Showing posts with label saving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saving. Show all posts

Poor College Student

You know, I never really thought I'd be one of those college kids. One that has zero money and lives on Ramen Noodles type of kids...

I got my hours cut at work...all my financial aid is impossible to get a hold of. I just bought a car, and, well, I'm 20. So I don't have whole lot saved up 

So, I'm not allowed to eat anywhere except my school's DFAC, and I'm definitely going to have to to have very inexpensive fun. 

But I still want to be able to do fun things every now and then. So, In an effort to make my life easier in the long run, I'm giving this "No-Spend" trend a shot. I'm doing it to try and create better spending habits and to keep better track of where my money is going. 

Join me and Ashley from American Honey for a whole month of only spending money on the essentials! 


Keep your eye out for "No-Spend Spetember".

It's going to be...ineteresting!


What I Learned At Work Today [WEEK 1]

Welcome to my Weekly post, "What I Learned At Work Today"! (I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I ran out of time at work!  This will be a Sunday post after this!) If it looks like that photograph was taken on the floor of the the handicap stall in the bathroom, it wasn't... (okay, it was...) We're not allowed to have cell phones on the call floor in any way shape or form, including camera-form, so I had to do something! Don't worry, I threw that paper away.  I decided that due to the fact that we are fairly slow on Sundays and I tend to learn very interesting things while I'm at work, I would share with the blog-world.  Sometimes the things I learn are from Pinterest, sometimes they are from blogs (okay...via Pinterest most of the time...) and sometimes, I'm just awesome and I learn things for myself from my experiences or from the things that hear while on calls all day. Not all of my "What I Learned At Work Today" posts will be long and they won't all explain what this is, but I thought you might like a little bit of background behind the idea. I will do my best to credit everyone that I learn things from if it's possible!
Today, I leared a couple of things.  First I learned that...
Saving money starts in the kitchen!

     Because I'm about to become a Military Spouse, I know that I'm going to have to be good at handling our money. (Heaven knows J won't be the one doing that! He can't resist a good looking jacket...) It's not unlikely that if we're stationed somewhere that doesn't have a big city around for 50+ miles, I won't be able to find a job, so we're going to be living off of BAH (if we're off base) and his Lcpl. income... Having read a lot of Military Spouse blogs (and a lot of mommy blogs and couponing blogs and blogs where their money is kinda tight) I have noticed that the place everyone starts is the kitchen.
    Food is something that we use up, then just have to buy more. It's like...laundry. It never ends. You simply have to do it every week or else it piles up and then...you have to go out naked. Not a good situation. Well if you don't do something about food, you starve!  And we cannot have that!  So, what do we do? We learn ways to make our dollar go further when it comes to what we put in our bellies. So far, this is what I've got.
  1. Couponing is very smart. You can read more about what I already know about couponing in my post, Couponing: Simplified.
  2. Freeze stuff. I learned all about what you can freeze and how to freeze it here at Simple Organized Living. The cool thing about these types of sites is that other people comment with the things that they freeze and how to freeze them. This is cool because that way, you can buy in bulk when things are at rock-bottom prices and freeze it...if it's feezable that is. Which is where the list comes in!
  3. Meal Plan!  This didn't really come from anywhere specific. A lot of people say it's a good idea.  It saves moneys because you can shop with a very specific list and you won't end up spending money on things that you don't need.
  4. Don't buy prepared meals (TV dinners, boxed dinners, etc.) They are more expensive and there are a lot of things that you can cook yourself that will taste even better than the prepared meal.
  5. Get a really extensive recipe book or create a recipe repetoire online. Having the tools to cook at home make it so you don' tjust decide to go out which will end up costing you a lot more money than monthly grocery shopping!
If I didn't credit someone, I decided that on my own. If I did, click the link. You can learn something today too!

Next, I learned that...
Computer animation is the Coke Zero of movies

You must be thinking...Whaaa?? Well, I have two sister that are diabetic and I drank diet soda most of my childhood (we're soda drinkers...I have a coke, like, every morning...don't judge, I'm tryna quit.) That means that when I started drinking regular Coke, it was like I had see the light...I realized what I had been missing all these years and it brought joy to my life knowing there was real sugar in my pop. Anyway...Later in my life, they came out with Coke Zero. I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll start drinking that. Zero Calories, Zero sugar, still tatest good...That's awesome." Well after one sip I was disgusted. It was sooo close to tasting just like Coke, but it didn't. It wasn't even like it was an off-brand like Shasta or something, it was just...still not that good old, coke in a red can taste. Needless to day, I didn't make the switch.

Anyway...Today, I was eating my Wendy's salad in the break room and a movie was on. I think it was Tin Tin? Honestly, I'm not really sure. But I couldn't really tell if it was animated or live-action. I had to ask the kid sitting on the couch. Now, computer animation is pretty cool. I love Pixar movies. Up! is truly a modern classic...But isn't the whole point of animation that it's not supposed to look real?  It was frustrating because it was so close to looking live-action, but it wasn't.  Do you understand the connection? Good :)


A DI Kind of Day

Today, I took a trip to a couple of different Deseret Industries stores. Known to we Utahns as the DI. For those of you who don't know, the DI is basically a secondhand store that is run by the LDS (Mormon) Church. It is a non-profit store that takes any and all donations. They have tons of clothes, appliances, furniture, house wares and basically anything under the sun that you could thingk of. They have it.
I went with intentions to find things to decorate at my wedding with. It might sounds strange to shop at the secondhand store for something like this, but I think it's smart!  I found myself exactly what I was looking for. I didn't really intend to buy 22 Mason jars...but I did. Each jar was only $.50.  I couldn't help myself.  I gave myself some rules before I left to shop. (1) I wasn't allowed to spend more than $30.00 and (2)  If I couldn't fit it all in the box, I couldn't have it. Lucky for me, I'm really good at packing stuff into a box : D. I ended up with jars of different sizes that will look great filled with stuff and painted and all cute...I'm so excited about it!
Also, I found these wicker basket deals that you put your paper plates on so that they don't dump your food off of them. I got 10 of them for $5.00. I'd call that a good find!  I'm planning on putting the jars on the wicker plates with hot-glue after decorating the jars with different things inside and out and putting something cute on the plate. Then I'll have these adorable little hand made center pieces that won't cost me more the $30.00 to make!
I feel very accomplished with my outting and I also feel like this DIY wedding is going to be possible. I'm so excited to start making and buying more things that are going to make our wedding special.  Oh, thrifting, how I love you!

Getting Squared Away

Today at work, I decided to start a list. Due to the fact that I'm not going to school or really working towards anything, I'm kind of going stir-crazy, so I tend to create little worksheets for myself. Completely weird, but it helps pass the time.  My list of of groceries, household items, personal items, and other expenses you might have in your daily life.
My Fiance and I are constantly talking about what we're going to do to avoid being that typical struggling couple when it comes to money. Neither of us have grown up with a very strong example on how to handle our money, and being just barely out of the starting gates of our lives, we've never really had to handle our money at all. So I decided that if I'm going to be sitting around at work just trying to pass the time and make another dollar, I might as well be doing something useful.
On my list, I wrote little lines next to each item. Those lines were for the average prices of whatever item it was.
It looks like this:
Milk:$_____
Bread:$_____
Eggs$_____
And I think you get the idea.  When I got home, I compiled the adds that I had laying around my house and filled in the lines with the prices I might pay. Along with this, I've decided that tomorrow at work, I'm going to look up manufacturer coupons for all this stuff and teach myself a little something about couponing...

Yes. Couponing. (By the way, I happen to love nouns that have been turned into verbs i.e. Facebooking, or Googling)
Never fear, my blog is not about to turn into a place that only has ads and free advice on how to run your household. You can read that stuff somewhere else...But I think that it's going to be fun.
I've already been all over the web looking for tips on how to coupon REALISTICALLY and not be like those women with the gigantic binders of coupons in the Winco...hopefully...
best tools so far?:
http://www.couponing101.com/
http://www.redplum.com/
http://www.coupons.com/?pid=15744&nid=10&zid=uo74&bid=alk0325220313b2c1456832511
and
http://smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=MKRU3JAAR6CCY
Wish me luck on my quest to learn something epic.

 
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