lessons learned

Frugal Wall Art With Engineering Prints

May 8, 2013

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to blow up some photos for our walls.  I had ordered some poster-size enlargements a few years ago for our living room, and although we love how they look, they definitely weren’t cheap.  This time around, I went looking for a way to get some personalized wall [...]

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Refinancing Our Mortgage

January 21, 2013

About a year after we bought our house, we considered refinancing.  At the time, we were being offered a rate of 3.75%, and we owed about $152k on our house.  After doing the math, we decided that it didn’t make sense to refinance, and we kept our 4.625% loan.  But now, two and a half [...]

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Starting A Business With $100 – Resources To Help You Do It

April 30, 2012

Over the last couple years, I’ve participated in getting the word out about Only72 sales (they last for 72 hours – hence the name) run by Adam Baker and Karol Gadja.  There have been a few other similar sales in that time (like the one about simplifying your family life earlier this month), but Baker [...]

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Being Able To Pay For Something Isn’t The Same As Being Able To Afford It

April 20, 2012

A few days ago, I got an email from a reader named Kate who shared how her attitude towards money has changed over the years.  She mentioned that in the past, she would have spent a lot more money than she does now, simply because she would have considered so many more things to be [...]

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Our Frugal Home Version Of A Montessori-Style Preschool

November 14, 2011

Over the last few months, several of our son’s friends have enrolled in Montessori-style preschool and daycare centers.  The parents have had nothing but good things to say about the switch, and my curiosity was piqued.  Our boys are home with us all day, and we have no plans to change that.  But I was [...]

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How We Established Our Own Business

August 22, 2011

In my post asking what you’d like to see me write about, two readers asked me to address the specifics of how my husband and I set up our home-based business, and I’ve also had numerous emails about this subject over the years.  So I’m going to lay out the basics of what we did, [...]

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Inside-Out Simplicity

July 30, 2010

It’s very rare for me to purchase a book, but I was inspired to buy Joshua Becker’s new e-book, Inside-Out Simplicity, and I just finished reading it this morning.  In so many ways, it echoes my sentiments exactly. Minimalism and simplicity have become quite trendy lately, but quite often the people who are attracted to [...]

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Frugal Shopping For A Baby Shower

July 16, 2010

I’m going to a baby shower this weekend for the wife of one of my husband’s cousins.  I’ve known her for years and we get along well, but we only see each other a few times a year and aren’t super close.  In situations like that, I tend to stick to buying things off the [...]

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Just Because It’s Free Doesn’t Mean I Need It

July 13, 2010

Last week, a good friend came to visit, and she brought a huge bag full of clothes that her son had outgrown.  Many of them were hand-me-downs for her, and she’s passing on the love.  She knows that I only buy clothes used anyway, and hand-me-downs fit right in for our family. But these days, [...]

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Letting Go

June 10, 2010

Thanks for all the great feedback on my last post.  I especially liked the comment from David, who said I’ve found that the problem with comparing ourselves to others is that you’re usually comparing your strength to their weakness or vice versa. Either way, it’s not fair. Exactly!  That is so true, and a good [...]

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