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