I live in CT but even more importantly I live in an area that  is 50% Yankee fans and 50% misguided, I mean ,   Red Sox fans. As you can imagine it’s fun here during baseball season. When the two teams are close in the standings it can get a bit trash-talky here. Every house has at least one piece of favorite team merchandise, most people have at least two shirts, a baseball hat etc.

We are very conservative in that I think both my sons could be dressed head to toe in Yankee gear for a full week easily. Let’s just say our dog has a Yankee kerchief.

For some reason many of my favorite blogs are Phillies fans. How can this be I ask myself.?

I have ran the gauntlet often here in the sticks of CT with green monster stickers on the back of cars and beer-bellied Sox fans. Suffice it to say they don’t like my Yankees. My pretty boys in the Bronx she said http://wellreadhostess.com/ and this one would take to her bed if they lose http://www.iambossy.com  

What does this have to do with frugality . WRHostess said “You’re going down and so are your pretty boy Yankees” .

My response……………………………talk is cheap !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are things that drive me nuts about superparenting. Are there things that happen in your parenting life that you think ” are they NUTS?” or “who thought this up?”.
I heard recently of a fifth grade class whose celebration (of making it through fifth grade, big huge acheivement not) was a trip to NYC, a broadway show and lunch in some tourist trap. This was not the only 5th grade celebration they had either. The total cost to the parents for the celebrations was close to 1K. Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculously excessive?
What are the things that drive you nuts. Here are some of mine.

Major offence: Party treat bags- bits of nonsense plastic junk, cheap candy and choking hazards. Who the heck needs them? Who thought that was a good idea? The owner of a dollar store?
Bouquets for a recital- she’s not a prima ballerina, it’s not the West End. It just cost you a chunk of change to give her this cellophane parcel. Put it in her college fund!
Easter baskets – see party treat bags…increase scale.

Your pet hates? What would you love to say to parents or the PTA? Do you hate the sugar festival celebrations at every minor occassion at school? Do you think junior deserves a limo to the last day of elementary school? Do you think the lunatics are running the asylum?

I am an fan of HBO’s Big Love. It debuted again on Sunday night and it was a hoot! What cracked me up was one of the main charachters hyping himself up with motivational tapes on the way to a big meeting. One of his phrases cracked me up “Money is attracted to me like a magnet”.

It must have been the cheesiness of it but that phrase has been rattling round my brain since Sunday. It brings a smile to my face. It’s very 80’s. I love it. But the funny thing is since I’ve started saying it money HAS been attracted to me like a magnet !! Refunds, a business deal and this morning when I took out my Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover book to lend to a friend out fell 20 euros. We’re going to Europe in August. We haven’t been there in 3 years. Why do I have 20 euro in a book? Because Money is Attracted to me like a Magnet !!!

Is this some kind of Secret thing. Was Rhonda Byrne (is that her name) right all along. Is it the power of attraction. Is talking of frugal self fulfilling. Am I spending too much time saving money and not enough time making money???

Anyway along with my magnet mantra this week I am also saying “this new slim physique suits me!”  I’ll see if that works just as well:)

Who needs them? For a brief moment it looks like there must be something interesting in the mailbox but it’s just a bunch of catalogs. There are catalogs from places you shop, from merchants you’ve ordered from, generated from mailing lists garnered by who-knows-how, and worse still entirely irrelevant ones based on purchases of gifts from very long ago.

If you pay by weight for recycling these catalogs become an expensive proposition.

You can stop them. Catalog choice allows you to input your address and catalog details and they send stop requests to the relevant parties. http://www.catalogchoice.org/  No more catalogs strewn around the house. It’s green too (always a bonus)

Do it now and you should see a difference this holiday season

http://www.shareomahasteaks.com/k/f1dWLG8ZEj59B4EGBCUECwkHBQY=/

At the top of the page go to the “Order from mailing” tab and you enter this 4665BDC  as the item number. This deal below should appear

 $39.99+ shipping 4 (5 oz.) Top Sirloins 4 (4 oz.) Boneless Pork Chops 2 (4.5 oz.) Stuffed Sole with Scallops and Crab 8 (3 oz.) Gourmet Franks 4 (4 oz.) Omaha Steaks Burgers 4 (4 oz. approx.) Boneless Chicken Breasts 4 (5.75 oz.) Stuffed Baked Potatoes Plus a bonus 6 FREE BURGERS and a FREE 7-piece Cutlery Set

Can’t beat that.

Environmentally friendly clutter buster

Absolutely my most favorite frugal thing is to freecycle. Do you have a  child who wants to try a new sport and you dread investing in equipment that may be dumped after one use? Or do you have stuff in your garage that someone might get use out of, something you can’t bear to throw away??? Do you have something that would be a pain, or even too large to get rid of,  Freecycling is your answer in all these instances. It’s good for the environment. It’s free. It feels good. How much better can it get?

We joined Freecycle.org. We had a swingset that my kids had grown out of. It was in good shape. I wanted the area cleared to make a garden. I posted the description on freecycle. It was gone, literally out of my yard in an hour!! The woman who got it was delighted, I was delighted. No perfectly good swing in a landfill. The environment was delighted.

That was our first experience. I love it. It’s great for spring cleaning. It’s great for seasonal “gear”.

Try it.

Here is someone else’s experience  http://greenasathistle.com/2007/03/24/and-im-free-freecycling-day-24/

Some of us have great local libraries. Some of us are put on a list for weeks in order to get bestsellers. Some of us spend a fortune on books to keep up.

I use PaperBackSwap. If you have shelves of books that you love and would love others “readers” to have then this might work well for you. Paperbackswap.com asks you to post 10 books on it’s website. Just type in the isbns on the back of your books into the website. It will create a virtual bookshelf for you. It will then grant you 3 credits that allows you to pick 3 books off other peoples bookshelves. The members will send those books to you for nothing ! Other members may pick a book off your shelf. You mail it to them. When they receive it it earns you another book credit. You can order another book !  and so swapping out your books for others books etc etc etc. I love it.

I’ve been doing it for over a year, I have read Like Water for Elephants, The Kite Runner, Pope Joan, Three Cups of Tea and on and on and on. Once read I pop the books back into the system and swap them for something else. The quality is awesome. All books so far have been in pristine condition. Do not swap books with torn covers or odors. Some people request that books be from non-smokers homes. You can customize your preference.

My username is rdrkm on there. Take a look at my bookshelf. You might see something you like.

there is nothing better than getting a new book in your mailbox. It is so much better than getting bills !!!

Happy Reading

I read an article in Time yesterday that stated that for belt-tightening will be “in” for the next year or so. I don’t know about you but with milk and gas prices soaring this is not news to us, this is life. I have been actively frugal for quite some time now and sharing tips on how we do it might help others new to the game.

 Spending too much on food?

If you are not a cook or have zero imagination in the kitchen hearing everyone drone on about meal planning causes your eyes to glaze over. I am similar, but I have a solution !!!  I found e-mealz

E-MEALZ Easy Meals for Busy and Frugal Families

It allows you to pick your favorite (or cheapest) store and builds a meal plan based on the sales of the week. It includes the recipe for the meals it picks. It lists staples that you will need and it builds your grocery list ! I love it.

You can pick low carb, low fat, ww points,  even vegetarian – based menus  ! It offers Publix, Walmart and Kroger as well as an “any store” option which bases it’s menus on seasonal items. The meals are good, the recipes don’t repeat over a 3 month period and you use leftovers for lunches

Guesswork gone !!! The cost is for a 3 month period 15 dollars so $1.25 per week. There is a Dave Ramsey discount if you put in DAVE in the coupon area. (Dave Ramsey we will talk about later) Best of luck !!!