Give Me Back My Five Bucks

I briefly mentioned before that I was thinking of hiring a cleaner, and it’s true. I am definitely going to hire one. For the longest time, I was completely against it. When I moved into this townhouse, I tried to reason with myself that my place is small (just less than 700 sq. ft.), and I can just suck it up and spend the time to clean it myself. Surely doing it myself would be worth it to not have to pay someone to come and do it for me. But you know what? Cleaning sucks. I work 65+ hours/week, … Continue reading →

First, I want to thank everyone for their suggestions on what to do in Oregon. It was a great road trip, and I only wish we had a few more days to explore all that Oregon had to offer. We spent Saturday in Portland. It only cost $3 to park downtown for the entire day (take that, downtown Vancouver!). We also ended up buying transit day passes ($4.75) because we didn’t realize the light rail system was free within the downtown core. We wandered through Chinatown, then down by the water where we found the Saturday Public Market, as well … Continue reading →

In a recent Moneyville post where I discussed how it’s more expensive to be single, I received a lot of feedback – not only in the comments, but my inbox was flooded with messages from people offering their own insight. In fact, I probably received more e-mails from that one post, than all of my other articles combined. What I talked about just scratched the surface of what seems to be a sensitive topic. A quick scroll through the comments, and it’s obvious that people have strong opinions. But still, the numbers don’t lie. It is significantly more expensive to … Continue reading →

So I’m going to have to do a little bit of spending in the next few weeks: Hiking/Camping supplies Backpacking water bladder ($35) – I must have lost it in the move, because it’s gone. Tent ($300) – This purchase is going to hurt because lightweight backpacking tents aren’t cheap. I’m going to buy a new 2-person tent because I don’t trust used tents not to have tiny holes or rips in them. I might actually wait until I go down to Seattle in August and check out REI, but that would mean no overnight hikes until then. Not that … Continue reading →

As most of you know, I’m a single gal (James Franco, are you reading this?). And if you’ve been with my blog since the beginning, you also probably know that I’ve been in long-term relationships for almost six years (2 years, 3.5 years). So I’m a little out of touch with dating etiquette. Specifically the use of coupons on the first date. Six years ago, I probably would have considered it a little tacky to use a coupon on the first date. But then again six years ago, I was in massive debt, and using coupons probably could have helped … Continue reading →