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No Spend Month Challenge

9November 17, 2017Productive Home by Erica

No Spend November: Week 2 Results

Week 2 Review for No Spend November. Here’s what’s gone well, what’s been hard, and what food I’ve been making with food from my freezer, pantry and garden.

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7November 10, 2017Productive Home by Erica

No Spend November: Week 1 Results

Week 1 Review for No Spend November. Here’s what’s gone well, what’s been hard, and what food I’ve been making with food from my freezer, pantry and garden.

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6November 2, 2017Productive Home by Erica

No Spend November: A Money Savings Challenge

November is a fantastic month to save gobs of money, break bad spending habits and get off the hedonic treadmill. Join me this month for No Spend November and see how much you can save and make due with what you already have.

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0February 10, 2016Recent Posts by Erica

Fasting, Booze, Lent and The Hedonic Treadmill

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. You’ve probably heard of giving something up for Lent. Traditionally, Catholics who are better Catholics than me use the 40 days (not including Sundays) between today and Good Friday (that’s the Friday before Easter) to fast, pray, do charity and reflect on the sacrifices of Christ. But…

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1April 13, 2015Recent Posts by Erica

Eat From The Larder Challenge 2015

Maybe I didn’t plan very well when I enthusiastically committed to doing another Eat From The Larder Challenge this April. We already had a scheduled a family vacation. Non-negotiable. We already had a scheduled dinner-date with friends. Non-negotiable. We were completely out of butter. Clearly, running out of butter is a dire failure of larder maintenance….

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8March 27, 2014Productive Home by Erica

Eat From The Larder Challenge

In February I wrote a post called Food Storage For People Who Don’t Hate Food. Most of the feedback I got on that post was very positive, but a few readers seemed skeptical of my claims that eating from the pantry for six months was reasonable, even if one had the food stored. This floored me…

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1November 2, 2012Productive Home by Erica

No Spend Month: Final Numbers and Reader Feedback

It’s time to come clean. It’s the big finale, the big reveal – did we make our No Spend budget or blow it? Did you make your budget? I’m happy to say that we did stay within $250, and we saved up a ton of money this month. In addition to the casual dollars we…

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1October 29, 2012Productive Home by Erica

Mini-Money Challenge: What's Important To You, Really?

Throughout this No Spend Month I’ve talked (and talked…and talked) about financial values. Well, now I have a confession to make. There really aren’t any financial values. There are just your values. Financial management and financial goals are big tools to help you live in accordance with your values, but they are not the same as values. If…

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0October 19, 2012Productive Home by Erica

No Spend Month: Week 3 Wrap Up and At-Home Coffee Analysis

The giant canister of coffee beans we keep on the counter clinked empty early this week. Out. Of. Coffee. This is how most conversations before 10 am start in Seattle: “I’m not really up and moving yet. Haven’t had my coffee!” “Hey, do ya wanna go get a coffee?” “Um, could we talk about this…after…

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17October 18, 2012Productive Home by Erica

Mini-Money Challenge: Occupy Your Brain (Why You Don't Really Want What You Want)

I had a dream the other night. I was working some corporate job and my boss lent me his car to run errands over the weekend. In the dream, I didn’t know what kind of car it was, and somehow Homebrew Husband ended up driving it to pick me up from this job. This was…

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0October 16, 2012Productive Home by Erica

Mini-Money Challenge: Sell Some Books

I’m of the Erasmus school of spending: When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. As an example, these are some of – but not all of, you understand – my cookbooks: I have an equivalent number of gardening and house-maintenance books, quite a few big, heavy collections of…

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0October 12, 2012Productive Home by Erica

No Spend Month: Week 2 Wrap-Up

Ready for the big No Spend Month disappointment? I totally succumbed to temptation at the thrift store this week. See, there was this mint condition, vintage, all-wood game of Labyrinth. Remember trying for hours to get that little metal ball past the fourth hole in the board? Or was I the only one dorky enough…

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Hi! I'm Erica, the founder of NWEdible and the author of The Hands-On Home. I garden, keep chickens and ducks, homeschool my two kids and generally run around making messes on my one-third of an acre in suburban Seattle. Thanks for reading!

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