Earn, Save, and Live Joyfully.
Every season I purchase a few new clothing items for my son. I typically shop the clearance aisles of local stores like Old Navy, Kohl’s and Gymboree and walk away with a few cute shirts and pants. Within a few weeks of shopping I invariably receive an email message from a former coworker that reads, … Read more
Yesterday, (in the brief span of time between dropping and picking my son off at daycare), I traveled to Target to complete a very simple return. I went first thing in the morning in the hopes of beating the crowds. I try to maximize my son’s time at school. It’s a whole lot easier to … Read more
This morning my husband called and said, “is it okay if my mom doesn’t throw you a sprinkle?” A sprinkle is apparently a baby shower for a second/third/subsequent child. My mother-in-law offered to host a party for us and asked my husband for a list of details including possible dates and a list of people … Read more
As a result of all of the remodeling taking place in our house my husband has become mildly obsessed with the topic of removing clutter from our lives. This is nothing new for me. As a small child I worked hard to keep the smooth surfaces of my room clean. I found a place for … Read more
If you are looking for a good way to purge all of your possessions might I suggest a large remodeling job? In order for contractors to dig up our floor, build new walls and reconstruct a bathroom we had to remove each and every item we own from our basement. I began purging the stuff … Read more
A week or so ago my husband noticed a rip in a bag of chips that had been sitting on a shelf in our pantry. We couldn’t quite figure out what happened; did it snag while we were loading and unloading groceries, was it torn when I bought it? I wasn’t quite sure so I … Read more
For the past three years I wondered if we’d ever have a second child and if we did how much baby stuff I should keep around between now and that time. We received a lot of gifts at my baby shower and in the beginning we used each and every piece of it. The baby … Read more
For the past two years I’ve maintained one and only one resolution: to accept the things I cannot change. It is easy to hold this resolve in good times and much more difficult to press on in times of distress. When a dose of antibiotics unexpectedly induced neuropathy I had a hard time accepting the … Read more
A few months ago I transferred a prescription from CVS to Rite Aid. This seemed like a no-brainer since the drug store is slightly closer to my house, newly renovated and much cleaner and more efficient than our local CVS. I earned $25 in UP Rewards for that transfer, which I used to buy four … Read more
With my obsessive nesting nearly complete I stepped back last night to reflect on my decluttering, purging, streamlining process. I actually learned quite a bit about myself from this experience. Over the years we’ve bought a lot of stuff we just don’t need. The amount of wasted money made me sick to stomach. How many … Read more