As you might have guessed from the title the premise of Wealth Watchers is applying the concepts of Weight Watchers to personal finance. Since personal finance and weight control are often compared the premise does seem reasonable. Instead of having daily points of how much you can eat you have a daily amount of how much you can spend. This is figured by subtracting your fixed monthly expenses from your monthly income and then dividing by the number of days. I kind of like this idea since I already keep track of my expenses but my income is too unpredictable to easily implement the daily spending amount. I could see this working for most people though.
The idea of this book is pretty simple. That isn’t a knock against the book since personal finance is pretty simple when you get down to the basics. The drawback is that you are not getting a lot of information for your money. The author does share her personal story in the first part of the book and that might be interesting enough for some to justify spending the money but for others you can get the basic idea of the book from reading a few review and probably won’t see any real need to actually buy the book.
In this neck of the woods (just a bit south of Denver, CO), Memorial Day weekend is the first time we can be reasonably certain it won’t frost again. I say this with tongue firmly in cheek, since I’m talking 6250 feet in elevation here. We’ve had snow on Aug. 1st!
This season, everything has stayed warm and reasonably moist since mid-May. The hummingbirds have also appeared from their annual migration — another good sign. (They leave not long after Labor Day.) I’ve been gradually planting, a little here and there. If you’re starting to put in your garden, as well — or at least thinking about it — here are ten frugal tips that should help you do it better.
*Use up your old seed. Even if it’s an older sell-by date, many of these seed packets are still quite viable. They may not have as high a percentage, though, for germination — so plant them thickly.
*Look for seeds at dollar stores and discount places. Even the ‘fahncy’ brands will cost less at these places…and generic seeds do just fine. In fact:
*Generic seeds are often more reliable than the new types. Why? Because the new ones have only gone through a year or so trial. Generics are usually the old standards, heirlooms that have gone into the ground for generations. They often do better in more difficult conditions, because they’ve had multiple generations to adapt to them.Examples: Blue Lake, Provider and Kentucky Wonder for green beans. Straight Eight and pickling cucumbers. Yellow Bantam for sweet corn. (I’m also hooked on Honey n’ Cream, a newbie that’s been around long enough to know its chops.)
These reliable garden stuffs also make it possible for you to:
*Save good seed for your next garden. Let your last crop of beans ripen until the pods are dry — shell them, and you’ve got next year’s seed. Spent marigold and zinnia blooms contain literally dozens of seeds — and all you have to do is pull them off and throw in an envelope.
*Get good equipment. This is one area where truly you save more by spending more. A good brand of shovel or hoe will last for decades. Look at Consumer Reports, or check Amazon for customer comments. Tools do go on sale during the spring — and again at the end of the season. Or look for an estate sale — if they’re an avid gardener, they’ve usually left behind good stuff.
*Keep your ground fertilized, the old-fashioned way. Sure, you can spend extra money and buy planting mix with specialty ingredients, like Miracle-Gro. But you can save a great deal by just adding what our ancestors did: manure. Try a local farmer or rancher…a fairgrounds…or even the local zoo. Just a garbage bag’s worth of horse or cow manure makes a difference. (Let it dry out first, so it won’t ‘burn’ plants — or till it in a few days before you plant.)
*Brew up some tea — for your garden. Manure tea, that is. Put a half-shovelful of manure in the bottom of a five-gallon bucket. (Mine used to be full of laundry detergent.) Fill with water, then let ‘mellow’ for a day or so. Water your plants with this — they’ll love it.
*Start a compost pile, posthaste. Your eggshells, banana peels and assorted leftovers can really add to your garden. (They help out with container gardening, too.) Youtube is full of how-tos for constructing your own compost bin, including this one, done with a garbage can:
*Put in a drip system. Drip hoses aren’t that expensive, and they keep the water where it should be — on your plants, instead of spraying into the wind. Even that’s too expensive? Try gallon jugs or tin cans — poke holes in them and place by plants that spread, like cucumbers, zucchini or tomatoes. Fill daily.
*Pick your veggies while they’re young. Not only will they be more tender, they’ll taste better. And the parent plant will have time to make more blossoms — and set fruit. I’ve even had success trimming beans, broccoli, spinach and other greens back — if you do it early enough in the season, they’ll have time to regrow and produce again.
It’s not hard to start a garden, but the benefits are terrific: better health, plants that help purify the air, and food that you know is fresh, crunchy and good for you.
Cindy Brick grew up in a Michigan gardening family; her grandmother sold fresh eggs and bouquets of Queen Anne’s Lace ‘weeds’ to tourists in Grand Rapids. Cindy writes and gardens in Castle Rock, Colorado, including her own flock of up-and-growing baby chickens. Find out more on her blog: A Brick’s Look At Life.
I never did get to look through the business book because my wife took that one for herself and used it. I know she really liked the book and you can take the fact that she is actually using it as an endorsement. I could use a time management book but I’ve never implemented the ones I’ve read so this one probably wouldn’t have been any different.
The other book is more focused on organizing clutter than time management although it does touch upon that as well. As the book description says this updated and expanded edition of the bestselling Organize Now! features even more quick, effective organizing ideas. Easy-to-follow checklists show you how to organize any part of your life in less than one week. You spend more time organizing and less time reading—a perfect fit for your busy lifestyle. Long-term goals help keep the clutter away for the months and years to follow, so you can maintain the order you create. It looked like it would actually deliver what it promises but since I don’t really have a problem with clutter I haven’t used the book. If either or these books are of interest to you there are more reviews and further description of the books at Amazon.
I went ahead and bought a van. It is a passenger van but I plan to modify it somewhat so that I can live in it. I did have to go into debt to buy it which I didn’t really want to do but the vans I saw that I could purchase outright just were not very good. After trading in my Camry I have a debt of $2750 on this van, a 2000 GMC Safari. I would like to have that debt paid off by the end of the year.
Ever since reading Blue Highways: A Journey into America in high school I have wanted to take a road trip across the country and visit all the 48 contiguous states. I still probably won’t be able to do that this year due to limited funds and other obligations but I hope to make at least one long road trip and visit a few of the states I haven’t been to yet. I’ll keep you updated as my plans develop.
Due to developments that I do not wish to discuss on this blog I am no longer living in my apartment. If you are a long time reader of this blog you might remember that at one time I dreamed of living in a van down by the river. So I am looking at my current situation as a chance to actually live that dream. I might end up not liking it but it should at least be an interesting experience.
it has been harder to find that I like in my price range than I anticipated. In the meantime I am sleeping at various different places. I have camped out a few nights, slept in my car a couple nights, stayed at a friend’s a couple nights, stayed at my mom’s a few nights, and even slept in my storage unit a couple nights. These are all a lot better than actually being homeless but they aren’t great. I’m hoping I find a van soon or I’ll probably break down and rent an apartment for a short term. This was going to be a longer post but the admin for this site has been down all day and now the library is about to close. There will be more posts on this topic soon.
