Yesterday I had a case of spring fever (sometimes called cabin fever).  Not the elevated temperature type, but the type inspired by a pretty day where you just can’t sit still!

The day started out sunny and clear and mild, as opposed to the normal for this time of year where it is  sunny and humid and hot.  So, I left the computer to do a few things that had been waiting for a nice day … like getting that limb out of the yard from the previous weekend’s storms and talking to one neighbor who is worried about being laid off his job while my other neighbor fired up his lawnmower and tamed the jungle my grass had become.

My neighbor facing possible layoffs has already had his hours cut, so I mentioned pizza delivery to him and explained how we drivers get paid along with some driving tips to increase his gas mileage.

Once my son got home from school, it was off shopping.  The teenager needed clothing, rather a costume for a school project, so it seemed to be a good time to start his $20 per month clothing budget.  I took him first to the Goodwill, then to Wal-Mart, where he also bought his groceries.

By the time we got out of Wal-Mart, the storm clouds had rolled in, and the storms started just as I was going to bed last night.  They are still here, all dark and grey and rumbly with thunder.  About the only good thing about the timing is I work tonight, and bad weather usually means above-average tips.

Hopefully this series of storms will be mild enough to not bring down any more branches and limbs.  I am beginning to wonder just how many the old tree in my yard has that can come down!  One extremely large one hit the house last fall, scaring hubby and me and tearing off part of the guttering.  Then the one the other weekend landed right on the cable co-ax, tearing it out from the side of the house.  Hubby was wondering over the weekend how much it would cost to have that tree taken down professionally, since it seems to be half-dead anyway.

I’ve heard having an older tree taken down professionally can run as much as a couple thousand dollars, especially one that is close to the house, so I think it may have to wait until we have enough saved for both my son’s tuition and my tuition.

Meanwhile, gas prices have jumped 9 cents a gallon in 24 hours.  I could kick myself for not filling up two days ago when I spotted $3.48 a gallon.  To be fair, we were driving hubby’s truck at that time, and it didn’t make sense to me to go get the Pizza Taxi just to fill it up.  Next time I will!

Have a happy Wednesday, folks.  The week is half over!

Just some odds and ends this morning.  The beautiful weather we had yesterday didn’t last as storms rolled in last night, but at least this time there are no limbs down nor damage to the property here!  The news says Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas got hit yet again with tornadoes, so I plan to donate a bit to the Red Cross tomorrow, including a pint of blood if I have tomorrow night off work.  I’d love it if those of y’all here in the States would join me on this.

Carnival of Financial Goals Readers’ Choice(s)

I didn’t get a whole lot of response on this (?) so the Readers’ Choice was a four-way tie.  Here are the four financial goals posts that got votes from last week’s Carnival of Financial Goals:

• The Zen and Art of Coupon Clipping from Nicole at Breaking Even
• Create Your Own Dollar Plan: Step 1 from Madison at My Dollar Plan
• Making Goals Adaptable from Brice Hogan of Financial Zip
• The Importance of Savings Goals from Alison of This Wasn’t in the Plan

Big thanks to all the carnival entrants and to those of y’all who voted for them!

Magazines for Military Troops

Reader Sheila emailed me to let me know about a couple of websites that provide magazine subscriptions to active duty military folks, and give you the ability to donate a subscription for just $10!  I hadn’t heard of it, and neither has hubby, so a big thanks to Sheila for calling this to our attention

If you are active duty military, you can start up a wish list of magazine subscriptions at Subs4Servicemembers.  If you would like to donate a subscription to an active duty military servicemember, the website is Subs4Soldiers.  Sheila says:

People who know a serviceperson can select that particular serviceperson. But otherwise, the donors and recipients remain anonymous … What better way to celebrate memorial day than by giving to someone on active duty?

Well said, Sheila!  And thank you for the heads-up.

It’s almost midnight here, and I am nowhere near tired thanks to a good nap before work.  So I could waste time sacking castles on a video game, or ramble here on the blog LOL

Some blog carnival notes for fellow bloggers:

• I am holding the Carnival of Financial Goals on Wednesday.  Blog Carnival was down part of the weekend, and the scheduled host had personal business out of town with limited internet.  If you have blogged about your financial goals, you have until I wake up and get coffee on Wednesday morning to submit your posts.  If you haven’t written up your financial goals, that gives you two days to do so!  Also, with BC being squirrely, you can email me (addy on about page) or twitter me (that didn’t sound right…) if the submission form isn’t working.
• I am holding the Carnival of Debt Reduction on Monday the 12th (next week).  I am hoping for some really great submissions about killing off that evil debt!  But I will happily include posts about reducing debt as well, and really love to read about success in the battle. (hint)

At work tips were lackluster all weekend, which is odd for the first weekend of the month.  All I can say is folks can buy nice cars, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but they can’t buy class.  Not tipping at all shows no class.  I am hoping this is just a statistical anomaly, but I have the uneasy feeling I may be right about the direction of the local economy.  Guess I better get cracking on that ebook idea!  Question for y’all readers: should I make the ebooks free, or charge a few dollars per ebook?

And on a very related note to both the ebook project and pizza delivery, I’ve decided to do that topic first!  If you have questions about delivering pizzas as a part-time job, feel free to ask.  You just might inspire an entire section of the upcoming ebook.

Finally, I forgot to put out the question I posed a couple weeks ago: How many of y’all tried my gas mileage challenge?  If you did, what were your results?

It’s still pretty early, and I am still working through my first cup of coffee.  So this post is just a collection of half-baked random ramblings that are floating through my mind.

First up, most of y’all have probably noticed a new banner over in the sidebar.  Debt Free Revolution has a new advertiser this month: Pens By Hans.  Hans has a new domain and is expanding his home business and is the first advertiser to get permission to use “DFR Endorsed” on his ad :)  I own one of his pens (thank you again, annonymous reader!) and pictures just don’t do these handmade ink pens justice.  Yes, I am still gushing over mine LOL

I almost forgot to mention!  Hans has a special for DFR readers!  He is giving y’all free shipping on orders placed from 1 May to 30 June 2008 if you put the code in the order or email him.  If you are interested, click through to the special page he made for y’all for details on how to get this.

Last night at work was unbelievably busy, and the storms didn’t help.  Folks, when the weather is hideous, you will NOT get your pizza as quickly.  We actually ran a TWO hour delivery time last night, and at least one customer chewed me out about that.  I wasn’t handed her order until one hour ten minutes after she ordered it, and I was also handed THREE orders that were older than that.  If the weather is ugly enough you don’t want to step outside your door, chances are good the rest of the town feels the same way.  Oh, and any sensible pizza delivery driver will slow down in bad weather, which compounds the problem.  Be patient if you order pizza in bad weather, and don’t take it out on the driver.

I still need your personal experiences of stagflation in the 1970s and any tips you may have on how to cope with that nasty economic situation.  Google could only find two pages on it, and they both said the same thing … and I will be picking apart what little advice I found in a future post.  It was pretty much the opposite of what I plan to do!

Speaking of inflation, I had the inflation talk with the Teenager yesterday, and we came to an agreement on changes to the “teenager on a food budget” experiment which will go into effect for tomorrow’s shopping expedition.  I’ll post the full details of it either tomorrow night after work or Monday morning.

Two cups of coffee and I still can’t put my thoughts into coherent form today, plus I have to go camp out on campus again for finals … so it’s a link love post for y’all.  My brain is in chemistry student mode LOL

First up, I need to get caught up on what little blog carnivalling I’ve been doing recently:

• I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Debt Reduction on May 12th, so fire up those debt reducing and debt killing posts and submit them!
• Quest for Four Pillars hosted the 9th Carnival of Money Hacks, and listed my post about Why You Don’t Get your EPA Fuel Economy MPG as a “Best Slasher” (check out the theme for that carnival

I haven’t been reading the blogs as much recently … but here’s a few that did catch my eye:

• Will the economic stimulus package help you survive a recession? at Credit Withdrawal.  I’ll get to my opinion in a minute…
• 10 Ways new parents overspend on newborns at Moolanomy.  It’s been years since my son was a baby … but I’ve seen quite a few good examples of this over the years.
• Remodeling This Life shares her best financial moves in college … how many of us made good financial moves and decisions at that age? LOL

Now, for the one thing I have actually been reading about … other than organic chemistry: the Federal Reserve FOMC starts their two-day meeting this morning to decide the fate of the U.S. economy (otherwise known as setting the interest rate).  Here’s a few good articles on it:

• Fed expected to cut rates this week and oh I hope not!!!
• However, Fed rate cut not a sure thing as more “experts” are saying what I’ve been fussing and fuming about for months
• and the Fed has the golden opportunity to stop the commodities run-up … and give us average people a break maybe!  Anyone want to take bets?

It’s no secret I have a pretty low opinion of the Fed’s rate cut policy, and I am pretty convinced this “economic stimulus package” payment will end up at most folk’s local grocery store and gas station.  There’s this thing called INFLATION that Ben Bernake seems to be totally ignoring, mostly in the form of rising food and energy costs (which the government conveniently strips OUT of their inflation calculations).

They’ll announce their decision about fifteen minutes before we organic chem students go into the slaughter known as a year-long cumulative final, but y’all can probably guess what kind of post I will write if they do remain stupid and cut the interest rate again.

Now I am off to study again … and finish up a couple of projects due before the finals (which cannot be over with soon enough!!!).

One thing I truly love about reading y’all’s comments is they often make me think about things either in a new light or at a much deeper level than I had.  Here’s another great example, in Eric’s comment on my post Raiding Retirement - A Huge No-No:

… I would have to sit down and run the numbers - this isn’t an emotional decision, which I am afraid you have made it into …

I am all for running the numbers on most things, but there is one simple truth (for me, at least).  My emotions are tied to my money situation, and heavily influence my personal finance decisions.  For me, money equals security.  When I lived paycheck to paycheck, I lived with a fear in the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach at all times.  What if the car broke down?  What if the gas (heating) bill came in higher than expected?  What if I got sick and had to miss work?

This feeling of fear and insecurity is why I am so anti-debt, and is the result of bad experience (and bad decisions).  When I was driving home on Decemeber 26, 2006 - knowing the trip was on a credit card and worried how to pay it - and heard of a better plan on the radio, it was of fifteen years of financial fear and frustration that motivated me to make such major behavioral changes my son wondered if I had joined some kind of cult.  These emotions also motivated me for fourteen long months to get out of debt.

These changes brought about another emotion that I had never associated with money: HOPE.  It’s another strong motivator, and one that drives me today.  HOPE that I will have a big enough emergency fund to cover whatever life throws at me.  HOPE that I will be able to retire comfortably, and not need to rely on VA disability or Social Security.  And best of all, HOPE that I can influence my son so he can truly have wealth and financial success in his adult life.

Money is a very emotional topic: for proof I point to the comments section of just about any personal finance blog where discussions often get heated (this one included).  Money - or lack of it - colors almost all of our daily decisions and touches our emotions.

I am sure there are folks who are able to make money decisions on a purely numbers basis instead of an emotional basis.  Obviously I am not one of them!  One of my favorite quotes is Dave Ramsey on the topic of saving up money for an emergency fund: “You will only save up money when it becomes VERY VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU!“  Guess what?  Eighteen months ago, getting out of debt and saving up money became VERY VERY IMPORTANT to me!

I can run the numbers for the most part … but for me money IS a very emotional thing, and the emotional component is what has kept me motivated to make major positive changes in my financial life.  Since this blog is about my experience with money and debt … it will have a strong emotional aspect to it.  Sometimes I will run numbers to back up a point I am trying to make, other times I will simply link to other people who are better at the numbers part of the money game.  But for me personally, money decisions are all about emotions and how well I will be able to sleep at night.

I will admit I am now curious.  Which is it for y’all, the readers?  Emotions or numbers?

I just got back from my organic chem test to find quite of few of Trent’s readers already looking around my archives and commenting.  For the rest of y’all, be sure to check out my “Best of DFR” page for some of my favorites and my readers/commenters’ favorite posts.

Recent posts of interest (besides the very popular “Teenager on a Budget” posts) include:

• Why you don’t get your EPA fuel economy MPG (and I do!)
• Adjusting the budget for inflation (April food and gasoline costs rise)
• Common sacrifices to get out of debt
• My podcast debut (yes, someone actually wanted to hear my ramblings on getting out of debt! LOL You also get to hear my Tennessee-influenced accent)
• Tip your pizza delivery person (I deliver pizzas on the weekend)
• and my all-time favorite: I’m OFFICIALLY DEBT FREEE but the mortgage!!!!

I hope y’all enjoy the reading and decide to stick around by subscribing

Oh … the organic chemistry test?  Don’t ask.  The morning class used words like “traumatic” and “brutal” and I completely agree.

Yesterday I blogged about finding those reusable shopping bags at Kroger, and since today is Earth Day I thought I’d share a little tip I have been using for a while.  I reuse those plastic 20 ounce drink bottles.

The main thing I reuse them for is water.  I personally have never understood the concept of buying bottled water when it comes out the same from the tap. In fact, John Stossel’s 2005 survey only confirmed what I had suspected all along about bottled water: it really isn’t any different from tap water.  So here is what I have been doing:

• On occasion, I get a 20 oz bottle of Diet Pepsi from the pop machine on campus (only $1 cold)
• After I am done drinking the pop (soda) I rinse the bottle out then wash it and the cap with dishes
• once it’s fully dry, I put about 3 ounces of water in it, then pop it into the freezer
• after it’s frozen solid, I can put in water or tea for a cold iced beverage!

A quick note about the tea: having grown up in the Midwest I drink UNsweet tea which is virtually impossible to find in bottled form here in the South, so this practice originally started because I don’t like “tea-flavored syrup” as I call it.  Trying to find mint-flavored unsweet tea (my favorite) is exponentially harder, much less the “honey lemon ginseng” green tea I have liked since it came out.

We actually did this in Iraq with the 1.5 liter bottles the Army had, except we froze the entire bottle just to keep it cooler longer in the 120F summer.  We also made up Gatorade and tea when we got tired of regular water.

For my teenage son, I have honestly tried to convince him this is better than buying the individual bottles from the machine at his school.  I once bought him a 6 pack of the bottled tea when it was on sale and told him to save up the bottles so he could reuse and freeze ice into them before adding his green tea.  The bottles ended up in the trash.

This week at the grocery store, the Teenager bought an 8 pack of Gatorade bottles, at a price he could have gotten the large can of powder for.  I started to point it out to him, when he interrupted me to say that was his plan: buy the bottles this week and the powder next week.  He mostly just wanted the bottles (with the labels) to take to school with him.

So that’s what I do with the 20 ounce drink bottles.  To find ideas for reusing plastic milk jugs, look at Frugal Dad’s post for today.  I know I found some good ideas!