Archive for Archive for February, 2009
Assorted Trifles
A favorite birthday present for two of my girls when they entered their teens is their own email account. I set it up with restrictions and guidelines to match our family’s rules, and then surprise them with the new email account. They were thrilled, and this is free. Other frugal birthday ideas here. For those [...]
Budgeting With A Purpose – Keeping Your Goal In Mind
Even for seasoned budgeting pros, there can be times when the day to day aspects of keeping up with a budget can seem annoying, irritating, or even daunting. This has happened to me before, especially when times are rough, I’m emotionally upset, or I just seem too busy to keep up with anything. At these [...]
Vote for Meredith!
Meredith of Like Merchant Ships has been a contributor here on Frugal Hacks almost since the very start. We all love her sweet, cheerful spirit, her gracious hospitality on any budget, and her frank honesty about all things frugal. Now she is in the running for Scholastic’s Mommy Blogger awards! She made the final cut [...]
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Pear Budget and other tools
by Pc3 Frugal hack reader April @Question the Culture wrote a great little post on my question “Are you teaching frugality or just being broke?”. Go check it out http://questiontheculture.blogspot.com/2009/02/mini-sermon-aimed-at-me.html In the post she links to Meredith’s post on Pear Budget so I wandered over to Pear Budget and did some poking around. I gotta [...]
Are you teaching frugality or just being broke?
Pc3 is the husband of KimC and the father of 9 children. He blogs occasionally with the rest of the family at Life in a Shoe. As I think through frugality from a father’s point of view, one concern that I have is whether I’m communicating good stewardship to my children or if I just [...]
Jonathan Park creation science for free!
Today through Friday, anyone with a Behemoth.com account can download the entire first volume of Jonathan Park! That’s 12 full episodes! If you haven’t experienced Jonathan Park yet, you’re in for a treat. This is one our very favorite Vision Forum products. Jonathan Park is an exciting, dramatic old-timey radio program in which a boy [...]
Cheerful Frugality Evangelizes
It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “Thanks! Salvation Army sells them for only 49-cents!” “I used Hotwire to get our rooms at $20 off!” “No trouble at all. My grocery had an amazing markdown.” I have a hard time restraining myself from blabbing about a good deal. Not everyone enjoys saving money, and they (gasp!) [...]
Toiletries
Tonight when my oldest daughter came to my room to talk with me about something, I noticed her hair was looking particularly pretty and healthy, with rich color reflecting back the light. I was about to compliment her on it when she said, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you- I quit using shampoo. I’ve [...]
Cheerful Frugality Dresses Up
Sound the wedding bells! My brother is getting married, and my toddler will be toddling down the aisle. I held my breath when the bride-to-be called about the flower girl dress. Since she is a practical person (and reads my blog!), she offered to let me find a dress within our price range. Here’s my 5-step strategy [...]
The New Quilt
Several years ago we purchased our first home. The master-bedroom had been painted a beautiful, pale shade of blue, and below the wainscotting we had lovely old fashioned blue floral wallpaper to match. The flowers were light and delicate, the old fashioned wood floors suited it perfectly, and the funny slanted ceilings and wavy glass [...]
Analog To Digital Conversion Delayed – Or Maybe Not
The mandatory deadline for the analog to digital conversion of the over-the-air television signal has been extended from February 17th to June 12th. So those of us who get their TV signal from an antenna over the air now have a few more months until we need to have a converter box to capture the [...]
Frugality and Time Series: Cooking Like You Have All Day
It’s common wisdom that cooking at home will save money and your waistline. It’s one of first things you hear in any “how to be more frugal” talk. So readers, why don’t we do it? While I do cook the majority of our meals at home, I confess to succumbing to fast food here and [...]
Cheerful Frugality Plans A Meal
When it comes to menus, I’m a cheerful sale shopper. Strategy: plan meals based on what’s on sale at the grocery store. If I’m careful, I can usually cook dinner for $5 or less. So can Erin of $5 Dinners, who demonstrates her family’s dinner every night. Yet we’ve both noticed that while people understand the [...]
Frugal Savings Options – Does An Interest Rate Really Matter?
As a person who aspires to be frugal, I understand that spending less money is only part of the equation. Another piece of the frugal puzzle is to do more with what we already have, and that includes money. The why is easy enough to understand, but the how is another story altogether. Should I [...]
