Friday Finance Challenge

The very last Friday of January means that the Friday Finance Challenge has been going strong for a whole month! Yay! And it's all thanks you to loyal readers (and when I say readers I mean my mom). I do it all for you.

This week's challenge ties in with my post on Monday about Menu Planning. See how I set that up? It's totally awesome. Anyway, your challenge for this weekend is to sit down and spend 20 minutes making yourself a meal plan and grocery list. I'm not going to tell you that actually using these tools is part of the challenge, but if you take the time to make the list then I think that you should take it upon yourself and go ahead and use it (let your inner overachiever shine through).

I already have mine made and I have been waiting all week to go and bust some serious money and time saving moves on my local grocery store. Next week I'll write you a whole post about it so that you can feel like you were right there with me.

TGIT Good Eats: Slow Cooker Edition

I love potatoes. I LOVE them. I will eat them any way that you can make them ... it must be the Irish in me. But one of my most favorite potato creations is potato soup. When I found this recipe for crock pot potato soup, I got so excited I started making a shopping list while I was at work.

Joe's Crock Pot Potato Soup
Ingredients:

• 8 large potatoes, cubed
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes
• 2 tablespoons dry parsley flakes
• 6 cup water
• 2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup flour, mixed with water

Preparation:

• Place potatoes, onions, butter, bouillon, parsley, and water in the slow cooker/Crock Pot and cook all day on low to medium.
• 1/2 hour to one hour before serving; add milk and flour mixture.
• After the soup thickens, it is ready to serve.
• Note: Add 1/4 pound of Velveeta cheese for Cheese potato soup. 1 can evaporated milk may be substituted for the regular milk.
• Serves 6 to 8.

This is totally going to be my dinner tomorrow. And my lunch on Sunday. And possibly lunch and dinner on Monday too. I cannot WAIT.

Menu Planning

This is a sub-goal for my larger, all encompassing goal of managing my money. "But Carrie," you might be asking your computer screen, "How does menu planning have any bearing on money management?" You might also be thinking "Why does she think I care?", but I am going to ignore that second thought and run with the first.

Menu planning is a great way to manage your money, save yourself numerous kitchen related headaches, and maybe squeeze some time out of your day when you can sit and relax. And I am down with relaxing - there are days that I'm not sure that I remember what the word relax even means - and so, I am also down with menu planning.

Menu planning is the act of sitting down and planning out what you are going to eat for the coming week. It includes 7 lunches, 7 dinners, X number of fancy breakfasts, snacks and desserts. When I think about it, I start to get a little hivey - I'm not going to lie to you. But before anyone loses their minds over this ... let me assure you that it is no where near as scary as it sounds. In fact, I will do a sample one for you right now:

Monday --
Breakfast: Frosted Mini Wheats with Milk
Lunch: Peanut Butter and Jelly with a tiny salad
Dinner: Sauteed Chicken, rice and frozen green beans
Snacks: Celery and Humus; Corn Chips; Cheetos
Dessert: Christmas Fudge

Ta-Da! One day down and it only took me 5 minutes to think of it all! Now, if I were doing this for real, I would do this again for every day of the week. And be honest with yourself. If you don't write Cheetos down in your snack space, but you know that you will die without them and probably make an emergency midnight run to the gas station to get a bag, then put them on the list. No one has to know.

The next step is to make yourself a shopping list ... and stick to it. If you buy too much food, you will end up throwing it away which is pretty much the same as lighting your money on fire, which is just plain silly. Sticking to your list will save you time in the store, since you'll know what you're looking for, and money on those impulse buys that you think you might need but really don't. And before you make your list, you might want to double check your fridge and pantry to make sure you aren't buying more of what you already have.

I am putting this plan into action on my next shopping trip. I will let you know how it goes ...

Do you use menu planning in your shopping routine? Did you love it right away? Do you hate the idea? Let me know what you think!

Friday Finance Challenge: Presidental Edition

Hello readers! I hope that you liked your week of presidential themed posts! I can tell you that I had a lot of fun doing it. I liked so much in fact that there will probably be many more theme weeks in the coming months. So be sure to stay tuned for that awesomeness!

This week's Friday Finance Challenge isn't necessarily presidential, but definitely a political thing. Now that you know how much you spend in a weekend (or week), I am challenging you to cut your pork-barrel spending by at least $25. Yep - I said it.

Spend less than $25 this weekend and then report back here to let me know what you cut out of your spending. Times are tough people ... it's time that we all take a good hard look at what we don't need to be spending on stuff and then stop spending that money.

What you do with the extra $25 you have at the end of the weekend is up to you, but just so you know, spending it will defeat the whole purpose. Instead, I would put it toward a payment to a credit card or that student loan debt you have. Or you might think about opening up a savings account and making it your first deposit.

Now go forth and be frugal. Well, be more frugal than you were last week at least.

TGIT Great Libations: Presidential Edition

Instead of bringing you another dinner recipe this week, I thought we could shake it up and have a drink recipe instead - presidential style.

In honor of our 3 day old president, I went out into the interwebs and came back with this little gem of a drink called Barack Rocks.
Here’s the blue in the red, white and blue: Barack Obama’s appeal to the youth of America is interpreted in the cocktail, Barack Rocks (and it really looks delicious). Enjoy!

Ingredients For One Cocktail

• 2 ounces citrus vodka(we used SKYY Infusions Citrus Vodka, a zingy combination of grapefruit, lemon, lime, orange and tangerine flavors)
• 1 ounce blue curaçao
• Juice from 1/2 lime
• 3 ounces Sprite or 7-Up
• Pear slice for garnish

Preparation

• Combine all ingredients in a shaker.
• Shake and pour into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.
• Garnish with a slice of pear.

And if you aren't a fan of blue colored drinks, there is one for McCain fans as well, it's called McCain Straight Up (that maverick). You can check it out on this page from The Nibble website.

A Historic Day Indeed

Instead of posting anything that has anything to do with money or finances today, I am going to let you all off the hook with a crazy short post and a really simple message:

Yes We Can.

Congratulations.

Friday Finance Challenge

It’s Friday again already, can you believe it? And you know what that means … it’s time for another Friday Finance Challenge! I hope that everyone had fun making (or downloading) a budget sheet for yourself. I know that I had such a good time opening up Excel and clicking on the template button to make my budget sheet that I even went so far as to put in some numbers (I am so ahead of the curve). Doesn’t it make you all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that you have a budgeting sheet set up and ready to go? And don’t worry that you aren’t using it yet (and if you are, you are definitely an overachiever) that comes next.

I don’t think that anyone can be expected to make out and stick to a budget until they know exactly how much they bring in every couple of weeks (or every Friday) and how much they are spending. This week’s challenge is to write down everything that you spend this weekend, and if you are into that feeling of over-achievement, for the rest of the week. Every personal finance blog that I have looked at and every book I’ve read says that this is something that you should do anyway because it will open your eyes to what you are spending money on that you don’t need to be spending money on. Or just exactly how much you are overpaying on stuff that you could get on the cheap if you put forth a little more effort.

So there you go fellow pretty financiers … your Friday Finance Challenge. Go forth – spend – and save the receipt.

TGIT Good Eats: Slow Cooker Edition

I was digging around in my closet the other day and unearthed my crock pot. It's only been used once (once!) and the only reason I bought it in the first place was so that a friend of mine could make us some cheese dip (which I didn't end up liking at all). So I decided right then and there to make the best of this impulse buy and collect some recipes so that I can put it to work (yes, even my crock pot has to earn it's keep - times are hard folks). My mouth was watering as soon as I realized that I could cook dinner while I was at work and come home to a home cooked meal that took me 5 minutes to put together in the morning.

How great would that be? It's almost like the crock pot is a tiny, stainless steal maid, slaving away all day to make sure you have something delicious to eat when you come home from another long, hard day at work. Too bad it doesn't have an attachment that gives you a foot rub while you eat, I would totally buy that.

I am in the mood for barbecue today and so that's the reason that I picked this recipe. My stomach has been rumbling all day.

Easy Pork and Beef Barbecue
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds lean beef, cut in 1 to 2-inch cubes
• 1 1/2 pounds pork, cut in 1 to 2-inch cubes
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. dry mustard

Preparation:

• Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 9 to 11 hours, until very tender, or on HIGH for 5 to 6 hours. Stir, breaking up meat, and serve with warm split sandwich rolls.
  Serves 8.

It serves 8 which can mean only one thing ... frozen leftovers!! Assuming that you will only eat one of the servings at a time (like a lady should) that means that you will have enough for 7 meals after the fact. This of the savings! Pretty Finances ... saving you money since last week.

Tell me how this came out for you!

Birthday Awesome for under $20

This is my best friend's birthday week (she informed me that she deserves a whole week on the phone last night) and she told me that I was going to I volunteered to throw her a shin-dig at my apartment on Friday. But as soon as I got off the phone with her I remembered that I am completely broke and have no idea how I am going to throw her a party.

Once I got done with my initial anxiety attack, I sat back and pondered my options.

1. I could call the Birthday Girl back and tell her that I am completely broke and cannot host a party for her, sorry, and risk having her not talk to me for a week.
2. I could do my best to turn into Martha Stewart and possess all the information I would ever need about making fun h'ordeurves out of the jar of pickles in the fridge and the crusty peanut butter in the cupboard.
3. I could cry in a corner and hope that the birthday party fairy would appear and make it all happen for me, free of charge.

Since I know that none of those are going to happen, I decided to sit down and make a few lists in the hopes that they would calm my nerves a little. This is what I came up with:

Party Necessities

• Cake (and candles)
• Balloons
• Decorations
• Booze
• Games
• Snacks
• Presents

Then I thought about which of these things would cost me the most money and this is what I came up with:

• Cake (and candles) = $5 for box of mix and frosting (plus more for eggs and oil, but I have them already); $2 for candle
  
• Balloons = $1-2 for a bag of cheap ones
• Decorations = I have no idea how much create paper costs; birthday sign printed from my computer = free
  
• Booze = $1 million dollars
  
• Games = I have a deck of cards ... Mel has Catch Phrase what else do you need really?
  
• Snacks = $10 for pretzels and chips
  
• Presents = other people's problem

So to start with, the only major expense that I was looking at was the booze. And as much as I tried to convince myself that Birthday Girl wouldn't care if I didn't get any ... I couldn't. We are girls who like to get our drink on, what can I say? So I sat down and thought really hard and came up with the most brilliant idea ever (I even think that the Birthday Girl will be ok with it).

• Presents = Booze (my present is being the organizer)
  

YES! Now I don't have to worry about spending more than $20 for the whole thing because if no one brings booze then I won't be the one getting in trouble because it says in big black letters on the invite "in lieu of gifts, please bring a tasty libation to share with the group". Total awesomeness ... and I didn't even spend any time crying in the corner about it.

Now if I could just convince myself to get up and start cleaning ...

P.S. - Birthday Girl, if you're reading this, you know I love you. Otherwise I wouldn't have cared about throwing you a good party.

Coming Soon ...

On Saturday the 24th at this time you can expect to get a brand spankin' new post to look forward too called "Sexy Saturdays". The posts will be mostly beauty reviews, when to scrip on products and when to splurge, what products I can't live without, what products celebrities can't live without, where to get great deals on clothes that will make you look good without breaking the bank. You know how it goes.

However, since I don't spend a lot of time on the interwebs during the weekend (because I like to go out and live a little - you should too) I will only be making Sexy Saturday posts every other weekend.

So there you go. A post about a post that is coming. Somday.

I know it's lame, but it's Saturday and this is all I can give on a Saturday.

I give and I give people ...

The First Ever Friday Finance Challenge

I hope to have several weekly articles on this blog and so this is the first of a (hopefully long) series of posts that will be called the Friday Finance Challenge. Every Friday I will lay out a challenge, you to the reader and myself, to take a tiny baby step towards total domination (yes, I said domination) of your finances. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as you know, and it is ridiculous to expect that you will become a personal finance expert overnight.

For our first Friday Finance Challenge, I am telling you to go out into the world and create a spreadsheet that you will be able to use as a monthly budgeting worksheet. You can find one online (if you search for personal finance worksheet in Google you will find some really good ones) or you can take the easy route and spend a whole two seconds clicking on the button in excel that creates one for you.

I plan on using the excel spreadsheet. I like the layout and it only takes like two seconds. I am all about time management people. And being as lazy as possible, you know how it goes.

So there you have it. The first ever Friday Finance Challenge, and it’s not even a hard challenge. Seriously, it will take two minutes of your time (if that) and when you’re done you can sit back and feel good about the fact that you are taking a step towards managing your financial future (doesn’t that sound grown-up?). AND, as an added bonus, you don’t even have to start using it yet … that challenge is coming later. How much easier can it get??

TGIT Good Eats

Cooking is hard. And cooking takes a lot of work. And probably, if you are going to cook really well you have to go to a culinary school to do it ... right?

WRONG!

Ok, well, it might be hard. But it doesn't have to take up three hours of your time when you get home from work and you don't have to go to school to learn how to do it. I promise. Over the last few years my cooking skills have improved, slowly but surely, to the point that I can now saute a chicken breast without burning it (aren't you impressed?). I know - my culinary skills may be a little intimidating, but fear not reader, I am here to help you get your hands on some ridiculously easy to cook recipes so that you too can one day have the crazy skills that I do.

Tonight crazy easy recipe comes from the interwebs via a google search for "fast dinner recipes". This is the first thing that I found ...

This is so quick and easy because you can use canned chicken.

Chicken Broccoli Rice

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked rice
• frozen broccoli
• 1 can of chicken (like Swanson)
• 1 can of cream soup
• Cubed Velveeta cheese

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients; bake 20 minutes or so at 350 degrees. - Joan

It sounds super easy - and I bet that you would have enough left overs for a few work lunches too, which is another money saver! If I were to cook this (which I probably will, I love recipes that cook up in under 30 minutes) I would probably use real chicken breasts, not the canned kind, simply because the thought of meat from a can kind of grosses me out. But who knows, if I get lazy enough I might just say "what the heck?" and use the chicken in the can.

Next time I go to the store, I will be sure to pick what I need to make this, and I will let you know what I think of it. Have you cooked it yet? Let me know what you thought of it!

You Can Have a Night on the Town and Come Home With Money When You're Done

I have always been scared to really start working on my finances and budgeting because I have always thought that it meant sacrificing the fun things in life. Let’s face it, fun costs money. If you go out to the movies, you easily can spend $30 just to get in the door and have a little popcorn to enjoy during the film. Going out to the bars can be a bank breaker if you decide to go to a fancy area of town instead of slumming it at the sketchy bar down the street from the local pawn shop. So what is a girl to do when she just wants to have a little fun?

I have found a couple of ways to get around this problem over the last few months since graduation … and I want to share them with you in the hopes that you too can learn how to have a social life and still have money in the bank when you wake up the next morning.

Set a budget for the night (this is the method that I use most often). Setting up a budget for the night depends mainly on where you are going to go and what you are going to do. So the first step is to decide where you want to go and think about how much you think you would need to spend there in order to have a good time (because no one wants to be the Debbie downer of the group). For example, if I am in a college town I know that I can take $40 with me and have a great night. But if I wanted to go downtown, I would take at least $80 with me. Once you have an idea of how much you think you would like to spend, go to the ATM and take the money out of the bank. Put the cash in your purse/wallet and (this is the most important part of this) leave your ATM card(s) and credit card(s) at home. That way you will not be able to take out any more money once you have spent all your cash. (This system has probably saved me hundreds over the years … I am one of those people who starts drinking and then takes out more money to buy drinks for other people and then I end up spending 3 times what I wanted to.)

Open a tab with someone else. Yes, the bill might be a large one at the end of the night, but at least you won’t have to pay for it all by yourself. It also helps towards the end of the night when people start buying drinks for other people. You actually stop to think about how your “tab buddy” will react to you adding another $30 worth of drinks onto the bill.

If the drink you want is crazy expensive, drink something else. Beverages made with top shelf liquor sure do taste great, but choosing something a little less expensive taste just as good. Don’t worry that people are going to judge you based on your liquor choice. If you do get some flack, tell them that if they are so concerned about it then they can feel free to pick up the tab for you. That usually gets them to be quiet pretty fast. Besides, you should have chill friends anyway.

Those are my little bitty ways to save money when I hit the town with my girlfriends. But I am always open to ideas or criticism of my methods. What do you think? What are your ideas for saving money when you go out?

Welcome!

It's a new year ... and with new years come new resolutions. This blog is my resolution for the year 2009.

I am terrible at managing my finances, and it has gotten me into a lot of trouble. I owe money to credit card companies and my parents. 2009 is the year of Carrie getting out of debt. Along with that I hope that I can learn how to better manage my finances and like it. That's what this blog is going to be about.

While I will be posting a little bit about my personal situation now and then, my goal for this blog is to be more of a guide than anything else. A guide on how to save money, like it, and not feel like you are depriving yourself of the fun things in life.