Saving Families Money Since 2007
SometimesHomemade.com shows you how to make a homemade herb planter out of a juice carton.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.
I recently finished reading through Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Her challenge for us to adopt a spirit of thankfulness — no matter our situation — caused me to step back and realize that I’ve become a whiner in recent months.
You see, I’m normally a pretty upbeat, look-on-the-bright-side-of things type of person. But I’ve had some lingering health and allergy issues that have not gone away for months.
I’ve tried so many different things: drastic change in diet (I’ve been off all refined and processed foods for a number of weeks), change in skincare routine, change in allergy medicines… nothing is really making a big difference and I’ve been waiting for quite some time to be able to get in for testing with an allergist.
In the mean time, I’ve been struggling with incessant cold-like symptoms and it’s been wearing on me. As a result, my poor husband has heard a lot of whining over the last few months. Instead of my usual early morning excitement about the day’s events or my cheery report when he gets home from work, he’s often getting the rundown on my latest health problems — which is pretty much the same old, same old every single day.
Reading Choosing Gratitude really helped me see how I’ve been focusing on the things I was struggling with, instead of choosing to be thankful. And not only that, but I felt so convicted at how I was griping over something so petty.
Sure, allergies are no fun (as I’m positive many of you can attest to), but seasonal allergies pale in comparison to some of the life-threatening, debilitating, and/or overwhelmingly incomprehensible issues so many people are facing right now. And I have much to be grateful for — much that I’ve been taking for granted while I was having a pity-party for myself.
Because of Nancy’s encouragement through Choosing Gratitude, I started a Gratitude Journal and I’ve challenged myself to make a daily habit of waking up each morning and starting my day by filling out an entire notebook page with things I’m thankful for.
At first, it seemed rather daunting — especially since I’ve gotten out of the exercise of journaling the past few years. But you know what I’m finding as the days go on? The notebook page is feeling smaller and smaller each morning!
There’s something about starting the day with counting your blessings that just helps change your whole attitude about the day. And the more I’m focusing on my blessings, the less my allergies and health issues have seemed to matter.
In fact, I haven’t even thought to give Jesse one of my normal moping health reports over the last few days. I guess that’s another thing I can add to my Gratitude List for tomorrow! 🙂
We made Ivory Soap Clouds for our Frugal Family Fun project. The kids were less than enthused when I first told them about it.
“Stick a bar of soap in the microwave? What’s the big deal about that?” They said nonchalantly.
Well, I had them all crowd around the microwave, despite their lackluster attitudes.
Within a minute, everyone had forgotten all about their lack of enthusiasm as their eyes were popping out with what the soap had turned into in the microwave.
They started begging me if they could please play with it — and they had so much fun breaking off pieces and being fascinated with the transformation of a simple bar of soap.
Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.
Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.
A batch of Easy Dinner Rolls I made recently. I made the dough up the night before and then baked the rolls before breakfast so that it wouldn’t heat up the house too much!
We’re focusing on eating up all the produce and everything fresh we have in our house this week since we’re going to family camp in Texas next week.
Breakfasts
Oatmeal
Cereal
Strawberry Lassi
Scrambled eggs, toast, fruit
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie PancakesLunches
Snack-y lunch
Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches from the freezer x 2, veggies, apple slices
Leftovers x 2
Quesadillas x 2, raw veggiesSnacks
Chocolate Protein Truffles
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes
Fruit/VeggiesDinners
Dinner with extended family
Mixed Greens with avocado, tomatoes, chopped cheese, and salmon, fruit, rolls
Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken served over rice, fruit salad
Grilled steak, grilled sweet corn, fruit salad, Homemade Bread in the Crockpot
Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken, Homemade Bread in the Crockpot, peaches, steamed veggies
Chicken Lime Tacos, fruit salad
Dinner out
What’s on your menu this week? Share details and/or your link to your menu plan in the comments.
Last week’s goals:
Family/Mothering Goals
1. Finish reading Snow Treasure aloud to the children. Read a few chapters of The Missing Video (reading to Kathrynne), and read at least two chapters of Little House in the Big Woods (reading to Kaitlynn).
2. Continue swimming lessons for all three children.3. Write a love note to Jesse.
Personal Goals
4. Finish reading Building Her House plus one other book.
5. Run at least five times for 45 minutes each; do weight-training program at least four days.6. Listen to 2 hours of Stop Acting Rich.
7. Sleep for at least 7 hours every night.
8. Start the Choosing Gratitude 30-Day Devotional.
Home Management/DIY Projects
9. Make Homemade Wheat Thins {Once again, it was way too hot to turn on the oven and make these. Maybe I should just wait until Fall to try and tackle this project?}
Business Goals
10. Continue blogging the 4 Weeks of Family Fun series.
This week’s goals:
Family/Mothering Goals
1. Start reading Wilma Rudolph: Olympic Runner aloud to the children. Read a few chapters of The Missing Video (reading to Kathrynne), and read at least two chapters of Little House in the Big Woods (reading to Kaitlynn).
2. Have at least one playdate with friends.
3. Write a love note to Jesse.
Personal Goals
4. Finish reading Radical Together plus one other book.
5. Run at least five times for 45 minutes each; do weight-training program at least four days.
6. Finish listening to Stop Acting Rich.
7. Sleep for at least 7 hours every night.
8. Continue on with the Choosing Gratitude 30-Day Devotional.
Home Management/DIY Projects
9. Try at least two new crockpot recipes.
Business Goals
10. Continue blogging the 4 Weeks of Family Fun series.
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.
A cardigan that I upcycled from a sweater I didn’t really like
Guest post from Kristen
For me, one of the many sacrifices I’ve made while trying to stay on a budget is not spending as much to purchase clothes for myself. Instead of spending a lot on new clothes, I have been focusing on getting some “new” pieces for my wardrobe by tweaking existing items in my closet.
Here are just a few ways to save money and stretch your wardrobe, with links to projects I’ve done:
Are the heels on your work shoes worn down? Did you know that you can get them replaced for about $5-10 by either purchasing new tips online, or going to a shoe repair shop? You can also replace the soles. That may be all you need to bring your shoes back to feeling like new.
If a button falls off a shirt, pick up a needle and thread and sew it back on. Holes in seams can also easily be repaired.
If you get a hole in the elbow of a shirt, cut the sleeves to a shorter length and give them a quick hem. Do you have a skirt that fits in the waist but is just a little too short? Add a wide band of decorative fabric at the bottom. When kids get stains on clothes, or holes in places that can’t be repaired, make a cute appliqué to cover it up.
If you find yourself not wearing a pair of pants because the pockets stick out, or the waist gaps, spend a little bit of money with a tailor to have the item fitted. Many alterations cost around $10, and some you can even do yourself.
Another cardigan that I upcycled from a sweater
Turn a men’s button-up shirt into a woman’s skirt. Sew a tank top and a skirt together to make a dress. Turn a pullover sweater into a cardigan. Shorten an ankle-length skirt to right below the knees for a fresh look.
Make flowers from fabric or felt to create a fun pin. Add ribbon trim or ruffles to the edge of a sweater. Re-work existing bows or ribbons so they are more flattering. Change the style of a sweater to update it so you’re more likely to wear it.
Do you find yourself always wearing the same pants with the same top? Challenge yourself to mix up your wardrobe. If you need help, have a friend come over to give input. You can brainstorm new ideas together, and your friend might have a vision for a look that you never even considered.
With a little creativity, you can get some “new” items by spending little or no money!
Kristen is a wife to a great husband, and mom to a wonderful two year-old boy, and a six year-old Golden. She works as an event manager, and loves crafting in her spare time.
Guest post from Jamerrill of Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling and FreeHomeschoolDeals
When I tell people that I feed my family of 7 for $400 per month, I usually get the crazed-eye look. I know they wonder if we live on hot dogs — no, we don’t!
Here are a few tips from my experience that may help finetune your grocery budget and feed your growing family.
I’ve been shopping once-a-month for my family for nearly three years. My grocery costs where literally cut in half by taking this step.
If I’m not in the store then I’m not spending money. I also have a better plan laid out since I must maximize my time and resources on this one trip.
Note: You can see an example of what I buy for my once-a-month shopping trip here. You can also read some answers to Frequently Asked Questions I get about shopping once-a-month here.
When I shop, I often go to two or three stores, but then again, it’s just one day per month. However, depending on my schedule, I can usually feed my family for the same $400 just by sticking to one store. It may not be bulk amounts, but it’s doable.
I buy rice and oatmeal in 25-pound bags for a cost of $16.59 per 25-pound bag of brown rice and $15 per 25-pound bag of quick oats. I divide these large bags into gallon storage bags and stretch them to last three months.
When I left the outside workforce to stay home full-time, I quickly learned that cooking from scratch was a wonderful money-saving method. Be sure to check out Crystal’s articles on freezer cooking and cooking from scratch.
It helps me to lay out a monthly meal plan before I go once-a-month grocery shopping. Make yourself a monthly calendar and save it to reuse the following month.
I usually cook a large meal and serve it various ways over several meals. There are many other ways to meal plan. Some moms even do once-a-month cooking!
Access everything you have in your pantry before giving in to the urge to run to the store. If you shop your pantry, you should be able to come up with a few extra meals.
This is the first year that we’ve made a large garden; I plan to teach myself how to can as well. I can’t wait to see the additional savings this gives our family.
I’m sure many of you garden and can fruits, vegetables, and jellies. I’d love to hear your tips and cost savings in the comments.
I’m still learning this one. I wonder how much more I could save by couponing, furthermore how many extras I could stock up on?
As I’m able, I page through the coupon information here on MoneySavingMom.com, slowly learning this skill. At this point, even without couponing my pantry and freezers are full!
What are your best ways to save on your monthly grocery bill?
Jamerrill Stewart‘s passion is to help families afford the homeschool life. She offers free stuff, goodies, and bargains daily for this purpose at FreeHomeschoolDeals.com. Join Jamerrill and her family as they live the life of faith at HolySpiritLedHomeschooling.net
Looking for an easy weeknight meal the whole family will love? Try Hawaiian pizza!
I whipped up some Hawaiian Pizza on Sunday, inspired by this recipe. It was a fantastic success — at least according to my family!
Since I used homemade pizza dough from my freezer, I literally had this in the oven in minutes.
And judging by the enthusiastic responses from my family, you would have thought that I had spent hours slaving in the kitchen.
The crust puffed up a little weird (I think maybe because I had let the thawed pizza dough sit in the fridge for a few days?), but no one seemed to care since it tasted so good!
1. Preheat oven to 500ºF.
2. Roll out pizza dough onto a greased pizza pan or jelly roll pan.
3. Sprinkle the rest of the ingredients onto the pizza dough. If you prefer, you can sprinkle the cilantro on after you bake the pizza.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until crust is lightly browned. Or, if you want to keep your house cool on a hot summer day, you can bake the pizza on the grill per the instructions here.
Make sure to share and save it on your favorite platform below!
Done-For-You Dinner Recipes With Simple Ingredients and a Grocery Shopping List!
Here’s a little bit of a humorous way to pay off your mortgage:
BOSTON (CBS) – He says it became an obsession, but a 35-year-old dream became a reality for a Milford man as he paid off his mortgage with pennies.
“It started out as a joke,” says Thomas Daigle. “I said I’m going to pay the last mortgage payment off on this place in pennies.”
This man gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “every penny counts”!
Thanks to SarahMae for passing along this article.
I’m currently listening to a fascinating and inspiring audiobook called Stop Acting Rich by Thomas A. Stanley (author of The Millionaire Next Door).
I’ll be honest and tell you that if I were to try reading this book instead of listening to it, it’d probably get boring really quickly. It’s packed with lots and lots of case studies, percentages, and survey results. It’s apparent that the author likes to leave no stone unturned, loves to analyze people, and is very, very detailed.
However, the main point of the book is really good. Namely: If you want to be rich, stop acting like it.
Thanks to 0% financing, it’s easy to try and pretend like we are more well off than we are. But that facade won’t put any additional income in the bank. In fact, the exact opposite will likely happen: you’ll become poor trying to look like you’re rich.
There’s no doubt about it: you can’t buy your way to wealth. As Stanley says, “No one ever became rich by purchasing $800 shoes.”
If you want to be rich, stop acting like it. Learn to live within your means by setting up and following a written budget. Then, take it one step further and live beneath your means — even if it’s just $5 or $10 less than you make each month (for those on really, really tight budgets).
Money doesn’t buy happiness. Happiness comes from being content with what you have and seeking to make the most of where you are.
Start loving the life you’ve been given, embrace exactly where you’re at, and choose to be thankful for the blessings you do have. If you do this, I promise you’ll end up finding a lot more fulfillment in life than pretending you’re a millionaire will ever give you.
We made homemade Oobleck today — something I haven’t done since I was a child. It’s easier than making flubber and the ingredients are not toxic, so it’s a great project for younger children. Plus, it cleans up quite easily with warm water!
It’s fascinating stuff — and even more fascinating is the fact that it only cornstarch and water to make. It hardens up into a thicker dry paste, then softens up into a gooey liquid, and back again as you mess with it. It’s hard to describe with words how it feels the the different forms it takes, so I just encourage you to try it for yourselves and see what it’s all about.
I can almost guarantee you’ll have some fun with it! To read more about the science behind Oobleck or to get some more ideas of things you can have your children try with it, check out Science Bob’s Blog.
makes enough for one child — we made separate colors for each child
Put the corn starch in a bowl. Mix the food coloring into the water. Add water and stir until it forms a paste. Spoon onto foil or a cookie sheet or plate and let your child have fun playing!
Cleans off easily with warm water.
Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.
Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.
A testimony from Suzi
We recently paid cash for a new-to-us Volvo Wagon! We are a family of 5 that realized we just didn’t need so much space or better yet…a car payment!
Before relocating to a large city, we purchased a 2008 Honda Odyssey Van. At the time, our youngest child was transitioning from an infant car seat to a convertible car seat and it didn’t seem that our sedan would “cut it” anymore for our family of 5 + 1 large dog!
We wanted something that was bigger, more comfortable for everyone and “nice!” We found the van we loved, paid a bit of cash, and financed the remainder.
Our car payment was relatively low and for the short-term we were quite pleased with our purchase! It fit everyone (with lots of extra room), looked nice, drove well, and would last us a long time.
We had the van for about six months until one night it hit me: we didn’t need the van! I approached my husband with the crazy idea of selling it.
Within days, we had posted the van for sale.
Thankfully, we were able to sell the van for our asking price (the same as what we had paid for it six months prior) and deposit the money into our savings account. What a great feeling!
We moved forward with the premise of casually looking for a replacement car. We weren’t in any rush since we knew we could manage without one. This time we had very different criteria for our family car.
After a couple months of looking and narrowing down our choices, we found a second owner, 1996 Volvo Wagon (with a 3rd row seat) with only 110,000 miles on it. It fit all the car seats and allowed room in the back for the dog!
We negotiated the price to $3200 and paid cash. Changing the way we thought about transportation, our family, city living, and the direction we wanted to go with saving money, allowed us to find the perfect car for this stage of our lives!
Suzi is a former elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home mom to 3 little girls (5, 3 1/2 and 20 months). She spends her days homeschooling and exploring the city with her husband and girls.
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
CreativeFamilyMoments.com shows you how to make a homemade geode.
For our Frugal Family Fun project today we made Red, White, & Blue Waffles. It was so simple to do — and a fun way to be a little patriotic.
If you need an easy and festive breakfast for the Fourth of July, you could adapt this idea for tomorrow morning — or any morning of the year. It’s especially nice to make in summer, because the waffle iron doesn’t heat up the kitchen like the stove and oven do.
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Makes 4-6 Belgian waffles
Waffle Batter:
Toppings:
Mix together dry waffle batter ingredients in one bowl. Lightly beat together wet waffle batter ingredients in another. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Pour batter onto lightly-oiled or buttered waffle iron and bake until done.
Top with chopped strawberries, blueberries, and yogurt sauce or whipped cream and serve.
Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.
Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.
Just a note: MoneySavingMom.com will be undergoing to major maintenance tomorrow, thanks to the skillful hands of Joy from FiveJs.com.
We had a custom theme built earlier in the year, but have been waiting for a good day to install it — and we decided on July 4, since most people will be enjoying fireworks, family, and good food — not worrying about checking blogs! 🙂
However, if you stop by tomorrow, I just wanted you to be aware that you may not be able to access the blog for part of the day, or things may look weird or not work. It should all be back in much better working order by early Thursday morning.
We’re excited about the updates and possibilities that this custom WordPress theme will allow us to implement. But we first just have to get it installed!
Because of the update, I won’t be blogging at all tomorrow. Instead, I’ll likely be enjoying a completely unplugged day in the middle of the week: sleeping in, drinking free Starbucks coffee, reading a good book, catching a free family movie at our local movie theater (yes, they are still open tomorrow!), making a Layered Nacho Dip to take to a family gathering, hanging out with my family, grilling out, and shooting off a few firecrackers.
I’ll also be thinking about how blessed I am to live in this wonderful country — where the American Dream is still possible! {A big thank you to all of you wonderful military families who sacrifice so much for our freedoms here. We owe so much to you all!}