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Money Saving Mom

Money Saving Mom®

Saving Families Money Since 2007

Summer Bucket List

Summer Bucket List.

Summer Bucket List

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Shared Jun 8, 2012 comment

Frugal Summer Fun from A to Z

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Frugal Summer Fun from A to Z

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

Guest post from Sarah

If you’re looking for frugal summer fun, here are 26+ ideas to try with your family this summer! (And if you’d rather have a printable version, you can download one here!)

Free Printable Summer Fun from A to Z List

Art – From shaving cream and chalk drawings to real paintings for grandma’s art collection, the possibilities are endless!

Balloons, Bubbles, and a Big Box – Need I say more about simple pleasures?

Cookouts – Nothing brings people together better than a campfire or food cooked on a grill.

Drama – Put on family plays, puppet shows (make your own with old socks, plastic spoons, or toilet paper rolls with photos glued on for faces), have a talent show, make up your own music videos or commercials. Make sure to get crazy costumes as well!

Eat Treats – Cooking together and eating together bring you closer together. A couple of my favorite kid-friendly recipes:

  1. Juicesicle – freeze juice in plastic ice cube trays with toothpicks stuck in them or Dixie cups with a popsicle stick stuck in them.
  2. Simple homemade ice cream – 1 Tbsp. vanilla, 2 cup cream or half & half, 1 cup milk, and 3/4 cup sugar. Mix together and freeze.

Field Trips – Designate one day a week to go somewhere interesting and fun. Visit a library, fire or police station, check out a local museum, or tour a bakery or factory in your area.

Games – Pull out the board games or make up some fun games of your own for a memorable family game night.

Homemade crafts – Teach your child how to make a craft. Or learn a new skill like woodworking or sewing together. Take them to a craft store and let them pick out a kit.

Insects – Go on a nature hike and hunt for bugs and identify and learn about them.

Joking around – Be silly together: wrestle, tickle, or have a pillow fight.

Kite – Make a kite or buy one at the dollar store and take it to a park to fly.

Lake – Play on the beach, swim, or fish.

Movie Night – Rent a movie, go to a cheap movie theater or drive-in, or host your own backyard movie night.

Nature/ Neighborhood – Explore the area around your home whether that is nature or a neighborhood park.

Outside fun – Teach your children some of the fun games you used to play as a child such as: capture the flag, freeze tag, or hide and seek.

Photos – Take family pictures. Take goofy pictures. Go for a walk down memory lane by looking at old photo albums or make a new album or a collage.

Quality Time – Go on an outing with just one of your kids at a time so you can spend one-on-one quality time together.

Relatives – Visit your relative and extended family together.

Service Projects – Contact your local church or non-profit and see how you can serve as a family.

Tent – Go camping in your backyard or make a tent fort in your living room.

Undercover Secret Spy Missions – Anonymously do random acts of kindness. For a fun twist: try writing a secret note in white crayon on white paper. Then, attach watercolors and instructions to paint over the paper to reveal a secret message.

Vocal Talents – Recite a verse, perform a musical, or have a karaoke night. Make sure to get it on tape!

Water is Wonderful – Your kids can play for hours with just a kiddie pool of water. A few creative ideas to change things up:

  1. Have a water fight with balloons, water guns.
  2. Sponge fun: Give everyone a bunch of cheap yet absorbent sponges and a bucket of water to play with. (Get the car cleaned while they are at it.)
  3. Make your own sprinkler.
  4. Give your preschooler a bucket of water, a durable paintbrush, and a shady spot on the cement and let her paint pictures with water.

“X”-treme Sports – Try something a little more adventuresome like mountain climbing, rock climbing, or rappelling.

Yard Sales – Go to yard sales, thrift stores, and consignment sales. You can find great and entertaining items for the price of pocket change. Or, have your own yard sale. This is a great way to clean out and simplify and, if your kids get to keep the money they make, the will have more incentive to de-clutter!

Zoo – Visit the zoo or a nearby farm.

What are your favorite frugal fun activities for summer?

Sarah is a former teacher and current stay-at-home mom of three characters. She’s also a local columnist, blogger, and speaker. She loves to encourage and equip moms to grow Christian character in their families through fun and simple ideas and insight.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 7, 2012 comment

5 Ways to Stay Organized in a Small Kitchen

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5 Ways to Stay Organized in a Small Kitchen

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Guest post from Diana of Saving by Making

If you’ve ever lived in a small house or worked in a small kitchen, you know there’s a learning curve to cooking and baking without creating a giant mess. You can cover every inch of counter space with dirty dishes just by making a batch of muffins!

Here are five simple ideas to make life in a small kitchen a bit easier:

1. Use vertical space effectively.

Use wire racks to double the capacity of a shelf. Items will also be easier to remove when they’re not all stacked on top of each other.

Magazine holders work well because they’re tall and narrow–they help use vertical space without being so big that you lose items at the bottom.

2. Clear Your Counters.

Instead of piling up the dirty dishes next to the sink, put them right into the dishwasher or the sink. It might take some adjustment, but clutter-wise, it’s better to have dishes in the sink and your countertops clear.

Wash and rinse dishes in one side of the sink and let them dry in the other side (consciously keep that side clean). Clutter stays off the counters and the mess is contained.

Implement once-a-week clearing. Ideally, you’d do this every night, but if you have young children, your evenings are probably somewhat unpredictable. Instead, choose one day a week when your goal is to have all extraneous items off of the kitchen counters.

3. Containerize.

Choose a container that’s able to hold all the items in a certain category (cooking utensils, sharp knives, table linens, dishcloths, etc.). Then use that container to limit the amount of items you can have in that category.

Don’t use containers that take up more space than the items themselves. Some baskets look beautiful but their shape wastes space. Look for straight-sided baskets and boxes to use available space efficiently.

4. Develop good habits.

Unload the dishwasher in the morning. Make this part of your morning routine and you’ll be free to add dirty dishes directly to the dishwasher throughout the day. Like the “touch it once” rule for paper, if you don’t deal with a dish immediately, you’ll shuffle it around multiple times before it gets washed.

Rinse and drip-dry. If a bowl, plate, or measuring cup only had dry ingredients on it, give it a quick rinse and let it dry in the clean side of your sink. Your dishwasher will be less crowded and you’ll have a smaller pile of dirty dishes.

Wash as you cook. If you make this a habit, you’ll be washing dishes in short spurts and they’ll never stare you in the face, just daring you to get started.

5. Reorganize Frequently.

During times when you bake a lot, can a lot, pack lunches a lot, or have lots of guests, be willing to rearrange things so that they’re easy to access.

When the system stops working, take time to reassess your system and see what needs to be changed.

How do you organize your small kitchen?

Diana is mom to one cute 4-month old and wife to world’s best husband. Besides washing dishes, folding laundry, feeding the baby, and playing the piano for church, she blogs at Saving by Making about saving time and money by making things at home.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 7, 2012 comment

Do-It-Yourself: How to make gift bags from magazine pages

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Do-It-Yourself: How to make gift bags from magazine pages

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Redfly Creations shows you how to make gift bags out of pages from magazines.

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.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 7, 2012 comment

We Paid Cash: A Weekend Getaway

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We Paid Cash: A Weekend Getaway

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We paid cash!A testimony from Sylvia

My marriage has seen three promotions: the “purchase” of our first home, the birth of our first child, and the start of my small in-home pet-sitting business. Though the past four years have seen many great things, we were never able to go on a honeymoon nor have we been afforded time for just the two of us.

Between raising our daughter, my husband’s work schedule (training/deployment), my full-time college and pet-sitting schedule, and finding time for our family and friends, quality time together is pretty rare. In light of all of that, we decided to make it a priority to save money for a two-night getaway to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

After a few days of research, we came up with the figures:

  • The cabin rental: approximately $600.00
  • Gas: approximately $100.00
  • Food, entertainment, and souvenirs: at least $200.00

Since we needed at least $900.00, we weren’t confident that we’d reach that goal in just two months. To our surprise, we were very wrong!

At the time, we were still in the process of building our emergency fund to $2,000.00 and paying off some of our debts. That said, I knew we had to get creative. My husband was deployed at the time, which meant we were receiving additional income (tax-free pay, hazardous duty pay, hostile fire pay, etc.).

So I purchased our small plastic “Travel Fund” jar from the dollar store and, together, we developed a plan of action:

  • I began putting some of my husband’s deployment money in the jar = $400.00
  • All of my earnings from my small pet-sitting business went into the jar = $811.91
  • I sold many of the items we no longer had a use for = $510.00
  • Surprisingly, I found money in various places around our house = $57.72

Alas, the goal we thought would take us forever and a day to reach, was exceeded in less than two months!

Prior to this vacation, my husband and I had never even considered kicking our debit and credit cards to the curb and dedicating three full days of our lives to a cash-only way of living because — like most people in today’s society — we relied heavily on debit and credit card usage. However, we were able to enjoy every single minute of our paid-in-cash vacation because we knew we’d be debt-free upon our return with the same amount of money in our checking account that was in there when we left!

A cash-only budget not only felt amazing but it also worked. In fact, we’re going to do it again.

We still had $731.00 left in our jar after we paid for all of our vacation expenses. We’ve decided that some of that amount will be spent paying off one of our credit cards and the remainder, plus some of the money we earn between now and then, will go towards two separate vacations to Florida to visit with our families later this year.

Sylvia lives in Georgia where her husband, Kevin, is stationed. They have one daughter, Mariah and two dogs and six cats. Sylvia attends college full-time and runs a small in-home pet sitting business called “The Wright Pet Sitter”.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 7, 2012 comment

Do-It-Yourself: Mrs. Meyer’s Liquid Hand Soap

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Do-It-Yourself: Mrs. Meyer’s Liquid Hand Soap

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BrownSugarToast.com shows you how to make homemade Mrs. Meyer’s Liquid Hand Soap.

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.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Q&A: How do you get back on track financially when you’ve lost your momentum?

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Q&A: How do you get back on track financially when you’ve lost your momentum?

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I feel like I’ve gotten off track on our finances and I need input on how to get back on track. We had very little income for the beginning three months of this year, but we did really well at pinching pennies despite the financial struggles. Now that work is a little more steady for my husband, I feel like I’ve had some psychological thing going on where I feel justified spending a little more since we have a more steady income.

I am by no means going crazy, but I have splurged on this and that ($25 here for stuff we really didn’t need, $25 there for a “good deal”). I just need to bring myself back to what really makes me feel good and what I feel pleases God: Living within our means, giving back, and saving money for the future.

Do you have any encouragement or suggestions? -Leah

1. Stop Beating Yourself Up

First off, Leah, I want to encourage you to stop beating yourself up. Wallowing in the feeling of failure does nothing to move you forward.

2. Have a Heart-To-Heart Talk About Your Goals

Instead, I encourage you to sit down with your husband and have a heart-to-heart talk about your financial goals and goals for your family in general.

3. Come To a Mutual Agreement

Where do you hope to be in a year from now or five years now? Communicate about your goals, compromise when necessary, and come to mutual agreement.

4. Break Your Goals Down Into Bite-Sized Pieces

Then break your big goals down into bite-sized pieces so that you have monthly, weekly, and even daily goals to work toward together. This will give you momentum for being creative when it comes to your finances and will give you purpose for cutting costs and living frugally.

5. Make Sure You Budget for Strategic Splurging

Make sure that you include some wiggle room in your budget, if you can wing it (and it sounds like you can). Budgeting a small amount of personal spending money or blow money each month allows you to be able to enjoy little splurges here and there without feeling guilty.

6. Have Monthly Goal Accountability Meetings

Have monthly goal accountability meetings with your husband to make sure that you are staying on track and on the same page when it comes to your budget and your financial goals.

What advice and suggestions would you have for Leah?

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Books We Love: The Courage of Sarah Noble

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Books We Love: The Courage of Sarah Noble

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The Courage of Sarah Noble is a fascinating true story of a courageous young girl who traveled with her father in to the wilderness to build a new home for their family. During the journey and separation from her family, she learned to face her fears and “keep up her courage” as her mother had challenged her to do.

This is an inspiring story that even young children will enjoy — and it’s also perfect for readers who are just beginning to read chapter books. We’ve read it twice in the last year, and the girls have enjoyed it both times and haven’t wanted me to stop when I got to the end of each chapter.

For more book ideas, check out my series on Books We Love. For more picture book ideas, check out my list of 15 Favorite Children’s Books.

Have you read any great books (children’s books or otherwise) recently?

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Frugal Gift Idea: Science Kit for Kids

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Frugal Gift Idea: Science Kit for Kids

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Jenae from I Can Teach My Child has a post on a great gift idea — a Science Kit for Kids.

She has free printables you can use and she shows how she got everything needed for the kit for less than $20 at Walmart!

Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Our wonderful June Sponsors

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Our wonderful June Sponsors

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

You might recognize Angela from a guest post back in March entitled Going Vegan on a Budget. Based out of the greater Seattle area, blogger Angela Russell is committed to reporting on quality deals and having money-saving tips on her blog, The Coupon Project.

Follow her site for gardening posts,unexpected ideas for saving money, good-for-you recipes and savings, free monthly live webcasts, and an occasional dose of coupon humor.

I Am THAT Lady

Lauren from IAmThatLady.com wants everyone to succeed at couponing by her honest and realistic approach to shopping. Lauren and her husband, along with her three children have recently become debt-free after being in over $40,000 worth of debt.

She has a variety of Video Tutorials; from meal planning to couponing, and videos sharing how she budgeted to get out of debt. Lauren also focuses on grocery stores in New York and teaches money-saving seminars across the state of New York.

Motherhood on a Dime is a frugal living blog composed of three sections: Kids, Deals, and Living. As a former teacher turned homeschooling mom, Stacie is always on the look-out for simple activities and ideas for kids.

She recently started a new series called 101 Days of Summer Fun for Kids where she is spotlighting an easy (and frugal) activity each day for the rest of the summer. Besides activities for kids, Motherhood on a Dime is also a place to find deals, coupons, bargains, and posts on faith, food, fitness, and fun. Be sure to enter to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card during June!

Carrie at Coupon Closet shows you how to clip and organize your coupons in only a few minutes each week. Her tips and tricks will keep you ready for every deal you need to snag. Not only will you learn how to use your coupons to maximize your savings, but also how to manage the crazy world of couponing in your everyday life.

Our little shop is full of happy fabrics, practical boutique-style sewing patterns, and fun handcrafted apparel (skirts, aprons, and more). Be sure to browse our $6-a-yard section for great deals on designer fabrics.

Also, check out our brand new rosa lea dress pattern – available for pre-order now! We’d love for you to stop by and say hi on our blog… xox! the Long ladies

YouSaveHere.ca is Canada’s newest cityguide to savings. Their online directory listings represents the trusted and respected local business owners in your community and their daily deals site goes live in a month with savings on products you buy everyday.

They are committed to connecting citizens to local business owners. Stop by and check it out.

OVER-SPENDING EVERY SINGLE MONTH?Grab these FREE Budgeting Sheets!

Click here to download!
Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Reader Tip: How we saved over $150 by just looking over our insurance information

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Reader Tip: How we saved over $150 by just looking over our insurance information

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Jenni emailed in the following tip:

My husband recently asked me  if we were going to renew our AAA roadside assistance membership. I remembered that several of your readers had mentioned looking into whether or not auto insurance would offer that, so I looked up ours online and noticed that we did have it!

I called a customer service representative just to make sure the service was the same as what AAA offered, and found out that it was actually even more comprehensive than AAA. While I was looking at my policy and talking with the representative, I noticed that the coverage also included repair to windshield damage. We had a couple of chips that needed to be repaired, and even though they had occurred awhile ago, it was still covered.

We saved $80 by not renewing our AAA membership this year, and $75 for the windshield repair, so we saved over $150 in about 15 minutes (the time it took to review our policy and make a phone call). -Jenni

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Ask the Readers: How can we find a renter quickly?

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Ask the Readers: How can we find a renter quickly?

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Today’s question is from Martha:

When I met my husband in 2007 he owned a house and I owned a condo. With the economy going down at the time and no way to sell the condo, we decided to rent it out. For the last four months we’ve been paying two mortgages because we can’t find a renter. Our savings is draining and we’re losing hope.

Any suggestions for finding a renter quickly? We don’t want to lose the place. -Martha

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 Jun 6, 2012 comment

How We Are Saving Over $2600 Per Year By Not Eating Out

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How We Are Saving Over $2600 Per Year By Not Eating Out

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Testimony from Crystal of Serving Joyfully

The average American family eats out several times per week — which is something people tend to underestimate until they really examine the numbers.

This is embarrassing, but I’ll confess it — eating out for my family was completely out of hand. We tried to cut back, but there was always justification.

  • We “needed” to eat out for our weekly date.
  • We “needed” to eat out on Sundays after church.
  • We “needed” to eat out Wednesday nights since there was no time to cook.
  • The kids and I “needed” to eat out on Fridays after story time at the library.

The list goes on.

My husband and I live on a meager budget and are trying to get out of debt. We can’t afford all the meals out (we were spending our entire “spending money” budget, plus “borrowing” from other areas to fund it!)

So this year for Lent, we did something drastic — we stopped eating out.

While there are ways to save money when eating out, a meal out for a family of four will typically cost at least $10 for fast food, and $30 for most sit down restaurants. If you are like us, or like the typical American family, just cutting one meal out per week can save you $520-$1560 per year!

Here are some things that have helped us to significantly lower our eating out budget:

1. Plan a Menu.

If you eat out for convenience, you can easily cut out one meal out per week by planning your meals. If you have a roast cooking at home in the crock-pot, it’s easy to skip the fast food on the way home.

I make sure to plan quick meals or leftovers for busy days. Sometimes, just knowing you have a plan gives you the will you need to skip eating out.

2. Don’t Run Errands Right Around Mealtime.

When possible, I plan errands so we’ll be home for mealtimes. I keep snacks in my van so that if we get hungry while out, we can have a healthy snack rather than fast food.

3. Pack a Picnic.

If we can’t be home at mealtimes, we pack a picnic. Now, instead of eating out after story time, we enjoy a picnic at the park. This even allowed me to reach out to some of the other moms and start a weekly playgroup after story time.

4. Have Creative Date Nights.

One of our biggest problem areas was date night. Eating out became our date each week, usually at a sit-down restaurant costing $30+ after taxes and tip. Now, our dates are more creative: we’ll have a movie night at home or do something like a $5 Little Caesar’s Hot & Ready Pizza.

For the occasional splurge, we participate in rewards programs like MyPoints or Swagbucks to earn dining gift cards. By doing this, we are able to limit ourselves to spending no more than $5-$10 per week on eating out, which is within our monthly spending budget.

With these changes, we have nearly eliminated eating out from our budget, saving us around $50 per week, or $2600 in a year!

Do you eat out? If so, what are your tips and and suggestions for saving money on eating out?

Crystal Brothers is a daughter of the King, wife to a forest ranger, and full-time mommy to two rambunctious little boys.  She blogs at Serving Joyfully — a blog dedicated to encouraging and equipping women to serve God and their families with a joyful spirit.

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Shared Jun 6, 2012 comment

Amy takes the Cash-Only Challenge

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Amy takes the Cash-Only Challenge

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My friend, Amy, a non-spender who is wise with her finances but pretty much has always only used her credit card, is taking the three-month Cash-Only Challenge I outlined in my book, The Money Saving Mom®’s Budget.

She posted about her observations and feelings after one month on her blog today. Whether you love or loathe credit cards, I think you’ll find her post interesting and insightful.

Have you tried a cash-only challenge? If so, I’d love to hear what you learned from the experience.