Monica over at The Homespun Heart has an excellent post up today on setting your table beautifully on a budget as well as cultivating a thankful heart. I guarantee you will be inspired by her post. Go read it here.
Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom: Learning Through Failure (Part 3)
Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom: Learning Through Failure (Part 3)
Last time in our Becoming a Work-at-Home Mom series I shared how I had to stop working as a mother's helper due to my pregnancy and while that was a huge cut in our income, it also was what lit a fire in my belly to learn everything I possibly could as fast as I could about earning money from home.
I began with small things, like taking surveys, mystery shopping, getting paid to read emails. Once I became proficient in those, I started scratching my brain for more ideas.
One idea I had was to teach creative writing classes out of our home. I'd always loved writing and thought that probably homeschool moms would jump at the opportunity to enroll their children in creative writing classes–especially if they were very inexpensively priced.
I spent hours writing up advertisements to place in homeschool newsletters and had visions of at least 40 children signing up. I excitedly strategized how I could break the classes up and handle a large number of children and I eagerly calculated numbers and was expecting a good earning potential from these classes. All in all, I was stoked.
Problem was, instead of 40 children signing up as I'd hoped, only 4 signed up. So much for my big plans!
Needless to say, the turn out was very disappointing to me. I thought God had clearly directed me to do these classes and I was confident He was going to bring dozens and dozens of children to them. I worried about how on earth we were going to pay our bills since my big idea had pretty much totally flopped. I wanted to quit and throw my hands up in despair. But I couldn't because I'd already made a commitment to teach these children–all 4 of them–and I had to see it through.
When I look back at those classes and the measly four sign-ups, I realize that not only did that experience prepare me for some greater failures I'd have on down the road, it also taught me that it's okay if things don't turn out like we are expecting. We can still carry on and do our best whether we have four students or forty students or 400 students. Whatever the outcome of our efforts, what matters most is that we give it our best.
I've slowly learned over the past few years that failure of some
kind is inevitable when you have your business or are trying to start
working from home. Everything just isn't going to turn out exactly like
you expected. In fact, much of the time, things will be a lot harder
and a lot less successful than you planned or hoped or dreamed.
Contrary to what I thought in the beginning, I've come to realize that failure is my friend. I've learned much more through failure than I have through success.
The creative writing classes were only the start of my flopped endeavors and learning through failure. Next time, I'll tell you about a much bigger work-at-home failure and how it turned out to be one of the best things which ever happened to me.
To be continued…
Thanksgiving on a Budget: Maple-Roasted Butternut Squash and Almond Pecan Pie
Thanksgiving on a Budget: Maple-Roasted Butternut Squash and Almond Pecan Pie
I hope you're hungry today because Erin from $5 Dinners is showing us how to make Maple-Roasted Butternut Squash and Almond Pecan Pie.
And lest you think you can't make things like that on a budget, be sure to check out her ingredient price breakdowns and suggestions for getting more expensive ingredients at great prices.
Monthly Financial Check-up
It's November and guess what that means? It's time for our monthly financial check-up. How did you do in October?
I've been waiting with bated breath to be able to post our monthly financial update because this is another huge milestone for us. And I finally get to share…
We began October at 69% of our house savings goal and we ended the month at 75%!
While it looks like we're likely not quite going to make our goal of being at 100% by the end of 2009, it is incredibly exciting for us to be at 75%!
It is hard to go against the grain, to live counter-culturally, to be self-disciplined.
It's hard to forgo instant gratification and stop comparing yourself with the "Jones's".
It's hard when you're the only one packing a lunch, driving an old car, wearing thrift store clothes, and clipping coupons.
It's hard when you see other people just going out and buying whatever they want whenever they want it when you're barely able to afford paying $17 for groceries that week but you're committed to paying 100% cash for everything.
None of where we are today has happened by taking the easy road. It's the result of God's grace and enabling, it's the result of our parents' wise examples and training, it's the result of a strong work ethic instilled in us from the time we were youngsters, it's the result of setting big goals and sticking with those goals day in and day out–even when we felt like giving up.
When I look at that 75% house savings number in our bank account, I know that it is worth it to choose to do hard things. We've learned so many valuable lessons along the way, our struggles have matured us, our victories have emboldened us.
And we know beyond any shadow of a doubt, that making short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term goals is every bit worth it.
(If you're new here, be sure to check out this post where I explain in detail why we've committed to this "crazy" idea to pay 100% down on a home. )
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How did you do in October? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2009, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and/or failures in October and, if you'd like, the areas
you hope to improve in November. 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!
Thanksgiving on a Budget: Pretty and Practical Presentation
No matter the size of your Thanksgiving meal budget, one area you don’t need to scrimp on is how the food looks. Head over to LifeAsMom today for some tried and true tips, tricks, and techniques for adding flair to your food presentation.
By the way, I can attest to the fact that Jessica from LifeAsMom knows her stuff when it comes to pulling off a beautiful meal on a dime as I’ve eaten in her home numerous times. She’s amazing!
Thanksgiving on a Budget: A Hassle-Free Method for Cooking Your Bird
Thanksgiving on a Budget: A Hassle-Free Method for Cooking Your Bird
My friend, Amy, over at Amy's Finer Things is talking turkey today for our Thanksgiving on a Budget series. She's sharing a simple and hassle-free way to do your Thanksgiving turkey. Go check it out.
Her tips will not necessarily save you money–because turkeys cost the same no matter how you cook them!–but they will definitely save you some effort and headache on Thanksgiving. I know that for a fact because her method is exactly how our family almost always does the Thanksgiving turkey. It really does work!
By the way, this is totally not Thanksgiving-related, but if you like cinnamon rolls and wish you knew how to make them turn out beautifully, go read Amy's tutorial here. I can vouch for the fact that her cinnamon rolls are absolutely gorgeous and delicious because she brought me a pan of them when we got together last week!
Dinner Rolls
If you don’t normally make homemade rolls for Thanksgiving, you might just want to consider taking a little extra effort to make these rolls this year. They are just that good. In fact, I’ve tried literally hundreds of roll recipes over the years and this recipe is hands-down the best one I’ve ever made.
Now before you start thinking about the combination of pumpkin in dinner rolls and wondering how that might taste, let me reassure you that you probably won’t even taste the pumpkin in these rolls. It just serves to make a softer dough and the color a bit richer. But other than that, your picky eaters in the family will likely not recognize any pumpkin taste in these!
These rolls are best served within an hour or two of making, so if you’re planning to serve them on Thanksgiving, you’ll want to make sure and allow extra time to whip up the dough. While it’s rising, you can do your last minute Thanksgiving meal preparations and then stick these in the oven to bake an hour or
so before you’re planning to eat.
Yes, it’s a little bit of extra work but I think you and your guests will agree it was worth it!
My Favorite Pumpkin Dinner Rolls
Recipe modified slightly from the original recipe found at Tammy’s Recipes–a cooking blog you ought to be reading, if you’re not already!
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 cup warm milk
- ¼ cup butter, softened or melted
- 2 cup mashed cooked pumpkin (I usually use one can of pumpkin.)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 cup wheat germ (can omit and use flour instead)
- 10-12 cup all-purpose flour (I usually use a mixture of whole-wheat and white flours. I’d recommend going about 1/3 whole-wheat to 2/3 white flour.)
- 7 teaspoons dry yeast
In large mixing bowl, combine sugar, water, milk, butter, pumpkin, and salt. Mix well. Add wheat germ, 7-8 cups of the flour, and yeast.
Mix, and then continue adding flour and kneading until dough is elastic and not sticky.
Place dough in greased bowl; grease top of dough, cover with a towel, and set in a warm place until doubled (about 1 hour). Punch dough down and divide into thirds. Divide each third into 16 pieces and shape into balls.
Place on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until almost doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes, until tops are golden. Brush with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven. (Note: These rolls usually look somewhat dry when first coming out of the oven. Wait about 15 minutes and they will look and taste beautifully. Don’t ask me why, but that’s how it always works for me!)
Yield: 4 dozen rolls (If you’re not expecting a large crowd for Thanksgiving, I’d recommend halving the recipe. I often do this for smaller groups and it works great!)
For more of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes, click on the following links: Sweet Potato Casserole, Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes, and Crumb-Topped Apple Pie.
Do you usually make homemade bread for Thanksgiving? If so, I’d love if it you shared a link to the recipe in the comments section.
Thanksgiving on a Budget: Introduction
Thanksgiving is just days away and it seems almost
everywhere you go right now, you are bombarded with images of elaborate
spreads of gorgeous stuffed turkeys lined with rosemary and oranges
surrounded by all the trimmings.
While these images might be
beautiful, more often than not they can make you feel that unless you
recreate such an extravagant affair for your Thanksgiving feast, it
just won't be good enough. The reality, though, is that most of us do
not have the time or the money to pull off a magazine-like Thanksgiving
spread.
So to aid you in creating a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration without breaking the bank, I've teamed up with four other excellent bloggers to bring you Thanksiving on a Budget.
Amy from Amy's Finer Things, Erin from Five Dollar Dinners, Jessica from LifeAsMOM, Monica from TheHomespunHeart, and I will be bringing you some of our favorite Thanksgiving recipes, how-to's, decorating ideas, presentation tips, money-saving ideas, and much more. I think you're in for quite the treat and I hope that by the end of this week, you'll be inspired that you, too, can pull off a simple, but fabulous Thanksgiving–on a dime!
At the end of the week, we're going
to be enlisting your help as we'll open up the floor
here with a Mr. Linky and encourage you to post your favorite frugal
Thanksgiving ideas and recipes on your blog and then come back here to
share your link with everyone else. We look forward to hearing about your favorite recipes, tips and ideas for
making this Thanksgiving both frugal and festive!
It is our
desire that this series will help relieve some of the "pressure" that
is placed on you to create
the perfect meal on Thanksgiving Day. And we hope you are able to
instead focus more on what Thanksgiving is really all about–taking
time to give thanks for all of the blessings we have been given!
Super Savings Saturday: The I-Got-My-Wisdom-Teeth-Pulled Edition
Super Savings Saturday: The I-Got-My-Wisdom-Teeth-Pulled Edition
Have you noticed a dearth of substantive posts here this week? I sure have especially since I had a long list of posts planned to write–like our menu for this week, the next installment in the Becoming A Work-At-Home Mom series, some giveaways, and our financial update.
I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Wednesday morning and while it wasn't at all as bad as I was expecting the whole ordeal to be, I underestimated the fact that pain would take away my brain power. I don't know about you, but I can't write anything worth reading when I'm brain-dead.
The good news is that I'm feeling much better today and hoping in a few more days I'll be back to normal (and maybe able to eat something besides soft foods again!) so I'll do my best to get things caught back up-to-speed here next week as I know some of you are getting a wee bit antsy for me to get on with the promised posts. Thanks for your patience!
I did all my grocery shopping on Tuesday and here's what we bought:
Above is shown our $20 combined Target and Aldi trip. Read more details along with price break-downs and coupon links here.
And above is our Dillon's (Kroger) trip. I mostly just wanted to do a Mega Event transaction but I also found a few markdowns and used one of my $1.50/2 lbs. of cheese coupons to buy cheese. All totaled, we spent $12.61 at Dillons for the above groceries.
I'm kind of embarrassed to post these pictures as most everything is from a box this week and that's not typical for us. However, I promise we didn't subsist on baby wipes and marshmallows this week!
Since I was down and out half of this week, my family lived on dinners from the freezer and food already in our pantry and cupboards–which is the beauty of buying ahead and buying in bulk.
And me? Well, I mostly have been living on juice, mashed potatoes, yogurt, and cottage cheese–not the most balanced diet ever, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you have oral surgery. It's only been a few days but I am so very ready to eat real food again!
Next week, I hope to be back to a more balanced diet and menu-planning again!
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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
10 Tips to Pack a Frugal Shoebox for Operation Christmas Child
10 Tips to Pack a Frugal Shoebox for Operation Christmas Child
Next week is National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes. We've participated in this wonderful program for a few years and I'd highly encourage the rest of you to consider doing so as well. It's a simple and practical way to brighten up the lives of needy children around the world.
When you're on a really tight budget, it might be easy to feel like you don't have any extra wiggle room to be able to afford to buy the items needed to fill a shoebox. If that's how you're feeling, you definitely will want to watch this video by Clair from Mummy Deals where she shared creative ways their family is filling 45 shoeboxes for $45! I was very inspired!
Go here for more details on Operation Christmas Child and how you can participate in this Christmas ministry.
Tired of Missing Deals?Join Our Hot Deals List!
Click here to sign upWorth Reading Round-Up
Just a few posts I've enjoyed this week:
::Amy shares ways to Find Big Money in Your Budget. Sometimes, the answer to our budget problems lies in getting creative!
::Is it possible to eat organic foods on a budget? Check out Alice's post for 12 ideas to incorporate organic foods into your grocery budget without breaking the bank.
::Lily of the Valley shares practical ways she's earned money from home over the last few years.
::Strapped for cash but wishing you could find ways to bless others? The Money Jar posted about 12 Small Ways to Give Big.
BeRuby.com: Earn money for visiting Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, GMail, and more
BeRuby.com: Earn money for visiting Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, GMail, and more
If you frequent Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, or GMail on a daily or more-than-daily basis, you’ll want to sign up for a new site called BeRuby.com. I just found out about this site from Carrie at Money Saving Methods and was so excited because you can get paid every time you visit one of those sites or dozens of other sites!
Just sign up for an account with BeRuby.com here and then login to their site and click-through to Facebook, Twitter, GMail, etc. and you’ll earn a little bit each time you click through to a website. Plus, you’ll earn $0.10 each day that you just log in to the site.
Yes, it’s only a few pennies here and there but if you’re going to be accessing these sites anyway, you might as well make a few nickles, pennies, and dimes for doing so, right?
To make it quicker to find your favorite sites, you can set up a favorites list on your account and then just log in and click on the favorites button to click-through to your favorite websites.
Christmas on a Zero-Budget
Is it possible to celebrate Christmas if you don't have any money to spend? Brandy shares many creative ideas in her post here which won't cost you a dime but will likely be remembered for years to come.
What are your best ideas for a meaningful but no-cost Christmas?
Tuesday’s Target Trip
I got my wisdom teeth pulled out this morning (I opted for a local and it didn't hurt, but I have to say that drilling, yanking, and tooth cracking were less than pleasant!) so I did my shopping yesterday so that I could take it easy the next few days.
I was really excited about my Target trip as I stocked up on pasta and baby wipes and spent very little after coupons. Here's how it broke down:
4 bags of Kraft marshmallows–$1.04 each, used $1/2 coupons here–$0.54 each after coupons
10 packages of Up & Up toddler/baby wipes–$1.44 each, used $1/1 coupons here–$0.44 each after coupons
5 $0.99 Bakery items–used $1/1 coupons here–free after coupons
1 3-lb. bag of apples–$3.99, used $1/1 coupon here–$0.99 per pound after coupon
2 boxes of Kashi waffles–$1.99 each, use $3/2 peelie–$0.49 each after coupon
4 bottles Ocean Spray cranberry juice–$1.98 each, used $1/1 coupons here–$0.98 each after coupons
Also shown are the milk we bought 3 packages of pears we got at Aldi for $0.89 per package.
The total for all the groceries shown above was right around $20. Usually 8 boxes of whole wheat pasta would cost just about that much. Gotta love coupons and sales!
See more deals and freebies at Target this week here.
Feeding our Family for $40 a Week
I'm honored to have a guest post featured on the ShopAtHome blog today on how we feed our family for $40 per week. I'm sharing the nuts and bolts of how it's done and how you, too, can significantly reduce your family's grocery budget as well. Check it out over here.