Earn, Save, and Live Joyfully.
Over the past two and a half years I dramatically cut back on clipping coupons and scouring drugstores in search of freebies. My primary reason was a desire to save time. It was a royal pain in the you know what to drag my infant son around from store to store, pull him out of … Read more
I’ve always felt old beyond my years. Some children are free spirits. I was not. I was the serious type, always concerned about one thing or another. My parents are worriers and I wonder if I was born this way or if their behavior changed me. I never gave that idea much thought until I … Read more
I maintain a number of lists to keep my life organized. One is a to-do list full of simple actions that need to be completed in the next few days/weeks. Another is the collective buying list that includes a list of coupons and their expiration dates. This ensures those Groupon purchases no longer go to … Read more
I’m a pretty good driver. I pay attention to the traffic in front of me. I check my mirrors and I always look before switching lanes. I don’t text while driving and I use bluetooth whenever I’m on the phone. In the twenty years since I started driving I have only been in one minor, … Read more
We all want to be happy, but how do you find happiness throughout an overall busy day? When I was working full time I often felt exhausted and broken. In retrospect I believe part of my misery was a result of my environment. Not the bosses, paperwork, endless meetings and general coworker-related frustration, but the … Read more
In case you haven’t noticed I’m the kind of girl who likes to save money. I met an extremely intelligent guy with a similar tendency. We are the type of people who envision large goals for ourselves and then dig our heels in the sand in order to achieve them. Our lives are not difficult. … Read more
Two years after graduating from college I bought a house. For once in my life I didn’t struggle to make a decision. I acquired financing with my boyfriend and signed my name on the dotted line five days after turning twenty-two. The down payment came in part from money I’d saved in college. The rest came from a … Read more
Thoughts… The medical bills finally started rolling in. It is remarkable how much providers charge and how little insurance companies are willing to pay. The most outlandish bill was for lab work. The total: $1,570! The allowed charges knocked that bill all the way down to $57.01. Pretty remarkable! With all the bills in hand … Read more
For over a decade I bought my health insurance through my employer. I paid a couple hundred dollars a month for a PPO plan and my company subsidized the rest. That insurance plan seemed to cover everything. If I needed to visit an acupuncturist, chiropractor or any type of specialist I paid a small co-pay and … Read more
Last week I made the decision to visit the co-op preschool one last time. My husband told me that it would be a big waste of time, (he has been voting for the traditional preschool since January), but I wanted to make peace with my decision once and for all. I also wanted to meet the woman … Read more