two dolla

what’s on YOUR DVR?

It’s always my goal to catch up on the DVR at least once a week, but lately that hasn’t been the easiest thing in the world. Or maybe I just record too much.

I’m watching Project Runway right now from January 21. The only reason I’m even trying to get caught up on this show is because are constantly talking about it. And only one of those fellas is married to another man. That and I love when Tim Gunn gets bitchy.

We started recording Entourage when Spike TV started airing it from the beginning, so we have a few episodes of that hanging around. That’s coming to an end for now because something else, actually two something elses happen to come on at the same time.

The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation – easily my favorite 90 minutes of consecutive TV on throughout the week. Survivor and Amazing Race both started this week and we can’t forget about American Idol twice a week.

Right now, there’s also Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Lost, Nip/Tuck, How I Met Your Mother, Intervention, Hoarders, and this would absolutely remain incomplete without the mention of CSI: Miami.

Without DVR, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t watch more that two hours of TV a week. Nice work, technology.

but we’re not penny pinchers!

It’s been a slow and steady process, combining incomes, divvying out bills, etc., but we’ve finally figured out how to manage our finances and not live paycheck to paycheck. We don’t have monster savings account, but we’re working towards it. I’m pretty excited that we were able to add in a car payment and a higher insurance payment each month without worrying about it too much. Some of the big things we’ve been doing that have helped (at least in my opinion):

1. A Costco membership. It’s helped keep our freezer full of things like chicken and pork chops and our pantry full of lunch bits and pieces of me to take to work, so it’s harder for us to use the “there’s no food in the house” reason come dinner time.
2. Extra freelance work. We’ve both taken on a little extra work over the past six months or so and while it does suck a little bit of our free time up, it’s much better than having to work a part-time job out of the house.
3. Coupons and free stuff! We’re not die hard yet, but there are so many sites online that I follow via Google reader that lead to 1/2 price deals at restaurants or various rewards programs at stores we shop at anyway. And who can say no to free samples, especially when they are full-sized samples, right? I mean, who can say no to free*:

Point is, little by little, we’re learning to save money in ways that have been right there in front of us all along and it’s gotten quite easier. And that’s made for much more happy times in our neck of the woods.

*totally have a headache right now and just took some Excedrin to kick it in the butt.