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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 28, 2013 comment

This week’s menu plan

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This week’s menu plan

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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 2

Snacks

Fruit/veggies
Popcorn
Peanut Butter Banana Bread With Chocolate Chips

Freezer 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 Waffles

Dinners

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.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 28, 2013 comment

A Peek Into Last Week: She Speaks Intensive, a birthday banner, Cinnamon Rolls, Citibloks tower, a trip to Austin, and more!

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A Peek Into Last Week: She Speaks Intensive, a birthday banner, Cinnamon Rolls, Citibloks tower, a trip to Austin, and more!

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

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?

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 28, 2013 comment

Goal Setting… for the Type B Personality

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Goal Setting… for the Type B Personality

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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.

  • spiritual goals
  • physical goals
  • personal goals
  • writing goals

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:

1. Wash and moisturize my face every morning and night.

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.

2. Plan out our evening meal.

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!

3. Spend time with my children every day.

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!

4. Write.

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.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 26, 2013 comment

Good Reads: Platform by Michael Hyatt

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Good Reads: Platform by Michael Hyatt

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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.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 26, 2013 comment

How I’m Saving $2,750 Per Month By Working From Home

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How I’m Saving $2,750 Per Month By Working From Home

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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:

Transportation

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.

Tax Write-Offs

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.

No Daycare

This saves us $1,000 a month.

Food

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.

Work Clothing

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.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 24, 2013 comment

Want to do BIG things? Start with little things.

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Want to do BIG things? Start with little things.

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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!

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 24, 2013 comment

Freezer Cooking in an Hour: Southwestern Slow Cooker 2-Bean Chicken, Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

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Freezer Cooking in an Hour: Southwestern Slow Cooker 2-Bean Chicken, Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Yesterday’s Freezer Cooking Session was so simple that it’s hard to even say it qualifies as a Freezer Cooking in an Hour session. And I guess that’s the beauty of letting your appliances do the work for you.

I stuck all of the ingredients for the Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls in the bread machine.

The chocolate chips sort of jumped out of the freezer while I was getting the yeast out… so I had to help the bag be a little lighter so it wouldn’t keep jumping out of the freezer like it always seems to. 😉

And then I dumped all of the ingredients for the Southwestern Slow Cooker 2-Bean Chicken in the crockpot. That was just about the easiest recipe known to man… er, woman.

A little while later, I came back and rolled out the Cinnamon Rolls, let them rise, and baked them.

A few hours later, I turned off the crockpot. And I was D-O-N-E with this week’s freezer cooking. Talk about simple, it almost seems a little hypocritical to label it as a Freezer Cooking Session.

But hey, on a busy week like this week, I’ll take it. 🙂

Recipes I Made:

Southwestern Slow Cooker 2-Bean Chicken — So easy, but we thought it was somewhat lacking in flavor. Anyone have suggestions or ideas on things I should try adding next time around?
Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls — These are SO good. If you haven’t tried them, you are seriously missing out. Just sayin’.

Did you do any freezer cooking this week? If so, tell us about it!

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 24, 2013 comment

Reader Tip: Check to see if your library offers free ebooks that you can borrow

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Reader Tip: Check to see if your library offers free ebooks that you can borrow

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Hannah emailed in the following tip:

Many people don’t realize that most public libraries have eBooks available for checkout through their websites. All you have to do is log into your local library’s site using your library card, then follow the links for eBooks (often, there are also digital audio books available).

In just a couple of minutes, you should be able to search through the available titles, download your selection, and begin reading on your device! No late fees for failing to “bring the book back,” because it will simply expire after 2-3 weeks. This is a great, free way to read some of the newest and most popular books without paying a cent — or leaving your home! -Hannah

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Shared Jan 24, 2013 comment

How to Get Three Meals from One Chicken

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How to Get Three Meals from One Chicken

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How-to-Get-Three-Meals-from-One-Chicken

Guest post from Katie of Kitchen Stewardship

There’s no arguing with the fact that a whole chicken is just about the most frugal meat you can buy. But is it a waste to pay for all those bones?

Won’t your family eat more meat if you serve a whole chicken than if you serve a casserole with a few cut-up chicken breasts? Plus, how often can you serve roast chicken? You’d get tired of it once a week. Right?

Actually, I respectfully disagree. I think a whole chicken is the best meat purchase there is, even if it’s not on sale (gasp!).

Keep reading to learn how I get three meals plus leftovers plus ingredients for even more meals, all from one chicken – and I’m not going to roast it at all.

Meal #1: Chicken & Veggie Stir Fry

I’m no butcher, and I’ve never learned the trick of cutting up a whole chicken into chicken parts. All those bones!

But I do “harvest” the meat from my whole birds sometimes. I use kitchen scissors and hack away at the breast, snipping out bite-sized pieces that are perfect for a stir fry or pasta dish. It’s not pretty – don’t worry, I’m not including photos – but it works, and it doesn’t take all that long because I’m not seeking perfection. I just get some meat out for dinner number one.

It’s titled “Veggie & Chicken Stir Fry” because I don’t have a whole chicken breast for each person, so I make sure I’ve got lots of nourishing vegetables to round out the meal, and some cooked brown rice to go with it.

I always used to follow a recipe when I made stir fry, but now I just follow a pattern:

1. Cook chicken in a little bit of sesame or olive oil over medium-low heat until no pink is left in the center. Season it while stir frying with salt, pepper, and spices that sound good that day. I love to mix up ginger, cumin, sometimes curry and often a dash of cayenne. Sometimes I just use simple Italian seasoning and garlic powder.

2. Remove the chicken to a plate – you don’t want it to get tough.

3. Add veggies, starting with the ones that take longest to cook and cutting the others while the first ones are in the pan: onions and bell peppers, then carrots and broccoli stems, then pea pods and broccoli tops. If I have zucchini or some greens, like spinach or kale, those go in near the end. A stir fry is a great way to use up the veggies that are about to go bad in your crisper drawer, so it’s a money-saving meal because you don’t throw the money you already spent on groceries into the garbage.

4. Season the veggies in the same way as the chicken, then add the chicken back in to heat it up for the last few minutes.

5. Serve over rice with a soy sauce (I buy ones that don’t have any high fructose corn syrup in them).

Meal #2: Chicken Rice Soup

After I “harvest” that bit of breast meat, I put the rest of the whole chicken into a big old pot, cover it with cold water and a little vinegar, and let it sit for an hour. Then I bring it to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook it all night long on low.

After lunch, I’ll add onions, celery, carrots, and garlic for another hour to finish off the homemade bone broth, and for dinner that night, we’ll have a simple chicken rice soup – in the same pot the stock was just in, because I hate doing dishes!

We usually end up using about half the broth and two cups of chicken, which leaves me with 4-8 cups more broth to stock my freezer and at least another two cups chicken for the next night’s meal.

Meal #3: Chicken with Rice and Green Beans

This dish is a new family favorite that couldn’t be simpler.

I reverse engineered it from a casserole recipe that called for chicken breasts, onion soup mix, instant rice, and lots of butter. I kept the butter and ditched everything else, remaking the processed part of the meal into a whole foods recipe that I feel great about putting on the table.

Because I know my weekly menu plan in advance, I would have made a double batch of rice with the stir fry two nights ago. And since there’s already cooked chicken from the stock-making endeavor in the fridge, I can put together this recipe in less than half an hour, with only 5-10 minutes active work time!

Recipe for Chicken with Rice and Green Beans

from Better Than a Box

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick butter
  • 2 medium onions, chopped (about 1-1 ½ cup)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • ½ teaspoon turmeric
  • ½ teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon parsley
  • ¼ teaspoon celery salt (or seed)
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 cup fresh green beans, cut in 1-inch pieces (about ¾-1 pound), or 2 cups frozen green beans
  • 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
  • 3-4 cups cooked brown rice
  • 1 cups shredded cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, whatever you have on hand, optional)

Directions:

In a cast iron skillet or other heavy-bottomed pot, melt one stick of butter. Sauté the onions over medium to medium-high heat until translucent, at least 10 minutes. This browning step is what will add much of the flavor, so if you have time to cook them 20 minutes, it’s worth the wait. Feel free to cover them to speed the process along.

Add green beans and stir to saute them lightly. Add the garlic, salt, pepper and all the other seasoning to the onions and green beans. Stir around for a minute or two to release the aromas of the herbs, then add the cooked rice and cooked chicken plus optional cheese.

Stir and cook over medium low to heat through, and serve immediately.

Three frugal, simple meals, all from one whole chicken.

If I’m lucky, I might even have another cup or two of chicken to freeze for the future, and remember I already have a few jars of stock ready for another meal.

The best part is yet to come: Did you know you can actually reuse the chicken bones for another batch of stock, and even a third? You should be able to get at least a half gallon of “seconds” broth which is great for white chicken chili, stir fry sauces, and other uses where the broth doesn’t have to be the spotlight, and the “thirds” work for cooking rice, adding to spicy chili, and mixing with “firsts” for any soup.

Katie Kimball is a mother of three from Michigan who spends a ton of time in the kitchen making real food with whole ingredients and then blogs about her successes and failures at Kitchen Stewardship.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 23, 2013 comment

Q + A: How do I avoid becoming obsessed and overwhelmed with goal-setting?

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Q + A: How do I avoid becoming obsessed and overwhelmed with goal-setting?

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I have learned so much from you about goal-setting. Thank you so much for all your wise and helpful advice. I set goals for the year and I’m very excited about them. But I get overly obsessive about reaching my goals, and I feel terrible if I haven’t been able to cross off all my goals and todos by the end of the day. I almost feel like I want to give up my goals so I stop being so obsessed. Please help me find a better balance! Thank you! -Laura

Laura, I really appreciate you asking this question. While I’m a big fan of goal-setting, I think it’s imperative that we not go overboard with them so that they control our life — ultimately sucking the joy of living out of life itself.

Goals Are Meant To Be a Blessing, Not a Burden!

The reason you set goals is to enhance your life, not to become exhausted or overwhelmed. If goals become additional stress in your life, they need to be tweaked, rewritten, or dropped altogether.

It’s good to challenge ourselves.

It’s good to push ourselves outside our comfort zone.

It’s good to aim high and work hard.

BUT there always needs to be room to breathe in life. Charging ahead at breakneck speed just for the sake of speed and productivity is no way to live.

With this in mind, here are five ideas for you to consider:

1. Create Weekly Goals Versus Daily Goals

I always encourage people to break their goals down into bite-sized pieces. I encourage this because viewing a big goal in one lump sum can be overwhelming.

However, if you break a goal down so small that you feel obligated to always be working on it every single day — even when the inevitable interruptions come up — you can end up feeling like you’ve failed or fallen way behind when you don’t hit your daily goals every single day.

Perhaps a better option for you would be to choose a few small, bite-sized goals to tackle each week versus each day. Write them down and post them on your refrigerator or somewhere else that you’ll see regularly and then fit them in as you’re able throughout the week.

This way, you are still chipping away at your goals, but you’re doing so in a way that’s more flexible and adaptable to your schedule. On days that you’re really busy, you can just focus on the basics. On days that you have some extra time, you can knock out one or two of the bite-sized pieces.

If you don’t get to all the goals that week, just bump the leftovers to the following week.

2. Make Your Goals Your First Priority Of the Day

Since one of my words for the year is Discipline, I’ve been making a very concerted effort to do the hardest things first. This means I’m starting the day by tackling some of my least favorite but most important things first.

Truthfully, this is making a world of difference for me. I realized that I’ve been wasting a lot of time just stalling… I’d add things to tomorrow’s to-do list or file things to do later instead of just doing it now. There’s a time and place for filing and putting things on tomorrow’s to-do list, but I’ve been challenging myself to stop procrastinating on these things and just face ’em head-on and get them done.

Not only am I getting a lot more done, but I’m also finding I have a lot more margin time. Because once you stop stalling and start working, it takes a whole lot less time to do things!

3. Take A Day Off Once a Week

If you go-go-go all week long and never take a break, you’re bound to burn yourself out. Give yourself at least one day “off” each week that you don’t worry about work or goals or to-do lists. This is your day to refuel and refresh.

We have Sundays set aside as our day off at our house. We go to church, come home and have a really simple lunch of some sort, and then have a quiet afternoon either resting, reading, talking, playing a game, or engaging in other relaxing activities.

We don’t blog, worry about business stuff or goals, and I often don’t even turn on my phone or computer all day long. It’s a day we look forward to all week long!

If you can’t take a full day off, at least take half a day every week. I promise that you’ll find you’re more productive when you take time to recharge than if you just keep going and never stop to take a breath.

4. Set Fewer Goals

Experiment with lowering the bar a little when it comes to goal-setting. Maybe what you’re getting hung up on is the fact that you’re trying to accomplish too many goals.

It’s better to have fewer goals and follow through with them than to have a lot of goals and just end up overwhelmed by them.

Go through your goal list and try culling it down to the most important goals for 4-6 weeks. Just focus on those and see if that makes a difference in your stress level.

5. Give Yourself Grace

You’re pretty much never going to get everything done that you want to in a day’s time. That’s just life!

Focus on what you have accomplished instead of beating yourself up over what you didn’t accomplish.

If you end the day feeling like you accomplished nowhere near what you’d hoped, don’t fret. Just transfer the things you didn’t get done to tomorrow’s to-do list (or decide to skip them altogether), go to bed, get some rest, and wake up to a new day tomorrow!

What advice and suggestions do the rest of you have for Laura? I’d love to hear your input!

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 23, 2013 comment

Why You Shouldn’t Wait a Year to Clean Out Underneath Your Oven {Ahem}

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Why You Shouldn’t Wait a Year to Clean Out Underneath Your Oven {Ahem}

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I was looking for a mini muffin pan and couldn’t find it. So I had the “brilliant” {ahem!} idea to pull out the oven drawer and look underneath it.

Word to the wise: do not perform this exercise without seriously preparing yourself for what you might discover. I was thoroughly unprepared…

I pulled out the oven drawer and almost screamed. There were enough pieces of food living under my oven to fill up the entire dustpan. I kid you not.

It was nearly horrifying as I’d been feeling like I was doing a fairly good job of keeping my home clean and orderly recently. Yikes! Apparently not!

After using the vacuum attachment to sweep up all the nasty particles that had been residing under the oven for way too long, it stilled looked pretty awful.

It took lots of elbow grease, but I finally got it looking much better. And I’ve promised myself that I will do my best to not wait an entire year again to clean underneath my oven.

However, at least these pictures can make you feel better about any mess you might have at your house. Because I’m pretty sure that I win the award for Dirtiest Oven Floor of the Year. 🙂

Using goals to change your life
Shared Jan 23, 2013 comment

How a Little Focus Can Change Your Life

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How a Little Focus Can Change Your Life

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Using goals to change your life

Note from Crystal: After Rachel read my post on How One Word Can Change Your Life in 2013, she asked me if she could write a guest post. As she’s the co-author of My One Word, I was delighted to have her share from her experience here — especially since this is my first year to choose one word and she’s been doing this for years!

Guest post from Rachel of RachelOlsen.com

Have you ever notice how the start of a new year prompts us to make long lists of goals?

We promise things like:

  • I’m going to exercise five days a week and lose weight.
  • I’m going to get my entire house organized and keep it that way.
  • I’m going to get up early and read my Bible every single morning.

Then we rush out and spend money on stuff we think we need to make these resolutions a reality. We buy new workout wear and join a gym. We buy 18 different organizing bins in four different sizes. We purchase a hefty new study Bible, highlighters, and a new journal.

What happens? After a couple weeks of effort, life interrupts or our will power fizzles and we discover these purchased items have no power to change us. We conclude that we just can’t change, and nurse our feelings of failure with some chocolate, or nachos.

What if I told you that what you need isn’t a bigger house, high-end running shoes, or an 8 lb.Bible? What if I told you all you really need is focus?

Here’s what I’ve discovered:

Change is possible; but focus is required.

You might be thinking that focus is something you either have or you don’t, but that’s not true. Focus is something you DO. And focus can come into your daily practice in the form of one single word.

For the last six years, my church and I have ditched our lists of resolutions in favor of choosing one word to be our focus for the year. Just one word that represents what we most hope will manifest in and through us in the year ahead. Thousands have since joined us in doing something about one thing via one word, rather than little about a whole list of resolutions.

Let me encourage you to replace of your list of promises to exercise more, read the Bible, and maintain an organized home — all great goals, by the way — and spend a year with the one word DISCIPLINED.

Got different goals? You could focus this year on saving money, paying down your debt, and learning to happily live within your means with the one word CONTENTMENT. Or you could focus on taming your tongue and cultivating loving relationships with the one word GENTLE.

Your one word is memorable and has a way of driving down to matters of the heart — and that’s where our behaviors ultimately flow from. That’s where our lives change.

So pick a word for 2013 and let your one word govern your actions and decisions. Let it be your focus and your daily prayer. Let it cast a vision for who you can become over the course of an entire year.

Resolutions can be broken. A single word cannot. Why not choose a one word for this year and see what changes a little focus can bring?

What is your one word?

Rachel Olsen is the co-author of My One Word: Change Your Life with Just One Word. She is also a national speaker on the subject of change, and a life coach. She blogs at RachelOlsen.com. And at www.MyOneWord.org, where you can post your one word.  

photo from Big Stock

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 23, 2013 comment

Ask The Readers: How can we save money on a Disney vacation?

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Ask The Readers: How can we save money on a Disney vacation?

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Today’s question is from Dana:

My parents would like to take my husband and I on a Disney vacation this year. This is a generous offer and I want to make sure we do everything we can to help save them money on the trip.

It has been 15 years since any of us have been to Disney and we are sure a lot has changed — like the passes to reserve a spot in line. We do not have children; it will just be 4 adults acting like kids while on vacation. Do you have any tips or sources to help us save money on this trip? -Dana

Do you have a question you’d like to ask Money Saving Mom® readers? Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 22, 2013 comment

52 Different Ways to Save $100 This Year: Ditch Your Cable Package {Week 3}

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52 Different Ways to Save $100 This Year: Ditch Your Cable Package {Week 3}

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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.

You knew it was coming… I just couldn’t write a series on ways to save $100 or more per year without going there.

Yup, we’re talking about ditching cable TV this week.

Some of you are thinking, “Of course. We ditched cable a long time ago.” Or maybe you’re like us and you’ve never even had cable.

But others of you are clinging pretty tightly to your cable package and hoping that you can find a way to justify keeping it. 🙂

How Much is Cable Really Costing You?

Well, if you need a little motivation to consider ditching or downsizing your cable package, how about you do something for me, okay?

Go get your latest cable bill. Yes, go get it — or look it up online. See how much you’re spending per month and multiply that by 12. That big number you’re seeing? That’s how much you’d save per year by giving up cable.

Stop and consider what you could do with that kind of money if you weren’t sending it into the cable company every month.

Now, every cable package is different, so I can’t tell you exactly how much you’d save, but I took a poll on Facebook over the weekend and do you know what the average amount people were spending on cable TV per month is? More than $46.

That’s over $550 per year. Multiply $46 per month over five years and you’d come up with $2,760 in savings.

That’s no small potatoes we’re talking about here!

And some people are spending more like $68 per month. That translates to spending $816 per year or $4,080 over five years!

What Could You Do With the Time You’re Spending Watching TV?

I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I believe Americans, in general, could survive just fine without watching as much TV as they do. In fact, I think many Americans would be much more fulfilled, more active, healthier, and happier if they spent less time sitting in front of the tube for a few hours or more per day.

I hear so many people lament their lack of time to pursue their dreams or start a business. And yet most people seem to find plenty of time to watch their favorite shows. Is there possibly a disconnect there?

Less TV watching not only frees up more time and encourages you to be more active, it also brings less of the consumerism mentality into your home. If you’re not watching all of those commercials, you don’t know what “amazing” things you “need” to buy! This, in turn, can help you become more content — all while saving a hefty amount of money, too!

Three Alternatives to Paying for Cable

Now, hear me out, I’m not saying you can’t ever enjoy a TV show. We have a few we enjoy watching occasionally and I think some of the things on TV can be educational or clean family entertainment (though the commercials sometimes ruin the “clean” part unfortunately! :()

However, we have found ways to watch TV without having to pay for it (other than our monthly Netflix bill). Here’s a guest post that Jenae from I Can Teach My Child wrote in 2011 on three alternatives to cable that I thought was so helpful that I’d just post it in its entirety here…

There are so many alternatives to paying lots of money for cable each month. Here are three we’ve found to be helpful for our family.

High-Definition Antenna

What if I told you that you could still watch most of your favorite shows for free? ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS and even a few other random channels can all be received for free in most areas* with a high-definition antenna. After a little upfront cost, you can watch these channels for the rest of your life. All you need is a converter box (if your TV does not already have an HDTV tuner — every new TV has one) and a high-definition antenna (which can go in your attic, wall or outside).

High-definition antennas range from $40-$150. You can purchase them at your local home-improvement store (Lowe’s or Home Depot). You can also go here for more information and to purchase one as well. And if you’re really handy (or you know someone who is), you can supposedly even make your own HDTV antenna for less than $10! It might be worth a shot!

If you own a TV that was manufactured after July 1, 2007, it should already have an HDTV tuner. You only need a converter box if your analog TV is older than that. Converter Boxes start at $40 and go up from there. Go here for a few converter box options.

*I realize that good reception depends in large part due to where you live. If this isn’t an option for you, you could still opt for the cheapest plan from your cable or satellite provider and implement the other two suggestions.

Netflix & Redbox

Many of you know that you can receive unlimited DVDs in the mail for about $10 a month from Netflix. But did you also know that they have thousands of movies on instant play as well? We’ve watched entire series of very popular shows instantly. You can stream it to a Blu-Ray player, XBox or Wii, or you can just watch it on your computer. Netflix is also a great resource for children’s television shows. The best part is that there are no commercials.

Redbox (a $1-per-night video rental kiosk that can be found outside many McDonald’s, Walgreens, and Walmarts locations) offers at least one free rental each month (usually the first Monday of every month) when you create an account on their website.

Borrow

Libraries are not only a great resource for books, most libraries also have movies as well! And the best part is that it’s free! You can browse most titles on your library’s website. Another option is to borrow movies from friends.

We’ve gone without cable for our entire married life (almost seven years). At first, we simply couldn’t afford cable and opted for bunny ears. Now that our income has increased and we could afford if we really wanted to, we still choose not to. We enjoy enough television and movie time without spending all that money every month!

Jenae is a wife, mother of two boys’ ages 3 and 15 months, and former first-grade teacher. She loves spending time with her family and sharing fun and educational activities for young children on her website, I Can Teach My Child.

There are also options like Amazon Prime and Hulu to check out now, too! For more ideas, check out Amy’s post on How to Ditch Your Cable Bill.

By the way, if you have sports fans at your house, you’ve got to check out this piece on A Coach Without Cable. Thought-provoking stuff!

photos from Big Stock

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jan 22, 2013 comment

Please DON’T Buy My Book! (one author’s plea)

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Please DON’T Buy My Book! (one author’s plea)

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Guest post from Tricia of TriciaGoyer.com

I’m an author, and I love readers (of course!). I get excited when I know someone out there is so engrossed in one of my novels that she misses sleep. However, I also love when readers don’t buy my books.

Do you have an author you love? Instead of buying the book ask your local library to purchase a copy… or two.

Here’s why I love my readers turn to their local libraries to get my books:

1. If the library has it, then checking it out tells the librarian it’s good. This means the library orders the next one I write.

2. If the library doesn’t have it, you can ask the librarian to order it. Most libraries have a system for recommendations. Libraries have a budget for books, and they are happy to oblige.

3. When you request a book it gets put on the shelf and others pick it up. If they read it—and love it—that means more fans for me!

4. And if you read a book that you really enjoyed, let your librarian know! Librarians are one of the greatest resources on the planet. They get asked daily for recommendations. If you have an author you love, spread the word.

5. Finally, when you’re talking to that librarian make sure you thank her (or him!) for buying all those books so you don’t have to! Just think of all the thousands of resources and literary adventures available to all of us for FREE!

How often do you frequent your local library?

Tricia Goyer wife, mom of six, author of 34 books… and a familiar face at her local library. You can read more about Tricia at TriciaGoyer.com or at at Mom Life Today.

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