Happy St. Patrick’s Day
"Ireland, it's the one place on earth That heaven has kissed With melody, mirth, And meadow and mist."* Is St. Patrick's Day another hallmark holiday? (more…)
Yearly Spend Revealed
Money comes in , Money goes out Every year at Traveling Wallet we spend, spend, spend, Spend! But its not all bad. If you try, every year can be better. For us last year was an interesting year and the first full year we had in which we didn't need to spend a single dime on loan or debt repayment. Not one dime. Still... We did spend a lot of money and this post is all about analyzing where it all went. (more…)
Weekly Pain & Gain: Halloween and Dancing
This month is really one of my favorites. I really have lots of fun during Halloween. Pain October has had some un welcome surprises in the automotive department. Like I mentioned we are in the process of getting ready for a move and things have gotten a little harder thanks to car issues. Currently we are down to one vehicle and because of our imminent move this has caused a lot of issues. This automotive issue is being felt with time limitations and later will be felt with our wallet. However, the dollars are less of an inconvenience then the time constraints. Right now we are in serious need of flexibility but instead we are now more constrained. UGH! the timing couldn't be more off. It is frustrating and truly…
Frugal Back to School shopping
Last week on Tuesday Jr went back to school. Not only that, I also realized I'm getting old he's getting old. I mean he's in 2nd grade! ( inhale ,exhale, inhale, exhale) What happened to the surprise baby. :( After the initial shock I had a thought. And it went like this. "Oh yeah, wasn't there a shopping thing I was supposed to do to get ready for today" I didn't prepare at all. I didn't even really think about preparing for it at all. Other then "oh Jr starts school next week ". Instead of think about it in regards to money and purchases. I thought about it in regards to time. How are our schedules going to change? Adjust? But wait a minute I want to go back to…
FinCon 2015, Help!
Just a little over a month away FinCon 2015 is hot on my mind. I'm starting to get nervous for multiple reasons. You see like any good personal financier I am getting worried about the numbers. What is going to be my ROI? How will I make sure its good? Though we can afford it in one sense, it is a big investment. I mean there's the conference pass, the hotel stay, the plane ticket, lifts to and from the airport, food. There's a lot of money tied into this thing. But its not just that, there are other costs too, specially in the realm of time. My vacation time and weekend both things that are for my family won't be. My husband and I will have to go 12 days…
Family Travel: Colorado 2015
The months are flying by and I am keenly aware of the fact that summer will be upon us. Summer is usually filled with lots of travel and high sticker prices to match. We enjoy travel ourselves but this year our trips were schedule outside the summer window. We took a trip to Colorado and we plan to take a trip to Michigan in winter this year as well. Traveling efficiently is something I am becoming more keen on. It wasn't something I use to worry much about. I could sleep in the car, travel in a bus or drive all night when I was younger but as I am now in the trenches of parenthood and marriage my trips require I take other certain things into consideration. Still I…
Do you put your money where your mouth is?
I made a lot of changes last year. Honestly though, they were easy changes to make. Math, I trust it. And it showed me it would be no problem to reach my goals. Today I'm going to make a big change. I am so scared. That is so depressing in itself, when did I become so complacent. I have been with my company since 2008. The last 2 years I have suffered through it. I wasn't proactive enough, maybe. Truth is it doesn't matter, I just never did much about my situation. I see now that I've stayed because it was safe. I've been saying, "I am ready for a change," but I haven't done anything really. Just last year I changed positions but I'm still with the same company.…
2014 travel wrap up
Guess what? For calling myself the Roamer and this site Traveling Wallet, In 2014 I had made no written goals that we were going to travel. It wasn't that we weren't planning to. We have a standing trip to the In-laws at least once a year. It just wasn't something I was going to focus my attention on. My baby hadn't even turned a year old so travel was not even on my mind. I mean how do you travel when you have what I would consider a newborn. (Less then a year is a newborn baby to me). So other then the trip home to Michigan which was required, specially because we had said baby, we had no other travel plans. Yet even like that, in 2014 we all…
Design your own Wedding dress
Hi everyone today at Traveling Wallet we will be talking about wedding dress design. Design your own wedding dress Let's talk about why you would want to Tips for how to Why design your own dress? The Cost Do you know the range for the cost of already made wedding dresses? The average is $1,100 But designer dresses can even be north of $6,000. ( Boing, as eyes pop out of sockets) The average cost would have been 20% of my budget. I designed my own wedding dress and as it were my actual dress cost was $173. Which was more like 4% of my total cost. Its funny I thought that designing your own stuff meant it would be more expensive. Guess I was wrong. Uniqueness I'm going to…