Trying New Things

Trying new things is generally not my style.

This year, though, I'm trying to focus on a quote from the TV show Blue Bloods:

I have a secure base.  It doesn't get much more secure than living in your hometown and working for the company that gave you your first job.  Whoever said "you can't go home again" really missed the mark.  You can go home again - you just go home changed.

So though I'll admit that what I've been up to lately doesn't really qualify as daring, it is a new year and I'm making some new choices.

First, a new craft.  My mom bought me a sock loom (I adore socks) for Christmas 2013, and I am finally giving it a try.

You're looking at the better part of six hours of work.

I had to start over at one point, and I'm doing this at work, but still.  Slow going.

This isn't my first experience with loom knitting, but knitting socks is very different.  The yarn is extremely fine (I'm currently using a 2 yarn, but most of the patterns call for a 1 weight), so it has a different texture and the finished product grows very slowly.

The yarn I'm using, in Grapes.

Second, a new beverage.  I have had tea once in my lifetime, about ten years ago.  I can't tell you what kind of tea it was - a coffee shop gave it to me because they were out of what I actually wanted - but I hated it.  My friends, on the other hand, are tea lovers, and one of them is hosting a party for a company called Steeped Tea.  I love to support a direct sales business person!  I'm getting one rooibos tea and one green tea, so we'll see how it goes.

http://www.steepedtea.com/

And last, a new supplement.  Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely an advocate of modern medicine, vaccines, and the power of medical science.  I do not approve of turning our backs on the power of medicine - the recent measles outbreak is proof enough that medicine is an important part of quality of life.  The rise of superbugs and antibiotic resistance is proof enought, though, that sometimes it's better to not have a pill and potion for everything.

So, I'm trying out essential oils.  Several acquaintances have been using oils with good results, and I'm willing to see if I can get any relief from my upset stomach and and sinus congestion.  My first trial run will be with peppermint, cedarwood, and lemon.  We'll see how it goes!

Photo credit

Apps I Love: Envelopes 2

The biggest part of the last year and a half for me, since I finished college, has been getting my financial situation under control.  I put myself through private school, so I walked the stage with quite a bit of debt - almost double what the average Minnesota grad has.

Since I also finally got myself a smart phone, I decided to try out budgeting apps.  And I tried out a lot of them.  I had a general idea of what I wanted, but it was hard to get a firm idea of the important features without trial and error.  Plus I had the added difficulty of trying to figure out what features the app actually had - sometimes the descriptions in the App Store are pretty useless.

After trying a half-dozen or so budget apps, I've finally found one that I have stuck with and would recommend called Envelopes 2 by Emdentec Ltd.  As far as I know, Envelopes 2 is only available for iOS.

My basic criteria for a budget apps were:

1. Defining my own categories - I live in a small town, so I shop at Walmart a lot.  I didn't want the kind of app that automatically drops certain stores into certain categories; sometimes I get groceries at Walmart, other times I get socks.
2. The ability to "roll-over" unused funds/overspending from month to month - for big expenses, I save a little every month, and I wanted the app to reflect that.
3. No need to connect my bank accounts!
4. A free app.

The two biggest obstacles I ran into looking for my budget app were related to my third and fourth criteria.  Everyone knows that free apps are generally not full-feature.  Several free apps I tried only held so many transactions before you needed to upgrade to the paid version. (I know $0.99 or $1.99 isn't a lot of money, but I am being as frugal as possible to knock down my 50k+ debt.  Why should I pay for an app if I can find a free one or I can just do it the old school way?)  Other free apps only worked if I connected my banking info, and I'm sorry, but that's just shady to me.

In homage to the "old school way," one of the apps I tried to use for my budget was Apple's Numbers app, which is just a spreadsheet app that happens to have a budget template.  Personally, I found Numbers to be clunky and difficult to work with on my iPhone.  I think I used it for one month before I gave up.

I have lots of reasons for loving Envelopes 2:
You can have as many envelopes (categories) as you want, and they can be color-coded.
After you set up your envelopes with the specific amount per day, per week, per month, it is only two taps to fill your envelopes.
There are no passwords needed.
You can add a note right to the front of an envelope, which comes in handy if you owe someone money, and add notes to each transaction.

It rolls over the balance from month to month, as long as you don't clear the transactions.
You can empty the transactions from each envelope and start from scratch at the beginning of a new year with just a couple of taps.
Since you can personalize everything, the app is great for people who want to follow the Dave Ramsey system but would rather use a debit card than carry bunches of cash.

If you're considering trying Envelopes 2, here are two things to remember:

1. Because there are no passwords/log-ins with this app, it's pretty much centralized to your phone.  You and a spouse can't both access the same envelopes on your separate phones.
2. This app requires you to manually add transactions.  If you can't bring yourself to do that, you probably want to go find one of the apps that you have to connect to your bank accounts.

Envelopes 2 works great for me.  If you try it, let me know what you think!