Archive for the ‘Money’ Category

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I was pleased to find this guest post, a useful article on living inexpensively. Good any time, essential now for many people! — Zana

Hanging by a Shoestring – How to Survive on Next to Nothing

By Jennifer Carpenter

An estimated 47% of American households live paycheck to paycheck or very close. It doesn’t look like statistic will get any better soon; in fact it’s likely to get worse as the unemployment numbers rise. Not having much of a disposable income doesn’t mean you have to feel deprived, it just means you have to learn to survive on less fancy foods, repaired clothing, homemade old-fashioned household and beauty products and simple forms of entertainment. If you can learn how to and commit to doing at least these things, living n a shoestring budget won’t seem so much like deprivation.

Cut Your Food Bill

There are many different ways to save money at the supermarket. My favorites are shopping the sales and buying generic. Read the rest of this entry »

Four years ago, my husband Kelly and I got completely out of debt.

It was heavenly, and we have stayed completely out of debt since. No mortgage, credit cards paid off monthly.

We chose to sell our earthbag home in Colorado to become debt-free, and that was not an easy decision to make. I don’t know if we would have sold it if the Byers hadn’t come along. No, that is not a misspelling. While we were dithering about to sell or not to sell, I mentioned to some people we knew, the Byers, that we were considering selling. When they made us an offer a few days later,  their last name seemed like a message from above!

But that’s really beside the point, just a story I like to tell. The point here is that getting out of debt is an absolutely terrific goal.

How could you do it? For most people, it will be the same way the ants ate the elephant… one bite at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

Kelly and I are suffering “sticker shock” from the prices in US grocery stores after living in Mexico for several years. I am enjoying getting a lot of things that I haven’t eaten while out of the US. (Panda Licorice, bison meat, Crenshaw melons, to name three from yesterday’s grocery shopping.) But now it’s time for us to settle into spending less in the grocery store!

Here are some tips for cutting your grocery bills. Chances are good that you will increase the nutritional value of your food at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I was submitting an article to ezinearticle,com, a website where people put articles that can be used on other sites. I glanced at some articles that other people had posted, and this one kinda struck me. I liked its advice, so decided to post it here.

She doesn’t say anything about simple living, but you can read that between the lines. Recession is an opportunity as well as a wake-up call. And I like her emphasis on inner attitudes.

– Zana Read the rest of this entry »