Winning!

Good morning, Club Thrifty enthusiasts!  Not only is it Friday, but I have some awesome news to share with each and everyone one of you.  Are you sitting down?  Wait for it……

On Wednesday, we found out that we won the ebay Frugal Blog Award in the family category!  I’m sure you’re all wondering what exactly this means.  And the truth is, so am I.  From what I can tell, I’ve just won a whole lot of bragging rights, fame, and glory for all time.  I’m also the proud owner of this swank little badge to display on my blog until forevah.  Isn’t she beautiful???

Let’s move on to my favorite posts of the week!

Snark Finance shared some hilarious commentary about daydreaming on the job.  This is my favorite quote “What I spend the most time at work doing is thinking about the activities I would rather be doing.  For example, anything.”

Michelle at Making Sense of Cents posted some awesome pictures from her trip to St. Thomas….it made me want to go there!

Nicole and Maggie wrote my favorite post of the week about their next blog.  Their idea is to create a faux blog based on a typical male blogger wanna-be entrepreneur, Steve.  Shit, I would read it!

Frugal Rules wrote about the joys of being self-employed.  Since I quit my job last month, I could totally relate!

Reach Financial Independence wrote about the cost of living in Guatemala.

J.D. Roth wrote about how to live a life you love.  It really resonated with me for some reason.

The Heavy Purse wrote about some thing to consider before college.  Yeah, like not going into debt!

Also, make sure to check out my newest post at Get Rich Slowly.  I really thought that this one would bring out the angry mobs, but I managed to make it through unscathed.  I hope that everyone has a great weekend!

VIP Club: Best Week Ever Edition Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

I’m still a work in progress…..

I don’t try to hide the fact that we used to be pretty sucky with our finances.  Although we never let things get too out of hand, I finally accept the fact that we used to waste most of our income.  We bought stuff.  We went on trips.  If we didn’t have the cash, we would finance anything that we desired.  Even furniture.  And vacuums.  I swear.

We also lived without any sort of budget.  Unfortunately, this meant spending without limits until the next payday came along.  Since we have relatively high incomes, it never seemed like much of a problem.  But, we’re not stupid people.  I think we knew deep down that we weren’t reaching our potential.  We had our heads stuck in the sand and were caught in the typical middle class trap of going to work, buying stuff, then working more to buy more stuff.  Luckily, getting pregnant with our second child finally made us snap.  The new responsibility made us realize that our future was being squandered on outrageous grocery spending, credit card debt repayment, and a plethora of unnecessary purchases.  We knew we had to change.

One of the first steps we made toward financial freedom was to create a zero sum budget.  Our new budget was merely the beginning of  a series of positive changes that we made.  In fact, I’ve come to realize that we made a lot of changes within a short time frame.  In addition to drastically cutting our spending, we gradually changed many of our destructive habits as well.  And as we all know, changing old habits can be a long and painful process.  However, I am convinced that the new habits we adopted completely transformed our financial future.  Here are the 5 financial habits that changed our lives:

Habit #1

We stopped watching TV.  Cutting our cable television bill was awesome for our budget.  Doing so freed up an additional $90 per month to use toward debt repayment.  We also found ourselves with a lot more time to do productive things.  We even started a blog which ultimately led to the fact that I am now self-employed.  Had we continued paying for cable television, I would probably still be watching Real Housewives marathons on Bravo and wishing that I could find way out of my 9-5 job.

Habit #2

I stopped caring what people thought.  I stopped giving in to peer pressure.  I stopped feeling bad for not buying an extravagant present for every relative’s birthday or for not going to every expensive event I was invited to.  I started putting our family first and the wants and needs of everyone else a distant second, third, or even last if needed.

Habit #3

We made savings a priority.  Instead of hoping to save something at the end of the month, we started saving first then learned how to live off the rest.  This way, money that was supposed to be saved wasn’t wasted due to poor planning.  Since we became debt free, our savings rate has grown dramatically and we are now saving at a rate of around 50 %.

Habit #4

We stopped living in denial.  Creating and sticking to a budget made us take a hard look at our choices every week and month.  It forced us to confront our past mistakes and made us want to do better.  Coming to terms with reality helped us transform into the responsible and goal-oriented adults that we are now.

Habit #5

We became proactive.  We stopped waiting for opportunities to present themselves.  We started chasing them instead.  We realized that no one was going to knock on our door and hand us what we wanted.  We started working for it. 

Making huge life changes takes hard work, and improving our lives meant acknowledging our own shortcomings.  It sucked, but I’m so glad that we took the steps to start getting closer to our full potential.  And it’s not over yet – we’re still trying to improve our lives, financially and otherwise.  I hope to never stop learning and growing, and I plan on continuing to implement positive changes until I evolve into the person I was meant to be.

So, how about you?  What habits are you trying to change?  What changes have you made for the better?

The 5 Financial Habits that Changed My Life Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

Hey folks! Welcome back to Club Thrifty! Today we are uber pleased to be joined by Melissa Hathaway, Senior Marketing Analyst at ShopAtHome.com. Enjoy!

Club Thrifty: Hello Melissa, and thanks for being with us today! Tell us a little bit about ShopAtHome.com?

Melissa: ShopAtHome.com is a site that shares thousands of coupons on nearly everything.  In addition to providing coupons, we also work directly with retailers to negotiate Cash Bach rewards for our users.

CT: Sounds cool, but how does it save you money?

MH: We aggregate best of the web deals and share them through email, social channels and our site to help you save on everything you buy.  We also scour the web and have a few hundred thousand coupons on our site at any given time.  There are lots of coupon sites out there, but they aren’t created equal.  They all receive a commission from retailers for sending them traffic, but what makes ShopAtHome.com different is that we share a portion of that commission back with our users in the form of Cash Back.  That means that just by going through ShopAtHome, you’ll get a portion of your purchase sent back to you in cold hard cash (okay, it’s actually a check, but you get the idea……)

CT: Are there buying patterns we should know about? When should we buy what? What coupons and deals circulate when?

MH: Absolutely.  Part of responsible financial planning is only buying what you need, but it also means buying smart.  This is true of both the little purchases and the big purchases.  For example, you might think the best time to get a great deal on a TV would be Black Friday, but you actually can get better deals in early February, just before the Super Bowl.  The best time to buy large appliances are in September, typically around Labor Day.

As for perishable items, these all have buying cycles too. There is usually one to two times a year that you can get the absolute BEST deal on food items.  However, that works great for those extreme couponers, but might not be realistic for the average family that can’t have a glorified warehouse stockpile in their basement.  Rule of thumb is that grocery store items usually go on a sales cycle averaging 6 to 8 weeks.  Start an excel spreadsheet of the things your family buys the most and start tracking prices of those items on your weekly grocery trip to your favorite store.  You’ll start seeing the patterns that emerge.  I also love this infographic from mint.com as a handy guide.

CT: Obviously, consumer goods are your bread and butter. Where is one unexpected place we can save?

MH: Travel!  We are all pretty used to frantically searching different travel sites, with about a thousand browsers open at once.  But there is an easier way to save, I think.  Many travel sites offer coupons in addition to savings – especially on bundles like air and hotel or hotel and rental car.  Plus, with the addition of Cash Back through ShopAtHome.com, you can save tons on hotels and rental cars.  I just booked a trip myself to head back home to Michigan, and we were able to apply a coupon and earn Cash Back on the rental car and hotel.  I saved an additional $80 in coupons and Cash Back after my initial comparison shopping.

CT: Sweet! We love us some travel rewards! So, what’s the best deal you’ve gotten at ShopAtHome.com?

MH: Over $200 of clothing and accessories at one of my favorite stores for $1.56.  It was EPIC.  By being a valued customer at this particular store, I received a lot of free gift cards that could be combined into a single purchase.  From there, I applied a few coupons:  Free Shipping, plus 20% off my entire order and a Free Gift with Purchase coupon.  Combining those coupons with Cash Back and my free gift cards from loyalty points, I gave myself a little early birthday present – and it cost less than a latte!

CT: That is awesome! We are all about good deals around here. Thanks again for joining us Melissa and have a great week!

MH: Thanks for having me!

We hope you enjoyed this interview! Please don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter for a chance to win our quarterly drawing! Also, don’t forget about our current 50-inch HDTV giveaway. Follow the link to learn more. Thanks for visiting Club Thrifty, and we hope to see you again soon!

An Interview With Melissa Hathaway of ShopAtHome.com Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

I’m starting to feel like I am being secretly videotaped on that old MTV show, Boiling Points.  And let me give you a hint; my boiling point is currently T minus zero seconds when it comes to billing errors.  I have had so many billing errors in the past few years that I sometimes wonder if I am being punished for something I may have done in a former lifetime.  Do companies just hate me?  Can they really all be that bad at basic math?  Is good customer service just a thing of the past?

I received four bills in the mail while I was away last week, and two of them had crazy mistakes on them.  And not just small mistakes, glaring errors.  The kind that make my head spin like the exorcist as I try not to yell expletives at innocent customer service reps.  The kind that make me question the competency of the companies that I choose to do business with.  The kind that make me bat shit crazy.  Let me explain.

Billing Error #1

I recently wrote about my home refinance with Amerisave Mortgage.  They kinda sucked but ultimately got the job done.  Anyway, I paid my first bill to them by personal check on March 1st.  For my second payment, I daringly chose to pay them through my bank’s online bill pay and sent them a check for $3,800 on April 1st.  When it didn’t cash by April 20th, I called them to see what was taking so long.  Amerisave informed me that they never received my check.  No biggie.  I called my bank to issue a stop payment on the first check and proceeded to pay my mortgage through the mortgage company’s website, amerisavepayments.com.  Problem solved.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t end there.  Amerisave did in fact have the first check that I sent them, and they went ahead and cashed it.  Since I had issued a stop payment on the check, they were unsuccessful in their attempt to do so.  That didn’t bother me.  What makes me crazy is that they wanted me to pay a $35 fee for their inconvenience.  The chances of that happening were less than zero, and they immediately removed the fee when I told them as much.  Still, I lost 30 minutes of my life sorting through the details with Zorah in Las Vegas.  I think the issue is resolved for now, and I will continue to make payments through their website from now on.

Billing Error #2

We have rental properties with small mortgages on them, and both of the mortgages are due on the first of the month.  Since I use a zero sum budget and am a month ahead on all of my finances, I pay the mortgages for my rentals and primary residence a month ahead of time.  This means that I pay the mortgage that is due May 1st on April 1st and the bank gets it around the 5th of the month.  Unfortunately, one of the mortgage companies I deal with gets really confused by my early payment.  In fact, they have improperly credited my account 5 times in the last 12 months.  5 times!!!!  Each time is dumber and more unbelievable than the last.

So, I got home from vacation and opened the bill to find that I was past due on April’s months mortgage payment.  This was super weird since they had happily cashed my $900 check.  Upon further investigation, I found that they had credited the $900 straight to the principal of the loan and not counted it as my monthly payment.  I called and they fixed it, but they couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t happen again.  “Our system gets confused because you pay your bill so early,” is what they always tell me.  They get it on the 5th, about 25 days early.  I cannot be the only person who pays their bills a few weeks early, can I?  They also made these suggestions in order to prevent them from making the same mistake every month:

• I could wait until after the 15th of the month to make my payment that is due on the 1st.  No.
• I could make the payment early then call every month to make sure that my account is properly credited.  No.
• I could make my early payment by snail mail and include a personal note detailing my instructions each month.  No.

All of those options sound completely absurd to me, and I don’t think I should have to jump through hoops to pay my bill early.  It really shouldn’t be that complicated, should it?

Regardless, I think I got these issues resolved for now.  Still, I doubt that these are the last billing errors I will have the misfortune of dealing with.  How about you guys?  Have you been on the receiving end of any crazy billing errors lately?  Please complain about your recent experience with Comcast corporate incompetence by commenting below.

Billing Errors Causing Temporary Insanity: A Rant Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

I have an announcement to make…and it’s a doozy.  At the beginning of April, I quit my job.  I walked away from my super stable and well-paid 9-5 job and leaped toward the unknown.  I put in 2-weeks notice but agreed to work until the end of the month…and now its done!

Why Did I Quit My Job?

A few months ago, I wrote about how I was a workaholic.  The truth is, that is probably an epic understatement.  Including our full-time jobs and various side hustles, we were each working an 70 hours per week – easy.  That wouldn’t be such a problem if we didn’t also have two small children who need our constant attention and care.  In order to find more time to be productive and be good parents, we were getting up early, staying up late, and spending our weekends trying to catch up on everything else.  Grocery store trips had become reminiscent of Super Market Sweep, and we were always in a hurry to get everything done.  I started feeling like more of a machine than a human being.  We were miserable, and our lives were beginning to suck.  Any free time we had was spent recovering from all of the work that we had just done.  We were exhausted, stressed out, and completely overwhelmed by all of our responsibilities.

How Did It Get This Way?

As you know, we started our blog in May of 2012.  Anyone who runs a blog knows that it is a time-consuming endeavor.  Not only do you have to write content for your site, you have to respond to emails, work on SEO, and about a million other things.  Our blog has grown dramatically, and we have started to generate some real income from this thing.  In addition, our blog has led to various part-time jobs and side hustles.  Not only do I write for Get Rich Slowly, but I also write for a few different companies. I even started doing some other internet related stuff on the side.  The point is this: I had a full-job and what felt like 5 million part-time jobs.  I couldn’t do them all. I had to pick.

The Big Decision

Since I had to pick between my 9-5 job and my side hustles, I decided to pick my side hustles, obvi.  There are several reasons that I decided to saw off my golden handcuffs:

• I started making more money from my blog and side hustles than I did at my full-time job.
• Working from home provides me with time to do household things like laundry, dishes, and make dinner.
• I can work in my pajamas.
• I now have the time to take on additional jobs and projects.

Working from home means that I now have unlimited earning potential.  My 9-5 job was great, but I was paid for my time.  This meant that working harder never produced any additional income.  I could work my a$$ off all day or twiddle my thumbs and play Bejewled Blitz.  Regardless of how hard I worked, I never got paid any more.  I was simply trading money for time…and I finally realized that it no longer made sense.

Working From Home Is…Scary…

The problem with working from home is that nothing is guaranteed.  No one is going to pay me to sit around and watch The Young and the Restless all day.  Simply put – if I don’t do anything, I don’t get paid.  Lucky for me, I am an extremely self-motivated person.  I have never needed anyone to give me direction and I don’t need encouragement or supervision.

All of that is great, but I did give some things up when I walked away from my 9-5 job.  My 401K match, profit-sharing, paid vacation, and company issued smartphone are a thing of the past.  Luckily, I have thought out all of those things and I will be writing about how I’ll be handling those issues in future posts.

For now, I’m just going to work on finding a “new normal.” My kids are still going to daycare full-time until I determine if I can keep them home a few days a week.  Life has changed now, and I’m learning to love my new found freedom.  Working from home may be scary, but I’m not afraid to try new things….even after years of working for someone else.  I had to let go of the past in order to move forward.  So I did.

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”     - Walt Disney 

Why I Quit My Job: A Club Thrifty Confessional Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

So, we thought we’d take a little time out of our regular schedule to bring you a couple of photos from our vacation. We’ll be back to our regular posting schedule on Monday. Enjoy!

Vacation Baby! Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

While we are enjoying our vacation, please check out this guest post from Daniel Hilsden from Money Saving Angels. If you are interested in guest posting at Club Thrifty, please see our guest posting guidelines.

Could you afford to support yourself on unemployment benefits alone?

Being and becoming unemployed is more of a reality than ever for millions of Americans. It’s apparent enough when we see that even government workers are amongst those finding themselves on temporary employment furloughs – the statistics would have you believe that unemployment rates are gradually decreasing, but some members of the public remain unconvinced by these figures.

The notion of nationwide unemployment poses a rather prominent question: does becoming unemployed mean that you’ll no longer be able to survive modern-day living? Will you be able to keep a roof over your head, food in the fridge, and maintain personal transport?

Is it Possible to Live on Unemployment?

I think before we delve into the whole ‘is it possible?’ debate, we first need to mention that not everyone receiving unemployment insurance will be a homeowner; some people still live at home whereas many others rent or share properties. Those among us who are not yet homeowners will have a larger portion of their unemployment benefit left over since it won’t get swallowed up by mortgage payments, bills and utilities.

With that said – have you or could you imagine the horror of becoming unemployed suddenly and without warning? Take in all the feelings that it would evoke and consider the amount of income that you’d stand to lose. What would you do to make a smaller income work for you?

You could start by taking economic steps to reduce your household costs.  However, small frugal steps may not be enough to account for the big hitting household costs incurred on a monthly basis.  It’s likely that utilities and mortgage payments will dominate any budget if you own a home.

It’s inconceivable to sustain any type of lifestyle indefinitely by means of unemployment insurance; though it doesn’t mean that living would be financially impossible. Shorter periods of unemployment won’t lead you down the road to poverty and squalor and I’d argue that with a certain amount of discipline anyone can survive on unemployment benefits for a relatively short amount of time.

How much are unemployment benefits worth?

Unemployment insurance benefits vary per State, but they all operate towards a unified purpose – granting help to those who become forcibly unemployed or unemployed through no fault of their own. If you’re eligible for unemployment benefits you can receive your benefit for up to 99 weeks – with the average weekly payment being around $293.

Frugality is not easily gained skill, but if anything will ever teach it to you – it’s being unemployed. I’d wager that we all take our regular day jobs for granted. It’s really easy to get comfortable in a job and it’s even easier to assume that our job (therefore income) will be secure for a lifetime – call it human nature. Our working lives are so fragile and there are so many external factors that can unhinge your life and force you to make more of less; suddenly a weekly income of $293 looks much better than nothing – a lesson on perspective.

Your Mortgage May Be the Problem

Assume you take out a mortgage worth $100,000, with an interest rate of 6.25% and you plan to pay it back over 30 years – your monthly repayment will be $615 spare a few cents; leaving you with around $557 to last the rest of the month.

After your mortgage payment, could $557 be enough to last you the month while you continue your hunt for employment?

I’ll leave that point open for discussion, but I guess what I’m offering up here is: value every penny, cent and dollar that you have – if you have something (opposed to nothing) then you’re doing well.

Unemployment isn’t pretty and society would have you feel bad about your situation.  However, if you’re actively seeking work – nobody has the right to judge you without knowing your circumstance. That being said, unemployment isn’t one massive negative and I’d argue that there are pros and cons to being unemployed:

Unemployment Pros

• Excess leisure time
• Unemployment insurance if you live in the U.S
• Gives you time to reflect, retrain and rethink your career      options
• Opens your eyes to how we could all be less wasteful
• More time to spend with your loved ones

Unemployment Cons

• Lower income
• Negative public image of unemployment – this in turn affects      our feelings of self worth
• High unemployment rates mean it’s easy to get stuck in the      cycle of joblessness
• It eats away at any savings you may have
• Inconsistent work history/gaps of unemployment

Pros and cons aside, you may want to seek out employment as soon as possible. If you remain unemployed for an extended period of time it will then make re-entry into employment increasingly difficult due to sporadic gaps in your resume. Gaps in your resume look terrible to potential employers, so it’s best to keep any anomalies in it to a minimal.

By getting creative and tracking prior spending, receiving unemployment benefits can be a blessing in savings via a better economy of one’s time and money. At the end of the day living on unemployment insurance benefits for an extended period of time may not be impossible, but it could be mission unsustainable.

What do you think?  Are unemployment benefits enough to sustain us for long periods of time?  Or should we receive more to account for the higher cost of modern living?

Daniel is a writer for Money Saving Angels which provides helpful information on breakdown insurance, credit cards, investing and much more.

Living on Unemployment: Mission Impossible? Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

The following is a guest post by our friend Kevin Watts from Graduating from Debt. If you are interested in guest posting at Club Thrifty, please see our guest posting guidelines.

By the end of 2012 student loan debt in the United States had risen to almost $1 trillion. That’s right, trillion with a ‘T’. To put this figure into perspective, total consumer debt at that point stood at $11.34 trillion, which means that student loan debt represented an almost unbelievable 8.5% of all consumer debt.

These figures clearly indicate that student debt is out of control, and current debt problems are only going to get much worse if students do not start taking positive steps to get their debt under control. But just how can you keep your student loan debt within acceptable limits?

The Dangers of Student Loans

The world of student loan finance these days is a mix of both federal and private funding and, quite frankly, is a minefield. More importantly, many students see arranging student loans as being just another of life’s necessities; as long as they get the money they need now to see them through college, they put off worrying about repayment until they have their degrees and are in a good, high paying, job.

Unfortunately, life does not always follow the path we would like it to, and far too many students end up with a mountain of debt that they never thought was possible. They struggle to find a decent job, let alone a high paying job.

If you are heading off to college shortly, or are part way through your college course, now is the time to stop and take a crash course in student loans, to ensure that you are in control of your student debt, rather than letting your debt dictate how you live your life.

Student Loan Issues

Here, for example, are 3 very important facts that you will discover about student loans if you do a bit of research.

1. There is a huge difference between federal and private loans. As student loan debt has continued to rise in recent years, the federal government has come up with a number of different programs to provide varying degrees of debt relief.

These programs provided such things as fixed interest rates for debt, so that you know exactly what your future repayments are going to be, and deferment or forbearance, that permits you to reduce or postpone loan repayments temporarily in times of financial difficulty.

Private loans do not qualify for federal relief and, while many private lenders will offer you assistance if you run into difficulty repaying your loan, such help will invariably extend the life of your loan and cost you a considerable amount of money in the longer term. In addition, private loans are almost always offered at variable interest rates and, with very low rates at the moment, these are likely to rise, perhaps very significantly, in the future.

2. Income Based Repayment (IBR) helps many thousands of borrowers. If you do not get the high paying job you want after you graduate, then paying off your loan can take so much of your monthly paycheck that you simply do not have enough money left to live. To meet this situation one of the federal relief programs, known as Income Based Repayment (IBR), will cap your monthly repayments to just 15% of your income. Naturally, this relief is only available to students with federal loan funding.

3. Public Service Loan Forgiveness can help public service workers. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program applies to students with federal direct loans who go on to work full-time in a public sector job at a federal, state or local level. Indeed, the scheme even covers public service workers within tribal government and working for non-profit organizations.

This relief program requires that you make your loan repayments for a period of 10 years and, at that point, then forgives any remaining debt. When you consider that many people today take 25 years or more to pay off their student loans, being able to clear your debts in just 10 years is an attractive proposition.

These 3 facts about student loans only scratch the surface, and this list could easily be extended to include 30, 50 or 100 important facts that you should be aware of before you apply for a student loan.

A great deal of attention these days is paid to finding ways to lower student debt, for example through debt consolidation, and whole books have been written about coping with the burden of student debt once you have graduated. The secret however lies in taking control of your student debt before you even submit your first student loan application. By knowing exactly what you are getting yourself into, and the options that are available, you can save yourself a lot of heartache once you leave college and enter the world of work.

Student Loan Debt: Why Taking Control is Essential Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

The following is a guest post from our friend Jessica at Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses. If you are interested in guest posting, please see our guest posting guidelines.

Hi! My name is Jessica and I blog over at Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses, the personal finance & lifestyle blog with a dash of sass.

If you’re like most people, you may have dreamed about your wedding day since you were a little kid. But, did you also dream about maxing out your credit cards, asking your parents for money, and still going into debt after the “I do”s? Probably not, but unfortunately that is a sad reality for many couples who may not have crunched a few crucial numbers when deciding to throw a big, fat, traditional wedding.

You may have heard that the average wedding today costs around $26,000. I know that sounds like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on one day, but believe me, it’s not a hard task to do if you aren’t paying attention. I’m actually just a few months away from my very own wedding, and despite being extremely frugal and a personal finance blogger to boot, my wedding is not going to be cheap. It’s definitely nowhere close to the average, but it’s looking like it will cost my fiancé and I about $15,000. And that’s not including both of our bachelor and bachelorette parties in Las Vegas!

So, why are weddings so darn expensive? Here’s a look at a few price tags to give you an idea…..

Transportation

If you want to arrive in style, then it’s doubtful you’ll be taking a cab to and from the ceremony. If you want to give your wedding party a ride too, then you’ll most likely have to rent a stretch or SUV limousine. Prices can vary….but from my research, renting a limo in my hometown, Vancouver, costs about $150 per hour. We’re booking ours for 4 hours so that’s $600 right there. Ouch!

Flowers

I’m not a big flower person, so we are going the minimal route with our arrangements. That being said, for bouquets for the bridal party and myself, boutonnieres for the groom, groomsmen, and parents, and flowers for the reception, are costing us another $600.

Venue/Food/Liquor

We are having our reception at a facility at my old university, which means I can take advantage of their special alumni discount. But even with that little perk it still isn’t cheap to rent out the place for an entire day, plus feed and quench the thirst of 80 people. On top of that, like many other wedding venues, we are contractually obligated to spend a minimum amount of money that day. The price tag for everything is about $6,000. I wonder if  it would be tacky to doggy bag the leftovers?

DJ

At first I was set on just doing it on the cheap, setting up my laptop, and blasting tunes from some of my party playlists. But as our wedding date kept creeping closer, I realized I had absolutely no time to arrange our entire night’s music and decided it would be best to hire a DJ. Luckily we found one who is a friend of a friend (discount!) but it’s still costing us $500. That’s actually a pretty good deal considering most wedding DJ’s cost $700 – $1000. Now that’s a side gig I wouldn’t mind having!

So if you are newly engaged and aren’t sure if you want to have a big, fat, traditional wedding, just remember that the  “big, fat” part refers to the bill you’ll be handed at the end of the night. But hey- I’m still doing it, so as long as you can afford to pay for it in cash, I say good luck to you on the planning and get on Pinterest, it’s a godsend!

Holly’s Two Cents: I personally bought my unity candle and wedding invitations at a garage sale….so I cringed at some of these costs! However, as long as an individual is paying in cash for their wedding and not forgoing other savings goals or sacrificing too much, I don’t see a problem with having a nice wedding.

How Much it Really Costs to Throw a Traditional Wedding Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

So, we are smack dab in the middle of Game of Thrones: Season 3…and let’s just say, it is AWESOME! Each week, I think that the episodes couldn’t get any better, but they do. I’ve even read the books, and I’m still blown away by seeing them happen on my television screen.

You know what would make them even better though? A 50-inch LED HDTV.

Good news! During the month of may, we are participating with over 40 other bloggers to giveaway a Samsung UN50EH6000 50-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV. Pretty sweet, eh? The television boasts the following:

Samsung 50-inch LED HDTV Giveaway! Club Thrifty - Stop spending. Start living.