Frugal Fridays

I talked a little about budgeting last month. We have our ‘blow money’ per month per person. That covers clothing, random stuff, coffee, drinks, snacks, make up, anything that is not a need, it is a want … it is our want money!

I recommend setting up a set amount of blow money first. Try that out, give yourself a few weeks or a month. If you try to do a whole budget to start with, it gets crazy hard and stressful! Start with last weeks post: blow money.

After you get that down, you may be amazed at how much you used to spend! Or how much you are now saving! The next step I recommend in budgeting is your food budget. For the first month, go easy on yourself! If you are used to going to the store several times a week, getting whatever you want, not using coupons, you are probably spending a lot on food! Set an amount per month or per week. Our budget is $250 a month. Most people cannot believe what all I can get for that amount! When we first started our budget, our food budget was almost twice that amount.

I divide it out to $50 a week, with the extra $50 for Sam’s as that is where we typically get our ground turkey, chicken, goldfish and a few other items. The key is to be reasonable, if you have lots of money left over at the end of the month … great! But start off slow and keep it going! Once again, use cash! It is so easy to just pull out the plastic and not record all your purchases.

Try those two steps … next week you will want a pen and paper!

Little joys, little potty breaks and little prayers

If there is one thing I am learning, or trying to learn, it is to focus on the little things. Joanna is doing a good job as my teacher, it is amazing what I have learned from that little girl! I have always focused on the big things. The big tests or assignments, big goals, big events … the things the world focuses on. It’s the little things though that are so much fun, and things that I do not want to forget. I love the little blessings that God and Joanna send my way.

Joanna’s eyes light up with chocolate. I love how she will see a little kiss or a little M&M and say, ‘ohh!!! Chocolate milk!’ It is so cute, everything chocolate is chocolate milk. She is learning chocolate cake and chocolate candy, but it is so cute. I love how she gets so excited, she is her mommy’s girl!

We had an Easter egg hunt at the church the day before Easter and she was so funny. She would see an egg, gasp, then run over about five eggs to get to the one that she saw. She would shake the egg, checking for ‘tandy’ and run off for more. Her eyes will light up with each egg, each little treat.

Easter Sunday, she was so excited to wear her dress. She loves dresses, ‘ohh, pretty dress,’ is commonly heard on almost a daily basis. She is a little girl for sure! But after church, she was happy to get outside with Daddy to water the garden. She got her own little watering can in her Easter basket that day and did a great job watering, while also trying to get her head under Daddy’s hose. She was so cold and so wet, but had so much fun!

Potty training has also been an adventure. Joanna is a trooper. She is doing very well and on most days will have dry panties all day, sometimes one accident, with the exception of bedtime. I love how she will sit down, start to pee, and she has the cutest little surprised face that turns into a huge smile!

She had her birthday a week ago and it was so cute seeing her so excited. I made her a ‘Bob cake’. It was hard, it almost ended up in the trash can, but when it was done and she saw it, her little eyes lit up.

It is so encouraging to see her pray. We were at our neighbors house today and she just bowed her head, held her little hands and mumbled a cute little prayer when she saw our neighbor eating. So sweet, and such a good reminder.

It does not take much to see those big brown eyes smile. Goldfish, a sucker from ‘Pa(stor) Frank’, checking the mail, seeing her friends, walking into the toy store, going down the slide, bubbles, birdies at her bird feeder, thunder, rain puddles, any puppy dog, ‘popSICles’, ‘car carts’ at Krogers, painting, VeggieTale movies, singing ‘If your happy and you know it’, playing the piano, cleaning up her ‘puddles’ from the carpet, washing her hands, getting on my bed, getting up in the morning just to say ‘goo morring’!

Everyday there is something that she loves, and it is never a new car, money, or diamonds (although she thinks they are pretty!). I want to start looking at the birds, at the park, at the bubbles, and think how blessed I am. Not only to have so many fun things, but for a God who created them all, and created a fun little girl to enjoy them all with as well!

Frugal Fridays

There are tons of ways to save money, but there are always some that totally change things. Over a year ago, I would get upset with Brad when he would ‘waste’ money on coffee. And likewise, he would not be too happy with me when I came home with new shoes.

We fully believe in a budget, and I will talk more about that next week, but what Brad and I ended up doing was having ‘blow money’. We set an amount for us both for the month and got it in cash. That is very important, because if you spend a few dollars here and there, you will not be able to keep track as well as if you have that money in your wallet.

We gave ourselves $25 a month. At first it sounded like a lot, but after one week and we both did not have any money left, we learned fast that we needed to watch what we got and make sure that it was really what we wanted. $25 is a good amount, but that is only a few cups of coffee and if you are lucky, one pair of shoes with some change.

Each month is different now, sometimes we have it all month, others it is gone fast. But we do not argue about how we spend that money. It is blow money and is meant to be spent! We both know we will not spend more than that … and having cash helps with that as well! Secondly, it helps with budgeting. It is so much easier to know how much blow money we each have and factor that in per month.

Next post will be more about budgeting, but if this is an area you struggle with, give yourself a monthly or weekly amount of blow money … and stick with it! People do not often ‘loose’ $50 here and there … it is more often $1 at a time! Hold on to those dollars!

Lessons in Cleaning

Since becoming a stay at home mom, my status updates on Facebook typically have something to do with cleaning. A good friend of mine said that my house must be perfect because I am always cleaning! I have to confess, my house is rarely clean. I blame my toddler who is like a tornado, and also my goofy cleaning stages. I will get hooked on a snack for a week or so, and I also get hooked on different chores. So for a week the bathrooms and floors will look great, but do not venture into the kitchen!

When we lived up in Missouri, I had a chore list. I know that it sounds childish, but it really worked! It was not a list of what chores needed to be done, but when. It kept me in order, as well as the house, and made sure that I did not leave anything out. My list had not been updated since I first created it about a year ago. So after a discussion about chores last night with Brad, I decided to update it. Hope everyone finds it interesting and I hope it motivates you all to get your chores in order!

Chore List
Morning Chores: Make beds, sweep kitchen floor
Evening Chores: Wash dishes, clean kitchen counters, quick pick up
Monday: Wash clothes, grocery shopping, clean refrigerator, vacuum living room
Tuesday: Wash towels, wash sheets, clean bathrooms, mop kitchen floors
Wednesday: Dust, vacuum all rooms
Thursday: Clean bathrooms, clean showers, clean garage
Friday: Wash clothes, vacuum living room, mop kitchen floor, mop entry way, sweep porch, iron
Saturday: Clean bathrooms, mop bathroom floors, clean microwave, clean pantry
Sunday: Couponing, shopping list

Frugal Fridays

Maybe I will change the name of these posts to Money Mondays! This past weekend we had Brad’s parents in town, Joanna’s birthday was on Thursday and her party was on Saturday. So between birthday stuff and visitors, blogging was off of my radar!
I am teaching (or sharing) with my MOPS group tomorrow about the freezer. Your freezer can be a huge money saver! Most people do not realize what all you can freeze; you can freeze just about everything!

I did my weekly shopping this morning and saved lots of money by using my freezer! Kroger had a good deal on chicken breast. If you are like me and like most people, you use chicken on a weekly basis. Do not buy it weekly, as next week it may be a dollar or more per pound more than this week’s price. Today I bought two packages, split the packages up and placed some in the refrigerator. The rest I placed on a baking sheet in the freezer for a few hours. I will then take them out and place in a freezer Ziploc bag in the freezer. This way, I can pull out the exact amount I need the night before without have to thaw out a ball of chicken pieces!

Brad eats high fiber bread and it is very expensive compared to other breads. This week the bread was buy one, get one free! So I bought extra and placed loaves in the freezer. You can then thaw the whole bag of bread later on, or slice by slice. I have bought lots of things in bulk and divided it up to freeze. Sam’s big bags of cheese, meat, bread, clearance yogurt, fruit … lots of things! So next time there is a great sale or clearance, don’t just get what you will use that week, but get extra and freeze! It is wonderful having lots of food in the freezer and not having to pay full price for items!

Frugal Fridays

Almost on a weekly basis, I have someone ask me a money-saving question. People often come to me with coupon questions since I have taught four classes to this date. But coupons are not the only way to save money! It is one of my favorites for sure, but there are several other tactics out there. I am going to try to give a short and simple way to save money every Friday. So check back every Friday during nap time for a quick way to keep your money in your pocket!

We had a super sweet family over for dinner last night. One of the kids asked ‘what are these?’. Fabric napkins! If you want to save money … look at what you are throwing away! If you are in a family of four and use paper napkins three times a day, you are looking at literally throwing away at least $60 a year! That is cheap napkins with coupons! You can find fabric napkins everywhere or you can grab some fabric and make your own. I personally think they look nicer and work better!

With paper napkins also comes paper towels. Many people do not think that they can live without paper towels, but you can! If you only use two rolls of paper towels a week (and most people use more!) that adds up to over $100 a year as long as you buy the cheep towels! You can use actual towels for most things. Or make or get some wash cloths for messy hands and faces, cleaning cloths and dust rags. I have different ones for wash cloths and for cleaning. And for your windows or glass, just use newspapers!

You will love being able to go to the store and not buy paper napkins and paper towels! And another benefit … it will cut down on your trash as well!

Lessons From My Neighbors

A couple months ago, I got a knock on my door. It was a God knock … an unexpected knock full of many blessings. That very week, we had to change our insurance, making our income tighter. Finances, luckily, have never been an issue for us. God has always provided and taught us, but I also give the credit to my parents teaching me early about money and of course Dave Ramsey.

With a tighter income, that meant less money going into savings and it would take longer to get a bigger vehicle. My car (actually, Brad’s car now) is getting old and falling apart, plus we would like to add to our little family and my little car will not hold much more.

Behind that knock was my elderly neighbor. She needed a new worker to come and clean her house. She is in her late eighties along with her husband. Her husband, Herb, is not doing very well and is now on hospice. This flexible, part time job was perfect for my family. Did not have to drive anywhere, flexible hours and great pay for cleaning. I thought that this would be a simple job in which I could earn extra money for our ‘car fund’. The money has been a blessing, but it has not been the biggest.

When I am old, I want to be like them. Norma is so sweet, always talking about how ‘messy’ her house is and how much junk they have. Her house is always neat and their closets are half full … still have not found all this junk she has been talking about. I love watching her make her grocery list, figure out what she is going to cook for Herb and taking her to the store to shop. One of my favorite things is when she makes the beds. She always talks about how hard it is to make Herbs hospital bed, and it is hard! But she is so careful, the blankets have to be a particular length and no wrinkles at all. Herbs lungs are failing so he spends a lot of time in bed, taking multiple naps. She is so faithful, I have no idea how many times she makes that bed. I remember one day I helped make the bed. About ten minutes later, Herb was back in bed. I would have been so upset with Brad if he did that, but Norma did not even blink.

Herb struggles with every breath, but every breath, he is smiling and so grateful to God. He knows he is dying, and he is fine with it. He is so pleasant, always calls me ‘pretty girl’ and always wants to know how Joanna is doing. I love his smile and his routine. He eats the same cereal for breakfast every morning after thanking God for it first. He reads his paper, then goes into his office and reads the Bible on the computer. He does not stay awake for very long and is back in bed asleep. But I love how every morning before he gets out of bed, he thanks God in a quiet voice for the day.

A few days ago, I stomped over to their house. That morning, Brad and I had lots of things to do and all Brad seemed to talk about was going to the coffee shop. I basically got mad at Brad and told him that he a message to write that morning and two egg hunts to get in order and that all he was concerned about was coffee! 9:30am hit and I was next door. I walked in and Norma was upset with Herb. We were making the beds and she started talking about how Herb was complaining that he did not get enough food for breakfast. I told her about Brad wanting coffee, then we both looked at each other and just laughed. It was a good reminder that no matter how long Brad and I are married and how old we are, we will have those times when we disagree. It was such a little thing, we both realized how silly we were and then went back to our work.

I love going over to their house, it is a chance to learn. I hope I continue to learn to be a faithful and serving wife, even in the hard times. I hope that when I get to the point when I am old and dying, that I will still approach life with a grateful heart, always praising and learning about my Lord.