Thriftism

Located one block north of the Malecon on Venezuela, this quaint restaurant will blow you away. Enjoy outdoor seating to watch the passersby or step inside and watch the bartender at work on your drinks. The location is very convenient, nearby several attractions, but offers more budget friendly options than places located on the Malecon. A variety of options are available for lunch and supper ranging from snack style food to a full plate of fajitas. Our favorite was the shrimp ceviche which we would highly recommend. Be careful of the extra spicy hot sauce - it is in fact EXTRA SPICY!  $1 drink specials are available every day, but it will be well worth while to spring for the margaritas at $2.50 or 45 pesos. We have stopped quite a few places during our travels to Mexico and have yet to find a place to rival these margaritas.  Plus the margaritas are muy grande and well worth your $2.50 by sheer size alone, not to mention the flavor.  Service i

Ingredients 1 Cup Sugar (Sam's Club) 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk (Aldi) 1 Can Evaporated Milk (Aldi or make your own, see video below) 3 Eggs (Target) 1-2 Tbsp Vanilla Extract Preheat oven to 350. Melt sugar in sauce pan over low-medium heat stirring constantly.  Pour into 9" baking pan and swirl caramelized sugar to cover bottom and sides of dish. Beat eggs, add evaporated milk, condensed milk, and vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. Pour into baking dish. Bake at 350 for ~45-60 minutes or until set (toothpick comes out clean). Chill minimum 2 hours, but ideally 6-24 hours before serving. Serve cold.  Makes 8 Servings Per Serving: 349 calories, 9.7g fat, 56.7g carbohydrates, 9.5g protein, 100mg cholesterol, 139mg sodium. We halved the servings (to make 16 servings) since the dessert was very rich and we had eaten a huge meal. This was a hit with everyone from young (2) to older (not at liberty to say 🙊) and we will be making this one

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As we mentioned at the beginning of January, we are going to post monthly budget updates- So here we are! For a quick reminder, we run our budget off of solely my income of $1200 every two weeks, however this is after insurance is taken out. If this was your total household income, you would gross around $34,000/year and be in the 15% tax bracket. If you were in this tax bracket as a married couple, you would likely qualify for free or nearly free insurance so we won't need to up our budget in that area at this point. This budget also does not include much of our discretionary spending such as travel and home renovations, but it is our essentials budget that we could live on without anything else. The Budget As you can see from the table above, our goal budget is balanced with total income minus expenses equal to zero. Number in red are spending, while black is income. WE FAILED?!?!?! While the January number shows that we did terrible - not even close to an even b

Can you believe January is already over? That means it is time to check in on our goals. Financial Goals Gain employment (Race) 🗹 Race signed a job offer in mid January and had his first day of work January 31!! This is very exciting to check this goal off this quickly as we will be much more able to accomplish our remaining financial goals. Save 50% of our income For the month of January, we were able to save ~55% of our income when we included the mortgage payment. So far so good, but our savings amounts will be stepping up once Race starts getting paid again. While more pay will make it easier to save, it will increase the amount we need to save to hit the same 50% goal. Increase passive dividend income by 25% Year over year for the month of January, our dividend income has increased by 8.9%. Our goal is to increase dividend income for the entire year and thus a yoy of a month is not necessarily the best estimate. In January we earned approximately 4% of the am