Going for Not Broke

I'm fighting the urge to buy new carpeting. ( Merelize / FreeRangeStock.com ) When I did some online research on this topic, most of what I found involved impulse buys in a department store — handbags, dresses, and shoes. Those have never really been a problem for me. I avoid overspending on those items by avoiding the department store altogether. Problem solved. Well, almost. I do still have to fight the temptation to spend money I don't have, but it's on more pricey items than a new handbag (well, the kind of handbags I'd buy, anyway). No, I have to fight the temptation to upgrade my computer or smartphone. When I find out we might have a little extra cash coming up, rather than thinking, "Hey, we can pay off X credit card!" I think, "I wonder if that's enough to replace the living room carpet." Don't get me wrong. We could use new carpet. My husband and I have lived in this house for nearly 16 years, and we've never repl...

My husband's birthday was back in April, but his mother recently brought him a late present that includes a stack of books on money-saving ideas. In just flipping through one of them, I saw a few tips I've known about for years, such as you can watch some TV shows for free online via Hulu. I suspect that any idea I would try, I already know about, but I'm willing to give them a chance to wow me. I'll still go through them to look for new ideas to try and let readers here know if they work and how well they work.

This is the one I really need to work on. Budgeting:  None of the changes I've mentioned in previous status reports will matter much if I don't make an effort to reign in my spending. My first attempt was using the envelope method, which lasted about two weeks. For those unfamiliar with the envelope method, I'll do a quick summary. You divide what you have allocated for each budgeted category into an envelope, and pay for those items out of their assigned envelope. When the envelope is empty, you stop spending in that category. My problem with the envelope method was twofold. I had to make an effort to go to the bank to get money in the desired denominations, which I kept putting off, and just because an envelope says it's for gas money doesn't stop me from dipping into it to buy myself a soda. Don't get me wrong; I think this is an excellent way to budget; it just didn't work for me. The second thing I tried I'm still in process of trying: Establi...

Sunday was my first day of my no-spend week. I made it through that day without spending anything. Just six more to go.

Next week is when I plan to not spend anything at all. To get ready, I tried my best to make sure we'll have enough groceries to get us through until next Saturday night. I bought, for instance, formula for our daughter even though we don't need it now, but I know we will before the next two weeks are up. I even bought an extra can and a pack of diapers in case the day care needs it. I hope we're able to do it for a whole week. Hopefully getting through that week will inspire me to do the same whenever I can. I think if I cut out my incidental spending, I just might see a big difference in what we're able to put back and toward our debt.

My husband and I are on different wavelengths when it comes to our work lunches. He can eat a sandwich, chips and yogurt nearly daily. Oh, he might have cherry yogurt one day and strawberry the next, and he might take a ham sandwich for a week then switch to tuna salad, but that’s pretty standard. Occasionally, he’ll shake things up and take a frozen dinner. I like more variety from day to day, so I take frozen dinners regularly. I’m also dieting. Or trying to anyway, so I’d like to have a little more control over what I eat. I’ve been toying with the idea of switching from prepackaged frozen dinners, like Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine, to making much bigger batches of whatever I cook at home for dinner and freezing the leftovers in individual-size servings. A typical Smart Ones dinner where I live ranges from $1.98 to $3.50, depending on where I shop, what foods I buy and whether any sales are in effect. I’m sure whether making my own frozen dinners would save money de...

When I turned 37, I tried coloring my hair myself. I had never colored my hair before at all, and the whole thing was a big mess. It dripped everywhere . Rather than try again, I started going to a friend who is a hairdresser to get it done after that. It cost me $30 each time I go, but for me, the cost was worth it. But now, I'm rethinking that expense. Telling my friend I was going to do my own hair wasn't high on my list of things to do. I was afraid she'd think I was unhappy with the way she does it. Well, she's moving away within a few months, so she'll stop doing my hair anyway. I dread the thought of trying it by myself again, but to cut expenses, I should at least give it a try, or just let my hair go gray. Anyone have ideas on which home product is easiest for a newbie?

The higher gas prices climb, the more I mind filling up my tank. If I lived closer to work, I'd walk there, but that's not an option. What is an option, though, is walking to the store when I have to make a fill-in grocery trip because we do have a Dollar General store within walking distance. I don't know how long it would take to walk there, but my guess would be no more than 30 minutes. If it takes less time than that, it's probably not by much. Therefore, I probably should just drive if I'm going after milk. I have no idea how much this could save, or how much the hike could benefit me health wise. I make at least two trips a week to the store to pick up stray items, either ones I forgot on the main grocery trip or that I didn't realize we were so close to running out of. What I do know is that last summer was very, very hot in my neck of the woods. I hope this one is cooler. Otherwise, I know I'll give in and just take the car.

After I had my baby, I snacked -- a lot. As a result, the pants I wear now are two sizes bigger than what I was wearing when I got pregnant. Now, I'm trying to lose the weight, both for health reasons and to get back into my "good" clothes. In the meantime, I've been rotating three pairs of pants that are in the bigger size. A few days ago, though, my husband noticed a hole in one of my jeans. I don't want to buy new clothes, though, not when I have perfectly fine clothes waiting for me if I could just get the weight off. So I've decided to buy an iron-on patch to cover the hole. Hopefully, this will tide me over so that I don't need to buy new clothes.

I love checking out daily deals, such as the ones on Amazon , Woot and other sites to see if they offer anything I can use for gift-giving. I noticed recently that Target also offers one as well. It's rare that I actually buy anything, but occasionally I do find something that will suit someone on my shopping list. And when I do, I LOVE the savings. I think all daily deal offerings are worthy checking out.

I have occasional freelance projects that I do from my home computer. Word processing software is not necessary for me to do the work, but it does make it go a little smoother, so I bought the Microsoft Suite. Knowing what I do now -- that versions of word processing software are available for free online -- I would've saved my money. I'm sure there are others out there, but the two that I've used are through Google Docs and MSN. Neither program offers the full functionality of Word or other major word processing programs, but they do offer all I need -- and maybe even as much as most families would need for children in school and  home office tasks. Google Docs features: Word processing. Spreadsheets. Presentation software. Form creation. Drawing software. Table creation. MSN's software is a pared down version of its Office Suite: Word. Excel. PowerPoint. Notes. As my Office software ages out of use, I plan to check these again to see how well th...

Like most students in grade school and high school, I used to wonder just how much I would use math when I got older. I remember watching my mom balance her checkbook, but other than that, I don't think I ever saw her add, subtract, multiply or divide anything. These days, though, I've found math is crucial to getting the best deal. Before I started putting so much energy into stretching our dollars, I took note of one thing: price. I bought the same things again and again, which makes noticing a real sale easy. For instance, I used to buy body wash for $1.98; one day I went to the store and saw signs claiming the body wash had been marked down to $1.98. True, I didn't stand in front of the shelf watching the price continuously, so I cannot say with absolute certainty that the price never rose above $1.98, but if it had, it couldn't have been for very long because I shopped every two weeks. Since I've been trying to be more frugal, I've paid a lot more att...

My husband pointed out that with tax, the cost of our Straight Talk cell service is closer to $67 a month -- this is still better than what we had been paying before.

Home Phone For more than a year, I've been saying that I'm going to cut off my landline phone. My husband and I use our cellphones most of the time anyway. It seems like a hassle, though, because our Internet comes through the phone, so I'd have to move it to the cable. However, it seems like the smart thing to do. Our home phone runs around $100 a month, and for that, we do get some use out of the Internet, but make only one or two calls per month from the house phone. Cellphones  Our contract cellphone worked well for us ... until my family started texting us at every turn. We didn't have unlimited text, and for no more often than we use our phones, we couldn't see paying an extra $20 a month so that we can both get unlimited texting, so every time someone sent one of us a text, we were charged 20 cents. So, I decided to try one of the prepaid Straight Talk phones. Because we don't use our phones all that often, the $30 a month plan worked best for both of...

I got our latest electricity bill this past week. It went up. Again. I don't understand why. It's been a mild winter, so we haven't used the heater as much as last year. Plus, I've made a few small changes that I had hoped would add up to even a slight savings: I've cut down on the time the TV has been on. I haven't been perfect about it, though, because I still turn it on to watch something, decide to work on something else at the same time, then after an hour or so, I realize I'm not watching the TV at all. Wasted electricity. I've unplugged my alarm clock. When we first brought our daughter home, her pediatrician recommended we feed her every two hours for the first week or so. After the first night of pushing an awkward combination of buttons and waiting for the alarm time to advance every couple of hours, I realized it was tons easier to just punch the time into my cellphone alarm. I kept the bedside clock until about two weeks ago. I also unpl...

I was a little frustrated with My Coke Rewards over the NBA game I requested tickets to, but it was more at the customer service than the program itself. Had someone in customer service told me when I called that MCR wouldn't be able to send the tickets, I would've been disappointed, yes, but not irritated. Mistakes happen in any business. I know that. I get it. My beef was that with less than two weeks until the game, they couldn't tell me anything. Even a "Yes, we're going to try to get the tickets," or "No, I'm sorry. It's too late," would've been less frustration. OK. I've said my peace. (And in the end, we did get the tickets, went to the game and had a nice time.) All of that aside, I still enjoy the program. I'm giving tickets to an upcoming game to my sister for her birthday, so for no more money than I would've spent on soda anyway, I've celebrated Valentine's Day with my husband AND have a gift for my s...

I love Woot-Offs. Woot usually sells one item each day at a discount for 24 hours beginning at midnight (CST). If the item sells out before midnight, no new items are listed. But during a Woot-Off, another item is listed as soon as the previous one sells out. I love seeing what's for sale. I'm always on the lookout to buy gifts for family and friends early.

One of the things I've been trying to do to save money is cut my electricity consumption. It's rough going. Way too often, I have the TV on just for background noise. Usually, it's reruns of a TV show I've seen a thousand time but still love to watch, such as "Friends," "Supernatural" or "That ’70s Show." It's a tough habit to break.

Most days, Woot sells one item all day long at a discounted price (with $5 for shipping) until it sells out of the item or the clock strikes midnight (Central time zone). In the two or so years I've known about Woot , I've purchased only one item from it, but I check the site nearly every day to see what the featured item is. The site is always entertaining, even if I'm not in the market for the featured product. Quite often I'm tempted to buy, and if I weren't determined to pay off everything, I'm sure I'd probably purchase 10 or 15 things from them yearly. Occasionally, the site has a Woot Off, in which it sells one item until it runs out then immediately begins selling another item. Woot Offs I've seen generally last about two days.

I don't know if I don't fully understand extreme couponing or if it's just not as doable in my area. (My grocery store options are Aldi , Walmart supercenters, a regular Target , Dollar General , Walgreens and an IGA, which offers a loyalty program similar to S&H Green Stamps, through which you trade loyalty points for prizes, but I'd rather have money off my overall bill.) Aldi doesn't accept coupons, so I've been keeping track of sales and coupons I can use at the other places. I've saved as much as 3 percent on my overall grocery bill, but never the 50 percent and greater savings I see on the extreme couponing shows For my most recent shopping trip, I went to Aldi to do all of my grocery shopping. For the first time in years, I got out of the grocery store for less than $100. In fairness, this was a light shopping week, so my overall bill would've been less than normal no matter where I went. However, I plan to shop there for the bulk of m...