Our family has some very exciting news! Read more right over here.
Summer Bucket List
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BJ’s Wholesale Club
For those of you with a BJ’s Wholesale Club nearby, did you know you can use manufacturer’s coupons there (including printable coupons)? You can also stack these with BJ’s store coupons found here.
But it gets even better: BJ’s allows multiple coupons to be redeemed on multi-packs of “individual-for-sale” packaged items (i.e. if you buy a pack of toothpaste that includes three individual toothpaste tubes, you can use three coupons on the one item, most store only accept one coupon on an item like this.)
If you are not already a member of BJ’s, it might be worth a trip to price compare and see if you could save money by becoming a member. You can go here to download a free one-day pass (you will be charged an extra 15% if you purchase anything, though, so it’s not exactly “free”).
Have you shopped at BJ’s Wholesale Club? If so, I’d love to hear whether you think purchasing a membership is worth the investment.
Financial Shape in 2008: Monthly check-up
In case anyone was paying attention, I completely skipped this feature last month. Vacations, sickness, and other things got in the way and I just decided to take the month off from an official update. But never fear, Financial Shape in 2008 didn’t go away permanently and with the dawn of September, here’s a quick look back on how we’re doing on our goals for 2008:
Here’s our update:
Short Term Financial Goals for 2008
1) Have our fully-funded emergency fund in place (6 months’ worth of living expenses) by the end of April. As of March 11, 2008–DONE!
2) Switch health insurance plans and open an HSA. We
were approved for our new health insurance plans in April and have also
set up our HSA. Done!
3) Start up an IRA and invest at least 5-10% of Jesse’s income in this. Started in March. (We plan to increase this to 12-15% of Jesse’s income as soon as we purchase our home.)
4) Open up a mutual fund for each of our children and invest $50 per child per month in it. Started in March.
5) Save up and invest $30,000 this year towards paying cash (100% down) for a house in 3-5 years. Now
that Goals 1-4 are finished, we’re working super hard on Goal #5!
The past two months have been much more encouraging for us–which was a real blessing after a few months of car problems, unexpected expenses, and medical bills. Not only were we able to purchase a new-to-us van (thanks to the payout from our insurance after the wreck combined with some extra income-earning things we did), but we were also able to build our six-month emergency fund back up, and put a couple thousand dollars in our house savings.
We look back and aren’t exactly sure how all of that happened, but we are humbly grateful to God for His blessing and provision! He never fails us!
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How did you do in July and August? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2008, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and failures in July and August and the areas
you hope to improve in September. Then, come back here and leave your link
below. If you don’t have a blog or would rather share anonymously, feel
free to leave your update in a comment. Let’s all keep each other
accountable to be better stewards of
our resources!
Shared Aug 29, 2008
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Super Savings Saturday: This week’s $40 shopping trip and menu
Super Savings Saturday: This week’s $40 shopping trip and menu
Back by popular demand and because I actually went shopping this week, here’s what $40 total bought at CVS, Aldi, and Hen House:
Our CVS deal is worth mentioning since it would work well for a newbie:
Bought 2 Children’s Advils at $5.79 each, used 2 $1/1 coupons
Bought 2 boxes SmartStart priced at $4.59, on sale B1G1, used 2 $1/1 coupons
Paid with $12 in ECBs and $0.59, Got $11.98 ECBs back!(Read more about these deals and where to find the coupons here.)
Another deal I was excited about from Hen House: we got Kathrynne’s ultimate favorite yogurt Yoplait yogurt drinks for $0.48 per pack of six. (They were on sale for $1.98 and we used the $1.50 coupon here.)
Our combined three-store trip wasn’t anything incredible, but we got enough groceries to last us for the week, along with a few extra treats, and we spent right at $39!
Here’s the menu for this week:
BREAKFASTS
Cereal, fruit
Yogurt, fruit, homemade bread
Banana bread, fruit, yogurt smoothies
Fresh juice, English muffins, scrambled eggs
Homemade cinnamon rolls, fruit, yogurt
Breakfast burritos, fruit
Cereal, fruit
LUNCHES
PB&J, fruit, carrots
Cheese quesadillas, veggies
Baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese
Leftovers x 2
Split peas, brown rice, cottage cheese
Yogurt, banana bread, veggies
DINNERS
Lasagna casserole, homemade bread, salad, green beans
Beef hot dogs, potato salad, veggies, fruit, icecream bars
Italian meatballs over rice, homemade breadsticks, salad, steamed veggies
Beef sausage and onions, scalloped potatoes, grapefruit, homemade bread
Burritos, salad, fruit, corn
Grilled chicken, salad, homemade bread, fruit
Leftovers or dinner out
SNACKS–Veggies, banana bread, yogurt, fruit, cereal, cheese quesadillas, toast, cheese
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How’d you do this week? Post about the deals and
bargains you were able to snag this week or other ways you saved money
on your blog (with pictures, if possible!) and then come back here and
leave your link below. **To make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post. Links
going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog
besides the direct link to your Super Savings Saturday post will be deleted.**
Shared Aug 29, 2008
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Frugal Friday: Fresh juice, winners, politics, and a short break
Frugal Friday: Fresh juice, winners, politics, and a short break
It’s Frugal Friday right over here. You won’t want to miss
my post on making fresh juice on a budget and the over a hundred other great contributions by penny-pinching zealots around the blogosphere!
Oh and I said I was going to announce some winners last night, didn’t I? Well, I’ve sort of been wrapped up in politics the last 24 hours (My hubby and I are self-described "political junkies" and this election go-around has certainly kept us on the edge of our seats!) so it slipped my mind to do the drawing. Sorry about that!
Without further ado, the five winners of Celebrate Simply are: Blaire (blaireruch@); Bethany (bethany.schenk@); Alison (alisongentry@); Holly (hrosener@); and czukowski (czukowski@). I’ve sent an email to each of you with further information. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Since this is Labor Day weekend and my husband is off from work for the long weekend, I’ll post the usual Super Savings Saturday and Saturday evening deal posts but will likely not be around much besides that so we can enjoy lots of quality family time. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
(Just had to share this picture of the girls taken last Saturday while we were out having a family day! Kaitlynn–in the stroller–just wasn’t quite so sure about the whole hat-wearing thing. It was hot and we were outside most of the day at an airshow and we had quite the time trying to keep it on her!)
Inbox Dollars: Make money reading emails
For those of you looking for something simple you can do to earn a little money on the side, you’ll want to check out InboxDollars. Back when
Jesse was in law school and we were barely making ends meet, getting
paid to read emails from InboxDollars was one thing I did to help add a little stream of
income.
Like CashCrate, you won’t get rich from InboxDollars, but if you are willing to take five minutes every day to read emails from various companies, you can earn a small bit each day. Just set up a separate free email inbox and then sign up with InboxDollars. Every day or every other day, take five or ten minutes to look through the emails and slowly start seeing your earnings add up!
Speaking of income-earning ideas, my best advice for you moms looking for something you can do from home would be to set aside an hour every day (I recommend naptime or late at night/early in the morning, if you have young children.) to focus on learning, researching, and trying out different money-making things.
Pick one or two things to start out with that only require an investment of time, not money–things like CashCrate, InboxDollars, Cash4Books, eBay, or blogging. Research online, observe what’s working for others, talk to others moms, and try things out to see how they work for you.
Don’t expect that you’ll start seeing money pour in right away, but if you see a little trickle, be encouraged and keep at it. Once you’ve gotten a couple things figured out, feel comfortable with those, and are seeing a little bit of income coming in from them, try adding in a few new things.
Over time, you’ll find two or three or five small things that work well for you and you can drop what’s not working for you and stick with what is. However, my biggest piece of advice is to work towards having multiple streams of income. If you do five small things everyday that take you around 12 minutes each and earn you $5 each, that’s about an hour of your time and $25 dollars per day! In many cases, diversifying your income-earning possibilities can dramatically increase the return on your investment of time.
That said, don’t try to do everything at once unless you want to create a recipe for disaster! Start slowly and be careful not to bite off more than you can chew! And don’t give up if something doesn’t work for you; not everything will. But keep trying, keep learning, keep at it, and you will eventually start seeing results.
24-Hour Giveaway: 5 copies of Celebrate Simply
My friend and author, Nancy Twigg, who writes on simplifying our lives, frugality, and focusing on what’s most important in her newsletter, has generously offered to give away five copies of her book, Celebrate Simply, to my readers here.
Have you ever dreamed of family celebrations that leave you exhilarated
rather than exhausted? Overjoyed instead of overwhelmed? Well, then
you’ll want to get a copy of Nancy’s book!
Celebrate Simply is your guide to simpler, more meaningful holidays. It’s a small book that is jam-packed with encouragement and practical help to allow you to take the stress and expense out of special occasions.
Dave Ramsey says, "…Not only will Celebrate Simply teach you how to save money, it will also show you how to enrich and add meaning to your celebrations as well."
To enter to win one of the five copies I’m giving away, just leave a comment on this post in the next 24 hours. Include your name and a valid email address in the spaces provided. I’ll randomly choose and post five winners Thursday evening.
Work-from-home idea: LiveOps
Lauri emailed me about a work-from-home idea she’s done before which I thought some of you might be interested in. She wrote:
I’m a single mom, working full-time, but I did this job
before I had my baby and now when I can get a sitter for a couple of hours
during the week.I work for a company that operates a virtual call
center. There are several popular companies to contract with, the one I
have the most experience with is LiveOps.
I take inbound direct response calls (there are some outbound lines, but no one starts there). Basically, it’s people calling to order
something they saw on TV or in a magazine. Here are some of the details:Requirements:
- A dedicated landline (no voicemail, caller ID, etc. on the line, bare
bones)–I write off the $30 a month for a landline I use as a business expense on my income taxes since I don’t use this line for anything else.- A phone with a headset, no wireless–mine is a Plantronics
all-in-one phone and headset that cost about $75 (there are cheaper ones
out there). This also was another business expense that was a tax write-off.- A computer with broadband (certain system requirements, but not too stringent)
- $30 for a background check once hired.
The work:You are an independent contractor making at least $0.25 per talk
minute (there are bonuses available at times as well). Shifts are available
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are no guarantees of talk time per 30 minute
shift but calls usually at least trickle in and increase over time as
you build stats with different products after successful calls.To stay
active you must take at least one call per 42 days. So it’s something
you can schedule yourself as much or as little as you like. Lots of
stay-at-home mom’s do the job from what I see on their inter-company
forums. And work will be picking up with the busy holiday season
coming.Honestly, I find it pretty easy–you just follow the scripts
that pop for whatever product the person is calling you for. Follow the
script, be friendly, rinse, repeat. And I love the extra money.There are a few other companies out there besides LiveOps that do this as well. I
worked for ACD Direct, who take calls for NPR and PBS pledge drives. It
was great work, but I couldn’t meet their minimum requirements after
having my son.
I’d love to hear from the rest of you if you have experience working with LiveOps or a similar opportunity. Tell us how it worked or works for you and what advice or helpful tips you’d have for other moms who are interested in getting started with something like this.
**Note: If you work from home and would be interested in sharing your story to be an inspiration to other women, please email me with a brief paragraph or two telling me about yourself and how you are earning an income from home.**
My Swiffer came!
I was so excited to get the mail yesterday and find a box containing a brand-new Swiffer Sweeper Starter Kit in it! I can’t wait to try these out on our floors–it might be just the motivation I’m needing right now to do some cleaning!
A big thanks to CouponMom for giving away 500 Swiffer Sweeper Starter Kits and for letting me know as soon as she posted about it so I could sign up for one before they were all gone.
Did anyone else get one, too? I hope I’m not the only one!
By the way, if you regularly use Swiffer products, there are a bunch of printable coupons here. (Thanks, Samantha!)
Shared Aug 22, 2008
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Super Savings Saturday (and winners of the Bertolli giveaway!)
Super Savings Saturday (and winners of the Bertolli giveaway!)
The five winners of the Bertolli Premium Pasta Sauces are: Sue (marklovessue@), Shaunta (taychambers@), Michele (mflaherty@), Ram (ram1118@), Hil’Lesha (LilacButterfly@) Winners have been notified via email. Thanks to everyone who participated!
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And now for Super Savings Saturday… I have nothing to report this week since I stayed home all week. My husband was kind enough to make a quick trip to Aldi for us and that was it. I’ve not so much as even touched my coupon box and am just trying to get our home back into our and some semblance of a routine back into place.
However, next week, I hope to hit some deals hot and heavy seeing as we’re running low on a few things. I also hope to bring the $40 weekly menu feature back to life, too. So stay tuned!
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How’d you do this week? Post about the deals and bargains you were able to snag this week or other ways you saved money on your blog (with pictures, if possible!) and then come back here and leave your link below. **To make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post. Links
going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog
besides the direct link to your Super Savings Saturday post will be deleted.**
OVER-SPENDING EVERY SINGLE MONTH?Grab these FREE Budgeting Sheets!
Click here to download!
Guest Post: Living long-term on lower income
Guest Post from Lyn
My husband and I since we have been married (4+ years) have been living on a lower-than-average income. He works with teens in a group home. It is a very challenging job but he enjoys it very much. I am at home and live with chronic illness. We live only on my husband’s income.
My job is being "keeper of my home" and a helper to my husband. With the limited energy I have, I cook, care for my home and try to be as frugal as possible to the best of my ability. There are days I am successful and days that I am not. The amazing thing has been that I have been able to remain home on one lower-income salary. God continues to look out for us.
Several years back we wanted to simply get out of debt. At first, we started to chip away at medical bills–bills we had due to a terrible health insurance plan at the time. We progressed onto consumer debt and have fully paid one debt off and are hoping to pay off the rest in the very near future.
Last year we had to come up with money for a roof repair of $2,000, numerous car repairs, and have recently had to have a new toilet installed. The encouraging part though has been that we have paid off well over $10,000 the last 2 years in medical bills, debt, home repairs and car repairs, all while living on a very modest income.
We were still able to achieve this when last fall due to a downsizing of my husband’s work hours we lost $800-$900/month in pay. It was difficult but it also showed us how to scale back to our basic needs and to be thankful for all that we do have.
Our salary this year will be around $21-22K net. It is only from the Lord, really that we are able to do all of this. My husband has never made more than a mid-30K net income (this was one year with much overtime, often working 70-80 hours per week). Otherwise it’s always been in the $20K range or less.
We live in New England, where the winters are very cold and the cost of living is high. We own a small modular home and are responsible for all repairs, upkeep, taxes, and insurance.
Some practicals on how we achieve this:
::Putting all extra cash (holiday pay, income tax refunds, government rebate, extra from 3-pay check months twice per year) towards debt (*Tip, once you are out of debt, do the same to build savings.)
::Not going out just to spend (extra money is always put towards debt, bills or future expenses).
::Padding some of our bills ahead as we can (planning ahead really helps)
::Not going on vacations (for now). Our last vacation was our honeymoon.
::Giving up cable and reducing all categories of income (We cut everything when husband’s hours were reduced.)
::Utilizing coupons–I tend to use those that are for healthy foods and will use coupons for free or close-to-free items (thanks to moneysavingmom!). This really helps our budget. (One of the only non-necessity items we have kept is our internet because I feel it saves me so much more than what I pay for it.)
::Stay home most days/live with one car
::Eat out minimally and when we do it’s done inexpensively
::Make a game out of being frugal. This helps you to be creative with what you have, instead of focusing on what you don’t.
::Shop at home with what you already have and look for solutions to your needs instead of buying more.
::We each have a small stipend each pay day and can do with that amount what we please (the rest is budgeted). It really helps our mindset to have something to be able to spend if desired.
::Choosing to live in smaller and less expensive housing (reduced utilities, less to clean and maintain)
The best thing anyone can do if they live on a smaller income is to get out of debt. Do whatever you can to accomplish this as it will help you to better manage your money in this challenging economy.
Once we are out of debt we will have a little wiggle room. However, we will still need to be able to manage on a smaller income, and we shall.
There are times I am discouraged by this, but for the most part I am grateful to be where we are at and to have what we do. I find my efforts and abilities are best utilized in helping to maximize the income we do have. In this season of my life it is easier to try and spend less than to be concerned about earning more.
To be honest, it can be challenging to put more money into savings on a lower income. I continue to be positive and look for ways to cut back and spend less. The more creative and proactive I become, the less time I have to worry, feel defeated or feel sorry for myself. We are blessed and there are so many in this world that have much less than we do.
Lyn is a full-time homemaker who resides in lovely rustic New England. She enjoys frugal and simple living and strives for a balance of both while living with long-term chronic illness. Although living on a smaller income, she feels blessed with all the Lord provides, as many have so much less. She can be contacted at spendingsimply (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Frugal Friday: It’s been a quiet week and I’ve loved it!
(My mom just gave me this quilt. It was made by my great grandma using pieces from the dresses my grandma wore when she was a little girl!)
It’s Frugal Friday on my other blog today. You won’t want to miss all the great tips and hints shared there. And I’d love to have you weigh in on my question on getting rid of set-in stains.
It’s been a really good week here, despite some bumps in the road. After weeks of going-going-going, I’ve stayed home every single day this week. And I’ve loved it.
I’ve been cooking and cleaning and just enjoying my family. It’s been wonderful and I’m hoping the trend can continue now that our vacations and travels and other things are behind us.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy short seasons of excitement and adventure, but I always love coming back to our quiet, peaceful home and routine. I’m itching to take back up my handwork, do more experimenting in the kitchen, spend more time playing and reading with the girls, and keep the house more organized.
What about you? Do you like staying home, or going and doing, or a little of both?
Our gift card came–yay!
In case you thought I had my act together…
…the truth is, I don’t. Not in the least. Here’s serious proof.
Ask the readers: Inexpensive anti-virus software?
Linnea wrote:
I was wondering if your readers have any recommendations on anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall software. I’m looking for something that works, but is inexpensive as well.
Since I’m not that knowledgeable about this I’m very interested in hearing what other people use and like. My current subscription is up in early September so I’d like to do some research before then.
Hope you can help!
Anyone have tips, suggestions, ideas, or input? Fire away and tell us all about your experiences and recommendations!