Making Cents Of It All

We went away with my sister for 4 days in upstate NY. We stayed at her friend's beautiful lake house. We bought them a thank you gift but that was all it cost for lodging. It was a very inexpensive trip.  The check for YD's scholarship came and it went right back into the college fund.  I got my free Starkist tuna.  I used a free item coupon for B&BW. It will go into someone's stocking.  When I left the mall, there was a mall stroller on the way to my car. No one was around and there was a bag in it. I guess when the person picked up the child, they left the bag behind. The perfume went into my gift stash.  I gave my neighbor some of the apples we picked and some tomatoes from my garden. She got us cupcakes as a thank you.  My sister dropped Lip off and some food items too.  I earned 2 gift cards from Verizon up.  The garden is still going.  What freebies did y...

As I have said many times before, Hubby and I are debt free  except for our mortgage. Youngest daughter is graduating high school this year and will be starting college in the fall. We are doing everything in our power to make sure she doesn't have student loans when she graduates. We did not set up an 529 account when she was born. Wish we had but I can't go back in time. She did receive a small inheritance from my grandparents when they died so she does have that. When we were paying all of our debts off, we were focused on that and not saving for college. Then we built up our emergency fund. Our son started college around that time so we cashed flowed that. Our emergency fund is now fully funded. Next was our retirement. We started putting 15% of our income into retirement. It made the cash flow tighter but seeing our numbers go up is wonderful. I don't want to be a burden on my kids when I am old.  Our son took a semester off from school to figure out what he wants ...