Gee I'm boring too...
I saw gas and fuel oil prices dropped a penny today. Almost baked a cake *S*
Started my tomatos and impatiens in bread pans on the windowsills but no sprouts coming up yet. Have had shoulder problems and am suprised the Goodwill has not sent me a card because I am in one of them almost every day (live between 2 towns that have them).
I am impatiently awaiting yard and garage sales and wishing I could make myself splurge on a little satellite dish and get something beside this crappy antennae tv but spring is almost here and there will be plenty of outside work to do.
I found an old vcr tape (lots of down time lately) of Dateline with Amy Dacyczn on it and she took a Dateline challenge and helped a family of 11 cut their grocery bill way down. Wonder if they still are saving? Someday I am going to put all the money saving tips on one tape. I have others with Oprah tightwads and A. D. on Donahue - somewhere..
Kathy_PA

If you find anything new on one of those tapes . . . or even something old we may have forgot . . . please post. It just seems there's nothing new or interesting. I love saving and finding new ways to go about it, but now it seems like we've all just been sucked dry of ideas!

Yawn! So bored with this forum!

Brenda

As I was getting old, outgrown clothes ready for Goodwill and yard sale I started to put the nicer fabrics in a box and would like to make a crazy quilt with the fabric.

Rag Rug?

Where I lived a local politician's family lived for several months on what a family their size would receive in food benefits. They wrote a diary about what was difficult about it (kids adjusting to oatmeal, no convenience foods). I don't know what the allowance is here, but I would bet we just live it as a matter of course--buts thats because we grow our own food and have skills that many do not.

Plans to grow our own landscaping, no matter how long it takes!

New topic? Snowball challenge? That's where you invest in something (like tools for a garden) and calculate how that would save you in the long run. It's fun to think of giving up some things (movies, soda) and apply it to something that will really have a long term impact (more efficient appliances).

Frugal exercise? It's hard in the winter--but a pledge to walk more, walk everywhere I can. Housework and gardening work can be exercise if you incorporate some stretching and other exercises with it. How about lifing 24 oz. cans over your head for five minutes when putting away the groceries?

On another website I visit, they read sections of frugal books and discuss.

I have fabric coming out of my ears that I have been saving for quilts, but am realizing I'm just not going to use that many fabrics in my lifetime, so I think I will garage sale about 2/3 of them. I don't like loosing the space I am loosing for my fabric! LOL!

I think the idea of living on less, regardless of what we make is always a safe way to live. We never let a raise go into our "general" budget, just to be lost. It is either allocated to something extra or special or allocated to savings.

I agree with walking. I walk two miles a day five days a week. In the cold whether I do the malls and in warmer whether I take the dog and just do the neighborhood.

We have done all of our landscaping ourselves and will hopefully be moving soon and will plan to do it again. We probably will fork out the money for a fence though, as privacy is an issue for us and I don't want to wait 10 years for a hedge to grow.

Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Brenda

Hi Brenda!
I am reading Suze Orman's (or however she misspells her name) latest book. I found it free a the library so she won't make any money off me and pretend she makes it investing. Nastynasty....
Isn't it funny that the people who used to tell everyone to invest as much as they could for the long term are now telling everyone if they get a windfall PAY OFF THAT HOUSE.
There is a lady named Jean Chatsky who I used to yell at on the tv (hey I hate football) when she would say to investinvestinvest those windfalls. Now she is giving money saving tips - actually she has not been on at all lately - hmmm. Maybe she ran out of tips too!
I just hope she paid off her house.
Kathy_PA who is still boring but I am trying not to be

I haven't read any of Suze Orman's books, but I did watch a special with her answering financial questions on PBS a couple years ago. She seemed pretty on-track.

We are totally into paying off our house early. We are on a 15 year mortgage right now and always pay a little extra. We are hoping to move soon, so we will have to refigure all of that, but the jest will be the same . . . moving towards paying it off ASAP. We don't have any other debts and hope to own our home free and clear by the time DH is 50 (that gives us 12 1/2 years).

We do invest in a 401K, but with the tax shelter, we really don't notice it. It is 10% of our income, but it keeps us in a lower tax bracket, so the actual take home hardly varies. My husband loves watching the stocks and spends a lot of time on such websites as the Motley Fool (A site for people who do their own investiing without stockbrokers), but other than a few very small stocks, he hasn't done much with it. He knows he has to answer to me! LOL!

I was thinking about the gal you listened to on TV about investing and saving money. There was a local guy here in Spokane that did a weekly show on investing and financial strategies. He went to our church and in reality he was one of the most financially screwed up people I knew and they even filed bankruptcy! I did some graphic design work for him and nearly had to take him to small claims court before he paid . . . even so we ended up involving the pastor as a mediator! So I guess it was the old "those that can't learn, teach"! It would be interesting to peek into the lives of other "financial gurus" and see if they practice what they preach.

Brenda

Confession time,

This "personal financial planner"'s stocks haven't done so hot for the last while.

It was winter in recent months, of course.

But the losses - no, "temporary(?) reduction in value" - goes back a lot farther than those few cold months.

Equity-based portion of mutual funds, as well.

Ten year figures don't look so bad, though.

Track record goes back 35 years - so have learned to take temporary problems (even some that go on for 10 years or so, as in late '70's, early '80's), in stride.

Sometimes "long term" means quite a while. If you, as a resident of North America north of the Rio Grande or most of western Europe, are 35 now, you probably have another 50 years to live.

As I'm able to live comfortably on (partially indexed) pensions, I don't need investment income, let alone begin eroding assets, now.

Don't expect to for quite a while - so I'm still over 70% in equities.

Even though I'm disgusted by some of the dirty tricks they've played on small investors (often large ones, as well) in recent years.

Don't rob banks - defraud with a pen. Often less time in the hoosegow - and rather a comfortable one, for the white collar criminals.

I'm happy to be enjoying good physical health. And spiritual.

(Didn't say anything about mental, did I?)

ole Ed