Life On The Central Coast

Being thrifty has gone out of style I think. Things being so cheap for the most part it's just easier to replace them. Sad... and wasteful. When I was little, my mom used to tell me “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Boyd K Packer And boy we did! Our knees were patched our shoes had holes and were coming apart, I wore my older sister's hand-me-downs and when things were purchased, they were of good quality so they would last.  Being thrifty is a state of mind. It's about  using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully.   Think how much money you can save if you aren't a clothing "slave" to style, color, brand, etc. I mean, who can really afford to change out their entire wardrobe, season after season, year after year. I'm lucky to have been a "stay at home" mom, now retired and I could literally wear what I want day after day. I've adopted a fairly simple "jeans and t-shirt" wardrobe. I can ...

When you are living on a budget, wasting should not be in your vocabulary! There are many areas of a budget where the "dollars" are wasted, and by doing a budget, you will be able to detect your own personal weaknesses in certain areas. We use Quicken to set our budget and can see the areas where we tend to be "always over budget." By the way you guys.... Quicken is an AWESOME way to keep track of your budget. It's easy, informative, definitely not that expensive and gives you good solid insight into your personal finances. I highly recommend it! For us, our over budget area tends to be food and that is embarrassing to say considering all the food we buy. More specifically it is our "Dining Out" dollars. We have our regular Date Night dinners out and then there are the lunches. Before my husband retired, I didn't eat out for lunch very much. Maybe once or twice a week. And then we'd go together on the weekends and treat ourselves to lunch. ...

One of the ways we save money during the week is to have a couple of meals that are meat"less" and by that I mean way less meat. We are not vegetarians and on those meat"less" days we DO have eggs, cheese, butter and milk.  Tonight for dinner, we will be having Cheesy Polenta with Roasted Vegetables.   (click on link to be taken to recipe) We try to eat seasonally and locally and because the temperatures on the Central Coast of California are still cool,  we have access to both butternut squash and Brussels sprouts at our local Farmer's Markets. As gardeners, we also grow both of these items and they can both be readily found at most grocery stores.  And let me tell you, if you have never had polenta before.... WHY NOT!!?? You are going to love the rich cheesy, corny taste and how it mixes perfectly with the sweet butternut squash and the smokey Brussels Sprouts. You have GOT to try this dish out. So the cost breakdown for the end of Fe...

You can't be in debt and retire. Well, you can and plenty people DO live that way, but I would not suggest anyone do it. My husband told me in 2015 that he would like to retire in 2017. That left just 2 short years to climb out of debt. We had one car we owed on and three credit cards at the time. If I remember correctly, it was about $20,000 of household debt plus a mortgage on our home. Since it was just the two of us and we live frugally, it wasn't a problem to get going with a "debt snowball" right away. Have you heard of a debt snowball? Its a Dave Ramsey idea on how to eradicate debt pretty fast. You list your debt from smallest to largest balances. The smallest balance debt gets the most money thrown at it while the remainder debts get paid minimum balances. Once you knock out that smallest debt, you add what you were paying to it along with the payment for the next to smallest debt and that debt gets all the extra money while the remainder debts get j...

Valentines Day!! Did everyone remember to say "I love you" to all the people in your life? What do you do on Valentine's Day? Go our for dinner? Lunch? Share your gifts, time, love? I think I did a little bit of all of that. My Best Friend and I met for coffee this morning, lunch was shared with Hubby and one of my daughters and her little ones. We decided against going out to dinner tonight but our regular date night is tomorrow so we will do something fun then. Had two of the "grands" over to watch Trolls and loved them up. And a special surprise from my hubby.... First, let me say that we don't usually do much of an exchange of gifts. But while I was at coffee, he went shopping at an antique store for a gift for me. He knows I LOVE all that old stuff, especially the stuff that can still be used. I've gotten butter churns, a hand-cranked sewing machine, we have old Aladdin lamps around the house and just last week he surprised me with a cute littl...

It's been a while friends. Life has a way of moving forward like an endless ride on a roller coaster. We have been preparing for retirement, a BIG change in our lives. My husband has worked for the entire time I've known him, and I met him when I was 15 years old! Last year, after working for the same company for 35 years, he decided it was time to begin thinking about retiring and of course that meant I needed to prepare the financial parts of it.  Back when we were first married in 1975 (I know, 42 years this year!!) we fell into our jobs. He made the money and I made it stretch. It wasn't always easy to be a stay-at-home mom of 4 kids and making enough money each month so that my kids today don't remember hard times at all. Guess we did a good job huh? We learned to be frugal and make the dollar stretch a LOT! As each of our 4 grew up, married and moved out, we were able to save more money each month, carefully building our nest egg for the future.  We have...

Thanksgiving 2016 It's been a while my friends. Just life, nothing else. Well, no other reason. Life is good! Retirement for my husband is just around the corner. We are getting our affairs in order to begin another chapter in our lives. We have much to be Thankful for! Each other for sure! Our children who are having their children and growing into responsible and loving families. 9 Grandchildren, 9!! Wow! And our kids have found work in this area so we get to see all of the "Littles" frequently. Our health, making it to our age and having barely anything wrong with us. Yes, a bit of obesity and high blood sugar, nothing a diet and activity change wouldn't fix. Our friends and family. Good friends are hard to come by in this age when most people think friends are the count on their Facebook accounts. I have REAL friends and we get together and do real things. I'm thankful for my wonderful sister, my cousins, my husbands' family. They make our ...