If you did the math last Sunday, we spent almost $700 that last week in October. This week, we did much better, only spending about $235. Still, I’d like a week where we spent even less… Day Amount Place Category Monday 26.01 Vet Pets Tuesday $10.00 Dentist Copay Medical Tuesday $18.93 Safeway (snacks) Allowance Friday $11.94 PetCo Petsread more…
Today I am participating in a Yakezie blog swap. This article is written by SB at One Cent at a Time, a blog to become rich monetarily, emotionally, spiritually and socially one step at a time. (Subscribe to his blog and and get his articles directly on to your email or e-readers.) When you’re done here, head over to his blog to see what I pay more for. I was brought up frugally and frugality isread more…
This post is about how I determined what to budget for each category last year and how I’m planning to change that, if at all. Here are our budget categories, the average we have spent each month (Jan-Oct) and the budgeted amount (at the beginning of the year- some values have changed) Student Loans: 1,087/685 School expenses: 781/850 Bills: 2,183/2,135 Car: 638/190 Credit Cards: 26/15 Groceries: 401/450 Medical: 25/0 Eating Out: 159/150 Allowance – me: 162/125read more…
As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s getting to be the time of year where I need to review this year’s budget and start getting ready for next year’s. I personally believe that budgets should be fluid things. Each year, my goal is to take the things that worked and continue them while getting rid of the things that didn’t work. One of the main places I make changes is in my budget categories, orread more…
New website, new name, time to start a new habit with the Sunday Evening Post! The new sub-title is Personal Finance in a World of Excuses, one of my excuses in determining my budget is that if I don’t normally spend in one of my budget categories, I don’t officially budget for it. That can cause budget overruns or I need to find somewhere else to pull the money from. Would you believe I don’tread more…
This is the last post in my series about Medicare Advantageplans. You’ve looked at Part D coverage; you’ve looked at all thedifferent co-pay options, you’ve decided between PPO or an HMO type plan, andyou think you’re ready to enroll. I have one last question for you. How muchare you paying extra in premium a month? As I’ve said before, Medicare Advantage plans come from $0extra per month in premium up to over $200/month extra in premium.read more…
Nikki over at Debt Free by Thirty has a segment called The Best Things in Life, where she talks about wonderful events in their lives that happen to be free. Today, I am sharing my contribution to The Best Things in Life- the dog park. I am very well aware that my dogs were not free, nor are they all that inexpensive to maintain. However, a trip to the dog park is free, and something weread more…
Alexa Ranking Update: 241,068 When it comes to spending, the weekend has been very quiet.In fact, thinking back on it to write this post, it seems like maybe theweekend was quiet in general. It doesn’t exactly feel that way, though,probably because of the stress of the previous week. My MIL went in for surgery on Wednesday. The plan was for meto help the hubby with her pre-surgery shower and then to go back to work whileheread more…
Yesterday my MIL went in for total knee replacement surgery. We knew a couple of years ago that this would have to happen eventually, and our plan was always to decide what year we were going to have the surgery done and transfer her to an MA plan that had better rehab benefits than her current one. That’s all well and good, but sometimes, plans mean nothing. When it came up, it didn’t make sense forread more…
In the personal finance blog world, there’s often discussion about the difference between being frugal and being cheap, or about the products and services we’re willing to pay more for, due to quality or other considerations. In the pet blog world, there’s often discussion about how much we’re willing to pay to take care of our pets, not just food- premium brand or generic –but also for their veterinary care. At what point do you questionread more…
