The Dollar Stretcher Review

January 2011 - Posts

• Dry Beans

  Dem beans, dem beans, dem... dry beans, dem beans... oh. Hi. I grew up eating pinto beans with ham. What more can I say? There's no better way to eat them and I never have to worry about leftovers. They're better the second day! Of course, Mom cooked them on the woodstove and that makes everything better. I still can't make them quite as good. What brought all this on? I was reading the article on Dollar Stretcher about using dry beans  to stretch the food budget. There are some good ideas on using leftover cooked beans, but like I said, I just eat the leftovers. One thing she didn't mention is chili. I make an extra big pot of beans and then save some of the leftovers to make chili. And then there's my favorite idea: Pinto bean fudge. Really. No, you'll have to look it up yourself. Just google it. Back to the article: That link at the bottom that goes to the Dollar Stretcher Community is to a thread about cooking beans and what to do with them, so if you're looking for more ideas, believe me, they're there. If you decide to use some of them, tell me about it. I might have to make a bigger than bigger pot next time. Something about winter weather and beans just satisfies the soul. Sorry, all you Florida folks... you just can't enjoy it the same way.  Posted Jan 25 2011, 12:04 PM by Pat with 1 comment(s)

• New Year, New Tax Season

  IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ I know. I hated to do that. But it's time to start thinking about taxes. I'm very organized, of course. I dump all of my receipts and income records in a big shoebox (my son's, from long ago!) and then along about this time of year I start eyeing it, sort of like you'd eye a couger that follows you alongside a forest trail. Sooner or later, the beast and I will find ourselves face to face and I have nowhere to hide.  In case you didn't get it, I hate doing taxes. Not everyone hates them the way I do, and that's OK. It takes all kinds, thankfully! So I went to Dollar Stretcher to see what kind of tax tips they had and opened a whole 'nuther world. Here: Taxes  (scroll), (then scroll some more). Enough. I'll leave you to it. I'm going to call my tax accountant. Yeah... that's what I'll do.  "Hello, Uncle Sam?  The check's in the mail." IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   IR$   IR$   IR$ IR$   Posted Jan 18 2011, 12:15 PM by Pat with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Dollar Stretcher, tax season, taxes

• How to Learn to Meet Your Goals

  You might have heard me talk about New Year's goals before. I make a list of things I want to accomplish each year and think through how to accomplish each one. I don't call them resolutions, but it's something akin to that. The big difference is that listing goals along with the ways to meet those goals seems to have a higher rate of success (for me, anyway) than just making a resolution.  Some would argue that they're one and the same thing. Maybe so.  What brought this on was reading a couple of the articles on this week's Dollar Stretcher - namely, Videos that Save and  Learn a New Skill Frugally. If you put the two ideas together, you might come up with this: Look through (or make one!) your list of goals and see what you need to learn to meet them. Do you see where I'm going? The internet is an extremely valuable source of information, whether you choose Youtube or text tutorials. If you prefer, the library has so many books about so many topics that you can get lost there. Surely the information, the encouragement, the pep talk, the missing link is there, just waiting for you to find it.  While you're researching, of course, don't forget Dollar Stretcher.The more we learn, the more we can do with what we have. Photo credit: ardanea from morguefile.com Posted Jan 11 2011, 12:45 PM by Pat with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Dollar Stretcher, goals, learn