Friday, February 10, 2012

GARAGE SALE SEASON CAN NOT COME FAST ENOUGH

Almost the middle of February and I am getting antsy for garage sale season. It can not come fast
enough for me. At this time of the year hubby and I limited to either thrift stores or the local auctions.

There is estate sales every once in awhile but they are always priced higher so I have to watch myself so I do not spent too much for an item. There is one estate sale today and bargain day tomorrow so maybe I will find some treasure to resell. Hubby and I went to one of the local auctions last night. Pickings were slim. I saw one mid century round shelf I liked was considering to resell but it went to high to buy and make any money. Then there was a cute little chair mid century also, I considered it until they moved it to go with a desk that it did not match. There were boxes of books but nothing caught my eye, hubby is more patient and dug a bit and found two boxes that he thought were worth while bidding on. He did the bidding and won the two boxes. We went through them and picked the ones we wanted and the remainder will be resold at another auction. After they finished with things we were interested in we left and headed home. Got home just about 9 pm and sat at our computer to check out our books. I ended up listing four of them on Amazon for an asking price of $ 75.00 . The treasure of the bunch in my opinion is this 1915 copy of Duluth Central High School yearbook. I had not bothered to look in these boxes because it looked like old junk. That behavior will change from this day forward. This is my high school and they closed it for good last year. Shame on the beings that chose to close my school and then sink money into the other two high schools. That is another rant for future days. Duluth Central opened up in 1892 in down town Duluth and it is a thing of beauty. This yearbook is fantastic, after all these years it is in amazing condition. There are 266 pages plus an index of the students and the quality of the pages is outstanding. This would make a great addition to any family history collection. I will be selling this vintage year book  But until it is sold will enjoy looking through it. There are at least two memoriam's to students who died before the class graduated. One is a female named Rae Madge Abraham who died from illness and then two boys who drowned. The boys names were James Arthur Kelly and Gerald Francis McCormack. I did not have any family members living in Duluth at this time so no chance of finding family members. Have you found anything of interest to resell lately.  I would love to hear your stories of found treasures.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

THE 50 30 20 BUDGET PLAN ARE YOU SAVING ENOUGH FOR YOUR FUTURE ?

Have you given any new thought to your budget and how to make a budget? Or are you like many and it is money in and money out. If you find yourself at a much younger age than this retired senior writer then you may want to take a good long look at your budget.  Are you saving enough for an emergency or for your retirement?  If not why not grab a cup of coffee or tea or what ever and sit down with your numbers.
What are your needs?
What are your wants?
Are you saving anything. ?

The following is directly from the Internet with a link to read more if you want of the article.

The first step to creating a 50-30-20 budget is to allocate 50% of your monthly income to your must have items in life. This is a roof over your head, food, clothing, water, medical care etc. You need to make sure you are allocating only must have items to this part of the budget. Must haves are not a new shirt, a cable bill, gym membership, or anything other than absolute must haves to survive. Once you have done this you have completed the 50 portion of the budget.

The second step to creating a 50-30-20 budget is to allocate is the 30 portion. The 30 portion is the 30% of your monthly income that you can spend on what you want. This list can include your gym membership, cable bill, eating out, a new pair of shoes etc.

The third step to creating a 50-30-20 budget is the 20 portion. This is 20% of your monthly income that you are going to set aside in case of an emergency, or to pay down any debts that you owe. You can use this money in the event of a medical emergency, or in case you ever lose your job and need to have money available.

I will not get into specifics about our income or our outgo but I can tell you that we are just squeeking by with our needs and wants.  Problem is there is no money going into savings,
charity giving is very low which is not okay with either of us and our weekly allowance is not enough. This weekly allowance covers food at home, food out, gas for car or any kind of entertainment.

This leaves one way out and that is to make more money some how. How much money would that be a month is the key to all of it. I know what this figure is for us. It would be great if we could bring in $1200 to $1500 more a month net. To that you have to generate some sales some where. Means I may need to go and get a part time job some where which is something I do not want to do really.

We have different options since we buy and sell to suppliment our income. We do this either at Amazon, eBay and selling items either at the antique store or at the auction house. But how can I accomplish this in the time we have.

 Now it is your turn to take a look at your budget, your needs, wants and are you saving enough for your future.

Thanks for stopping, I hope that you will be back some time and take a few minutes to look at some of my other postings. I will be sharing this over at Saved Quarter blog


Read more: How to Create A 50-30-20 Budget | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5318525_create-budget.html#ixzz1lozUM300

Monday, February 6, 2012

MONDAY MENU PLAN ~ LETS MAKE SOME SPAGHETTI SAUCE

It is Monday and time to plan what we will eat this next week.  I like to make one item on Tuesday night and we can have left overs during the week.

Last week we had our Cheesy Lasagna Soup and ate it a couple of times.

Tomorrow night we will make our home made Spaghetti Sauce and that will be good for a couple of nights.

The rest of the week will be sandwiches at the auctions and either meatballs with gravy and potatoes or my  home made sloppy joes or hubby's rich burgers.

Hope that your menu plan is tasty as I know ours will be.  Grace