Baby Boomer Bling on a Budget

First of all, for Baby Boomers, at least this one, getting used to new words that enter the vocabulary is interesting...for example, "bling". I looked up the term "Bling Bling" and found that it refers to:

1. Showy and expensive jewelry or other ostentatious accessories
2. Flamboyant or ostentatious showiness; glitz

Okay, so it's EXPENSIVE, what do we do if we want some "bling" and can't afford it? I'll get to that in a minute.

Another term that's come about in recent years is "Hip-Hop" so I looked that one up, too. One definition says that:

1. It's a form of popular music that originated among inner-city African-American youths in the 1980s, drawing on rap, funk, street sounds, and fragments of melody and rhythm borrowed from previously recorded sources
2. The culture or a fashion, dance, etc. associated with this music

Fun definition, but I think these words are used now to refer to being contemporary, fashionable and fun. And as for that nasty word EXPENSIVE, you can take that out of the equation and enjoy your Bling Bling on a budget at Hip Hop Bling...there is dog tag bling, Barack Obama bling, chains, grillz (another term I better look up), spinners, watches, and every other kind of jewelry you can imagine.

And to use a term baby boomers will relate to, it's a really "groovy" site! Lots of glitz and glimmer, experience in the business, and they create their own "bling" if it isn't already out there.

Refinancing, We Did It, Have You?

There are times when it is wise to refinance...and for some of us, the time has come, and may be leaving very quickly. Last year, we had to do a major, expensive, and necessary repair on our home. This lead to borrowing a significant amount of money on a Prime Equity Loan that we had as a backup in case of emergencies. We have an excellent credit rating, so have been sitting at 2.75% interest rate on the ADJUSTABLE home equity loan, and were at 6.125% on the balance of our first mortgage.

When the rates got down to 4.50% we realized that the timing was right to refinance. Even though our adjustable rate was low, with the instability in everything financial, we wanted the relative stability of a conventional loan.

Except for a few minor hitches along the way, the process went fairly smoothly, and we are finished. Here are a few things that we learned in the process.

• There's a good chance we could have saved money if we had worked directly with a bank rather than a "middle-man" broker, but I don't really regret it, because they did find us the rate that we wanted for the time period we wanted, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how to go about that.
• We are only paying a little more a month for both mortgages than we did for one mortgage, and since we're not "just starting out" in life, set the loan for 15 years.
  
• As soon as possible we are going to switch to a bi-weekly payment plan, which means we pay exactly 1/2 of the monthly mortgage payment every other week. This ends up saving you lots of interest plus gets our loan paid off in approximately 12 years or less as opposed to 15 years because there are extra weeks in a month that we will be making payments that we wouldn't have with the traditional monthly payment plan.
  
• When you get your mortgage, you get 2 figures for you annual percentage rate (APR), one is the one that the mortgage company tells you you'll pay, the other is that plus the extra fees that you will be paying for your mortgage, so when you are comparing mortgage companies and want to save on the extra costs, look at that second number, not the one used to advertise the loan.
• You can put your fees and points right back into your mortgage so you don't have to lay them out up front. Of course this means you'll be paying interest on them, but if you don't have the cash, this is an option.
• You can get cash back to use for - whatever - when you refinance. We decided not to do that though it's always tempting, but will enjoy the escrows that our former mortgage company has been holding (we have the mortgage company handle paying our taxes and homeowners insurance...hence the escrows) and will be returning to us instead...plus the fact that there's approximately 1-2 months between the time that you close and the time you start paying your new mortgage...extra money to stash away, buy something fun that you've wanted, and to use to catch up on a few bills...we did all three.
  

In spite of a few things that we could have done better, we're pleased with our rate, and within a week of closing, have been watching the rates climb again.

Have you refinanced? If you have any tips to share, please do in a comment!

5 Penny Pinching In the Garden Tips

My gardens are very happy today, because it's rainy and everything looks green and fresh. So are my blogs, because I'm inside posting rather than spending time outdoors.

Let me share with you a few things that I do to save pennies...and even bring in "pennies" with my gardens. Now my gardens aren't grand, but they are nice, and filling in beautifully this year. (The picture is Sage from my herb garden.)

1. Over the years, I've been adding Perennials to the garden. This is an obvious way to save money, because the more plants that you have coming up each year, the less annuals that you have to buy to fill in empty spots.
2. I split my perennials and replant to cover more ground...for example, over the past few years, I've made a border of variegated Hosta plants that has just one more "gap" to fill in, and yesterday I "eyed" just the plant I'm going to split to fill that spot.
3. Re-use or purchase your own hanging planters. I was amazed to find that in our area, buying a hanging planter already full of plants could cost up to $20+, while a whole flat of the same plants cost about 1/2 that price, and was able to fill my 3 hanging planters, and add color to 3 other containers plus a section of my garden with just one flat of Impatiens. Huge savings.
   
4. Wait for sales, sounds obvious, but many want to get started right away, especially here where our growing season can be short. I go out and buy a flat of easy to grow shade loving plants and fill my containers as described above, and now have enough coming up each year to get away with waiting until the plants go on sale at our garden shop, usually after Father's Day. I then buy up some inexpensive but healthy-looking perennials and plant them in the spots that still need some color.
5. Some plants might sell on eBay! This way if you have an over-abundance of something, you can make a little money from your garden. For the past 4 years, I've been selling PINK Lily of the Valley which is more valuable than the usual white, as well as my double/triple flower orange daylilies. Do a search of the Perennials that are overtaking areas of your garden on eBay and see if they are worth the time and trouble to list on eBay.

Enjoy your gardens this year, and if you have a tip to share, please comment!

Water On the Mind - 8 Tips

Water has been on our minds a lot around our household, and maybe not for reasons that first come to mind. After 10 years of planning and waiting, a new dam was put in for the lake that we reside on, and while it was in the process of being built, we looked at the lake bottom, it looked a bit like looking at the surface of mars. BUT, as of this week, the lake will be filling with whatever water comes from the sky and from natural springs that are in it.

Water is such an important natural resource, a life-source for our physical bodies, and for everything that lives on our planet. Now that it is getting warmer in our area, people are more inclined to be filling pools, watering gardens and lawns, washing their own cars, and setting up sprinkler-toys for their children to run through and play with.

Many water conservation techniques will also save you money, let me share a few with you that are good reminders to hear on a regular basis:

1. If you fill a bathtub with water, you may use up to 70 gallons of water, but if you take a 5-minute shower you use only a fraction of that amount - 10-25 gallons
2. If you have older washers that need replacing, replace them with high-efficiency washers, some use up to 50% less water and electricity.
3. If you use a dishwasher, don't turn it on until it is full. We only run ours once a day.
4. Repair dripping faucets - I read somewhere that a drip a second wastes over 3000 gallons per year.
5. If your toilet needs replacing, replace with a water-conserving toilet. They have them with special flush mechanisms so that even though you are using less water, there is enough power to flush efficiently and quickly.
6. Toilet leaking? Put food coloring in the tank, and if it is leaking the color will appear in the bowl in approximately 15 minutes. Keep toilets sealed so they don't leak.
   
7. Don't run water until it is cold enough to drink, fill a container or pitcher with water and keep a supply of cold water in the refrigerator at all times.
   
8. Don't run water constantly while brushing your teeth. Turn off between uses.

Living On a Budget, Like Newlyweds Again

When we were first married, we lived on a strict budget...there were not computers with spread sheets back then, just our handy little budget book with columns for each category.

Then there were years when there was enough money coming in that we could "let up" a bit on keeping a budget. We were in a routine as far as our spending, and able to keep the check book balanced online, thanks to the wonder of the internet.

With the state of the economy and a couple of job losses with reduced pay in the new jobs, we find ourselves like "newlyweds" again after 30 years of marriage, at least as far as how careful we have to be about our finances. I have that fun responsibility, and here's what I did to get myself "into" keeping track of things again:

• I had hubby put together a spread sheet for me with columns for each of our expenses, ie. food, gasoline, utilities, etc., and it also kept a tally of what should be left in the checking account...now to many of you this may be second nature if you're good at bookkeeping. For me, I need someone to set it up, then I do the inputting.
  
• I started out by just spending, then inputting what had been spent on what for a month or two. Then we sat down and looked at where we were spending too much, and where to cut back, and made adjustments.

It's really as simple and uncomplicated as that. Since we don't have an excess of money in the checking account anymore, and it's easy to run out and overdraw the account, I keep close track of our balance, as well as when the bills are due. I have reminders set up in my cell phone to let me know it's time to pay certain bills that are easy to forget.

Yep, it's like taking a step back in time, except with all the extra helps provided by computers, spreadsheets, and online banking, and it's not so terrible...we should have lived like this all along, that's really our problem on a small scale, and our Nation's problem on a large scale, we just don't know when to say no to things.

I hope our present economic situation is going to drive us back to living more simply and being grateful for what we have, and thankful that our needs are provided...back to looking out for others and not just for ourselves by giving from our excess to those who really are in need.