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.

A few new pictures of Lily

In the last week Lily has nearly mastered the baby art of walking. She has gone from just being able to take a few steps at a time to being able to walk to almost any place she wants. She is very proud of herself as well.

When Lily was born I didn't have a clue on what to expect. This last year has been great. She brings we so much joy each day. I look forward to putting her down to bed each night. One of my favorite parts of the day is when Danielle and I peek at her while she is sleeping. She is so peaceful and beautiful. I can't say it's always been easy, but it has been a joy being a daddy to Lily for the for first 13 months of her life. God has really blessed us with a really cute, loving, happy baby girl. We pray for her safe keeping, wisdom for her and us and she grows up.

Lily July 08

When 100 Billion just isn't enough

Could the end of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation be in sight as the country's central bank run out of paper? According to this news story the country's solder's are starting to go unpaid. This cannot be good for the dictator-president. Hopefully peace will follow and not anarchy. Today 100 billion is worth about 20 cents on the black market.

Learning to Walk

Lily is learning to walk. Here is a short clip of her walking to her new toy.

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.

Cedarville Young's Night 2008

Patrick and Rachel were able to join us for the annual Cedarville Young's Night. $2 got us a round of Mini-Golf and a double scoop-nut-covered-chocolate-waffle-ice-cream-cone! Bring on the fun!

Cedarville Young's Night 2008

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.

4th of July Weekend Pictures

2008 07 02

Stufff Christians Like & This is Zimbabwe

Stufff Christians Like

A friend of mine recommended reading this blog site. It is excellently written, very accurate and brutally honest. Stufff Christians like may very well consume vast amounts of your time as you reflect and relate to the modern American protestant church.

This is Zimbabwe

This blog chronicles the day-to-day struggles of living in Zimbabwe with inflation running about 10 million percent. Warning: The blog does contain very graphic pictures of the political violence gripping Zimbabwe.