Penny Pinching Mom

Doctors Are Expensive

We have no insurance, and my daughter was sick a lot this winter. We had to spend an obscene amount of money on doctor bills and medicine. Now she’s sick again, and not only am I taking her to the doctor for the second time in the past week today, but I’m also missing work for the second day in the same time frame. I would climb the highest mountain with nothing but my bare hands to keep my baby girl healthy and happy, so I wouldn’t dream of not getting her the medical care she needs. But it’s really taking a toll on the finances.

There’s gotta be some way to save money. I took her to the local health department when she was younger. But I quickly learned that even though the visits were cheaper, the majority of the time it was money wasted because they didn’t give her medicine that would take care of the problem until we had gone back about five or six times, if then. I’ve thought about getting one of those prescription discount cards to at least save some money on her meds. Some of them are free, so even if they didn’t save me any money I wouldn’t be losing anything by trying.

If anyone has any ideas about how to save money on doctor bills, do tell. If I run across any you can bet I’ll be posting them.

My Yard Needs Some Love

The past couple of days have been gorgeous. Hubby and I cleaned up the storage building today, and now I’m in the mood to beautify my yard. It’s sorely in need of beautification- this past winter was not kind to it. It stayed frozen for a long time, and once it thawed out and got muddy, we got bucketloads of rain. It was like a swamp for a long time, and it’s just now starting to firm back up.

I think we can get some gravel for the driveway reasonably cheap (that’s another area that needs some work). And we may need to buy a little grass seed. While I’m at it I would like to add a few eye-catching accents- maybe a nice but inexpensive birdbath, or some stepping stones and solar lights. I’ve been looking at yard markers as well. SeattleLuxe.com has some nice ones, but I don’t know if there will be room in the budget for one or not.

We can easily find some flat rocks to use as stepping stones for free, so that’s a no-brainer. And I found a set of solar lights at a local discount store for $17.99. We’ll have to see how the rest goes.

Affiliate Programs

If you have a website or blog that gets some traffic, have you considered joining some affiliate programs? They’re a great way to make some passive income from something you’re already doing anyway.

There are affiliate programs out there for anything you can imagine. For example, let’s say you have a web page about First Communion gifts. You might think there’s no affiliate program out there that would fit with that. But The Catholic Company has an affiliate program that sells those and other Catholic items.

To find a program that’s right for you, you could Google words such as “First Communion gifts affiliate program” (using the above example). Or if you’re a member of an affiliate marketplace such as Commission Junction, you can search their database to find what you’re looking for.

Birthday Shopping

My mother’s birthday was a few days ago. She is visiting my sister until this weekend, so I just called and wished her a happy one and haven’t bought her a present yet.

I tend to put a lot of thought into gifts, especially for her. There have been many occasions when she has opened a gift and gotten teary-eyed, and I’m a sucker for tears of joy.

I’ve been thinking about what to get her this year that she would really love. She is a religious lady, so I have browsed some of the Christian gifts at GoodChristian.com. They have some beautiful things, and some of them are even in my price range. I’m still shopping around, but I’ve got them bookmarked.

If you have any suggestions of great gifts for Mom, please feel free to share in the comments.

A Little Creativity

I could use some new furniture. Heck, a whole house full would be nice. The majority of my home furnishings are hand-me-downs, and many of them have seen their better days.

I do a reasonably good job of using accent pieces to take the focus off of my old, worn out stuff. For example, I’ve got an old TV stand that was given to me that is scratched up terribly. Instead of junking it, I covered it up with a pretty lace throw (which was also a hand-me down but looks nice) and am using it to display some of my knick-knacks in my living room. I was impressed with it myself, but I’ve also noticed that that very TV stand is often the first thing that catches a new visitor’s eye.

When you’re on a budget, it pays to be creative. Maybe one day I’ll be able to splurge on some of the gorgeous items I’ve seen from Powell Furniture. But until then, I’ll just make the best of what I’ve got.

My Computer Isn’t Getting Any Younger

I’ve had my trusty old computer for about four years now. Considering some of the buggy software that I’ve put on it, I’m surprised it has lasted this long. But it’s still very much alive and kicking.

One problem old faithful does have is slow booting, and slowness and crashes when multi-tasking. I’ve considered replacing it, but I just don’t have the money right now. Adding more memory would be a cheaper way to go. MemoryStore.com sells computer memory for any brand of computer you can imagine, and many I’ve never even heard of. A 512 MB upgrade for my computer would be about $62. That’s a lot cheaper than getting a whole new computer!

If you could benefit from more memory, checking prices at MemoryStore.com is a breeze. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to do so before you go out and spend a lot of money that you might not have to.

Where’d It All Go?

I got my tax refund back less than three weeks ago, and I promised myself that I was going to save the majority of it. But now I’m sitting here wondering why there isn’t more money in the bank.

Let’s see:
• I took nearly half of it out of the checking account and gave it to Hubby. He prefers keeping his share of the money in cash, and I don’t mind because that way he tends to hang onto it tightly. So that was a big chunk of it.
• I paid the car insurance up until August. We only had two monthly payments left before our yearly four month break, so that only took a relatively small bite out of it.
• I paid most of the electric bill. Our bill for two months was $380(!!!), and I paid $300 of it. So that was a bigger bite than the insurance.
• I bought Pumpkin some clothes that were on clearance, and myself some makeup. Hey, I was running majorly low. At any rate, that added up to about $75 total.
• I got all the rest of the bills except for the phone bill caught up. I’ll get that taken care of tomorrow.

So I guess I haven’t done too bad after all. After adding all that up, virtually every penny is accounted for. I’m going to have to pat myself on the back for that.

I had thought about getting a nice new digital camera with video, because I’ve been dying for one every since Pumpkin was a baby. But I think I’ll be holding off on that for a little while longer. It feels good not having to scrape up money for the bills for the first time in months, and I’m not sure I’m ready to let go of that.