I’m starting to realize that before I had a baby, I was pretty much a tightwad.  Since my baby’s been born, I’ve loosened up a little.  For instance, I’ve purchased a few new outfits for her that didn’t come from a thrift store.  I’ve purchased new cloth diapers that I didn’t really need just because I wanted to try them or they are cute (I can also re-sell them if I don’t like them, or when I’m done with them).  We’ve used the dishwasher and dryer more times than I’d like.  We probably aren’t saving quite as much money as we could (but we’re still saving). I’m happy.  Spending a little money on things that are important to me makes me happy.  Hoarding my money doesn’t do me any good if I’m miserable.  One of my 2012 financial goals was to find a nice balance, and I’m still working hard to achieve that.  It’s a constant struggle for me, because most of the time I think I should live as cheaply as possible in order to save the most amount [...]

Yesterday morning I asked Mr. Money to go and get the mail, as we were expecting a card from his dad.  He went out to get the mail, said there was nothing in there, and not an hour later did we get a knock on the door.  It was one of our neighbors down the street, bringing us mail that had our address on it that he found in the ditch. Nice. He found a card that my aunt had mailed to us, ripped open, card and envelope in the ditch.  There was also an empty envelope from our bank.  Great.  I figured out that it was actually our credit card statement, completely missing.  I do feel better that it wasn’t a bank statement, as those have our full account number and other information on them. I called our credit card services company to cancel our cards.  She said we shouldn’t be too worried because the full account number is not on the statement, and if anyone tried to purchase anything online they would need the security code on the [...]

Have you heard about the man who won two million dollars in the Michigan lottery yet is still on food stamps?  If you haven’t, prepare yourself to be shocked.  Then again, knowing how things go sometimes, you may not be.  I first heard about it on the radio and was appalled.  I can’t even fathom winning the lottery, or winning the lottery and staying on food stamps.  This is absolutely ludicrous.  There are just so many things wrong with this situation: the fact that the government doesn’t kick him off food stamps, and the fact that he sees nothing wrong with continuing to stay on them. Don’t get me wrong: I believe there are many people who deserve to be on food stamps; it just angers me when people abuse the system.  And it’s not like Michigan needs another person draining the Welfare system.  They are in enough trouble without people like this. He claims that he told his case worker about him winning the lottery and she said he’d still be eligible for food stamps, or the “Bridge card”, [...]