By the way, that’s miserly, not miserable.
I’m very excited to be the winner of the the first blog giveaway hosted by Economic Endeavors in which I won a copy of the book Miserly Moms
I am about three quarters of the way through the book and really love it. Hopefully when I’m done I will be able to pass it along to someone else.
Thanks to The Centisible Sawyer for posting about this contest and leading me to another blog I love to read everyday!
One simple thing I’ve learned on this journey to save money is that sometimes my frugal attempts will cost me more money instead of save me money. I’ve had to learn to stop beating myself up when those times arose and instead just learn from my mistakes and move on. So what type of things will cost you more?
So as you go throughout your day, really analyze the ways you save money. Could there be areas in which you’re losing money in the process? Fix those problems and move ahead with new ways to be frugal.
You know, I’ve had some really great people go up to bat for me in my journey to create a miracle for my husband. I just wanted to give you all an update on what’s going on.
For the past year or so, my husband worked in a studio owned by someone else. We paid them rent for the space and always dreamed of having our own studio one day. Well, fast forward to a couple of months ago and the person who owned the studio decided to close up shop. We saw our opportunity and seized it and we now own the studio and in turn rent out space to other teachers. In essence, it pays for itself.
Why am I telling you this? Well, you see, one of the requirements in our lease was that we had insurance for the office and part of that coverage included my husband’s equipment. When I read through the policy, it said that they are only covered while in the business or in the vehicle within 2000 feet of the business - neither of which were true. My husband is relentless, so he called the insurance agent anyhow and we were quite surprised to hear that quote, unquote “they should cover it.”
We finally heard back from the adjuster a couple of days ago and sure enough, our agent had added a “floating” policy to cover the instruments in any location. It was an incredible relief at first, but then we realized two things. One, we have a $500 deductible. Two, he had only insured it for $1100, which was the price he originally paid for it several years ago, not the replacement cost. With a replacement cost of $1799, that put a slight damper on things.
So yesterday we find out that our deductible for the instruments is only $250, which made things a little better. He talked to the adjuster again and explained the situation and so she told him to send her a copy of the police report and a copy of the list price and she would speak to her supervisor. He faxed both of them to her yesterday and they did something amazing. They waived the deductible for us and are going to send us a check for $1100. It should have been mailed today and we should receive it in a couple of days.
So, once we have the check in our hands, we’ll go back to Guitar Center and talk to one of the managers there that we know really well. He’s going to try to talk them down to $1500 which means we’ll only have to come up with $400. I’ve received a little over $200 in donations/scratchbacks so we’ll only have to come up with $200 on our own. With our stimulus check coming on Friday, I can do this.
It’s been a crazy turn of events, but between the kindness of strangers and prayers, a miracle has definitely happened! My husband should have a new guitar by Monday as long as all goes well. He works so hard and I’m so incredibly happy that this is working out the way it is.
A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible. I had fallen into such a deep depression over this and now the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight!
A couple of days ago, I asked for your ideas on how I could create a miracle for my husband in order to get a new guitar for him. I received several comments and emails full of great ideas and I thank you all for taking them time to send them to me. So, now is the time to put them into action.
This is still a work in progress so I’m coming up with new ideas all the time. I’ll be incredibly grateful for more ideas as the days go by. I’d really love to earn the money rather than ask for handouts, but I’m open to any help I can get! I can’t do this alone, so I ask….no, I BEG of you to please help me spread the word.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m looking forward to paying this forward someday.
We haven’t heard anything about my husband’s missing truck or, more importantly, its contents. I’ve never seen him so depressed and it’s killing me. He just got a contract with a major casino near here to teach guitar to a group of students and he starts tomorrow. Nothing like teaching a guitar class when your guitar was just stolen.
So, anyhow, I want to make a miracle happen. Somehow, someway, I’m going to come up with the money to get him a new guitar. This is where you come in. I need MORE ideas on ways to come up with some quick cash. This is what I have in mind so far:
Ok, my list is weak, but it’s because my mind is racing a mile a minute. If only I had been in the first group of people to get their stimulus check! But unfortunately, we’re due to get ours next Friday (hopefully sooner!).
Ok, so please send me your ideas. I will do almost anything at this point and I thank you in advance for your thoughts.
I’m just beside myself right now.
Tonight I was waiting for my husband to get done with one of his appointments and so I ran to a Walmart near where he was so that I could wait for him. He decided that when he was done, he would just run in and meet me and we’d go. When we got back to the parking lot we found that his truck was gone. A 91 Nissan pickup truck with 220,000 miles on it. The parking lot cameras showed an SUV pull down the aisle we were parked in, a guy get out, walk up to the truck, open it and drive away - all within about 30 seconds. The cop that we filed the police report with said that the older vehicles are stolen all the time with worn keys.
To make matters worse, he left his guitar in it. He was just going to run in and out and there really should have been no harm in it. That guitar is our bread and butter because he’s a music instructor. Oh yeah, a music instructor who travels to people’s homes to give lessons - who now has no vehicle and no instrument.
And let’s just add insult to injury. We just paid off a loan to a family member who helped us buy his school books. Guess what else was in his truck? $300 worth of school books.
It’s times like these that life feels like it’s over. We were just starting to get back on our feet and now the means to make our money has been taken from us.
Tomorrow we hit the pawn shops to see if someone pawned the guitar. Wish us luck.
Sometimes I look at what search terms brought people to my site and realize they must have been pretty disappointed when they got here. Therefore, every Friday, I’m going to take the top searches for the week and elaborate a little more on them.
By and far, the most frequent term to get to my site has to do with making your own laundry detergent. I think people are more interested in more recipes to make the detergent. Since I made that post, I have found a couple more ideas on doing it.
The easy answer to this is no. The dispenser is there for your convenience and doesn’t have to be used. If you find your dishes are gritty or spotty, then by all means use a rinse aid. You can either buy a commercial brand or fill it with vinegar. And if you don’t have a dispenser at all, you can buy a rinse aid that hangs in your dishwasher.
This is a situation I have found myself in too many times. First of all, if you have absolutely no money at all, you’re going to have to ask for help. Family, friends, church, or food banks will be happy to help you. Look into public assistance if you have to until you can get back on your feet.
If your budget is limited, I can give you a resource that saved my life: $45 Emergency Menu by Hillbilly Housewife. It’s based on making everything from scratch, which is a lot of work, but when you have no money, it is invaluable. In the process I’ve learned to eat healthier and learned to make so many things in the kitchen.
I saw “slim” appear many times and couldn’t figure out what it was. I searched wikipedia thinking it might be a foreign term. I searched urban dictionary thinking it might be slang. I was really at a loss, so I decided to Google it myself. That’s when I realized I was an idiot. It’s a typo and supposed to be: How to Make SLIME with glue and borax. Without further ado:
And there you have it. Hopefully someone will be a little less disappointed this week.
I’ve been debating whether or not I would add the CommentLuv plugin since I read Encouraging Comments with the CommentLuv Plugin. Then I began to procrastinate and haven’t felt like tweaking my blog.
Well, good old RT wrote Backlink Building with DoFollow Blogs and the CommentLuv WordPress Plugin yesterday and once again he gave me the kick in the pants I needed to actually make a change. And yes, it was a GREAT kick….I think this guy should be a motivational speaker. Maybe he can tell me I need to get off the computer and clean my home…nah, nobody is THAT motivational.
I installed the plugin and it appears to be working - I won’t know for sure until someone leaves me a comment. In return for a lovely comment, you get a lovely link to your last blog entry. If you don’t have a blog - well tough luck I guess.
A lot of time has passed and while I’d love to say that I’ve been out working on a super secret research project - I’m just not a good liar. The truth is that our cable was shut off and with the cable goes my internet connection. No internet connection = no blogging.
On a side note, I guess I’ve technically been researching some things though. You know all those sites that tell you how to make your own “fill in the blank” and save money? I’ve actually been trying some of those things out and I’m a little surprised. Some things were difficult to make, some didn’t work how they were supposed to and some of the things I thought would be most difficult were a piece of cake.
I’ll let you know the results of my efforts over the coming days (maybe weeks if I can’t get a wireless connection). It’s definitely been a journey!
It’s always a little awkward when you have some kind of injury because the first thing people think is domestic violence. Despite the fact that my husband and I would love to strangle each other, this beating did come from my son’s hard head.
And my husband loves to make jokes during serious times to lighten things up. It drives me crazy sometimes because I tend to be a very serious person, but he came up with something last night that really made me laugh. We were making jokes about what would be written on our tombstone when we die and he said that this is what he will have put on mine:
Here she lies, a desert rose
Buried at an angle
To match her crooked nose
And without further ado…here are the pictures. I realize it probably doesn’t look very noticeable, but I’m a bit self conscious nonetheless.
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