Frugal Babe

J and I have all of our bank accounts with one big name bank.  We have a checking account, a home equity line of credit (the second mortgage we needed in order to qualify for the loan on our house), a credit card, a business checking account, and a business savings account.  I’m not particularly [...]

Last year, we went to New Zealand in October to visit friends. We had just bought our first digital camera, and J spent lots of time testing the various features for taking close-up pictures. His subjects were generally flowers and plants, which seem to bloom with very little effort all over NZ. [...]

I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day.  Now that it’s officially the ‘holiday season’ I got started on my holiday projects over the weekend.  We have 5 wonderful nieces who need toys like  Bill Gates needs a handout.  Between their parents and very doting grandparents, they have overflowing play rooms, and really don’t remember half the toys [...]

We didn’t spend any money last weekend.  It wasn’t something we tried to do, and we didn’t even realize it until Monday.  Several years ago, when we were both working for a big company, we would often spend $200 in an average weekend.  We worked very long hours during the week, so the weekend was our [...]

Everybody Loves your Money has got the Carnival of Personal Finance up and ready for your reading pleasure.  I love the post from Inchoate Random Abstractions about how greed and envy have taken over our lives, and seem to get even worse at this time of year.  I too will be spending Thanksgiving (and the day [...]

The Carnival of Debt Reduction is up at Money, Matter, and More Musings.  My favorite posts were the Simple Dollar’s list of 100 questions to ask yourself about your financial mindset, and Verve Coaching’s insightful discussion about the psychology of money.  There’s lots of good stuff to inspire us all to chip away a little [...]

I sat down to write about my favorite cheap food, and ended up reading all sorts of other pf blogs.  Before I knew it, I’d been clicking from one to another for well over an hour.  Wow, time flies when I’m reading lots of stuff from people who think like I do.  I just discovered [...]

J and I are not that far along on our financial planning path.  He’s 30, I’m 28, and we’re still in the early years of being self-employed.  But even though the net worth numbers aren’t huge yet, we feel like we’re on the right path.  We each contribute $200/month to an IRA, and we put [...]

Yesterday I was at the library, and I noticed a magazine called Real Simple in our library friends bookstore.  I’ve seen this mag before, but had never really paid much attention.  Since the library friends store sells magazines for 10 cents, I figured I might as well part with a dime and look at their [...]

I have a dear friend who lives in New Zealand.  We e-mail all the time, but until recently, we didn’t talk on the phone much because it was so expensive.  Lately, I’ve been using Vonage and paying 6 cents/minute to call her, which is pretty darn cheap.  $3.60 for an hour of yakking is tough [...]