Recession Busters # 60: Food, Fun & Frugality

I absolutly adore Clara! I watched several of her videos. Does anyone remember the Tightwad Gazette? I used to read her newsletter long before she was published in books. Amy Dacyczyn was my hero. In looking for a recession recipe to post to, I found a recipe that I used to make all the time when I was a kid. The person who posted it to her blog called it Ghetto Pizza

Ghetto Pizza
2 tbsp spaghetti sauce from a 26 oz. $2 jar — $0.071

slice of white bread — $0.101

slice cheese (mozzarella, swiss, etc.) — $0.15
optional pepper, dried oregano — negligible
Total: $0.32

When I was in college I worked in the Rathskeller, our college's central gathering place where you could buy a drink and a snack. We made something similiar to these pizza's but we used a bagel instead of bread and pizza sauce from a jar instead of spaghetti sauce. I wish I could remember what we charged for them.

You may also want to check out this title - 10,001 Ways To Live Large on a Small Budget. by The Writers of Wise Bread. The bloggers at the personal finance site WiseBread.com offer thousands of ways to spend less while still enjoying life. The frugal living part includes ideas from gourmet cooking on a shoestring to cheap sunburn remedies. There are money-saving tips on travel, entertainment, and most other aspects of life. The book's second half is devoted to personal finance topics like budgeting, credit, housing, and even how to hire and/or fire a financial adviser.

It cracks me up that a lot of the money saving ideas (getting in free here, save 15% percent there, etc...) still all involve spending money of some sort. How about staying home? You could:

• Watch TV which you are probably already overpaying for because you have cable or a satelite dish.


• Play a game, which you probably already own a closet full of.


• Clean out your junk drawer, you might even find some money in there.


• Clean out your garage, you might find some things you haven't touched in years, list them on craig's list and make some money that way.


• Read a book from the library - free except for the gas to pick up and return the book.


• Listen to an audiobook you downloaded from Overdrive - free except for your internet service.


• Knock on the door of the person that lives across from you and introduce yourself, if you already know your neighbor stop in and have a chat and get caught up on one another.


• Take a walk around your neighborhood, free and good for your health.

Yes, it is hard to be a bored teenager in my household because this is just a sample of the things I say to my girls when they say they are bored. Being bored is just one of those things I have never been nor can I imagine myself being. That coupon you just got in the mail from Kohl's that will save you 15% throw it away and you'll save 100%! What do you really NEED anyway.

Money & Finance #59: Credit, Money Management, and Saving

What a Good Fico score looks like!

Read the article How Credit Scores Work - Ok the article says " Fair Isaac and Company, which developed the score, felt that the score would only confuse consumers since there was nothing to tell them what it meant or what lenders were looking for." I don't know who they think they are kidding I don't believe for a minute that's why credit scores used to be hidden from consumers. And even now that they are available, we must pay and it's not inexpensive. IMHO, I think they should charge the business for accessing our credit scores and if they already do then charge them more! and not charge the consumer at all (it's their information after all). Then companies might think twice about offering credit so easily and ultimatley the consumers may be in less trouble. Thankfully I have good credit not because of anything I've gone out of my way to do just used common sense and paid back what I borrowed when I said I would. However I can see where this would be helpful information to someone who didn't know about credit and how it works, got into a bit of trouble and is now trying to work their way out of the problem. I took the Credit Score Quiz and scored a 10 out of 10.

I've never made a formal spending or budget plan but I looked around at the resources listed in the blog. The one you can complete in about an hour looks pretty basic and easy. It really is wise to know how much you make, how much you spend on absolute necessities, how much you spend on things you don't really need and how much is left over and what you are doing with it. Everyone should have an education on budgeting and managing your money. If I were to make a formal spending plan I would use the Quicken software that we have and use for daily. Once in awhile my husband and I will say to each other hey where's all the money going and we'll sit down and run a few reports on Quicken and it will tell us and we'll say hey, we really need to cut back on eating out, buying gifts, boy that phone bill is out of line with all the others did we (teenagers) go over? or that water bill looks high do we have a leak? etc...

With regards to the TCDRS site I did check it out and was happy to find that even though I am part-time I may still receive retirement benefits. Now start the countdown...29 years, 9 months, and 29 days to go....

Money & Finance #58: Banking, Budgeting, and Spending

The first thing I did was of course take the quiz; I love taking quizzes. I scored a 70 on the quiz and it said "You've got a solid grip on your finances."
On to the exercises....

• Yes, our bank offers free online banking and we use it regularly. I only use online banking from my home computer which is not a shared computer. I like that you can see images of the checks written so in case you forgot to write the complete information done I can still enter it in Quicken with the complete information. In addition to the user name and password they use a sitekey as well.


• We use Quicken and have for years. I like that it is only on my computer and I don't have to upload all the information to a website to track my spending. When you enter expenditures in Quicken you categorize everything so whenever you want you can see where your money is going. For example, you can ask for all restaurant purchases in specfic time frame and see what you've spent eating out. If I were to use one of the budgeting tools I would probably use Mint because"Mint is led by an experienced team including industry veterans drawn from the ranks of Charles Schwab, eBay, Expedia, Intuit, PGP and other leaders in the finance, security and software industries." I don't think I'd use expensr because of the social networking aspect. "The idea behind the social networking aspect is depending on your tags and categories you can compare yourself against other persons similar to your financial situation and as a result determine whether your spending practices are good or bad." I don't think my financial decisions can be determined if they are good or bad based on how they stack up to persons similar to my financial situation. I feel confident that my financial decisions are right for me but not necessarily everyone in my "financial situation" and the same goes for others financial decisions maybe be right for them but not me. I'd also want to know more about Shawn Gupta and Reman Child before I used expenr. Wesabe's executives, directors and advisors appear impressive so they might be second in line to Mint if I were to ever use one of these online tools. Foonance looks like the bargain basement alternative to online budget software. I couldn't even explore the site without logging in. Buxfer - good visuals but the professional "Team" consists of one guy? Shashank Pandit who is "currently on leave until Buxfer makes me rich or bankrupt." Spendji may know what they are doing when it comes to financial services and entrepreneurship but they didn't know what they were doing when they loaded a video to their website that is a copyright infringment. Rippleplay sounds like a system very similar to your mortage company selling your mortage and how some financial analysts try and explain how we got in the financial mess were in now. It almost makes for humorous reading. Scred didn't look helpful to me at all because I never do anything with others in which there is a financial obligation so complicated that we would need software to assist us.


• From the CR article - I've aways questioned this advice. "Shop around for the lowest gasoline prices. One way to do that before leaving the house is to check http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ for a list of Web sites where motorists can report and check out the latest prices by location." But how do you decide when to drive further for a better price? I buy gas from the Kroger's that is just outside my subdivision and generally notice when looking at prices at other stations while driving around that the price I pay there is right in line with the other places. I know gas is expensive but my time is valuable too and spending time researching the best price on gas and then driving to get it seems to be alittle overkill but to make sure I went ahead and checked the website just to see how much of a difference in price stations could be and how far away I'd be driving to get this less expensive gas. So the last time I filled up I paid $1.82 ($1.85 less my .03 discount for using my Kroger card). According to the gas price chart the cheapest place to get gas in my zip code is at Murphy USA @ 290 and Cypress Rosehill @ $1.78. According to Google Maps that is 6.6 miles and 17 minutes from my house. I work in the opposite direction and if you've ever been near the intersection of 290 & Spring Cypress you would avoid it like the plague, trust me. Buc-ee's has gas for $1.81 but that is even further away and would still require I drive past the dreaded intersection of Spring Cypress & 290. Kroger's, H.E.B and Randalls came in next with prices of $1.81, $1.82 and $1.83 respectively but all of these are off 290 and again in the opposite direction of my work or any places I frequent so they would all require a special trip which goes against the "plan your outings" advice from the same CR article. So I think I'll stick with my neighborhood Kroger and spend the time I save researching gas prices deciding what to make for dinner. Read the article on ways to cut back on your speam ending. Blog about 2 or 3 ideas mentioned that you'd like to incorporate/implement into your financial plan.


• Groceries - I spend what I spend and my kids still say "there is never anything to eat here."


• Utilities - My thermostat is on 65 in the winter and 78 in the summer. Hmmm....


• Phone, Internet, TV - As far as I am concerned it is all overpriced! Ok maybe you can save lots of money with promotional rates but when the promotion is over you have to keep switching and that takes time waiting while your put on hold to cancel the old service and sign up for the new service. Whatever happened to paying for loyalty? Taking advantage of promotional rates is something I just don't have the time or patience to deal with especially since you really do have to read the fine print and sometimes that is similar to reading assembly instructions written by a technical writer.


• Personal finance - I never use ATM machines unless they are my own banks even then I almost always go in the bank. I don't like to pay any fees at all. I've never paid any fees for banking as I used a credit union from the time I opened my first account till I moved to TX. Even though I still have the credit union at home as my main bank, we did open a local bank account and until recently it was "free" as well. However when we paid down a loan we have with them to under a certain limit (set by them) our accounts were no longer free. So let's see we were penalized for paying back our debt. That doesn't make sense, it would seem to me that's the kind of customers they want, ones that take out large loans and actually pay them back as opposed to those who don't pay them back. Suddenly our monthly bank statements had $20.00 maintenace fees on them that were never there before. Whatever happened to keeping the customers you have? It seems to be all about getting new customers. Again I don't have the time or patience to be switching banks very couple of years.


• Insurance - We did our homework when we shopped for our home owners and car insurance when we moved to TX. I marked that off my list then and frankly I've never had any reason to put it back on the list. I like our coverage, our company and the service they provide. Our rates have flucuated and again I suppose we could have saved some money by switching around but I value the security I have knowing that our insurance premiums are taken directly from our bank regularly and it's one less thing to worry about.


• Health care - my health care alternatives are decided upon by my insurance. The only decision I can make is whether or not to go to the doctor's, get the prescription filled, or go to the hospital.

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Ever wonder what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" tab on Google is?

I found this on Wikipedia explaining how Google loses $110 million a year as a result of this feature.

"Google's homepage includes a button labeled "I'm Feeling Lucky". When a user clicks on the button the user will be taken directly to the first search result, bypassing the search engine results page. The thought is that, if a user is "feeling lucky", the search engine will return the perfect match the first time without having to page through the search results.
According to a study by Tom Chavez of "Rapt", this feature costs Google $110 million a year as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising."

Pot Luck #57: TXT U L8R - Texting

Text messaging is essential when you have teenagers, sometimes it's the only form of communication in our house. I can confirm what the NYT article states "Many teenagers prefer them to actually talking." I have had my woes with my own personal cell phone and right now I do not have a working cell phone despite a $178.00 monthly bill. When we text we don't use lingo but we do use abbreviations so we don't exceed text length and for ease of typing, though the girls have a full keyboard on their phones, I do not and it's much easier to type r instead of are. When texting you lose some key parts of the communication process, including body language, facial expressions, eye contact, voice quality, emotion, and speaking style including rhythm, intonation and stress; which can alter the way the receiver decodes the message considerably. With these elements lacking it can be vital that your message is as clear and concise as possible so keeping the lingo to a minimum when the message is important might be something you want to consider. I think the best thing about text messaging is you can get a message to someone without interrupting what they are doing like a phone call. Receiving a text message is also alot easier than retrieving your voice mail messages. So as a sender and a receiver I prefer text messages to voice in many situations. I don't however want it to take the place of voice communication all the time. There are still some things that I don't want to find out about via a text message, (someone's died, someone's been in an accident, I'm fired, etc..) There are still some things that must be conveyed verbally.
In regards to my thoughts on the New York Times article:

• I liked what Caitlin Williams said, "We are not at a point where there are a whole lot of rules for proper etiquette for texting. I think as it becomes a more acceptable form of communication, people will regulate themselves a little more" except I don't think it's a matter of time I think it's a person's willingness to adopt the rules of etiquette. Cell phones have been around for years now and there are still many people who conduct their business on their cell phone in public.
• "Usage controls were developed at the request of customers" according to Jack McArtney who says, “We know of some people who want to keep the kid’s phone from buzzing all night. They want them to get some sleep.” Hello parents? be parents and take the phone away if it's interferring with a good nights sleep, or what about turning if off? The on/off switch is the most important usage control and it's already a feature of your phone so no new developments necessary.
• Concerning safety - texting, like anything else that requires your attention (listening to music, talking on the phone) while trying to do anything else like driving, walking, even working out, is going to take your attention away from your primary activity and has potential problems. Yes, you can sometimes do two things at once but not always. If someone runs out between parked cars while your driving and your eyes are not on the road because your looking at your phone or even adjusting your radio station your level of attention is not the same as it would be if you were just driving. Does that mean we need laws governing our use of our cell phones while driving? I don't know the answer to that. I have been behind a driver who is not driving as attentively because they are on their phone and yes, that frustrates me to no end but do I pull over every time I get a call or place a text? No, I honestly can say I don't do that either. But then there are speed limits too and I don't always stick to those either. So laws may be one way to discourage an activity but it's not foolproof.
• Another kind of safety that you may not have considered when you provided your child with a cell phone. "We found that 44 percent of the high school boys that we have polled have seen at least one naked picture of a female classmate, and the boys are sharing their pictures too," Aftab said. Even if your children are not the ones photographed they may be sent these photos and view them without realizing what they are about to see. And if they are among those participating in sexting, Mark Rasch, a former cybercrime prosecutor for the Justice Department says it best. “The combination of poorly drafted laws, new technologies, draconian and inflexible punishments, and teenage hormones make for potentially disastrous results.”

Potluck #56: To Tweet or Not To Tweet...Twitter

I created a Twitter account back in iHCPL, the first generation, but I've never really found a use for it for others keeping up with me or me keeping up with others.

In browsing a couple of different Twitter profiles (news, fashion, celebrities) and read through a few updates. Do you think this is something you would adopt for personal use? Is there a particular topic you'd like to tweet about?

I have zero interest in keeping tabs on celebrities so Celebrity Tweet is something I would never follow. Entertainment Weekly's The Truth about Twitter says it best, "many celeb posts are either purely promotional ... or simply boring."

The 10 Traits of Highly Effective Twitter Users imho, are 10 traits of highly effective _____ (and you can fill in the blank with just about any word) but people comes to my mind.

2) I used the search feature to find tweets about one of my favorite things - Sonic Route 44 diet cranberry limeades! I found:

• "I hate you Sonic for not Dieting my Route 44. Blergh." and I can totally relate I hate it when I ask for diet and it ends up not being diet that could throw someone into a diabetic coma!

3) Not really sure what the buzz is all about but for me I'm too busy living life to stop and get on a computer to twitter to let the anyone know what I am doing and my cell phone despite the $178.00 monthly bill associated with it is useless!

"After years of bemoaning the decline of a literary culture in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts says in a report that it now believes a quarter-century of precipitous decline in fiction reading has reversed." For the complete article

Playing for Change

Mark Johnson is the co-director of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music: Playing for Change: Peace Through Music

Something Bill Moyers says really resonated with me in regard to how foreign the past political campaign seems to the reality of my everyday life. He states, "How foreign and fraudulent the politics of sleaze, the polarizing almost savage pursuit of power that strokes the paranoia in us in order to divide and conquer."

So if you are like me and need to meet someone "who hasn't given up on either our humanity or our future together." Let me introduce you to Mark Johnson.

Pot Luck #55: Getting the Most Out of Facebook

1. I already have a Facebook account

2. I currently have 43 friends and have searched for new friends in all the ways described.

3. The applications use on Facebook include Living Social: Visual Bookshelf, Shelfari, Bumper Sticker, WorldCat, and My Music among others.

4. Looking at my applications was a good chance to "clean house." I removed several applications that I don't really use. What happens is when someone sends you a Valentine's Day present for example and you accept it that adds the Valentine's Day gift application to your applications when really all you may have wanted to do was accept the gift. I never really got into giving because they are not all free. So I took this opportunity to clean up my applications. I also have a better understanding of how they work, for example, if you ignore something your friend will NOT be notified so I don't feel as obligated to accept invitations to join groups, mailing lists, petitions, etc. I like Facebook because I have out-of-state friends and family and it makes keeping in touch with them very easy. No more getting double prints and mailing them in snail mail, yes this is what I did when my kids were growing up with out-of-state grandparents. Today I have a niece with a 7 month old little girl who lives in Indiana and I get to see photos of her almost daily and even videos of her. Though my friend list is nowhere near the hundreds like my daughters are I am guessing this is because Facebook is much more popular with the younger set. I do occassionally find a new friend who I graduated from high school or college with has recently joined Facebook so I guess it's catching on with those my age.