Make Your Own Pizza!
As I’ve written before, I’m a tried-and-true pizza girl, all the way. Love, love the stuff.
So for this week’s Frugal Foodie Thursday, I have to point you to a new pizza dough recipe I’m dying to try: Fast & Easy Pizza Dough from Wise Bread.
My favorite topping of all time? OK, it’s a tie:
1) sliced tomatoes and garlic.
2) BBQ chicken, sliced, with BBQ sauce mixed in with the regular sauce. YUM.
Filed under food, frugal foodie Thursdays | Comments (2)Here’s How I’m Spending my Money, Lately
A few weeks ago, one weekend evening, I sat down with my laptop, a bundle of receipts and some paper. I was on a mission: a mission to analyze my spending.
Since July, I’ve been tracking/budgeting my money through Budget. Here’s what that looked like: every other Friday, I’d get a paycheck auto-deposited into my bank account. Sometime that weekend, I’d manually enter the payment into my budget, allocate it (each time) into envelopes, and be done. I do almost all my spending through my credit/debit card, out of my bank account, so I would record purchases in my checkbook during the week. Every few days, I’d enter those into Budget, removing money from envelopes accordingly.
This was good–I was spending within a predetermined limit–and bad–that limit fluctuated each month.
So I did something about it.
In a kind of elaborate Excel spreadsheet that made sense to me I figured out how much I’d been spending in every category on average. Here’s what I found: only half or less of my money is set spending (giving and saving). The rest goes to a myriad of things: restaurants, clothes, toiletries, gas, other gifts, etc.
Most months, I’d still have extra money (gravy, if you will) just sitting around. Sometimes I’d leave it in the envelope, padding it for future purchases. Sometimes I’d leave it in the envelope, forgetting about it.
So here’s what I’ve changed:
1) New Categories: I never spent from the “entertainment” envelope, so I redesigned that to be my ER fund. This envelope will get a set $75 every pay check, but it will also start receiving extra, otherwise unallocated funds each month.
I’ve been thinking of moving out, and whether it’s soon or in the future, I want to have the money for home stuff when I need it. So I made a “household” envelope, which will be getting a set amount of money and which will become an ING very soon. It came in handy, by the way, when I decided to redo my bedroom–an investment in the future, I say.
2) Scheduled Allocations: Now, every paycheck (from both jobs) will be depositing the same set amount into each envelope. This way, all I need to do is click “pay” every two weeks. The money will be the same, though I can always move stuff around if I need to.
3) Rethought Priorities: I really don’t need $200 each month for clothes, even if I *can* put it in there. Sometimes I’d let myself think I had to spend, since the money was in the envelope. I lowered the amount to go there, realizing I usually had leftovers anyway. This will help me put money into smarter resources like my ING accounts, my IRA, my personal stock portfolio and into giving.
4) Knowledge: Now I know what I spend–I mean, really know. While I can’t recite numbers off the top of my head, I can easily consult my charts, and I can give you a ballpark idea. It’s nice, and it’s empowering.
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And Now I Heart J. Crew
Last night, when I was writing my post about my pretty, pretty Christmas coat, I went to jcrew.com to find the links to the others I had considered. In the process, I realized my now-loved, already-purchased coat, the one I was wearing and blogging, had gone on final sale. (Who says PF-blogging doesn’t pay off? I never would’ve noticed if not for the post!)
Tuesday, I (my parents) had bought me the Gramercy, in black. The picture online doesn’t do it justice: beautiful! I love, love it, and it’s just what I wanted: fitted, a solid color, warm. The thing was, it cost $350. Mom and Dad were supercool and said if I loved it, it was fine with them. So that’s how I ended up with a ridiculously expensive gift.
Then, last night, I realized it had dropped to $229.99! I felt terrible. BUT: J. Crew has this awesome price-adjustment policy, if the price drops within seven days. Meaning: they’d refund the difference.
I went in today, and they gave me the new price, plus an additional 25% off! Total cost now? $172.99.
J.Crew, I am now your biggest fan.
Filed under shopping | Comments (5)I heart my Christmas coat!
So remember my Christmas coat saga? After I researched online extensively and could not make a decision, my savvy-shopper brother intervened. Order a few, with the free shipping code, he told me. Then return the one(s) you don’t want.
Brilliant! I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me before.
Here are the coats I ordered:
the red Lady Day
the black Gramercy
the sea salt Sybil
Can you guess which one is the winner?
Filed under shopping | Comment (1)advertisers = bad writers?
From Direct Creative Blog:
“Some of the worst copywriters are ‘writers’ who enter the commercial copywriting profession. Why? Because they’ve learned the formal rules of writing so well, they can’t break free of the grammar and style shackles. They’re forever obsessing about what is correct rather than what is effective.”
I agree and disagree with this article. On the one hand, copywriters do need to be flexible about rules/style. Sometimes it’s OK to start a sentence with “and,” even though traditional rules dictate otherwise. It’s all about usage, with advertising, I’m learning. On the other hand, I know from experience that it’s harder to train a “free-thinker” in grammar than to train a “grammarian” in letting go.
To read the rest of the article, and learn what other grammar rules are up for grabs with ads, click the above link.
Filed under writing | Comments (2)
