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Home > A fun SA-minded TV show, and various other ramblings

A fun SA-minded TV show, and various other ramblings

December 8th, 2014 at 03:22 am

NT just introduced us to a sitcom from the '70s, The Good Life, and I'm hooked! It's about a couple who decides to leave the rat race and become completely self-sustaining. I thought it would quickly descend into lame jokes but each of the first four episodes has been packed with details about reusing, recycling, budgeting, bartering and backyard farming. And it's really charming and funny! Their next-door neighbors provide the counterpoint, but they mostly come off as materialistic and not really happy in their lives. Super interesting for members of this site, I'd say. Even though I'm not opposed to the "9 to 5" style of life, I love it.

AS was going to work 2 days at my job last week, but they needed her for four. It's going to make some other deadlines tough, but at least she made $640 more than expected! She's making real strides toward her next milestone; I'm going to have to make a new one soon, I think!

I splurged on two big purchases this past week. One was $105 on holiday cards, calendars and photos. It's for presents and cards to other people mainly; only some of the photos and one of the calendars are for me.

The other big splurge was on a Roomba! AS found a deal: $245 for one that's normally $100 more than that. I went ahead and took the plunge.

My plan for funding them is that my parents usually send us each $100 and some gift cards as well. If I use the gift cards for other budget line items I can repay these purchases.

If I don't get enough cash and gift cards from my parents, I'll gradually repay the remaining balance of these purchases with my own spending money.

They were big impulse buys, which I never feel all the way great about these days, but I'm still happy with both purchases and will pay them off without messing up other parts of the budget.

It's been a great December so far. We've been to a couple of holiday gatherings and have a few more planned, as well as a few people coming for dinner various nights. All relatively cheap outings except our anniversary dinner out this past Monday, which was $250 for the three of us but all paid for with plasma money and a couple random gift cards.

No news on the condo, but another showing this past weekend. At least people are still looking!

One more week of classes and then a couple of final exams, and NT is done with his BA!

Two more paychecks until we see the benefit of $4500 less in flex spending being taken out. It would be nice if NT got a raise in addition, since he's been promised several times, but we'll see.

We're hoping to see his annual bonus in his next paycheck; if not it'll be in the last one of the year. It'll be set aside for the time being to help us get out of the condo mortgage.

All those things will help make our finances easier, as will refinancing the duplex mortgage in March (if we can swing it). But the biggest relief to our budget will be selling the condo, even at a loss.

5 Responses to “A fun SA-minded TV show, and various other ramblings”

  1. scottish girl Says:
    1418026751

    ah The Good Life, I remember my mum watching that show.

  2. littlegopher Says:
    1418042182

    My husband and I loved watching The Good Life on TPT years ago (mid-80s!)

    Lots of wonderful things happening for your family this month!


  3. LuckyRobin Says:
    1418081245

    Oh, I loved watching The Good Life. Netflix has it and I watched it a while back.

  4. creditcardfree Says:
    1418093072

    I've never heard of the show, but I see Season 1 is on Amazon Prime...so I could watch for free. Smile

  5. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1418175998

    CCF I was wondering about that. (where to watch it.)

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