Creative Financing?
Here's a creative way to use a big tax refund. This was sent in from Jake who works at a financial firm (in the IT department) in Kansas. Tell me what you think!
"My wife and I adopted our daughter from China last year. The U.S. government gives a $10,000 tax CREDIT to off set the costs of adopting. Needless to say we are receiving the largest tax return we've ever had. We're taking this money and purchasing a whole life insurance policy. What!?!! You say? But wait, it gets better."
"Next, we're going to use our credit card to pay off one if not both of our vehicles—earning some great frequent flier miles. then, we're going to borrow the majority of the money out of the whole life policy to pay off the credit card. Essentially we're financing our own vehicles. We will pay back our own loan at an even greater interest rate than what we were paying the bank because it only adds to the value of the policy (and creates more money to borrow from in the future). We'll have one (possibly two) cars completely paid off and a life insurance policy with a really decent death benefit (unfortunately, i have to die to get that money, haven't worked the angle on that one yet). Within roughly a year and a half we'll have paid back the policy loan—with interest—and can turn around to trade in a car (that has zero money against it) and pay cash for the new one (using the policy again) and the process just keeps going and growing."
My friend Tia and I hit a few yard sales Saturday morning ... I had great luck. For a grand total of $18, I got: a French Press coffee pot, a bunny rabbit Easter candy dish, a rock fountain (for Jeff), a hanging pendant lamp to go over my breakfast nook (it's a current style that's being sold at Home Depot for $50-$80) and a wooden coffeetable. The coffeetable was light wood and showed signs of wear on the varnish, but its structure was still sound. Jeff bought a little can of Apple Red paint from Home Depot and voila! We have a fabulous coffeetable to accent our black leather couches (which we bought 
Most of you reading this blog have survived prom, but a few of you might have younger sisters or daughters who are entering prom season. Here are a few tips on how to do it on the cheap:
Here's an interesting editorial from Slate questioning whether the image Whole Foods markets present is accurate. They lead customers to think their food supports small, family-owned organic farms, when it's widely known that a few large farms in California supply the majority of the produce. 
I had a great hour-long radio interview this morning with Lynne from WBCL-FM, a 50,000 watt Christian station that broadcasts to the Fort Wayne, IN area at 90.3 FM. She took several callers who had questions and tips for weddings. One suggestion was so fabulous I just have to pass it along:
Thanks for Lindsay who tipped me off about The Grocery Game ( 
My husband and I are about to move into our first house. Our real estate agent ended up finding us a house in our budget that was way better than the other houses we had been looking at—it’s fabulous and exactly what we need. We will want to update a couple of rooms eventually in the home—the kitchen and master bath—so my husband has been doing some research. He found a great 
I read a wonderful book yesterday about living beneath your means and the biblical reasons to do so. It’s called Living With Less: The Upside of Downsizing Your Life by Mark Tabb (Broadman & Holman). 
Jeff and I sold our condo a couple of weeks ago. This being the first time we've ever had this much cash in our hands from the transaction, we made some responsible (and fun) choices of how to manage it. 
In this same issue of Consumer Reports that I mentioned yesterday, there's a report about the expense of hybrids. They say gas-electric hybrids end up costing owners from $3,700 to $13,300 more over five years compared with similar gasoline models. Some of that comes from the car being more expensive up front, but the cars also don't hold their value like the gasoline models.
Scrapbooking is so mainstream now you can pick up supplies everywhere from Walgreens to Target, not just specialty boutiques or craft stores like Joann's and Michaels. But I was surprised to find them at Costco (a discount warehouse store like the Wal-Mart owned Sam's Club). They were selling two bonded leather (does that mean fake leather? I'm pretty sure it does) 12x12" scrapbooks for $14. 
• The Accord was named the magazine's pick as top family sedan for the fourth straight year.