In this Category

Articles

  • What is the Envelope System?

  • You’ve probably heard the term “envelope system” or “envelope method” when it comes to budgeting your money. What exactly is it and how does it work? The first time I remember hearing about the envelope system was when I was a missionary in South Africa. As missionaries, we or our families paid our own way. […]

  • The Purchases that are Breaking Your Budget (And they’re not the ones you think!)

  • My wife and I were discussing our budget and lack of money today. Our discussion let to some BIG decisions on how to turn things around in a major way (Sell cars, move to smaller house…). In the midst of our conversation I got an email from Facebook. Yes, Facebook. It said that a recent […]

  • Planning Meals to Save on Grocery Costs

  • Gasoline prices are dropping, and that is great news, but has anyone noticed that grocery prices are unusually high? Perhaps it is my growing family of 7, but I think there is more to it. Just do a search for high grocery prices and you’ll see lots of articles that agree, food prices are on […]

  • How to Hold a Budget Meeting With Your Spouse and Enjoy It

  • I’ve been wanting to take my wife out to lunch for a while now since I’ve been working from home. Now that Christmas is over, kids are back in school, and our baby is now 7 months old, it was a good time. We have tried to have “budget meetings” several times. I’ve tried different […]

  • How I Could Have Saved $80 Last Week

  • Last year I got a gym membership for the first time in my life. It was great at first. My company was giving me $50 per month to spend on and thing health/fitness related. So I signed up for a very nice gym at $60 per month. It was great because I showed up early […]

  • Where’s My Video?

  • In my last post I kind of hinted at the fact the I like movies. I also mentioned that I don’t currently have a DVD player plugged in to any of my TV’s right now. We have a pretty large DVD collection. Several years ago I built at site in PHP to keep track of […]

  • Financing a VCR and a $3/hr Job

  • I grew up in the 80’s. I vaguely remember when we got our first VCR. My mom recently told me the story behind that purchase. My parents financed the VCR. It was $800! It is shocking to me considering what you can get for that these days – and how worthless VCRs are now. The […]

  • The Plan

  • What is it you are trying to accomplish? Are you trying to get out of debt? Are you saving for a home? Whatever the goal is that you are trying to reach. What is your plan? Do you have a plan? Is it written down? If not, start writing it now. Get out a piece […]

  • Losers Have Goals, Winners Have Systems

  • I was recently browsing through videos and I saw one titled “Losers Have Goals, Winners Have Systems”. Wow, that is a bold statement! A few years ago I would have rolled my eyes and looked right past it. My dad taught me the importance of goals and I grew up seeing how effective they can […]

  • How to (Almost) Destroy a Perfect Vaction

  • My family loves baseball – so much so that we have 3 (soon to be 4) boys named after famous baseball players. The Atlanta Braves have been my favorite team for as long as I can remember. A few years ago my wife and I decided to go on a short trip for our 12th […]