Author Topic: Celebrations Thread  (Read 1648218 times)

tmac

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #50 on: February 19, 2013, 07:23:11 PM »
I started a new half-time job today (added to the 1/4-time job I have with our family business). It'll add about $1000 to our net income.

startingover

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #51 on: February 19, 2013, 08:19:18 PM »
Today was my first day off in my new 4 -10 hr. shifts.  I got up early and ran all my errands, and looked at my bills to see how I could save a little.  Not much, however, I did get the 4/10s and the other 25 employees did not!  I will start making money next week.  Today I saved by not spending what I shouldn't!  I wanted a donut or chips so bad at the grocery store, but held out!! 

jenstill

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #52 on: February 22, 2013, 08:19:36 AM »
I am brand new to this community and even this idea of not living as a Sukka Consumer (that still cracks me up every time). So, for many of you these are probably no-brainers, but for the first time in my life, I no longer have cable TV (savings $39.96/month) and I just canceled the voice mail on my telephone line. Turns out my telephone has an answering machine in it, so I just figured out how to use that instead at a savings of $7/month, and canceled the telephone line wire insurance plan through Fairpoint (savings of $4.99/month). Also, since I started reading all of these posts about 3 weeks ago, I have spent a grand total of $68 on groceries for a family 5 + 1 very large dog and we've eaten out zero times. Before MMM, I averaged $150/week for groceries + 2-3 lunches out per week. We didn't stop eating obviously (3 teenagers!), but instead I've been looking to the things I already had in pantry and freezer, planning ahead, and cooking at home rather than running out to buy new stuff all the time or grabbing a pre-made meal. We ran out of milk last week and I didn't buy any for 3 whole days. We drank water instead. No one died. So far, so good!

Zaga

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #53 on: February 22, 2013, 08:56:32 AM »
Love this thread!

Last week, even with paying over $200 of mom's bills (we've taken over her utilities) we stayed within our weekly budget!

I've also been making my own bread weekly and it's great.

Finally this year should be a banner year for adding to our retirement funds, doing better than ever so far!

arebelspy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #54 on: February 22, 2013, 09:08:55 AM »
Love this thread!

Last week, even with paying over $200 of mom's bills (we've taken over her utilities) we stayed within our weekly budget!

I've also been making my own bread weekly and it's great.

Finally this year should be a banner year for adding to our retirement funds, doing better than ever so far!

Awesome!

Also, mini-celebration for you personally.  Happy Birthday!
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Zaga

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #55 on: February 22, 2013, 09:14:27 AM »
Hee hee, I didn't see the little cake by my age!  Thanks!

Nords

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #56 on: February 23, 2013, 07:02:24 PM »
I learned today that The-Military-Guide.com (IP address 66.147.244.145) shares Bluehost rack space with MrMoneyMustache.com.

Unfortunately I had to learn that because I couldn't access either website for nearly 24 hours.  Fortunately Bluehost can actually spell "tracert" and was able to prove that it was Hawaiian Telcom's DNS problem.  After an argument with Hawaiian Telcom's script reader tech support, they believed me and fixed it.

I initially tweeted and e-mailed Bluehost.  It never in my life would have occurred to me to phone them up.  However when a fellow blogger suggested doing so, Bluehost had a live human on the phone within 90 seconds.  Dealing with Hawaiian Telcom was a little different-- two separate phone calls, both on hold for 15+ minutes, they finally called back 12 hours later.  And then they argued with me.

It's been a while since I've had to unleash my inner geek, but long ago I made a promise to only use those powers for good.  Hopefully Hawaiian Telcom really did fix the problem and I'll really be able to post this!

mm31

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #57 on: February 23, 2013, 10:20:37 PM »
Just cut cable, saving around $71/month. We've been using a raspberry pi computer running raspbmc and xbmc to watch our favorite shows and are satisfied with it.

Next up: our cell phone bill! I've been looking at ting since my cell phone usage is minimal

sheepstache

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #58 on: February 24, 2013, 01:09:47 PM »
Made $225 freelance side work last week.  Due to make another $350 this week.

After hemming and hawing a long time, checked in with Eastern Mountain Sports about a rain shell I bought 3 years ago that has been disintegrating in the lining.  I "exchanged" it for a 40% discount on the next model up which they say won't have that problem.  Of course, could just be slick salesmanship since the next model up is twice as much but that means I effectively got back 80% of my purchase price for the original coat, so I'm going to be optimistic and focus on that.  And the fact that my coat doesn't make me look like a homeless person anymore.

Opened brokerage account at Vanguard (now that I'm Voyager and don't have to pay yearly fee) to purchase my first etf.

Parkertom

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #59 on: February 24, 2013, 04:12:26 PM »
Just came across this blog around the first of the year. Spent the next week or so reading every post from start to finish. I am not nearly as badass as most here. We are at a 40% savings rate. Mortgage interest kills us, but we are looking into how we can move to a less expensive home in the near future. Anyway, my celebration was finding a free bike trailer on freecycle today. Works perfectly! Will help me bike more for trips to the store and to take my son along.

ScienceRules

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #60 on: February 25, 2013, 06:39:13 AM »
I got my first manuscript accepted!

jpluncford21

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #61 on: February 25, 2013, 06:51:09 AM »
I've been wanting to get into home brewing for some time. A  neighbor sent me a link to a linging social deal that included a complete kit, an ingredient kit, and a coupon for $25 off another ingredient kit...all for $76. That's about $100 less than what I could find it for anywhere else; and, I ran the numbers after ordering my second kit and I am already coming out ahead using a conservative # of $7/six pack! Plus, my wife and I get to enjoy another hobby together. Thought that was a small, but great win to post here!

JessicaRed

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #62 on: February 26, 2013, 04:17:11 PM »
I only stumbled across MMM two days ago....but I've already made a crazy excel spreadsheet of my projected income (only just starting career at 26, currently 75k in debt) where I can show myself an estimate of where my future stash will be year after year, factoring in taxes and with 4% compound interest/added growth. Then I did formulas to show what kind of income I could pull from the finished stash depending on the interest rate.

Pretty freaking thrilled to see that I could retire by 40! Just wish I'd known of this MMM philosophy earlier!

startingover

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #63 on: February 26, 2013, 05:45:05 PM »
Way to go ScienceRules on that manuscript!! 

Nords

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #64 on: February 26, 2013, 10:41:37 PM »
We replaced our 15-year-old solar water heater tank with a new solar water heater tank.  The old tank was only $125 (Craigslist!) but it had a number of design deficiencies and I made some rookie mistakes back then.  The new one is much better tech, and now I'm a much better tech too.  I've spent the last few days doing a little prep and pre-assembly, but today was the day that we put our hot water out of commission and swapped tanks.  Luckily ("the harder I work...") everything went great, the hot water is back in service, and tomorrow I can spend a couple more hours neatening & insulating the piping runs.  The new tank's efficiency means that we'll use less electrical pumping power to store hot water at a higher average temperature for even longer.  It's probably only 10 KWHr/month, but then our net electricity use is usually under 50 KWHr/month. 

I got my first manuscript accepted!
Congratulations, and now the real fun starts!

ScienceRules

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #65 on: February 27, 2013, 04:21:17 AM »
I got my first manuscript accepted!
Congratulations, and now the real fun starts!

Thanks Nords and StartingOver! Yup, back to the lab...

jpo

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #66 on: February 27, 2013, 10:38:44 AM »
Due to a last-minute contribution to max out my HSA for 2012, I not only saved on my taxes but also am now able to invest within my HSA!

daymare

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #67 on: March 03, 2013, 04:30:02 PM »
The assets in my retirement account just passed 40K!  This is at 23, after working for 1.5 years.  This makes me happy :)

Khao

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #68 on: March 03, 2013, 05:39:43 PM »
Just started freelancing a bit doing websites, software and IT help for some guy. Received my first $200 and this guy has plenty more work for me on the way! My side-gig will make my stash grow a lot working at $40/hr.

c

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #69 on: March 03, 2013, 07:00:07 PM »
For the entire month of Feb I cooked all meals from scratch and took breakfast and lunch to work every day. I did not go to a single restaurant or bar. I honestly don't think I can the same of any other month in the 21 years since I moved out of my parent's house.

jeepbraah

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #70 on: March 04, 2013, 09:12:14 AM »
Finally invested in some I bonds.

bigchrisb

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #71 on: March 04, 2013, 10:03:48 PM »
Managed to re-work my investment loans to drop my interest bill by over $500/month.  Some pay-down and further re-structuring planned between now and 30 June to try to bring the saving to in excess of $1000/month.  Hopefully I get to claim a celebration again then!

nancylee

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #72 on: March 08, 2013, 07:57:49 AM »
Hi all,
Just paid of my one credit card, had almost $500 on it!!!

In two weeks, I am paying off my other credit card. My husband is paying off his motorcycle next month, then we are going to "snowball" that money to our ATV (we use it for plowing, not for fun, we have a very long driveway, we live in very rural NY) and that will be paid by Jan 2014. Then the extra from the motorcycle and ATV we are going to put towards my car. We have a boat we owe $$ on, we are putting it for sale this spring.

My goal is to be debt free in 3 years, and mortgage free in 5 years. This, from being one who never thought about debt as prison up until a few weeks ago.

Yay!!!
Nancy from NY

teacherman

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #73 on: March 08, 2013, 03:04:35 PM »
Ok I know this is small beans, but I just cancelled my AT&T internet service after making a deal with my friend (neighbor) to share wifi. Fck you ATT!!!!

startingover

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #74 on: March 09, 2013, 01:52:43 PM »
So who's going to get a "like" button on this forum!! 

mm31

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #75 on: March 11, 2013, 01:06:09 AM »
Cut our energy bill in half this month. Hate winter, can't wait for summer (I never need AC)

aclarridge

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #76 on: March 11, 2013, 08:47:08 AM »
Hi all,
Just paid of my one credit card, had almost $500 on it!!!

In two weeks, I am paying off my other credit card. My husband is paying off his motorcycle next month, then we are going to "snowball" that money to our ATV (we use it for plowing, not for fun, we have a very long driveway, we live in very rural NY) and that will be paid by Jan 2014. Then the extra from the motorcycle and ATV we are going to put towards my car. We have a boat we owe $$ on, we are putting it for sale this spring.

My goal is to be debt free in 3 years, and mortgage free in 5 years. This, from being one who never thought about debt as prison up until a few weeks ago.

Yay!!!
Nancy from NY

Just looking through these and this sounded most impressive! Keep it up and don't rest on your laurels :)

Awesome work everybody else as well!

Mini-celebration for me - switched my wife off her phone plan to pay-as-you-go like mine, we should be running at about $10-15/month now each.

Also, weaseled my way into getting my work to pay for my gym membership (well, really just took advantage of their wellness program) which should save me about $1000 in gym fees and some fitness equipment I'll buy this year.

wepner

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #77 on: March 13, 2013, 04:14:32 AM »
I'm a millYENaire!!! Sure a million yen is only 10,000 dollars but I've only been working in Japan for a little over a year (and have only been following my finances cloesly since January).

I've still got work to do but I'm saving more of my money every month so I'm feeling good about e direction things are going.

jenstill

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #78 on: March 14, 2013, 05:33:56 AM »
It's extremely expensive to heat this 120-year old house in a Vermont winter; I've only lived here a year but the average heating has been $1150 per month in winter just to try and keep it at 62 degrees. This caused me to get behind for the first time in my life on my heating & electric bills and was very stressful, not to mention physically uncomfortable the couple times we ran out of oil and I couldn't pay for more. Due to implementing some things I've learned here and a medium-sized tax refund, I paid off one small credit card, one large one (large to me: $2000), plus got caught up on my heating oil and electricity bills this month!

I've also begun planning to do some work over the (short) summer that should pay off next winter like adding insulation, replacing a couple of old windows, and hopefully installing a pellet stove. After reading through the DIY threads, I feel sure I can do most, if not all, of this myself and am excited to get started!

maryofdoom

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #79 on: March 15, 2013, 08:56:21 AM »
I finally got the husband to call the life-insurance company that's been soaking us for $60 per month and surrender his policy. Which means that we will shortly be obtaining about $5,800 that we can use to max out his Roth IRA for 2013 and also freeing up $60 more per month to go to the mortgage this year.

Up next: destroying our cell phone bill.

snshijuptr

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #80 on: March 16, 2013, 04:47:58 PM »
Yesterday I finished my PhD! Of course now this means I'm unemployed. Oh well I'm going to enjoy my time with my daughter and minimize our belongings in the hope that my husband and I will get one of the jobs we've both been applying and interviewing for.

Next steps: Get jobs and move in with my parents while we save to put 20% down on a home.

Jon_Snow

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #81 on: March 18, 2013, 07:24:22 PM »
Lots of things to celebrate lately - hot on the heels of my wife's large company bonus, we are soon to receive a 5k tax refund.

Also, my wife and I have agreed that I am going to "retire" from my current job during the Spring of 2014... so I am now in a 1 year countdown to a new life and to becoming a new man. Melodramatic? Perhaps, but I am serious about making positive changes to not only myself, but my marriage, my family, and the world at large. My job has been my primary focus in my life the last 23 years, and I am ready to change this.

One. More. Year.

snshijuptr

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #82 on: March 19, 2013, 12:19:06 PM »
After about a year of having a bag of dried pinto beans, I just figured out how to pressure cook the beans! This actually makes dried beans feasible. My daughter loves beans, and I've been wanting to learn to cook with beans more often.

startingover

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #83 on: March 19, 2013, 12:54:03 PM »
Way to go Jon_Snow and snshijuptr!  My Man and I are working on our retirement too.  We will get there!  As far as learning to cook new things, snshijuptr, I am baking bread and learning how to make bagels and syrian bread.  We live down the street from a butcher and bought a ton of ground deer meat.  (it's half the cost of hamburger) I'm learning how to cook it in a bunch of different ways.  Chili is getting old, and we are tired of that.  Today I'm making meatballs with sauce.  Does anybody have any recipes for ground?

Mama Minou

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #84 on: March 19, 2013, 09:10:42 PM »
These are great!
I've paid off 13% of my remaining mortgage since January 1.

Dancin Mustachian

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #85 on: March 20, 2013, 02:21:50 AM »
Our Mini Mustachian just hit his first grand!!! Pretty impressive for only being 8 months old. We're deciding on how/where to start investing it now.

In other news, my husband and I are ahead enough on our budget that we have the first third of April's bills in the bank. That's by date, not amount, so it's actually most of it. By the end of March we might even have all of April's bills, if not all of the budget ready to go.

YNAB + MMM= Fuck Yeah!

lifejoy

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #86 on: March 20, 2013, 08:55:15 PM »
I am in emergency debt repayment mode, and have 2-4 jobs to make it happen! In addition to limiting my spending and maximing my savings/investments.

clarkai

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #87 on: March 20, 2013, 09:03:28 PM »
I have learned to like lentils.

boy_bye

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #88 on: March 21, 2013, 10:05:03 AM »
we're selling our hoooooooouse <insert obnoxious cabbage patching here>

i can't wait to be a renter again! yippee!

also, i made my niece a teepee and, at her birthday party when i gave it to her, got an order for another. that's $100 for doing some fun and easy sewing on a saturday afternoon. maybe i can start a small cottage teepee industry.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2013, 10:06:54 AM by madgeylou »

kdms

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #89 on: March 21, 2013, 11:29:49 AM »
Way to go Jon_Snow and snshijuptr!  My Man and I are working on our retirement too.  We will get there!  As far as learning to cook new things, snshijuptr, I am baking bread and learning how to make bagels and syrian bread.  We live down the street from a butcher and bought a ton of ground deer meat.  (it's half the cost of hamburger) I'm learning how to cook it in a bunch of different ways.  Chili is getting old, and we are tired of that.  Today I'm making meatballs with sauce.  Does anybody have any recipes for ground?

Lasagna?  Sausage patties?  Meat pie/tourtiere/meatloaf?  It's the only red meat we eat here, and we've found it to be pretty versatile.  Anything you use ground beef for I'm pretty sure you can also use venison (there might be exceptions)...just remember the much lower fat content and compensate accordingly, either by adding something (like pork) to increase the fat content, or cooking it for less time so it doesn't dry out.  Or here's a thought...mix it with spices and a binding agent of some sort (egg, maybe?), flatten it out, and dry it into jerky for snacks?  Google will be your best friend for recipes.  :)

jdoolin

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #90 on: March 23, 2013, 02:01:23 PM »
My wife and I paid off the last of the credit card debt today!  It was several thousand as of about 6 months ago.

Now we're going to furiously save a 20% downpayment for a home.  Should take about 8 months to save enough for what we're looking for.

Zaga

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #91 on: March 23, 2013, 03:02:15 PM »
We did 2 little things today, one that saved us quite a bit of money!

1.  I made homemade buns while making my weekly bread, they are great!
2.  Our reclining love-seat was broken on the one side, it would recline but not un-recline.  We turned it over today, found the problem, and bought the $0.70 part and fixed it.  Much better than getting DH a new recliner!  He's now happily sitting on the couch with his doggy watching a movie.

LizzyBee

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #92 on: March 23, 2013, 05:21:36 PM »
I thought my husband and I were frugal before I found this blog, and relatively speaking I guess we were compared to most of our friends. Since we already saved 45% of our income before finding MMM, I wasn't sure where we could cut out expenses even more. Further, I wasn't sure my husband would go for whatever plan I schemed up. After presenting my husband with some of the ideas on this blog, we decided to:

1. Cancel Netflix (savings $8/mo)
2. Reduce our car insurance coverage (savings of $50/mo)
3. Reduce our healthcare coverage and start an HSA (savings of $50/mo which accounts for the additional $100/mo towards the HSA)
4. Switch phone plans in August when our contract expires (savings of $75/mo)
5. Negotiate for better rates for internet (savings of $15/mo)
6. Reduce our personal spending allowances from $300 each to $200 each

That's a total of $398 a month! The biggest success was getting my husband excited about all of these changes. He's even proposed a few more like reducing the amount of coffee he drinks from his fancy espresso machine.

Jon_Snow

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #93 on: March 23, 2013, 05:34:33 PM »
Renewed our tiny mortgage for another year. Managed to get our rate reduced to 2.7%. Our mortgage is now $268 monthly. We can't bring ourselves to pay it off when rates are this low. Alot of Canadian REITS  are paying in excess of a 6% return, so we feel better about putting our money there. Things are really on track...

mm31

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #94 on: March 25, 2013, 01:14:57 PM »
Finally off Verizon. We are both on Ting now, anticipating our bill to be around $40/month, down from $120.

AccidentalMiser

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #95 on: March 25, 2013, 01:27:52 PM »
Just broke 200k net worth on mint.com!!

kdms

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #96 on: March 25, 2013, 01:36:42 PM »
I just successfully replaced the blower motor resistor in my jeep - we've been without heat for (an embarassing amount of time).  Literally took 8min from start to finish.  Next up: figuring out why we only have heat when the car is actually moving.  :D

frugalman

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #97 on: March 26, 2013, 02:40:45 PM »
We've moved our iphones off of Verizon at $149/mo onto Airvoice at $20/mo total.  No data, I can live without that for $120 a month.  I get more work done too because I'm not constantly checking my email and facebook (and I can't get those at work).

Also did a little DIY this past weekend, moved a light fixture, hung a mirror, hung a wall cabinet in our cabin's master bathroom.  It felt good to DIY, this is definitely not my strong suit, but just bringing the tool bag and some patience and it eventually got done.  I'm proud of me!

mm31

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #98 on: March 26, 2013, 10:46:22 PM »
Just sold my iphone for a cool $200. Should pay for about 5 months of phone service on ting

KatieSSS

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Re: Celebrations Thread
« Reply #99 on: March 27, 2013, 10:08:12 AM »
Just increased my retirement contribution by 1% at work! That will make for an extra $450 a year in contributions. I am now saving a total of 6% of my salary (pre-tax) in addition to the 12% my employer contributes.  I was able to do this by decreasing the amount of pre-tax money that goes on my transit card. I discovered I wasn't using all of the transit money every month, so by bring that amount down I had room to increase my retirement contribution!