Saving Families Money Since 2007
Today’s question is from Amanda:
I know pre-packaged sandwich meat is generally unhealthy and pricey. What suggestions do you have for minimizing this cost? I have a child who always takes a ham sandwich for lunch and husband who loves meat and cheese sandwiches.
Is buying a whole ham and having it sliced (then freezing it) a better idea?
Do you have a question you’d like to ask Money Saving Mom® readers? Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.
Looking for a hearty, healthy, pancake recipe to add to your breakfast rotation? Try these easy and delicious oatmeal pecan pancakes!
Guest post from Brigette Shevy.
Valentine’s Day is an all-day celebration at our house! My children spend hours making decorations, writing homemade cards, and dreaming up red-and-pink-themed menus (not all of which are actually usable/edible).
We like to start the day off with a special breakfast – and these hearty, filling pancakes are always a hit!
Oatmeal Pecan Pancakes are fairly simple to make, but the toasted pecans add that “special” factor. You could even make them heart-shaped if you’re feeling extra ambitious!
Serve them with a side of red berries to incorporate the Valentine’s color scheme.
The recipe is adapted from my mother-in-law, and is one my husband especially enjoys. These pancakes are a little bit healthier and a whole lot heartier than traditional pancakes, making them especially yummy during the cold winter months.
For my pancake-loving family, nothing says “I love you” like waking up to a big plate of Oatmeal Pecan Pancakes, served with lots of butter and real maple syrup!
Optional Toppings:
* In place of buttermilk, pour 2 Tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar into a 2-cup measuring container. Add milk until it gets to the 2-cup line and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes.
** To toast pecans, sprinkle them on a buttered cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Watch them carefully so they don’t over-brown.
1. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the oats, ½ cup flour, powdered sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. Whisk in the eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla and mix well.
3. Add additional flour if needed, then stir in the toasted pecans.
4. Preheat a buttered griddle over medium heat.
5. Mix together the topping ingredients.
6. Pour 1/2 cup of batter onto hot griddle and cook for 2 minutes, or until the pancakes start to bubble.
7. Flip pancakes and cook an additional 1 to 2 minutes, or until both sides are brown.
8. Spread hot pancakes with butter, sprinkle with topping ingredients, and drizzle with warm maple syrup.
9. Eat and enjoy!
Make sure to share and save it on your favorite platform below!
I hope your family loves these delicious pancakes as much as we do!
Brigette is a full-time wife and mother who is blessed with three amazing bundles of energy (ages 5, 3 and 1). She enjoys music, experimenting in the kitchen, homeschooling her children, finding great deals, long-distance running, and anything chocolate.
Mornings just got so much easier with this FREE list of 50+ Easy & Cheap Breakfast Ideas for Busy Weekday Mornings!
The view from my balcony on Captiva Island this morning
Um, about that freezer cooking I was supposed to do on Wednesday and blog about yesterday? Well, I had grand ambitions, but I ran out of time and steam on Wednesday since I was getting ready for an early flight to the BEECH Retreat yesterday morning.
So the freezer cooking just didn’t get done. Such is life sometimes.
Thanks for your patience and understanding when I’m not always able to follow through with everything I plan to do. If anything, I hope it encourages you to know that I so do not have my act all together and I definitely drop the ball on things sometimes — or other times I just choose not to do them in favor of sleep. 🙂
But I’ll do my best to actually do my freezer cooking plan next week. 🙂
In the mean time, I’m enjoying a wonderful few days staying on Captiva Island. It’s gorgeous here — cold and windy, but beautiful. My keynote was last night and so now I get to soak up the wisdom from the other speakers (like Michael Hyatt and John G. Miller!) today and tomorrow.
Melody emailed in the following tip:
We save quite a bit of money by using my programmable thermostat wisely!
They say you can save about 10% off your heating bill by lowering the temp 3-4 degrees (this applies to your cooling bill in the summer, too). Of course, we keep our programmable thermostat cooler at night and during times we are out of the house, but I also have another trick I use for all day when I’m home. I keep the thermostat set for 62 degrees and then give myself permission to bump it up if I’m too cold.
I find about half the time I don’t even notice that it’s set so low, and if I do, it’s often in the afternoon so it’s only set higher for an hour or two. By starting at 62 degrees instead of 68 degrees I estimate that in our cold climate we save well over $100 a year! -Melody
Kristin emailed in and said:
I recently bought my husband a safety razor. It’s becoming a new “fad” amongst men. He was using a Schick Hydro and when I was not able to get a deal on the cartridges we were spending $12-15 for four cartridges! And on top of that, I was using them also.
Add on shaving cream and we were easily spending $30/month just to shave. After a lot of research, I bought him a safety razor. The blades are just pennies each.
He has gotten into wet shaving…took to it like a pro. He gets as many shaves from a 10 cent blade as he got from a $3 cartridge.
On top of that, his can of shaving cream would only last him a month. He has been using a $2 puck of shave soap from Walmart for two months and it looks new and untouched. I’m expecting it will last him a year and he shaves everyday.
By the way, he LOVES shaving now. He said he’s never had as close of a shave in his life, all of the irritation once caused by shaving is gone.
I bought myself a women’s safety razor and I love it too! It’s the closest shave I’ve ever had and I get 7-8 shaves out of one 10 cent blade also. -Kristin
Today’s question is from Emily:
I am wondering about people’s experiences with Magic Jack or Magic Jack Plus phone service. Is it worth it? Is the service reliable?
I’d also welcome any other tips about how to get home phone service for less (our cell phones are extremely unreliable at home, so we need something, and the local cable company charges a lot for their “bundle”). -Emily
At the beginning of every week in 2013, I’ll be sharing a different way you can save $100 this year. If you do all of these things, you’ll be able to save over $5,000 this year alone! Many of these things will likely be things you’re already doing, but hopefully all of you will pick up at least a few new ideas or some inspiration from this series.
This tip won’t work for everyone because some of you are blessed to not have to wear glasses and some of you won’t need to buy glasses this year. But for those of you who need to buy glasses or who end up needing to buy glasses, this tip will definitely save you $100+ this year.
A number of years ago, when I first started blogging here, a reader emailed me recommending I try purchasing glasses online. Truth be told, I’d never even considered ordering glasses anywhere but from the eye doctor, so I was thrilled to consider that there were other options.
I didn’t need to purchase glasses at the time, but I posted the tip because it seemed legit and I thought other people might benefit from it. To my delight, I discovered that other readers had tried ordering glasses online and they’d had good experiences, too.
I don’t know about you, but when I stumble onto an outside-the-box money-saving tip like this, it gets me so excited. And it reminds me that there are always new discoveries to be made in the world of frugality — especially in the age of the Internet.
Since I didn’t need to order glasses right then, I tucked away the tip for later. Not too long afterward, my toddler broke my glasses beyond repair — and I was ever so thankful that I knew there were options out there for saving money on prescription glasses!
While there are a number of different online sites that you can purchase prescription glasses from, three that I’m very familiar with and have purchased from personally are GlassesUSA, Zenni Optical, Coastal Contacts.
1. Zenni Optical. This is my go-to site for ordering glasses online. In fact, we’ve purchased three pairs of glasses from them so far. Not only have we always been pleased with our orders from them, but on our second order from them, there was a shipping delay so they sent out another free order — which meant we got two extra pairs of glasses for FREE! That level of customer service really left an impression on me.
Most of the glasses from Zenni Optical are under $20 total for the frames and lenses. They even have some glasses that are as low as $6.95! Shipping is just $4.95. If you need to upgrade your lenses, it will be extra. But I promise it will still be much, much less than buying prescription glasses in-store.
2. Coastal Contacts. I also recommend checking out Coastal Contacts. If you’ve never ordered from Coastal Contacts before, they offer new customer coupon codes when you sign up for their newsletter.
They also frequently offer sales and coupon codes on their site for existing customers. What I like best about Coastal Contacts is that if you receive the glasses and they don’t fit, return shipping is free.
3. GlassesUSA. This is another go-to site for buying eyeglasses online. They almost always have a promotion running where you can get deep discounts on prescription glasses. For example, right now they’re running a buy one, get one free sale! I recommend checking the site frequently to score HUGE savings — especially during holiday sales.
As with any purchase, there are pros and cons to ordering online versus ordering in-store. The price is fantastic, but one of the downsides of ordering glasses online is that you can’t try them on ahead of time. If you wear glasses full-time or struggle to find glasses that fit your facial shape, ordering them online might be more difficult.
However, if you only wear your glasses part of the time or aren’t incredibly particular about how they look, definitely save yourself some money by ordering glasses online. In addition, I’d highly recommend ordering glasses online if you have children who are prone to go through pairs rather rapidly.
The other thing to keep in mind when ordering glasses online is that you have to do all your own measurements to submit to them. We never found it difficult to do these measurements, but I know some people have had trouble with getting them right.
All in all, our experiences of ordering glasses online have been very positive — and we’ve saved hundreds of dollars over the past four years by doing so!
Have you ordered prescription glasses online? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences — either positive or negative.
Cyndy emailed in the following tip:
I’m just now working on my goals for 2013 and I found a web program called Lifetick that follows your recommendations for setting goals.
Lifetick first asks you what your core values are and then you can enter in goals you have in those areas. After inputting a goal you then can enter specific tasks that will enable you to reach your goals, dates you want them completed by, and whether or not you would like email reminders. It even makes you check off that your goals meet the SMART guidelines.
Lifetick is free to use for up to 4 goals, and above that is only $3.30/month. You can also use it on your iPhone or Andoid device via their web app. Excited to set some goals and reach them step-by-step! -Cyndy
With my busy week last week, I wasn’t able to do as well on my goals as I hoped to, but I’m happy with being able to have at least crossed quite a few things off my list. And I’m trying to remind myself not to bite off more than I can chew — even if it seems really tempting to do so 🙂
Last week’s goals:
Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals
1. Read two chapters of Vinegar Boy: Encounter Christ Through the Dramatic Story of Vinegar Boy
aloud at lunch. Read three chapters of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh at dinner.
Read two chapters of The Amazon Stranger with Kathrynne, read two chapters of Little House on the Prairie with Kaitlynn, read two chapters of Farming with Fatherto Silas.
2. Write a love note to Jesse.Personal Goals
3. Memorize Romans 1:7-8.
4. Exercise 4 times.5. Finish reading The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears
,
Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy WorldMaking Room for Life: Trading Chaotic Lifestyles for Connected Relationships, Love Has a Face: Mascara, a Machete and One Woman’s Miraculous Journey with Jesus in Sudan, Lessons at Blackberry Inn: Adventures with the Gentle Art of Learning, Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life
,
, The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse,
Risk is Right, andTahosa Treasure. {And yes, I know that that is a crazy long list, but since I have eight flights combined for my two trips this week, I’m thinking I should plan for plenty of reading time!}Homemaking Goals
6. Do a Freezer Cooking in an Hour session.
7. Finish 30 rows of the scarf for Kathrynne.Business Goals
8. Work on the third round of edits for two chapters of my next book.
9. Attend the She Speaks Intensive.
10. Finish mapping out my keynote for the BEECH Retreat.
This week’s goals:
Family/Marriage/Mothering Goals
1. Read two chapters of Vinegar Boy: Encounter Christ Through the Dramatic Story of Vinegar Boy
2. Birthday outing with Kathrynne.
Personal Goals
3. Memorize Romans 1:7-8.
4. Exercise 4 times.
5. Finish reading The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears
Homemaking Goals
6. Do a Freezer Cooking in an Hour session.
7. Finish 30 rows of the scarf for Kathrynne.
Business Goals
8. Finish first draft of final chapter for my book + do a thorough read-through of all other chapters.
9. Create slides & practice talk for BEECH Retreat.
10. Attend & speak at the BEECH Retreat.
How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!
You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.
Oatmeal sprinkled with a little sugar and chocolate chips — yum!
Breakfasts
Oatmeal, Cereal, Eggs, and/or Fruit
Lunches
Mac & Cheese, fruit
Chicken Noodle Soup, crackers, veggies
Snack-y lunch
Cheese quesadillas, carrot sticks
Scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit
Leftovers x 2Snacks
Fruit/veggies
Popcorn
Peanut Butter Banana Bread With Chocolate ChipsFreezer Cooking in an Hour (stay tuned on Thursday when I’ll share a play-by-play on how this goes!)
Peanut Butter Banana Bread With Chocolate Chips
Chicken Enchilada Casserole
Brownie WafflesDinners
Dinner with extended family
Baked chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, fruit
Chicken Enchilada Casserole
Twice Baked Taco Potatoes, green salad, broccoli, fruit
Spaghetti Pie, steamed veggies
Dinner with extended family
Dinner out
What’s on your menu this week? Share details and/or your link to your menu plan in the comments.
Last week was truly a whirlwind. I had planned to finish this post on Saturday evening, but it just didn’t happen — as sleeping sounded a lot more enticing. But I figured since I already had this post mostly done, I’d go ahead and post it today for those of you who have written in to say the Peek Into Our Week posts are one of your favorite posts of the week. 🙂
Last week began with the She Speaks Intensive. I was so blessed to be there. Not only did I get to have amazing coaching from people like Michele Cushatt, but I also got to meet and become friends with hilariously funny and oh-so-inspiring women like Kathi Lipp (pictured above).
Renee Swope was our small group facilitator. She’s a wealth of wisdom, insight, and experience. Not to mention that she’s such a beautiful woman — inside and out. If you’ve not read her book, A Confident Heart, you should. I was so blessed by it!
These two women were one of the biggest highlights of the whole Intensive. We met the first day and there was instant connection between us. Honestly, I felt like I have known Ruth from Living Well, Spending Less and Angie from Finding Joy in Everyday MOMents pretty much my whole lives — even though I’d only met them on Sunday and we said goodbye on Tuesday. They are such dear, dear women.
The day after I got home, Kathrynne and I had fun working together to create a birthday banner for Erika, my assistant. I’m not very artistic by nature, but we had a blast working on it together.
Kathrynne also decided to see how high of a Citiblok tower she could build.
And the week wouldn’t be complete without a batch of Cinnamon Rolls, would it?
I spent Friday and Saturday in Austin, TX, with my agent and a brilliant app developer. Guess what we were doing? Yes, we were brain-storming and working on a prototype for the brand-new Money Saving Mom® app.
I cannot wait to unveil it later this year. You all are going to love it. I failed to get any pictures of this trip, but you can just imagine all of us hovered around laptops and iPads for two days and that gives you a pretty accurate description of what it was.
We did take a few breaks so I could experience some of the delicious Austin food (I ate my first kolache — so, so good! And I also tried my first bites of calamari, too, which was surprisingly good.), but then it was back to work again.
Sunday our church family was so sweet to have a belated little celebration for Jesse and my 10th wedding anniversary. They honored us with a cake, a special prayer time, and showered us with cards. We’re so blessed with many wonderful friends who love us and care about us.
So that was our week in a nutshell. Did anything interesting or exciting happen at your house last week?
Guest post from Dawn of One Faithful Mom
A few years ago, I made a long list of goals for the year in January and divided them into different areas of my life.
By that summer, I had already failed at most of them.
So the following year, I knew that if I was going to be successful in making needed changes, I had to do it in a way that would suit my more Type B personality.
I decided to make just a few, simple goals. I focused on things that I knew would make a difference in my life, but that would not overwhelm me. Here are the four things I chose:
I know, silly right? But I have never been totally consistent with this. My skin, at 45, is not like it was at 20, and it was beginning to show!
I was almost embarrassed to say this one out loud when our family shared our goals with each other because it kind of seemed ridiculous. But two of my teenagers made it one of their goals also! It helps that this goal shows very quick results. That motivates me in my other areas.
What? A mother of ten has issues with planning meals?
Haha — yes!
I know that many of you have a working meal plan, and perhaps even shop according to that plan. But my Type B self just does not work that way. I’ve tried, I really have!
So, I set this goal to help me learn to be consistent in planning our meals, even if that means I just know what leftovers are available. This has relieved the 5:00 stress of wondering what’s for supper!
Again, this seems obvious, but I have noticed that I am often distracted by other things. Every day, I want to take time to read a book, do a puzzle, sing, play, or even work together in the kitchen.
In the book How to Really Love Your Child, author Ross Campbell suggests three things parents should do every day: give focused attention, make eye contact, and show physical affection. Those are the three things I am working toward.
And again, this type of goal gives near-instant results. The smiles and laughter of my children tell me I am getting this one right!
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I lie in bed at night with all these ideas swirling around in my brain for writing projects.
So this year, I decided to make it a goal to write something every day; even if it is just a couple of sentences. I have asked two of my writing friends to collaborate on some things. Bringing someone else into the goal keeps me accountable. I can’t be lazy about it when someone else is waiting for my part!
It has brought a spark back into my writing, and I am excited to see what I can accomplish this year.
Well, those are my four goals. You may be laughing right now at the sheer simplicity of them. Maybe you can’t believe that someone could be that undisciplined. Or maybe you are like me and need to hone in on the small things in your life.
When the small things are out of control, it seems like everything is out of control. And who knows…maybe next year I will be ready for some big, crazy, outrageous goal?
After I wash and moisturize, that is!
Dawn has been married to Andy, her high school sweetheart, for over 28 years. They have ten children, two beautiful daughters-in-love, and a precious grandson. She blogs over at One Faithful Mom, where she encourages mothers to be faithful in the everyday lives of their children.
Michael Hyatt is a man who has inspired many — including my husband and me. His posts have provided a lot of fodder for discussions between the two of us, and it’s not unusual for my husband to email me a link to one of Michael Hyatt’s post — even though he knows I already subscribe to his blog! (One of our favorite posts is A Tale of Two Leaders. It’s a must-read.)
I was excited to read his book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, as I’d heard great things about it. It’s packed with a lot of fantastic information for anyone who is interested in setting up a blog and it totally lived up to my expectations of it.
In Platform, Michael Hyatt doesn’t just give you the nuts and bolts on how to start a blog, he also shares how blogging can help you build a platform to launch a book, product, or business. I’ve truly seen this to be true in my own life. I would never have been approached with book deals or speaking engagements and other opportunities were it not for the platform that blogging has given me.
And as I’ve seen in my own life, while blogging requires a lot of work and dedication, it’s also much, much easier to build a platform in the age of social technology than it ever would have been before the internet existed.
I appreciated Michael Hyatt’s careful attention to detail and all of the well-thought-out and proven advice he shares. He truly strives for excellence in everything — and I’ve learned a lot from his example.
Now, while I thought the book was well-written, I will say that I would have loved for the book to be less of a collection of blog posts and more of Michael Hyatt’s story. He talked some about his story, but the book is mainly comprised of short, bullet-point chapters — many of which read more like blog posts than in-depth book chapters.
In addition, he has some great information on how to effectively use Twitter, but I think he under-estimated the value of Facebook. I’ve made some good relationships on Twitter and I get some traffic from Twitter, but I get a much more significant amount of traffic from Facebook. So I personally think that Facebook deserved more attention in Platform than it received. However, since Michael blogs for a different audience than I do, it’s very possible that he may get a lot more traffic from Twitter than I do.
Despite these critiques, I enjoyed Platform, have tremendous respect for Michael Hyatt, and would highly recommend everyone who is considering starting a blog or currently blogging read his book. No matter your level of experience as a blogger, I think you’ll glean some invaluable insights from Platform.
Have you read any good reads in the past few weeks? Tell us about them in the comments!
See the full list of books I’ve read so far in 2013 here. See my list of 48 Books I Plan to Read in 2013 here.
Guest post from Erin of ErinBrans.com
I was working full time in law enforcement on night shifts and rarely seeing my kids. I decided to work from home and just focus on my blogging.
It took about a year to work out the logistics, but my husband and I were able to pay off over $39,000 in debt in 13 months and move from Nebraska to Kansas to be closer to our family.
To say we feel blessed right now is an understatement!
There are many different ways to work from home. You can become a blogger or sell items on Craigslist, Etsy, or eBay. You can take surveys, become a mystery shopper, or even become a medical coder or transcriptionist. You can professionally organize, clean houses or businesses, or nanny. There are so many ways that parents can stay at home with our kids while earning an income.
Today, I’m not going to talk about the nuts and bolts of starting your own business. Instead, I am going to show you how I actually save money by working from home.
In my previous job, I used to earn approximately $2,200 a month after taxes. Now, by working from home, I am saving at least $2,750 a month. Not to mention my children have their mom at home — and that is priceless to our family!
Here are some of the areas we’re saving:
Working from home saves you money on gas plus it doesn’t put as much wear and tear on your vehicles.
When I was working outside the home, we were paying $400 a month in gas (and that was with carpooling!). Now we are paying just $150 per month on gas. In addition, I’m also saving time because I no longer have to spend time driving to and from work.
Working from home offers tax write-offs on our internet, cell phone, business travel, mileage, and meals with co-workers to discuss business, etc. This alone saves us thousands of dollars a year.
This saves us $1,000 a month.
I work from home so I can plan and cook more meals. By not going out to eat, we are keeping our grocery bill at $400 a month. In addition, because I’m not exhausted and too tired to cook like I used to be, we are also saving approximately $500 a month by cutting back how often we go out to eat.
One of the great benefits of working from home is that I can work in my pajamas if I want to! Not buying work clothes for me saves us at least $600-$1,000 a year!
Do you work from home? How do you save money by working from home?
Erin Branscom is a wife and mother of 3. She is a blogger at ErinBrans.com. This year, her family was able to pay off over $39,000 worth of debt within 13 months. She was able to quit her full time job and work from home part time. Erin is passionate about helping other parents be able to pay off debt and work from home as well.
I’ve been attempting to teach Kaitlynn how to knit this week. She’s eager to learn… so eager, in fact, that she wants to skip right through the basics and try to make hand warmers (love that girl’s ambition!)
Yesterday, as I was showing her how to cast-on and do the knit stitch, she was getting a little impatient at how tedious it was to learn. She flipped ahead to a more difficult pattern in the instruction book and asked if we could please make that.
My response to her is one I’ve learned the hard way in many things in life:
“You have to do the little things before you can do the big things.”
We’re all impatient. We want to run ahead and have the great success, land the amazing job, or knit that incredible pattern.
But it’s rare that you can jump ahead in life and do difficult things if you’ve not first started with simple things.
The little things are time-consuming and tedious. You often don’t see a lot of progress. You do a lot of the same stuff over and over again.
Keep at it, though, and all those little efforts will eventually add up if you don’t give up!