Affluent but Frugal

I am often thinking about starting a side business to earn extra cash - sewing, soap-making and recently I while planning our wedding I thought about being a "day of coordinator" for weddings - but then I remember, that I already have a full-time job and if anything, I want more free time, not less! This is why I focus on reducing spending, in order to save money. These are things I cut out to keep our budget slim! 1) Tracking spending For me, the first step in reducing our budget was understanding where the money was going. I've been using mint.com to track spending for about 3 years and I absolutely love it. It auto-categorizes every transaction paid with any of my linked credit cards and I can make adjustments as needed. I love the graphs that show spending over time and net income. There are some other software applications such as You Need a Budget but I like mint. It's free and generally works well. When you first start to do this, you will probably...

Oven fajitas are a favorite! To help save money on groceries and eating out, we cook a lot at home but cooking every night is a bummer. It is hard to come home every night from work and make something for dinner and think about what we’re both having for lunch the next day. To make it easier, I will sometimes (not always) cook in large batches so we can eat 6+ meals (3+ for each of us) from one cooking effort (and one batch of dirty dishes). Do you get tired of eating the same thing for 2-3 days in a row? Yeah, I do too. To combat this, I usually will make two dishes and we alternate them. If I make one big batch on Sunday and another on Monday night then we can have some variety and that will basically take us through the whole work week for lunches and dinners. It also helps if I make things that can be repackaged and eaten a few different ways (ie in a wrap one day; over rice the next day). To help with the Monday meal, often I will make something in the crock pot. Sinc...

I avoid going to stores in person like the plague. If I walk into a Target I will spend $60 or more, so I avoid going to brick and mortar stores and do most of my shopping online. If I can’t browse at items I did not think to look for, I won’t buy them. For me, it’s that simple. If I have to walk past the Target dollar section on my way in the store, I’m going to look at it and I will probably buy something that I did not even think I “needed” 5 minutes before but after I see it and it’s only $2, it will be in my cart. So I only go to target a few times a year when I need several things that I could not buy online (usually this is because shipping was cost prohibitive so the items is twice as much on Amazon). As a frequent online shopper, this is how I look to save every step of the way. 1)     Use a cash back rebate After I’ve found something I want  to buy I always check Mr. Rebates and Ebates to see if the store offers cash back and which provider offer...

My wallet is full! We like eating out, going to movies, traveling, and having a nice house. All of the things that cost so much money! A few years ago, I started “credit card hacking” to earn some side money for the things we’d otherwise using our money for, this is my approach! If you have trouble controlling your spending or you are in credit card debit, these suggestions are not for you. I have a two prong approach for using credit card points to generate extra cash: Taking advantage of signup bonuses Maximizing every day cash back First, I chase the occasional sign up bonus. Do you know that credit cards will give you 100s of dollars for signing up to a new account? How crazy is that? When you sign up for a new account, they will offer you a sign up bonus which can be worth $500 or more after having your account for at least 3 months and meeting a minimum spend, usually at least $3,000 during those 3 months. A few times a year, I will sign up for a new cre...

I am a woman who likes a good deal. A deal isn't a deal unless it's for something I need. We all need to eat and as an adult woman with a good job, I don't want to eat ramen 3x a week like a college student. Ok I hadn't ever tried ramen until well after college, but you get my drift. I drive 10 minutes to Aldi almost every week instead of going to the Harris Teeter grocery store that is 3 minutes drive from my house and I'd drive farther if Aldi was farther away. I do this because every thing  is so much cheaper at Aldi. You don't need a coupon, a store bonus card or to comparison shop Aldi is just cheaper. It is usually cheaper than the sale price  at Harris Teeter, or almost the same except at Aldi it's that price all the time. I tried Costco early this year and I think it's around the same prices as Aldi, but at Aldi I don't have to buy in bulk or have a membership. Since I'm in a 2-person household with limited storage, buying in bulk is...

Freshly cut soap Do you ever see the fancy handmade soap at craft fairs? You can make your own at home! I've seen them for up to $6 a bar at craft fairs but I make my own for less than $1 bar. A couple of years ago, my friend and I bought a Groupon for a soap making class. It ended up being one of those Groupons where they tried to make something that should take an hour take three hours so you felt like you got your money's worth. On the bright side, it got us past the idea that making soap was hard and we left with a couple of bars of soap after a fun afternoon. You can make soap by yourself but it's really fun to have a one or two friends over for soap making party and share the soap wealth. We've tried a few recipes (hint: buttermilk soaps are a pain!) and we like this one the best: 21 oz olive oil 8 oz palm oil (will be semi-liquid at room temperature) 8 oz coconut oil 5.20 oz Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH, also known as Lye) 13 oz distilled water 2 oz...

What do you think this mansion rents for? One of the key pieces of information when evaluating a rental property before you buy it, is how much rent you think you can get for it. This is a little bit of an art and a little bit of a science. This is the process I went through for our first rental and what I do now when looking at potential properties online for #2. Quick and dirty estimates If I am looking online at a property and I want to see if it's in the ball park, I will check two places. The first is the rent estimate from Zillow . I assume this is based on the attributes of the house from the listing information and some sort algorithm but I couldn't tell you what...really it's just a quick check to see if you can get at least1% of the purchase price in monthly rent. If the house is priced way over that, I don't bother looking further; not that the listing price is the sale or offer price but hey, there are lots of other houses, I want to be in the range ...