December 2007

Round-up: Colder than a bigawd edition

December 27, 2007

Okay, okay, a mere 28 degrees is as nothing compared to winter in the Midwest. HowEVER . . . a Myers lemon, a lime tree, a cape honeysuckle, a bougainvillea, a queen palm, a lavender plant–they know nothing of snow, ice, and temperatures in the negative numbers. So I’ve spent the afternoon hauling paint-flecked old [...]

Read the full article →

Seven ways to save money on clothes and cut shopping stress

December 26, 2007

Like a shot, it was out the door to the mall to buy some much-needed office togs on mega-sale. Talbot’s, my favorite vendor of grownup-appropriate clothing, provided two pairs of washable wool slacks – 40-freaking-PERCENT off! – plus a beautifully designed blouse and a very snazzy blazer at the same markdown. Chico’s sold me a [...]

Read the full article →

Living on Biweekly Pay in a Bimonthly World: Ten steps closer to sanity

December 26, 2007

Item: Biweekly pay does not correspond to the world we live in, where bills are due monthly. Item: Because we pay our recurring bills monthly, we naturally calculate all the rest of our budget items-such as groceries and home maintenance costs-on the same monthly basis. Item: Biweekly paychecks move around. They precess in such a [...]

Read the full article →

Chilly Christmas Night

December 25, 2007

Temperatures are supposed to drop into the 20s tonight, after a cold and blustery day. Plants are covered, as best as they can be covered while the wind fights to carry the old sheets and drapes to California. The big old-fashioned environmentally obtuse Christmas lights festooning the lime tree are turned on, in hopes of [...]

Read the full article →

Frugal Christmas

December 24, 2007

Just got paid but I am almost out of money. The biweekly pay periods have precessed so that the second check of the month came in after the last day of the AMEX billing cycle, and because I ill-advisedly transferred what looked like an unexpected cache of savings over to Vanguard, I’d used up my [...]

Read the full article →

Next Entries →