Knee Deep Blog

My First 50% Off at Groupon.com - Great deals and date night idea

Looking for a great date night idea?  My friend Barbara told me about Groupon.com a while back and I even loaded the free app on my iphone, but until today I was simply a Groupon voyeur.

I thought heck why not try it out and see if we like it - it provides both a location for our date night and is a potential cheap eat.  Perhaps it will get us to try different local neighborhood establishments in addition to our favorite The Bengal Tiger restaurant in the Roosevelt neighborhood.  I've noticed that Tim and I are pretty compulsive when it comes to the Bengal Tiger and always order the Mango Lamb chops nice and spicy.  Plus we love being able to chat with the owner Mohammad. Oh I digress.   And it's time for us to branch out some too.

Thornton Creek Auction dressed Peter Maxx Style

OK I have to admit that I was glad to be tagged on Facebook in this photo rather than the one I posted earlier - It's my Peter Maxx early 70's look.  Unfortunately you can't see my bouffant because it blends in with the background and my silver shoes are under the table!

Tim looked fabulous, with his gold chain and powder blue pants.  We had a hard time deciding big curly hair or slicked down with the geek curl on the end which one out after I spent a bunch of time online looking at hair styles.

Hello Mint.com good bye Quicken

Tim and I signed up for www.mint.com this weekend to organize our personal finances.  Leaving Quicken which I used for over 10 years was a bit like breaking up.   But part of the problem is that there was so much old data, accounts, categories, etc that it was a bit messy at times.  Plus we only had access from the old laptop our bookkeeper uses in my office so it took energy and effort to access it.   Plus we wanted to be able to access our data from multiple locations so that both of us could take responsibility instead of one person being in charge just piling the receipts in the in basket.

Vacation Part 2: A New Hard Drive For My Computer and Then The Computer Crash

Part two of vacation consisted of performing a computer lobotomy on my desktop, wine and keeping Eli occupied. 

For the few years I've been whining about all of the time I've lost with needing to reboot because some thing happened whether that be identifiable or not.  I've also spend a lot of time just waiting for things to open or for my cache memory to clear so I could do my work. 

Another issue was that when firefox has a few tabs open for a while it hogs memory and my computer would hardly move.  Yes I can hear you saying, well just close the tabs.  Well when you work with multiple people throughout the day, and multitask between calls closing every thing is a real pain in the butt - so I'm not sure which slowed me down more, waiting or opening and closing every thing multiple times.

Backing Up Your Computer and Owning Up to all The Crap You've Purchased and Stored On It

I'm into day three of backing up my computer so that I can ship it to the east coast and have my wonderful, and I mean wonderful (that's in case he actually reading this blog post) brother strip it to the bones, reconfigure it and reload a few of the many programs I currently own before he hands it back.

I thought it would be an easy task to do this feat and I'm realizing it's much bigger than I had ever thought.  Of course in the middle of this our printer died.  So it looks like I'm not reinstalling those drivers rather getting a new printer.

I've also re-discovered some things that I bought and forgot about.  Most are best left forgotten and have simply allowed me to be mildly distracted during this process.

How I'm managing the backup and restore to my computer:

1. I made a spread sheet in excel to manage the shift.  I highlighted each program / application once all of the data was in it so I knew I was complete.

2. These are the questions that I've needed to answer during the past few days so that I can comfortably have my brother wipe off my hard drive.

• do you know how many software programs you own?
  • not all programs are neatly stored under "program files" many create their own directory
• which programs and applications are not worth your time to re-install?
  • I have to admit over the past 7 years I have purchased some great stuff and a lot of crap that I will be glad to have a reason to get off my computer.

How to Make Free 411 Calls

In February and March I lead a breakout called:  Goal Setting for Financial Success And Prosperity at the Money Wise Women Forum in the Pacific Northwest.  In preparation for the events and in doing the events I've had a some aha's of my own that I'll share over a few blog posts.

One of my goals has been to simplify my life so that it feels easy and in the process put more money back into my pocket that I can redistribute it more consciously and wisely.

If you're interested in either or both:  having your life feel a bit more easy amidst the daily chaos many of us experience as we "work" to integrate work, family, financial goals and most importantly time for ourself then these posts will be of interest to you.

Today's tip:  Save on expensive 411 calls by dialing an easy to remember access number.

Save Money and Simplify Your Life: SunRocket, I mean Packet 8 VOIP Recommended

The Skinny:  This spring I lead a breakout called:  Goal Setting for Financial Success And Prosperity at the Money Wise Women Forum in the Pacific Northwest.  In preparation for the events and in doing the events I've had a some aha's of my own that I'll share over a few blog posts.

One of my goals has been to simplify my life so that it feels easy and in the process put more money back into my pocket that I can redistribute it more consciously and wisely - also known as smart spending.

If you're interested in either or both:  having your life feel a bit more easy amidst the daily chaos many of us experience as we "work" to integrate work, family, financial goals and most importantly time for ourself then these posts will be of interest to you.

Plus I'm putting my money where my mouth is and walking my talk.

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Today's tip:  Learn how I'm saving $646.80 per year and $6,669 in 10 years by using a VOIP phone service, Sunrocket Packet 8

(since writing this post Sun rocket the second largest VOIP provider has gone bankrupt....so I've switched to Packet 8, they been in the phone business and now VOIP business for 20 plus years)

Packet 8 Internet Phone Service.  Save $500 per year on your phone bill!

Monthly Spending Habits Quickly Add Up To Big Dollars

I just finished writing a post over at Wahara and had a mini aha moment.  For years I've driven myself and I know for sure others crazy with projecting out a variety of things.  Since I became married five years ago I notice my projecting often has to do with noticing our spending habits and wanting to make a poignant point.  The only way I could figure out how to make it dramatic enough to possibly shift my habits or perhaps convince some one else was to look out 10 years. 

It allowed me to say things like, "Did you know that if make one more $1.79 411 call it's going to cost $6,497 in 10 years?" "Do you realize how much that latte really costs? -  dramatic pause - over $14,000!"

So I created an improved Monthly Habit Spending Projection Form which helps the most financially inept individual figure out what your monthly habit is really costing you as well as allows me to calculate much faster and without a calculator. 

I choose 8% as the annually compounding interest rate - it seemed fair.

Download Monthly_Habit_Projection.xls

My frustration with the real cost of lattes - over $14,000 before my son even turns 10!