Need some motivation to get rid of excess stuff? QueenBee Coupons shows how their family made an extra $1,000 in March — just by selling extra stuff they had on hand!
{ 10 comments }
Living Simply
Guest post from Nancy of Blessed Earth
A few years ago, I gave a talk on simple living, and a man in the back of the room asked, “Are you Amish or something?”
Although I arrived in a Prius, not a pony, I do believe that the Amish hold many answers to both our budgetary and planetary woes. Frugality and conservation overlap about 90 percent of the time. When we conserve resources, we also save money.
About a decade ago, motivated by a desire for a more sustainable lifestyle, my family and I moved from our doctor’s sized house to a home the size of our old garage—eventually reducing our electricity to one-tenth the national average and our fossil fuel usage by two-thirds.
We did not make all these changes at once: for most of us, going green while saving green is a gradual journey. Try doing ten percent better each year — or changing one habit each month and watch the savings add up.
20 Simple Ways to Simplify Your Life and Save Over $5,000 Per Year
1. Make your own nontoxic cleaning products. Have fun! Host a laundry detergent-making party.
Possible Savings = $100
2. Dry clothes on the line. If my teenage daughter can dry her clothes in a dorm room, you can do it, too! Do laundry in cold water. Wash clothes by hand instead of dry cleaning.
Possible Savings = $210
3. Buy second hand clothes. Nearly all the clothes I wear are hand-me-downs or from consignment shops/GoodWill. Remember to dress in layers—climate control your body, not your entire home.
Possible Savings = $250-$1000
4. Borrow and buy used. Look for toys and sports equipment from yard sales and Craigslist. Visit library book sales, share toys and sports equipment with neighbors, and post items on www.freecycle.org
Possible Savings = $150
5. Reduce your refrigerator/freezer usage. Stop refrigerator gazing; turn refrigerator to warmest setting; unplug ice maker. Save more: Unplug your second refrigerator. Keep a list on the refrigerator of things you need so you can combine trips.
Possible Savings = $160
6. Stop buying drinks. Drink filtered tap water instead of bottled water. Make your own coffee at home instead of buying carryout coffee.
Possible Savings = $310
7. Don’t buy disposables. Stop buying disposable plates, cups, and utensils.
One small church did the research and figured out they could feed four families for a year if they used real plates instead of paper. The men in the church volunteered to wash all the dishes for the first year! Save more: Invest in cloth napkins and re-usable lunch containers.
Possible Savings = $50
8. Cook from scratch. Cook meals at home instead of eating in restaurants. Start a garden, purchase food in season, and avoid convenience foods.
Possible Savings = $1050
9. Install low-flow shower-heads and reduce shower time by two minutes.
Possible Savings = $130
10. Don’t run water while shaving or brushing teeth and stop buying disposable razors.
Possible Savings = $70
11. Buy tree-free toilet paper in bulk from an office supply store.
Possible Savings = $30
12. Adjust your thermostat. Turn up your thermostat three degrees in summer and down three degrees in winter. Use programmable thermostat to adjust temperature an additional 10-15 degrees at night and when not at home.
Possible Savings = $200
13. Switch your light bulbs. Switch to CFL bulbs — 75 percent more efficient — like getting 100 mpg instead of 25 mpg! Bonus: When summer comes, the A/C won’t be fighting the heat. (Ninety percent of energy of incandescent bulbs goes toward heat rather than light.)
Possible Savings = $210
14. Reduce electronic usage. Use power strips for TV, computers, and audio. Always completely shut down lights and equipment when leaving the room.
Possible Savings = $140
15. Insert a fireplace balloon or close damper when not in use.
Possible Savings = $200
16. Share or eliminate subscriptions. Share newspaper or magazine subscriptions with a neighbor. Save even more: read news on-line and get magazines from the library.
Possible Savings = $260
17. Recycle used printer cartridges, electronics, and cell phones. Buy refilled ink cartridges, and save more.
Possible Savings = $25+
18. Insulate hot water pipes and water heater.
Possible Savings = $120
19. Caulk around windows and doors. If you can’t afford to replace windows, make heavy, lined curtains; close at night in winter and open windows on cool summer evening.
Possible Savings = $100
20. Go on a spending fast. Register with www.dmachoice.org to remove your name from mailing lists and go on a spending fast one week or month.
Possible Savings = $600
Total Possible Savings = $5370
Nancy Sleeth is co-founder of the nonprofit, Blessed Earth, and author of Almost Amish: one woman’s quest for a slower, simpler, more sustainable life (Tyndale, April 2012)
{ 127 comments }
Earlier this month, I posed the question, Is Your Family On Board?. Your answers were kind of a “mixed bag” but many of you responded that it was difficult to get your family members to meet your organizing expectations.
So today, I’m excited to read Andrea’s tips to get our families “on board” when it comes to keeping our homes organized.
In my own family and in my experience helping many families to get {and stay} more organized, there is usually one person in the family who is more organized than everyone else.
If that one person is you, I know how frustrating it can be to get your family on board with your cleaning and organizing standards. But it’s not impossible! Yes, it might take a decent amount of effort on your part, but the results will be worth it once you are no longer doing all the work around the house.
Here are a few things to think about as you encourage your family to “get on board”.
1. Do it yourself.
This might go without saying, but if you expect your family to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher, hang their clothes in the closet, put their papers away, and clean up after themselves; you will first have to do these things yourself.
Your kids aren’t going to eat vegetables if you refuse to eat them; so why would you expect them to be neat and organized if you are a complete slob?
Before you even venture down through the rest of these steps, make sure you are willing to do everything you’re asking your family members to do… otherwise I can guarantee it won’t work!
2. Ask them to do it.
I learned very early on that unless I ask for something to get done, it probably won’t. Even if the clothes are folded and sitting at the end of the bed, your kids might not realize that the clothes should be put away — unless you ask them to do it.
If your family members aren’t naturally clean and organized, their brains don’t constantly think “what can I do next” — so we need to ask them {and make sure to ask nicely!}
3. Show them how to do it.
If your family members have never had to fold their clothes, clean the bathroom, or load the dishwasher, there’s a pretty good chance they won’t intuitively know how to do it. So after you ask them to do it, show them how to do it — especially if you have a specific way of doing it.
If you like the socks folded a certain way — show them. If you want the dishwasher loaded in a specific way — show them. If you want them to unload their backpacks into a specified location — show them.
And yes, you might have to show them more than once, but just keep at it! Over time, and with persistence on your part, these things will become second nature.
4. Let them do it.
One of the main reasons to get your family on board is to alleviate some of your responsibilities and the need to do everything around your house, right? So once you’ve asked them to do something and showed them how to do it, then back off and let them do it!
I realize that your children might not fold the laundry as nicely as you would or clean the bathroom as thoroughly as you would, but at least they’re doing it. Once you know they are capable of doing what you ask, don’t hoover around, watching to make sure they do it perfectly.
If they do mess up a little, it’s okay to correct them after the fact, or “remind” them of how they should be doing it; however, they won’t learn unless you actually let them do it on their own.
5. Make it fun to do it.
No, I don’t think every chore has to be fun — but I do think that by making some of these organizing chores a little more fun, your family will be much more likely to participate.
If you want your children to put their dirty laundry in the clothes basket instead of on the floor, try putting the clothes basket under a basketball hoop so they can “shoot” their clothes into the hamper! Or encourage family members to keep the bathroom neat and organized by letting each person pick out a brightly colored bin to store their items in.
I’m also not above giving rewards for a job well done. Encourage your children to get rid of 25 toys by allowing them to pick one new toy or let them have a special treat or do something fun once they’ve accomplished their chores.
6. Thank them for doing it.
I know we don’t always get thanked or praised every time we clean and organize something around our house, but I’ve witnessed first hand that a simple “thank-you” goes a long way when you’re trying to get your family on board.
By implementing these simple tips, there’s a good chance that {over time} your family members will “get on board” with your organizing efforts and thus, alleviate some of your responsibilities. Yes, I realize some of you might be thinking these steps could never work — but would it hurt to at least give them a try?
At the very least, you’ll give your family a taste of what you do every day, and hopefully teach them a few new skills in the process!
How do you get your family on board?
 |
Andrea Dekker is a wife, mom, blogger, organizer, speaker, and founder of Simple Organized Living. Her goal is to motivate and encourage others to “create their best life” through simplicity and organization. |
{ 11 comments }
Inspired by the recent post on DaveRamsey.com on 7 Things You Should Splurge On, I thought it’d be fun to come up with my own list that’s the opposite–namely, 7 things we don’t buy.
These are not items that we get free with coupons; these are items we just don’t buy altogether. It might not save us thousands of dollars each year to not buy these, but it definitely saves us a few hundred dollars–painlessly!
Just for fun, here’s my list of 7 things we don’t buy:
Shaving Cream
For years, I’ve only “purchased” shaving cream for myself if it was free or almost-free. I’ve found that a good lathering of soap does just as good of a job–and it’s less expensive, too.
Since making my own homemade soap, my husband has stopped using shaving cream, too. He says that my soap works great, instead!
Paper Towels
We do keep a few rolls of paper towels on hand in the basement pantry for guests, but otherwise, we don’t use paper towels. Rags work just as well–or better!–and you can just stick them in the washer when you’re finished. Or, if it was a really icky mess, you can always just toss the rag when you’re done.
Soda Pop
We’ve saved a lot of money over the years by not paying for the empty calories and sugar in soda pop. My husband still enjoys a Vanilla Coke from Sonic every now and then, but we don’t keep soda pop on hand at our house (except for the occasional 7Up or Ginger Ale we’ll buy when in the middle of sickness).
Movies
In all our years of marriage, I cannot recall a time that we’ve ever paid to purchase a movie to add to our small DVD collection. We’ve rented a lot from RedBox and Blockbuster kiosks (usually with free rental codes!) and we checked out dozens upon dozens of movies from the library, but we don’t buy movies.
In the same vein, going to a movie at a theater is usually a once a year event for our family–typically when a really high-quality movie comes out that we want to support at the box office. Considering that reduced priced movie tickets typically cost at least $6 each, we’d be spending at least $360 per year on movie tickets for our family if we went and saw a movie once a month.
Dryer Sheets/Fabric Softener
Growing up, we never used dryer sheets or fabric softener, so I’ve carried this tradition on in our home, too. Sure, we have a bit more static sometimes, but truthfully, it’s something we hardly ever notice.
Coffee Filters/K-Cups
I’m a one-big-cup-a-day girl when it comes to coffee, but we don’t purchase coffee filters or K-Cups. Instead, we use a French Press. It makes fantastic coffee, we can make the exact amount we need, and we don’t have to buy anything other than coffee to refill it!
Cable TV
We’ve never had cable TV and we’ve saved thousands of dollars over the years, as a result. There’s occasionally a time when my husband has wished he could watch a sports event or a time when we’ve wished we could watch political coverage, but overall, we’ve survived just fine without cable TV.
Now, please know that I’m not saying it’s wrong to buy any of these things. Your family might need (or want!) to purchase some of these things for one reason or another. That’s absolutely okay! Do what works for your family.
However, I thought it’d be fun to share my list to hopefully inspire you to consider if there are simple things you’re currently paying for that you could easily eliminate from your budget. Plus, I thought it’d be fun to hear what items your family doesn’t buy so that our family could be inspired to consider some other ways of simplifying in our home, too!
What 7 (or more!) items does your family not buy? I’d love to hear and be inspired!
{ 468 comments }
A swollen face, an allergic reaction, and how meeting Laney has changed my perspective
Add to my favorites
I woke up yesterday morning and immediately knew something was very wrong. My face felt hot and swollen and I was having trouble opening my eyes.
I ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror and check out what on earth was going on only to be startled by my appearance. My eyes and half of my face were very swollen.
A wash cloth with ice cold water did little to alleviate the swelling and we ended up heading into the doctor. After examination, they determined I’d had a severe allergic reaction to something. We’re not sure what, but the allergy medication has slowly been reducing the swelling and relieving the pain–gratefully.
It was inconvenient, it looked bad, it was a little disconcerting, and it was definitely painful. And yes, I’ll admit that I worried about seeing someone I knew when I was at the doctor’s and I also worried about what my swollen face might look like when I head to Texas on Friday!
But truthfully, it was hard for me to stay stressed out about my swollen face. Instead, I kept thinking of Laney–one of the moms in our CSP that I met in the DR last week.
She’s a mother of three and lives in the home pictured above. Her home does have an outdoor toilet, refrigerator, and stove, but it provides little protection from the elements–and it’s only a little ways from the dump.
{One of Laney’s adorable daughters}
Her home was hot and fly-infested, but Laney didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she talked about how thankful she was to have a part-time job and three children.
Her face beamed as she told us how thankful she also was to have a leg. I was having trouble understanding through the interpreter until she pulled up her pant leg to reveal that a large section of her ankle and calf was missing. She had been in a motorcycle accident and had almost lost her leg.
I also noticed her face had a large scar on it. I assumed this was from the motorcycle accident, as well. But she told her us it was from her husband–he had been really abusive and had bit her one night. He left two months ago and she hasn’t seen him since.
As I stood in front of the mirror yesterday morning looking at my swollen eyes, I looked at them with new perspective. Instead of being stressed about what was going on, I realized what blessings I have: money to visit a doctor, a husband who cares for me, health, clean water, access to medicine… the list is endless.
A swollen face is a small problem to deal with in light of the burdens and difficulties so many are struggling with right now.
{ 75 comments }
I’m over at RooMag today sharing about how I’ve recently been rediscovering the lost art of writing handwritten notes. Here’s a snippet:
Back when I was much younger, I was a voracious letter writer. I had upwards of 50 penpals from around the world and spent hours of my life penning letters. Looking back, it seems a little excessive–and it probably was!–but these days, sometimes weeks will go by without me writing even so much as one handwritten note.
And I’m guessing I’m not alone. In this culture of texting, Facebook, and email, writing a handwritten note is almost a lost art. Sure, texting or emailing might be faster and more efficient, but there’s just something special and meaningful in receiving a handwritten note in the mail every once in awhile.
With this in mind, I set a goal to write two handwritten notes each month in 2012. To be honest, when I set that goal I wondered if I’d be able to keep it. Afterall, I’ve gotten really lax in writing notes in recent years. To my surprise, I’ve found that it’s not been difficult at all. In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ve been writing more than two notes each month.
Read the full post at RooMag.com.
{ 29 comments }
Q&A Tuesday: How can you effectively use coupons without it taking over your life?
Add to my favorites
I am wondering if you have any tips for how to be an effective couponer without it taking over your life! I am about to have my fourth baby and for most of this pregnancy I have totally fallen off the coupon bandwagon because I just can’t seem to keep up the schedule of clipping, organizing, coupon train, printing coupons, planning weekly shopping trips, and so on.
I can’t seem to find the balance between “all” and “nothing”! I’m not opposed, in my mind, to a happy medium, but I can’t seem to figure out how to do that, practically speaking. -Kiersten
Thanks for asking such an excellent questions, Kiersten! Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Give Yourself Grace
There are seasons of life when I can focus more seriously on couponing. There are other seasons when using coupons takes a back burner.
It sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now, so I just want to encourage you not to stress too much over always getting the lowest price on everything. Do the best you can do with the time and energy you have and don’t worry about the deals you’re missing out on. Your health and sanity is worth more than saving a few dollars.
2. Focus on Stocking Up on the Best Deals
If you don’t have a lot of time, focus your dollars on stocking up on the best deals that can be frozen or have a long shelf life. Instead of worrying about getting those 35 different decent deals, pick 2-4 really exceptional deals and buy extras of those. While you might still end up paying full price for things sometimes, by getting 60-75% of your groceries at exceptional deals, you’ll still come out way ahead.
3. Stick With Simple Meals With Inexpensive Ingredients
If the majority of the meals you make are really inexpensive, you’ll save a lot of money–without even using coupons! Make a list of some of your family’s favorite inexpensive meals and use this list as a go-to when you are short on time and energy and just don’t feel like messing with coupons.
4. Consider Price-Matching at Walmart
If you’re finding it exhausting to shop at more than one store, consider price-matching the best deals from your local store at Walmart. This way, you’re still getting great deals, but it’s less time-consuming.
How I Plan Our Weekly Menu and Shopping Trips in Less Than 30 Minutes
1. Print great coupons as they become available throughout the week. I don’t print all the coupons that I post, only those that I know will be a good deal at the stores I regularly frequent.
2. When I’m ready to plan my menu (usually on Saturday or Sunday), I quickly review the printed coupons and divvy them up by store.
3. Then, I glance through my local store’s sale fliers, what coupons I’ve already printed, what I already have on hand, and inspiration from Pinterest and jot down a basic menu plan for the week.
4. While I’m planning the weekly menu, I also make a grocery list at the same time.
5. After I’ve planned the menu and grocery list, I double-check my store’s coupon match-ups to see if there are any deals I’ve missed or coupons I’ve forgotten to print.
6. Then I take the jotted down list of groceries I need to buy, look at my schedule and tentatively plan when and where I’ll do my grocery shopping that week. I don’t always follow this perfectly, but having a rough plan in place that I’ll swing by Walgreens when I’m my way to something else, or that I’ll block out an hour to hit three stores on Tuesday helps me to stay organized and on track during the week.
What advice do the rest of you have for Kiersten?
{ 76 comments }
Supermarket Savings Tip #10: Make it from scratch, provided it’s worth the time & effort
Add to my favorites
You can save so much money off your grocery bill by cooking from scratch. However, if you’re cooking from scratch solely for the purpose of saving money (not for the health benefits or because you enjoy it), make sure it’s worth the return on your investment of time.
Consider How Much You’re Saving Per Hour to Cook From Scratch
If you spend hours in the kitchen and it’s only saving you a $1 or so per hour to make things from scratch, it’s likely not worth your time. That’s why I don’t make homemade tortillas.
I have a personal policy that I must be saving at least $20 per hour to invest my time in any money-saving tactic. This helps me to focus my energy and effort on those things that are really going to make a difference in our budget, instead of exerting half a day on something that really doesn’t change our bottom line.
{Freezer-Friendly Breakfast Burritos}
Don’t Knock Something Until You’ve Tried It
It’s easy to think that cooking from scratch has to be a huge time investment, but that’s often not the case. In fact, in 10 minutes, you can easily throw a big batch of beans in the crockpot to cook and a loaf of bread in the bread machine.
You’ll never know how much time something will take you or how much you’ll enjoy making it until you’ve actually experimented with it. So go ahead, try making homemade refried beans, homemade go-gurts, freezer-friendly breakfast burritos, homemade baking mix, or homemade pizza.
Become Adept at Multi-Tasking
Constantly be looking for ways to make the best use of your time in the kitchen. If you love frozen waffles and you’re already going to be working on another project in the kitchen, go ahead and whip up a triple batch of homemade frozen waffles to be cooking while you’re working on your other project(s). When your other projects are done, you’ll also have a few bags of waffles to pop in the freezer for quick and easy breakfasts in the next few weeks.
What are your favorite time-saving tips and tricks for cooking from scratch?
Find more Supermarket Savings Tips here.
{ 46 comments }
On Thursday on our trip to the Dominican Republic, we visited an urban slum in downtown Santo Domingo. What we saw and experienced was shocking–and yet heart-warming.
{I wish I could have taken my camera to capture the scenes for you, but we’d decided to leave it behind as it was a somewhat dangerous situation for Americans to go into these slums. We found out later that one of the men who showed up while we were visiting was actually one of the city’s most dangerous criminals–a man who has an alliance with the police and therefore never gets punished for any of his deeds because he just pays them money to overlook his criminal actions. Our guide was incredibly grateful that I hadn’t brought the camera as he felt there was a good chance it would have put us in a great deal of danger!}
To even reach where the people lived, you had to go through this very small and long concrete corridor in between two stores. At the back, we ducked under laundry hanging out and entered a concrete broken down dwelling that looked like it hadn’t seen anything clean in decades. It reeked of years’ worth of dirty laundry piles mixed with sweat.
Inside this smelly, dirty, concrete dwelling was a beautiful woman. To most people, she wouldn’t appear all that beautiful from the outside. Her teeth were mostly missing and what was left of them were rotted and brown. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in a very long time. Her clothes were dirty, extremely worn out, and stained.
But she was a beautiful woman regardless of her outward appearances because she radiated with contentment. Her living conditions were appalling. She was in charge of caring for some of her grandchildren because her daughter has been sick for years. Her son is a high profile criminal. And she is unable to find work and relies on the kindness of others for support.
Despite all her struggles, she was so joyful. Instead of giving in to hopelessness and despair, she was telling us how she’s trying to reach out and help others.
And then, she asked if she could pray for us. I was moved to tears.
Here was this woman who has practically nothing and she’s asking to pray for us!
I wish you could have heard her prayer. It was powerful and filled with praise to the Lord, thanking Him for bringing us to visit her and asking that God would bless us.
After we gave her a box of staple supplies and prayed for her, I hugged her and thanked her profusely for letting us come. While we came to reach out to her, we left the ones who were ministered to.
If she can be joyful, content, and giving in such an awful situation in life, I have no excuse to ever complain again.
{This picture is of one of the other families we visited on our trip. All six of them live in this house and it wasn’t much bigger than what you see here. I was so impressed with the girl on the left. She had so much drive and potential: she’s working at the supermarket and going to the university to study accounting and hoping to get a job in the accounting field once she graduates.}
{ 40 comments }
