Top Read - A Review of Happier Than a Billionaire

Last year I started reading Costa Rican blogger Happier Than A Billionnaire. I have a love of travel and follow several bloggers, but none as funny as Nadine Hays Pisani. Every week she posts an episode on her blog of their zero hour work week life after she and her husband Rob sold their Chiropractic practises in the U.S.A, sold all their worldy possessions and fled to Costa Rica in search of a healthier simpler life.

Four years later and they have no regrets. They lead a simple happy life on a budget of approximately $1000 per month caretaking a house for an expat while they start the process of building on their own lot. Hubby and I were fortunate enough to meet up for a beer with Nadine and her husband Rob (both were recently featured on CNN.com)on our recent trip to Costa Rica.

Nadine and I both share a love of travel and a search for happiness that is not necessarily brought on by purchased goods. They are a lovely funny down to earth couple living the life that most dream about (including me) and I highly recommend you purchase her book. Not all rainbows and butterflies, Nadine tells it like it is, the good, the bad, the ugly, the dusty, the beautiful and the hilarious.



My review as posted to Amazon.com:
"What should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking of moving to, or travelling to Central America, Happier than a Billionaire is gut-wrenchingly laugh out loud funny, best read with a nice glass of wine in a lawn chair. Frankly, one of the best travel type books I have ever read, and once you start very difficult to put down. Definitely worth the read!"

This is the one new book you should purchase this year as good luck finding a used copy (I bought a paper version as wanted one for my library).

Before I purchased my copy I was thinking of downloading a kindle version (only $2.99 USD) and found out that even if you don't have a kindle reader you can download kindle for FREE at amazon.com to your laptop(subject to specific memory requirements-see their site for details).

Happy reading!

Friends of Different Shapes, Sizes, Races & Financial Habits

My husband seems amazed at the different kind of friends I have. One of my friends at work drives a Mercedes Benz convertible and owns a weekend house in Arizona (and owes more money than she and her boyfriend are worth). Another is recovering from breast cancer and lives in a one bedroom apartment with her ancient cat and her goodwill treasures. Another close friend is constantly chased by thoughts of a second bankrupcy as she spends, spends, spends, coming from a culture where women have no control over money therefore she learned no good spending skills. He wonders how I can be friends with so many different financially minded people. The answer? Try not to judge. It seems my friend with breast cancer knows the most about me. I met her after she returned to work from recovering from a masectomy. I don't know what she was like before breast cancer but she is my kind of person. I liked her but realized how much we had in common the day she brought artwork bought at the Goodwill down the street to brighten up her pod at work. That day I knew I had a true friend I could freely and openly discuss my love of everything used, including wardrobe. Now, we wink at each other and point to our latest outfit purchased for less than $10 from head to toe while others discuss the latest sale at Coach or the cost of their $50,000 wedding (mine cost $3000 not including rings). I guess with some friends I can be truer to than others.

It does make me sad when my friends struggle with financial issues, but as my friend with cancer says, it really matters very little in the end. What is money anyway, but a means to an end. You can still lead a very happy fulfilled life with very little in the way of money.

Just this week I realized how grateful I am for my very best friend who I have known for eight years now and have been married to for six years next month. As long as I have him I know I could live in a grass hut and be happy. Just food for thought.

To Each His Frugal Own

I don't dumpster dive...but I have no problem with people who do. They are keeping perfectly good items from the landfills. I do buy used clothes and books but shy away from used shoes and undergarments. My house decorated with a mix of new and used. We live the way we want to and could care less if others look down on it as we are debt free and now, officially, financially independent.

Here is a collection of videos where people unashamedly embrace frugality in their own way.

On the Cheap Video - ABC News

Extreme Frugality: Meet the Carters

Avoiding Debt at All Costs - Mary Hunt

America's cheapest family

Deals of the Week

Free Purex (at Walmart) this week
Cost $2 - $2 coupon = .10 cents tax only = 20 loads of laundry
Unfortunately this coupon is hard to come by as came with a sample of Purex so I only had one.

Free Kashi (at Walmart) this week
Cost $2 - $2 Coupon = 0 cost (no tax as food item)
Again, I only had one coupon

Cheap Tylenol Night 10 pack
Walmart $4.77 - $4 coupon = $1.01 including tax
Not a product I use, am going to try it out first. I still have 3 of these coupons if it turns into a product I like.

And finally, here is an introduction to the cheapskate pet, our furry creature Chewy.

Hamster Cage purchased used $20
(I first bought a $5 hamster cage but he got a little big around the middle so we upsized the cage)
Average cost per week for fuzz and bedding $3
Average cost per week for food .50

He is more than happy to eat up veggie and fruit leftovers.

One thing I didn't buy this week but that was on shockingly low as a loss leader at Walmart was .25 for 200 sheets of Hilroy lined binder paper. I have never seen the price so low. Obviously a ploy to attract parents shopping for back to school. It seems to have worked as Walmart was packed with frazzled parents holding school lists.

If we would not have been planning an inter-Provincial move this year I likely would have stocked up.

Free Giggle Today

Okay, this story is a little disgusting but ultimately Anderson Cooper giggling is priceless.......

Deals of the Week

Total Cost 27 cents!
3 x Campbells Mushroom soup @ .59 minus .50 coupons each
Triscuit Free Product Coupon
Asana Free Product Coupon

Cool Link of the Day

I recently stumbled across a website called

Unconsumption

From furniture to shrink plastic earrings, check out all the cool ways people are reusing things that other people throw out.

Cheap or Free Entertainment Options

Yes, once again we took advantage of a freebie this weekend, free tickets to see Gene Simmons talk with the crowd. Part fan meet and greet, part corporate rock and roll success talk, I am certain I would have not paid the $79.50 plus service fee ticket price but as it was free was an entertaining evening out. I also was able to bring my camera - perhaps there is a fun future career possibility here - Paparazzi? Not enough celebrity sightings in my neck of the woods I am afraid to say.

After benefiting from a lot of free events this summer, I have been thinking of how after we quit our jobs we are going to entertain ourselves on the cheap, or even better for free.

Entertainment is normally one of the first costs slashed on a tight budget. Some options:

1. Volunteer for an event. Most volunteers get at minimum free admission to the event, sometimes meals and drinks are included as well

2. Review the local newspaper events section for free items such as fireworks, free festivals, art walks. If you don't take the paper the same information is available online for free at their website.

3. Intead of going out for a meal, go for a coffee, cocktail or dessert as all these options are much cheaper than a full meal. In addition to collecting coupons for groceries I collect them for restaurants as many offer two for one deals or free apetizer or beverage with meal purchase. If you are addicted to fast food many chains offer email signup for discounts and coupons.

4. Exchange dvds with friends. Throw in some microwavepopcorn and you have a movie night. Better yet, invite them over and have a theme night - chick flicks, Al Pacino flicks, sport themed movies.

5. If you have a way to resell items ie. garage sale or flea market buy books and dvds, read or watch and resell for at least what you purchased them for. This makes your entertainment fee zero.

6. Library option. Many libraries now offer a wide dvd selection as well as books. I prefer to read multiple books at the same time and pass them on to family so I tend to purchase mine used but if I couldn't afford to do that I would buy a library card - $15 in my town for the whole year. Make sure to avoid late fees by extending your time online before the deadline.

7. If you are reading this blog you have access to the internet. Even if you don't have cable the internet is a huge resource for free tv. If you live in the USA Hulu is a great option. In Canada we are blocked from seeing Hulu but I have successfully watched many episodes of my favorite shows by going directly to my local tv stations website - click on available video and usually they post a few older episodes you can watch.

Here are some Canadian site links:

CBC

HGTV Canada

CTV

Bravo

Family Channel Canada

History TV Canada

Showcase

Teletoon

Vision

YTV

8. Free Radio online

Live 365
The basic listening service is free, you can pay for better quality and access

9. Newspaper websites. One of my favorite activities is finding out what is happening in other parts of the world. For instance, did you know most of a newspapers content is provided free online? Subscribers must sometimes pay for certain articles or access but you can still access a ton of information just by browsing their site. Some fun ones:
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
Vancouver Sun
The Toronto Star

When travelling to a new city I always read their online newspapers for the weeks coming up to the trip. You learn a lot about local entertainment, restaurants and information that will allow you to have a much better holiday.

10. Discovering new blogs from other parts of the world. I follow at least five blogs from
expat-blog.com.

Feel free to post your free entertainment ideas.

July Grocery Tally and Coupons

Grocery Budget for July 2011 $450.00 plus $11.12 left from June = $461.12 less $43.54 for travel days (applied towards travel budget) = $417.58
Actual: $469.99! Yes, over budget. I bought a lot of meat for BBQ season and completely wonderful cherries, loads of watermelon and peaches.
$52.41 will be deducted from August $450.00 budget so I will have to be very careful this month as my August budget is now down to $397.59.

Coupons used $26.71 this month (year to date $306.67)

Best deal this month? Laundry detergent that my stepson got for $1 per bottle (see previous posts) and two free tickets (except tax) on Westjet to Comox in September for the start of our house hunt.

I love airmiles.ca. It turns out when I was short a few airmiles for the second airline ticket for our trip my speed shop at Safeway worked well as the airmiles were deposited within 10 days!

Cost of two return airline tickets to Comox from Edmonton On Westjet $805.52
Paid only $299.54.
Actual savings $505.98.

We already have enough points for at least 3 more tickets between Aeroplan, airmiles and hubbys Royal Bank Avion credit card for future trips to the island.

This has been the summer of almost nil entertainment costs as we have been taking advantage of freebies from hubbys job. First it was the Edmonton Indy, and then last weekend we ended up with a bunch of free food tickets to the Edmonton Heritage Festival. Although the festival itself is free as there is no parking so you must take public transportation and food tickets are costly.

I took my 14 year old stepdaughter and we grazed our way through 63 outdoor pavillions representing 85 different countries. Over 125,000 thousand people attended the day we went. It was hot, food was great, but after a couple hours we were wilting and the crowds were pretty large so went home. I still had extra tickets left so ended up passing those on to another friend who was attending on a different day plus donated a bunch of tickets to the food bank (who is able to redeem them for cash) who uses this festival as their largest collection venue of the year. Total spent? $5.50 on park and ride.

My plan to stay on track this month? Use more coupons and better plan meals. I have more time so should be successful.

I have stayed away from the garage sales this month due to our move as keep harping on hubby everytime he buys something that we will have to move it to another Province, therefore am trying to take my own advice. I have enough stuff anyway.

Summer in Alberta means nightly storms - last night we had a four hour electrical storm that started at 3am. These parting photos were taken a few nights ago while it was raining. Sunset, rainbows and clouds.

Get out and enjoy some summer fun!

Things To Watch On TV This Summer

If you are in Northville, Michigan this summer you should think of stopping over at Repurpose, HGTV's host of Cash & Cari's store housing estate sale finds. If no plans to go to Michigan then you must check out her show which airs on W Network in Canada (or HGTV.com if you live in the U.S.A). She organizes and runs estate sales, often purchasing items which may later be refreshed and resold in her store.

Cash & Cari
Unfortunately they don't have any online episodes if you live in Canada but HGTV.com has several if you live in the U.S.A. (blocked for Canadians of course, darn)

Better yet, check out an Estate sale in person!

I caught a great documentary series on the world financial crisis the other night on CBC. Why I liked it? Our television is usually so focussed on the trouble in the U.S. economy we forget that other countries have gotten themselves into trouble as well. Very eye opening.

MELTDOWN
The full series is available online to watch.