Tag: seattle
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Gasoline spending: the problem
21 December 2012This is the first of two posts about how I adapted our budget system to control our gasoline expenses. When I set up our budget in July 2011, Jak and I both had contract jobs. That meant two things with regard to transportation: a long commute several days per week, and free transit passes. Mostly, […]
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Frugal grocery shopping basics
17 May 2012As I’ve started to write up my experiences grocery shopping in Mexico, I’ve realized that in order for the comparisons to make any sense I first need to give them some context. If you’ve been reading Pocketmint for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that I place a lot of emphasis on food. From […]
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Eschewing Black Friday, embracing Small Business Saturday
29 November 2011I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend (well, those in the States, anyway — I hope everyone else had a great ordinary weekend). We had an awesome dinner, if I do say so myself. I am almost done with the cost calculations I promised; I just need to get a few prices from Costco […]
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5 November 2009
We’ve done a pretty good job of cutting back on unnecessary expenses during this period of reduced income. ‘Magazine subscriptions’ seems like an obvious category to eliminate, right? Yet I kept mine. Here’s why: they save me way more money than they cost. Consumer Reports My first-ever magazine subscription, when I was 19 years old, […]
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25 September 2009
Alert readers may have noticed that lately the frequency of posts here at Pocketmint has been somewhat reduced. One reason is that some of my recently personal-finance writing has gone to Get Rich Slowly instead. In addition to the aforementioned discount grocery store adventure, I did a post on Discovering — and challenging — your […]
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25 September 2008
With the entire country in dire financial turmoil this week, I’ve been fighting my own great depression with the quintessential American pastime: shopping! Well, sort of. I didn’t go on any kind of wild spree, nor was I shopping just for shopping’s sake; we’ve had a few months to grow our home-improvement fund since our […]
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Frugal foodie: agony at the farmers’ market
21 August 2008I had a sort of mini-vacation last week; didn’t go anywhere, but took off work to hang with a visiting friend. I had every intention of posting during the break, but … I was too busy playing. And eating. Stacy and I are both unapologetic foodies, which means we spent much of our time bouncing […]
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Inflation or unemployment: pick one
8 August 2008The last time the economy took a sharp downturn it hit me hard. With dot-coms failing right and left, suddenly there was a huge glut of Internet-industry workers. Employment levels took four or five years to fully rebound, during which I got by on intermittent income and credit-card debt. This time, though Jak and I […]
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29 July 2008
I made a run to Safeway last night for sale produce: blueberries at $2.50/lb, tomatoes at $1.50/lb, summer squash and lettuce at $1.00. (I love summer.) At the checkout I put my nylon bag at the front of the conveyor belt, then unloaded my groceries. The checker gingerly picked up the turquoise cloth and dropped […]