Money Saving Mom®

Guest post from Kari of She Thrifts

We’d all like to be able to give back to our community, but doing so while on a tight budget can feel challenging. I’ve discovered an easy way to contribute that costs me nothing, and I receive some nice benefits, too… donating blood! 

Benefit #1: It feels good!

Okay, maybe not the part where the needle goes into your arm (it’s a pinch, but not painful – really!), but the part where you know you have just helped save up to three lives… yeah, that feels good!

Benefit #2: A bubble of time that’s all mine!

I schedule my appointments for a time when my husband is able to be home with the kiddos and head to the donation location alone!

I don’t know about other busy mamas, but that’s a rarity for me.

Instead of finding the possible wait time annoying, I really enjoy it! I bring a book, or a magazine, or catch up on my favorite blog-reading on my phone.

Benefit #3: Juice and cookies!

Every donor gets to stop at the canteen for a snack and brief rest after their donation!

I was lucky when I first started donating blood that I had an employer who allowed me to donate on work time. Now that I am a mostly-stay-at-home-mama, I do it on my own time, but feel it’s totally worth the time invested.

Donors can give blood every 56 days, and it’s an annual goal of mine to donate at least 5 times every year. I downloaded the American Red Cross app on my phone recently and discovered I had just reached my 50th donation!

There are certain requirements you have to meet be eligible to donate (i.e. general good health, weight minimum, not pregnant, etc.) and there are certain situations where your donations will be deferred for a period of time (i.e. after a piercing, tattoo, or travel to certain areas of the world).

A complete list of eligibility requirements can be found here.

First time donors can find out what to expect here.

And you can find blood donation centers in your area here.

Do you regularly donate blood?

Kari is a librarian turned stay-at-home-mama to two boys, ages seven and four. She was inspired by a guest post on MSM several years ago to begin selling items on eBay, which has turned into a successful hobby job which in large part helped pay off her student loans *in full* in February, 2015. She blogs about her eBay adventures at She Thrifts. 

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Guest post from Julie

We moved into our current house eight years ago when we had three children: a 4-year-old, a 2 year-old, and a 7-month-old. It was the first home we had ever purchased and seemed like the perfect place to start!

Little did we know that in the next eight years, we would add four more children (with one more on the way) and continue to make our small space work.

Below, I’ve included photos and descriptions of the different rooms in our house. The measurements don’t add up to exactly 1200 sq. ft. but I did not include closet space in the room measurements. Also, we have been blessed with a walk-in pantry (not pictured below) that gives us more storage since our kitchen cabinet space is so small. I think this would account for the missing square footage.

I hope you enjoy the tour!

The photo above is what you see of our living room when you walk in the front door. The majority of our time is spent here or in the dining room/kitchen.

The photo below is the other side of the living room. That’s my nursing rocker and my husband’s recliner. We have a full-size electric keyboard/piano for our children’s lessons. We store blankets in the bottom of the old wash stand turned side table and my magazines in the drawer.

Below is the view from the recliner. The built-in shelves house photo albums, audio CDs, and books. The ottomans provide extra seating and store DVDs. The chest stores more blankets and our VCR/DVD combo player that we use occasionally.

Here is the view of the kitchen/dining room from the living room doorway. This is the most used space in the house (besides the bathroom!)

I love that it is an open space. It really makes our house seem larger.

The basement door leads to our small, unfinished basement. It is only under the dining room/kitchen area and is mainly used to store containers of clothing. Our washer and dryer are down there, too.

Below is a view of the dining room from the kitchen looking into the living room and at the front door. Two of the bedrooms are off the dining room.

The door straight ahead to the left is the Master Bedroom. You can barely see the doorway on the far left — that is the girls’ room. The hallway is to the right.

The hallway houses our kids’ bookshelf and game closet. To the right is the boys’ room and to the left is the bathroom.

Back in the dining room, the blueish cabinet (see below) is “homeschool central”. I turned our old china cabinet into a central place to store all our homeschool needs. I’m still in the process of refinishing it.

Underneath there are baskets for preschool puzzles and regular puzzles, as well as our floor puzzles and toddler activities. Behind the door on the left are shoe-box-sized containers for crafts, extra school supplies, paper crafts, etc.

There are also drawers for toddler activities like lacing cards, play-doh, paints, etc. The door on the right houses the kids’ binders and individual books/workbooks. The top has my teacher binders and the common books we use for Science, History, Bible, etc. The top left has flash cards, manipulatives, etc.

The photo below is my kitchen.

The refrigerator is on the right and is basically unseen. We added the counter on the left wall after we moved in because there is very limited counter space.

When we have company, we serve the food from this counter buffet-style. It tends to be a clutter-trap. Right now it is housing our seedling lamp.

The white cabinet under the “high counter” (as we call it) contains all the kids’ dishes. The doorway on the right leads to the mudroom/office and walk-in pantry (which are not pictured in this post).

The rest of our home’s space is taken up by three bedrooms and ONE bathroom! 

Yes, we only have this one bathroom, but it does have two vanities and abundant cabinetry.

The photo above shows the view from the other wall of the bathroom. You can see the tall cabinet between the vanities. It stores bed linens, towels/washcloths, some toiletries, and cleaning supplies.

The photo below shows our small closet behind the bathroom door. We keep extra diapers/wipes, toiletries, etc in here.

Our 4 oldest boys share one room, pictured below.

My husband built the triple bunk system in phases, as needed. It started as the loft with a full size bed underneath, but after our last son was born two years ago he added the two additional beds.

Our 3-year-old sleeps in the “cubby” under bed #3. He loves to drape a blanket over the opening and make it his fort. 🙂

All four older boys share one closet, and also this one chest of drawers. They each have one drawer, except the 3-year-old gets the top two small drawers. The plastic 3-drawer system on the floor is for the littlest boy.

The closet holds their hang-up clothes and stores dress-up clothes (knight armor, policeman and spy wear, astronaut clothing). It also has shelves to hold roller blades, football card binders, and less used items.

Most of the toys the littler guys use are stored in the cubby pictured below. The small 3-drawer system on the top right is for the three oldest boys. They each get a drawer to store whatever their heart desires.

The girls are almost 13 and 6, so it can be difficult to make this a good space for both of them considering the age span and different interests.

At the foot of the bunk bed is a chest of drawers that the girls share. Dress-up things are in the storage chest under the windows. They have under-bed storage containers for play food, 18” dolls/clothes, and paper dolls.

The baby crib has been in the girls’ room since we moved in. They don’t mind sharing their space with the littlest member of the family, no matter the gender. 🙂

To the left is their closet. It houses the play kitchen, Loving Family doll house, assorted craft items (knitting, beads, fabric, etc), lesser used items, and hang-up clothing.

My oldest daughter also has her own bookshelf behind the door to house her own books, calligraphy items, etc. She loves to draw and write.

This is our bedroom. It is kind of a clutter spot, but when I don’t know where to put something it comes in here!

Our elliptical is in our room and is used off and on. The dresser holds my clothing and stuff and my husband’s clothes are on a custom floor-to-ceiling shelving unit in the closet.

We have a step-in closet (see below) and it can get quite cluttered at times.

The baby takes naps in the pack ‘n play in our room so that the other kids can have access to their rooms throughout the day. Since the baby sleeps in here twice a day, I have a hard time getting in here to declutter or clean on a regular basis. When the new baby is born in August, she will sleep in our room full-time.

So that’s the full tour! 

Recently, we were gifted seven acres of property not far from our current home. This dear friend of ours wanted to bless us with a place to build a home that would give our growing family more room. We are currently praying and planning on beginning construction in spring of 2016!

Our future house plans are not extremely large, but they are not small either. Our current plan is to build a 2-story home with a main floor of approximately 1200 sq. ft. (this would double our living space!)

To be honest, we are all kind of looking forward to having more space! We go through seasons, and we kind of want this small house living to be a season the Lord is bringing us out of. However, we will continue to pray and be obedient to whatever He wants us to do.

Julie is the wife of one great man and mother to seven (soon to be 8) growing and active children, ages 20 months to 13 years. She enjoys DIY projects, conversations with friends, gardening, and coffee. Life is busy and she is learning to slow down and enjoy the little things.  She has learned to keep life simple in order to save money and live in the small space that God has blessed her and her family with.

Guest post from Kelly of Kelly Cox At Home

My husband and I have lived on a budget ever since we got married. I didn’t find it that difficult to stick to our written plan except for one area: our grocery budget. While doable, I found it tough to only stick to our allotted $400 a month grocery money for just 2 people!

One day, we decided to look into couponing to see if perhaps we could stretch our grocery money.

Quickly, I learned that couponing has its own language! I found myself getting pretty frustrated because I didn’t understand what RP, SS and PG meant! You see, PG is how I abbreviate “Praise God” in texts or email, and I completely realized that was not the case on coupon sites!

My husband was very helpful when I was over-complicating things. He researched and figured out the coupon lingo so to speak. My eyes were opened and we chose one site to begin to follow. I’m so thankful that he helped me because I am completely hooked on saving money with coupons.

We began to cut coupons from the newspaper and print them offline. I figured out what it meant to stockpile and realized that it didn’t necessarily mean keeping 38 jars of peanut butter on hand!

It only took 2-3 months and we cut our grocery budget in HALF. Wow, we were thrilled!

Here are 3 of the many reasons why I coupon…

1. Coupons save us $200 each month.

We cut our grocery budget in half and now save extra money each month. It took a while to get used to sales cycles, coupons, and how to pair them at their rock bottom price, but that work was definitely worth the extra $200 each month!

Also, not only do we save money, but we actually have much more food (and options!) in our fridge, pantry and freezer.

2. Coupons allow us to give more.

I’ve found that we are able to give more to food pantries, our church, and even to family and friends! It is so much easier to share several bags of food to those in need because the couponing allows me to do it less expensively and offers me the flexibility to give more freely.

Also, my sisters-in-law occasionally get “coupon presents” from me and they enjoy these silly gifts! I will give them each a little bag of toiletry products, food products, seasonings or about anything that I got for free or super cheap from couponing. They love it!

3. Coupons offer an opportunity to try new brands and products.

Couponing has enabled me to try so many new products because they were so cheap (or free!) I’ve enjoyed new brands and have even replaced some of my old products with new ones.

Couponing has broadened my horizons with food, toiletries, makeup, and cleaning products. I love to try new things, especially when they are a cheaper price or even free!

I’m amazed at what couponing has done for our family’s budget. Also, I’m pleased that it has allowed us to give more. I’d suggest couponing for those who want to save money, bless others, and broaden their horizons!

Kelly is a Christ follower, blessed wife, and a lover of all things home. She blogs over at Kelly Cox At Home about her journey at home and passion for debt-free living. She hopes to encourage others in that goal, while sharing tips on how to manage and enjoy all things that make up HOME!

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Guest post from Sally of SallyLynnHall.com

Some years birthdays are big ol’ parties around our house — homemade elaborate cakes, lots of guests, games, activities, homemade decorations, and oh the food!

Mostly these are the milestone birthdays — 1, 5, 10 and so on — with a few random shindigs thrown in here and there. We’ve had dinosaur hunts, Elmo themed parties (three, to be exact), video gaming parties, picnic/old school kid games parties, and we’ll probably have countless more themes over the years.

However, the majority of the time we don’t. In fact, my kids have only had two big parties each. That does not mean we don’t celebrate — quite the contrary, actually. We just do it differently: we do it a bit more intimately during the “in between” birthdays.

Of course, I do not think blowout birthdays every year are wrong at all. We just choose not to celebrate that way (with multiple kids it’s hard on our wallet and sanity). Plus, we’ve discovered that simple does not necessarily mean less, it can actually mean so much more!

Let me explain. 

Recently, my middle kiddo turned seven. It wasn’t a “milestone” birthday, but every birthday is special and we wanted him to feel that.

We started the festivities with a tradition from my childhood: three days of birthday. For three days — the day before his birthday, the day of, and the day after — he got to choose what we made for dinner, what TV show we watched at night, and usually, various family members would surprise him by doing one or two of his chores for him.

During one of those days we went to Cracker Barrel for our traditional “breakfast with the family”, followed by the birthday boy being able to pick one small toy in the shop for his present. (My husband started this tradition a few years back and it has quickly become a favorite. Even the adults take part on their birthdays! Whatever family members that are off work and are in town usually tag along to these annual breakfasts if they can, but there’s no pressure and it’s just as fun with only our clan.)

There are other little things that sometimes happen as well — we might bake or buy treats to take to our homeschool co-op, or an aunt or grandma might take the birthday kid out for ice cream or some other special outing.

But my favorite thing we do?

A very special bedtime story the night of their birthday. We sit down with pictures and scrapbooks of the kiddo we’re celebrating and while we look through years of firsts — baths, trips, foods, parties, Christmases and haircuts — we talk about the day they were born.

We tell the funny moments, the sweet moments, who was there, what was said and on and on. You would think they would get tired of this, but from the two-year-old to the ten-year-old, they soak it up. They could probably tell their birth stories for me. Well, not the toddler… not yet. And even though they know the answers already, each year it’s the same questions:

“And what did I say to the nurse who said that baby is so cute?”

“You said ‘That’s my new baby brother – go away!’ ”

And they laugh and laugh like it’s the first time they’ve heard it. And me? I bask in those first few moments of their lives with the blissfulness that comes years after the exhaustion of labor. I get to relive the good stuff.

So parents who can’t go big or even medium for each birthday, take heart. It can still be special and your child can feel just as spoiled. Maybe not with fanfare and presents, but instead, with cherished memories and special moments just for them that say, “I’m so glad you were born!”

How do you “do” birthdays?

Sally Hall is a part-time freelance writer, full-time wife, mom, and homeschooler, and a foodie at heart living in Texas. She has written for a series of women’s travel books, homeschooling publications, webzines, international ministries, and is currently finishing her own book! Follow her random musings over on her blog.