Money Saving Mom®

Guest post from Annie

For my family, Christmas shopping is a leisurely year-long event. We are always on the lookout for gift ideas and bargains, and usually have most of our presents purchased by the end of October.

We have found this to be advantageous for several reasons:

• We end up spending less money on presents while being able to give more.
• We avoid the holiday shopping crowds in November and December.
• Gifts are a part of our monthly budget instead of an end-of-the-year burden.
• We have more time and energy to spend on family activities, developing holiday traditions, and focusing on the true Joy of Christmas.

I’m excited to share how MoneySavingMom.com helped me to purchase some very nice gifts this year without actually spending any of our income:

1. After about two years of clicking on emails and taking surveys, I earned a $45.51 check from Inbox Dollars in March.

2. When Crystal posted the Cents of Style Chevron scarf in June, I purchased it for $7.95.

3. I created a beautiful Shutterfly photo album of our daughter in August and paid only the shipping cost of $7.99.

4. I started using Viggle earlier this year, and just recently began shopping through Ebates – both thanks to MSM’s recommendations. Today I used a $25 JCPenney gift card that I earned through Viggle to buy nice sweater and a shirt to match the Chevron scarf. Shipping to the store was free. I spent nothing out-of-pocket, Ebates gave me $1.49 cash back, and I’ll receive a $10 Target gift card from Ebates as my sign-up bonus.

5. When I receive my $10 Target gift card from Ebates, I’ll browse the dollar bins and combine sales, Cartwheel discounts, and coupons to purchase stocking-stuffers such as toiletries, candy, nail polish, and note cards. (Okay, so I’m not QUITE done yet)!

6. Recyclebank is currently offering a digital subscription to All You for 400 points and a subscription to Real Simple for 475 points. I have more than enough points from completing free activities to order both of these.

In summary, we’re giving my mom a scarf, a shirt, a sweater, a photo album, two magazine subscriptions, and a stocking full of stuffers without even scratching the surface of our budget.

Between our year-long bargain hunting, leftover Inbox Dollars earnings, and gift cards from Viggle, Recyclebank, Swagbucks, and MyPoints, we may not need to spend any of our income on gifts this season! And that means more money in our savings account to meet our long-term financial goals. Thank you Crystal, for sharing the information that has enabled our family to do this!

Annie is a wife and stay-at-home mom who enjoys watching football, volunteering through her church and local ministries, and spending time with her family.

photo source

Testimonial from Caroline of The Modest Mom Blog

For a variety of reasons, my husband dropped out of college when we married, almost 11 years ago. We became entrepreneurs, owning a cabinet shop and a lawn care company, we had five children, and we started homeschooling.

Then, one day, he came home and said he had been thinking about going back to college and finishing the graphic design degree he had originally started. I was excited and supportive of that decision — but actually making it all work seemed a bit overwhelming!

So how have we made this work financially?

We sold our business and our house.

We advertised his lawn care company on Craigslist and found the perfect buyers for it.

We also put our house up for sale, and while it didn’t sell before he started college, it sold after his first semester. We moved into a small rental house that some friends of ours have graciously given us a good deal on.

I started an online business and a blog.

About five years ago I started an online clothing company called Deborah & Co. I also started The Modest Mom Blog, and signed up as a consultant with Lilla Rose (beautiful yet practical hair clips) and L’BRI (all natural skincare products).

Those four income sources have provided for our family of seven while Sean finishes college. We don’t live on student loans for our monthly bills, and we made sure we had plenty of money in savings for emergencies before he started the four year college.

We utilized a community college to save on core classes.

Sean started attending some classes at a local community college, getting some basic requirements done before he went back to the 4-year college. He was able to fit those classes into his schedule while he still owned and operated his lawn care company. Plus, those classes (including books) were totally covered by the Pell Grant.

We applied for every scholarship and grant we could  find!

We do have one small college loan we have had to take each year, but most of his college is paid through grants and scholarships. He is attending a private college that is not cheap, but it was the best fit for what he is needing.

We were told to apply for the Pell Grant, and each year have received the full amount possible. We don’t use any other forms of government assistance, and feel grateful that this is there.

Sean received a large transfer scholarship, since he was coming from a different four year college. Then he applied for the art grant and received the full amount, plus a Missouri grant.

Those grants and scholarships cover most of his tuition; and we took out a no-interest loan for the remainder. We have enough money sitting in savings to pay off loan if need be; but our plan is for him to graduate in May, find a job, use his first few months of salary to pay off the loan, and for us to continue on my “online income”.

We live very simply.

It is not easy being a work-at-home, homeschooling mom. I get asked all the time how I do it all. My answer is that I keep things very simple! I can’t over-commit myself, and we don’t do lots of extra-curricular homeschooling type things right now.

We have told our children that we are in a unique season of life, and we are all looking forward to Sean’s graduation this May!

While we wouldn’t suggest every family in our season of life do the same thing, we feel that Sean has been blessed with a gift in art, and we wanted to see him use that talent instead of sitting on a lawnmower. 🙂 We feel incredibly blessed that the Lord is providing for our family through our online businesses and given Sean this opportunity!

Caroline has been married to the only love of her life for almost 11 years. Together they have five children, ages 9 and under, which keeps them busy! In her late night moments, she blogs at The Modest Mom Blog.

Note from Crystal: I asked Joy if she’d share her story with you all, because I thought it was great example of how you can creatively take your life lessons, mistakes, and experience and turn it into a product and/or online business. Starting a preschool might not be the right idea for you, but I’m guessing you have other life lessons and experience that you could turn into a marketable product.

Guest post from Joy of StartAPreschool.com

I can’t believe it’s been 5 years — 5 years! — since I started my preschool. Some days, I can’t remember a time I didn’t have my preschool. Other times, it seems like just yesterday that I was having my first day.

But really, I’m truly humbled any time I think of our little home preschool. Especially when I remember that just 5 years ago, I had no clue how to start a preschool. Seriously!

I was a single mom, newly divorced, with 3 kids. And I was just weeks away from being broke. I thought my only option was to go to work and put my kids in daycare, or start a daycare of my own. As you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck.

Finally, this idea came to me: “Why don’t you START a preschool instead?”

I couldn’t believe it. Was it really that obvious? All I had to do was the opposite of everything I disliked about the idea of starting my own daycare.

I wouldn’t have to change diapers. Instead, I’d only teach 3 to 5-year-olds. I wouldn’t work all day long. Instead, I’d only teach for a few hours each day. Best of all, I’d be able to teach and play with my kids… and I’d get paid to do it!

Starting My Own Preschool

But within several weeks I made a lot of mistakes. Wasted a lot of time. And spent a lot of money. Why, you ask?

Because I had no “manual” to follow. No “checklist” to mark off. No one to hold my hand and tell me what to do. I had to figure it all out myself. And I learned (a lot) about what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

And that’s when I committed that no other woman would have to struggle as much as I did trying to figure out how to start a preschool. So, I vowed that I would teach women how to start a preschool.

This quickly grew into my driving force and my mission in life. I wanted every woman to know about this great option!

So while I was busy running my own preschool at home, I launched my website and set to work writing down all my thoughts, tips, and processes. I asked myself over and over, “What did you need to know when you started your preschool?” and “What mistakes did you do that you’ll never do again?”

I found that writing down my thoughts took quite a long time (after all, editing is rough!) so I started creating training videos instead. I found it easier to just sit in front of a camera and talk for 30 minutes. Before I knew it, I had 10 hours of video coaching. Then, I watched the videos and wrote our business workbook, adding in anything I had forgotten in the videos.

After that, I asked myself, “What did I wish I had back then that would have made starting a preschool so much easier?” That’s when I created our curriculum, forms, licensing guidelines, marketing strategies, and website templates — because I knew those materials would save them so much heartache in the end.

Ultimately, I wanted to make sure that they had everything they needed to make sure their preschool was a big success.

Just like I learned what not to do as I started my preschool, I also learned what not to do when I started my online business. I learned that, more than anything, your family comes first. And I had to be careful not to let my online training business take over what precious family time I had left. There were days, weeks, and even some months when I had to “tone down” the amount of training I could provide, because I needed to devote more time to my family.

Though it’s been 5 years, every day I am just as thankful for the opportunity to stay home with my kids, teach preschool, and teach other women.

For the past 5 years, Joy Anderson has been on a mission to teach other women how to start their own preschools. As a single mother to 3 children, she discovered how she could start a preschool and also provide for her 3 children while only teaching a few hours each day. She currently owns two successful preschools and also helps women create a supplemental or full-time income through starting their own preschool businesses through her training materials at StartAPreschool.com