Low- or no-spend February 2023: Week 1.

by

(Surviving and Thriving has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Surviving and Thriving and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses and recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.) Let me say this upfront: I spent money. Before you … Read more

Pinto bread: A weekly beans story.

by

Earlier this month I mentioned a frugal challenge called “weekly beans.” DF and I have vowed to make beans the focus of at least one meal a week. In part that’s because of inflation, which is scaring our frugal pants off right now. Mostly, though, it’s because we have so many beans in storage.

Sure, they’ll keep indefinitely (or what passes for indefinitely at our ages). But why have them, so why not eat them? Especially since they were bought at a lower price than they go for now, and since they’re good for us, and since they’re so darned tasty?

The week after that post we used the seasoned black beans from the freezer for rice bowls and burritos. The last few spoons of beans went into a soup made from boiling bag broth, to add some additional heft (and nutrition) to the carrots, potatoes, onions and homegrown celery.

Last week I announced that I would cook a few cups of pinto beans. Most would go into the freezer for future chili. But some would go into a recipe that I couldn’t get out of my brain: pinto bean bread.

Once I saw that, I couldn’t un-see it. The same is true of things like ketchup cookies and Kool-Aid pickles. It isn’t just a good idea to try these things. It’s the law.

Pinto bean bread isn’t a new thing, but it was certainly new to me. This particular recipe came from a blog called A Farm Girl in the Making. The blogger, Ann Accetta-Scott, called it a “stick-to-your-bones and fill you up kinda recipe.”

She’s not wrong.

Read more

Valentine’s Day giveaway.

by

It’s a little early* for Valentine’s Day, but the point of this giveaway is for the winners to have gifts for the holiday. I’ll need some time to mail them, so early is the way to play it.

Those gifts can be for your sweetheart, your mom, your daughter, your niece or a nice coworker.

You could also gift them to yourself. And if you’ve got a bestest buddy who wears earrings? Make them a Galentine’s Day present.

My photography is subpar, but all these earrings do feature heart shapes. They seemed appropriate for Valentine’s Day.

 

They were made by my jewelry-making buddy Linda B., whose work has been featured in giveaways before. Since I believe in supporting the local economy, why not use heart-shaped art from someone I know? 

Read more

Low- or no-spend February 2023: Who’s in?

by

This is not a new idea, and in fact many bloggers make it a strictly no-spend February. But I like to keep things a bit looser because not everyone can just stop buying things.

Not that you have to stop buying entirely. If you get a head cold in late February, you don’t have to wait until March 1 to hit the drugstore.

And obviously you’ll still have to gas up your car/renew your transit pass as needed, or pick up fresh produce or milk when you run out (and if you decide you can’t live without these things).

The point of this 28-day exercise is to try not to spend, and to be intentional about what you do end up buying. Pretty sure you guys are already good at that.

So: Who’s in?

Instead of buying on autopilot, a low- or no-spend February asks you to think critically about everything you want to put into the shopping cart:

Read more

Get 50% off Earn More Writing.

by

In the past I’ve written about Earn More Writing, a freelancing course created by my FinCon colleague Holly Porter Johnson. After nearly seven years, she’s decided to close the course to new students – so this is your last chance to take advantage of her considerable knowledge of the freelance market.

And she’s having a big ol’ sale to commemorate this closing. So if you ever wanted to become a freelance writer, or if you’re already one and want to step up your game, now’s the time to take Holly’s course. From now until Jan. 31 she’s offering a 50% discount.

As an affiliate partner, I do stand to earn a little money if anyone decides to take the course. But I’d recommend it even if I weren’t an affiliate: Holly knows her stuff. She brings in six figures per year – often in the $400k-plus range.

To be clear: You won’t leap to six figures overnight. But you have to start somewhere. Holly did: She was freelancing steadily while working full-time, determined to build her business. Those first clients led to other clients. Taken together, she was able to quit her day job and become her own boss.

Read more

Found money in 2022.

by

Longtime readers know that I save my found money all year long, keeping it in a vase that my daughter found for me in the free box of a long-ago yard sale. In January, I round up the total and donate it to the food bank. This year’s total greatly eclipsed the 2021 take: $18.04 vs. $5.88.

The found money looked like this:

  • One $5 bill
  • Three $1 bills
  • 27 quarters
  • 19 dimes
  • 13 nickels
  • 74 pennies

The greenbacks were courtesy of DF, who did a couple of quick opinion surveys for a company that, believe it or not, sent him actual cash vs. a check or a gift card. His reasoning was that he is retired and wasn’t looking for employment; therefore, it was found money.

Usually I donate to Feeding America or to the Food Bank of Alaska. This year, as in 2021, I’m going to donate to the church of my childhood. The Fairton United Methodist Church now operates a small food bank to help people in that small town.

Some people are appalled by the notion of picking money up from the ground, the floor or one of those Coinstar machines. If that’s you, then you do you. But as I noted in “Filthy lucre,” it’s not as though I carry these coins home in my mouth. Food banks are being bombarded (thanks, inflation!), so for me it’s worth the stoop and then the hand sanitizer.

Read more

The $1 Christmas tree.

by

I’ve felt oddly detached from the holiday this year, to the point where I didn’t have the motivation even to put up my Christmas tree. Normally that’s pretty important to me, but this year I just wasn’t feeling it. Knowing that, DF politely offered to help me set the tree up – which is silly, really, since this is a two-foot tabletop model that takes all of five minutes to decorate. (Not counting the lights, of course, which take 15 minutes just to un-knot.)

Still I demurred, until I noticed that on Friday he’d cleared away his Advent candle wreath and draped a white tablecloth over a box to provide a great place for the tree. He suggested that it would be easier to reach this way; normally the tree is set atop a cedar chest.

Sometimes a partner just knows what you need. That clean, conveniently vacant pedestal was the gentle push I needed to get going. And he was right: It was easier to reach, and to decorate even though the lights were still a pain to un-knot. It’s just their way.

Decorating the tree got me humming carols, and before I knew it I was finished. As always, we turned out the indoor lights and plugged in the Christmas tree lights in order to get the full effect.

Not bad, for a Charlie Brown tree (apologies for the dual image created by our double-paned window):

And here’s a daytime view, which doesn’t have the double image and which better showcases our ultra-white Christmas:

 

Just got back from my niece’s house, where I watched as she and her kids opened their holiday gifts. My own contributions to that celebration were, of course, almost completely paid for through gift cards from rewards programs, a bit of judicious re-gifting and the Expo Hall** at the Financial Bloggers Conference. I love giving presents, but I do need to keep an eye on the bottom line as I approach retirement.

My niece’s Christmas tree is much taller and more impressive. It’s also pre-lit, which is something to keep in mind if I ever replace my own tree. Somehow I doubt I will, because that  tabletop model means something to me. I bought it for $1 at the annual rummage sale held by the Lakeside School in Seattle, shortly after I had fled my marriage. Dropped another buck on a sandwich bag full of small Christmas tree ornaments, too.

Read more

The birthday pear fiasco. (Free recipe inside!)

by

Every year my daughter sends me a box of Harry & David pears for my birthday. The sweetness and juiciness of this fruit defies description. I look forward to them every year because you just can’t get pears like this in Anchorage. This year’s delivery was a little different, because the pears were delivered…frozen.

Not because they sat all day on the temps-in-the-teens porch, either. The delivery guy put the box directly into my hands. But when I opened up the gift, I found a batch of pearsicles.

Somewhere along the way, the fruit had encountered too-low temperatures – and there’s plenty of those on the Last Frontier. That’s never happened before with a Harry & David’s delivery.

As any savvy consumer would do, I phoned the company. Listened to the apologies, accepted a new delivery date for a new box of fruit.

And as any good frugalist would do, I wondered if I could salvage the old box. So I sliced one open and took a tentative nibble: hard and not sweet at all. Not surprising, since pears are picked under-ripe and allowed to develop to their full potential when customers want them.

While putting the pear’s core into the boiling bag, I decided that the rest of the fruit would not follow. I invented a new dessert* instead.

Read more