Smashed Peas and Carrots shows you how to make these cute Rustic Chalkboard Easter Eggs.
Summer Bucket List
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4 Weeks to a More Organized Home: Assignment #1
Spring is here and with that comes fresh resolve to get my home and life in better order. I’ve set aside the month of April to really focus on organization in my home and life. And I’d love for you to join me!
So in April, every weekday morning at 9 a.m. EST, I’ll be posting the day’s assignment and then every evening at 9 p.m. EST, I’ll be posting my progress and pictures, along with a link-up for you to share your progress and pictures, too.
Day 1 Assignment
::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life! Get your free copy of SarahMae’s ebook, Frumps to Pumps, if you need more motivation in this.}
::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-10 goals for this week.
::Complete your morning routine {if you don’t have a morning routine, take some time to create one today! Read my How to Develop a Routine That Works–And Stick With It series for step-by-step help.}
::Set the timer for 15 minutes and quickly pick up the main living areas of your home.
::Clean out your purse and/or diaper bag.
::Find 7 items to get rid of today. Throw them out, stick them in a donate or garage sale box, give them to a friend who can use them, or list them on Craigslist or eBay.
Note: If you work outside the home or have a really busy week with little time for extra projects, just do the bolded project above.
2012 Goals: March Update
How are you doing on your goals for 2012? March wasn’t the best month for me when it came to goals, but I did make some progress…
Personal
Read through the Bible in a year. {I’ve been keeping up with this faithfully.}
Read through the 24 books on my 2012 booklist. {I’ve finished all the books through March plus read quite a few other books!}
Listen to 12 audiobooks. {I’m still working on March’s audiobook–it’s a longer one and it’s taking me awhile to get through!}
Run in at least one 5K race. {Almost finished with week 8 of the Couch to 5K program.}
Complete the Couch to 10K program.
Tackle 12 Do-It-Yourself Projects. {I bought the stuff to make March’s DIY project, but after my allergic reaction, I decided to postpone the Face Wash project for another month or two!}
Focus on one habit per month. {So I totally bombed the morning routine goal in March. Can I try for a redo in April?!}
Learn to use my new DSLR camera (huge surprise Christmas present from Jesse!!) & improve my photography skills.
Take at least one photo a day and put together a page every week for my Project Life album. {I kind of fell off the bandwagon with keeping up with my album in March, but I have high hopes of getting caught up in.}
Memorize Colossians using the plan and free download here. {I’m almost caught up with this.}Marriage
Go on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise. {Done–read my recap here.}
Go on two Marriage Retreats (overnight trips sans children for planning, talking, goal accountability).
Have monthly date nights. {We had one date in March.}
Read four books together. {We didn’t read anything together in March… must try to make this more of a priority in April!}
Read at least 3 books on marriage. {Finished Rekindling the Romance in March.}Children/Homeschooling
Continue regular dates/outings with each of the children individually. {I went on at least one outing with each child individually in March.}
Continue Grace and Truth memory book. {The children memorized part of the Lord’s Prayer plus two verses of a hymn this month.}
Ice-skating lessons for all three children. {We started the second round of ice-skating classes in March.}
Swimming lessons for all three children.
Finish second grade, begin third grade with Kathrynne. {Plugging away at this!}
Finish kindergarten, begin first grade with Kaitlynn. {Plugging away at this!}
Start preschool with Silas.
Go on at least one field trip every month. {We went to the park multiple times and on some family bike rides, but didn’t actually make it on any “official” field trips.}
Go on at least one family vacation.
Finish at least 15 read-aloud books. {We’ve finished seven read-alouds so far this year.}Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family
Write at least two handwritten notes every month to encourage someone. {I wrote & mailed two handwritten notes this month.}
Continue being involved in our local church, homeschool group, young couple’s group, and blogging accountability group. {Ongoing}
Continue with weekly get-togethers with both sides of our extended family. {Ongoing}Business/Blogging
Continue to take Sundays off from blogging/business work. {Ongoing}
Continue keeping strict Office Hours for the business/blogging time each day. {Still plugging away on this!}
Switch to a paperless planning system. {This is going well for me, though I’ve decided I’m probably never going to be 100% paperless for all things.}
Follow my weekly blogging plan. {I didn’t do this perfectly in March, but I adhered to it somewhat.}
Plan blog posts out at least a month in advance. {Not quite there, but I’m at least being much more intentional with my blogging this year than I’ve ever been before!}
Write and schedule blog posts at least a week in advance. {Making some headway with this, though I’m far from where I want to be!}Financial
Continue to tithe 10% of our income. {Ongoing}
Give generously to needs in our community and around the world, as God prompts us. {Ongoing}
Pay cash for a new-to-us vehicle to replace our family’s van. {We picked out the specific vehicle we’re planning to buy and started our vehicle search in March!}
Finish saving for and purchase a rental property with cash. {We were able to set aside some for this in March.}
How Are You Doing on Your Goals for 2012?
If you’ve posted goals for 2012, I’d love for you to post an update on how things are going and share your link in the comments. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to just leave your update as a comment. Let’s encourage one another to live lives of intention and purpose!
4 Simple Steps to Start a “Fun Money” Cash System
Guest post from Jadah of Family Sponge
My friend Linda introduced me to the term “fun money.” It seems like a funny concept, and it took me over three years to finally adopt it into my own life, but now I want to share this life-changing and simple cash system to you.
My husband and I have always had a toxic relationship with money. If we have the money, we spend it. If we don’t have the money, we spend it. Then one day, we maxed out our credit cards, and we could no longer spend money we didn’t have.
I actually used to be good with paying my full credit card balances at the end of each month. I had an excellent credit score, owned my own condo by 22 years old, and was very responsible with bills and credit card payments.
But then I had a baby and fell in love! I left my job to stay home with my daughter, our income got smaller, and our expenses increased. I mean I “had” to have a Phil and Ted’s stroller. I had to.
Even if I already had a Graco stroller and Peg Perego stroller and was a baby-wearing enthusiast who didn’t even use a stroller much. I thought I “had” to have that $400 stroller!
Fast forward three years later: my husband and I use a cash system.
We were forced to really look at our budget and enter the world of conscious spending. The funny thing is, we never had a budget, so I had to create one. We only use our debit cards for paying for gas, a few random online purchases, and our online bill pay. We use our cash system for groceries, toiletries, and “fun money.”
Here’s how the “fun money” cash system works:
1. Designate what the “fun money” will be used for.
Our “fun money” is for anything that is not a living or survival expense: movies, eating out at restaurants, iTunes music, clothes, tickets to a concert or game, gifts, enrichment classes, books, office expense splurges, etc.
2. Budget a set amount of money per person.
We budgeted $200 per month per adult and $100 per child (Zoe’s fun money goes towards her classes like ballet). So that’s a total of $500 per month budgeted for “fun money” in our family. That might sound really high to you. If so, choose a number that is doable with your own budget.
3. Set up a “fun money” payout date on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.
We chose to distribute “fun money” bi-weekly based on my husband’s paydays since his checks from work get direct deposited into our bank account.
4. Choose a person who will withdraw and distribute the “fun money.”
Since I work from home, I make a visit to the bank on payday and put our “fun money” into an envelope labeled with our names on it.
It’s nice to have this fun money to do what ever we want without having to worry about going over budget or spending money we don’t have.
Do you have a system for “fun money”?
Jadah Sellner is the editor of Family Sponge and a work-at-home mom who blogs about creative inspiration and balancing family life. Her passion is to build a community who strives to reach optimal levels of love, respect, and healthy living.
Shared Mar 31, 2012
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Super Savings Saturday: Our 7 (yes, really!) shopping trips this week
Super Savings Saturday: Our 7 (yes, really!) shopping trips this week
I didn’t do a lot of grocery shopping or couponing the first three weeks in March because I somehow ended up with three trips scheduled those first three and a half weeks. {I enjoy traveling, on occasion, and I love the opportunity to get to speak and meet some of you, but I’ve decided that three trips in three weeks is definitely not something I want to make a habit of! I much prefer quiet days at home with my family! :)}
However, I think I made up for my lack of grocery shopping and couponing this week. Here are the groceries we purchased:
My husband’s shopping trip at Dillon’s that ended up being pretty “screwed up” thanks to both of us miscalculating and misreading ads — Spent $34.97 — Read the full details and price breakdowns here.
Health food store shopping trip — 7 pounds of fruit for $0.99/lb.
Target shopping trip — Spent $38.01 (most of that wasn’t grocery money, though, since the games came out of our household envelope and the girls paid for the Hello Kitty house) — See the full details and price breakdowns here.
Dillon’s shopping trip #2 — Spent $1.26 — Read the full details and price breakdowns here.
Walmart shopping trip — Spent $1.17 — Read the full details and price breakdowns here.
Dillon’s shopping trip #2 — Spent $5.16 — Read the full details and price breakdowns here.
Aldi shopping trip — Spent $15.19 — Read the full details and price breakdowns here.
Didn’t You Waste a Lot of Time and Gas Making All Of Those Trips?
I’m sure that some of you are wondering why I made all these little shopping trips and thinking that I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, time, and gas money if I would have just gone to one store.
Well, yes, I definitely did do more shopping trips than I usually do this week. However, all of the stores were either on my way to somewhere else I was headed or they are really close to my house. I also had extra time this week since we didn’t have that much planned outside of the usual homeschooling and household life.
And finally, it was so nice to be able to just have fun shopping and getting bargains again, after taking a few weeks “off” from it. Yes, I know, I’m crazy that I consider grocery shopping a leisurely activity! 🙂
Would you like to know what the best deals and coupon match-ups are for your local stores? Be sure to check out the Store Deals section of our site where we post the best deals and coupon match-ups each week for over 100 different stores across the country. You can sign up to receive the top deals in your email inbox each week as soon as they are posted!
Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
Happiness is not dependent upon how much you have
Today’s shopping trip: Dillon’s & Aldi
I needed to head to Aldi to pick up some produce, so I swung by Dillon’s on the way there. Here’s what I got:
Dillon’s Shopping Trip
2 cans of Dole pineapple — $1 each, used $1/2 coupon = $0.50 per can after coupon
2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste — $1 each, used two $0.75/1 coupons (“doubled” to $1 off) = free after coupon
2 Snickers eggs — $0.50 each, used $1.50/2 Mars Easter candy coupon from the All You magazine = free plus overage after coupon
2 packages of Land O’ Lakes butter — $2.50 each, used 1 $0.50/2 coupon (doubled to $1 off) = $2 each after coupon
Total with tax: $5.16
And here were the great deals I scored at Aldi:
Aldi Shopping Trip
1 gallon milk — $2.77
3 packages of strawberries — $0.99 each
2 bags of sweet potatoes — $.099 each
1 bag oranges — $1.48
3 cantaloupe — $0.99 each
10-lb. bag of potatoes — $1.99
Total with tax: $15.19
Shared Mar 30, 2012
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Free live webcast on April 5, 2012 + iPad 2 giveaway (submit your questions by 8 p.m. EST tonight!)
Free live webcast on April 5, 2012 + iPad 2 giveaway (submit your questions by 8 p.m. EST tonight!)
As I mentioned recently, I’m working on stepping outside my comfort zone this year. So, with the help of the fabulous folks from LitFuse Publicity Group, I’m hosting my first-ever live webcast next Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 8 p.m. EST.
I’m excited about it–though a wee bit nervous since this is completely new territory for me. But I know it’s going to be fun and I’m especially excited at the opportunity to get to interact with you all in a more personal — and live! — format.
I’ll be sharing 7 simple things women can do to contribute to their family’s finances, I’ll be giving away a lot of fantastic prizes (things like Vitacost.com vouchers, Starbucks gift cards, iTunes gift cards, books, + more!), I’ll be doing a live Q&A chat with you all, and my husband’s going to be joining me for an pre-recorded Q&A session.
Enter to Win a Free iPad 2!
Would you like to win a free iPad 2? I’m giving one away during the webcast!
To enter to win, all you have to do is Enter the Sweepstakes here. That’s it!
Submit Your Questions For the Q&A With My Husband
Jesse and I are shooting our joint Q&A video tomorrow (he’s watching the children during the webcast, so we’re pre-recording it!) and instead of me coming up with questions to ask him, I thought it’d be fun for you all to submit questions you’d love for me to ask him in the video.
So, put on your thinking caps, and then leave your questions for Jesse in the comments on this post or submit them through the contact form here. If you could have them to me by 8 p.m. tonight, that’d be fabulous.
I’m looking forward to sharing/chatting with you next Thursday!
10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers
Today, I’m tackling chores for toddlers. Before I share our list of toddler chore ideas, here are a few tips for encouraging your toddler to help with chores.
1. Keep It Simple
Don’t try to have your toddler learn how to do five new chores at once. Start with one simple chore and then gradually add a few more after they’ve gotten the hang of one chore.
2. Shower Them With Praise
Remember to enthusiastically praise your toddler and to make chores a fun and exciting thing. Work alongside them showing them the right way to do things and giving them lots and lots of positive affirmation for their efforts.
3. Don’t Give Up!
Training requires a lot of repetition. Don’t get discouraged if it seems you’re not making any progress or getting anywhere with your toddler. Just keep praising, encouraging, teaching, and helping them with their chores. They’ll eventually get it!
10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers
::Get Dressed — They can also learn to put their dirty clothes in the hamper.
::Brush Teeth — with help from mom or dad to make sure they are thorough!
::Help Pick Up Room
::Water Plants — a watering can or small cup works great for this. Outdoor plants are best since toddlers tend to be a bit enthusiastic in their watering! 🙂
::Fold Washcloths
::Put Away Laundry — Silas has learned how to put away his pile of folded laundry in his drawers.
::Pick Up Toys & Put Into Tub — Cleaning up a huge mess is overwhelming for a toddler so it’s better to give them a simple task like putting all of the books back into the basket or the Duplos back into the tub.
::Dust — Give a toddler an sock to wear and let them dust all of the surfaces in a room.
::Wipe Down Sink/Toilet — Cleaning wipes work especially well for young children to use. Or, you can spray some nontoxic cleaner onto a rag and let them wipe down the sink, toilet, or floor in the bathroom.
::Empty Trashes — If you have small trashes in some rooms in your home, this is a perfect job for toddlers.
Want to help your youngsters develop a morning routine? You can print these free morning routine cards from Living Locurto.
Looking for other age-appropriate chore ideas, you might find these chore lists helpful:
What ideas do you have for other simple chores that toddlers can do?
We Paid Cash: An 8-passenger SUV
A testimony from Carrie from Natural Moms Talk Radio
Today we drove our “new to us” Ford Expedition (with room for eight passengers) off the lot. We’ve been waiting for this day for over two years and we’re so excited that we paid cash for it!
You see, we have six children and ever since our youngest was born 16 months ago, we have not fit into my beloved Toyota Sienna minivan. This means that when we went somewhere as a family, we had to take two cars–a major inconvenience.
During my pregnancy with our sixth, we saved all the cash we could, and thought we would be able to buy a bigger car by the time baby was a few months old. Unfortunately, the tax man came knocking that year, and we wiped out every cent of our savings.
My husband and I are both self-employed, but with several little deductions we weren’t expecting to owe much in taxes. Sadly, we miscalculated and ended up having to pay a lot more than we were expecting. However, we had a very good year! While on the one hand we were thankful that we were able to pay our taxes by stroking a check to Uncle Sam, we were so disappointed not to be getting our larger car anytime soon.
We were back at zero. It was discouraging at first.
My husband and I have weekly budget meetings, so we hunkered down and started thinking of all the different ways we could cut spending and get our savings back up.
Here’s how we rebuilt our savings:
- Had a yard sale.
- Sold a ton of stuff on Craigslist.
- I reduced the grocery budget by: couponing, shopping at ALDI twice a month instead of weekly, and eating less meat.
- We limited eating out to once a month, and only where kids eat free.
- For entertainment we did inexpensive stuff like: stay at home movie night with old fashioned popcorn, visited the library a lot, and played board games.
- Made lattes at home.
- Stopped spending on clothing unless it was half price day at the thrift store.
- Sold a ton of books on Amazon.com.
- Started eBaying again — even the kids got in on it and made money selling old toys!
My husband and I are so relieved to have a car that fits everyone in our family and no debt! In fact, once we sell our Sienna, we’ll have a nice sized “car savings” account again.
Financial Peace University graduates, we ascribe to Dave Ramsey’s “How to Drive a New Car with No Debt” plan. We’ll continue to put money aside each month, and buy a newer large family vehicle every six months or so, until we’re driving something with low miles. And who knows, in a few months we may need a nine-seater!
Carrie is a wife and homeschooling mom of six, a writer and reader of great books. She blogs about living more naturally at Natural Moms Talk Radio.
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
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Today’s Walmart Shopping Trip
I also stopped by Walmart today. They didn’t have some of the deals I was hoping to find, but I was happy to pick up a few things at a great price. Here’s what I got:
4 bottles of Glade Room Spray — $0.98 each, used 2 $2/2 Glade coupons = free after coupons
5 lbs. of bananas — price-matched to local store’s sale of $0.18/lb. = $0.90
Total with tax: $1.17
Today’s Dillon’s Shopping Trip: Spent $1.26, Saved $5.38
So I stopped by Dillon’s today to check on a few of the coupons I had that I thought might made good deals. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much, but here’s what I got:
2 bottles of Ragu sauce — on sale for $1.50 each, used 2 $0.50/1 Ragu coupons (doubled) = $0.50 each after coupons
2 Snickers Eggs — $0.50 each, used $1/2 Mars candy coupon from the All You magazine = free after coupon
1 Suave deodorant — $1, used $0.50/1 Suave deodorant coupon (doubled) = free after coupon
Total with tax: $1.26
Flint, Texas Reader Meet-up
It was so fun to get to meet a group of you all last week when I was in Texas. Thank you to those of you who made the drive to come and for all the fun stories and wise advice you shared. I left inspired, blessed, and encouraged.
And for those who didn’t get to attend, I thought you’d enjoy seeing a photo of all the lovely ladies (and babies!) who came. Truly a beautiful group–and I could have spent hours with you all!
A big thank you to Stephanie for hosting this event at her house!
Save Money By Scheduling Monthly Preventative Maintenance
Guest post from Lisa of About Proximity
In ten years of marriage, surprise bills have inevitably come up. Not only are these taxing on finances, they sometimes are very time consuming and life disrupting. A sampling of our surprises:
- An enormous tree root that backed up our sewer pipes – $500
- A late fee for license plate renewal – $20 times 2
- A minor furnace repair of a pump cleaning (the house was 50 degrees for two days in the dead of winter) – $100
- Washing machine beyond repair – $100 for attempted repair and $150 to replace it
- Annual library late fees – $10
- Drain back-ups in the upstairs bathroom sink (Drano) – $75
- Difficulty finding warranty information when the microwave shorted out – $60 replacement
While working on overhauling our finances this year we realized many of these bills might have been avoided had we done better preventative maintenance. While sometimes these extra bills are unavoidable, we set a goal to have intentional preventative maintenance in our home. Here’s the calendar we follow:
Preventative Maintenance Calendar
January
- Run a bottle of Drano through upstairs bathroom sink
- Oil change for vehicles
February
- Complete Tax Forms
- Complete license plate renewal forms by mail (to avoid lines at Secretary of State)
- Change the furnace filter
March
- Furnace clean and check — $79 (A $50 rebate from Consumer’s Energy available in our area.)
- Annual physical for adults in the family
- Annual eye examination
April
- Run a bottle of Drano through upstairs bathroom sink
- Run root kill through sewer pipes ($13)
- Oil change for vehicles
- Change the furnace filter
May
- Dentist check-ups for the family
June
- Change the furnace filter
July
- Run a bottle of Drano through the upstairs bathroom sink
- Annual well-check for the children
August
- Vehicles in for an oil change
- Change the furnace filter
September
- Flu shots for the whole family
- Replace smoke alarm batteries, go over fire escape plan with family
October
- Run a bottle of Drano through the upstairs bathroom sink
- Run root kill through the sewer pipes ($13)
- Change the furnace filter
November
- Dentist check-ups for the family
- Oil change for the vehicles
December
- Change the furnace filter
- Review the preventative maintenance checklist. Add any new ideas. Prepare the list for the coming year
Weekly
- Keep library books in the same spot in a hallway closet. Drive through the library return weekly on the same day
- When completing our weekly money meeting, choose a home improvement project to complete in the week ahead. This project can be small or large depending on the obligations the coming week holds.
Ongoing
- Keep an up-to-date binder to organize warranties, receipts, and product information brochures.
- When service techs visit, ask questions! They are a wealth of information and can help identify preventative measure.
What preventative maintenance do you schedule regularly?
Lisa Van Engen is a freelance writer from Holland, MI. Her family seeks to be good stewards of the gifts God has given them. Lisa writes at About Proximity about placing yourself in the proximity of renewal.
Today’s Target trip: Spent $37.94, Saved $82.73!
I mentioned awhile back that we’d implemented a paid chore chart system for the girls. They have chores that they do just as being part of our family and then extra chores that they can elect to do and get paid for.
Kathrynne, being the entrepreneurial type that she is, has really gotten excited about the whole paid chore phenomenon–especially since she has her eye on some specific items at Target that she wants to buy. She often does multiple paid chores each day and keeps a running tally of how many more paid chores she needs to complete in order to earn enough to buy what’s on her wish list.
I love the real-life learning that is taking place through the paid chore chart system. The girls are learning that, if you apply yourself and work hard, you reap rewards. Conversely, if you choose to play instead of doing paid chores, you won’t earn any money and therefore won’t have any money to buy anything when we go shopping. It also significantly cuts down on whining and keeps things simple: if you don’t have money or you didn’t bring your money, you don’t get to buy anything.
While earning money in real-life isn’t always as simple as completing more chores on a chart, the girls are still learning so many valuable lessons with regards to handling money. And the neatest thing has been to see how they are working together as a team–sharing payment for chores when they help each other out and pooling their money to buy different things.
Today, the girls had earned enough to buy a small LEGO set. While we were perusing the aisles to decide which one to buy, I was so excited to find a text offer for MEGA BLOKS — if you text EASTER to TARGET you’ll get a text coupon back for 50% off any MEGA BLOKS set. So we were able to use this coupon on the Hello Kitty Playhouse Set to get it for just $17!
We also scored some amazing game deals. I rarely ever buy games, but we love to play them as a family and when we have guests over. At these prices, I couldn’t resist!
Target Shopping Trip
4 8-oz. blocks of cheese — $1.89 each, used 2 $1/2 Target coupons = $1.39 each after coupons
1 Up & Up Baby Wash — $1.52, used $1/1 Up & Up Body Wash coupon = $0.52 after coupon
1 Scrabble Simon or Yahtzee Flash — $15, Used
$5/1 Target printable coupon, stacked with $5/1 Scrabble Flash, Simon Flash, Yahtzee Flash printable = $5 after coupons (plus got free Hasbro card game with purchase)1 Candyland game — $7.79, used the
$3/1 Candyland Target Coupon, stacked with the $3/1 Printable Candyland coupon = $1.79 after coupons1 Electronic Monopoly Game — $15, Used
$5/1 Target printable coupon, stacked with $5/1 Monopoly game printable = $5 after coupons (plus got free Hasbro card game with purchase)1 Hello Kitty Mega Bloks Set — $33.24 — used text coupon (text EASTER to TARGET) to get 50% off = $16.62 after text coupon
Total with tax: $38.01 (my receipt says I saved $82.73!)