One of the best habits to do when making a budget spreadsheet is to create a monthly preauthorized deposit into a savings account. This cash can be used: to finance a purchase, for a vacation or as a basis for an emergency fund. So once you have determined the amount to be saved, you have [...]
We often leave the house for days at a time and I have developed several habits that save us money and protect our belongings.
Turn down your hot water heater. Most homes in the United States have natural gas powered hot water heaters. When you are gone, obviously you do not use any of the hot [...]
I do not normally like to steal other people’s ideas, but I thought I would offer some responses to a recent article that I saw in a magazine. No, not online, an actually paper-and-ink glossy magazine that someone gave my wife and she had it sitting around the house. I do a lot of personal [...]
Image: alamosbasement
When it comes to saving, sometimes starting small feels almost like not starting at all. A bit here and a bit there tends to add up like drops in a bucket. The important thing to remember though when it comes to saving money is that those drops can eventually grow to a trickle, then [...]
I personally believe that Cash for Clunkers was a mistake . . . you might disagree and you are welcome to your opinion – it’s a free country! (at the moment) If you do happen to believe that incentivizing consumer deficit spending through the use of government debt is a good idea, you will be [...]
I decided to share a few of my tricks to save money. Since my wife stays at home with our two kids, we must be careful with our spending and make sure we make savvy purchases.
We have lived together for the past 10 years. When we first started, we got all our furniture from friends [...]
A frugal vacation is almost an oxymoron, but there are some small ways that our family has developed to reduce travel costs. Frankly, my idea of a vacation involves staying home . . . so maybe there is such a thing as a frugal vacation. Anyway, my job and our current financial situation do not [...]
I received an email from ING this week making me aware of a new site (or at least new to me) they have called ING Compare Me (www.ingcompareme.com). The site is basically a tool that allows you to compare your savings and debt against others like you. To be honest, I’ve never really gotten a [...]
In today’s climate of bad economy and higher fuel prices it is natural we need to save on everything. Online shopping offers us quite a number of cool opportunities – one of them is to save on gas by shopping from home and getting our purchases delivered to our front door. The following hacks will [...]
I read about a woman who saved her $5 bills for 3 years and saved $12,000! I thought it would be cool to conduct my own experiment & see what I could do for the month of December. Up until this decision, I didn’t use a lot of cash, mostly my debit card, but I [...]
Photo by: striatic
Don’t have a locking gas cap? You just might want to consider getting one. As gas prices are rising, so are the number of reported thefts of gas from people’s cars. Armed with siphon hoses, drills and even weapons, gas thieves are on the hunt for your gas.
MSNBC recently ran [...]
Photo by: dirk.ipernity.com
Over the weekend I headed to the NC Mountains to spend the weekend with my wife and kids who were already there. While driving up, I really focused on practicing some of the hypermiler techniques I wrote about last week. The main one being going the speed limit. While it [...]
Photo by: iChaz
Gas prices are on the rise, and people are getting extremely creative in coming up with ways to get the maximum amount of miles out of each gallon of gas. A rare group called hypermilers modify their driving habits significantly to improve mileage and reduce vehicle emissions. Hypermiling also generally involves [...]
Photo by: Olaf
Father’s day is this weekend. Us Dad’s are pretty easy to please and finding great gifts at a low price is pretty easy too. Remember, Father’s day isn’t about how much you spend, but about how much thought and effort you put into it. Here are just a few ideas [...]
Photo by: unforth
All of the members of the M-Network are writing about vacationing. Frugal tips, ideas, experiences, personal accounts…everything. This is my second article for the week. Check out the other M-Network blogs for more!
For the past two weekends, we’ve headed to our local theme park right after lunch to enjoy some family time [...]
