The "Say YES to Michigan Game"

[Fierce Critter]

...once you guys are back in MI it might be worth checking into offering your [eBay] sevices to other for a small fee...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the suggestion, but with extremely rare exception, I don't sell items on eBay for others. It would take a page and a half to explain why. Suffice it to say I've done it several times over the past 5 years and have found it's a headache of communication & liability that has taught me it's not worth it - at any price.

[Fierce Critter]

GM - picking up ingredients for your thick soup & goulash today. I'll be making the soup tomorrow, and the goulash Monday. :grin:

[gothicmom]

:grin: We had the goulosh last night!! My son loves it. He said 'what are you making?' then peeked in the pan and said 'ooooo!!! can I have a test bite!"

[fallennon]

Chili is another cheap and yummy idea for dinner...

[LadyWindstone]

We have a Dollar store just around the corner from me that sells soap, shampoo, and house cleaners for a dollar a piece. My mom and I load up about once every two months for like $10. We are poor people and need to find all the bargains we can. Also if you have a place like Piquette Market that specialize in meats, See what kind of specials that have. Piquette always has sales for holidays and such. Like for the Fourth of July, they'll have a barbeque special. 10lbs of steaks, 10lbs of chicken, 10lbs hot dogs, 10lbs of Hamburger patties (or just the hamburger) for like $30. You'd be surprised how long that would last just the two of you.

Look through ALL the grocery sale papers. Find who has the best prices for what. Use coupons where needed. Again savings big time if you shop around. Cereals and bread can be bought at Aldi's for cheap. Get vegetables cheap straight from farmers. There has to be a farmer's market somewhere around there. Don't be afraid to load up on food. Some stuff can be frozen.

Also look for cook books where you can make foods that can be frozen and heated up easily later. Stews and such are also filling and inexpensive. It doesn't take a lot to make a stew. Stews were made originally by poor people to make a hearty meal out of what little they had.

Here is a recipe that I made up. It's good and pretty inexpensive.

I call it funky Chicken Gumbo

1 can of Campbell's Chicken Gumbo

2 or 3 chicken breasts

Chicken flavored Rice a Roni

1 can of corn

Make the Rice a roni like the directions tell you. chop up the chicken into bite sized pieces and cook them up. make the soup but only put half a can of water in it. when the rice a roni, chicken, and soup are hot and ready, mix it all together with the can of corn on high heat until the corn is done. Serve.

Voila! A really good meal that was made by accident. Don't ask me how I remembered what to put into it. Filling too.

[honeymustard02]

I would just try and get a job and do ebay at the same time. A little extra money is extra money no matter which way you look at it.

[gothicmom]

This is a super sucky way to save $$$ but I did this for about a year. If you go to the laundry mat to do your wash...ugh...hand wash your clothes in the bath tub then hang them out to dry.

You have to do this in the morning because it takes all day to dry. But, you have the weather for it now. I did it year round when we lived down there.

Super sucky, but it's expensive to go the laundry mat!

[JaneDead]

i dont have any good tips but looks there are a lot of good ideas here already. looks like it is finally in the works critter. can't wait to see you post one day that you are on your way home. i can imagine how happy you will be when that day finally comes.

[Fierce Critter]

thanks for the new ideas!

Again, won't bother going over which I already am doing, but it looks like I've got about 90% or better of these ideas covered.

What I'm learning is that we've been doing a pretty damn good job of cutting corners for some time now. That's encouraging.

(By the way, we're lucky enough to have our own washer & dryer, which will be sold before we leave.)

My husband and I gutted the spare bedroom yesterday. We packed up what we are keeping in there, which gives us a good idea of what we're going to need as far as moving vehicles. Looks like the smallest U-Haul is going to be the ticket. I REALLY wish we had a bigger pickup truck - the one we have has a tow package, but can't tow anything but the smallest trailers.

We're whittling down our belongings to a huge degree. But there comes time to realize that after 6 years of marriage, you can only whittle things down so much. We're eliminating almost ALL our furniture, for instance the only things coming with us from our bedroom are our bedside tables (antique family keepsakes) and just our headboard. So besides binned-up clothing and my jewelry boxes, almost nothing else is coming from that room. Ditto the living room. So we won't need anything but the smallest truck they have to offer.

We're going to do the same thing with the living room, kitchen, and outdoor shop. By the time we're done, we should know EXACTLY how much truck we'll need, as well as what we can sell off to make some moving money.

We realized we have about $1000 worth of eBay stock sitting in that spare bedroom, too. So once that's all sold off, we can start yard saleing for more stuff to sell. GREAT season for it - springtime, when people are getting rid of stuff we can make tons on.

This is getting more encouraging.

[fallennon]

Keep up the hard work and you two will make it back here! I know with a little determination you can make anything happen.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Damnit, this post is not what i meant it to be but im feeling a bit ill and need to walk away from the comp and im not sure ill have the energy to re-write it later , properly so im just going to press add reply.

I've been pondering this post for a week or longer and i've come to the conclusion that i dont really know how to "save" money all that much i've always been taught that the way to save money is to "make enough money so you dont need to worry about saving money that much". I've only "moved" twice and the first time was pretty cheap as it was directly to a roomate who had most of what we needed already, and the second time was within walking distance, and , by that time i had amassed almost everything i needed. And i was in a fairly cheap rent apartment and was making good money all durring that period and didnt worry about it all that m....

At one point i was living off ramen noodles and dumped the car and just walked everywhere (big savings) but neither of thoes will be very helpful.

I can tell you , longer-term Carlton Sheets is the man if you dont mind real estate (i hate it with an irrational, passion). Yes, that guy that sells videos on late night TV. Neither of my parents "work" all the money they live off of is from real estate generated from rental properties. Right now they own 13 houses and were up to almost 20 at one point i think. They learned how to do it from several real estate guys, the first one being Robert Allen (Carton Sheets mentor) but the Carlton Sheets stuff is easier for new people than robert allens sort of "all encompassing" seminars.

You can do many of the basic real estate strategies with virtually no money down (or very little) and once you do a few, you then have money to do the more "cash intensive" stuff. Flips, is actually sort of like your ebay business, you find a trashy house, fix it up, sell it for a killing. Once you make contacts, (explained how in any of these real estate guru courses) there are people out there that will give you the money to do it, not a "loan" but actually give you the money, with the agreement that they will take X precentage of the profit at the time of the sale.

Thats fairly complex, but theres a simple system, wherein you go find the trashy houses, write the whole deal up, and put a clause in the purchase agreement such as "...and / or to my investment partner(s)" (100% legal thing to do) so then, you have this great deal, which you personally cant afford ... you go to MR. Rich Investor, and you sell him that right to purchase, he buys the house, gives you your finders fee (usually a few grand on up) then he fixes the house up with his own money and makes a killing. Thus it costs you nothing but time and effort to find the deals.

Troy , why arent you doing this ? Same reason im not fixing computers anymore partly (way to mentally cumbersome, i'd blow a gasket way to fast with all the detail-oriented stuff you have to do) Plus i hate real estate generally , i've sat through these damn seminars since i was young , and i gag almost , even thinking about going into the real estate business.