Not only am I saving money in gas by my move, but I am also saving a lot more money by not eating lunch out every day! I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but at my old branch I was getting really bad about not having enough time in the morning to pack my lunches, and I’d end up leaving in the morning planning on skipping lunch.  When lunch time rolled around, I ended up being starving, and I decided I’d hit the supermarket to get the salad bar for lunch.  That ended up costing me around $10 a day because I’d buy my salad and then I’d wander the store because my lunch was 45 minutes and it didn’t take me that long to eat.  I’d end up finding something I thought I needed, and there is my $10 total. I know one of the first things that people do when they decide to crack down and save money is brown bag their lunch.  When I got to my new branch I found out I have 30 minutes [...]

Ever since we started growing our own vegetables in our garden, I’ve been addicted. I’m addicted to the taste of my fresh organic vegetables, and I’m addicted to all the money we save by not having to pay for as many vegetables.  We’ve started drinking green smoothies to help incorporate more greens into our diet, and while it costs us more to buy more produce, we spend less on other junk food and crap and I think we end up saving money.  I am bummed because our garden isn’t as fruitful as I wished, but I’m trying to come up with some remedies to that.  I’ve come up with a few ideas. Buy a membership to Costco.  The one thing that is holding me back is the $50 a year for a membership.  That is a lot of money!  Right now we’re using a friend’s membership when we want to go, but that gets inconvenient, especially with the amount of greens we consume. We do buy our dog food there because it is a lot cheaper and is good dog [...]

401k Company Match with Stock Last time I wrote about my 401k, I wrote about how when the company matches in company stock. Well, after I received my quarterly bonus on the 15th of this month, I was given even more company stock, which is now 28% of my 401k.  With the way that our stock price has gone (from roughly $36 a year ago to around $5 a share currently), I want to get rid of some of the stock and reallocate it to another fund.  I don’t like being so vulnerable.  I know a few people that have 100% of their 401k in company stock.  I could never do that. My biggest problem now is that I am afraid to sell it. It’s not that I am afraid of losing money; well, I am to a certain extent, but moreso that I am afraid of screwing something up in my 401k and then not being able to reverse it or get charged astronomical fees.  I know that once I do it, I will feel better.  My feelings are [...]