Sharing insights since 2007 on carefully saving money, investing, frugal living, coupons, promo codes because the little things matter in achieving financial freedom!
For several years through the 90s, I would leave school, drive to a local craft and garden store, and work until 9 pm as a cashier. There was nothing particularly unusual about this. Most of my friends had after school jobs, on top of our demanding academics, extracurricular activities, and the all-important social lives that consumed us.
However, some experts are looking into whether after school jobs are always a good idea. In particular, students from middle- and upper-middle-class families who work after school — that is, students whose families don’t count on them for the income — might actually be shortchanging themselves by taking jobs during the school year. If your teen is considering an after school job for the next school year, here are some questions you might want to talk over together: [ continue reading… ]
Hosting a party is a fun way to express hospitality to friends and family, but the expense can also be a strain on the budget. The concern with trying to throw a party on the cheap is that it will end up looking or feeling just as cheap.
So how do you pull off an amazing, classy party that’s much less expensive than it looks?
I threw a holiday party recently and came up with quite a few ideas. Here are seven simple ones for you to try next time you want to host a gathering: [ continue reading… ]
Receiving the perfect gift is awesome, but giving it can be just as rewarding. When you’re planning on buying a gift, where do you turn? Picking out the perfect item at the perfect price can be difficult. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind:
A few months ago, a group of my husband’s online gaming friends mentioned they’re planning to take an Alaskan cruise next spring or fall, and invited us to join. While we’ve mentioned the idea of taking a cruise some time in the future, this conversation put the decision, place, and time right at our doorstep.
After some thought, we decided… why not? We have almost a year to save for it and plan the details, and if we don’t go now—while we’re still without children—it might be a long time coming.
But then came the fun part: how are we going to finance it? Since we don’t own credit cards, and don’t want to finance anything, we plan to pay for it all out-of-pocket.
We don’t immediately have the funds for this kind of expenditure, especially considering the required round trip plane tickets and likely hotel costs, too. But we do have a solid history of being able to save for large expenses in the past, so I know we can do it again.
One of the ways to save money is to buy in bulk, as purchasing multiples of an item when it’s on sale is one way to lower your expenses over time. It’s obvious right? If you have a coupon, or if you have the chance to buy more than one of something at a discount now, your per-unit cost will be lower.
Yet, even though buying in bulk can save you money over time, it’s important to realize that sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. Here are some things to keep in mind as you buy in bulk: [ continue reading… ]
When my husband and I were first looking for a venue for our wedding, his family was very persistent that we marry in the local country club where his brother and sister were married to their spouses.
When I sat down with the wedding coordinator, my husband, and our families, the number came out to around $10-15K with the choice of a pasta bar for food. His family told me how affordable that was, while I was on the edge of crying because my entire wedding budget was only $8,000.
Wedding venues can eat up a huge part of your overall wedding budget. So if you’re in a similar situation that I was in, here are the tricks I used to save money on a wedding venue.
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