Mentha award

This month’s Money magazine profiled and compared the top money management websites.

The top honors went to:
Mint.com!

(GO mint, mint, GO mint, mint)

Followed by:
A tie between Quicken and the moneycenter at yodlee
and
Wesabe.com trailing in last place….

localvations

By Friday I was itching to get out of this house!

After skimming the rates in Vegas, we decided it would still be wwwwaaaayyyy to expensive to go there. Instead, I got a call from a friend who lives near the beach and we were off to a localvation (local vacation) in Orange County.

We spent most of Saturday kayaking around Newport Harbor spotting not only sea lions and pelicans, but the houses of the rich and famous. After working up an appetite we stopped by a grocery store to get goodies for a matinee movie. Then it was time to pick up a pager for P.F. Changs and some shopping (I only got a pair of leggings to replace the pair I had ripped last winter). After a decadent dinner of asian steak, kung pow chicken, prawn lo mein, lettuce wraps, and Szechwan style asparagus, we knew it was time for Cold Stone! We made some quarts and were home in time to see Sarah Palin on SNL.

Sunday we spent ogling open houses and getting our butts whopped at tennis (no, literally, I took one high speed tennis ball to my left check and I still can’t sit properly!).

Over all, it was a good time in the fresh air. However, because we stayed with friends and our friends happen to be the majesty-of-coupon-uses we spent less than $90 for both of us to have a fabulous beach weekend.

Kayaking: $30
Cookies: $3
Matinee tickets: $14
Leggings: $11
P.F. Changs: $25 for dinner and drinks (love the buy-one-get-one-free)
Cold Stone: $6
----------------

Total: $89

How about you? What great localvations do you like to do?

Top Financial Expert Reveals Portfolio!

Kevin is very busy with answering the press’s questions. See there is a book coming out about his success as a financial guru, and he is sharing his portfolio with the world!

His Portfolio:
60% in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index
30% in Vanguard Total International Stock Index
10% in Vanguard Total Bond Market Index

With this portfolio he beat the S&P 500 by over three percentage points, and 95% of money managers to boot. Oh, by the way, he’s ten-years-old and started investing years ago- in the second grade!

I guess this is what happens when your dad is a certified financial planner, who is writing a book "How a 2nd grader beat Wall Street". On one hand it’s outlandish, but on the other- shouldn’t we all be so lucky? His father, Alan, says in an interview with Paul and Don on Sound Investing that since Kevin is a kid, he actually is better at following basic financial advice than most grown ups!

For example, his son doesn’t check his portfolio every day, he isn’t emotionally attached to his investments, and he doesn’t listen to the Jones brag about their new hot stock tips. He also understands that there are two basic rules of investing: 1) Don't put all your eggs in one basket 2) Don't play a loser's game (i.e. don’t pay a lot of fees).

These simplicistic, almost kindergarten-level lessons have enabled him to start a nest egg that will most surely grow into a comfortable college fund, first house fund, and retirement fund in the coming years. Anyone else think he’ll be replacing John Bogle?

If you’d like to listen to the whole interview on Sound Investing, you can download it here. Also, I’d recommend checking out the Marketwatch article that highlights his and other lazy portfolios performance.

How I saved $680 dollars this year!

I’m starting to take advantage of my newlywed status and I thought I’d start with my car insurance. Since my coverage is up in October anyways, I thought I’d shop for new coverage for both of us. It's one of those tips to save money that I always see in blogs, but I always think it is not really worth the time and effort. However, being unemployed means I have time to do things like this, so I did.

I have an old full size car and my hubby has a nice zippy commuter car. We both wanted Bodily Injury Liability of 25K person/50K accident, Property Damage Liability of 25K, Medical Payments of 1K, Uninsured motorist bodily injury of 25K person/50K accident, Comprehensive deductibles of $500, and he needed Collision for his car with a $1000 deductible (my car isn’t worth enough money to get Collision).

Boy that’s an ugly string of information- isn’t it?
Whew!
Well, after I typed that information into eight different carriers this is what we came up with:

Premiums for six months for both of us:

Progressive-$893.8
Esurance-$782.5
Geico-$737
State Farm-Couldn’t get the site to work, and after five tries I gave up.
All State-$1,038.99
AAA-$699
California Casualty-$862.5
21st Century-$741

I thought there would be a difference, but Oh-My-Gosh a $339.99 difference! Talk about a way to save money! That’s a savings of almost $680 for this upcoming year; all for about an hour worth of time in front of the computer. $680 an hour- now that’s a well-paying job!

I had no idea that this would be such a smart thing to check out! Have other people had similar experiences with their car insurance quotes?

Free Ice Cream!

The old adage is that you can’t get something for nothing…
… but well, this promotion is darn close to negating that phrase!

See Cold Stone Creamery is having their free scoop night TONIGHT!

Cold Stone has teamed up with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and is giving out free pre-made creations! The creations highlight their new ice cream flavors and any donations given go directly to make wishes for children with life threatening illness come true. This is a great cheap, fun activity of the week!

The hubby and I are going to stroll downtown and get some ice cream tonight- how romantic! We’ll probably donate a buck or so, but the whole evening will have low costs and high hedonic value. If that’s not a savvy plan- I don’t know what is!

http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/promotions.html

Nip, Tuck, and Free Money

As we say here in SoCal- I’ve had some work done.

No, no knife work needed- all the work done was on this blog. Just a little refreshing lift- nothing major. I think it still has the same feel as the old blog, just a little spiffier!

The most noticeable change would be that I’ve gone to a three column format. This has allowed me to feature some links to ING Direct! I've been a customer of ING Direct for years, and I love sharing a good banking experience with my friends. Now, after I've told the world about my bad banking experience, I want to tell them about my favorite bank- ING Direct!

If you’ve been looking for a high yield savings account from an FDIC backed bank- my preferred bank is ING Direct. They make it incredibly easy to open and manage your accounts. Check out GetRichSlowly’s blog on the same topic . They have a high yield savings account (currently at 3%) called an Orange Savings account.

ING Direct is an especially good option if you currently have more than the FDIC limits ($100K in a personal account) in your bank and you're looking for a place to move your money in order to keep it safe from bankruptcy and takeovers. If you would like to join, simply follow the links below to open your account and get a little freebie for doing so!

Here’s the deal: If you’re a new customer and you open an account with at least $250, ING will deposit a $25 bonus in your new account and a $10 thank-you-bonus in my Orange Savings Account. Just click a link below to get started! (These links are only valid through 10/21/2008.)

Orange Savings Accounts:

Link 1

Link 2


*If these links don’t work- someone else got to them before you did! Just email me (chellyuop@hotmail.com) and I’ll send you a fresh link.


A quick background on the ING Orange Savings accounts:
Great rate - no minimum balance required.
No fees - all your money goes to work for you.
No changing banks - the Orange Savings Account is linked to your checking account.
24-hour access to your account - you're always ready for opportunities.
FDIC-insured - your money is safe and secure.

Hey... this seems familiar....

I was reading a great blog by GetRichSlowly yesterday which talked about how we are influenced by a large inescapable amount of advertising. When I taught a class in critical thinking, I spent a good deal of time on advertising.

Studies show that one exposure to a brand name product isn’t likely to produce a change in shopping behavior; repeated exposure makes us consumers more likely to recognize a product. Guess what happens when we see that product in a store? We tend to like it because we think it feels familiar and then we normally buy it.

While reading GetRichSlowly’s blog I was wondering how much marketing serum I’m drinking a day. I know TV is the biggest producer of advertising, but what I’m interested in is magazines. While I only subscribe to a few magazines, I had the insane curiosity to find out how much of what I’m subscribing to is ads.

So I went through a stack of recent magazines and I cut out the articles I was interested in. While I realize that this is only something a semi-crazy person would do, what I was left with was the amount of ads compared to the amount of articles. As the photo above shows, I’ve been reading probably 40% content and 60% ads! This is something that I pay to have come to my door every month!

What was funny was that my Money magazine had almost as many ads as my women's lifestyle magazines. Let me repeat that: my financial magazine had almost as many ads as the magazines I get that are explicitly devoted to shopping for clothes and home décor!

*Sigh*

I agree with GetRichSlowly. It’s impossible to cut out all advertising- heck, I’ve come to realize that I enjoy getting these stacks of advertisements in the mail every month! While all of his tips for resisting advertising on his blog are good (resist the urge and take back your brain), I’d like to add my own: When you are shopping think critically about what you are buying.

Being a critical thinker while shopping means that you truthfully ask yourself: What are my underlying reasons for wanting to buy this item? If you make shopping a mindless activity that you participate in, you’ll end up buying items that you don’t need. While you may not be able or willing to reduce your exposure to marketing; if you get into the habit of being an alert, savvy shopper it will save you money for years to come.

Martha + technology = a good thing!

Normally I read books to find information that I post on my blog, however lately I’ve been finding blogging fodder in the most unexpected places. First the Today Show and now Martha!

Martha Stewart’s daily show, Martha, ran a whole hour devoted to blogs! While the whole show was phenomenal, the part that I think even non-domestic types will find interesting was the segment with Perez Hilton’s top three blogging tips:

1. Find a Niche
Basically there are many personal finance blogs out there. If you’re thinking of starting your own PF blog try and make it different than everything else that is out there. I choose to focus on my educational pursuits and my local. Other people may focus on a different layout, reducing their debts, or saving for a big ticket item. Whatever it is be passionate about it and you’ll get fulfillment from it.

2. Be Prepared To Put In Long Hours
Research, editing, and publishing these are the least amount of work you will do. Most top bloggers spend even more time making connections and working on ads. Your blog is only whatever you are disciplined enough to put into it.

3. Don't Be Afraid to Network
Ask people for help or exposure (Honestly, I’ve been way to afraid to try this!). Make sure that you’re accessible to your readers and that you stay up on what is going on in the PF blogosphere.

While I think I’ve earned maybe a whole dollar from my website, I know that there are some PF bloggers out there that have figured out these tips in order to make it somewhat profitable for them. Whether you’re like me and just want to document an educational journey, or you want to go big-time with your blog- it never hurts to review blogging fundamentals.

*****

I was watching the last hour of the Today Show on Tuesday which typically is not intellectually stimulating. Hoda and Kathie Lee blaze through sound bites of numerous topics without giving much detail. Which is great for topics like: which rain coat to wear this season or look at Busch Garden’s wild animals (Hoda: Look at it’s tail. Kathie Lee: Uhhh… Ewww!).

So I didn’t have much hope for the upcoming financial segment with Carmen Wong Ulrich from CNBC’s On the Money. I was pleasantly surprised as she gave quick insightful advice to the viewer’s questions about bank safety. Check out her blog on the same topic.

Here are my favorite tools that she recommended:

To see if your money will still be there after your bank has failed use the FDIC’s calculator. We were completely covered, which we thought we would be, but it’s always nice to know since I live around the corner from IndyMac.

This tool tells you if FDIC will replace your money if your bank was to go under. To see if you’re about to deal with FDIC because your bank is teetering on the brink of disaster go to Bank Rate’s Safe and Sound Rating System. Keep in mind you are hoping to see that your banking institution will have a Safe & Sound CAEL rating of 1, 2, or 3 and a Bankrate Star Rating of 3, 4, or 5 stars (could they make that anymore confusing?).

Here are a sampling of some of our banking institutions and current ratings:

Vanguard- CAEL Rating: 1, BR Stars: *****
Washington Mutual Bank FSB- CAEL Rating: 2, BR Stars: ****
ING Bank- CAEL Rating: 3, BR Stars: ***

Wow- well that explains the cheery little email that I got from ING the other day. It was trying to reassure me, but all it did was perk up my antenna. I did a little research because frankly I thought WaMu would be in worse straights than ING. It turns out that ING is highly invested in Lehman Brothers' Inc (40 million Euros). While it doesn’t look like it’s going to fail anytime soon, it explains the PR email.

Giving it away

I’ve finally unpacked all the wedding gifts! Most of the items we registered for were to replace old items (most were my parent’s items that they registered for their wedding registry 30+ years ago) that we already had. So once I finished unpacking all the gifts I loaded all the old items into those boxes.

However, I didn’t stop there.

I was on some kind of cleaning high and I went for my closet, my dresser, and most of the cabinets in the apartment. I was a mad cleaning woman!

If it was ill-fitting- it was gone.

If it made me feel like a shulmp-a-dinka- it was gone.

If I had not worn it during the last season- it was gone.

I washed everything and put them too in the ever growing pile on my futon (see photo above).

I recently found a blog about how selling items can be a temporary source of income (ChristianPF); however, I’d like to point out how much financial good you can do by donating.


3. Cleaning out your space (cabinets, closets, whatever) allows you the ability to see everything you have.
I re-discovered some great shirts and found matches to what I thought were single socks! By making things less packed and less cluttered I can spend less time getting ready in the morning with less frustration. That’s worth a lot of peace of mind!

2. It’s an easy project that can be done with the whole family.
This isn’t something that I just decided to do one day; it’s something I’ve been doing at least twice a year since I was a child. My parent’s always encouraged me to give what I wasn’t using to the poor. Back then, we would go as a family to drop everything off at Goodwill. Now Salvation Army will come to my apartment and pick everything up for free! To schedule a pick-up of your donations go here.

1. You make not get your wallet padded with cash, but you will get your heart padded with tenderness.
I may have gotten $10-$20 for my clothes and mismatched dishware and flatware if I sold it. Yes, this would have been money I could invest for myself; however, the value that Goodwill will get from these items is at least that high. Giving usable items away to a charity is worth a tax write off to you, but it’s worth countless (unavailable) dollars to a poor family.

Everyone knows that this economy is not doing any favors for our poorest families, and it’s sucking those above the poverty line down into it (listen to Marketplace Money’s food bank story on 7/18/08).

Donating these items is not only kind; it’s the morally responsible thing to do in these times.

Free Photo Sharing

I’m being inundated with digital photos from relatives!

I’ve got literately thousands of photos from our wedding. Guess what? The few people who didn’t take their own photos- want mine. Or they want my Uncle’s shot of my grandma. Or they just want to browse them all once, but never print them out (I love photos and I’ll never understand people would don’t print out their digitals).

So, my simple and cheap way of making these all available for free is Picasa Web Albums. Picasa is a free photo editing software available through Google. After editing the photos I hold my favorites in the photo tray. Once I’m done, I upload them to the internet (so simple, huh?). I recommend selecting the following: slowest upload, largest size (because you want people to be able to enlarge them if they so desire) and unlisted (do want some perv looking at photos of your children?).

After you’ve made your album you have the option of emailing the link to the people who want to see the photos. In turn they can download the photos and do as they wish with them. I’m freed from burning CDs and making hundreds of copies of individual photos which would have to be mailed.

(Free)dom!

Photo A: Go to Google.com and select even more

Photo B: Under the Communication header select Picasa

Photo C: To upload your photos to the internet, click the web album button

Photo D: Select your desired settings and you're done!

Frugal Furniture

Here’s our dining room table and chairs!!!

Yes, part of planning on saving money is making sure you don’t indulge in unnecessary purchases. Being an HGTV nut, I’m always plotting different furniture arrangements and storage solutions for our apartment. However, I’ve been a very good girl about holding off on a big purchase: a dining room table and chairs. We hadn’t had one for the six months we’ve been here. This was fine, it being just the two of us, we were perfectly happy to sit on the floor and eat at our coffee table in front of the TV.

I knew there was the possibility of a table in our future, but we kind of had to wait for someone to die.

Morbid- yes, I know.

However, one of my friend’s parents was caring for a dog of their infirmed neighbor. It was pretty apparent that the neighbor wasn’t going to pull through, and her children were going to sell the house. Since my friend’s parents had helped out so much, they asked them to take whatever furniture they wanted. Since they already have a house full of furniture, they took the dining room set for us!!!

I don’t mind one bit, that this is a hand-me-down and here’s why:
3. It’s actually rather cool.
I drool every time I pass West Elm’s window, and this table has those clean retro lines that I adore.

2. It’s easy to update.
I only remove four screws and staple on some extraordinary new fabric and these chairs will go from frumpy to fabulous.

3. They are quality, well made pieces.
It has three leaves and a protection pad so we could seat four or 10 around the table comfortably for years to come. It also came with six chairs, so I can have a nice group of friends over and have everything match! Of course, being real wood, they were quite the haul from our basement parking garage to our fourth floor pad. However, these pieces will last probably beyond our needs- you can’t say that about those plywood Ikea pieces!

the other Broke Grad Student

Yes, it's that time of year. The leaves and the mercury is falling- somewhere. It may still be 80 degrees here, but colleges are gearing up for that new freshman class that will be coming in the next couple weeks.

So, here is my list of five personal finance tips for the new college student:

5. Pretend free credit card offers have syphilis
You wouldn’t sleep with the party skank that routinely visits the free clinic, and you shouldn’t give your finances a venereal disease either.
If you do not already have a credit card and want one, go to bankrate.com and find yourself the best no annual-fee, low APR (if you carry a balance, which you shouldn’t, but in case it ever was to happen…) credit card that gives you some cash-back rewards. If you already have one, check out its terms and make sure it’s up to these standards.
People who give you a free credit card and a water bottle aren’t giving out the quality credit cards; they’re giving out the skanky ones who are easy on the eyes, but not on the wallet.

4. Make sure your banking institutions have a branch local to your college.
If not, you’ll be racking up fees to use other banks' ATMs. Open a new account at a local bank or see if there is a place that won’t charge you to use their ATM (for instance my campus had a national credit union ATM which I could use for free).

3. Keep your financial information secure from your roommates.
If you get lucky like me, you’ll have an ex-stripper with a convicted felon boyfriend as your first roommate. For me, it was only logically that I would protect my financial information with passwords on my computer, a mini-safe for extra cash and my wallet when I was out partying, not bringing my SS card, and having my physical statements go to my parent’s house (since I could view mine online).
Or you could be like my husband and have great pals as roommates. However, one of these pals was quite the belligerent drunk, and actually stole and used the third roommate’s credit card. Due to privacy laws, my husband had no knowledge of this occurrence until after that same pal stole his computer. What a pal.

2. Start contributing to your ROTH IRA now.
Why plan for retirement now? It's called compound interest- invest a little now and because you have years to invest the money it will grow much larger than if you wait 10 years to start investing. Never heard of this? See this Get Rich Slowly blog about the topic and this use the calculator at Young Money.
Even if it’s only a couple hundred bucks, like I did, doing this early in my undergraduate career inspired me to try and put more in the next year. While you maybe only earning $6.75 at the bookstore, putting 10% of your paycheck into a long term account will help keep you money conscious for years to come.

1. Organize your personal finances before you go off to college.
If you’re anything like me, all you may have is a savings and checking account at the local credit union and may see this step as worthless. However, realize in the next few years your monetary situation will drastically change. You need to have already started your good money habits before you’re making a lot of dough and are tempted to spend it.

What are your tips for the freshman class?

Going to the chapel of thrifty love

Wow- it’s been a whirl wind last week. I had a great time with all the girls this past weekend, and my fiancé and I have been practicing our dancing. With so many last minute details to look over (cancelations meant new table arrangements, who knew signs could take so long to make?, we broke an electric razor and our digital camera) it hasn’t been an easy or cheap (tiny airline approved bottles=very expensive toothpaste per ounce) experience.

While my parents have been overly generous by paying for the wedding, we did try to be prudent with our spending. Here are some of the ways we tried to wrangle in the budget:

I picked three areas I wanted to spend the most money on:
location, food, and photography
All the other areas (flowers, paper goods, favors) we wheeled and dealed with vendors to get bare bones prices.

We booked my top location on a Sunday, to save on price (and it was the only day open for a year…)

We loved our caterer, and decided to go with a lunch to save money. At lunch time people only need a salad and a main course, no additional desserts beyond the cake, and drink less alcohol (in fact we only have wine and beer which we purchased ourselves). Since the lunch is served, we don’t have to pay for leftover wasted buffet food.

We booked a top notch photographer and an assistant while only paying half the fee by agreeing to edit and organize my own album using his digital negatives (I use to be a photo editor in the year 2000).

I made our invitations through VistaPrint, an online printing service, by creating my own invitation, postcard response card (less postage to furnish), and envelope. It was completely personalized and professional without being ecologically wasteful (who really needs all those extra envelopes and papers?).

Our florist knew how to stretch our flower budget and made some smart suggestions:
Using ceremony decorations at the cocktail tables, tucking big glossy leaves under our arrangements so that we could use fewer flowers (without having ugly filler flowers), and allowing us to make our own vases (birch bark wrapped mason jars) saved us from a $15+ per vase charge.

The favors are small silver frames (on clearance at an online store) that also hold the escort card (a free blank business card courtesy of Vista Print on which we typed each name). Later we intend to send a wedding photo with our thank you card that they can put it in this frame.

We are also bringing in some of our own decorations: family photos for a hutch in the cake area, a branch turned into a photo tree display, wooden monograms made by my Dad carved into our initials, and lots of moss! These items where cheap to bring in and I will be able to have in our home as decorative items that I will cherish forever.

These are just a few of the things that my family and I have thought up as cost saving measures over this last year. What are some of yours?

Famous Quotes

“From birth to age eighteen a girl needs good parents.
From eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks.
From thirty-five to fifty-five she needs a good personality.
From fifty-five on she needs cash.”
~Sophie Tucker
via Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich

What do people think about this?

A day at the beach

We have some friends that live about a mile from Newport Beach. This past weekend we went and saw them and had a perfect beach day.

We started at their home in Costa Mesa (this area is also a place with free day parking) and got bags filled with:

Sunblock
Water
Snacks
Tennis rackets and Balls
Beach wear

Here is a map of the route. We hopped on our bikes and took Victoria to the bike trail through Talbert Park and the US Army watershed. While oil refineries line the northern trail, the south side trail has marshes filled with sea birds and fishermen (the water is reclaimed, so I wouldn’t eat those fish…). This trail is also used by serious bikers, but if you’re not the type for full body spandex just stay to the right. Take this all the way out to PCH and go south. Cross PCH at Orange and continue down Seashore until 57th. One side is dwarfed by million dollar beach homes and rentals, while the other is a nice grassy park with benches, picnic tables, tennis courts, racquetball courts, and other facilities.

After an hour of hitting the ball around, we girls walked to Big Belly Deli for some serious sandwiches. The place is always packed, so call ahead and order your sandwiches to go (phone: 949.645.2888 web menu: http://www.bigbellydeli.com/). My favorite is the 6310- a big sandwich that feeds two people for $6.89 and has: turkey, bacon, avocado, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, mayo on grilled foccacia bread. If you forget to order ahead, order a beer and watch the latest game at the bar.

Grabbing this and a drink and back to the courts we went. The boys staked out a picnic table for us in the shade and we devoured our lunches. After changing into our beach gear we went back up to Orange Street and headed west. There is a big lifeguard station at this part of the beach so it’s fairly family friendly.

The water is cold and the wind makes you chill, but afterwards laying on the warm sand is a hedonic experience.

Sandy and beachified we struggled back into biking clothes for the ride back. The last hill up Victoria is impossible in a beach cruiser, so just walk it. This trail makes for a great mid-day jaunt. Following this up with a poolside BBQ would be the perfect way to finish the day. Overall, it is a cheap activity ($8.00 for lunch for two), but having wonderful friends to share it with makes it priceless.

Oops- can you cut my bill in half?

When I was first planning the wedding, vendor coordination had taken up most of my time allocated to wedding planning. While the thought that I had been making more phone calls than normal flickered through my mind, I hadn’t seriously considered the ramifications.

That is until- the email came.

You know, the one from Verizon that states you have a bill that is coming due soon. This one said we had over a $400 cell phone bill.

$400!!!!!

In all honesty I was freaked. I’m not working (for a salary that is) and paying unexpected bills when I’m not in control of the money situation- is scary!

My fiancé was surprisingly calm.
Eerily calm
I thought he must be about to explode!
While he scanned the breakdown of charges, I dreaded the results.

The score out of 700 shared minutes:
Him- 600 min.
+Me- 800 min.
=$400 cell phone bill

Then, he said, “I’m not paying this.”

My mind raced- “What?!” I croaked.

“I’m not paying this- it’s ridiculous! If we had originally paid $20 more last month to upgrade our plan we would have been fine,” He said.

So he called Verizon.

Slowly, I realized that he wasn’t mad at me (or really even at himself).

No, he was mad at the system- which for all intensive purposes we had picked.
It was the timing he was worried about. If we had checked a week ago, saw that we were over, and called Verizon to upgrade we would have been covered. The boundaries between when the billing period was over and when we received the bill were the issue. Not the $400.

He got a hold of a middle-aged doting southern lady, Ms. Belle, and explained that he had a fiancé who was planning a wedding and that he was strapped for cash.

It turned out Ms. Belle was twice divorced. The first husband had cheated on her for 15 years. The second had been into drugs. She told him to get lost by dumping all his personal items out the window and into the street (just like in the movies- I imagined!). She knew marital bliss was precarious and said she’d see what she could do.

She pleaded our case to her manager and after a long time on hold the manager came on the line. It turned out that Keith, the manager, was also a recent divorcee. After hearing our story he advised my fiancé to check my cell phone usage everyday- EVERY DAY!!! He sternly cautioned. But after telling the details of his failed marriage, he told us he thought he could eliminate half the bill. But he had to check with his supervisor and would call back on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the call came and went to message:

“Sorry, man. We can’t take off half the bill like I thought we could….
….. we’ll credit you the whole thing!
Happy early wedding present from Verizon! Now, don’t forget my advic- (cut off by machine)”

Thank you Verizon, Keith, and Ms. Belle for giving us our most unusual wedding present yet!

Have you ever haggled your way out of part (or all of) a bill? Tell me about it!

Cheap meals

This is something that doesn’t happen often, but when it does I’m ecstatic!
Free food!!!!

Ah, maybe it’s the eternal college student in me, but I love free food.
Food takes up an estimated 30% of our budget, so when it is good and free for the taking- I don’t hesitate.

My parent’s retired recently, and threw a fabulous party for 80 people in celebration. They had the food catered by a local butcher and there was plenty of food leftover. Too much for a couple to eat by themselves. So I got to take:

2 gallon sized bags of cherries (courtesy of the Laurie’s backyard!)
2 gallon sized bags of chicken
2 gallon sized bags of beef
1 gallon sized bags of rice
2 bags of bagels
1 tub of cream cheese
1 tub of salsa
1 tub of BBQ sauce

I’ve managed to freeze some of this, and here are the meals I’ve made from it:

Meal #1
Mexican bowls
2 servings of beef + 2 servings of rice + 2 servings of salsa + 2 servings of Trader Joe’s refried beans with Jalapenos + 1 cup (or so) of shredded cheese

Heat everything in one big pan, serve layered in bowls, and top with shredded cheese.
Hands on time- 10 min.

Meal #2
Chicken and gravy
2 servings of chicken + 2 servings of rice + all leftover chicken sauce, stock, and gelatin + a couple tbsp. of AP flour + Trader Joe frozen green beans

In a large pot heat the sauce, stock, gelatin, and flour. Shred chicken. In a separate pan heat the green beans. Once the gravy has thickened add the chicken. Heat rice in microwave. Serve rice, green beans on the plate. Add the chicken and gravy on top of the rice.
Hands on time- 10 min.

Meal #3
Chicken salad
2 servings of chicken + 2 servings of ranch dressing + 1 bag of prewashed baby greens

Combine and serve.
Hands on time- 2 min.

Meal #4
BBQ beef Sammie
2 servings of beef + 2 servings of cheddar cheese + 4 pieces of bread + BBQ sauce
Toast bread in toaster. While toasting slice cheese. Once toasted lay the freshly sliced cheese on the hot bread. Heat the beef with the BBQ sauce in the microwave. Then top the bread and cheese with the BBQ beef mixture! Add the other slice of bread and enjoy!
Hands on time- 7 min. (unless you have a slow toaster…)

Meal #5
Mexi-ranch chicken sandwiches
2 servings of chicken + 2 servings of ranch + 2 servings of salsa + 4 pieces of bread + 2 servings of salad greens
Heat chicken, ranch, and salsa together. While heating chicken mixture, toast the bread. Assemble sandwich and enjoy.
Hands on time- 5 min. (unless you have a slow toaster…)

+ 8 lunches based around bagels
+ 4 servings of cake for dessert
+ 1 pie filling worth of cherries

Estimated cost of meals:
Five dinners at $6.00 each= $30.00
8 lunches $1.50 each= $12.00
4 dessert $2.00 each= $8.00
1 pie filling= $4.00
= $54.00 worth of food for free!

*Photo: From left to right and top to bottom
a- Fudgey layers of German chocolate cake- yum!
b- To store cake without sticking frosting to clear wrap, simply insert toothpicks into cake and then cover
c- Bagels and smear
d- Making Mexican bowls
e- Rice
f- Cherries
g- Mexican bowls
h- Freezing supplies
i- Chicken

Make luxurious curtains

If I could be a channel on TV, I would be Home and Garden Television (HGTV).
Thus, I’ve incorporated a few tricks into my own home décor. Curtains can be really expensive (several hundred dollars)! Especially if you’ve got doors that are over seven feet tall so they are too tall for the standard 84’ curtains and too short for standard 96’ curtains. While I do have a sewing machine, it’s probably rusting from non-use.

So that brings me to one of my favorite tools: the staple gun

Yes, these are non-functional curtains. We have a giant tree outside our window, and no fear of anyone being able to see in. If we had to close them, I simply pull the vertical binds shut.

I’ve had many people ask me where I got my curtains made, and they I laugh as they yank on them to close them. They are in fact, stunned to learn that these are dummy panels.
What’s nice about dummy panels is that you can make your window look a lot larger (and in my case- make it appear as if it is centered on the wall). So you can see in some of the photos that most of the area covered by the panels is actually wall.

Here are the instructions to make them yourself:
First:
Read all directions
Measure how long you want your fabric to be
Measure how long you want your board to be

Materials:
Fabric long enough to make two panels, and a piece to cover the hardware on top (think discount curtains, Ikea, sheets, shower curtains, remnants…) The fabric panels should be two-three times as wide as you want them to be and long enough to cover the window plus six inches to staple to the board.
Staple gun
A board deep enough to fit on top of your existing vertical bind hardware and long enough to span your window (and any area of the walls that you want to cover)
Screws long enough to go through the existing vertical bind hardware and into the board.
Screwdriver (electric or manual)

Assembly everything you need in one place.
First measure out the fabric and cut it if needed.
Take the two panels and staple them on to the edges of the boards. Make them pleat nicely by:

Measuring on the ends of the boards, how wide you want your panels to be. Also measure out the center and the centers of each half (aka measure your distance in fourths). Then staple the edges of the curtain panel on each mark. Then find the middle of the fabric and staple that to the middle mark on the board. Take the first half of the fabric, find the middle of it, and staple it on the ¼ mark on the board. Repeat for second half. Now you have ¼ worth loops of fabric stapled onto the board. Find the center of each of these loops and staple in the center of the space on the board. Repeat until you can no longer do this. Now you will have nicely pleated panels.

You should have two pleated panels on each end of the bare board. It’s fairly ugly at this point. So we want to cover all evidence of the frayed and stapled fabric.

To do this you’re going to staple the last piece of fabric you have to the side of the board that will be on the wall. Staple all along the backside. Now take the fabric on the front edge of the board and go to one side edge. Like you are wrapping a package pull back the fabric and secure it on the back edge with a staple. Do this to the other side.

To secure it, use a ladder and a friend to help you rest it on top you your existing vertical bind hardware. Now using the brackets screw up through the hole and into your board. Repeat for the center and the other side.

Depending on how expensive your fabric is, my curtains were custom made (by me) for less than $100. Get yourself a beer and enjoy your handy work!

*Photo: From left to right and top to bottom
a- The curtains! Can you tell that the window is actually small and not centered on the wall?

b- View looking up at inside hardware, note how the board extends beyond the window to make it appear larger and centered on the wall

c- Tools needed: measuring tape, screws, staple gun (and staples), screwdriver

d- Curtains with vertical blinds closed

e- Alternate view of curtains

f- Side view- you can barely see the staples!

g- Close up on panel

h- Close up on panel, see how much of the wall I've covered

i- View looking up, unless you get really close (as I did in picture b) you can't see any proof of the old blinds or the new homemade ones.

Fun and cheap activity of the week

In my last blog I mentioned that we are not going to give up having fun in order to be financially savvy. We are interested in finding a balance of enjoying our city and preparing for the future.
You should know that we love food.
Really love food- so my suggestion for the fun and cheap activity of the week is:
Going to get frozen yogurt at 21 Choices.

Don’t look at me like that with those-oh-you're-such-a-Californian-yuppie sneers!

This place is quality- it’s incredibly thick and decadent.

They also have a variety of frozen yogurts like: Snickerdoodle (Made with warm cinnamon and sweet cookie dough) or Purple Pineapple (Non Fat: Made with boysenberries and pineapples) or even Chocolate Covered Banana (Made with fresh organic bananas, chocolate yogurt, and chocolate chips). Yes, those are just the frozen yogurts- you still can add stuff to them!

It’s also a local, responsible, and independent business that has lines out the door when one could walk into the nearby Cold Stone or Pinkberry.

Here’s how we do it:
~Go to the website and see the flavors of the day: http://www.21choices.com/ They change daily, but always have a basic flavor (vanilla or chocolate) and a fat-free flavor.
~Get on our bikes and ride to the Old Town area of Pasadena. 21 Flavors is located at the corner of Colorado & Delacey
~Stand in line and plan what goodies I want to add to my frozen yogurt.
~They will ask you if you want some samples. I recommend doing this! People routinely ask to try all five-six flavors. Live it up and try them all!
~Enjoy your creation!

Prices:
Small: $3.25
Medium: $4.25
Large: $5.25
Add-ins: $0.95
*Hint: If you just want frozen yogurt without any add-ins or toppings go over by the cash register. There is an express line that in normally sans wait time.

My favorite combinations:
The go-for-it combination: Double Oreo yogurt (Oreo and marshmallows) plus cookie dough
The my-pants-are-tight BUT I-need-a-treat: Peach yogurt (fat-free!) plus organic strawberries

We love riding our bikes here and it’s also accessible by Metro (Memorial Park or Del Mar). We like to go really late (11:30pm) and take it outside, lean on the building and watch the drunken clubbers, absurdly plastic women, and college kids walk by.

It’s everything the kids in you wants and it’s an experience for less than $10 per couple.

*Photo: From left to right and top to bottom

a, b, c- glamor shots of my melting cookie dough yogurt with Reese's peanutbutter cups added

d- view from across the street

e, f- shots taken inside

g, h, i- entry, sign, hours of operation