Have you downsized your gift giving this year? I definitely am for sure.  I have a lot of financial stuff on my plate right now and a lot of unexpected expenses these past two months.  Thus I felt it more important that we stay financially healthy than spend money on Christmas giving.  I’ve actually been [...]

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I just wanted to talk about Black Friday Shopping.  I went, but at 10 am. I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed to Babies R Us and got a stellar deal on wipes and diapers.  I bought 3 boxes of mega wipes @ $5 each, about a penny a wipe. I also got 2 bags [...]

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Grace and Frugal Zeigiest both mention this article in the WSJ about a man living on severance.   The background?  A 44 year old man lost his $200k job in March 2008.  He got a severance package of $200k and had $100k in savings.  At the current burn rate he will run out of money in [...]

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Well tomorrow at 8 pm is the end of the Government Sponsored cash for clunkers deal.   If you had a clunker and were going to buy a new car anyway, now was the time to do it.
The deal was if you had a car/SUV that had a combined city and highway MPG of 18, you [...]

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In a prior post someone asked how do people make it in a HCOLA?  How do they manage to pay childcare, mortgage, etc?  What the heck is going one?
Truth is they make a lot of sacrifices.  I mean a lot.  Most people I work with do not own homes.  They rent.  They usually rent the [...]

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Does the image you project matter?  An post I wrote here, a commentor said it’s okay to over buy homes and cars because your image to your boss and clients matter.  It got me wondering, when and how does the image you project to others matter?
I’d say yes in the sense that how your dress [...]

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One of my younger coworkers said something that gave me a pause.  She’s a very great, responsible young woman of 23, engaged to be married next year.  They are responsibly living together, carefully planning on buying a new car, wedding, etc.  Sounds great right?
Well she tells me so jealous of her friends who ran up [...]

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Yesterday I talked about MP Dunleavy chatting about her increase in cost of living. On Friday at LAL Musings I ranted about hating my neighbors.
Today I’m pondering about the sacrifices of living in an expensive area. I guess this mostly came up because I hate my neighbors. Don’t get me wrong. [...]

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About two months ago MP Dunleavy wrote about her rising concern with inflation.  She noticed that her spending from a year ago has gone up dramatically.  She spent $400 last year on groceries, this year it was $587.   She spent $140 on miscellaneous items last year and $346 this year.  She blames inflation.  Was her [...]

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Slate had an article talking about how the recession is wrecking friendships.  The articles gives a few different examples of how the economy is affecting people and their relationships.  The article suggests that the sudden changes in people’s circumstances are making it difficult to navigate friendships.
The first example was a woman who just bought a [...]

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