Tag: being frugal
How to minimize your grad school debt
This article is by staff writer Honey Smith. If you or a loved one will be headed to graduate school this fall, chances are you are worried about more than dorm survival. Instead, you may be wondering how to avoid six-digit student loan debt. It’s a valid fear — no one wants to end up where I started. Fortunately, there are ways to earn a graduate degree while avoiding financial catastrophe. Using myself as an object lesson, here are some strategies I would recommend: Reverse-engineer the problem Consider the degree you are interested in and ask yourself some tough questions: How easy will it be to find a job with that degree? Will you have to make other types of sacrifices to get a
12 ways to celebrate Memorial Day this weekend
This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle. (From time to time, we look into the subject of frugal travel and vacation ideas. Holly Johnson’s post on How to save money on family vacations is one example. This year, we thought it would be fun to find some frugal and interesting ways to celebrate Memorial Day around the country. We’d love you to share your tips for a frugal Memorial Day weekend in the comments!) Memorial Day is when, collectively, we remember the men and women of the armed forces who died while serving our country. Virtually every town and hamlet across the nation has something planned to honor our nation’s heroes, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find some kind
Ask the Readers: How are you leveraging personal relationships?
This article is by staff writer Honey Smith. I recently started a new job; and while I didn’t know anyone at the company prior to applying, that doesn’t mean that everything was one giant coincidence. A few years ago, one of my grad school friends mentioned that he was doing freelance SEO (search engine optimization) work for attorneys. Curious, I asked him to teach me. His response was to conference me in on a client call and have me start producing content immediately. Where curiosity leads That tiny side gig (I think he paid me a hundred bucks) led to introductions to additional clients, and before I knew it, I was averaging a thousand dollars a month in addition to my day job. During that
Replacing our HVAC, Part II: Installation, rebates, and timing
(This is Part II in a two-part series about replacing an air conditioning unit. Part I is Honey Progress Report: Replacing our HVAC, Part I. Honey Smith’s experience investigating solar panels is chronicled in Financial benefits of solar panels? Not so fast.) This article is by staff writer Honey Smith. It’s been over a year since we bought our house and, while homeownership has been a fulfilling experience thus far, it hasn’t been cheap. Our air conditioner broke last year — on a 108-degree day in August, no less — resulting in a hefty thousand-dollar repair bill. We immediately added a replacement unit to our list of priorities as the existing unit was more than 20 years old. The bigger picture Our
How to deal with expensive friends
This article is by staff writer Holly Johnson. No matter what I do to prevent it, spring budget creep always seems to take hold this time of year. Sometimes it seems as if the dollars start flying out the door the second the temperature starts to rise. And although I budget for all of our known expenses, the extra expenditures still add up — and hurt. Part of our creep is a product of spring clean-up — mulch, new plants and flowers, and vegetable garden start-up. But the rest? It’s all social — neighbors inviting us over for cookouts, dinners out and card parties. Warm weather stuff. Still, as much as it pains me to beef up our entertainment budget in warmer months, there
