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Saturday and a $1,149 DSLR Camera Giveaway

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Happy Saturday everyone! This past week definitely flew by. I guess that’s what happens when you are extremely busy. I don’t really have anything planned for the weekend (at least nothing that I can think of) except for lots of blog and planning for me and my friend’s new business.

If you have any tips on starting a new business, and also starting a new business with a partner, then throw them at me. I have a couple of blog posts in the works about that, but of course it always takes me forever to actually get around to that.

Also on Monday I will have my February extra income and goals update, so be sure to check that out. Every month, my monthly extra income update always seems to be very popular. Is there anything specific that you would like to see in my monthly extra income posts? I want to be as helpful as I can!

Posts on my blog this week:

  1. $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates – I did better with my income last week. So many things are going on in my life right now. It needs to calm down 🙂
  2. #Tag: Getting to Know the “Person” Behind the Personal Finance Blog – Do you want to know more about me? Maybe not but oh well. REad this post to learn further about why I blog and why I blog about personal finance.
  3. Getting Out of Debt… With a Plan – I had a guest post on my blog for the third week of my Debt Series. Do you have a plan for your debt?
  4. Is Clutter Ruining Your Productivity? – This is a post by Jordann all about clutter and productivity.

 

 Posts I loved this week:

  1. The Death of the 9-5 Work Week Young Adult Money
  2. Do you ever feel guilty for everything that you have and make? Mochi and Macarons
  3. “Oh you are SO lucky, you must be rich!” Budgets are Sexy
  4. What Bootstraps? Girl With the Red Balloon

Saturday…

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Happy Saturday everyone! If you were lucky/unlucky enough to be hit by the snowstorm, then this could possibly be the third day of your long, unexpected weekend. I had Thursday off, but the roads were fine where I live so I went to work on Friday.

I have a full weekend. Yesterday, our close friends got married and had a lunch reception (which we missed because the wedding was planned last second). After both W and I got out of work we went out to celebrate. The celebrations continue tonight as well. I’m SUPER excited to go out with a big group because feels like it’s been forever (it actually hasn’t but oh well). We plan on giving them their gift today and I need to put that together still. Thanks everyone for your suggestions on Twitter yesterday 🙂

However, before that, me and my friend are having a little business meeting to talk about the business that we plan on opening soon. I can’t wait until I can officially tell everyone what this new business is. Some of you already know since you guessed correctly last week 🙂 Hopefully it goes well!

Posts from my blog:

  1. $823 in Extra Income and Life Updates – Extra income was slightly down last week, but I’m still happy with it.
  2. Blogger or WordPress – Tips on How to Move – Are you still on Blogger? You should think about switching! Blogger can delete your blog whenever they want to. In this post there are tips about how to move and why you should move.
  3. How We Handled $32,000 in Student Loans – I had a guest post to kick off the second week of my debt payoff series. Read about what her and her family did to eliminate student loans.
  4. Buying a Home as a Minimalist – Jordann talks all about her and homes!

 

Posts from my sister’s blog:

  1. 10 Tips For When Eating Out – My sister is super healthy and does certain things when she goes out to eat in order to stay healthy.
  2. Typical Day Of Meals – My sister is on a new food plan! I definitely couldn’t do what she does, but it’s nice to think about 😛
  3. Prep Your Meals For The Week – Save Money! – Over the weekend my sister spent a couple of hours prepping her meals for the whole week. It’s a great idea to save money and also to save time during the week!

 

I am loving these posts this week as they relate to my life in some form:

  1. How to pay off your mortgage in 3 not so easy steps Money Master Mom
  2. Feeling Forced to Tip Even for Horrible Service? Girl Meets Debt
  3. How Much is Too Much? Live Real, Now
  4. **Rant Alert** – An Online Business is NOT a Passive Income Source Debt Roundup
  5. Traveling is more fun when you are young Retire By 40
  6. How much do your friends or family know about your money? Mochi & Macarons
  7. Taking the Plunge: Why I Love Being Self-Employed Frugal Rules

Saving Money on Food

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 39 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

sushi

I love sushi, but it’s just too expensive!

It’s no secret that I’m really trying to save as much money as I can so that I can pay off my student loans as quickly as possible.

The thought of still having them in the summer time would make me sad (and a little mad), so I’m trying as hard as I can to keep with the goal of having them gone by March or April of this year.

On a side note, Sharon over at Midlife Mom Musings switched from Blogger to WP and wants you all to follow her on over there. I know what it was like when I switched from Blogger to WP, and I hated losing so many readers because they couldn’t find my link. I thought I’d make it a little easier for her 🙂 And if you haven’t yet, please read my post about how to start a blog!

Anyways, my $38,000 Student Loan Payoff Plan is going well and I’ve already knocked out a big chunk. The other day I also completely knocked out a private student loan that I’ve had since 2007 that was almost up to $6,000!

I’ve been ramping up the ways that I make extra income and this has helped me a lot with paying down my student loan debt. I’m all about increasing my income!

However, even with all of our increases in extra income, we have been spending way too much on food. I know that if we didn’t eat out so much, then we would be saving even more.

[Read more…]

Spending Less Money on Clothes

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 71 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

My closet last year.

Hey everyone! Today’s post is all about spending less money on clothes.

And there’s a giveaway too. I’m glad to be a part of another giveaway. I really am enjoying taking part in these, and I hope you guys still love winning stuff! If you’re anything like me, then you probably enter tons of giveaways every week.

I made a post early last year titled A peak into my insanity (AKA my closet). At that time, I talked about how I had TONS of clothes. My closet is actually the old laundry room (we have the washer, dryer, etc. in the basement), so this is a decent sized closet that I have. And it’s COMPLETELY packed. You can hardly walk into it now.

I don’t wear a ton of it because a lot of my daily outfits are business clothes for my job. I had over 50 dresses, over 20 skirts, over 70 shirts, and so on. And this is with me selling my clothes every month. If I never sold clothes or got rid of them every month, I can’t even imagine what my closet would look like.

While I would love to save that my shopping problem is under control, it most likely is not. Yes, I’m not spending as much money as I used to, but I really need to start selling things in my closet in order to make things more efficient. Spending an hour each time I’m looking for a specific clothing item is just a little excessive.

Jordann, on my blog, recently talked about Maintaining a Minimalist Wardrobe. This is something that I definitely want to work on.

My plan

Now, I don’t plan on just not buying anything ever again. I do love clothes and dressing nice. Instead, my plan will be to focus more on quality and not just quantity. Yes, I will buy the occasional “trendy” dress from Forever 21 or Express, but for the most part I want to be saving my money and spending it on better quality items that will last longer. I will also be following a lot of the tips that are listed on J’s site How to Save Money on Clothes. I love her website and how she’s able to come up with so many different ideas.

I also plan on not buying items until I clear out items out of my closet. For every 1 item that I buy, I want to put TWO items from my closet into a bag that will be either sent to be donated or sold.

How much do I want to spend?

I do want to start spending less on clothes as well of course. I want to spend the least amount of money out of my own pocket on clothes that I can. My goal is to spend less than $100 out of my own pocket on clothes per month. So this does not include whatever I spend on gift cards or the money I get from selling clothes.

This is not exactly a “no spend” year, but it is a start. I know many people who spend much more than this amount every week on clothes.

This doesn’t seem like too hard of a task for me to complete, but it’s also about me cleaning out my closet. I have a couple hundred in clothing gift cards already, and will make a couple hundred more from credit card rewards. Also, I already have a ton of clothes in my closet that will work for the next year and still look great, so it’s not like I’ll be going naked everywhere.

I have a decent amount of clothing gift cards that I have received lately. Some I received for Christmas from my sister, and some I have won from giveaways. I plan on trying to use gift cards to fund my clothing spending. This won’t be super difficult, as I also plan on using the gift cards and cash that I earn from my credit card rewards towards this as well.

I also plan on selling a lot of my clothes that are currently in my closet and using this money towards buying new clothes as well. Wish me luck! At the end of 2013 I will make an update post on how much I spent on clothes throughout the year, and how much I spent out of my own pocket on clothes.

Are you trying to spend less on clothes?

What do you do to save money on clothes?

Last question, how much do you spend on clothes in a month and in a year?

$940 in Extra Income, Life Updates and 2013 Goals

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 35 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

photo(1)
Happy Monday everyone! Another Weekly Update post. I hope you all enjoyed my St. Thomas and St. John pictures in my weekly update post from last week. Also, don’t forget to check out my sister’s blog, FITnancials, that I am helping run (she is the writer).

I also have a $399 cash or tablet giveaway that will be up on my blog later today. Please come back and check that out!

Didn’t do a whole ton this past weekend. Time flew by and we wasted a lot of time relaxing. Should have been more productive! Spent Saturday relaxing and at night watched Gangster Squad. It was good! Ryan Gosling definitely was just an added bonus in the movie 🙂

Then on Sunday spent about 5 hours looking for homy gym equipment, and then about 3 hours setting it all up.

2013 GOALS

I realized the other day that I didn’t make 2013 goals yet. Yes, I made my 2012 and 5 Year Review – So many GOOD things post but I didn’t actually list any goals for this year. So here we go:

1. Pay off ALL of my student loans.

My goal is to completely wipe out the $38,000 of student loans that I graduated with in August. I’ve been calculating it (yes, I do this all the time) and they are still on track to be completely gone by March or April of this year. April will be the latest and lets just hope that nothing changes and takes me off from this schedule.

2. Get super fit.

Now that we plan on having everything that we need to work out in our basement, we definitely should have no problem with working out and getting more toned. Me and W plan on making a workout schedule for ourselves and are super excited to see our results.

3. Save for a decent sized down payment.

We are about 75% positive that we want to buy a new house in 2014. I plan on making a new post on this soon. A lot of you have wondered why we want a new house and why we want to sell our current house. It’s probably all lifestyle inflation and in my head but I still want one.

4. Plan an awesome wedding!

We are most likely thinking Spring of 2014 and last month I posted some wedding ideas. Of course there’s a long list of things that need to be done, and I’ve done pretty much nothing 🙂

Spending:

We did spend some money in the past week, but some of it was from bonus money that W earned. He gets a bonus card from the car brand he sells, and it’s all deposited on a debit card. Now, this is different from his monthly “salesman of the month” bonus that he’s been earning (that is all direct deposited into our bank account).  It’s all extra money so we decided to spend some money on ourselves and have some fun.

And we did spend a lot of other money, which you can see below in my “being healthy” section below.

Screen Shot 2013-01-13 at 2.19.42 AM

Extra Income (does not include salary from our jobs):

I did good last week, but I am expecting the next couple of weeks to be better. I’m waiting on a couple of payments and I have some things scheduled for the next couple of weeks. Lets just hope nothing falls through! I made $940 in extra income last week.

Food: 

No meal plan again for this week. We didn’t do the greatest with eating in last week, mainly because of laziness. We do have a well stocked fridge, I just need to cook some dinners before everything goes bad!

Being healthy:

I haven’t been doing the greatest with this. We did buy a home gym yesterday (pictured above), which was SUPER expensive. I did not realize how much everything would be just so that W could lift some weights. The olympic bar alone was $320 (tax included) and that doesn’t include any of the weights which were super expensive too ($150 for the two 45 pound weights).

We are still looking for a treadmill. We saw a couple yesterday but I wanted to do a little research on them. It needs to be reliable and good for 3 people to use every day. What brand/type of treadmill do you have? Let me know!

How’s your spending, working out and extra income going?

I started a new BLOG!

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 19 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hey everyone! I bet you all are very happy that it’s Saturday. I know I am! This was a long week for me considering it was my first full 5-day work week since the BEGINNING of December. Talk about having it rough, right? 😛

I finally made my Ways to Earn Extra Income Part 1 post so I hope you all enjoyed it. I have a feeling that this will be a fairly long series that will most likely last forever 🙂

I do have a question for you all: Is there something that you would like to see more of on my blog? Or is there something that you would like to see less of? Or what would you change? I’m all about growing and improving and I’m interested to hear what you all have to say. Please leave a comment below (can be either from you or anonymously).

NEW BLOG

I also started a new blog and it went live TODAY. My sister is the author and I’m just there to help her get the hang of things and to be the behind-the-scenes person 🙂 I hope you all check out the blog. There will also be a giveaway there soon, so that’s another reason to follow her!

Check out FITnancials. Follow on Twitter and you can also be one of her 2,600 Instagram followers that she has had on her fitness Instagram account for quite some time.

Here’s a little tidbit about her:

“I started attempting the ‘healthy lifestyle’ about a year and a half ago. My overall journey in trying to ‘get skinny in any way possible’ started in my Freshman year of high school. I came home from spending the summer with my dad (lounging and eating ALL day) and my mother commented on my weight. (To put it nicely). That’s where it all began.”

Recent posts from my blog:

  1. $1,193 in Extra Income, Life and Picture Updates
  2. Keeping Up With The Joneses
  3. Ways to Earn Extra Income Part 1 
  4. Dreaming of the Future
  5. $5,770 in Extra Income in December
  6. Cooking in a Minimalist Kitchen

Posts I love:

  1. On Passion for Blogging and Burnouts Thirty Six Months
  2. How to Use a Credit Card Like Cash Single Moms Income
  3. Modesty Really is the Best Policy Modest Money
  4. How to afford a vacation when you’re broke Newlyweds on a Budget
  5. Building A Dividend Portfolio For Passive Income Retire By 40
  6. Bold Move By Discover – The Discover it™ Credit Card Money Life and More

Top 5 Referrers to my blog:

  1. When I get where I’m going
  2. Shaking the Money Tree
  3. TeacHer Finance
  4. Plunged in Debt
  5. Frugal Rules

Handmade Map Pendant GIVEAWAY

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 28 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I have a great giveaway today from Chellas Collection. There are great items offered at this Etsy shop which have really cute personal touches. I don’t know about you all, but I love maps being displayed in different manners, such as in pendants.

The map I selected is below (of Copenhagen) and you can choose anywhere that your heart desires. Maybe you want your hometown, the place where you and your significant other met, your favorite place, or somewhere else.

She doesn’t use any glass or resin kit inserts for covering the maps inside the pendants. She only uses professional industrial strength liquid resin, which she pours individually for each pendant. This means that everything is truly handmade by her.

This Etsy shop does both custom and has ready-made items, so the options are unlimited. She uses maps that she has and does not print them off the internet or use Photoshop, this just adds a nice little custom touch to everything, and makes it all look awesome.

Here’s a quote directly from her Etsy shop:

“My handmade Map Pendants are meant to symbolize special places that bring you fond memories. I have an ever expanding personal collection of original maps and atlases(many vintage)that I have gathered for years from tag sales and estate sales. Name your City! I also do alot of Baseball/Football Stadiums, Universities, and Military facilities(keep in mind, they must be on a printed map and not all are…….). Typically I can offer you two or three map choices of the city you’re looking for.”

I LOVE everything that she offers, and it’s all super cute. I ended up choosing the Copenhagen pendant.

I chose this for one reason mainly. My father was Danish and would always talk about Copenhagen. Like ALL THE TIME. Just talking about it made him happy, so when I saw the Copenhagen pendant, I knew that it would be perfect for me. Just one more thing to remind myself of him.

 

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