by Teri Cettina | Sep 17, 2012 | Budgeting
I know fall is just beginning, but my mind is edging toward winter. Why? I’m reviewing our family savings and looking at how much we’ve saved to buy heating oil. (We still have an oil furnace). And I don’t want a repeat of what happened last winter. There was a day,...
by Teri Cettina | Jul 20, 2012 | Frugality, House & Home
When our family recently traveled to England, we stayed in a rented flat part of the time instead of a hotel. It was a real apartment, so we cooked in the owner’s kitchen, learned how to turn on the boiler for hot shower water, and figured out how to use their TV...
by Teri Cettina | Apr 16, 2012 | Travel
I’m over at Equifax’s Family Money blog talking about budget family travel—outside the United States. Yep, it’s actually possible, and our family lived to tell about it during a recent journey to England. Our daughters are 10 and 14, which we decided was a good age...
by Teri Cettina | Feb 8, 2012 | Health & Fitness, Insurance
For the past two weeks, we’ve been running a “chicken urgent-care clinic” in our backyard. Well, sort of. We have three backyard chickens. Urban chickens are a huge deal here in Portland, Oregon. To our family, Lily, Ernestine and Cocoa are pets–just as if they...
by Teri Cettina | Feb 3, 2012 | Budgeting, Food & Groceries, Frugality
I’m over at Equifax.com’s new family money blog today talking about the link between losing weight and saving money. Believe it or not, the two have lots of similarities—and not just in how hard they are to do! I noticed the connection when I joined Weight Watchers a...
by Teri Cettina | Dec 7, 2011 | Kids
Right now, there’s a chore list on our refrigerator with dollar values next to each one. “Wipe down lower kitchen cabinets: $1.” “Clean lower living room windows: $1.” And so on. What does that have to do with holiday gift-giving? Our kids are earning extra money to...
by Teri Cettina | Nov 18, 2011 | Budgeting
My latest project: Un-budgeting. What does that mean? Un-complicating our family finances a little. I happen to be a very, um, detailed person about our family budget. So over the years, I have dived into it deeper and deeper, creating categories for everything under...
by Teri Cettina | Oct 4, 2011 | Coupons, Kids
I’m always on the lookout for good ideas on teaching kids about money. One woman who has more than a few thoughts on the subject, since she’s got the cool-sounding job of “Mom Saver-in-Chief” for RedPlum, the big coupon company, is Lisa Reynolds. Lisa, who lives with...
by Teri Cettina | Aug 24, 2011 | Budgeting, College, Kids
If you’ve got kids in high school or college, you’re facing the same unpleasant expense we are: Buying textbooks. As if tuition wasn’t already high enough, you also have to pay for books. Expensive books. That are used for only a few months. And get quickly dinged up....
by Teri Cettina | Jun 1, 2011 | College, Kids
At a recent holiday barbecue, a group of our friends had a “lively discussion” about college and what we expect for our kids. Collectively, our kiddos range in age from 7 to 14. Some of the main questions that came up: Should we encourage our kids get a general...
