Prioritized Living

Master your money. Get organized. Take back your time.

How to Create a Budget-Friendly Restaurant Date Right at Home

How to Create a Budget-Friendly Restaurant Date Right at Home

Imagine this: It’s Saturday night. You get dressed up and head out on the town with your lucky husband to enjoy a kid-free, romantic dinner at a great restaurant.

If you’re watching your spending, this kind of extravagance can be rare or even impossible. Dinners out come with a hefty markup, and arranging childcare can be challenging and expensive.

But what if you could create a restaurant date experience that was so easy and affordable that you could enjoy it over and over?

Try this four-step process for replicating the fancy dinner date experience right at home and on a budget:   [Read more…]

Skip the Store & Stock Your Pantry with Target Subscriptions

This post is part 3 in the series Skip the Store & Stock Your Pantry.

Skip the Store and Stock Your Pantry with Target

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  Read my policy here.

NOTE: As of November 2020, Target has discontinued its Target Subscriptions service. Instead, consider using the Target Drive Up service, Order Pickup service, or Same Day Delivery service.

I’m all about the Amazon subscription services. But, in addition, to those services, I swear by Target Subscriptions too.

Target Subscriptions are perfect for keeping your pantry, medicine cabinet, and supply closet perpetually stocked — all at a great price and with extraordinary convenience. So if you’re a die-hard Target fan or just someone who loves a great, easy, set-it-and-forget-it deal, have a look at the perks of Target Subscriptions!
[Read more…]

5 Secrets of Extreme Couponers That You Should Steal

5 Secrets of Extreme Couponers That You Should Steal

You’ve seen those exotic creatures on TV – the extreme couponers.

Their basements or dining rooms look like fully-stocked convenience stores. And everything they have they’ve gotten for next to nothing or even for free. It sounds incredible. But when you hear their stories, you learn that some extreme couponers often spend more time couponing per week than most people spend working at a full-time job.

What if it were possible to land amazing deals without devoting endless hours every week to the pursuit of saving money? What if you could tap into the strategies of experienced extreme couponers while dialing the effort required way, way down?

Here are five powerful secrets of diehard couponers that you can easily tweak and implement in your everyday life:  [Read more…]

7 Astounding Ways a Checklist Can Revolutionize Your Life

7 Astounding Ways a Checklist Can Revolutionize Your Life

Checklists — I just love ’em!

In my life, they take any number of formats. I’ve got my daily to-do list front and center in my planner. I’ve got a ready-to-print list of things to pack when I travel. My husband and I routinely make a big list of things to tackle when we’re hosting an event. Heck, I’ve even got a checklist I used to create this blog post.

You probably know that checklists for kids are incredibly popular. Kids love them, and moms love them too! They’re a superb way to keep your kid on task and motivate him.

Consider those kiddie chore charts that act as graphic checklists for each day’s must-do tasks. Each day features colorful images instructing a child to make his bed, brush his teeth, put away his pajamas, and more.  And once he completes a task, he enjoys the most awesome part of the process — placing a congratulatory sticker or perky magnet next to the task.

That internal motivation? That excitement over finishing an action step? That pride in a job well done? Even that sticker if you want it! That can all be yours with a checklist.

If you hate the idea of committing yourself to a checklist, or if you’ve only thought to apply checklists to a couple of areas in your life, check this out. I’ve got 7 big ways that a checklist can not just improve but revolutionize your life!
[Read more…]

Skip the Store & Stock Your Pantry with Amazon

This post is part 1 in the series Skip the Store & Stock Your Pantry.

Skip the Store and Stock Your Pantry with Amazon

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  Read my policy here.

Going to the store can be such a pain.

Whether it’s your supermarket, drug store, big box store, or warehouse club, when you absolutely need to schlep over to the store in order to restock your supply of something, it’s a major hassle.

I’m not talking about shopping for a cute outfit. It’s always the boring stuff. You’re out of toilet paper at 10 P.M., dishwashing liquid after loading up your greasy dinner plates, or tissues when your whole family is flattened by the flu.

And you have to get these boring but essential things again and again and again . . .

But what if there were a better way?

What if you never had to take time of your life to putter over to the store at the most inconvenient time possible? What if your personal care items, cleaning supplies, baby goods, nonperishable foods, and more landed magically on your doorstep?

And what if you could actually save money while keeping yourself constantly stocked with your family’s essentials?

Today, we’re kicking off a blog post series that looks into a number of services that offer inexpensive, home delivery of your pantry supplies.

And we’re gearing up by looking at one of the biggest names in the business — Amazon.  [Read more…]

How to Conquer Common Money Traps at Every Age

How to Conquer Common Money Traps at Every Age

First, the bad news: It doesn’t matter how old you are.

There’s always a new way for you to make big money mistakes.  To mess up the financial balance you’ve worked so hard to create in your life.

Don’t worry – there’s good news too:  With a little knowledge and a bit of planning, you can demolish the financial obstacles that stand in your way.

Your 20s:  Living Large

If you’re fresh out of college and you’ve landed a full-time job, you’ve been dropped into a foreign environment.  All of a sudden you probably have . . .

  • Way more income than you ever earned from a part-time gig.
  • Student loan debt that’s due for repayment soon.
  • New living expenses as you transition from the dorm to your own place.

It’s a lot of financial change – and responsibility – all at once.  And it can make you freak out or stumble your way into bad money decisions.  [Read more…]

7 Free Chrome Extensions That Keep You Organized & Productive

7 Free Chrome Extensions That Keep You Organized & Productive

It’s easy for your Internet browser to be a clutter magnet that slows you down. Your browser is a mess of favorite sites and dozens of open tabs — videos to watch, articles to read, messages to which you need to respond, and more.

But, if you’re a Google Chrome user, you can transform your browser into a tool that supercharges your productivity and keeps you on task and organized. Check out these 7 incredible (and free!) Chrome extensions that are more than worth the download:
[Read more…]

How Parkinson’s Law Will Make You Insanely Organized

This post is part 1 in the series Embracing Parkinson's Law.

How Parkinson's Law Will Make You Insanely Good with Organized

This week, we’re wrapping up our series on improving your everyday life with Parkinson’s Law!

So far, we’ve looked at this important idea in its original format: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

And we’ve looked at a twist in relation to your money: “Your lifestyle expenses increase so as to use up the income available.”

Today, we’ll tackle one more twist on Parkinson’s Law as it relates to getting organized: “Your stuff expands so as to use up the space available.”

Yeah, this one is so true!

When I moved out of my tiny graduate school apartment, I loaded up all of my belongings into my little sedan. Seven years later, it was a whole different story! When my husband and I moved from our townhouse rental into our current home, it took a medium-sized U-Haul and a truck with movers to wrangle the big stuff.

Our stuff had expanded.

So how can you keep your belongings from multiplying like Tribbles? Growing into piles, seeping into tidy areas, and taking over your home? [Read more…]

How Parkinson’s Law Will Make You Insanely Good with Money

This post is part 2 in the series Embracing Parkinson's Law.

How Parkinson's Law Will Make You Insanely Good with Money

Last week, we took a look at Parkinson’s Law, which states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” So it makes perfect sense that last week’s post was all about time-saving techniques and maximizing your productivity.

But have you thought about how Parkinson’s Law applies to your money?

Maybe we could rewrite it like this: “Your lifestyle expenses increase so as to use up the income available.”

I’m talking here about the dreaded “lifestyle creep!” Here’s what I mean:

Let’s say you get a bump in your income. Maybe you get a juicy raise, land a sweet bonus, or start a profitable side business.

Then you upgrade your lifestyle! You spring for a nice vacation, move to a pricier home, start buying fancier clothes, or begin eating out more.

At the end of the day, that extra income has been completely consumed by the new expenses you’ve created for yourself. Your lifestyle expenses have increased and used up all of the available income you have.

So how can your understanding of this twist on Parkinson’s Law make you a money-saving whiz?  [Read more…]