We Had To Eveacuate For a Fire

I can't help but wonder how many people out there have had to evacuate their homes, in February, for a forest fire! Amazing... Rain, snow, 55+ mph winds and fire? Interesting combo!

The Department of Forestry in my area, Mt. Shasta CA, was doing a "control" burn last week that went way out of control, jumped a major highway, and burned over 700 acres and a home! Thankfully, that home wasn't our home, but we did have to evacuate for the day on Sunday and wonder if our home would burn before the rains started coming down to put it out.

The interesting thing is this is the second time we have had to evacuate in the last 4 years. The first fire burned up to our property line and our property was saved by the wonderful men and women of CDF and the USFS.

Anyway, back to frugal living! :) It's going to be March tomorrow. Do you have a budget in place? Have you planned how you will save and spend your income next month?

Subscribe to my newsletter, The Frugal Place, and get a monthly dose of the frugal life and learn how to find that new American Dream - the one you can afford! Subscription is $12 for 8 issues a year. Money back guarantee! Paypal: thefrugalplace@yahoo.com or send check/money order to me at: Donna Hentsch, The Frugal Place, 16345 Gilman Road, Montague CA 96064.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad?

I read and enjoyed the book with that name, by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter, a couple years ago. I found it especially interesting because I have a family situation where I have one frugal-good-with-money parent and one that isn't. It's been interesting, and sometimes frustrating, being in the middle of the dichotomy.

Getting married, having children, and starting our own lives we leaned more toward the Poor Dad half. We used credit. We had a lot of debt. We did many things, and purchased many things that we couldn't afford.

I've always admired the successes of the Rich Dad half of my family and decided to learn about frugal living and see if I couldn't figure that out. It started long ago with reading "The Tightwad Gazette" and progressed from there.


Subscribe to my newsletter, The Frugal Place, and get a monthly dose of the frugal life and learn how to find that new American Dream - the one you can afford! Subscription is $12 for 8 issues a year. Money back guarantee! Paypal: thefrugalplace@yahoo.com or send check/money order to me at: Donna Hentsch, The Frugal Place, 16345 Gilman Road, Montague CA 96064.

Loving The Frugal Blog!

I consider myself to be a pretty computer literate human. Somehow though I managed to get this far in life without learning HTML. Looks like I need to look for the "HTML For Dummies" book at the local thrift store! Geez... took me an hour to put that AdSense affiliate ad on here! :)

The newsletter is about done and I am SO excited to get it out there and share our furgal journey and tips with everyone! If you would like a copy of the 1st edition PayPal or send me $2 and I will get you an evaluation copy. If you want to subscribe from there I will take the $2 off the subscription price for the first year for you.

Well, my day of frugal living and HTML cursing have ended.

:)--Donna

Subscribe to my newsletter, The Frugal Place, and get a monthly dose of the frugal life and learn how to find that new American Dream - the one you can afford! Subscription is $12 for 8 issues a year. Money back guarantee! Paypal: thefrugalplace@yahoo.com or send check/money order to me at: Donna Hentsch, The Frugal Place, 16345 Gilman Road, Montague CA 96064.

Your Time or Your Money?

The single biggest issue that always strikes me when reading about the frugal living lifestyle is most things in life come down to two simple things - your time and/or your money. We seem to have a single tradeoff to contend with in each choice we make. Do we spend our time? Do we spend our money? Generally things cost more of one or the other based on the decision we make. We make a trade-off and a balance in each thing we need or desire.

When I go to the grocery store, for example, I make a choice. If my choice is to buy elemental ingredients for the foods I will cook that week then I purchase items like flour, eggs, milk, meat, fruits, and vegetables. Very few of the items in my cart come in a box or any kind of unnecessary packaging. I am not paying for processing of these items into another form so they are likely cheaper. The tradeoff that I then contend with is that I will have to cook my meals from scratch. This will likely take more of my time. I saved money when I shopped and I traded-off for more time in cooking and preparation.

Perhaps I do not know how to cook from scratch or perhaps I have very limited time to cook my meals due to my work or family schedules. I go to the same grocery store and purchase most of my items in a box or in the frozen foods aisle. My packages are filled to the brim with frozen pizzas and hamburger helper type meal. In theory they take less time to prepare. My food bill will likely be double the cost it was when I purchased the elemental ingredients. I have traded a higher grocery bill for less preparation time.

(Read the entire article in my newsletter...)

Subscribe to my newsletter, The Frugal Place, and get a monthly dose of the frugal life and learn how to find that new American Dream - the one you can afford! Subscription is $12 for 8 issues a year. Money back guarantee! Paypal: thefrugalplace@yahoo.com or e-mail me for the snail-mail address to send payment.

Starting Is The Hardest Part... (a.k.a. Why Is That?)

Have you ever noticed that starting something is usually harder than completing it? We as humans spend a ton of time procrastinating and avoiding things, even to our own detriment. Why is that?

For a very long time I have wanted to write a frugal living newsletter. I want to write it, publish it, mail it, and watch it grow. I've spent more time thinking (can you say procrastinating?) about writing the dang thing that it would have taken to just start doing it. Why is that?

I've often wondered why I can spend hours on end reading a message board, or an hour writing a post or e-mail. I spend 8 hours a day working my butt off for the business I work for. I work hard and I do a good job. But, it is so hard to sit down, on my own unpaid time, and do something that I want to do for my own business. Why is that?

As people we grow up and move out of our parent's homes and "start" living our lives. Here in America that generally means that we also tend to accrue a lot of debt - student loans, credit cards, car payments and let's not forget huge mortgages. We make our own lives miserable by spending money we don't have on things we can't afford in the first place. Why is that?

Is it the "American Dream?" I think not. And, my mission in life is now to share with you what I think that American Dream really is!

Subscribe to my newsletter, The Frugal Place, and get a monthly dose of the frugal life and learn how to find that new American Dream - the one you can afford! Subscription is $12 for 8 issues a year. Money back guarantee! Paypal: thefrugalplace@yahoo.com or e-mail me for the snail-mail address to send payment.