Free McCormick and Schmick’s $25 Gift Certificate
To get a free $25 McCormick and Schmick’s $25 gift certificate go to this page and follow the instructions. This offer ends this weekend so if you want to take advantage of it you need to hurry. They had a similar promotion earlier this year which I used and it worked fine. Otherwise the restaurant is too expensive for me.
Here are a couple of other good deals.
TextPayMe is still offering a $5 bonus for referrals. I cashed out some of money from them earlier this month and it went through with no problems.
The American Express Business Gold Rewards card is running a promotion that awards 25,000 bonus points which can be redeemed for either a domestic round-trip airline ticket or a $250 rewards gift certificate.
Festival of Frugality #93 Picks
I’ve been pretty bad about submitting article to the Festival of Frugality lately. Here are my picks from the latest Festival of Frugality which is being hosted at Money and Values.
Dinner and a Movie - That Doesn?t Cost a Fortune posted at Unclaimed Money. These are good tips and I follow many of them myself.
Fitness on a Budget Part 1: The Poor Man’s (or Woman’s) Precision Nutrition Plan posted at Caustic Musings . I’m a big fan of this blog and it will be a valuable resource someday when I actually get serious about getting in shape.
My Super Cheap Ex-boyfriend posted at xynny. This post is pretty funny. You can take frugality too far.
Movin’ On Down
I’m moving into a new apartment next month. I will be moving down from a 1 bedroom to a studio. This will save me $60 a month in rent. My new monthly rent will be $375 which is pretty cheap even for here. It is almost as big as my current apartment so there will be plenty of room for me. I don’t have a lot of stuff and don’t need much space.
The location is nice too. While searching for apartments I discovered that you can often get an apartment just as cheap in a nice neighborhood as in a crappy one. My new location is very convenient being about halfway between school and work. My bank and a grocery store is right across the street so I should be able to cut down my mileage a little. Hopefully that savings won’t be negated by impulse junk food purchases at the grocery store.
When I move in I will have to get gas service again. It will be cold soon and I have to have the gas on for heat. I’ll be looking forward to it because the cold showers are starting to get a little too cold.
Thanks Everyone!
Thanks to everyone that left a comment on my last post. I have had counseling and medication for depression in the past but it wasn’t much help. I’ve been in counseling through the summer but when I wasn’t re-admitted for this semester I wasn’t able to continue at the school counseling center. They did transfer me to a community counseling center but I haven’t followed up on that and set an appointment. I’ll be doing that Monday.
I do think the lack of caffeine contributed to this bout of depression. I quit cold turkey and from what I’ve read online it is best to gradually go off caffeine. I probably should have done that research before quitting. I gave in yesterday and had a soda and I have a lot more energy today. I’m going to continue it for a while but try to keep it in moderation which I haven’t done in the past. I’ve been planning on starting running again but have kept delaying it. I did get out and run today and I think it does help. Thanks again to everyone that left a comment.
Depression and Money
Sorry for not posting the past few days. I’ve been experiencing a bout of depression and when in this state I don’t feel like doing anything. Not even things that I like such as blogging.
I know some people are probably thinking if I weren’t a Tight Fisted Miser and would spend some of my money I wouldn’t be depressed. It doesn’t work like that for me though. I’ve tried spending my way out of depression in the past and it didn’t help. That is how I ended up having to declare bankruptcy eleven years ago.
I’ve learned to keep my depression from causing me to waste money. Depression still hurts me financially though. It keeps from doing things to increase my income. It makes it difficult for me to keep a job and keeps me underemployed. Part of the reason I’m working the jobs I currently have is because they are so mentally and physically easy that I can deal with them even when depressed. The biggest impact depression is having on me currently is law school. It led to my poor decision to transfer schools and it led to me not putting in enough effort in school and being put on academic probation. I’m trying to work through it now but it is making it difficult for me to concentrate on the paper I have to write to be considered for re-admittance. It is better today and I hope it stays that way.
Caffeine is Killing Me
Or actually the lack of it is killing me right now. This is my third day without caffeine and I still have a headache from caffeine withdrawal. I’m also experiencing a lack of energy. I’m hoping that these symptoms will clear up by tomorrow.
I decided to quit caffeine because I got tired of my energy level soaring and crashing depending on how much caffeine I’d had. I’m also not sure what effect caffeine has on my depression but I’ve decided that without caffeine it will be easier to determine when physical symptoms are being caused by depression rather than something else.
Right now is probably not the best time to be giving up caffeine because I have an assignment due for law school tomorrow. I’m being allowed to write a paper for credit and a grade while I’m out of school for this semester. Successful completion of this paper will also be highly determinative of whether I am readmitted. Therefore it is extremely important that I get this paper done on time. The outline and thesis is due tomorrow but I’ve been procrastinating. With my caffeine withdrawal and a bout of double depression I haven’t felt like doing anything. The only reason I’ve finally gotten around to writing a blog post is to delay working on my outline. Oh well, I guess I have nothing left to do now but get to work.
My Biggest Freebie Yet
As part of their grand re-opening a local McDonald’s had a promotion giving one year of free extra value meals to the first 100 walk-in customers and first 100 drive-thru customers. They re-opening was scheduled for 5 am and the restaurant is located just a little off my usual route home from my route home so I decided to stop by and see what the line looked like. I got off work at 4:15 am and arrived at the restaurant at 4:30 am. There were only 3 people in line. This was a lot fewer than I expected. Since there was no worry of not being in the first 100 I left to gas up my car and came back.
I was the 5th person in line when I came back. There were no problems with getting my free coupons when they opened up. They are good for one free extra value meal a week for a year. The line was short enough that I thought about getting in the drive-thru line and getting another set of coupons. I decided that one free Mcdonald’s meal a week was enough though. I think this is my best freebie yet. For a half hour of my time and driving a couple miles out of the way I am receiving about $250 worth of free food. I know that McD’s food is bad for me but since I’m eating it anyway it might as well be free.
The 25th Carnival of Money Stories
Welcome to the 25th Carnival of Money Stories and Tight Fisted Miser.
You can check out past Carnivals and learn more about the Carnival of Money Stories at their homepage. If your submission isn’t included it is probably because it wasn’t a personal story about money.
Spending/Saving
Eric presents The Cheap Lunch Wins Out posted at A Penny Closer.
Super Saver presents Wood Deck Maintenance - A Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Project posted at My Wealth Builder.
FIRE Finance presents Garage Sale Tips - A Complete Kit To Save Money! posted at FIRE Finance.
Financial Philosophies and Observations
glblguy presents Does Good Customer Service Still Exist? posted at Gather Little By Little.
Kay Bell presents Bank error not in my favor posted at Don’t Mess With Taxes.
Brip Blap presents find a nickel, pick it up posted at brip blap.
Millionaire Mommy Next Door presents The Powerful (and Addictive) Nature of Giving posted at Millionaire Mommy Next Door.
Amanda presents Observations on Las Vegas… posted at Young and Broke.
The Dough Roller presents Five Guys and the Art of a Great Burger posted at The Dough Roller.
Investing/Earning
Logan Flatt, CFA presents How to Get Ahead In America (1st of a 12-Part Series) posted at PowerWealth.com.
Amanda presents How I made $1592.53 in 1 month by blogging posted at the so called me.
Money for Military presents First Spouse Gold Coins Investment posted at Money for Military.
Financial Planning/Lessons
edithyeung presents The Money Series - You Are Not Going to Live Forever posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..
Meredith H. Kaiser presents Financial (and Life) Lessons I Learned as a Kid posted at Saving Advice Blog.
Silicon Valley Blogger presents 10 Tips On Life and Disability Insurance: How And Why We’re Getting More posted at The Digerati Life.
Steve Leung presents Making an Offer on a Home: Behind the Scenes posted at Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog - 1SiliconValley.com.
FMF presents Money Saving Tip: Shop Now for Holiday Gifts posted at Free Money Finance.
Lynnae presents Why I blog about being frugal posted at beingfrugal.net.
paidtwice presents Eliminating Fees - Don’t incur them to begin with! posted at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already….
After reading the Carnival posts feel free to stick around and read through my archives. If you like what you read you can subscribe by clicking on the link below this post or on the feed button in the header. If you have a personal finance blog and would like to exchange links please contact me.
The next Carnival of Money Stories is being hosted by Paid Twice and you can submit your own money experience here.
This is a Top 100 Personal Finance Blog?
According to this post at FIRE Finance listing the top 100 personal finance blogs this blog is in the top 100. These lists are somewhat inaccurate but they are still interesting. He compiled three different lists using different data sources to make it a little easier to compare sites. It isn’t really possible to make a definitive list of the top personal finance sites do to insufficient data and discrepancies in the information available but it was a good effort and I’m sure it succeeded in bringing his blog a lot of traffic. What I found most interesting was that according to Quantcast data my readership is primarily female, 18-34 crowd. Maybe I should use this blog to get dates.
Festival of Frugality #90 Picks
The latest Festival of Frugality is being hosted at Bean Sprouts. Here are a few of my favorites.
Voluntary Simplicity - The Path to Happiness? : Slow Down Fast Today! posted at Slow Down Fast Today!. I definitely believe in simplicity. The figure of $40,000 to meet your basic needs mentioned in the post seems pretty high though. That is more than most people make.
Why Don’t People Want Free Money? posted at College of Cash. I wonder about that too sometimes. People are paranoid about the internet but most identity theft happens in the real world.
Where to Buy and Sell Textbooks posted at College News. I save a lot of money by not buying my books at the bookstore and selling them elsewhere when finished with them.
As always there are plenty of other interesting posts to read so be sure to visit the Festival of Frugality. Also check out the Carnival of Money Stories. I will be hosting it next week.
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