We have our lawn mowed for $32 per week, and a good lawn service for about $500 per year, so obviously that is not good for someone with debt to pay off. The problem is that both service providers do an excellent job. I think at a minimum I will ask the lawn mowing guy to go back on the alternating plan we did a few years ago. The main reason I don't just cut him off completely is I like him and he does an absolutely perfect job! And as my neighbor says, $32 per week doesn't seem bad, but 32 x about 30 is bad indeed! Same for the service that fertilizes and aerates and seeds- they do a perfect job. When I do that myself, the results are not so good, largely because I don't have the equipment to aerate, and I can't spread fertilizer evenly to save my life!

So should I cancel the fertilizing service for next year and see how it goes? And how can I tactfully cancel the lawn mowing guy, or at least reserve him for vacations? Or should I look elsewhere to save? This seems like a must when I look at what significant expenses I can cut.

As in most things, I tend to run hot and cold - I'll go whole hog on an effort only to burn out and ignore it for months at a time. One thing I MUST do better this year is to keep up with the mail and related financial commitments. But my situation is so depressing that can be difficult.

I think the answer is to be disciplined and segment each day into chores that must be done, i.e don't ignore things and let them pile up. Pretty simple plan, right? But not too easy to maintain.

I guess it is directly analogous to weight maintenance, another area I am falling down on. So unlike thin and rich, you CAN be too poor and fat!

Overall I have all the tools in my arsenal - I have a hobby that I love and that keeps me sane and is my main form of exercise - cycling. My weakness is that I tend to waste time on the Internet while ignoring household work, so this year I have renewed focus on ensuring that at least some of that time is here, where there is much comraderie and help to be found, so thanks! As far as the neglecting household work, I guess I may have a true Internet addiction. As they say, procrastination pays off NOW, and hard work only pays off over time, so...

Anyway, thanks for listening. I think I may have to reclassify this post as a rant! Which brings up a fascinating question to me - how to classify posts - it seems to be a real art, a lot of it in picking useful minimally overlapping categories in the first place! For now, I put this one in all categories!

Man, these things are a budget killer! So I wonder what people gave up for this new toy? I know, I'm very late to the party, they have been de rigeur for YEARS now, but it still makes me mad to pay for them for the family. Of course them all getting new phones right at Christmas time didn't help. Arghhh.

But I wonder, what has been given up for these things? Probably savings.

I have a feeling that "financial denial" is a major cog in the credit industry's machinery. Back in the day, people didn't have this tool to get them in financial trouble, they just had to suck it up and stop spending, to balance their budget in real time! I know I have always hated to think about money, and that's a mental block I really need to work harder to get past. And my immediate family also has it, big time. They are all too happy to let me suffer through the misery of trying to make ends meet all on my own. I've said it here before, that I always meant to go all Ross Perot on their ***es, to show them just where the problem is and what we have to do. I suppose it all comes down to me being too much of a wimp. But I am quite aware that it's doing my daughters much more harm to allow this to continue to fester than to get them involved in buckling down and dealing with life.

That said, when expenses just rain down, I understandably get depressed. Large dental bills, the ever increasing gas and food bite, and the big kahuna college along with persistent old debt can be a TAD overwhelming.

Screwed! Well, not totally, yet, but I sure feel like it. I am realizing that I can't use my 401k for the kids' college costs because withdrawals go against my income, so I would qualify for no financial aid at all if I do that. And I can't borrow the whole thing, especially for 7 years in a row. And to make a sad story even sadder, it looks like my FICO score went down recently after I had to refinance some expiring 0% debt to a promotional 1.99%. BoA juggled the credit limits on three CC accounts I had with them. They said it wouldn't adversely affect my FICO score, but something sure did last month - not sure how much lag time is involved, it could also have been financing $10k of college costs on a credit card back in January.

So if anyone can see any bright lights at the end of the tunnel for me that isn't a train, please let me know! Thanks.

It was a convenient time to have the family together, and it was combined with a required trip. The best thing was I felt like I got good value, largely since it was lunch and not dinner, so that goes a long way toward making it OK. But what felt the best is that it sort of fits into the budget since I realize we can eat out only SOME of the time, so we need to cut pretty deeply into our old habits. I had a feeling of being more in control since I have been scrimping more and more the last month, so a rare treat seems reasonable. That said, I know that we have lots of trips coming up that are VERY expensive largely due to eating out, so I need to keep this rare. And voila, when it is rare it is more of a special treat, as opposed to more of an everyday occurence. I still have a long way to go in improving our family's cooking and eating in capability, but I like baby steps, not wholesale change.

I think I've been able to make a difference by more frequently keeping lights and computers off. And I'm ashamed to say that somehow the setback thermostat had gotten put on HOLD, so once I remedied that and went back to 60 degrees at night, I think that made a pretty significant difference. I'm thinking of shaving a few more degrees off at night since we all like it cool for sleeping anyway. And it's much more palatable to do that than to cut back on AC in the summer. It feels great to get back to my frugal roots. I had just about given up the situation for hopeless, thinking it wasn't worth sweating the smaller stuff. Boy, was I wrong!

In the interest of logging my expenses, today on a quiet Sunday I spent:
$20 for the daughter to go to a banquet - ok, she very seldom spends money so she is well entitled. BUT, while I was waiting for her, I checked out a used book store and spent $17.08. I think they were good investments though - two tremendous cookbooks - one vegetarian and one quick and easy meals. Like most people, cookbooks I buy often languish, but I chose these carefully. They are very simple with big pictures and simple ingredient lists and directions. And since I was thinking we need to go to more of a "rice and beans" type diet, these look like just the ticket.

I also bought milk and and $.80 donut for the daughter, again a well deserved rare treat. But I think that's about it! Dinner was leftover veggie lasagna that I made on a whim last night and it turned out to be very tasty, although a tad too watery. I had to spend more for the mozzarella since on Saturday they were sold out of the sale stuff. But I bought a brick instead of the pre-shredded stuff my wife usually buys - man, I hope she only buys that on sale!!! One step at a time. We are making great progress with another takeout free weekend! Yay!

I also refinanced some short term CC debt left from Christmas at 13% to 2% for a year. Unfortunately I had to roll some expiring 0% into that. And I got started with Quickenonline to put the finances under the old X-rays. And now I am going to renew my AAA at about $130/year for my wife and me. And I should decide if I want to go for the Comcast Triple Play for a year to get rid of $40 in phone bills. But I don't want to risk losing my phone # when I have to switch back in a year, so if anyone has experience with that, please let me know. So I guess this has been a somewhat expensive day! Luckily just about all weekdays are zero spend for me. I always take lunch to work. I sliced some Italian bread that costs $.99 instead of using bread from the $3.50 load of packaged bread. I want to start baking on the weekends, both to save a little and to have a better product. Did you know they use High Fructose Corn Syrup in bread?!!

It does have some limitations, but if you want to do a quick snapshot of your spending, it works very well. My Credit Union keeps three months worth of online data, so it downloaded that pretty easily. So the bottom line over the last three months is it said we are overspending by a couple of thousand! Sounds about right with Christmas. It only does budgeting very simply by comparing the last month with the four month average. But it did point out that gasoline is killing us!! My wife drives a van that only gets about 17 MPG with her usual driving, so she must be driving a lot more than I thought!

One thing that is misleading is that we often get cash back when using the ATM card at the grocery store, so a lot of cash is lumped in with groceries. Any suggestions on how to handle that? I'm pretty sure I will buy regular Quicken with one of those tax software package deals very soon, maybe with one of my Christmas Gift cards, since I know it lets you split transactions like that and the web version doesn't. By the way, I tried the free equivalent at mint.com, but it didn't accept my credit union accounts.

We avoided ordering out two nights this weekend, probably saving about $30 - not too bad, definitely a much-needed step in the right direction. Annualized, that comes out to $1560 after tax dollars!! And speaking of tax, it's good to keep in mind that ordering out is penalized by the government with the 7% sales tax.

So the major setback was that onto the CC went college books and a few hundred of travel expenses for taking my daughter back to college and stocking her up, totalling darn near $1000. Oh my, college is going to be a miserable financial experience!

Does the price of bread irk anyone else? And if so, what have you done about it? I always try to buy it in the grocery store for around $2 (store brand or sale), but since I seldom do grocery shopping, too often I have to buy it at the convenience store for $3+. We have a bread machine that has never been opened since it was new about 20 years ago (yes, I know, stupid), that I really should at least try, that is if I can find it!

So on the way out with my $3.19 bread, I noticed the blue water (windshield washer fluid) was $3.79!!!! And I felt bad for buying it for $.88 a while ago since it can easily be made with probably about $.20 worth of alcohol in water.

About the only thing we can do about high gas prices is to combine trips out the wazoo. I did that tonight - dropped my daughter off at swim practice, bought dog food, got gassed, went to get my hair cut but it closed early tonight, had a $1.27 (with tax) salad at Wendy's, got the car inspected, bought some motor oil and windshield fluid cheap at the grand opening of a new conveniently located auto parts store, then went back to swimming and walked until my daughter was done. The only downside is I bought a new brand of dog food that was cheaper and highly recommended by the store, but the dog won't eat it! And of course it's a 40 pound bag. I've been putting treats in it, but so far she has been eating around the food!

Back to topic, I have also been driving like an old man. I call it the "poor man's hybrid". The key is to use the brakes as little as possible and to plan ahead as far as possible. For instance, as soon as I see a light turn red, I lift off the gas and coast up to the light, unless there is someone right behind me. It is actually sort of a fun game, seeing just how much I can optimize. And as a benefit, I give myself plenty of room in front to avoid hard braking at all costs. Of course this style of driving is much easier and more effective with a manual transmission car where you get engine braking. When I drive an automatic transmission car, I can just feel the gas and brake pads being wasted.

I want to get back to logging expenses with software. I am intrigued by the online one provided by Yodlee.com and mint.com, but for some reason it scares me to have to provide bank account login info. But I guess you have to do that to connect with any software, so maybe it comes down to company trust? For better or worse you sort of have to trust Microsoft and Intuit, but Yodlee is pretty unknown, to me anyway. Any experience out there?

If I don't go the web based route, I like Moneydance since I have both a Windows and Linux PC, plus I can download the trial version first to give it a try before buying.

Oops, I see I should have searched the forums first, Yodlee turns up quite a few hits. So you can assume I will read them all in any answer. But at first blush it looks ok since many major banks use their service.

OK, my initial experience with Moneydance is not too good. I have multiple accounts with the Credit Union and it is only seeing the one account, even when I never typed its number in, only the number of the other account.

And the Yodlee/Mint preview demos look very good, but I'm still nervous about putting all my info on one web site. Maybe I will just look for a good sale on Quicken after all.

My wife is dealing with a hit and run in a parking lot now, making a police report, I think. So I wonder if my insurance company will jack up our rates again, even if we don't make a claim??! (See earlier similar rant). It feels like I am in the Twilight Zone since we keep getting hit and our rates keep going up at the same time our cars get more dented. The high school parking lot took a HUGE toll on the car my daughter drives - dings all over the doors.

Well, at work it's free, so that was easy! And at home, usually I use a HUGE Walmart container of ground decaf coffee in a drip coffee maker with a gold plated filter. That permanent filter feels very good to use since I always hated throwing money away on coffee filters for the European machines. Good old Mr. Coffee filters were so cheap it was no big deal, but these Euro cone ones were always pretty expensive. At first I didn't like that the permanent filter let the very fine grounds through, but now I just think of it as extra body, like espresso. So one downside of this arrangement is that it takes me so long to go through the big can (weekends only) that it loses its punch toward the end of the can. For a special treat, I use store brand beans, I think they are relatively cheap for beans, somewhere around $2-3/lb versus the usual $5-6.

So this saving helps balance out when I lose control and have to get frappucinos at Starbucks/B&N once in a great while. Like a lot of people, I have trouble resisting those horrible-for-you but oh-so-good concoctions! But anyway, I feel pretty good about my overall success in cutting coffee corners.

I've only got a few in the house, definitely all the lights that are on the most often, but I haven't done the ones that are used very infrequently. I guess I should watch for good sales. I wonder what the story is on duty cycles, i.e. which can take more off-on-off transitions?

Here's a good reference on that - they don't like short cycles.
http://biz.yahoo.com/usnews/071219/19_faq_the_end_of_the_lig...

And a general reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

I recently started eating store brand oatmeal for breakfast instead of cereal. I had previously switched from Kellogg's, etc. on sale to Malt-O-Meal cereals that are always $2 to $2.50, but going to oatmeal is another quantum leap in cost lowering, since they sometimes go on sale pretty cheap for those HUGE containers, and even if not on sale, they are still WAY cheaper than cold cereal. And I needed to start eating oatmeal anyway for cholesterol reasons, since I refuse to take potentially liver damaging statins unless I absolutely have to.

I also started cutting back my "hour in the shower" (for you people who remember that old Chicago song). Who doesn't love to linger under that nice hot water? But it's just too costly, not to mention wasteful. The shower I use the most still has the "elephant shower head" of Seinfeld fame, so I need to consciously dial it back.

The last thing I'll bore you with is shaving. I used to use disposable razors, but they are just so harsh I was ALWAYS getting cuts and nicks. So I used that nice free-in-the-mail Mach III, and I love that thing! It shaves very comfortably, quickly since I don't have to worry about cuts, and a blade lasts FOREVER, at least on my wimpy whiskers. However, I am VERY ashamed to admit here that I did finally break down and buy a big pack of replacement blades, not even on sale! I'm sorry, won't happen again! But now I pretty much have a lifetime supply of them! And my can of cheap Barbasol gel actually feels better than Gillette Edge and will last MANY months.

So I think I've gotten it pretty frugal, and that feels great!

I am pretty livid with my car insurance company. I now have the privilege of paying $3000 per year for 3 cars and 3 drivers.

The rates went up when my daughter had an at-fault accident. OK, can't argue that. But then she was rear-ended by some one who wound up leaving the scene. We filed a police report after the fact, and it appears that this is why our insurance got raised AGAIN, even though we made no claim since the damage to the rear bumper was cosmetic and was $500, the deductible. They say that ANY activity such as a police report of an accident counts as "activity", and they can raise our rates. So I told them that this will cause me to shop around, even though previously I had wanted to just stay with them since things had always gone well before.

I always loved Quicken in Win 3.1 days, it was excellent software, then used Money 2003 which was pretty good with great online bank account connectivity, but now I'm thinking of the Open Source Moneydance. I like how you can use it on Windows and Linux. I was surprised that my very financially astute brother said he uses none.

So what say you? Thanks.

I have been meaning to install a reverse osmosis under-sink water purifier for years now, ever since they became cheap and compact commodity items instead of the bulky expensive things that needed a plumber for installation back in 1986 when this house was built. We seem to have one of the world's worst public water systems, high in sodium and now I understand in arsenic!

I have been stalling due to not yet understanding what installation will require in the way of electrical and plumbing connections - I might still need a plumber, but at least the unit itself is small and inexpensive. Plus it is just one of those low priority niggling expenses, paying $3.69 or so every week or so for a jug of water versus laboring to install this bear and worrying about it afterwards. But now that my wife informed me that she is using bottled water for tea, coffee, and maybe even cooking since hearing about the arsenic, there is much more incentive. Sure it will have operating costs but it has to pay off pretty quickly.

So what low cost quick payback investments are on your hit list?

A pet peeve of mine has long been having food go bad, since it seems like pure insanity to buy something, let it sit for a while, then throw it away! So in the interest of preventing that, how do you organize your refrigerator? Our problem is mainly that we have a big deep one, so things in the back can get hidden. So I definitely try to keep things that will only last a few days up front, but what can legitimately go in back? Jars, etc.? Since I'm cleaning it this morning to find a bad smell, maybe a regular cleaning once a month or so is the ticket. Actually, this reminds me, has anyone read David Allen's Getting Things Done? It's a great little book, where his main point is that you need to review things on a regular cycle once you are organized.

We also have the problem that I'm sure others may share in that when my wife stocks up on something in a sale, say for instance salad dressing that usually expires in about six months, we often can't use it all by the expiration dates. That's a whole other subject, Sell By dates. Use By is pretty clear, but even then is it "Use by xx for best quality, or to prevent a horrible death from bacteria? "There's a difference, you know!

So let me have the suggestions! Since this site seems to have more women than men, I think I'm in good hands. [Disclaimer: I am in no way implying that only women can organize a refrigerator or that women don't have many other skills or interests than domestic chores, just that I'm sure you have some good ideas. Please don't kill me!] Thanks.