Ladies and gentlemen, here are the wonderful next five blogs in the blogroll for your reading enjoyment:

Madison at My Dollar Plan talked about rearranging finances in order to prepare to purchase a house.  Madison goes to extremes, but seems to like finances a bit complicated (more challenging?), and will eventually net more money this way.

My Good Cents has a funny article about a disappointing CVS week.  Ha!  Her husband at least goes along with the CVS craziness!

Hank at My Investing Blog has a HILARIOUS article about telephone books.  I never use these anymore - do you?

Madame X at My Open Wallet has a good article for introspection on your job.  I recommend that you read it.

My Two Dollars has an article about tax stimulus - my favorite line?  “They think it will stimulate the economy.”

Preferred Blogs

Measure What’s Important @ Dividends4Life

Fit Modeling @ Her Every Cent Counts

Save Paper and Save Money @ How I Save Money

And the Fourth Law Is… @ LocoMono

1st Carnival of Dividends and Passive Income @ Living Off Dividends

Unexpected Windfall @ Saving For Home

Have a great week!

This is ridiculous.  I have become addicted to the CVS game.  Poring over the internet for random coupons has become my hobby.  I’m trying to parlay my current $30 in CVS bucks into much more, but along the way, I’ve been buying things I don’t even like.  What do people do with this stuff?  My stuff has been getting tossed in the trash by DH, but I feel like there’s somehow a better use for it.  I usually get one good item (i.e. usable for me) per week.

I could donate it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.  Do they take healthcare items and soaps, etc.?  I could freecycle it.  I could find a local nursing home and donate it.

Any other ideas?  What else could I do with the free CVS items I won’t use?

I scrimp and save to get $1 off at the gas pump, and to save up my CVS ECBs.  But this is a big deal.  I called around to the local big insurance companies with my 6 month insurance renewal in hand.  I got a quote emailed to me with all the details.  I double-checked it.

Right now, State Farm wants to charge us $407 for six months’ coverage, and All State is offering us the same coverage for….(drumroll) $323!!!!  That’s a savings of over $80 - or $160 savings per year.  State Farm will have to beat that offer to keep us with them.

Have you had luck saving on your car insurance or homeowners’ in this manner?

I am looking forward to calling our State Farm office on Monday to see what they can do for us.  Then, I will go to the All State office.  Insurance is insurance, and they are basically the same thing, right?  They’re providing the same coverages and it is in writing.

I’ve heard of insurance companies bidding down insurance against each other.  Is there anything that can go wrong that I’m forgetting about?

I got freecycled some tomato and pepper seedlings yesterday morning!  I’m so excited, plus all the hard work/money was already taken care of for me!  What an awesome gift!  Now, I suppose I should freecycle those prom dresses and that mountain of stuff.

DS and I planted/potted the seedlings yesterday.  Let’s see how many tomatoes I get from the free seedlings (we easily eat a pound of tomatoes per week).

I sometimes get crazy ideas.  Right now, I’m considering taking all the money I’ve been throwing at my mortgage for the last 7 or 8 years and, once the house is paid off, sending DS to a super-expensive boarding school.  Like super-expensive, as in, $29,000 per year for 7 years, super-expensive.

What, Brooke?  You’re nuts!

That’s right.  DH thinks I’ve blown a gasket.  But I just think this could really set him up well for life.  Does anyone have any experience with prep/boarding schools?  Am I out of my league here?

I know we could afford it.  If anyone can come up with the money, it’s me.  But we’d still be living frugally, and I think DH can’t take it much longer after he graduates.  How can I convince him?  We’re not having any more kids, and I want to do right by this one!  Either way, I’ve got two grades left to save up the money for the first couple years.

Okay, the words that no parent on a budget wants to hear:  Braces!  I’m lucky; I have almost perfectly straight teeth, so I didn’t need them, but the dentist said the dirty B-word on Tuesday and said that in 6 months if DS’s permanent teeth come in, he could be referred to an orthodontist on his next dentist appointment.

Ages are a little “off” for my son; he entered school really late, but he’ll be in 4th grade and be 11 when they put the braces on him.  My mom and sisters had braces on when they were in high school.  Isn’t eleven a bit young?  Another thing - my mom’s teeth have moved back to their original positions….what’s that about?  Will DS’s do that?  How much is this going to cost?  I need to sit down with my insurance paperwork; maybe I’ll be lucky and it’ll be covered?

*sigh.

Who’s got brace experience?  Hook a sister up with some info!

The other day, I talked about becoming unaddicted to restaurants.  If you get to the heart of the matter, you might just crave a certain kind of food or to have people serve you instead of laboring over a stove and then washing dishes.  But I want these things less than I want to spend my money, so I’ve figured out a few ways to make the mundane special in food:

1.  Add some spices.  I always make spaghetti, but if you add some spices on top (as simple as garlic powder and generic “Italian spices”) it makes it special, like a restaurant.  I also dribble a bit of olive oil on top, too, to make it fancy.

2.  Dim the lights.  Try a candle or two.  They don’t have to be perfect taper candles in nice candle holders.  Any candle will do.  It’s the effect that counts.

3.  Try some music.  I always go for some Portuguese music, for some reason.  It reminds me of Flamenco music in Northern California, but that’s a different story for a different day.  I’m sure you could do a station for “Italian Music” on pandora.com (which is seriously the coolest thing ever, unless you’re overseas, where it’s not available).

4.  Special drinks.  We always get grape juice with ice in some glass goblets.  We don’t drink alcohol at home, so this is our version of “wine.”  I’ve heard grape juice has almost as many antioxidants as wine, but it has no alcohol, so I think that’s pretty cool.  And DS can participate.

5.  Homemade sauce.  I don’t do this, but I’m sure if you had a stellar sauce recipe, that would be extra special, too.  By the way, if you do have a stellar sauce recipe, forward that to me ASAP!

What do you do to make a meal special on the weekend?  Have you ever had a “meal-in” be better than a “meal-out” could possibly be?

The next five on the blogroll had some great articles today:

Pinyo at Moolanomy had a great article on Credit Card Arbitrage.  Do you do this?  It scares me to even have a credit card in my wallet, but it might be an option in the future if I research it more.

Mrs. Nespy talked about a free dinner on church night.  I love positive articles like this.

Mrs. Micah talked about her Hamburger Helper problems.  I find that I can mimic Hamburger Helper for much cheaper by buying ingredients and making my own sauce.

Mrs. Miniducky made me jealous with some talk about a beach weekend.  I need to take a couple weeks off to unwind.  But when?

Frugal at My First Million at 33 talked about the Grocery Game and thought a person couldn’t break even.  DH doesn’t even like me playing the CVS game, so I don’t think I could work the Grocery Game, too.  Has anyone had success with this despite the cost?

Photo Credit:  Marc L’Esperance

We love caffeine in this house, for some reason.  We are coffee lovers.  I brought back a large bag of coffee from my last trip overseas.  Amazing.

Of course, we’re not Starbucks people.  I think I’ve been into Starbucks a total of a dozen times in my life.  It would probably give me a heart attack to pay that much for coffee.  But we do make our own coffee treats; here’s an idea that you could try:

Just put milk and chocolate ice cream together in the blender (like to make a chocolate shake).  You could use malt, too, if you like it and have it in your house.  Blend the milk and ice cream.  Put instant coffee into the blender to taste (be careful with this -DH takes his before mine because he can’t stand the strong coffee taste, but I need to taste it!) and blend.  Voila!  You’ve got a frappe!  And it costs less than a dollar (not for long, as milk is expensive these days!).  You could even layer chocolate sauce or whipped cream to make it more special.

What are some “copy” recipes that you use from restaurants?  Do you have a favorite?

My friend gave me all her plants when she had to move across the US.  The lilies keep blooming over and over each year, with absolutely no maintenance from me.

The thing I’m really excited about is that strawberries are just starting to flower in their bags (that’s how she got them).  She was disappointed when she bought the strawberry bags and they didn’t yield any strawberries.  My mom told me strawberry plants take three years to bear fruit, and this is the third year, so I’m hoping!  Any tips on strawberry growing?  DS is also super-excited - the Easter bunny must have gone to the store late, because he gave DS a flower pot instead of an Easter basket.  I bought DS some tomato, broccoli (his favorite for some reason???) and watermelon seeds on Friday and he’s excited to plant them and see what happens!

Okay, so I’m looking for broccoli, watermelon and strawberry tips.  I’m already an old hat at the standard, tomato-growing (every year as a kid).  Thanks guys and gals!