When I proposed to Melissa we knew that we wanted to have our wedding in the fall, so we sat down and did the math (best guess) about what it would cost for a wedding and how much we could afford to save each month to make it happened. The reason we are going to get married this fall and not next was because we were able to save what we thought we would need. Mel’s parents have been awesome and have offered to pay for quite a bit.  As a result, we have decided that if we have any money left over from the wedding it will start our house fund.  We are going to continue to save the amount we are currently saving, and put any money we have “left over” after our bills and expenses towards the house as well.  We will see what we actually have left over, because as we get closer we keep finding all those things we forgot about or that slipped through the cracks.  Either way, it is nice to have a little padding and to make sure that I can help Melissa have the wedding she really wants.

We hope that with whatever money is left after the wedding and whatever we end up saving between now and when our second year’s lease is up we will have enough money for a down payment on our house.  We want to be able to put at least a 15% down payment on the house so that we actually own part of our house and so we can keep the payments lower as well.

The last post I wrote made me think I should pass on another gem we’ve found during our quest to rid our house of the extra “stuff.”  We (and by we, I mean my fiancé) tend to accumulate electronics in various stages of functionality.  Since the beginning of this effort, we have disposed – in one way or another – of eight CRT televisions and monitors.  This was a huge relief to me.  Even more of a relief is how easy this was!

We discovered Goodwill in the process.  One of the TVs – a small one that was fully functional – we donated to Goodwill.  It was as easy as handing it to them at the door.  We sold two more on Craigslist.  And one other (broken) TV we sold on eBay.

And finally, we recycled four TVs and monitors.  I was prepared to shell out some money for this, knowing from a previous job that electronic recycling facilities, even county-run efforts like your local household hazardous waste facility, have to charge to break even.  But a little research revealed that Best Buy will now accept almost ANY electronics for recycling!  Even better, they charge $10 for CRTs but then help you out by giving you a $10 gift card to the store.  That’s the best we’re going to get for an environmentally friendly disposal of these dinosaurs!  Other items, like cell phones, printers, cables & such are all accepted free of charge at Best Buy.  I hope this encourages you to recycle rather than trash those unwanted, outdated electronics.

By the way – you don’t need to search out the household hazardous waste facility to dispose of your burned out CFL lightbulbs, either.  Home Depot accepts those free of charge.

This is a how-we-save post but also a how-we-get-rid-of-crap post

My fiancé was a mechanic for years and still does a decent amount of work on cars.  He decided to clean out the garage and managed to get together a large pile of scrap metal in the process: broken lamps, old filing cabinets, lots of car (and moped!) parts, and an old toolbox.  He took all this to the local metal recycling business and earned $28.70 – and cleaned out the garage in the process!

For us it can be hard to get in clean-out mode, but as others have mentioned on this blog before, it can be easier than you think to earn some money from “stuff” that is no longer valuable to you.  We have been in full-on eBay mode as well, posting broken televisions, cameras, etc. to generate some spare change.

I hope the scrap metal tip will be useful to some of you.  I would never have thought of it myself.  Good luck cleaning your house & hopefully making some money in the process!

Go here to get some GREENIES coupons!

Fill out a form to receive a coupon for $2 off your next purchase 12 oz. of GREENIES® dental chews or $1 off your next purchase of FELINE GREENIES® dental treats.

$5 Halo Products coupon:

I noticed on The Thrifty Mama’s blog that you can go HERE and sign up to get a $5 Halo Products coupon.

And free/cheap Chef Michael’s pet food at Target (9/13-19):

The Money Saving Mom listed some great pet food deals at Target this week:

Chef Michael’s canned dog food  $0.80 each
Buy 4 and use one Buy Two, Get Two Free coupons
Then stack with two Buy One, Get One free Target coupons
Get four free cans after the coupons!

Chef Michael’s Dry Dog Food  $4.49 each
Use $3/1 coupon in the 8/23 RedPlum insert
Stack with $1.50/1 Target coupon here
Free after coupons

Chef Michael’s Canine Creations Dog Food (cans)  $0.89 each
Buy 2 and the use B1G1 coupon in 8/23 RedPlum insert
Stack with B1G1 Target coupon here
Free after coupons

Chef Michael’s dog food (24 oz.)  $4.27 each
Use $2.50/1 coupon
Stack with $1.50/1 Target coupon
Only $0.27 per bag after coupons

Hope these help out those of you lucky enough to have a furry friend!

You know all that crap you have sitting around in your closets that you almost never use?

Sell it.

Get on eBay, Craigslist, wherever and sell your stuff.  It is amazing how much money you can get for all that crap you have laying around.

My suggestion, use craigslist.  It is faster, easier and less of a pain in the butt.

Meet people in secure locations, like Starbucks, and sell them your stuff that you don’t use.

“One man’s closet full of crap is another man’s Christmas presents for the family!”

this is just a quick post to share a link that is awesome -

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/about/

this guy knows his stuff. it’s definitely a useful read.

cheers!

We went to King Soopers tonight and bought groceries:

Our total: $197.33

Store discounts: $26.84

Coupons: $9.30

Multiplied Coupons: $4.10 (doubled up to a dollar)

Grand Total: $157.09

We saved 20% on our bill!!!

Now for the fun part. We guessed at how many meals we were planning on getting out of this trip to the grocery store: (a meal may be breakfast, lunch or dinner. All numbers are guesses based on past experience)

Macaroni grill + chicken: 6 meals

Chili: 8 meals

Spaghetti in the crock pot: 6 meals

Sausage and O’Brien potatoes: 4 meals

Red Beans and Rice: 4 meals

Bagels + cream Cheese (1 for breakfast): 10 meals

Box of cereal: 7 meals

Total: 45 meals

Cost per meal: $3.49

This price per meal also includes all of the cleaning supplies that we got, and the $14.00 we spent on cat food (which we pay our grocery envelope back from our pet envelope, see envelope system). Without the cat food, the cost per meal goes to: $3.17 per meal.

I will try to update these numbers as we make the meals, to tell you how many actual servings we got out of each one. This way, you can have the true numbers as they come out.

We made all the meals we mentioned and were only off by 4 meals total, mostly because we just ate too much when we made it…Oops.  Either way, that means that we got away with $3.83 per meal that week.

I ran into some problems with a cell-phone carrier, who hasn’t.  Right?  You can read a diatribe about what happened here: Been Cheated By: Sprint.

What I learned in this situation was that using the telephone support, while convenient, is a pain in the butt and not worth the time.  Going into a store, and dealing with a real person is way better.

I worked with the manager at the store near my house when I had a problem (not the first, not the last), and she got to know my face.  When she had the problem taken care of, I told her “I’ll see you when it happens again”. Her response “Hopefully, you will not have problems any more”.

Two weeks later, I was back in the store.  She fixed the problem, apologized, and as I left I told her that I would see her again when it happens again.  She replied with the same answer as before.

When I went back in the store with the last problem, she wasn’t there, but her employee called her and they worked together (the manager at home with her daughter) to find a solution.  Corporate found a temporary solution, but it was ludicrous and I was done dealing with the issues.  I asked her to cancel the cell contract, and to have the carrier pay for the cancellation fees.  Since the manager knew me, and had personally dealt with my problems, she was able to convince the carrier that I had been harassed enough and that they needed to let me go for free.

The Moral: when you have a problem with a company, deal with the same person repeatedly so that you can have some history with them.  Then when it is time to get some real work done, they know what is going on and can take care of the problem immediately and conclusively.

I always looked at shoes as a fashion choice until I started living with AK and now I see the utilitarian side of things!  As we are always looking to do things the best we can for the least money, I thought I’d share this site that has GREAT deals on shoes (& more).  There are some really good brands – Privo is a favorite for cute, comfy flats – and all are deeply discounted.

This site doesn’t have free shipping & returns (for that, check out www.onlineshoes.com, which also has great deals – I got my Sanita Profs there for $44) but the prices kind of seal the deal.

Here’s my favorite guys & girls shoes under $20:

women: the “Spot” by Privo, $13.80 down from $64

men: “Tracker Walker” by Propet, $20.13 down from $40

Our goal is to write about how we save money and survive this crazy world we live in.