I think I’m going to take it easy today and lounge around since I had surgery on Friday.  I’m still recovering, so I think it would be best if I don’t over exert myself!  Here are some of my favorite posts this week: Ginger at Girls Just Wanna Have Funds talks about $3000 a month day care.  Wow! Frugal Babe makes easy homemade pizza. I can’t wait to try this recipe. It looks great! Ashley at Wide Open Wallet explains how you can save money and go green by leasing solar panels. I’m bummed it’s not available in my area! Emily at Remodeling this Life gives us a tour of her casa. Emily is a great inspiration to me to get a lot of my house projects done! They have done an amazing job remodeling their house themselves. Kacie at Sense to Save highlights her shopping trip to new stores in the mall. $630 for an umbrella? Crazy. Money Ning calms fears by letting you know how to not lose sleep in a bear market. Tiffanie at We like money [...]

Awhile back, I sang the praises of my Providian/ Wamu credit card. I loved that credit card because it tracked my FICO score for free for me.  That was pretty much the only other reason I kept that card, besides the fact that I’ve had it the longest out of any of the cards that I have open now.  Since Wamu went under, I am wondering what’s going to happen to my credit card. I’m hoping that Chase will take it over and leave me with my FICO score tracking.  I figure that will happen, or I’ll be transferred over to a Chase credit card and get some of the benefits they offer.  The other day a customer was telling me about all the benefits they receive from their Chase card, and they actually sound like they have really good credit cards. I figure if they drop my FICO score tracking or I don’t like the rewards/terms and conditions, then I’ll just cancel the card.  I have one credit card that I mainly use for purchasing gas since we get [...]

Lately I’ve been thinking about having a small cash emergency fund.  When Hurricane Ike came to town, I was completely unprepared, and many gas stations, grocery stores, and pretty much everything else was shut down.  Without electricity, it was hard to operate.  For those businesses that could open, many of their computer systems were down, which would make it really hard to use a debit card or credit card.  I’m the kind of person that hates carrying cash and I never have any on me.  I’ve had to use my debit card for less than a dollar.  I guess my generation is the “plastic generation” and we just don’t deal much with paper cash. I am thinking about keeping a small amount of cash in my safe in case of an emergency.   I’m not talking about taking all my money in my emergency fund and socking it under my mattress, I’m talking maybe a couple hundred dollars that would tide us over for a few days to buy necessities if something terrible happened and the bank couldn’t open. I [...]