Along with tracking my “penny wise” savings this year, another thing I vowed to do was to track where I found money. I don’t mean “finding” as in digging in my couch cushions or getting my tax refund. I mean finding money that wasn’t lost by me. Each day that I found money, I wrote [...]
As a child, I went grocery shopping with my adult sister at a store that didn’t exist in my hometown. When she checked out, the cashier gave her a number of stamps based on how much she had spent, and she discovered that she had enough saved to treat me to a toy chosen from [...]
By Jeffrey Strain When it comes to personal finances, most people concentrate on saving and investing money. This can be a problem because issues that may not first appear to have much to do with personal finances can often have a dramatic affect on them. Productivity is just one of these. The more productive you [...]
Other than our mortgage and utilities, the majority of our regular spending goes to consumables. It’s amazing to think how much it costs to keep our bodies fed, clean, and healthy. Penny pincher that I am, I try to squeeze every last bit out of our consumable items before I throw them away. Each little [...]
We recently had our first snow of the winter and now my city is under a blanket of white. Snow sure makes everything more beautiful (except the roads and my car). Many people take advantage of winter sports like skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling, but these activities can come with quite a hefty price tag. If [...]
Some people are “pound wise and penny foolish.” That is, they focus their savings efforts only on big items while letting small amounts of money slip through their fingers. Having tallied up my “penny savings” from last year, I can tell you that small amounts of money can quickly add up to big savings. Last [...]
“Countercultural” is one of the last things most people would call me, but the description that fits me well. Chances are, if you are reading this article, you are countercultural, too. Living within your means and saving for the future are pretty radical ideas in our culture of easy credit and instant gratification. In addition [...]
My son asked for some bananas for snack, and I started singing something I had a vague recollection of: “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today!” I got the melody all wrong, and as my husband and I tried to finagle the right tune, I offered banana spread I had made and [...]
Judging by the fact that my computer is telling me that multifunctionality is spelled wrong as I’m typing this, I’m going to take a guess that it’s not a real word. True as that may be, it should be pretty obvious what meaning I’m trying to get across – is something that can do more [...]
Many years ago, I started walking, then running, for fitness. I needed to exercise more and everyone told me how walking/running was such great exercise and, best of all, it was free! All I had to do, I was told, was put on a pair of sneakers that I already had and go. It wouldn’t [...]
