Antsy

I'm getting a little antsy to redesign the blog but don't really want to spend the hours and hours a full over haul needs. Our living room isn't big enough for me to rearrange the furniture so I can't even relieve the redecorating itch that way either. Instead I'm settling for updating our archives. I've been condensing our tags so they are a little more informative and have posted our most frequent ones to the left for easy browsing. Eventually I'll probably make a button(s) for them as well.

I went a bit further than that with my recipes and made a post that links to them all (or at least the ones I could find). I also noticed there are a number of recipes that I thought I had posted but didn't so you might find my posts are a bit recipe heavy this next week or two as I get that updated.

Driving for dollars

We, the BRC, are quite frugal and like to find odd ways to increase our income. Between of the two of us, Craig is a definitely more aggressive at the search. Being in a college town, medical studies are quite prolific but I tend to be protective of our bodies. He participated in a flu study last fall and has given plasma in the past but that is about where I draw the line. When he mentioned he saw another study in the paper, I was about to say "No!" but he quickly explained that this was not a medical study but a transportation study. Since I am the main driver, I was the one who had to qualify, which I did.

I went last Friday to start the process. They installed a GPS system in my car while I filled out a questionaire about my driving behavior...

• How often do you drive without a seatbelt? Never
• How often do you drive 10 or more mph over the speed limit? Never
• How often do you feel the need to "get back" at driver's who pass you? Never

and personality...

• True or False: I like exciting activities (skydiving, etc). False
• True or False: I like to take risks. False
• True or False: I like to experience frequent changes. False

After discovering that I am a boring driver and person, they gave me a couple booklets to record my trips. It's not hard, every time I go somewhere, I just record the date, time and purpose of the trip (commute, errands, recreation, etc) and at the end of the day, I email my results in. After three weeks, I take the GPS system back and get $100. A little extra cash and no more risk of bodily harm than my typical driving, it's a compromise both Craig and I can be happy with.

PS: They are still looking for participants so if you are a male or female between the ages of 18-25 or a male between 35-55 living in my area, you should check it out and see if you qualify. Here's the website.

Bad Day Smoothie

Yesterday was a very bad day. A bad day as in my first experiment didn't work, I had a really loooong meeting that pushed my experiment back and then right before I went home to eat dinner all by myself because Craig was gone on a business trip, I realized that the 3 week long experiment I had been working overtime/weekends on was totally worthless because of a ridiculously stupid error on my part.

So by 5:30, I was desperately craving a treat (and a punching bad to maim) but I managed to make it home for some real food. But after dinner, I knew I needed something sweet and unfortunately I had to go back to work at 7:30 for another hour to finish an experiment and I knew if I didn't nip it in the bud, I would be stopping for a milk shake as McDonald's is right on the way and I do not have that much self control. But I also knew I didn't really want a McDonald's milk shake because 1) almost nothing that comes from McDonald's can be considered real food and 2) I've learned that I don't really like fast food anymore. The last time I had any was about a month ago when I had to go straight from work to a bible study so I swung by Wendy's and got what I always used to get there - a junior bacon deluxe cheeseburger, a Caesar side salad and a small frosty. It was awful. I mean, it tasted the same as I remember it tasting except I didn't like it.

So I didn't want to waste my slush money on something that wasn't going to satisfy me and wasn't good for me anyway with it's corn syrup, corn syrup solids, artificial flavorings and red dye#40. So what's a girl to do? Well, she'll make herself a...

chocolate peanut butter smoothie:

1 cup of milk
1/4 c peanut butter
1 T cocoa
1-2T Honey
Frozen bananas, in chunks

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender until smooth. Add chunks of frozen bananas until consistency is thick enough for you. Normally this is enough for the two of us to share...but he wasn't around last night and I just couldn't throw out the extra now could I? :-)

Hat Tip to Keeper of the Home

Fall

Craig and I have had several wishful "where do we want to live when we finally move somewhere permanent?" conversations lately. I said Washington state was nice, he said Maine might be...we will probably meet somewhere in the middle. But I realized that where ever we go and whenever we get there, I really hope it has a fall. I love fall with it's back to school sales (Fresh pencils for 1c sales anyone? Why, yes please!) and the fall colors and crunchy leaves and warm sweaters and really nothing spoils all that joy like my weather bug alarming because the heat index is over 100. The knowledge that I won't need to wear a jean jacket for months is depressing. So is living next to a high school where the first day of school means waking up every morning to the sounds of the marching band before beginning the drive to at a snails pace so as to avoid teenagers texting as they cross the road. Maybe I like a conceptual fall more than an actual fall? No, I think I like fall, I just don't like hoards of teenagers.

Money Saving Tips For the Big Spender

We currently receive Money magazine here at the BRC household. I enjoy the investment advice; not necessarily tips on specific funds/stocks to buy, but rather info concerning general long-term strategies. I also like to complain about its annual "Best Places to Live" issue. A problem with the magazine, at least for me, is that it unsurprisingly caters to a more affluent clientele. Each month, the magazine has a feature in which it profiles a family and fixes its finances. These families always make well over $100,000, which makes the column less than useful for a working-class guy like me.

This tailoring of magazine content to wealthier readers manifest itself again this month, when Money gave us "103 ways to trim the fat, not the fun, from your budget" (magazines sure love their lists). Here are some of the tips:

• Drop the pet insurance
• Reduce the hours of your gardener (or get rid of him)
• Play tennis at public courts, not the tennis club
• Take a home-swap vacation (not an outlandish suggestion in and of itself, but this one assumes your family spends $325/night on lodging on a normal vacation).
  

I'm afraid these tips won't help us with our budget.