Author: Sandy L

  • Buying a House with Cash

    Tweet One of my readers requested that I go into more detail about how on earth my mom bought a house with cash while making minimum wage. It just didn’t add up and she wanted to know more. So here’s a little history.  My mom came to this country in 1966, got married around 1970…

  • Babcism of the day – Cooking advice

    Tweet I have this week off from work, so we’ve been hanging sheet rock at Babci’s. I figured that my pizza dough would go unused so I brought it over for her. Here’s a typical conversation: Babci: “Where did you get the recipe?” Me: “I made it from my sourdough starter.” Babci: “Do me a…

  • Pay off Debt to Help the Economy

    Tweet Thanks to my humble upbringings, I’m not a big fan of consumer debt. In fact, I’ll go so far as saying that lending too much money has hurt the economy, not helped it. Many economists and even our President strongly disagree. When  President Obama addressed congress last year, in the same breath, he said…

  • Yard Sales – Haggling Nickles

    Tweet My mother doesn’t ask for much. One thing she asks me for all the time is to go to tag sales. It’s something I enjoy as well, but with our summers being so short, there are many competing activities that we like to do on Saturday mornings. But this Saturday the stars aligned, the…

  • Bi-Lingual Perks + Pitfalls

    Tweet Let’s face it. It’s pretty darn cool when you’re talking right in front of someone and they have no idea what you’re saying. Every once in a while though, you get busted. One day last summer, my mom and I stopped at the farmer’s market for “5 minutes because she needed just one thing.” …

  • Priceline.com – Save as little as $0

    Tweet A year ago, I fell totally and hopelessly in love with Priceline.com My friend was getting married in LA and I got to stay at the Hyatt Regency for $60/night.  I have a character flaw. Once I find something I like, I become pretty loyal to a fault. I’ve used  priceline.com exclusively since then with equally…

  • Victory at Last – Take that Junk Mail!

    Tweet This post was inspired by a recent article from Everyday Tips.  One of the things Kris was looking to do was reduce junk mail as a means to simplify her life.  I volunteered to give my 2 cents. A few years ago I was being buried by mail and I’m happy to report it’s finally under…

  • Working Moms Care About Their Kids Too

    Tweet I’m the first to admit that I love reading mommy blogs.  Since most of the people who do these blogs are SAHM moms, I pretty regularly run across the “I choose to stay at home because I care about my family assumption.”  Yup, us working moms dump our kids off with some stranger, put…

  • Geriatric Commando

    Tweet  Ground Hog 0 – Babci 1 Over the weekend, I received an urgent call from my mother.  A furry and very fat ground hog decided that the perfect place to setup residence would be in a cozy hole nestled between my mom’s raspberry bushes and her row of beets.   We told her that we’d…

  • Minimum Wage & No Credit History = My Mom

    Tweet How many people can say that they have never owed anybody anything?  Well, my mom is one. She has never had debt. By NO credit history I mean: She never had a credit card Never had a mortgage Never had a checking account or driver’s license Never invested in anything besides a CD or…