Gather Little by Little

Photo by: shaymus022

We’ve been buying bottled water now for more than 10 years. Call me spoiled if you will, but I just can’t stand the taste of tap water. We’ve tried the Brita pitcher, the Pur 3 faucet mount filters, and many others. None of them tasted as clean as bottled water.

We generally try to purchase our bottled water when it’s on sale, but it’s not nearly on sale as much as we would like it to be. We drink roughly 120 bottles of water a month. A 24-pack of Dannon water runs $3.99 – $4.99 depending on where we buy it. That’s 5 packs per month at the cost of $19.95 – 24.95 per month, or $239.40 – $299.40 per year.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: pingnews.com

Ever find yourself wondering why things are happening in your life? Do things just not seem to make sense? Every said to yourself, or even out loud “God, what in the world are you doing?” or “God, why are you allowing this to happen?“

As I am sure you know, you aren’t alone. God’s plans for our lives are sometimes unclear, but as Aaron’s lyrics say “I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed what God has planned“. God’s plans are often beyond our comprehension; however He is our savior, and would never leave us or forsake us. Just listen and pray and God will lead you. “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.“

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: mugley

This is a guest post from Connie Prater, a senior writer at CreditCards.com. Connie considers herself a savvy consumer, a mom, a penny-pincher/tightwad and an above average Scrabble player.

Does he or she send you flowers at work? Wine and dine you at the best restaurants every weekend? Wear designer threads and always gets tickets to the hottest concerts?

Living the life of the rich and fabulous — à la Paris Hilton and the “baller” set — costs money. If your mate doesn’t have the income (or a trust fund) to support this spending, you should be suspicious. As David Jones, president of the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies, says, financial woes are often relationship killers.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: trekkyandy

For a few years now, my wife and I have desired to move further out of the city and into the country. We’ve dreamed of finding a home big enough for our family of 8 on some land, say 3 – 5 acres. We desired to find something that was far enough away to be remote, but not so far away that we wouldn’t have reasonable access to nice schools, hospitals, shopping areas, etc.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: goat_girl_photos

One of the frequent topics of discussion between my wife and I is whether we should discuss our finances with our children and if so, how much should we discuss. We’ve been having this discussion off and on since our oldest son starting understanding what money was. We both agree that we should discuss our finances with our children but we differ on how much we should disclose. What’s even more interesting is that we both seem to waffle back and forth on the topic.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: shortiestar3000 – Teething toy? Maybe not…

I am not a fan of credit cards. I’ve been burned and I’ve seen and read about far too many people’s lives turned upside down through the use of credit cards. Recently though, I’ve been trying to focus on being more environmentally conscientious. If you’re anything like me, you probably get 5-10 credit card applications a week and many of those contain those fake sample credit cards along with a ton of paper. Also, if you’ve gone credit card free like I have, and don’t want to just throw away or destroy them, what can you do with all those extra cards laying around.

Click to continue reading...

Happy Polar Bear by: Jeff Kubina – He must be getting his check on May 2nd!

The IRS recently announced the payment schedule for the economic stimulus payment schedule. So for those of you wondering when you’ll be receiving your checks, wonder no more. Payments will start being sent out on May 2. If you filed early and elected to receive direct deposit, you’ll be one of the first to receive your rebate check.

Here’s the full schedule from the IRS:

Click to continue reading...

Direct Deposit

SmartyPig is a recently launched website that lets individuals or families set specific savings goals and make specific contributions to those goals on an automated and recurring basis. With SmartyPig, savings accounts are goal oriented and not just a place where money is stashed. SmartyPig partnered with Westbank to set-up high interest (4.30% at the time of this review) savings accounts to save for these goals.

SmartyPig is all about saving for goals such as vacations, books, a new lawn mower, etc. SmartyPig allows and encourages family and friends to chip in and help you out by contributing to your goals through the the site. Savings goals can be made private or public when the y are initially created.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: richardmasoner

Something you probably don’t know about me is that I sing. Well, I used to anyway. I sang in choir and did solos while in Junior High and High School and then was in Church choir and sang solos at church until I was in my late twenties. Not really sure why I stopped, beyond just life keeping me too busy.

The very first solo I sang in Church was the song Thank you by Ray Boltz. You don’t really hear much about Ray these days, but during the late 80′s and early 90′s, Ray was huge in the contemporary Christian music scene. He sang beautiful songs with deep and meaningful lyrics.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: catatronic

The following is a guest post by Jonathan from Master Your Card, a blog about credit cards and mastering them before they master you. If you like this post, consider subscribing to his RSS feed.

There you are, broke and in need of cash. Your bank account is so empty there’s an echo and even the sofa cushions have no change. But wait – there’s your shiny credit card. All you need to do is head to an ATM or cash one of those little checks your credit card company provides so conveniently to get some cash.

Click to continue reading...