What I've Been Reading - Jul 7 Edition

Mommy On the Go: 4 Tips for Easy Outings with Kids - Creative Home Keeper - This has some good ideas. Mostly about having 2 diaper bags - one for quick outings and one for longer ones. Also, parking near the cart return area.

9 Times Mint Had No Chill | MintLife Blog - This made me laugh out loud. I've thought those exact same things so many times. Seriously, though, I love mint. It helps keep track of my spending.

How to Choose the Best Over-the-Air Antenna for Free HDTV - We use Sling TV for watching news mostly and have stopped cable or satellite for some time now. But Sling does not have ABC or CW and I do miss watching those channels. One of the options I've been considering is getting an Over-the-air Antenna for getting these channels for free. I will let you know how that goes.

Saving money on groceries

Recently, we had some family visiting for a few months and as a result, our grocery bills shot through the roof. It's back to being just us again and I'm trying to reduce our grocery expenses.

One of the reasons our grocery bill gets so high is we buy a lot of groceries at the local indian grocery store and it tends to be the biggest part of our grocery budget.

1. Use a discount grocer or warehouse club - options for me are Trader Joe's, Market Basket, Costco, ALDI's and Sam's Club
2. Choose your primary store and learn its layout
3. Watch the store flyer each week
4. Make a meal plan and grocery list
5. Stock up big on sale-priced non perishables
6. Listen to uptempo music while you shop
7. Figure out the price per unit when buying a specific non perishable item
8. Shop your pantry - meal plan around the items in stock in your pantry

So I'm going to start meal planning soon and use the rest of these tips to reduce our grocery costs every month. I will keep updating on how that's going.

Eight Discount Grocery Strategies

Money Saving Tips Roundup: Saving at Stores

Ten “HIP” Kohl’s Shopping Secrets You Need to Know: Kohl's is one of my favorite places to shop and it's the closest store to my house - so I find myself shopping online and at stores fairly often. Even considering myself a savvy Kohl's shopper, there were a few tips here I didn't know about.

15 “HIP” Tips for Saving BIG at Target: Same for Target - I love shopping here with Cartwheel and mobile coupons and during seasonal clearance sales.

Money Articles Roundup: Retirement and Open Enrollment!

The Backdoor Roth IRA :- I've heard about this and this was an interesting article and had some good information.

Open Enrollment Advice! :- It's that time of the year again when we have to choose our benefits for the next year!

Money Tips Roundup

12 Items That Pay For Themselves :- The one I want to use the most is my slow cooker. I really need to start using it more. I do use dryer balls and would love to cancel cable altogether if not my husband's new-watching and my daughter's Disney Jr addiction.

Why We've Given Up On Coupons :- I have tried to use coupons but most of the food we cook is Indian and we don't have coupons for them and other stuff - we generally buy what is cheap and generic. I make an effort sometimes if it will be relatively easy and quick but otherwise I don't bother with coupons.

Decoding Your Pay Stub [Infographic] :- Fairly basic info graphic which gives you an idea about your paystub and what it all means. This is good info for those new to the workforce and are not familiar with how and what happens with your paycheck.

Success, Blogging and Other Tips

Daniel Norris Code Of Success :- I wish I could adopt some parts of this - like reading more, playing outside more and travelling a lot. Sounds great!

How to Start a Successful Blog Today: 27 Tips:- This was a great, in-depth article on how to start a blog and make it successful. I plan to use some of the tips here to try to make my blog better - mainly, focus on content & making it more visible.

5 ways to keep your financial information safer from hackers:- I'm guilty of not following a few of these but it's something I'm working on.

Money Tips Roundup

12 Items That Pay For Themselves Tenfold or Better :- Great article! I need to try making more crockpot meals and hanging clothes on a clothesline.

Applying SMART Goals to Personal Finance :- This was a great breakdown of how to apply SMART goals we use at work in our personal lives & personal finance. Reading this article made me want to look at my life goals and how I can apply the SMART principles here.

The Benefits Of Paying Yourself First :- I've been trying to use a zero-sum budget but ever since I've started using it, we've had so many unexpected expenses my budget has been going bust every month. I am going to have to try harder with this.

What I've Been Reading Lately

What Happens When Wives Go On Strike :- I've often wanted to do the same thing - just disappear for a couple of days and let my husband handle everything - perhaps he'd appreciate me more... :) ... *sigh* but that's not likely to happen.

Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans :- I read this article and was just so disappointed. I can't believe NYTimes actually published something like this. I'm putting this in here just because I didn't agree with it at all. You take a loan, you repay it. Go to a college you can afford if you can't afford to go to a private school. There was just so much whining and excuses it was unbelievable. The worse thing is that he encourages other people to follow his example.

Motherhood is the strongest bond :- I had tears in my eyes when I read this.

What I've Been Reading

Chip-Enabled Credit Cards are Coming: What You Need to Know :- Recently, I got one of my first credit cards replaced by one with a chip. This article was an easy read to know what's it's all about.

The Exhausting Shadow Work of Being a Modern Wife :- Interesting article!

Which Supermarket Truly Has the Best Deals :- As expected, Costco comes in at the cheapest overall for most of the items with Trader Joe's and Target coming in next. To no one's surprise, Whole Foods came in at most expensive. Of course, one single place may not make sense for buying everything and you can read through this article and decide for yourself.

What I've Been Reading Lately

Money mistakes in your 30s :- I'm in my early 30's and I'm guilty of at least half of the items on this list. I do spend too much money on my daughter and we have bought more house than we really need. Also, while we do save money, we are not really saving for my daughter's college.

How To Break Free Of Emotional Eating :- One of my goals is to lose weight this year and I'm finding this particularly hard. One of the reasons is because of emotional eating. One of the other reasons I overeat is also when I'm bored at work. Now that spring is almost here, I'm hoping to start going for daily walks - hopefully, that should help.

What I've Been Reading Lately!

Financial Independence and Career Choices :- This was a great article by The Simple Dollar. It really made me think and get motivated about my career. It put things in a different perspective for me.

The Preschool Visit :- We're considering moving my daughter to a full-day preschool closer to our home in the fall after she turns 3. We're going to go and check out the place next and this info is helpful. I really love her current daycare but it's expensive.

Book Review: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

About a few months ago, I discovered Dave Ramsey through his podcast of this radio show - The Dave Ramsey Show. After listening to his podcast many times while driving in my car from work, I had a good handle of many of his concepts and these same concepts are the ones that I grew up learning from my parents in India.

"Debt" was considered something really bad in India at that time and most people saved money and bought stuff. (I honestly don't think this is still true in India anymore - times have changed there). So when my husband and I bought a house, getting into so much debt was very very scary to me. However, I adjusted to the idea over time. And probably here in comes the problem - you get used to the idea of being in debt. 

I'm so grateful to have had those money lessons growing up and for us having had good jobs that we don't have much debt - mostly just our mortgage. And after listening to Dave's podcast, I've been inspired to get out of even that debt. While I don't always agree with what he says, I do like most of his no-nonsense style of breaking through problems. 

So after listening to his podcast for a few months, I had heard a lot about his baby steps and his book - The Total Money Makeover. I saw the book at my library a few days ago and decided to pick it up. 

The book was a really interesting read. There were quite a few things I learnt from the book. Dave's style of getting out of debt is more behavioral. His way uses small victories to fuel your enthusiasm to get out of debt. He emphasizes that it's not easy to get out of debt - you have to make sacrifices and work hard. In short, do whatever it takes whether it be working more to get more money or spending less to save more money for putting into debt. One of his favorite lines which he repeats a lot - "If you live like nobody else, later you'll live like nobody else".

Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to getting out of debt:

1. Save $1000 for an emergency fund
2. Get on a budget and every dollar not towards necessities goes towards paying off the smallest debt you have. Once you pay that off, you pay the next biggest one. You don't spend  money on any luxuries, any vacations, etc. Everything is on hold till you pay off your debt. If any emergency comes up during this time and you have to use any part of $1000, stop step 2 and go back to step 1. 
3. Build up an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses. 
4. Put 15% of your income into retirement (IRA or 401k). Don't count your company's match - that's just icing on the cake. 
5. Put money in a college fund for your children.
6. Pay off your mortgage. This step will take time and most people may be so used to having a mortgage payment that this may seem weird and the mortgage is so huge that it may take us so long to pay it off that we even give up at this point. Getting a 15-year mortgage with lower interest rates and making extra payments is the way to go for paying off your mortgage. 
7. Build wealth. Have fun, invest and give. Do all three and live a happy life. 

The only thing I probably disagree with is that he uses a 12% return on any investing in mutual funds. In my past 10 years of investing in a 401k, I've never received 12% interest on even a single year. It might be that I'm investing in wrong funds (but I'm limited to what's provided by my employer) or my investing method might be wrong. And he does state that it's 12% historical average - not every year. But still, I feel 12% extremely optimistic and I would probably use a lower number like 8%.

What I've Been Reading Lately

15 Secrets To Saving Money on Amazon :- I shop at Amazon a lot and am an Amazon Prime member. I was familiar with a lot of these secrets but there were a few I hadn't heard of - Amazon Warehouse and Amazon Outlet.

An Easy Lowtech way to limit screentime :- This is a cool idea - only charge your device once every 2-3 days; this means the kids have to budget their screen time or they are not going to get till you recharge next. This is also a great way of teaching them to budget time like money.

Kitchen Tool School: Everything About The Cast Iron Skillet :-  I bought a cast iron skillet recently and just seasoned it following the directions here. This should be useful as I start using this skillet.

What I've Been Reading Lately

Unique Difficulties That Women Face with Weight Loss :- This was a good article and had good information about why women find it more difficult to lose weight. It made me feel better about not losing any weight last month.

Protect your child's credit :- Made me think about AGirl's credit too. I made a note to check her credit report when she's older, especially before she goes to college so she doesn't have any issues.

Questions for the modern playdate :- This was an interesting read. My daughter's not old enough yet that I would drop her off at somebody else's place for a playdate. But at some point she will be and this is something I should think about before she does. Gun control & vaccinations were never thought of as issues when and where I grew up but in today's world, we need to ask these questions.

What I've Been Reading Lately

The Nine Minutes that have the Greatest Impact - While I only have one child, I do spend a good amount of time with her in the morning, when I pick her up from school and at bedtime. I'm generally loving in the 9 minutes but I'm sure there are some days I'm rushed and not so loving and patient. I need to watch this to see how her behavior is on those days.

Report: Amazon Uses Jedi Mind Trick To Convince Shoppers It’ll Always Have The Lowest Prices - It always pays to shop around online before buying something on Amazon.

How to save money at drug stores

Passionate Penny Pincher has a great FREE download on how to save money at drug stores. Check it out and let me know it it helps you out.

I generally prefer to shop at Rite-Aid becoz it's the drug store closest to my office and it's easy for me to pop in there and grab what I want.

A Penny Pincher's Guide To Saving At The Drug Stores - Passionate Penny Pincher

What I've Been Reading Lately

9 Changes That Will Affect Your Money in 2015 - mostly information about changes to 401k plans and retirement plans and tax changes.

Why we spend: Are you falling for these costly biases? - I'm sorry to say I have fallen prey to many of these biases.

The 3-Second Pause That Can Save a Morning & Spare Some Pain - This is making me think about my interactions with Agirl. I'm trying to be more patient and understanding.

Bought a Freezer!

We just recently bought a freezer from Lowe's and it was delivered yesterday. We decided to buy a fairly big freezer instead of buying a smaller one and running short on space.

This is an experiment for us in that we want to try freezer cooking. We want to beable to save time in cooking by cooking in bulk and not having to cook everyday and also, hoping to save money by not eating out and buying food when it's cheaper and store it.

How I saved $428

I wrote a post on my money saving blog about how I made some changes to my utilities recently and saved money.

How I saved $428

Grocery store success trip!

Yesterday, I had my first ever grocery trip when I went with a shopping list, bought only the items on my list which was all fruits, vegetables and milk and got out. My bill came up to $25.

I was so proud!