Being Thrifty

Thrifty –adjective, thrift⋅i⋅er, thrift⋅i⋅est.

1.	practicing thrift or economical management; frugal: a thrifty shopper.

A recently read an article from Yahoo Finance outlining seven things that you can do to save money.

Buy a bread maker. You can buy one for $55. If it saves you just $4 a week on store-bought bread, that's $208 a year. A 280% return.

Get a credit card with a great sign-up bonus. Like the AirTran Visa card. Cost: The $40 annual fee. After your first purchase you get enough reward miles for a free flight, saving maybe $250. Then cancel the card. Return: 525%.

Take out a local library card. Cost: Nothing. If it saves you $10 a month on books, that's $120 a year. Return: Infinite. Note: Some libraries now let you borrow electronic books over the Internet as well.

Replace your premium cable package with a Netflix subscription and a $100 set-top box. You can download movies and TV programs as well getting DVDs through the mail. Cost: $100 for the cheapest set-top box, plus $17 a month for a three-movie subscription. If it replaces a $50-a-month cable package, that's a 98% return on investment.

Order a packet of seeds and plant them in a window box or garden. Growing your own herbs, spices, and even vegetables – depending on the amount of space you have – is a great investment. If you spent just $10 on seeds and saved a mere $50 in the year, that's a 400% ROI.

Switch to a prepaid cellphone. Cost: $20 for the phone, and maybe $100 a year for minutes. Move the rest of your talk-time to free Internet calls, and stop hemorrhaging $60 a month on a cellular plan. ROI: 500%

Start making your own coffee to take to work each morning. Cost: $20 for a Thermos, $10 for a filter and papers, and $60 a year for ground coffee. Then skip the $4 a day drive-thru. If that saves you $1,000 a year, the return is more than 1,000 %.

I started making my own bread on a regular basis a few years ago. I don't do credit cards, sorry. I have a library card and utilize a network of friends for book swapping. Haven't had cable for a year now, and am enjoying my Netflix account tremendously. The Music Man is already planning the garden for next year, increasing the size and variety of things grown. My Mother and I are on a family cell phone plan, she had problems with the pre-paid route. And sadly, I cut out my regular trips to the Corner Store (D.U.) every morning for a travel mug of homemade java.


So what is a trifty Mainer left to do? Anymore suggestions?

Enjoy ~SJ

A Perfect Day

Sunday is by far my favorite day of the week. I like to sleep in late, go out for brunch and then get ready for the upcoming week. It always feels as though I accomplish so much without feeling overwhlemed or rushed. Today was a perfect Sunday!

I slept in and loafed around in bed reading and napping. Then the Music Man and I went for breakfast at D.U. (The Corner Store). After a yummy breakfast, and a quick chat with a few people we know, we headed to Marden's and grocery shopping. Then it was off to the Music Man's house to stack wood.

Now I am a rookie at wood stacking - I know you are screaming how can this man girl have never stacked wood? I don't know, but I am no longer a rookie. We moved and stacked wood, and the Music Man enlightened me on the finer details of wood stacking (don't think too much about it).

After some quality wood stacking on a beautiful sunny afternoon we were off for a little motorcycle ride. Now it is time to blog and work on homework.

How much better could a day get? What kind of days are your favorite?

Enjoy ~SJ

Conant Lake

So while on my first scooter ride of the season I went for a little drive past Conant farm to take in the views of the newest swimming hole in Canton, Conant Lake.

















After enjoying the views I scooted over to D.U. to get my one gallon of gas for the scooter. I went all out for my little hot rod and got the high grade gas! At over 100 miles per gallon I can really splurge!














Enjoy ~SJ

The Blog-O-Sphere Is On Fire!

Well our little network of bloggers in the "greater" - Dixfield community is getting to be very active. We are "tagging" each other with fun little blogging assignments, and are even picking up on each other's nicknames for local hangouts. As you all know (because I know that you wait on the edge of your seat for each of my new posts) I hung out at the Corner Store over the weekend. Mi Prima made a reference to it being a cool college hang out - if Dixfield had a college. Well that lead me to nicknaming the Corner Store - Dixfield University. In yet another sleepless night I realized that the initials of Dixfield University would spell D.U. (of course pronounced similar to Duh). Then came the idea of making a t-shirt, because what good idea isn't set in stone by turning it into a t-shirt?! So I think that the "greater"-Dixfield Blog-O-Sphere needs to design to t-shirt and all wear them proudly. Now all we need is a artist to design the logo, who's in?

Enjoy ~SJ

The Night Of No Technology

In all of my brilliance I took my briefcase into Mi Prima's house the other night so that my laptops (yes, I have two - my own MacBook, and the State issue MLTI) and my camera wouldn't get cold in the car. Well, as we went out the door to hang out at my house for the night I left the briefcase sitting by the door. Of course I did not realize that the bag and all of its precious contents were momentarily forgotten about until I pulled into my driveway 20 minutes later. Due to my desire to conserve gas we decided to "rough it" for the night without any way to access the internet. I know, I can hear you gasping in shock right now. It was a difficult night, we couldn't just Google burning trivial questions that we had, we couldn't surf Amazon to compare prices of random items, or watch mindless videos on YouTube. We managed to keep ourselves entertained by watching a few episodes of L Word and eating Ben & Jerry's. I somehow awoke the next morning still alive, yet itching to check my morning email and new sites. So after a few cups of coffee and some quick showers we went and rescued the precious electronics and headed out to the Corner Store (a.k.a. Dixfield University) for an afternoon of technology rejuvenation.

Enjoy ~SJ

Dixfield University

Ok, there really isn't a Dixfield Univeristy, but Mi Prima and I have spent a large part of the day hanging out at the Dixfield Corner Store. Not only do they offer over twelve different flavors of coffee, and a complete Italian-esc sandwich deli, but they have free wireless internet! So, Mi Prima and I spent most of the day hanging out, surfing the internet, drinking coffee, eating amazing food and visiting with the wonderful people who came in. So, if Dixfield had a University, all the college kids would hang out at the Corner Store.














"Dixfield University"















SJ at "Dixfield Univeristy"

Enjoy ~SJ