I’m back from my lovely vacation. I had a great time even though we didn’t get to go camping because the Trooper decided to die about 15 minutes from the campground. Rather than spending $200+ on a new water pump, we decided to try to drive it home. We were stopping every 15-20 miles to add water to it. Not fun times! I’ve decided that I will be listing the Trooper on Craigslist tonight. The retail value is worth $4325, trade is $2875, and I think I am going to list it for $1500 Or best offer. It’s had a tree fall on it, and now it needs a new water pump. I can’t wait to get rid of it! I just hope someone wants it. Instead of going camping, we went to visit my family in Michigan. One thing that I noticed while being up there is how much Michigan’s economy stinks! I know that hearing that all over the news never seems like a reality until you actually see things for yourself. There are SO many foreclosures, lost [...]

As you are reading this, I am camping in the great wilderness.  Okay, it’s probably not the “great wilderness”, but it’s vacation, and I’m happy that I don’t have to be at work!  When Mr. Money and I knew we had some time off coming up, we debated on what we were going to do during the vacation.  We talked about going camping (saves money), visiting family, and just staying around the house and getting some home improvement projects done.  We decided we would do a little camping and then go visit family.  That would be something we would both enjoy, and we wouldn’t spend too much money. Being as frugal as I am, I seriously considered just staying at home.  With current gas prices, I couldn’t justify driving or flying the 1500 miles to Colorado. We talked about skipping the trip to visit my family, but it’s only 5 or 6 hours, and won’t cost us that much.  We haven’t seen them in awhile and it’s definitely overdue.  Mr. Money had wanted to go camping, so I said we [...]

I know there are a lot of people that use Dave Ramsey’s Envelope Budgeting system. While I think it is an amazing budgeting system that works for so many people, I just can’t do it myself. I decided I was going to put my own spin on the envelope budgeting system to make it work for myself. I’m happy to say it’s been working out quite well! Here’s how Dave Ramsey’s envelope budgeting system works: You have a bunch of envelopes for each category you spend money on each month, such as food, clothing, eating out, entertainment, fun money, gas, etc. When you get paid, you fill up each envelope and throughout the month you subtract your cash from the appropriate envelope as you need. When the money is gone, it’s gone, and you can visually track how much money you have to spend. My problem is that it’s such a hassle to have so many separate envelopes to track and make sure you don’t lose money! I am just worried that when we go out to eat, I’d forget [...]