Category: Money and finances


A couple of weeks ago I found a really great deal on the nomorerack.com website that I learned about. I really LOVE that website – they have so many great bargains! Well, this particular bargain was for a pair of boots that were a knock-off of the popular UGH boots. From what I understand, that particular style is “out” right now, but the boots looked so warm and comfy that I decided to go ahead and order them. I’m not always about what is “in” I am more about comfort and value. And I’ve noticed that when I am home that my feet are almost always cold, so I thought that I’d buy these particular boots and wear them in the house instead of outside, as a way to keep my feet warm.

I usually wear a size 6 1/2 shoe, but my foot is wide, so I decided to go ahead and order the boots a couple of sizes larger than I usually wear. I’d rather have boots on my feet that are a little bit too large than too small. Well, I went ahead and ordered size 8 1/2, thinking that would be leaving me plenty of room to wear some nice heavy socks. The boots arrived today, and they are almost too small! I can wear them with regular socks, but I will not be able to wear them with heavy socks. That is a true aggravation – ordering something a couple of sizes larger with the thought that they will be too large, and then having them arrive almost too small! I guess I should just be really glad that I did not order my regular size!

Like most people, every night I empty my pockets and if I have any loose change I put it in a jar on my dresser. Eventually that jar gets pretty full of coins, so I bought a big ceramic piggy bank at Target for $10 and now I put most of my change into to the piggy bank.

Today even that big piggy bank became full, so I called my bank to ask what is the proper process for bringing in loose change and exchanging it for cash? Would you believe that they told me they don’t do that at my branch? They said anything more than a roll of quarters – that’s ten dollars – must be deposited to my account. The only way I can bring a large amount of loose change into the bank and exchange it for paper dollars is to drive all the way downtown and take the coins into the main bank where they have the only change sorting machine. They will sort it while I wait and give me paper dollars for it, but they prefer to deposit the change and not have the customer waiting while they do it.

This is why banks are getting such a bad reputation for customer service. Money is money and banks are supposed to be in the business of handling money. If I bring legal U.S. tender into the bank and ask for them to exchange it for a different form of legal tender, they should be falling all over themselves to provide that service for a customer.

When I was a young mother, I was always worried about how in the world was I going to be able to save for college for my kids. After all I was a single parent, barely scraping by. I started to read a lot of articles in parenting magazines about the subject even before my kids were born! There were a lot of columns giving advice about buying savings bonds, buying life insurance policies, and even pre-paying college expenses at the college that you want your child to attend!

The catch with the pre-payment plans were that if your kid didn’t want to go to that college you would not be able to get a refund. Well, that sounded like a really bad idea to me – especially since the college my parents wanted me to go to was really a secretarial school and not a college at all. If I refused to go to the school of my parent’s choice, why in the world would I think that my own kid would go to the college I wanted my kid to go to?

One of the more painless ways parents can save for college is by joining programs that give you rewards for signing up at a website and shopping with their affiliated partners. When you do that, a small portion of the money you spend go into a special savings account that you can spend later on college tuition. I did that for my kids; it didn’t save them a whole lot of money, but every penny helps!

Well I got my taxes done early this year, and then I did my son’s taxes, and then my sister’s taxes. Everyone is happy with me because everyone is getting refunds! My son and my sister are filing electronically so they should be able to get their refunds in about two weeks, so they are as happy as a pig in mud. I wanted to file mine electronically as well, but the IRS needed some extra documentation from me so I had to mail it in. That’s really too bad, because I would have loved to get my refund quickly and now it looks like it will take a couple of months. I don’t like to wait!

For several years the only thing I would drink through out the day was just plain tap water. With the exception of one cup of tea in the morning, just plain old water. Then one day, out of the blue, every time I would drink plain water I would become nauseous. I remember a long time ago being told by a doctor that just plain water is hard on the stomach, and I know that I have a couple of hiatal hernias and GERD. Now I try to drink Crystal Light or the generic store brand version. The flavor is nice and it quenches my thirst without upsetting my stomach. I just wish that I could still drink plain water, though. I don’t enjoy having to spend money to flavor, but I don’t feel as if I have a choice in the matter anymore.