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This is a more feminine-based post about clothing and style.  Just an FYI.

Ok.  I need help.  I’ve been out of a job since March.  Even when I worked there, we had a dress code (khaki pants, blue shirts).  My closet is full of clothes I don’t feel feminine or happy about.  (I admit, a lot of these feelings are coming from the fact I’m watching a marathon of “What Not To Wear” on TLC, lol).

In essence?  I want a new wardrobe.

Also?  I don’t have the money nor do I know where to start.

I have a few cute dresses.  I have a sexy black dress.  And then there’s a bunch of hodge podge.  Some band t-shirts.  My “Textually Active” tee, which is super comfy and makes me fit in at college haha.  Lots of tank tops, which I usually pair with terrycloth shorts in the summer.  I’m simple and dress like I’m still in high school.  I’m 24.

The thing is, I’ve cleaned my closet out over the past few months and got rid of a ton of clothes.  And replaced none of them.  So I’ve got nothing feminine or dressy or classy to wear to job interviews or to feel good in.  I want comfortable.  I want chic.  I want sexy.  And I don’t know where to start.

Any help?  Suggestions?  I’m begging you.  Remember…totally on a budget here.

Like most people, I’m always looking for ways to either a) increase my income, or b) decrease my costs.  Doing one or the other (or both!) can really have a positive effect on your budget, giving you more financial freedom to pay down debt or build a savings quicker.  Here are some ways in which to cut costs that shouldn’t be too painful, and are relatively simple.

1. Prepaid Cell Phones - If you don’t use a ton of minutes or only use your cell phone for emergencies or for travelling, get rid of that pricey wireless plan and switch to a prepaid cell phone.  There are no contracts to sign and since you’re paying for your minutes up front…there is no monthly bill!
2. Bundle Up - No, I’m not talking about winter clothes, here.  I’m referring to taking advantage of the specials some companies offer when you bundle your TV, Internet, and phone plan all in one package.  This can save you $20-$30 per month in some cases!
3. Get Rid of Extras - Paying for movie channels you don’t watch or a text messaging service you don’t use?  Get rid of them!  Dropping these extras can free up money in your budget to put towards debt.
4. Prepaid Phone Cards - Instead of paying for long distance on your landline phone plan, consider buying a long distance calling card instead.  Some calling cards average about 3 cents per minute whereas a long distance package on a landline can run anywhere from $20-$40 per month.
5. Pay Credit Card Bills Early - Instead of waiting until a few days before your payment is due, pay it as soon as you get the statement in the mail.  The sooner you send in a payment, the better.  This is because most credit card companies apply interest base on an average daily balance.  By reducing the daily balance for more days out of the month, you will be reducing your interest charges.
6. Ask For Fee Reversal - If you get hit with a late fee or overlimit fee on your credit card, and it’s your first offense, don’t be afraid to call your credit card company.  They may be willing to reverse the fee for you if you’ve had a good history with them.  It’s definitely worth a try!
7. Pay Bills Online - This is becoming more and more popular.  Instead of paying bills through the mail and having to buy stamps and envelopes, sign up for free bill pay through your bank or credit union, or through the vendor itself.  The only bill I pay by mail is my rent and that’s because there is no other option at this point.  This will saving you money on stamps and you can easily see when the payment has been applied!
8. Use Coupons to Your Advantage - So you’re on a budget but you still want to have fun, right?   Coupons don’t necessarliy only apply to grocery shopping! Look for coupons for your favorite restuarants or hangout places.  Even bowling alleys sometimes offer deals or have coupons in the paper.  A lot of restaurant offer gift cards you can buy at a discounted price on Restaurant.com.
9. Use Generic (drugs) - If you or family members are on medications, ask your doctor to prescribe you with generics if they aren’t already.  This could save you hundreds per month!  Realize that not every medication has a generic, but a lot of them do and some places have a list of generics for a set price (i.e. Wal-Mart and their $4 prescription program).
10. Pull Off the Highway - While traveling, don’t necessarily fill up at the nearest gas station right off of the highway.  These are often marked up higher because they get more traffic.  By simply driving a few miles away from the main drag, you can probably find gas for 10-20 cents cheaper!

I’ve been forgetting to do my weekly breakdowns!  Oops!  These usually help keep me on track, so here’s the breakdown for last week (August 10 through August 16), which was spent in Chicago.

• Car Payment - $312.09
• Leisure - $170.00
• Cell Phone - $129.08
• Electricity - $84.00
• Subscription Fees - $50 (Entertainment books for two local areas)
• Dining Out - $40.92
• Auto Insurance - $35 (for Dave’s older Blazer)
• Clothing - $15.37
• Beer & Liquor - $7.91
• Movie Rentals - $4.23

Total: $848.60

I forgot that I elected to auto renew the Entertainment books for two areas around where we live, so that $50 was unexpected.  One of them is really valuable to us.  The other one we pick through and then give to my father-in-law since it’s for the town he lives in and he can get a ton of use from it.  Everything else was pretty reasonable.

At the beginning of the month I set some goals for myself and I wanted to see how I was doing.

1. Put at least $600 into vacation fund.  So far I’ve been able to put in $351.51, which doesn’t even include $400 in scheduled deposits!  So $251.51 of that was all in unplanned snowflakes!  Doing well.  Even if I don’t get any other snowflakes before we leave for vacation, I will have $1,064!  All the extra  that we don’t spend on vacation ($700 budgeted for the week) gets thrown at credit cards.
2. Don’t charge anything on credit cards. Everything that’s been charged (gas, groceries, Christmas gifts) has been paid off before it even hits the bill.
3. Only buy drugstore items if they are free after rebate or relatively close to free.  Try to keep to $15 per week out of pocket after rebates and coupons.  So far, so good!  I spent $12.97 the week of August 3rd.  Last week I used the $10 RR from Walgreens to buy a ton of Sobe Life Water and Arizona Tea for our trip to Chicago ($0 out of pocket), and I haven’t gone yet this week.
4. $40 per week on groceries, plus one $80 trip to Sam’s Club for meat. I spent $83.82 at Sam’s Club, which was $3.82 over budget.  $65 of that was on meat, the rest was for some canned goods, cereal, and tortillas.  I spent $21.73 ($10 of that was the cereal and Poptarts from Walgreens, which I also took into consideration for my drugstore goal) the first week in August.  Nothing was spent last week because we were in Chicago all week.  And this week will be minimal because I have my menu planned with stuff we already have on hand at home, all we’ll need is bread and milk…possibly eggs.  So under $10 probably.
5. Keep dining out to a minimum - $50 or less. Currently at $47.01.  This included one late night trip to Taco Bell after an evening of drinking and Rock Band with friends (don’t worry, we had a sober driver among us!).  And then $40.92 last night here in Chicago.  We went to Weber Grill Restaurant and our plan of sharing an entree on Dave’s food allotment from work went out the window when we got there, haha.  I decided to pay for my own meal and drink, and his job paid for his meal and drink.  It’s the one place we decided to splurge while here and just have a good time.  My meal was $22.95 (a pick-3 meal that had black Angus meatloaf, BBQ ribs, and pulled pork — because I couldn’t decide on just one, haha.  And no…I couldn’t eat all of it) and drink was $7.50 (mango Mai Tai).  After tax and 20% tip, I was at $40.92.  Eek.

Not so shabby.  I’m sticking to my goals rather well.  Just means no more dining out for the rest of the month!

I’m currently in Chicago on a business trip with the hubby.  Taking that into consideration, I asked a few inspirational PF bloggers to write a guest post for me this week.  This articles comes to you from Ashley who takes an honest look at family finances over at Wide Open Wallet!  Her writing has inspired me and I’m very thankful that she took the time to write up such a great article for me.  Thanks, Ashley!  Without further ado…

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If you have a credit card chances are you’ve gotten a late fee. I consider myself pretty organized when it comes to my bills, but even I’ve paid a late fee in my life. Once was when I moved cross country. It was three weeks of chaos and some things fell through the cracks. Another time I made a mistake paying online and it didn’t get paid when I thought it did. So you know, life happens and sometimes you get a fee. If you follow my dos and don’ts of getting your fee reversed you probably will be able to get that late fee removed. Great! But then what? What does that mean exactly?

What it does mean…

Your balance is reduced by the amount of the fee. Let’s say you get your statement and you see there is late fee of $35 and your new balance is $535. You call and receive a credit for the late fee, so now your balance is $500 before you’ve made your payment.

The bank is making money off of you. If the bank is willing to waive a fee then that means they are getting money from you in another way. Maybe it’s because you have your mortgage with them, or that you have a lot of money in savings. If so, then great. But if it’s because you are carrying a large balance on your credit card, then not so great.

What it doesn’t mean…

Your minimum payment is reduced. Your minimum payment is calculated with the late fee included and that doesn’t change because you’ve been issued a credit. If you don’t pay the payment as listed on your statement then you will incur another fee. If you’re not sure about this then ask while you have customer service on the phone. But when in doubt, pay what is listed on your statement.

You were never late. Your payment was late, nothing can change that. If it was late enough to be reported to your credit then it still will be, fee or no fee. Issuing a credit for the fee is not forgiveness of the mistake, it’s just a courtesy.

A few weeks ago I won a $25 Amazon gift card from ExpoTV, and I’ve been struggling how to spend it!  For the first time in my life, I couldn’t figure out how to spend money…free money at that!  But, I finally spent most of it and I think I’m content with what I chose.

I pre-ordered “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” by JK Rowling because I loved her Harry Potter books.  That was my easy purchase.  So that was $7.59 with free shipping because I did a free trial of Amazon Prime (free 2 day shipping).

It took some time, but I finally figured I’d buy the Burt’s Bees Head to Toe Kit.  I’ve always wanted to try Burt’s Bees products but never really got around to it.  This gives me quite a plethora of samples to try out for $14.59 (again, free shipping).

So.  There we have it.  The longest it has EVER taken me to spend (nearly) $25.  Craziness.

Oh, while I’m talking about my spending…I bought a bra from Aerie yesterday.  It was normally $24.50, but I found a $10 off coupon code from RetailMeNot.com which brought it down to $14.50 with free shipping.  Not too bad!

I can’t wait to tell you about The AdSpace Contest I found!

The idea is simple and easy: Get as many entries as you can (very easy to do) over the next 30 days. The more entries you get, the better chance you have of winning! At the end of the 30 days, they announce the winner.

The prize?

A 125×125 pixel ad spot (above the fold) on at least TEN DIFFERENT BLOGS that will run for one month. That’s at least a $100 value!

Who is co-hosting?

• Geek Mom Mashup
• Vrtualme
• Jamaipanese
• Best of Stupid
• AxioBlog
• The Big Bald Blog
• Jason Boom
• Unconventional Marketing Blog
• Offended Blogger
• GorillaSushi

How do you enter to win?

1 Entry - Subscribe to any one of the blogs above via email.

10 Entries - Write a post about the contest (must include links to all 10 hosts OR use the suggested text)

25 Entries - Offer up an ad spot on your own blog for one month as part of the prize package

Simply put, you could subscribe to all 10 blogs, write a post and offer up your own ad spot for a grand total of 45 entries!

I know I’ve made some progress with my debts this month, so I wanted to update the sidebars.  I figured a halfway point through the month update wouldn’t be so bad (rather than waiting until the very end of the month).  My vacation fund is now up to 66% saved!  Today was payday so I moved quite a bit into that fund ($207.36 to be exact).  Debt Snowball #1 is 63% paid off, and should be paid off next month when I make my payment on September 1.

All the progress bars went up a little, so that’s encouraging!

Even though I’m in Chicago for the week, I did a fairly decent job at keeping up on my feed reader!  Here are some of the posts that I found interesting and helpful in one way or another!  Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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Kacie from Sense To Save wrote about her first try at “once-a-week” cooking!  I would love to try this method, except we have zero room in our fridge since we stocked up on meat a few weeks ago!  Might have to try it in the future, though.

Foxie from Dreaming of Ferraris wrote a great post about quality vs. quantity.  I’m starting to get into the same mindset, where I don’t find myself running off and buying stuff like I used to.

Frugal Dad has a very compelling article about how to live more simply.  I couldn’t agree more and I’d like to note that hubby and I have started living more simply, although little at a time.  It’s a slow process, changing all of our old habits and acquiring newer (simpler!) ones.

J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy learns a money lesson: stop worrying about money!  It never gets you anywhere!  You know, he has a point.  I hate the stress that comes from worrying about money.  Worrying won’t get me MORE money.

Pinyo from Moolanomy writes about Craigslist scammers.  It’s amazing to me how many people out there are trying to get away with these money order scams!  It’s scary stuff.  Please read and be aware!

My Daily Dollars tells us how she turned 3 slices of turkey into a great Saturday brunch! It’s amazing what you can do when you put a little effort and creativity into it, especially in the kitchen.

NCN from No Credit Needed provides a great list of reasons to become debt free.  This is a great motivator.  It’s all of those reasons and then some that are keeping me on my road to becoming debt free.  (And what a long road it will be…)

Trent from The Simple Dollar gives us a breakdown on how to go to the carnival and keep it simple and somewhat cheap.  Great for those with kids who just HAVE to go to the county fair, with parents who don’t want to spend an arm and a leg!

FB from Fabulously Broke in the City writes about some of the things she learned (or wished she’d learned) during or after college.  Check out her great list of advice for college students.

Karen from Living Well On Less has a great bit of information on the best ways to freeze certain foods so that they keep their flavor.

My Daily Dollars attacks the myths about coupons and how to make them work for you, rather than against you!  If you shop smart and wise, using coupons WILL save you money rather than making you spend money on things you wouldn’t normally buy.  You just have to have the will to stick to your guns!

PT from Prime Time Money gives a great bit of advice when it comes to using PF Buzz and how it can bring you quality traffic!  I joined and I am currently looking into how to really make it work for me!

I’m currently in Chicago on a business trip with the hubby.  Taking that into consideration, I asked a few inspirational PF bloggers to write a guest post for me this week.  This articles comes to you from FB who writes about finding the balance between being a shopaholic and a saver over at Fabulously Broke in the City!  Her writing has inspired me and I’m very thankful that she took the time to write up such a great article for me.  Thanks, FB!  Without further ado…

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Cost per use is a concept I hold near and dear to my heart only because it helps me make very quick decisions about whether or not I purchase the item today, tomorrow, or have to sleep on it for a couple of months.

Let’s take purses for example.

The basic idea of cost per use or wear, is if you are to spend $30 or $80 on a nice purse, you are planning on using that purse day in, day out.

Case in point. I bought a soft, faux leather, bronze metallic purse for $30 about 4 years ago. That is now the purse I bring with me on all of my travelling trips because it is elegant enough to be a work purse, soft enough to squish into my suitcase and not worry about it being damaged, and big (but not too much bag) enough to hold my items when I go sightseeing. Plus, I paid only $30 for it.

After 4 years, that purse has cost about $12.50/year so far. That’s 0.034 cents a day. And every year I take care of it, and use it, the cost per use goes down until it approaches zero.

This is the same principle that can be used for clothing.

I bought a cheap shirt for $5 on sale a month ago, took care of it, and now just looks dull, faded, frayed, ugly and stretched.

In contrast, I purchased a $50 shirt about a year ago, took the same care with it, but it still looks sharp, and it has kept its dye and colour well over the years. The quality was just simply better.

I am not saying that EVERYTHING that costs more money is worth it, I’m just saying pick and choose what you want to pay more for, and what you won’t.

The only time I ever spent $80 on a purse, was 2 years ago for this Friis & Co. gorgeous black-lace gathered overlay on a faux white leather purse, with a silk black lining. I love it, and I carry it whenever I’m out on the town. Sure, the cost per use is a lot higher for that purse, but I plan on keeping that purse well into the future, and by that time, that purse will still be worth every penny I had paid for it.

But I can guarantee you would NEVER have seen that purse in a thrift store, and if I had waited and missed out on my chance to buy it on the cheap for $80 CAD and still be able to love it after all this time.

In short, I’d much rather have ONE $30-$80 purse I love and like to carry, than buying $4-$10, or a $20 purse and end up throwing the purses away, donating it, or shoving it into the back of my closet, untouched and unused, saved for the firs day I bought it. That cost per use for that “thrifty” bag that I never really loved in the first place was $4-$20, instead of $7.50-$12.50.

Sure, I could just use my laptop bag, or maybe a free plastic grocery bag to carry around my items, but as most women can attest to, it just isn’t the same. And besides, how cheap are you going to get? There has to be a limit somewhere. I’d treat this free plastic grocery bag cheapness akin to stealing ketchup packets from McDonald’s and squeezing it into your ketchup jar to save $3 per in addition to spending 6 hours of your time squeezing each packet in.

Being too frugal can be a bad thing for your karma. Trust me, I know! You tend to feel resentful of your debt and the bad feelings just pile up.

With that being said, I’d never cross the threshold of $100 for a bag, because it’s just a bag. But some people will buy $400 - $2000 It Bags for the season, use it for a season (about 4 months, maybe 6 months), and discard the former It Bag into the back of their closet, or sell it at a fraction (albeit still over $100) of its original retail cost.

Now, which one seems more economical to you?

You can even apply this to buying cars, or really, buying anything in general. If you’re going to buy a new car because buying a used one just doesn’t appeal to you, that’s fine. But if you buy a new car once every 3 years to upgrade, that’s not being as economical as if you bought that new car, took super good care of it, and made it last 15 - 20 years. The cost per use goes down, and in the end, you are still thrilled with your purchase.