I’m not sure about you guys, but this month just flew by for me. The beginning of September marks 6 months I’ve been out of work. I’ve been able to get a few side gigs for a few bucks here and there to help supplement my unemployment compensation. Mostly in the form of surveys and market research studies. I’ve been getting more aggressive with my job hunt lately as well as making changes to my resume in order to try and help bring in more interest.

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I’m kind of ready for autumn, my favorite time of the year. The cooler weather, the fall colors, football, and hockey too! It also means we’ll be able to keep the windows open more frequently saving some money not running the AC or heat.

Here’s a recap of postings we had for August:

Garage Sale – Recap

It’s Not A Treat If You Have It Every Day

Social Security Numbers

College Costs

Joe’s Top Movies

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A little something different for the start of the weekend. I’m a huge movie guy, all sorts of movie genres. I often joke that I could hold conversations just using movie quotes (I think the same applies to song lyrics too). I think it goes back to my childhood. I grew up in a typical lower-middle class home where we rarely ate out. Probably because of not wanting to spend the money more than anything. I did, however, go to the movies. My dad and aunt managed to take me when I was little and through my pre-teen years. As I got older movies were a regular form of entertainment through my teenage years. I have fond memories of those times, so it makes sense to me I have such a tie to movies. It’s not just about the movie, but the memories of that time in my life.

Here’s my list of a few of my favorite movies. While I still have several (dozen) more favorites, these I could say (today) are some of my faves.

The Goonies (1985)


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“Goonies never say die!”, love that line! Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 80’s, or maybe this movie just appeals to the kid in me. I’ll date myself a bit, but I actually saw this when it came out in the movie theater. This is a great movie with adventure, romance, comedy, drama, and awesome bad guys. It also has good character building, a solid cast of unknowns at the time, and a semi-believable premise. This movie has it all. I can watch this one over and over, and I do when I see it come on TV.


Almost Famous (2000)


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I have a handful of movies which are the pinnacle of all movies for me and Almost Famous is one of them. This coming of age movie follows a high school boy posing as an adult in order to start writing for Rolling Stone. He follows Stillwater in order to write an article about the up and coming band. Semi-autobiographical, its based on director Cameron Crowe’s early days as a writer for Rolling Stone. The cast is what makes this move for me: newcomer Patrick Fugit playing the would-be Rolling Stone reporter, Billy Crudup and Jason Lee as musicians in the band Stillwater, Frances McDormand as Fugit’s overprotective mom, Zooey Deschanel as his rebellious sister, Kate Hudson as a groupie who is a love interest for both Crudup’s and Fugit’s characters, and just a touch of Philip Seymour Hoffman playing a sort of mentor to Fugit. It’s funny, heartbreaking, smart, and honest. I can’t say enough about Almost Famous. If you haven’t seen it yet, go now. Get it, stream it, I’ll wait. Go. : )


Rockstar (2001)


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While on the music theme, let’s toss one more in there – Rockstar – inspired by the story of Judas Priest and the departure of Rob Halford and his replacement Tim “Ripper” Owens who was singing in a Judas Priest cover band. I don’t know if situations like in the movie really happen when bands tour, but wow. The movie walks us through this unknown cover band singer played by Mark Wahlberg who is flung into a lead singer job for Steel Dragon. In the end, this is a love story; love of a girl and music. The final scene is great!


The Shawshank Redemption (1994)


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This is one of those movies (all of these movies are actually) where if I’m flipping channels and I come across it, I need to watch the rest of it regardless of what point in the movie it is. The movie follows Tim Robbin’s character through life in prison where finding redemption and peace isn’t always the easiest. Andy befriends Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, and through the years they bond, becoming the best of friends.


Snatch (2000)


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Snatch is one of those movies where you need to pay careful attention. The dialog and delivery by the actors makes this movie one of my favorites. I really like Brad Pitt’s character in particular. Pitt plays a gypsy whose conversations you’ll barely understand. You may have to replay his scenes a few times or turn on subtitles. Yep, subtitles are an option so you can understand him. The movie has some really memorable scenes. All the characters are brought together in order to locate a priceless (stolen) diamond. All of whom are obviously in it for themselves. In the end it feels more like a movie about revenge.

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This is the weekend! After careful analysis of the garage sale market, updates from the Chicago weather teams, a scientific study from MIT…well, not really. More like Joe has finally stopped dragging his feet so the garage sale is finally happening! Thankfully, the forecast is looking good. We’re only doing the sale on Friday and Saturday as I wasn’t sure we would have enough product for Sunday. But who knows, once we’re set up, we’ll see what happens and maybe run Sunday as well.

We’ve been pricing all the items we have up for sale this past week and trying to get things set up in the garage so we can just pull them out on Friday morning.

We came to realize a few things:

  • Pre-printed price labels – must have
  • Plenty of tables – must have
  • Kicking the cars out of the garage so you can set up – must have
  • Hanging up clothes, looks better and doesn’t take up table space – must have
  • We really only had a couple of tables ourselves and wqickly realized we needed more. Thankfully a friend had a few she let us borrow. This will make our presentation look all that much better.

    And forget visiting the local Target/Walmart/Home Center for garage sale supplies. Instead hit the dollar store. Cheap and pretty nice. You don’t want to spend $30 on supplies and start the day having to make all that up first.

    I’ll put together a recap for next week after it’s all done and we’ve sold everything! A guy can hope we sell almost everything.

    Joe-

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    Nineteen eighty what?? I consider myself fortunate enough to have grown up listening to music of the 80’s. And not just listening to 80’s music, but really getting into it. Remember when you found the connection between lyrics and feelings? Music was so much more than some notes and words – it epitomized a time and place to you. That was what the 80’s and music did for me.

    This list started out as a Top 5 list, then it became a top 10 list. I even had a hard time limiting the list to 10! So many great albums, many of which I didn’t truly appreciate until I was older.
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    Our weekend kind of started – well beginning Friday – started off pretty busy. We went to the Cubs game via some free tickets Nicole scored from work, along with a parking pass. We’re South Side fans in actuality – White Sox fans for those of you not familiar with Chicago – but it’s hard to pass up free tickets to any sporting event. We ended up only spending $12 grabbing lunch to bring into the park with us. Pretty nice outing for the price. Of course, that doesn’t include the hour drive to and the two hour drive home from the park. Thank you, Chicago traffic.

    Enjoy your weekend!

    Ikea Visit

    Monday Dinner Recipe

    How We Have Fun On A Budget

    Joe-

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    saving-money

    No matter how tight your budget is, you still have to make room for fun or life would be miserable. Of course, you shouldn’t put yourself in debt or bust your budget in the process if you want to meet your financial goals. We’ve always been frugal when it comes to our entertainment expenses, but here’s some of the things we’ve been doing lately to minimize entertainment spending while still having fun on the weekends.

    Utilize our cash back rewards from our Discover card
    We charge everything we can to our Discover so we can earn rewards to get free gift cards. There’s a ton of different stores available, but we primarily stick to restaurant gift cards so we can go out to eat without guilt.

    Buy discounted certificates
    Restaurant.com is a decent option to obtain discounted restaurant certificates. We bought a few $10 certificates recently when they were only $2 and made sure the minimum purchase amounts weren’t above what we’d normally spend. Keep those minimums in mind before placing your order!

    Groupon is a fantastic source for discounted restaurant certificates as well as things to do. Even better, we can cash in our Discover cash back for Groupon bucks so we never pay out of pocket.

    Take advantage of previously purchased memberships, events, and gift cards
    Last year we purchased memberships to Cosley Zoo and Morton Arboretum which we plan to visit as often as possible this year in order to get our money’s worth. We’ll also pack a lunch so we’re not tempted to stop somewhere.

    In December we bought gift cards to Lou Malnati’s, Noodles & Company, and Red Robin when they were running promotions so we’ll be using those cards to dine out and not have to pay out of pocket. In addition, I went through our gift card stash and found one for Buona Beef as well as a gift certificate for Bahama Breeze. I think it’s safe to say we have plenty of options for dining out without opening our wallets.

    Hosting game nights
    We have an extensive board game collection and love having people over to play. This one isn’t always the cheapest since we like to make sure our guests have plenty of snacks and drinks, but it’s still cheaper than going out to dinner and/or an event.

    Free admission places & events
    There are several forest preserves in our area we plan to visit, plus there’s free upcoming events in the area we plan to attend (I posted a list here).

    We also have access to free museum passes (as well as Brookfield Zoo) via our local library’s Museum Adventure Pass.

    Misc
    Before Joe was laid off we purchased tickets to see my favorite band in the whole world, The Cure, in concert in June so that’s a guaranteed fun night out that has already been paid for.

    With all the above options we definitely won’t be bored even if we can’t afford more expensive outings.

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