Welcome to the first of a six-part collaboration between Mint and Brewing Happiness. Iâm Haley, the girl behind Brewing Happiness â a blog about celebrating the small healthy choices we make in our lives, complete with recipes for everybody! As a food blogger, I know a thing or two about how expensive healthy food can
The post 10 Tips to Making (Healthy) Groceries Budget-Friendly appeared first on MintLife Blog.
There’s a new fad in the financial independence subreddit, one that might be fun for Get Rich Slowly readers to play around with. People have discovered Sankey diagrams, a type of chart that makes it easy to visualize data flows. That sounds sort of geeky, I know, so it’s probably best to show an example. Or four.
Perhaps the most famous example of a Sankey diagram (certainly the example I’ve seen most often) is Charles Minard’s map of Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia:
Yesterday, Kim and I joined my cousins for an afternoon trip to the Oregon Coast. Our aim was to harvest a bounty of clams. We came home with zero. We managed, however, to harvest a bounty of mussels. Plus, the dog had fun.
My cousin Duane carpooled with us to and from the beach. We rode in Kim’s car: a 1997 Honda Accord that’s showing signs of its age.
“It’s a little warm in here,” Duane said about ten minutes into our drive. “Would you mind turning down the heat?”
“Well, I can’t turn down the air,” Kim said. “It’s stuck on high. But I can turn down the temperature.” She laughed as she demonstrated that the knob for the air volume has broken off at the post. The vents now permanently blow at full force.
“This car is falling to pieces,” I said. “Literally.” As if to prove my point, a bit of molding fell from a roof handle. I picked it up and wedged it back into place.
“I like my car,” Kim said. “I have an emotional attachment to it. But I’ve come to the realization that it’s time to start searching for something else.”
More and more, it looks like our vehicles have reached the end of the road.
Dear Penny, I had a handyman with two helpers do remodeling in my house over a period of many months. Sometimes, all three came to my house; sometimes, he sent one or the other to work at my house. The last job he did for me, he said on his way out the door that […]
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
Want to get in shape? Don’t worryâit doesn’t have to cost you half your paycheck.
The post 6 tips for getting fit on a budget appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
If you’re ready to account for where every cent of your money goes, You Need a Budget could work for you. The app is based on the premise of “giving every dollar a job,” meaning you budget for every expense — fixed, discretionary or otherwise. Want to buy a new purse or pair of shoes? If your monthly clothing budget is $100, then you may not be able to afford it this month. Friends want to double date at that trendy new Italian restaurant? It may not be in your $200 dining out budget.
The app makes budgeting straightforward, allowing you to see how much over or under you are for a particular line item. But it’s best for people who want to get serious about how much they actual spend and where they may need to make sacrifices to achieve a larger goal.
Zero-based budgeting is tough, but I can see its value. You have to account for every dollar coming in, either using it to cover monthly household expenses, pay off debt, for dining out and for what YNAB calls “quality of life” expenses like vacation. During this process, I realized that I’m not as good a budgeter as I thought. I do a good job of tracking our spending after the fact, but I could improve when it comes to setting aside money for specific purposes — basically being more financially proactive. For example, before using this app, I had no idea how much my husband and I spent each month dining out and we never really set aside a specific amount for this purpose. It was more like “we’ll eat out no more than two times a week.” I also had no gauge of my own discretionary spending, since this money comes out of my personal account. Using the tool allowed me to see that we spend less than $200 a month eating out, but that I need to keep a better eye on my discretionary spending for things like beauty and hair products and anything from Amazon.com (Amazon Prime admittedly has turned me into a shopping junkie). We plan to buy a house within a few years, so YNAB allowed me to see that these are two areas where we (or I) could curb spending and put that additional money toward a down payment. Actually seeing the budget also showed me that we could be saving more. We have more cushion than we need in our account for household expenses, so it might be better to put more of that money toward retirement or paying down my student loans.
Indulging your love of good eats doesn’t have to mean forgoing your frugal foodie status.
The post Frugal foodies: 4 tips to eat out on a budget appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
Learn how to live it up during the summer festival season without draining your wallet.
The post 3 pro tips to survive festival season on a budget appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
Honeymoon planning doesn’t have to be a source of financial stress.
The post 6 ways to plan a honeymoon on a budget appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
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This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.