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Dollars and Sense

An overseas posting means free housing, utilities and home maintenance. A stateside posting means you are on your own and with less money because you no longer receive the allowances to which you have become accustomed. You are left to figure out where you can afford to live and what to do with all your stuff. Not just the stuff you accumulated while overseas but also all the stuff you placed in storage before you went overseas. Many of us cannot afford the square footage to accommodate all the stuff. So we purge (click for tips on what to do with all the stuff) or we go into debt and pay for comfort.

Our 90 boxes in our old living/dining room

Before making our most recent move we thought long and hard about what would work best for our family. We made the choice to forgo a house with a yard further out in favor of a small apartment with a short commute to work for my husband. It is important to us that the kids see Daddy before bed every night. We have also chosen to not own a car out because the cost of maintaining and parking a vehicle is an additional financial burden. We endeavor to remain debt free.


Our 90 boxes, and stuff from storage, in our new living room/dining room.

Things we've done to save money:

We reduced energy costs by changing our lightbulbs to LEDs and by setting our thermostat to 68° in the winter. Click here for more on thermostats from the U.S. Department of Energy.

IKEA furniture is affordable and suits our taste and transient lifestyle.

Mail-in rebates can earn you a bundle of cash back. Don't dismiss mail-in rebate offers from companies you use, some may even give you the option to "mail-in" online. Mail-in rebate offers on furniture can earn you quite a bit of cash back. For example, I earned $100 JCPenney Gift Card back on the purchase of an Ashley Furniture couch. As we had recently relocated, that rebate went towards additional furniture purchases.

Most retailers offer reward programs that cost you nothing to sign up. Sign up and accumulate the rewards but resist cashing them in for items you don't need. Better to let the rewards go than to be lured into spending money you didn't plan to spend.

Extreme couponers like The Crazy Coupon Lady can alert you of great deals but it is important only to act on the items you need.

Ebates earns you cash back for shopping at websites you are already using. It takes minimum effort and the returns are not insignificant.

We shop at Costco once or twice a month. We order online, take an Uber, or rent a car for a day to do the shopping ourselves. The online ordering option is more expensive than in store but as we have no car it is convenient. We are finding that even with the additional cost of online shopping or transportation, Costco prices can't be beat.


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