Friday, June 19, 2009
What if...
| By Anna Mae Peabody What if... I sold EVERYTHING in my house?  Really. I'm serious. OK, except for a few clothes, and a couple of place settings. Oh, and of course my family. There would definitely be slim pickings right now, especially considering that I sold the living room furniture 2 weeks ago. (We're sitting on fold up chairs, you know the kind that people use on their lawns or sit in to watch their kids soccer games). Hmmm, so that leaves the bedroom furniture (none of it matches), a couple of odd chairs (real chairs, though, and made out of wood!), clothes (from Goodwill), "art" (that's funny), towels (with holes in them), and dishes (covered in cracks and chips). I hadn't really thought about it until today, when I was looking through the house to see what we had left that was "saleable". I noticed that just like the yard sales we had gone to last weekend, all our stuff shows signs of use, lots of it. (I wouldn't even buy my stuff). So I've been asking myself - what do I do now? My budget is down to the minimum, I've sold everything I can, and I can't seem to get ahead. I used my $1000 emergency fund last month for a dental procedure. I need to have another $950 by August to finish the dental work. School will be starting soon, which means books and supplies must be bought. There are house repairs that will need to be done very soon, and on, and on, and on. Rather than having a "Yard Sale", I've decided to have a "Junk Sale". Oh, the process might be similar, but the prices will be lower! It might be kind of fun - until someone turns up their nose at my favorite T-shirt that I've priced at $.05 (only because it has holes in the arm pits, but it's comfy!). And everybody should recognize right away that the headless Barbie on the table for a quarter is a collector's item!  I think I might be on to something here... Labels: Junk Sale |
Friday, June 05, 2009
Food Budget
| By Lynn Forgy Lately, I've noticed that the amount of money I spend on groceries each week is steadily increasing. So I'm on a quest to break this cycle. While searching the internet, I found a link to U.S. Department of Agriculture website with a recipe database. You can search by cost per serving, meal type, etc. The results show the recipe, nutritional information, as well as cost per serving. Of course, with summer just around the corner I don't really want to use the oven. I love cooking in the crockpot because not only do I not have to use the oven (which makes the A/C run longer which increases my electric bill), I don't have to "cook" as much. Several months ago, I spent hours searching the internet for cheap, frugal recipes. I printed these out and put them in a 3 ring binder. I refer back to this when I'm feeling my grocery budget getting out of hand. This week's menu includes the following: 1) Homemade pizza (cost about $6.00 total) 2) Stuffing with vegetables in the crockpot (approximately $2.00) 3) Squash, mashed potatoes, and broccoli (approximately $5.00) 4) Baked potatoes ($2-$4 depending on toppings) 5) Homemade Macaroni and cheese and baked beans (approximately $4.00) 6) Cheese sandwiches and chips (approximately $5.00, depending on type of chips purchased) While the total of the above menu is around $26, this doesn't include personal hygiene items, paper products, etc. which I include in my grocery budget. I suppose if I were honest the reason I spend more than I intend during my visits to the grocery is that I purchase lotions, etc. Also not included above is my daughter's lunch items (she likes Lean Pockets and other frozen meals that are convenient to pop in the microwave). A good idea for keeping the non-food items in the grocery costs low, I could use coupons and only by those products that are on sale. One of my favorite resources for coupons is HotCouponWorld.com. Not only does this site have coupons, but lots of freebie offers too! Labels: food budget, grocery costs |
