Money Saving Mom®

Guest post from Elise of ElisePhotini.com

A month ago we discovered that our kids were suffering some stressful fall-outs from my years of homelessness with their abusive dad. I decided it was important to shut down my growing freelance writing business to ‘stay home’ full time. Even though I was working from my home office, what my ‘tots in tow’ needed me to do was really be here with them all the time.

It was a nerve-wracking decision. At the time my husband was just finishing his Nursing Program prerequisite classwork and had been unemployed or very under-employed for our entire 3+ years of marriage. How were we going to make it now?

That’s when I remembered that I’d had a rural-area motor paper route a couple years ago. Maybe I could toss my kids in the car and do this side-gig as a family now that my little guy was two years old.

Well, for the past few weeks I’ve been training on a couple routes, subbing for some permanent drivers in our Eastern WA small town and getting ready to take on a regular route. And I’ve learned a few MUST-DO’s for working a side gig with ‘tots in tow’!

1. Pack more snacks than you think you’ll need! 

The route takes us about three hours so it’s almost like a mini-road-trip every afternoon. And there is something about kids and cars that gives ’em the munchies!

2.  Plan some wiggle/potty breaks! 

By having a mid-point, or even a couple, planned into your side-gig. My kids love stopping by the Walla Walla Roastery on one of the routes we run to say hi to our friends the owners and to grab some ice water.

3. To encourage napping or quiet time, bring along cuddlies & blankies. 

Only forgot this necessity one day and never again. My little guy falls asleep within 20 minutes of us starting the route now and at some point my girls nod off too. I put on NPR, Dave Ramsey, or some Classical music and we’re all in peaceful land.

4. Try to plan for your side-gig duties well ahead of time — the night before even. 

One of the reasons this motor paper route works for us is because I can do all the planning/tracking/paperwork beforehand and then just show up and throw papers while on the route. As anyone with ‘tots in tow’ knows, deep thoughts or strategizing is nearly impossible with the conversations and interruptions that little ones bring! By getting my paperwork done during a quiet moment the night before, I can enjoy the benefits of manual labor while we’re out on the route.

5.  Stay in the moment! 

Since ‘coming home’ full time I’ve discovered one huge key to getting through even the toughest times: enjoy the moment that is right here. This is one gift of manual labor (or gardening, cooking, even housecleaning sometimes).

Last week one of my tots spotted a family of deer walking calmly across a ridge. What a great memory to make, while making some extra $$’s to help out our bottom line!

Do you have any tips for working along with your kids?

Elise Photini Adams is Mama to four cute kiddos and wife to ‘God-picked’ hubby Andre. Coming from a background of struggle and triumph Elise is determined to overcome her past to become a less-grumpy stay-at-home-mama while cutting through the static in the frugal, green and ‘better-life’ advice out there on her blog ElisePhotini.com. If you’re struggling financially, you might enjoy downloading her Free Report ‘Emergency Cash…Seven Sources of Extra Money for those Tough Times‘.

photo credit

Testimony from KM of Lessons From Ivy:

When we announced that I was expecting our third child, my car was a 98’ Camry sedan and my husband drove an 02’ two-door Cavalier. Inevitably, the first question everyone started asking us was, “When are you going to get a minivan?”

Our response was, “Oh we don’t need one right away, we’ll buy one when we have the money.”  Raised eyebrows always followed. Apparently no one could picture three carseats in my Camry!

Could we have gotten financed for a vehicle? Sure, many car salesmen are more than happy to find a finance company for just about anyone. But we weren’t going to let the excuse of an extra child cause us to finance a larger vehicle.

And I’m here to tell you that three kids doesn’t automatically mean you need a minivan. As we discovered, it is possible to fit three carseats (and properly install them) in the back of a 98’ Camry.

We used two Cosco carseats and an infant Graco carseat with a base. Getting the kids in and out of the car was a choreographed dance each time, but we managed until the right minivan came along and we could afford it.

We kept our eyes open and saved for a minivan for a year. It wasn’t until our son was three months old that we found that perfect minivan (a 2000 Sienna) at our perfect price tag.

It would have certainly been more convenient to have had a minivan right when our baby was born, but doing the crammed in a Camry shuffle was definitely worth it. I’ll take the financial stability of debt freedom over a spacious interior any day.

But I won’t lie; we all love the spacious interior!

KM Logan has a blog of Christian encouragement for women at Lessons From Ivy and has written several books that can be purchased through Amazon.

Guest post from Chris of Simple Family Finance

Get ready. Today, you’re in for a good old fashioned food fight! Don’t pretend like you don’t love those. Three similar items are going to face-off to determine who the winner is. We all know that price comparisons are vital to a frugal food budget, so the winner will be determined by value.

This time, we’re going to take a closer look at Biscotti. Designed to dunk, biscotti is a coffee drinker’s best friend. Milk and tea drinkers, don’t fret. Biscotti is an excellent choice with either beverage. Grape soda drinkers, leave it alone. That’s gross.

Biscotti’s natural habitat is the large glass jar at your local coffee shop’s counter, but it has been known to frequent the cookie aisle at various supermarkets as well. Many species exist, such as lemon, vanilla, and chocolate dipped, but a subtle anise flavor remains my favorite.

Enough introductions. Bring on the battle.

How much biscotti can you have for $1.50?

Wow! It isn’t even close.

The first picture shows a coffee-shop style biscotti. It was individually wrapped near the check-out counter of our local coffee shop. The actual price of this particular biscotti was $1.59, but I labeled it as only $1.50 since prices will vary based on your area and $1.50 seems like a nice round number. You’ll notice it has a little bit of chocolate on it to lure you in.

Don’t fall for it.

First of all, in my wife’s humble opinion (a chocolate fanatic), the homemade biscotti tasted better despite the lack of chocolate. Second, it’s not like you can’t dip your own biscotti in a some chocolate to satisfy your craving.

The second picture represents the store-bought variety. In this case, the Walmart that I checked had a package of Nonni’s Biscotti for $2.98. The package had 8 individually wrapped biscotti inside. Therefore, you can afford 4 of them for $1.50. Congratulations.

The final photo shows you how many homemade biscotti can be made for $1.50. Notice the difference? With the recipe detailed below, $1.50 will buy you 32 truly delicious biscotti!

In fact, the picture doesn’t really do justice to the number of cookies. There are plenty more behind that tall stack in front. It’s not as easy as it seems to stack those buggers.

And the runaway winner is…Homemade Biscotti!

If you like to drink and dunk, please try the recipe below. It’s simple, delicious, and will save you a wheel barrel full of money.

This article is part of a series called Photo Food Fights at Simple Family Finance. You can find this recipe and over 150 other deliciously frugal recipes in Chris’s book, Eating Well For Only $2 A Day! You can find the book, as well as countless other articles, tips, and recipes at Simple Family Finance. Subscribe to the free email updates and receive a coupon code for 20% off the already low price of the book!

Testimony from Amanda of There We Grow

It’s been almost six years since my husband and I started down the road to becoming debt-free… and we’ve never looked back. It was his idea originally and I have to admit, I thought he was slightly crazy and not sure it was even possible. After all, you are always going to have a car payment, right?

My husband was trying to grow his landscape business and I was working as an orthodontic assistant. I had always hoped to stay home after we started our family but had no idea how we’d do it. Now seeing what’s happened with the job and housing market, I breathe a sigh of relief almost everyday that we stuck with our plan to live debt-free.

To get our momentum going, we sold some items we owned and started stashing as much cash as we could. As we gained a little confidence, we began throwing as much money as we could towards the debts we owed and one by one paid them off.

By 2008, we were completely debt-free (except our house) and had started building a bigger emergency fund. We were able to celebrate with a paid-with-cash trip of our dreams — to Hawaii!

What an amazing feeling that was! It’s kind of hard to describe, especially to someone who doesn’t remember ever being debt-free. It’s almost like trying to explain how refreshing a glass of cool water on a hot day is to someone who’s never tasted it.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been times we’ve looked at other people’s things and wanted to spend money to buy something similar — but we didn’t allow ourselves to, even when it was tempting. We’ve determined that being in debt — particularly when you’re in debt for items that depreciate and wear out quickly — pales in comparison to the freedom we have of not being strapped down.

Becoming debt-free also allowed me to make the transition from working full-time to being a stay-at-home mom. There have also been several opportunities we’ve been able to take advantage of because of our financial flexibility — not to mention helping people in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.

For those of you working toward the debt-free life, hang in there! The rewards are so worth it!

No career, training, or previous life experience completely prepared me for the gauntlet of all tasks: motherhood! Now my days revolve around my newfound passion in life as a stay- and work-at-home mama bear to our little boys and wife to my best friend of seven years. We love to travel, grow things in our garden, and explore the outdoors but our favorite thing is being able to do it all debt-free! If you’d like to learn more about me, I’d love to have you visit my blog at There We Grow.