pool and set a limit of oh maybe $75 we could each get something really nice. Oh I think I’ll work on that. I know there are random number generators. I can have everyone fill out their information and mail it to me in an envelope with a number written on it. I can then use the number generator to help me match people up. I’ll have to work out a way to make sure no on gets him or herself though. I guess that’s something I’ll bring up at dinner tonight.

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Cross Your Fingers

Although my hubby does not talk much about work after he gets home each night, I can tell that the new job here is not what he was expecting. It bothers me to see him not happy with his job, especially since I won’t be working for a few years while the kids are young. Since the whole family is going to be depending upon him to support us, I would feel a lot better for his sake if he liked his job and came home happy each night.

So, tonight he came home and mentioned that another company is interested in interviewing him. A mutual friend mentioned the job opening last week, and they have talked on the phone twice. Now they actually want to meet him. So, I think that is a good sign and hope that this new company might give him a better reason to wake up each morning and look forward to going to work.

Cross your fingers for him that he does great in the interview and that they make him a nice offer – if he decides he wants to change jobs. I just want him to be happy.