Free Republic

As Congress and the president try to strike a deal to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, one Republican Senator tells ABC News that prospects look bleak. “Right now I’m very worried,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told ABC News “Subway Series.” “If I were a betting man, I’d bet no [deal].” (snip) Senator Graham said Republicans should be willing to accept a deal that curbs entitlement spending and increases tax revenues by closing loopholes. (snip) The obvious solution, Graham said, is for Republicans to give some ground on taxes and for Democrats to give some ground on entitlements. But...

John McMonigle claims to be the world's number one real estate agent. With $2.5 billion in residential sales over the past six years, this 46-year-old realtor may well have been. And now he's declaring bankruptcy. According to the Orange County Register, McMonigle has amassed $50 million in debt, even after selling his luxurious Newport Beach condo, his car and personal effects. The Oklahoma native started small, arriving in California with only $73 in his pocket in 1989. But within four years he was grossing $100,000 a year. McMonigle's ascension through the ranks of top realtors reached dizzying heights during the...

1. Analyze your expenses. Budget your money. Find out where it's coming from and, more importantly, where it's going. This can be a very surprising and enlightening exercise for many people. 2. Find where you spend the most money on a monthly basis. The top two or three items are where you need to do the most work. 3. Is rent your biggest expense? If so, consider moving to a cheaper place. Consider getting a roommate to split the costs of living. Consider moving back in with your parents or guardians. Offer services (e.g. looking after a relative) in exchange...

What if I were to offer you $10 for every 54 cents you give me. Even better, to sweeten the deal for you, I would kick in 30 bucks worth of stuff for FREE. Sounds like a fantasy. Too good to be true, right? Well, guess again because that is EXACTLY what I did today many times over.

I'm kicking off the New Year with a new blog. The main purpose of "The Coupon Whisperer" won't be to provide hot coupon tips, although I will be doing that. The primary purpose of this blog is to provide you with entertaining "war stories" from the field. Think of it as adventures in couponing. And so we start of with our first story...the strange story of Coupon Mike...I met Coupon Mike earlier this year at his job when I was introduced to him by a mutual friend, who worked at the same place, because of our common interest in...

While reading another thread I noticed someone speaking of how they were able to spend $400 per month to feed their small family very well. So, I had an idea of asking how everyone budgets for groceries,

Economides clan defend buying aging meat and other frugal strategies As the American economy sputters and families continue to struggle mightily just to keep their heads above water, the Economides family of Arizona believe they provide a model for how to not just survive, but thrive on a tight budget. Eschewing credit cards, car loans and home equity borrowing, the clan of seven stay solvent and then some on just $44,000 a year — and that includes owning a home in the pricey Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. Mind you, they eat nutritious meals and their children are decked out in...

If you're looking to get the most value for your dollar, it would do your wallet good to check out secondhand options. Many used goods still have plenty of life left in them even years after the original purchase, and they're usually resold at a fraction of the retail price, to boot. Here's a list of 21 things that make for a better deal when you buy them used. 1. DVDs and CDs: Used DVDs and CDs will play like new if they were well taken care of. Even if you wind up with a scratched disc and you don't...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - When he takes to the campaign trail, Jerry Brown is fond of reminding voters that he shunned the governor's mansion in Sacramento in favor of a rented apartment during his first tour in the executive office and lived in a downtown loft in Oakland while he was mayor of the crime-ridden city. The stories are part of a campaign narrative of frugality. The Democratic nominee wants voters to remember that when they consider whether to send him back to the governor's office as California faces a $19 billion budget deficit, an unemployment rate above 12 percent...

Before the economy imploded, cheapskates were considered a pitiful bunch -- frumpy coupon moms racing across town to save 19 cents on baby wipes, joyless penny-pinchers subsisting on ramen noodles. Meanwhile, the cool kids were starting wine collections and equipping their homes with plasma TVs and stainless-steel kitchen appliances. Then, in the drop of a Dow Jones average, frugality suddenly became fashionable, and all those still-unpaid-for off-road vehicles and granite countertops became symbols of foolishness and excess, rather than success. Lifestyle sections brimmed with redemptive stories of former mortgage brokers/derivatives traders/entertainment publicists who had suddenly discovered the humble joys of...

Even as the economic recovery plods ahead, many American consumers are refusing to come along. They're not spending freely -- and they have no plans to. Many of them have steady income. They aren't saddled by high debts. They don't fear losing their jobs. Yet despite recent gains, they've lost so much household wealth that they're far more cautious about spending than before the recession.

Even as the economic recovery plods ahead, many American consumers are refusing to come along. They're not spending freely -- and they have no plans to. Many of them have steady income. They aren't saddled by high debts. They don't fear losing their jobs. Yet despite recent gains, they've lost so much household wealth that they're far more cautious about spending than before the recession. Their behavior suggests that the Great Recession may have bred a new frugality that will endure well into the recovery. And because consumers fuel about 70 percent of the economy, their tightfisted habits means the...

Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15) Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years. To us, Suelo probably sounds...

Frugality. That's been the buzzword of the Great Recession.   Sliding home values, stumbling stock portfolios and a shaky job market brought with them a consciousness about spending that many of us misplaced during years of consumer overindulgence. Americans responded to the crisis by buying less, clipping coupons more and increasing savings to 4.8 percent of disposable income in December, up from near zero before the recession.   In the past year, blogs about frugality went viral. Everyone from Oprah to President Obama joined the frugality parade.   Now a new term is marching through the blogosphere: Frugality fatigue. But...

One of the best bargains in your local grocery store is plain old white vinegar. You can get a 32 ounce jug of it (half a gallon) for about $1.50 and it has a multitude of uses beyond the edible ones (like pickles and salad dressings). Here are fifteen uses for white vinegar, most of which I use myself. Toilet cleaner Got a toilet bowl that’s difficult to clean? Before you go to bed, dump a cup of vinegar in the bowl, then close the lid. I usually spread the vinegar around the bowl a bit with a brush to...

The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we...

My family is on a pinto bean diet, i'll call it that because money tight and this is all we have to eat, well rice, and homemade tortillas, but even those few inbetween times we can have eggs, cheese, fruit, vegtables, it's mostly beans, i make plain, and chili version, leftovers become soup, my kids think we are going to die, what i'd like to hear is what someone else thinks?

The struggling economy has brought more dollars to dollar stores. As other companies head into the red, these national chains say they're seeing increased amounts of green.Shopper Sebrina Slade hasn't just changed product brands."We've never done the shopping here like we do now," Slade said.She's swapped stores. "I used to have a negative connotation about shopping at thrifty places, but that's a thing of the past," Slade said.Because of the current recession, Slade heads to the South Knoxville Family Dollar store at least once a month to try and save, just in case."I know FedEx has had some layoffs so...

Even JWT, the largest ad agency in the world, is now saying we are ready for simple pleasures, modest living, an honest cup o' Joe and other thrifty, frugal ways already familiar to many conservatives and heartland Americans.

Food is expensive, gas remains stubbornly high and winter's big heating bills are coming. Since loans are tough to get and our retirement funds are shrinking fast as the stock market crashes, we thought we'd share some old-fashioned penny-pinching tips. Some come from readers who responded to a business reporter's request for suggestions. Others come from the misers on our staff. And a few come from rules our mothers taught us or hints we've read over the years. Of course, one person's "don't need that" is another's "can't live without" (we didn't suggest cutting out the $4 latte). If some...

On paper, my wife and I are poor. How poor? In 2005 we made $4,303.84 combined; in 2004 we made half that. We’re in such a low tax bracket that I have trouble convincing the government of our tax return’s accuracy; they simply can’t believe Americans can live on that kind of money. Yet in many ways, we’re better off than a Wall Street banker: We’ve saved enough money to buy land without a mortgage, we have no credit cards or monthly bills, I work 20 flexible hours a week from home, and my daughter has two stay-at-home parents. Simply...

Americans' charge-it culture is getting an overdue reality check. But will the new discipline stick? On a shady lane in New Hope, Pa., a quiet revolution in American culture may be taking shape. Here, a family of four lives in a white, colonial-style house in a manner that once would have been considered All-American but more recently has been seen as just plain weird: They're frugal. Theirs is no hard-luck-in-a-recession story. The Ingram-Behre family is solidly middle-class, fully employed, and not especially threatened by the conniptions gripping Wall Street. Behre, 43, is a dean at the College of New Jersey,...

I offer here a list of spots you mught use to arm yourself and your family against current economic pressures. Please feel free. I don't work for any of these places. I just think things may tighten up before they loosen up, and would like to have a discussion aimed at helping people out.

By keeping your car for 15 years, or 225,000 miles of driving, you could save nearly $31,000, according to Consumer Reports magazine. That's compared to the cost of buying an identical model every five years, which is roughly the rate at which most car owners trade in their vehicles. In its annual national auto survey, the magazine found 6,769 readers who had logged more than 200,000 miles on their cars. Their cars included a 1990 Lexus LS400 with 332,000 miles and a 1994 Ford Ranger pick-up that had gone 488,000 miles. Consumer Reports calls the Honda Civic a "Good bet"...

For students living on ramen noodles or people in low-wage, time-consuming jobs, folks who are down on their luck or living on fixed incomes, healthy eating may seem too expensive. Nutritionists say, however, that's a false perception. Healthy eating, in fact, is cheaper. The cost of expensive eating often isn't the food, it's the bells and whistles of trendy packaging. "You pay for convenience," says Amy Moore, a dietitian at St. Louis University. "What it takes is planning and sometimes a little investment." That means eating more fresh food from low-cost stores and farmers markets, watching store sales and using...

Today is Thomas Jefferson's birthday, and given the state of American politics, with neither major party really putting Jeffersonian ideals into action, wouldn't it be great if we could resurrect the Sage of Monticello and get his take on current affairs? ~~~snip~~~~ Jefferson was complex and somewhat contradictory, and doubtlessly the answers to some of these questions could differ depending on Jefferson's age and state of mind. I've tried to come up with passages that most accurately reflect his views. All quotations can be found at the University of Virginia's Thomas Jefferson quotations page: Q: The Republican Party claims to...

A short-sighted Gunsite student is now short a Series 70 Colt Besides being an ugly gun (the only saving grace are the Novak sights...) and having something soooo retro - and unsafe - as a trigger shoe, the owner/operator of said Series 70 did - because he was: CheapStupidBoth of the above       ...pick up from the deck a live round of ammunition, with which to continue his 350 class at Gunsite. Unfortunately, while the pistol is .45 ACP, he picked up a .40 caliber round. The 'Smithy says: The .40 round apparently fired, and the case was...

Cash-strapped German couples, increasingly nervous about tying the knot as their country's economy stagnates, are being offered bargain "package marriages" by a discount supermarket chain. A snip at £1,500, the deal includes the service - at a choice of locations - with 18 guests, a champagne reception, hotel accommodation for the bride and groom and even insurance in case they fail to make it to the altar. A mass-produced dress and honeymoon are available for a modest additional fee. Unemployment and substantial tax rises have transformed Germany into a frugal nation. Last year consumption dropped by two per cent. From...

  The Lessons of Frugality Since I went mostly off the grid, in January of 2000... I have learned the lessons of frugality... lessons like replacing all my incandescent 'hot' bulbs with Compact Florescent Bulbs... when I made the change in bulbs, I was fully on the grid, and the savings were immediate... I paid $3.95 to $5.95 for the CF bulbs  at  the  IKEA  superstore... the  price  variance  was dependent on the wattage of the bulb... The reduction in my electric  bill was enough to pay for all the new bulbs in about 12 months... I started solar cooking...