A few weeks ago, I received an advance copy of Joshua Becker’s new book, Clutterfree with Kids. The book went on sale last week (and quickly became the #1 self-help book on Amazon – congratulations Joshua!), so you may have already heard of it or read it. But if you haven’t yet, I highly recommend… Continue Reading
Our New Gym And Some Homemade Equipment
We have a couple of new pieces of gym equipment that my husband made recently, and they were far less expensive than buying ready-made stuff. So I’m sharing details and pictures in case you feel like doing the same thing. First, he made a calf-raise platform out of scrap lumber that we had left over… Continue Reading
The Cost Of A Car
In my last post, I mentioned that I’ve only driven my car 10,000 miles in the last three years. A reader asked whether I’d considered getting rid of the car all together, and I thought that our conversation deserved its own post, in case some people had missed it in the comments section. This was… Continue Reading
No More Clothes This Year
Don’t worry… I will still be wearing clothes! They will just come from my closet rather than the thrift store. Last week when I went to town, my husband asked me to see if I could find a pair of overalls and a flannel shirt at a thrift store to dress a scarecrow he’s welding…. Continue Reading
We Only Need One Dresser
Last year when we moved to our new home, we essentially made four trips with a 14 foot truck (actually, I think the first trip was in a 17 foot truck…) When moving day arrived, the 26 foot U-Haul that we had reserved wasn’t available, so we had to improvise with a tiny little truck,… Continue Reading
My Latest Goodwill Finds
Last month, I decided to see how long I could go without grocery shopping, just by using up the stuff I already had on hand in our cupboards and freezer. I hadn’t been stockpiling anything and we didn’t have a huge amount of food stored, but it was 15 days between shopping trips, as opposed… Continue Reading
Free Wall Mirrors (Craigs List Is Awesome)
Sometime later this year we’d like to start finishing our basement. For now, it’s just a huge storage area, but we have big plans for it. Our first financial priority this year is our HSA and our IRAs, but after that, we’re planning to start putting some money into the basement. We’d like to use… Continue Reading
My Thoughts On Cars
A reader emailed me a few days ago, asking for my thoughts on buying a car – so I figured I’d share. I drive a 1991 Honda Civic wagon. It has 218,000 miles on it, and has never once left me stranded on the side of the road. Well, the muffler fell halfway off one… Continue Reading
What Would We Do Without Second Hand Stuff?
I noticed a couple weeks ago that our son was starting to ourgrow most of his hand-me-down shoes. His toes have gotten to the end of his size 5s, so I knew it was time for a trip to the thrift store. I decided to get him two pairs of size 6 shoes, as I… Continue Reading
Keeping Clutter Out
At our old house, there were two thrift stores within a 15 minute walk; now the closest thrift store is ten miles away. I’ve mentioned that we very rarely go thrifting anymore, which has been helpful in my mission to purge the house of clutter. These days, I only go to the thrift stores if… Continue Reading