artofthecoupon.com

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I was flipping through the channels on Tuesday and I happened to stumble upon The Real Housewives of Orange County.  I used to watch the show occasionally when there wasn’t too much else on, so I lingered on.  Within minutes, I was sucked in, and feeling that same queasy, voyeuristic feeling you get when you have the urge to crane your neck to look at a car accident.  I wanted to stop, to look away, but I just couldn’t make myself turn the channel.   (more…)

Does anyone remember Aussie Tee-Shirts?  Those shirts with the cute little sayings on them, I think they were all the rage when I was in about 8th grade.  One of the tee-shirts read “If You Think Education Is Expensive, Try Ignorance.”  I always thought it was a clever little phrase, and quite true.  Not knowing things can cost you money.   (more…)

I have a few new part time ‘gigs’ going on.  The pay isn’t a huge sum for other job, but they both are providing excellent experience and both jobs are resume builders.  Furthermore, even though the pay is not great, our monthly expenses are so low that what I am getting paid covers them in full.  This is great, because it means we can continue to use DF’s paychecks entirely 100% for debt repayment since I now have ‘guaranteed’ income coming in for the next few months at least.  

Even if you have no Extracare bucks and not one single coupon from the newspaper, this is a great week to stop in to your local CVS or Walgreens and start building your stockpile.  This is a quick, simple and easy deal.  And, you won’t get ’sucked in’ to the drugstore game if you don’t want to, since you don’t get Register Rewards or ECB’s back which you then have to spend- it is just a straight deal… pay $0, get stuff. (more…)

When I used to be in the ’shopping’ mode, I always found myself thinking about all the wonderful things this new purchase would do for me.  The dress would make me look thinner, the new digital camera would inspire me to take more pictures, the new TV would provide me with endless hours of entertainment and I would never be bored again.   (more…)

I have a whole entire alphabet full of frugal thoughts, tips, and tricks below.  Click and enjoy: (more…)

Frugal Dad asked his readers whether we would sell all of our stuff to be debt free.  My assets don’t add up to anywhere close to what I owe, so that question was a no brainer for me- bring the Uhaul and load it up and write me the check!  However, this got me thinking about just how far I would go to be debt free… (more…)

My dad is a money mess.  He has lived in our home for 28 years and still owes as much on it as it is worth (he refinanced the mortgage twice to pay off credit cards).  He had enough in the stock market to retire from a job he has disliked for the last 20 years, but he kept the money in (somewhat) high risk stocks because he wouldn’t be able to retire and still afford designer clothes and fancy cars (look at the stock market, you can probably guess how that worked out for him!)  He seems completely unwilling to give up spending on frivolous things.   (more…)

I don’t currently have a full time job right now, as some of you may know (for those that don’t, you can read about it here). My days mainly consist of couponing, taking care of the house/dogs, doing some freelance work, and writing for this blog, and 6 hours of these days that used to be ‘taken’ is now free. Yet, I constantly feel pressed for time, like it is impossible for me to get everything done. In other words, as soon as I was given more time I immediately and promptly filled it up with more tasks so I was once again bemoaning about my desperate need for more hours in the day… (more…)