Archive for » December, 2006 «

Frugal Wash Day

Right now our bathroom looks like a wash woman’s balcony.  There are two loads of laundry drying on a rack and on hangers on the shower curtain rod.  Luckily we have two bathrooms.  For being a household with only two people, we seem to generate an awful lot of dirty laundry.  This is due in large part to our spare time activities being almost exclusively things that generate a lot of sweat.  We have a large collection of sports-related clothing (almost all found at thrift stores) made of high tech fabric that can’t be put in the dryer.  So I have always hung these items up to dry in the bathroom.  But for everything else, into the dryer it went.  A couple months ago, I decided to try letting everything “line dry” in the bathroom.  It works great, with the exception of a few 100% cotton things that are a wrinkled mess unless I put them in the dryer for at least a little while (I don’t iron, so the dryer comes in handy here.  just have to make sure I take them out right away…).  We live in an extremely dry part of the country – humidifiers are a must in the winter.  So not only are we saving money by not running the dryer, but the wet clothes are adding moisture to the air in our house instead of sending it outside through the dryer vent.  Double warm fuzzy feeling.

Carnival of Personal Finance

The Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Money and Values.  There’s enough reading on this one to distract us from work for a good long time!  I liked the entry about frugal living winning out over increased income… motivation for all of us who are dedicated to keeping our expenses down. 

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Our Net Worth

After blogging for two months about money, I decided to fill in one of those net worth calculators.  We’re at $68,813.  Not too bad, and it’s headed up, which is good.  Our goal is to be at or above $88,813 by the end of 2007.  Between our mortgage going down, our IRAs going up, and our credit card balance going away, we should be able to do it if we keep on being as frugal as ever.  And if I keep on reading everyone’s great ideas for stretching a little money a long way.  I’m excited to track our net worth each month.  I’ve always had a rough idea of it in my head, and I’ve kept a notebook of our debts for the last couple years.  But it’s nice to have a specific number to look at.   

Category: Debt, net worth  One Comment