Skip to main content

Hanging It Up

Even before we were married, my husband has done my laundry. It's a chore he doesn't mind, he says, and I gladly let him do it. I know it's probably not typical, but I'd much rather clean the toilet than fold and put away clothes. I have no idea why I feel that way.

That's why I asked his opinion a few years ago when I had the thought that we should get a clothesline. He was fine with it, so off we went to Ace Hardware to buy a clothesline. We found an umbrella one that we (I mean, he) can put up when he needs it and take down when he's done. (Yes, I do realize how lucky I am.)

We paid less than $40 for the clothesline, and I swear we saved that much in our electric bill the first summer we used it. However, we recently discovered that there was an issue with the outlet that our dryer was connected to that burned up the cord. We got it fixed, but the electric bill is still giving me fits. To save money, I hope that the weather this spring and summer is warm enough that we can continue to use the clothesline yet cool enough that our air conditioner isn't running nonstop.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finding a use for gifts you don't use

( Stuart Miles / FreeRangeStock.com ) Question: Someone gives you a present. You open it, give the gifter a sincere smile, and say, "Thank you," but you know that gift is something you'll never use. Not once. What do you do with it later? Me? I keep them. I just can't shake the feeling of guilt that goes along with regifting or selling them. As a result, my family and I have lots of items we either haven't used in years or have never used at all: An electric knife, electric griddle, a big mixer, something called Yonanas. The list goes on and on. But the bottom line is, Yonanas and electric knives don't fit my family's lifestyle. They never have, and I doubt they ever will. So I think I might need to get over feeling like it would be ungrateful to get rid of them and post them in places like Craigslist or some of those online sales sites on Facebook for sale. That way, at least we can have the cash to pay toward part of our debt. Wouldn't...

Trimming the Grocery List

This week is another grocery shopping week, and I'm dreading it. I had at one point managed to get my grocery spending under $175 every two weeks, the last few trips have not gone that well. They've all totaled more than $200, not including any supplementary trips I needed to make later. I'm not really sure what I can do to cut it more at this point beyond rethink what we've been eating. Over the past few months, the price of ground beef has gone up quite a bit, and much of what we eat has ground beef in it. I had been buying the leanest beef available, but on my last grocery trip, I bought 90/10 meat. Perhaps we'll need to eat more chicken.

Getting Ready for Etsy Debut

One of my hopes for making a little extra money is to see some of my handmade crafts on Etsy. I have a few items I'd like to list -- a couple of bracelets -- but the beads on them are so small that I'm having trouble getting decent photos of them. Hopefully, I'll have something usable by the end of the week.