I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘cool stuff’ Category

Today is my 7th wedding anniversary, and in honor of that and the approach of Valentine’s Day this weekend I’m sharing 7 ways my spouse and I have celebrated both Valentine’s Day and our anniversary in the past without breaking the budget.  Yes, there are very expensive ways to celebrate (roses, diamonds, fancy dinners out) and sometimes, that may be the way to go – but Valentines on a budget can be just as fun and special, without paying for it for the next three months (or years).  Here are some wishes for fun and romance from mine to yours.  Incorporate a few or all of the ideas into your romantic celebration of your love for a special evening (or entire day) that won’t break the bank.

1.  Homemade cards - Instead of buying a cardthis year, get some construction paper and a glue stick and make one yourself.  It doesn’t matter if you are an artist or not – the effort and time put into it, with your own heartfelt words inside, will make it more special than anything you could buy.

2.  Picnic lunch or dinner – You may not be a gourmet cook (I know I’m not!) but you can still make a home cooked meal for much less than eating out.  Pack it in a basket with some candles and a tablecloth and it makes for a romantic gesture that doesn’t break the bank.

3.  Chore cards or offers – There are chores my spouse does but doesn’t really like to do, so I make up some index cards with chore offers he can redeem at his leisure.  Things like “One whole house vacuuming” or “One week of litter box duty” – any of the chores that he generally does that I could do for him instead.

4.   Trade babysitting – If you have kids, and have friends with kids, trade some babysitting with them this week.  You can watch their kids for an evening, and they can watch yours.  that way you have have a nice, kid-free evening to implement some of these ideas.

5.  Mood music  – You don’t need to go to a fancy restaurant to create a mood.  Put some mellow music on in the background, or better yet, some music that reminds you both of earlier points of your relationship.  Back in the dark ages, I used to make mix tapes for my spouse of music we both enjoyed together.  They’re fun to play now, and put us both in a happy and nostalgic mood.

6.  Put thoughts to words to voice  -  Sometimes all you need to do is verbalize what is in your head.  Tell your partner how you feel about them.  Best of all, it is free!

7.   Give the gift of time – Just spending time with each other, without having 14 other things going on at the same time, is sometimes gift enough.  Turn off the cell phone, unplug the phone, turn off the computer, and just hang out together.  Or maybe play RockBand together.  That’s what we’ll be doing. 

If youw ant some more ideas, here are some more cheap valentine’s day date ideas!

Have fun!  Celebrate your relationship this week and keep a little money in your pocket at the same time.  Or in the bank. 

Patrick at Cash Money Life asked me (and a number of other bloggers) to tell him or post about the first piece of financial advice they received.  I am certain I received financial advice as a child, but frankly, don’t remember any of it at the moment.  So I am going to talk about the first piece I remember, which was when I was starting college.

Fittingly enough, the first piece of financial advice I remember was from my dad.  When I started college was also when I applied for and received my first credit card, and besides admonishing me to only use the card in an emergency, he told me:

Never carry a balance on a credit card from month to month.

This is advice that I did take to heart for a very very long time.  And even when I strayed from his advice, I still heard it in the back of my head telling me to fix the mess I got myself into.  I’m not sure exactly when I strayed from it as far as a timeline, although obviously I did, but I am back on track and will, hopefully, never find myself in a position that I will do that again.

Thanks, Dad.

What’s the first piece of financial advice you ever received?  Share it with us and let our collective wisdom rule the internet!  (Okay, maybe not rule the internet, but wisdom is good.  )

Free Money Finance has started his Personal Finance March Madness competition again this year.  FMF’s March Madness is a head to head competition between the best of personal finance of the past year (as submitted by their authors).  The posts are voted on in pairs by readers, and the winner advances to face the winner of another pair, until there is one final winner.  The winner has $500 donated to the charity of their choice, with second, third and fourth place also getting charitable donations.

I was privileged enough to win the competition last year with my primer on snowflaking (and $500 was donated to my charity, the Make a Wish Foundation), so when I saw the announcement a few weeks ago, I entered this year with another snowflaking “how to” – 10 Can’t Miss Ways to Kickstart Snowflaking.  I am again playing for the Make A Wish Foundation, a charity that fittingly enough, I originally starting donating to because it was close to my father’s heart.

My post enters the competition today, paired against an interview with Get Rich Slowly’s author JD Roth.  If you are the voting type, I encourage you to pop on over to FMF and check out today’s pairs vying to be named the best in personal finance for 2009!

It isn’t getting any warmer here in the midwest.  In fact, it was a balmy -13 degrees F (before the wind chill) sometime overnight last night.  Yippee.  Thank goodness we bought a new furnace last April – I can’t imagine how pleasant it would be in my home if our old furnace had waited until now to die instead of giving up last spring.

To take my mind off the cold (at least temporarily), I want to share two fun things for an entertaining Friday (or any day).  First off, as I have shared before, I am a regular contributor to the Frugal Hacks website – I generally publish my frugal musings on Thursdays there.  (The past few weeks I’ve been discussing my love affair with price books.)  Frugal Hacks has just expanded to include a Frugal Forum – a great idea, I think.  I haven’t posted in the forum out yet but anywhere where people can share frugal ideas with like-minded individuals sounds like a good time to me.  And there is a CVS/Walgreens folder so I will have somewhere to muse about my many Drugstore Game deals.  To promote the forums, there is a $100 cash giveaway going on.  The first 50 people to post 25 substantive posts will be entered in a $100 cash drawing.   So if you have frugal thoughts you’d like to share, hop on over to the Frugal Forums!

The second thing is something I had read about a number of times, but didn’t try out until last night when my daughter decided to stay up until an absurdly late hour.    I do a lot of internet searching, and I generally either use Google or when I think of it, the MyPoints toolbar so I can earn points.  But last night I investigated a searching option called Swagbucks, which uses Google and Ask.com to search.  Every time you search through Swagbucks, you have a chance of randomly winning some… Swagbucks!  Why would I want Swagbucks?  You can exchange them for prizes or gift certificates.  45 Swagbucks equals a $5 Amazon gift card, and that was enough to catch my interest.  Last night I did my normal searching for random answers and other such sundries through Swagbucks instead of directly through Google, and I earned a total of 4 Swagbucks already.  Plus 3 for signing up in the first place.

I get something for people signing up through my referral link, but I am not sure exactly what.  I assume Swagbucks.    Maybe I will get myself a Starbucks gift card instead when I earn 50 Swagbucks.   Mmmm warm coffee on a cold cold day…

Have a wonderful Friday and keep warm if you are in a cold place like I am!  Think frugal. 

Last week I expressed concern due to a new law that was passed that requires all children’s clothing and items to be certified lead free, starting in February.  This law sounded to the people who read it as pretty broad and covering anything sold, including used items.  So used items would have to go through testing before being sold.  I’m not against buying items that have no lead – but the cost to test items would basically make it impossible for places like thrift stores and charities (like Goodwill and the Salvation Army) to sell used kids clothing.

But thanks to Emily at Remodeling This Life who pointed me to this article at MSN”s Smart Spending Blog yesterday.  The Consumer Products Safety Commission clarified their stance on the selling of used clothing, and stores can sell used clothing without it being certified.  They cannot sell clothing that is known to have lead (meaning, check your recall lists and don’t sell recalled clothing) but thrift stores, used clothing resalers, and the like can sell used clothing without putting it through lead testing first.

I have already decided that this year is the year of not buying more clothes for my children unless absolutely needed, and I won’t be changing that now.  But it is good to know that once I do need to buy clothing for my kids, there will still be used options available.

And I can try to sell my kids’ outgrown clothing on Craigslist now.  Off to start sorting and cataloguing that, then.  Or at least have a yard sale if that doesn’t work out…