I read a book within the last couple weeks called Green With Envy - Why Keeping Up With the Joneses Is Keeping Us In Debt. It was a $3 find at Big Lots :)

This book was a pretty quick read and serves as a great reality check for us to remember that "the grass isn't always greener on the other side". Unless you are walking in the other person's shoes, you really have no idea what their financial situation is, and you shouldn't concern yourself with it.

The book showcased a few couples who racked up an astonishing amount of debt just trying to keep up with their peers because they felt like they "needed" to. They "needed" better clothes, "needed" bigger houses, "needed" more vacations. So they started to buy those things, even though they didn't really have the money for them.

Each couple seemed to be able to juggle their finances for awhile so they could keep up their new-found lifestyle, but eventually it caught up to them and had a moment of panic when they realised just how much debt they accumulated.

Through the process of getting their feet back on the ground with their finances, each one of them wished that they could just go back in time, when they didn't have the debt, when they didn't spend all their money on "stuff". They were scared of what their friends would think of them when they found out, but they realised that their value isn't held within the stuff they own.

In conclusion, I found this book to be a good, quick read. We all need to remember that instead of keeping up with the Joneses, and thinking we will find contentment and that value is in the stuff we posses; we need to live within our means and remember where true contentment comes from, the stuff we cannot buy.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?

I received a coupon for a free California Kitchen Pizza a couple weeks ago in the mail, but I wasn't able to use it until a couple days ago because it was only redeemable at Whole Foods. I finally made it out there and found where the pizza was in the store and ended up buying 2 pizzas because these pizzas are smaller than the average full size frozen pizza. (1 was free, the other was $2 off). The cashier happily packed my bag with ice and sent me on my way.

Once I got home, I unpacked the pizzas and was actually able to fit both onto a large cookie sheet (the instructions say to place directly onto the rack), they smelled wonderful! I cooked them for the indicated amount of time and let them cool, cut and served them. My love and I both had some of each pizza and we really liked both of them. They tasted very fresh, but different than any other pizza we've had.

We tried the Pesto Chicken and Oven Roasted Tomatoes and the Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella flavors. I liked the Pesto Chicken pizza better and my love liked the Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella pizza better. The one thing I thought was strange was that these 2 flavors did not have traditional pizza sauce on them, even though, they still tasted great.

The pizza retail for $6.99 at Whole Foods and are smaller than a regular pizza, even though they taste delicious, I probably wouldn't buy these again because they are pretty pricey for the size. I can make a larger pizza with fresh ingredients for less than what it costs to buy these.

Have you tried California Kitchen Pizza? What do you think of it?

I recently was able to try a California Kitchen Pizza free of charge from being a member of Kraft First Taste. The following is a review based solely on the opinions of Nick and I. We were not paid to write this review.