Pocketmint

Tag: seattle

1. Our year of radical change

   6 July 2013

   Okay, I went AWOL on Pocketmint again. I’m sorry, but I’m hoping when you hear why, you’ll forgive me. Around the time of my last post, my whole life took an abrupt left turn … and then just kept going. Here are (some of) the major developments from the last three months: 1. Jak got […]

2. Gasoline spending: the problem

   21 December 2012

   This 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, […]

3. Frugal grocery shopping basics

   17 May 2012

   As 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 […]

4. Eschewing Black Friday, embracing Small Business Saturday

   29 November 2011

   I 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 […]

5. Spending money to save money

   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, […]

6. Seeking alpha (testers)

   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 […]

7. Shopping for happiness

   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 […]

8. Frugal foodie: agony at the farmers’ market

   21 August 2008

   I 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 […]

9. Inflation or unemployment: pick one

   8 August 2008

   The 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 […]

10. Grocery bag revolution

    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 […]