What Charcoal and Beer Teaches Us About Making Choices

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The end of May is in sight, the temps are getting warmer, and Summer is on everyone’s mind. There are great sales popping up everywhere for outdoor home improvement projects, and garden centers are opening up with huge selection of plants, yard care products and grills. Speaking of grills, this time of year I keep my eyes for sales on charcoal. Between my smoker and my grill, I use a lot of charcoal. If I see a great sale, I load up the van and pile it up in a corner of my garage to be used throughout the summer. […] Read more »

Using Intermittent Spending To Stay On Budget

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A body builder friend of mine recently posted a link to an article that caught my eye. The article described a diet methodology called Intermittent Fasting in which a person would consume all their food for the day in an 8 hour window followed by 16 hours of fasting. This wasn’t just some person’s half cocked idea about how people should eat, there was actually some science behind it. The thought is that eating all the food for a given day in a short period of time more closely resembled how our ancestors lived. Prehistoric man would spend the day […] Read more »

Hindsight is 20 dollars: An Andrew Jackson can save you 2 hours or more on home improvement

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A termite infestation was discovered during our last insect treatment. Our “guy”, Bugs by Brian, sprays on a quarterly basis and always does a great job keeping spiders and other bugs from getting into our home. What we didn’t know was that large pieces of wood separating the sloped yard from our flowerbed and patio was home to some wood-eating critters. Not wanting to spend any money on the project, I decided to take care of them myself. This was a big project but I already knew what had to be done – I had replaced some of the 6’ […] Read more »

How Does the Target RedCard Work?

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I was hurriedly going through the checkout lane at Target picking up some items on my way home from work when the cashier sprung a question I’ve heard a zillion times: “Are you going to be saving 5% with your REDcard today?” I shook my head, “No,” after which she asked me if I knew about the REDcard. I quipped at her my understanding of it being a Target Visa card that saves me 5% on my purchases. I told her that I didn’t like to use credit cards, but thanked her for the offer. I was surprised when she […] Read more »

How to Get Ahead if You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck

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get ahead living paycheck to paycheck

Some recent studies showed that more than two thirds of people are living paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time. That’s pretty incredible! It seems to be getting harder and harder to keep your head above water financially, and there is no lack of reasons why that’s happening. Some of it is because our attitudes about money have changed over the years.  Some of it is also because of the changing economy, and some of it is probably due to the fact that the world is rapidly changing, and some are getting left behind because they refuse to […] Read more »

No Thanks, DirectTV, You Know Where You Can Stick Your High Pressure Sales Act

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I thanked the employee that had asked if I needed any help, guided me to what I was looking for within Best Buy,  and answered my questions. As I began to turn away, he said, “Oh, just one more thing. Who is your cable provider?” It was at that moment I noticed for the first time he was wearing a shirt with the DIRECTV logo embroidered into it. I knew exactly what was coming next as he led me to a table where he pulled out a notebook and started asking me more questions. He wrote information I was providing […] Read more »

Confession: I Broke My Number One Rule Of Shopping

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I know I cannot be trusted with credit cards; the temptation of overspending is just too much for me to handle. That’s why I will never carry them again.   But I would have never guessed the events that unfolded late last week as I was shopping for needed items for our annual Memorial Weekend Luau themed party. The party was going to be a little bigger than it has been the last few years, because it was also doubling as our celebration for completing our Debt Management program. We’ve been saving up since the end of January to make sure […] Read more »

Why I Hate Credit Cards: Hotel Incidental Policy

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I hate credit cards with a passion. The more I walk through life trying not to use them, the more I hate them. My family and I drove to Florida late last week, which gave me the opportunity to find yet another reason to despise them. No matter how much I want to pay with cash, or at least with my debit card so the money comes immediately out of my checking account, businesses seem insistent in pushing me to use the demon plastic. As my wife and I planned our trip, we carefully budgeted our spending for each day. […] Read more »

The Magic Bullet To Combining Finances Successfully

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I knew the minute I finished the sentence that someone would comment on it, and I was right.  In my post last week describing an afternoon at a food and wine event I mentioned that I bought two bottles of BBQ sauce, but not before checking in with my wife first. I wanted my wife’s approval before buying $12 of BBQ sauce. I didn’t expect her to disapprove of the purchase.  As the commenter articulated, it was simply an act of respect.  We are a quad income family (we each have two sources of income), but we choose to combine […] Read more »

Why Cash Only Weekend Spending ROCKS!

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Hearing colorful language coming from our home office, my wife stormed in to find out what was going on. I was reconciling our checking account, and even though it had only been a few days since I had last done it, I couldn’t make the numbers come out right. Between Christmas shopping, and being out of town for extended family gatherings quite a few transactions had posted, and I was obviously making a mistake somewhere. The arithmetic error was quickly found and fixed, but in the process I found something that could not be corrected as easily. We had spent […] Read more »

You Can’t Out Earn Bad Spending Habits

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My doctor expressed some concern over my rising weight during my recent annual physical. I told him that I have a solid exercise regiment, working out six or seven days a week. Unfortunately, I use my massive amount of exercise to justify eating anything I want. What he said next shocked me: Losing and maintaining your weight is 80% diet. He must have seen the skepticism on my face, so he gave me an example. He asked me how long it would take me to eat a combo meal from a fast food place. My response was less than 10 […] Read more »

Earned an A+ in fun and a C- for my Budget: Vacation Report Card

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I am back from vacation. This trip was perfect; from the house we rented to the weather, everything about this trip gets an A+. My family has not had many opportunities to spend quality time together being spread out across the country.  I know that my brothers feel the same way I do about how amazing this experience was for all of our children and it was pretty awesome for my Mom too. BUT Our vacation budget took a bit of a beating.  Although we did not completely break the bank, there were several key lapses in judgment where spending […] Read more »

Goin’ Commando With Credit

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If you ever ask me about how to get out of debt, I have a variety of answers, depending on the situation.  Probably the number one answer I give is “spend less than you make”.  When you start asking more questions about how to get started, I’ll usually tell you that the first step is to cut up your credit cards. You just don’t need them. They only serve as a drag on your financial situation. When you use a credit card to make purchases, it’s too easy to spend money without thinking about it, because swiping a card doesn’t […] Read more »

I Know a Secret About Kohls….

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Our son needed new dress clothes for his confirmation last weekend, so it was timely that we received a 30% off coupon in the mail from Kohls.  I usually don’t get excited about their coupons because they show up in my mailbox fairly often.  So frequently, in fact,  that I would never buy anything at Kohls unless I had a 30% off coupon in my hand. It should be fairly obvious that the regular price of their merchandise is simply over priced. With mailing in hand, we headed to Kohls to see what they had. On the shopping list for […] Read more »