When I was a broke grad student living in England, the price of everything there freaked me out for the first few months. This is because the pound kicks the dollars butt… and it was kicking it pretty good in 2010-11. I seriously lived like a weird little hermit, but I still had to eat.…
Hang out in the PF blogosphere for a little bit and you’ll see there are several money saving “tricks” that are pretty prevalent. If you read my February update, you’re aware I finished up the month a little cash strapped. Fortunately the whole Roomba fraud business seems to be taken care of, but my credit…
I love free stuff. Although I think very few things in life are truly free – pretty much everything has a string attached, whether it’s a price tag or something else – I still also think that some of those strings are more palatable than others. Personally, I’m ok with trading a little of my…
I have spent a lot of time in my car. In 2008, I drove across the country twice (because I’d never seen the Pacific Ocean… and then I had, so it was time to head back). Even though it wasn’t all that long ago, I had an actual TomTom that regularly malfunctioned…
Merry Christmas, blogosphere! At least those of you who celebrate, for those who don’t, Happy Wednesday! In my house, Christmas has always been a big deal. In the world before Pinterest, my stay at home mother was the queen of doing crafts with me and my brother. Our tree was always covered in handmade ornaments…
Check out my latest guest post over at A Time for Seasons. I think a savings spree sounds way better than a shopping spree, especially when it means that you get to go shopping! As a personal finance blogger, most of my time is spent scrimping and trying to figure out where to cut back…
Holy cow. I’m a reader story on Get Rich Slowly today. And my post even connects with the theme of the month here. Check it out. Like lots of other millennials, I spent most of my 20s in school, working underpaid jobs I’m overqualified for, giving up on those jobs, going back to school and,…
Zero-Budget Christmas: The Almost Entirely True Story of Our Quest to Do Our Christmas Shopping Without Spending Any Money by Jason Anderson has been a real fun and easy read. To me, it read like an extended well-written blog post about different methods to keep your budget in check during the holiday season. It rehashes a…
My research over the past month led me to a really wide variety of things and I often fell down the internet rabbit hole which led me to two pretty distinctive areas – DIY/thrifty holiday ideas in general (not necessarily fitting into the themes I was writing about at the time) and just really cool…
As the month is drawing to an end, we’ll wind up our series with the easiest $5 gifts to get – teachers and hostesses. $5 does actually go a long way in this category. The problem is more what to do with those $5. In my experience, for the teacher in your life, you may…
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon in which the older my brother gets, the more difficult he is to buy for (maybe some social scientist could map age of males vs. how difficult they are to find a gift for). When he was little, it was a piece of cake – I could literally make him…
On to one of the easiest class of people to keep Christmas under $5 – the ladies in your life. As I really got into researching this, I realized that I bit off way more than I could chew. Sisters and daughters is such a wide topic that can be broken down so many ways,…
In the realm of holiday gift giving, grandparents are another stumbling block. I don’t know about you, but just like my dad, I’ve always felt my grandma has everything she needs… so I mostly just got her bubble bath. For years and years, she just got a different scent of bubble bath until one year…
Guys, I feel like you’ve actually got it pretty easy when selecting a gift for your wife or girlfriend. We’re pretty easy to buy for pretty inexpensively – not that I don’t love shiny things (I am part raccoon, after all), it’s just that I’m just as happy to receive something that doesn’t cost a…
Purchasing a gift for the Snuggle Bug in your life is no easy feat – I know my boyfriend is a pain in the butt to buy for each year – and once again, the easiest thing to do is give it a personalized spin. So here are some DIY and not-so-DIY projects to keep…
Is it just me or are dad’s notoriously difficult to buy for? I mean, how many golf balls and ties can you get a guy? And does he really want those things anyway? My dad is definitely a tough one – there’s the cheaper end of the spectrum: the golf balls, ties and bags of…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found my mom to be the easiest person on my list to get things for. Mom’s seem pretty clear about things they like. My mom loves Hershey bars, those chocolate covered cherries that come in the red box from Walgreens, trashy romance novels (especially if the cover…
I figured after a month sorting out our budgets, it’s worth pointing out that we’re going into the worst time of year for trying to keep them – with tons of holiday spending looming, I’ve been scouring the web and nearby stores for inexpensive (but NOT cheap) gift ideas. I’m a little crafty, but…