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Shared Jan 21, 2011 comment

We Paid Cash :: A New Vacuum

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 21, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

A testimony by Crystal from A Simple Heart for Home

A few months ago I was vacuuming our couch when it suddenly shut off. I guess I had sucked up one too many Cheerios and after my husband’s multiple attempts to fix it, we found that our vacuum had finally bit the dust.

We are in the process of building a new home, and with five small children and brand-new carpets, a good vacuum is a necessity. I did some research and finally decided on the Shark Navigator. The $199 retail price didn’t fit into my budget, though, so I knew I needed to start saving.

How We Did It

We have a coin-counting jar we keep on top of my dryer. When I find change in my husband’s pockets, it goes in the jar. It didn’t have very much in it at the time, but I went through the house and found all our little coin collections — the container in the kitchen, a piggy bank in our bedroom — and I dumped it all in that jar.

The total started rising and it was named my “Vacuum Fund”. It was so motivating to see the amount with just adding in the change from around our house!

It was also during this time that my husband and I decided to use cash only. We rarely used credit cards, but we were debit-card-dependent and it had become too easy for us to just swipe that card and not think about the money that was leaving our bank account.

We started paying cash for groceries, gas and spending money and wrote checks for everything else. If we ran out of cash, we had to stop spending until payday.

Now that we were using cash, my husband was coming home with handfuls of coins everyday and my vacuum fund doubled in a month!

My kids were even excited about it and I caught them a few times dumping their piggy banks into my change jar. I told them not to worry about it but they wanted to help. It became a family project.

It was hard to be patient. I had a huge pity party the day the hamster cage was knocked over and there was bedding and hamster food all over the floor. My old vacuum just pushed it around and I found myself on my hands and knees picking it out of the carpet. But I knew that the sacrifice of a few more weeks in a dirty house would all be worth it when I finally met my goal.

The day finally came and my jar was full. I took it to our bank’s coin counter and walked out with $191.03 in cash! I was able to find my vacuum at a discount and I had a 20% off coupon making it only $143!

I have to admit, until now I didn’t think much of a penny, but now I’ve seen that every little bit counts.

Crystal is happily vacuuming after her husband and their five children ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and 4 months. Check out her new blog, A Simple Heart for Home.

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

Shared Jan 20, 2011 comment

Stories of Hope: How We Started From Square One

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 20, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

An encouraging story from Carolynn of My Little Bit of Life:

My parents were terrible at finances (they will be the first to admit it). They provided no insight and I really had no idea what real life was like! I do remember being told to not answer the phone at certain times, and now I’m pretty certain it was because creditors were calling.

Growing up, if we wanted something, my mom would usually get it for us. I saw her use credit cards and I just thought that was the way it was!

Our Story

When I got married, I was in for a shock! I came into the marriage with a lot of debt and my husband had a couple of thousands in debt. Together I think we totaled over twenty thousand dollars in debt!

I kept spending the way my mother always did and when we found out we were pregnant, I cried myself to sleep for nights over the fear of not being able to afford this next season of life.

We found a way to get a house back when they were giving money away (okay, not quite, but it seemed like it). We were approved for a $150,000 loan but my husband put his foot down (God’s grace!) and said that we could not afford more than a $100,000 loan. While looking for houses, I quickly realized that I would have to compromise (yikes!) and it took us over three months for me to mature enough to accept this fact.

Hope

When our second child was only four months old, my in-laws provided us with an opportunity to attend Financial Peace University. This changed our lives and it’s been almost four years and we now only have one car payment and a mortgage!

We now have four children and I no longer work, but my husband has received raises which have doubled his income and he now makes about five thousand dollars more than when we had two income!. I know this was God’s grace, but had we not taken Financial Peace University, we would have just dug ourselves a bigger hole to climb out of.

How to Start the Climb (especially if you were not blessed with wonderful role models)

Pray and ask for God’s grace everyday!

If at all possible, find a way to take Financial Peace University.

Create a support system: family members, spouse or even blogs!

Read, read, read! (I highly recommend Total Money Makeover and More Than Enough by Dave Ramsey).

Don’t give up. Surround yourself with sticky notes that have inspirational quotes on them.

Create a budget, live the budget and make giving a priority in the budget. Make it a habit.

Expect to make mistakes!

Carolynn has been married for six years. She is a stay at home mother of four children (ages 5, 4, 2 and 9 months). She has a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education with minors in Early Childhood and Spanish. She taught for five years before staying home. She’s new to blogging; visit her at My Little Bit of Life.

Do you have a story to share about your financial journey which would encourage other readers and give them hope? Email it to me and I’ll consider posting it.

Shared Jan 20, 2011 comment

Moist Cornbread Recipe with Honey

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 20, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

If you’re looking for an amazingly delicious cornbread recipe, you can stop right here. This is THE recipe everyone around your table will love!

You Will Love This Moist Cornbread Recipe With Honey

I’ve always wanted to find a cornbread recipe that is delicious — instead of dry and grainy. Well, when we were in Branson for a little getaway last year, we ate at McFarlain’s Restaurant. I took one bite of their cornbread and said, “This is it!”

And then I spent the next five minutes taking little bites and over-analyzing how they achieved such a perfect cornbread. All the while my husband is looking at me like, “Are you okay? It’s just cornbread, honey!”

But he did agree that it was out-of-this world cornbread and he’d love it if I could make it at home.

So, I was able to get a copy of the recipe and, after making it at home, I can guarantee this is the world’s best cornbread — ever. My husband and children concur!

Honey Cornbread Recipe ingredients

2/3 cup sugar (I used turbinado)
1/4 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1 1/3 cups milk
2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tsp salt

How to Make Homemade Honey Cornbread

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease an 11″ x 14″ pan and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter.

3. Add in eggs, honey, and milk and mix well.

4. In a smaller bowl, mix flour, baking powder, corn meal and salt.

5. Carefully stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients carefully. (Do not overmix — the batter will be lumpy.)

6. Pour batter in greased baking pan.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

How to Serve Homemade Honey Cornbread

This cornbread pairs well with almost any meal, and it doubles as leftovers for breakfast the next morning!

Try it with Chili, a Mexican dish, pulled pork, or other roasted meats.

Just make sure you serve it with plenty of butter and extra honey.

Moist Cornbread Recipe with Honey Storage

Wrap any leftover cornbread in plastic wrap or place in a food storage container at room temperature so it doesn’t dry out. Eat within 3-5 days or freezer for later. We don’t recommend storing cornbread in the refrigerator as it will dry our faster.

Best Honey Cornbread Recipe FAQs

What’s the difference between southern cornbread and regular cornbread?

Many cornbread recipes call for sugar or honey — but true Southerners argue that “real cornbread” doesn’t have sugar. The kind of cornmeal used adds different flavor profiles as well.

What ingredients keep cornbread from being dry?

Adding any type of dairy product will moisten up a dry cornbread mix — try a little sour cream, shredded cheese, some buttermilk, etc. Also, don’t over-mix the ingredients and don’t over-bake the batter.

Recipe

Best Honey Cornbread Recipe

Author Crystal Paine

Course Bread, Side Dish

Cuisine Mexican

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 35

Ingredients

2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter softened
4 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1 1/3 cups milk
2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease an 11″ x 14″ pan and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter.
Add in eggs, honey, and milk and mix well.
In a smaller bowl, mix flour, baking powder, corn meal and salt.
Carefully stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients carefully. (Do not overmix — the batter will be lumpy.)
Pour batter into greased baking pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Nutrition

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Shared Jan 19, 2011 comment

Reader Tip: Couponing for a Friend

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 19, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Wendy emailed in this great idea which some of you who have extra time and enjoy couponing might consider:

Now that I’ve been couponing a while, I’ve accumulated a good stash of toiletries and cleaning supplies — more than I need. It was killing me to pass up those really good deals and freebies, though, even though I have a year’s worth of shampoo already. (Getting good deals is addictive!)

My solution: teaming up! A friend of mine would really love to coupon but just doesn’t have the time, so she pays me $5 a week and I bring her a bag of surprises! I can still pick up almost-free items I don’t need, and I can pass on the free ones I won’t use. She gets $10-$20 worth of items for $5, and doesn’t have to spend the time clipping coupons. (She still buys specific items if she runs out, but that doesn’t happen often.)

It feels like I get to give her a present every week! Plus we have different “favorite brands” for several things, so I rarely have to choose whether to pass on something or keep it for myself.

It’s fun, it helps a friend out, and it makes me feel like I’m really getting my money’s worth out of my time spent couponing. What’s not to like? -Wendy

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Shared Jan 18, 2011 comment

Cash4Books.net: $5 bonus for selling three books in January 2011

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 18, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

If you have books around your home which you no longer need or want, you should definitely see how much they are worth on Cash4Books. If you sell three books to Cash4Books in January 2011, you’ll earn an extra $5 bonus! Just include this email in with your box of three books and you’ll get $5 extra credited to you via Paypal.

Cash4Books pays promptly through Paypal so you will quickly have your money in hand after shipping off the books.

If the amount offered from Cash4Books isn’t very high, you could consider taking them to a local bookstore to exchange for cash or bookstore credit. Or, you might consider trying to swap them on PaperBackSwap.

Find more simple income-earning ideas here.

Thanks, Thrifty Ways and Ideas!

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Shared Jan 18, 2011 comment

Q&A: Stockpiling Food

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 18, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

I have a questions about stocking food. I currently have the “drugstore” game mastered and have a great stock on personal/household items. I currently am working very hard at lowering the grocery bill at the same time eating more whole foods. I have in the past read your post about your weekly shopping and notice that most grocery items are for the week. Do you stockpile food? I know kinda hard to do with eating more whole food. But things like meat, pasta, frozen veggies, etc. -Melissa

I get asked this question a lot and the truth is, I’m always “buying ahead” — just not usually in vast quantities since I’m more of a minimalist and typically don’t like to store more than what I’ll be able to use in the next three to six months. We also have a smaller family so food lasts longer around here than it would if we had five teenagers. 🙂

For instance, last week I stopped by the health food store to check on their markdowns. I ended buying four loaves of bread, two packages of hot dog buns, two packages of chicken hot dogs and a gallon of milk. These were all marked down to less than I can get at Aldi or on sale with coupons so I bought them and put them all in the freezer since we don’t need any of them for our menu last week. I’ll incorporate them into our menus over the four to six weeks or so.

In addition, last week I purchased three bags of turbinado from the bulk food store. This will likely last us for the next four to five months, since I try use sugar rather sparingly.

I had the extra cash to purchase these items and I knew they were all things we’d use, so I went ahead and purchased them. This is typically the way I stockpile: in small quantities here and there as I come across great deals or opportunities to buy food in bulk and have the cash to purchase them.

While we might not have rooms stuffed to the ceiling with cans and boxes of food, we always have quite a variety of food on hand, we are able to keep our grocery budget lowered since we aren’t paying full price for most items and I have a number of different options on hand to use as the basis for planning our weekly menus.

If I have the time and coupons, I also occasionally will do a major stock-up of something — such as the 31 tubes of toothpaste I got for free last year! — but by and large, I usually just buy ahead in small quantities as part of my weekly grocery shopping trips.

In all honesty, as we’ve shifted more to a whole foods diet, I’m using coupons less and focusing more on buying markdowns at the health food store and loss leaders at the grocery stores. This has simplified my shopping routine a great deal — I clip and organize fewer coupons, don’t have to spend a lot of time planning out my shopping trips and I make fewer trips to the store.

This method of shopping and stockpiling is working well for our family right now, but I can see as my children grow older and their appetites increase, we’ll likely be tweaking this in order to accommodate the need to buy more groceries. For now, though, I’m enjoying keeping it simple!

Shared Jan 18, 2011 comment

How to Create a Financial Notebook

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 18, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Carrie from Diddle Daddle shows you details on how she created a Dave Ramsey-Inspired Financial Notebook to stay organized and track their progress on their financial goals in 2011.

She also offers free printable pages so that you can set up your own financial notebook if you’d like.

Shared Jan 18, 2011 comment

31 Weeks to a Better Grocery Budget Video Series: The Benefits of Menu Planning

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 18, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

My apologies that this didn’t get posted until this morning, instead of last night as promised. We filmed it yesterday on our new Flip video camera (a Christmas gift from my dad) and then I spent three whole hours (I’m not kidding!) trying to get the thing to upload correctly.

There were some connection/login issues, but I’m pretty sure the majority of issues had to do with user error. Yes, you are welcome to laugh at my technical ineptitude; at least I now know 331 different ways not to upload a video. 🙂

Hopefully, I’m getting the hang of it and it will take me significantly less time to get this uploaded next week!

Related: Menu-Planning Saves Your Sanity

Shared Jan 17, 2011 comment

This Week’s Menu Plan: The 15-Minute Meals Edition

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 17, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

(My little kitchen “helper”!)

One of the things I do when planning our weekly menus on Saturday is to consult our upcoming week’s schedule. In doing so on Saturday, I realized we had a busy week ahead of us. So I’m sticking with simple meals — most which can be made in 15 minutes or less.

Breakfasts:
Cold Cereal
Smoothies
Cold Cereal
Steel Cut Oat Groats with Walnuts and Raisins
Smoothies
Fresh Orange/Carrot/Apple Juice, Toasted Bagels with Cinnamon/Turbinado
Raisin Toast, Scrambled Eggs

Lunches:
Chicken hot dogs
Macaroni & Cheese
Leftovers
Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches
Cheese Quesadillas
Beans & Rice
Leftovers

Dinners:
Green Chili Chicken and Lime Soup, Bread Machine Buttery Rolls
Tilapia, Sweet Potatoes, Homemade French Bread, Broccoli
Turkey Sausage and Potatoes, Green Salad, Bread Machine Buttery Rolls
Italian Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Peas, French Bread
Taco Soup, Best Ever Cornbread (recipe coming on Thursday!)
Dinner Out
Dinner at In-Law’s House

Shared Jan 17, 2011 comment

7 Time Management Tips For the Working Woman

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 17, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Guest post by Sarah

1. Lists are a Girl’s Best Friend

Lists can bring sanity to a chaotic household. My husband and I have learned that something as simple as a magnetic list on the fridge ensures we don’t return from the store only to realize we’ve forgotten to purchase several key items!

Packing lists eliminate frustration with trip preparation.

Meal planning lists make grocery shopping significantly more efficient.

We also keep a list of household project ideas, so that with any down time, we simply pull out our list and determine which potential project would be best suited to our available time and supplies.

2. The Power of Prioritizing

I now have a “To Do List” template that breaks my daily tasks into three distinct categories:

Urgent tasks that must be completed by end of day.
Important tasks to work on as time allows.
Future project ideas.

This ensures that my available time is always spent on the most urgent matters, and as time allows, I can easily knock out additional tasks that may be less time sensitive.

In addition, as one item is completed, sorting tasks in this manner allows for immediate selection of the next task at hand.

3. Multi-Tasking is a Must

Always look for ways to be productive while you wait!

If you let your dog outside each morning to do his business, use that time to pack your lunches for the day. While waiting for water to boil, you can empty the dishwasher. While on the phone, you can open mail, straighten your desk or fold a load of laundry.

4. A Chore A Day Keeps the House at Bay

Take 10 to 15 minutes a day to tackle a single household chore — emptying trashcans, dusting, vacuuming the main rooms or cleaning a bathroom. This will keep the house tidy, without requiring an hour and a half of cleaning each weekend.

5. Dinner After Dessert

Each night before bed I will plan our dinner for the next evening.

This allows advanced planning if meat or other items must be thawed, and helps me identify any potential ingredients I may be missing and need to pick up on my way home the following day. In addition, this eliminates my biggest pet peeve — coming home from a long day of work, and trying to come up with a plan of what to make for dinner!

6. Combining Work & Play

Finding ways to make your chores more enjoyable will increase your chances of actually completing them! I now save all my ironing for the weekends, where my husband and I will put on a good movie, and I tackle the ironing as we watch.

7. Just Say No to Procrastination

Procrastination is time management’s worst enemy. Take the bull by the horns and knock out the task at hands. Period!

Sarah is a Regional Sales and Customer Service Manager at Simmons First Bank. She and her husband do not yet have children (although she’s confident that will take time management to a whole new level!). However, with demanding jobs and a number of volunteer commitments, their schedules are usually very busy, and require a significant amount of organization and effective time management.

photo by Mitchell Bartlett

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Shared Jan 14, 2011 comment

We Paid Cash: A Fun Family Outing

Published: by Crystal Paine on January 14, 2011 | This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

A testimony from Kristin

My husband works in lawn care so there is never a spare week in the grass-growing days of spring and summer to take a vacation.

Since I was expecting another baby at the end of the summer, we would be too busy caring for an infant to attempt a family get-away in the fall or winter either. However, when we got the urge to take the kids on a fun outing one day in June, we were able to do it without lots of planning and without a twinge of guilt!