Thanks for visiting Ultimate Money Blog! If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. I have a slight obsession with the Amish. There’s something about their simple style of living that just makes my heart sing.  There are numerous times I’ve thought about finding some Amish people in my area and asking them if I could shadow them for a weekend to see if I could live Amish.  I don’t think they would appreciate that too much, though! Why I love the Amish way of living -It’s based on family and community.  Many Amish farmers live very close to each other, often helping each other raise crops and tend to animals.  I like the idea of being neighborly. -They don’t normally use electricity and many modern conveniences, making their carbon footprint lighter.  Personally I could do without the tv, but without computer and internet? I don’t think I could make it very long. -They believe in paying cash for everything.  They don’t rely on credit, so if they can’t afford something, they don’t buy it. [...]

It seems as though on my many decluttering sprees, I’ve managed to miss the book case. I’ve got numerous books on there, with subjects ranging from nutrition to green living to aviation. The fact is, I haven’t read most of these books in months, and here they are taking up valuable space in my office. When I try to get rid of them, I look at the book and think “hmm, this might come in handy some day.” The book I looked at was a breastfeeding book that my mom gave me that must have been hers from the late 1970s. Um, yeah. So I decided that I would go through my books and decide what I wanted to do with them. Some of them I really don’t want to part with yet, so those I’ll keep. But what about the books that I don’t want any more? What should I do with those? I came up with a few ideas. Sell books on half.com, Amazon, or eBay. When I sell books on half.com or a similar site, I make [...]

photo credit: Jean Pichot I believe one of the very most important parts of frugal living is to do what works for you. I can sit here all day and blabber on how I save money by making my own bath products, turning my heat down, and consolidating trips to save gas, but those may be things that you aren’t willing to do for whatever reason.  That’s totally fine.  One of the best things about living life is learning from others and respecting their choices. I do think that there are frugal alternatives to pretty much everything, so if you’re not going to be hardcore frugal, you can still save money in some way. -Don’t want to use cloth toilet paper? You can buy your toilet paper in bulk, either at the grocery store or Costco or Sam’s. You will still be saving money. -Does the idea of using baking soda as shampoo freak you out? Start playing the drugstore games to score some awesome deals on shampoo. -Is your time limited and you can’t soak and cook your own [...]