I’ve been away from Five More Minutes for several months now. Life crept up on me in the form of summer holidays and a wonderful new part-time, perfect-for-a-mom job. It felt that there was too much of both holiday and work for me to squeeze in more of these reflections. However, a look at our [...]
Book Review: America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money
April 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money is authored by Steve and Annette Economides, parents of a large family who have chosen to live frugally and without debt. Their success in raising their children on a single income without incurring debt (even their house is mortgage-free) has propelled them into the role of [...]
Book Review: Women & Money
April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Someone who is much smarter with money than I am suggested that I should read something of Suze Orman‘s, so I picked her most recent Women & Money from a very long list of her published books. In retrospect, I should have picked something a little less … pseudo-gender-based, because I have a habit of [...]
Time for a change in our debt repayment strategy
February 28, 2009 By 2 Comments
Since Hubby and I became serious about getting rid of our debt, we’ve more-or-less adopted the Ramsey approach to managing debt. We have a $1000 emergency fund; we’re paying the minimums on our debts; and we’re throwing everything extra at one debt bring it down as quickly as possible. (In our case, we’ve been concentrating [...]
Sales are expensive
February 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I feel like I’ve been hard-wired to notice things that are on sale and spend money on them. I’m training myself to stop and think before purchasing those Really Great Deals, but it’s hard. Something inside me tells me that if it’s on sale then I ought to purchase it. I’m learning that reality is [...]
Teaching a preschooler about money
February 19, 2009 By 2 Comments
Recently we focused a week of our preschool time around the topic of money, and it turned out to be an interesting week. Tasha has already been using a chore chart, receiving an allowance, and separating her allowance into saving, giving, and spending categories. My goal with this week of mini-lessons was to help her [...]
Book Review: All Your Worth
February 18, 2009 By 2 Comments
All Your Worth (subtitled “The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan”) is a personal finance book that purports to suit your situation whether you’re in high school or a senior’s residence. Warren and Tyagi, the mother-daughter author team, assert that they approach money in a whole new way by focusing on the balance between needs, wants and [...]
Canada's Budget 2009 – What does it mean for us?
January 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Whew! The specter of a coalition government has finally been put to rest. Canada’s enormously expensive Budget 2009 is going to stand and Prime Minister Harper will get to stick around to welcome President Obama next month. It seems that our parliament is finally going to emerge from chaos and behave itself … for a [...]
Book Review: The Total Money Makeover
January 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
One doesn’t have to read much about personal finance before encountering Dave Ramsey‘s name. He seems to have almost iconic status among budgeters and savers. Having bumped into his name so frequently, I decided that I needed to stop and read one of his books before I went much further. You know, Ramsey is good. [...]
Coffee Cutbacks, Part 2
January 13, 2009 By 2 Comments
A while back I shared our decision to start using average ground coffee in place of what had been our usual high quality beans. We’ve been doing fairly well with this, using our low-budget blend on weekdays and indulging in a finer brew on weekends. Making this kind of a change in our habits has [...]
