I will blog for free Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

Finally, it looks like my blog is going to pay off. I'm participating in Shutterfly's 50 Free Christmas Cards Promotion. If you have a blog you can too. Here is my shameless promotion for Shutterfly. Over the years Danielle has tastefully used our digital pictures to create photo books, greeting cards, and calendars. A few months ago I saw how special a personalized calendar was to Danielle's grandma. This summer our family was visiting "Great Grandma" from out of state. She was proudly displaying in her living room her calendar from 2008, the month was correct but year was a bit off. Great Grandma loves seeing bright and colorful pictures of her kids, grand kids, and great grand kids. Our family draws names for Christmas thus the two year gap in calendars, but this year we will make sure that she gets a new Shutterfly calendar from us.

Shutterfly also has some very neat products out this year just in time for Christmas. My favorites are:

• Professional Looking Christmas Cards,
• Beautifully simple desk calendars for work
• Stunning birthday cards

We look forward to sending our these photo cards to share a smile with our family around the country and around the world.

Give up your credit cards for one month challenge.

For years, I have respected Dave Ramsey and his get out of debt plan, except for that whole stop using credit card thing. I mean come on, I get 1% cash back, and 3% cash back if I use my credit card at a gas station. oh yeah! I pay my cards in full each month, so yeah I have the system beat. So like twice a year I could get a check for $10-$50, I'm well, on my way to becoming a millionaire. Well maybe not, but that was $50 I was getting for free, I was going to buy that stuff anyways, so I might has well be rewarded for spending.

Then I discovered River Valley Credit Union and their rewards checking account. They pay 4.5% if you make at least 12 debit card purchases a month. Then it occurred to me that I would make more money in interest than in cash back credit card rewards. So I switched to using a debit card. I discovered as a side effect that emotionally, I love having every item I buy be completely paid for. I really like not having a large credit card payment each month, budgeting becomes much simpler and I can look at my account and know exactly how well I'm doing at saving money. It's fun each month to earn more interest than the month before, you can see yourself winning. I'm not going back to credit cards, no way.

My challenge to you is the give up your credit card for one month and use strictly cash or your debit card. Let me know your experience and the freedom of one less bill.

you can either use credit or creativity

Living Life Richly on the Cheap
Choose creativity over credit.

I think we can all learn from this family.
"We have found that you have a choice when you need something you can either use credit or creativity." I have read their book. It is an excellent read full of ideas all of which do not include borrowing money.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #14

#14 Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford
I don't think I could say it better myself.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #13

#13 Finding the lowest gas price.

Normally on trips, I advocate not worrying about the price of gas, much. Most times gas prices are within 10 cents a gallon or so. It's not worth $2.00 a tank to hunt down the lowest price.

But today I was able to get gas for the lowest price in the area. $2.119 a gallon. Here are a few websites to help you find the lowest gas prices.

• DaytonGasPrices.com Internet user report the price of gas per staton. Also has great historical graphs and maps. GasBuddy.com is their national web site
• GasPriceWatch.com is also user reported prices. This site let you know the highest and lowest prices in the country.
• Speedway.com has a section that lets you know the street prices at Speedway stations. The site also gives directions and will plot the speedway stations on your route with their price.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #12

#12 Zenni Optical
Lily ended up finding and breaking my old glasses from many years ago. So I was in need of new glasses. A friend recommended that I check out zennioptical.com. They have glasses that you can order online starting at $8.00. All you have to do is enter your prescription information. I only use my glasses when I don't feel like wearing my contacts. I didn't care all that much how they look. I was able to find glasses for $8 that looked fairly close to what I had before. I did add Anti-Reflection Coating for $4.95 and shipping was $4.95 per oder. Danielle also got glasses for reading and driving at night. She got nicer glasses for a total of $28.90 Making the grand total for two complete prescription eyes glasses: $46.80. It took two weeks to receive the glasses in the mail.


Total Savings: $38.31 (At Eye Mart glasses are 2 for $85.12 with tax)
Extra Hassle: Knowing how to read my prescription. Zenni Optical was less than helpful helping me, but Eye Mart where I got my eye exam was very helpful.
Catch: Waiting 2 weeks for glasses verses one hour and not being able to try them on.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #11

#11 Free GPS.

Danielle found a great offer from Discover Credit Card. Sign up for a Discover Miles Card, make one purchase and they will send you a free Garmin Nuvi 200 GPS. I signed up for the card online and made one purchase to buy gas. About 6 weeks after signing up for the card, I received my free GPS as advertised shipped from Amazon.com. The GPS works great. Even if I had to pay the $160 or so dollars for it, it would be worth it. It not only gives you directions, it also knows where all the good places to eat are. The offer is still valid here.

I must warn you, I have no clue what it does to your credit rating, so if you are going to buy a house or something on credit, I wold skip this offer. Also, credit cards can easily turn into monsters, so if you have trouble paying your bills on time, or are carrying a balance, or spend to much with a credit card, I would also pass on this offer as well. I'll save my theory on credit cards for another post.

Those of you interested in the features of the GPS feel free to contact me.

Roof is fixed

Living Life Richly on the Cheap

Friends.

Thanks to Ben we now have our roof fixed and better than ever. The plan was for me to help Ben fix my roof. He and his family put a new roof on his house and it survived the wind storm. As it turned out, Ben did it all by himself, what an amazing friend. Danielle was sick on Friday and I then I woke up very sick today. I was flat on my back most of the day. Hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day.

The contractor wanted $750 to fix my roof. I paid $55 for the shingles. Ben and Ann will getting a nice gift from us.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #10

#10 Drive the Speed limit.

55mph v 65mph debate
With the high price of gas much has been said about getting better fuel economy. Many people advocate driving 55 instead of 65. On my recent trip to Michigan we drove about 93 miles where the speed limit was 65. If I had slowed to 55 it would have taken 16 more minutes and would have saved me about $1.25 in gas. In other words if I would have driven 55mph I value my time at about than $4.50 per hour. Had the speed limit been 75 I would have saved 27 minutes at a cost of $2.50 or $5.65 an hour. Unless you have time to waist I recommend driving the speed limit. Your time is worth more than you would pay for the extra gas.
Don't drive (Much) Over the speed limit
Most people drive just over the speed limit, and thus if you drive at the speed limit you will have less people to pass and a less stressful drive. If the police catch you speeding you have to pay for the ticket and pay higher car insurance rate.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #9

#9 Free Mini-Golf Coupons.

Young's our local mini-golf and ice cream activity center has an amazing coupon deal. In the spring Mountain Due cans come with a coupon with a free game of mini-golf at Young's. (Limit one free game per person per day) So, each spring I buy about 48 cans of Mountain Due. We bring along friends and go to Young's often. Young's also has the best homemade ice cream around. Also, the score card get's you a free waffle cone upgrade a $.99 savings. If you get a whole in one on the last hole your ice cream code only costs $1.00

Total Cost for two: About $10 (2 single scoop ice cream waffle cones [$3.29 each] and about one gallon of gas to get there and back - the free waffle cone. The Mountain Due cans costs about 35 cents each.)
Total Savings for two: $11.49 Mini-Golf is $5.25 for adults and $4.25 for kids, and don't forget about the free waffle cone upgrade. Using the Mountain Due Cans would make a cheap family outing.
Catch: We don't like Mountain Due at all, so we have to find people to drink it, which is not really all that hard. Young's Employees gladly accept full cans as well.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #8

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #8
Amazon.com

From time to time I'll write about where I like to shop. This time Amazon.com blew me away with their customer service.

Recently, my wife Danielle and I bought a DVD from Amazon.com for my Sister-in-Law's birthday. As it turned out that we bought the same DVD that her boyfriend gave her. So, we had a DVD that we needed to sell or return. I was really impressed with Amazon.com. They far exceeded my expectations on returns. Not only did they refund 100% my money, they also let me print a postage paid label. I didn't even have to pay to ship it back. All I had to do was package it up and walk it to my mail box.

On a side note I really like Amazon's reviewing feature. This feature allows you to see what other people think about the product.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #7

#7 Google for discount codes.

My wife, Danielle thought of this one. Most online e-commerce web sites have mysterious discount codes boxes. As it turns out, you can use Google to find legitimate code for most websites. Danielle recently bought sheets on clearance for a quilt project from JCPenny.com and saved $10. Typically, she can find codes to cover to shipping costs.

Total Savings: $10.65 Including Ohio sales tax.
Extra Hassle: A few extra minutes using Google
Catch:You might have to spend more that you want to get the discount.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #0

#0 $1000 Emergency fund.

I cannot stress enough how important having a $1000 emergency fund is. I numbered this one #0 because without it, I could not live as "richly on the cheap" as I do. My friend Brian blogged about this one as well. Read his post. He basically said everything I wanted to say. In a nut shell, if you don't have a $1000, find a way to get it asap.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap # 6

#6 Taking advantage of good deals on top of good deals.

I received a gift card to Cold Stone as a thank you gift for working in Awana at our church. This is a great gift because Danielle and I can enjoy about 5 trips to Cold Stone on a single gift card. Cold Stone makes just about the best ice cream around. So tonight we took Lily (our 13 month old daughter) and headed to Cold Stone at The Greene. The Greene is the local upscale shopping "city" in the area. On Monday's Cold Stone runs a deal: buy one medium ice cream creation get a kids size free. We got the ice cream to go (tax free in Ohio) and sat outside by The Greene's fountian and enjoyed the beautiful summer evening. Also, Lily really enjoys playing in the fountian and The Greene provides free towels to dry off with.

Since this item was not a necessity there are no savings just a total cost
Total Cost: About $2.5o in gas. (9.4 miles, 25MGP $3.479 per gallon) (The icecream would have costed $4.69)
Extra Bonus: I got to read a good book while Danielle did some shopping.
Extra Hassle: Waiting for the right day to get the extra deal.
Catch: Might become addited to Cold Stone Icecream.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap # 5

#5 Riding your bike to work.

I'll post more later about how Danielle and I have one just car. I hardly ever drive our one car to work. I nearly always carpool or ride my ride. This week I rode my bike to and from work 3 times. This is a 25 mile round trip. The great part is 21 miles of the trip is on bike trails. I was able to eat breakfast and watch the sunrise over my neighbor's house. I spend about 1:40hr around trip on my bike. If I were to carpool it would take about 1 hour. So it costs me an extra 40 minutes to ride my bike. But I get a good amount of exercise in for only 40 extra minutes.

Total Savings: about $4.00 in gas or $14.50 if you use the government rate of 58 cents per mile.
Extra Bonus: Exercise without having a a gym membership
Catch: You need to find a way to shower once you get to work.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap # 4

#4 Buy your 1 year old a toy from a yard sale.

We bought Lily this new toy from a yard sale for $2.00. She loves it and giggles over and over watching the balls roll through it.

Since this item was not a necessity there are no savings just a total cost
Total Cost: $2.00 + Gas and time. But Danielle and I enjoying shopping at Yard Sales.

Extra Bonus: After we are all done with have kids. I'm sure we could resell it for $2.00, bring the total cost near zero.
Catch: You could have to visit a lot of yard sales to find what you want. I also have the problem and buying too much. I'll write more about yard sales in a later post.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap # π

#π Yard Service.

I'm naming the entry #π since I am not yet sure if this is a good deal. I just signed up through Trugreen for 4 treatments to help kill to weeds in my yard and thicken up my grass in my yard. I can’t walk bear foot in my yard without fearing, steeping on some sort of thorny weed. I negotiated to $43 + tax per treatment. Buying the chemicals myself would cost about $40 per treatment. So I figured for $3 extra they could have the fun of spraying. When I do it myself I tend get a striped yard, which I'm sure is visible from space satellites. I’ll let you know in a few months if it was worth the money.

Since this item was not a necessity there are no savings just a total cost
Total Cost: $167.21 for 4 treatments. (13.93 a month) I know, I know that does not mean much in the winter.
Extra Bonus: Not having the store ½ used bags of fertilizer in my garage.

Extra Hassle: Calling and setting it all up. Having them show up at random times and not being able to use your yard for 24 hours.
Catch: I might have no grass left, just dead weeds…

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #3

#3 Keeping your eye out for amazing deals

About a month ago, Danielle and I headed to the Morris furniture outlet store for their big clearance sale. We were looking for a dresser. We did not find a dresser but we did find a very nice dining room table top with two leaves that folds out from under the table for only $27.77. The MSRP for just the table top was $650. The only catch was it had no legs and a few minor scratches. We could not turn down 95% percent off, so we bought it in hopes of finding a set of pedestal legs some place else. About a week, later Danielle found a set of pedestal legs on Craigslist for $20.00, only 60 miles away. The legs are a slightly darker color than the table, but they work great. So including gas and tax we have an amazing dinning room table for about $65.

Since this item was not a necessity there are no savings just a total cost
Total Cost: including gas and tax about $65.
Extra Bonus: Bonding time with my father-in-law as we assebled the pedestal bases and the table top. Danielle has also been wanting a larger, solid wood table, and now she's got it!
Extra Hassle: Being pateint and searching.
Catch: We might have been stuck with either buying expensive pedestal bases or having a $27.77 table top with no legs.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #2

#2 Level Bill Pay

My gut tells me the the Gas Company has to be ripping you off with level bill pay. I mean common sense says, why should I pay ahead in the summer for my gas bill for the winter? I could make tons of money in interest if I created my own level bill pay - right? Well, not so much. Being the the over curious person I am, I sat down and did some math. I found that the gas company was really accurate with their estimate. If I did my own level billing I would accumulate an astonishing $2.21 in interest over the year. (This assumes 2.33% interest rate from paypal.) I believe that part of living richly is not having to worry about fluctuating budgets. So in this case, not getting $2.21 is worth not have a freaking huge gas bill at the same time I'm buying Christmas presents, and it makes the budget much easier to work with.

On a side note here in Xenia, OH the price of natural gas is up 38% since February and some are saying that next winter's heating cost could be double of last years.

Total savings: -$2.21 enough gas to drive -16 Miles ($4.099/Gallon @ 30MPG)
Extra Bonus: Saving hours and hours budgeting calculations and worrying how to pay the winter gas bills
Extra Hassle: Setting it up with the Gas or Electric Company.
Catch: Don't burn more gas than last year.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #1

Today, I am starting a new series called: Living Life Richly on the Cheap. I'll show you examples on how my wife and I have saved money.

Tip#1 Pay with Cash. Yes Hard Cold Cash.
I finally decided to replace the original muffler on our faithful '94 Saturn with 147K miles. According to the mechanics not only did the muffler need replaced, but the long pipe from the converter to the muffler needed to be replaced as well. Total cost with parts and labor was $235.19 before tax. I asked if there was a discount for paying with cash verses a credit card, knowing that he would have to pay credit card fees. He said that if I paid in cash I would not have to pay the tax. He even rounded down to a flat $235. And best of all we have a much, much less noisy car!! Wahoo!

Total savings: $12. 97 (((6.5% of 235.29) + .19) - (1% Credit Card Rewards) enough gas to drive 95 Miles ($4.099/Gallon @ 30MPG)
Extra Bonus: No Credit Card Debt.
Extra Hassle: Asking for a discount & Stopping by the ATM
Catch: This typically only works for larger purchases at small businesses. Beware of ATM Fees. Must have savings in the bank.