Don't Miss the Blessing!

I wanted to give a little encouragement to my friends who are still waiting to be "blessed" with a baby.  Honestly, I can't begin to understand how it feels to be in your shoes.  It did take us a year to get pregnant with Michael and it felt like a really long time.

However, I know that that is a drop in the bucket!  I know that some of you have waited longer, endured hormone/fertility treatments, and miscarriages.  So, I wanted to share with you a story that I hope will encourage during this time in your life.

I was on a road trip with a dear friend.  She shared with me that the doctors told her that she would never have a baby.  She told me about the struggles and pain that she endured.

Later on during this long trip, she shared about how much her and her husband was doing for her nephew.  She told me that his parents never had time for him.  They would basically have him everyday after school and on the weekends.

I hope you don't think my response was insensitive!  It certainly wasn't meant that way.  If she had not been a close friend, I'm not sure that I would have asked what I asked.  I promise I did not ask with a sarcastic tone.  It was a genuine question.  I asked, "Do you think if you had kids, that you would have the time for your nephew that you have?  The time to be a loving, Godly example for him?"

I think there was dead silence for like five minutes... seemed even longer!  I will sitting there loathing myself for speaking without thinking.  Then suddenly she said, "Oh my gosh!  I have been so busy thinking about what I didn't get, that I was missing that God blessed me with an opportunity to be there for my nephew!"

I'm not saying to give up on that desire to have a baby; but, I do want to encourage you that while you are waiting that you look for opportunities that are there for you to bless a child.

There are so many wonderful women who get up and look for opportunities to be there for kids everyday.  Some are fortunate to do that for a living...nurses and teachers for example.  Some have opened their homes for kids in foster care or they even adopt children who they love with all their hearts.  Some volunteer their time at hospitals, schools, churches, and other community organizations.

And, yes, some are the best aunt, neighbor, or church lady in the whole world!  That lady that that kid grows up knowing that even when everyone else fails them, she will always be there for them!

So I encourage you to look for those opportunities while you wait on God's timing.  Please don't miss the blessing!

Show Yourself Grace because Your Kids are watching

I wrote the following on my Facebook page last year.  I decided that I would share it here on my blog.

"A couple of thoughts today!  I apologize for the length...

I was watching a video where a counselor was talking with various people with food addictions.  There were several who had various problems in their past, like being compared to a sibling was thin or being abused by a parent or spouse.  All terrible things, of course, that led to low self-esteem and turning to food.  However, a majority of them, was falling into one of 2 categories.

1. Their mom obsessed over their own weight when they were a kid.  Each on them admitted that they felt that their mom believed that what gave her self-worth was whether or not she had the perfect body.  As many of you know, I have struggled with weight issues all of my adult life.  I hope that what my boys got from that was that I wanted to be healthy; but, you never know how a child interprets things.  I have told my boys many times that what I long for is to be able to keep up with them. I say that to say this...moms...there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy and to have energy; but, we (preaching to myself too) need to show them that we know we have value no matter what size we are.  Oh, and by the way, some moms put the same emphasis on exercising as moms who focus on dieting (which could cause the same thoughts).

2. They had weight issues as a child and their parents would restrict the from certain food groups: because, they wanted them to lose weight.  I understand completely that you want to help your child to get healthy.  Many of them said that when they weren't with their parents they would eat everything in sight.  I would think (I've never had to deal with this myself) that the best way to handle it is to make sure your whole family is eating healthy and exercising.  And being sure not to single out that one child.  Also, I think there is a huge problem in our society right now about singling out a food group for weight loss (such as low fat or low carb). Instead, we are speaking very little about mindless eating.  Our kids need to know what it feels like to actually be hungry instead of eating because the food is there.  Just a thought..."

Baby Steps to Being Thrifty: Part Three

Is it already March 18th?  Wow!  I didn't realize that I had not updated my blog in over a month!

As far as our groceries go, other than buying milk and bread, we have still not gone back to buy groceries yet.  We still have several freezer meals left.  We plan to go next weekend and prepare a new batch of freezer meals.

We have had a few setbacks this month.  One being another car broke down. This time the repair was not something that Joel could fix; so, we had to pay for it to be repaired.  So, once again, the emergency fund was there.  We just can't seem to keep it more than a couple of weeks.  I am thankful that we have it right at the right time.  God provided just what we needed when we needed it!

The other setback, in a way, was that Joel got pneumonia.  I am thankful that he had health insurance; but, we will have a co-pay to pay as soon as we receive the bill.  Not as bad as it could have been and most importantly, he seems to be getting better.  Not as fast as he would like; but, it is not easy to kick pneumonia to the curb.

As you know from other blogs, due to the nerdy OCD part of my nature, I have been watching thrifty, saver videos for several months.  Believe me...there are hundreds of vloggers!  Some of them are in debt to the tune of $100,000. No...not counting their mortgage!  These vloggers are inspiring; because, they are making drastic changes in their life so that they will no longer be in debt. 

I am thankful that Joel and I have been able to stay away from that, for the most part.  Other than our mortgage, we have very little debt.  

However, the nerd that I am, was curious as to the statistics on debt. 

Here is an article titled 5 Things Keeping Americans from Financial Freedom.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/07/01/5-things-keeping-americans-from-financial-freedom

To bullet point, the 5 things listed.

1. Student loan debt.  
I am not making a political statement here.  College should probably be more affordable; however, many students do not take advantage of the scholarship opportunities.  Every year, there are thousands of scholarships that go unclaimed.  You may have seen on Shark Tank that there was a guy who created an app called Scholly.  The reason was; because, he realized that college students were missing many opportunities for scholarships.  In that app, you set up your profile and it will suggest scholarship that you qualify for.  How many people sign up for a student loan; because, they didn't even try to get a scholarship or sign up for a grant?

2. Credit card debt.
Studies show that the average credit card debt amount per household was $15,762.  This study also shows that between credit card debt, student loans, car loans, and mortgages the average household spends 9% of their income annually to interest alone.  

"The cost of debt: The average household is paying a total of $6,658 in interest per year.  This is 9% of the average household income ($75,591) being spent on interest alone."
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/
That is extremely shocking to realize the amount that is spent on interest every year. Could you imagine what people could do if they were not paying that much in interest annually?  Who might they be able to help if they were not bogged down so far into debt?

3. Keeping up with the Joneses.

I've learned over the years that sometimes the Joneses may be buried in debt. Don't compare yourself!

4. Auto loan debt.

If you can afford a good, reliable used car; but, can't afford the brand new one without debt DON'T buy it.  The value of the car depreciates the minute that you drive it off the lot anyway!

5. Neglecting your credit score.

Should go without explanation!  Just watch out.  You never know if someone has stolen your identity or a company has erroneous charges on your account, if you never look.

Anyway, I found these statistic shocking even though I knew it was possible.  I will just say this...a LOT of people want to blame someone else for their financial situation; but, maybe we would do better to say, "What can I do to change my situation?"  Do you need the full cable package?  Is there something that you never use that you could sell?  Anything that you can do to lower your interest payments will pay off in the long run.  It means finding contentment in other ways than with our possessions.  This is why I find so many of these bloggers inspiring.  

Check out some of the vloggers on debt, saving, and thrifty spending including Debtisdum, Lydia Senn, His and Her Money, Budget Girl, and GazelleinTents.  Just to name a few!  :-)

Baby Steps to Being Thrifty: Part Two

Life has been a bit crazy for the last three weeks; but, I finally decided that I needed to make time to write an update blog on our savings adventure.  Otherwise, I was afraid that my next post would be more like a novel!  :-P

First, to update you on our freezer meal plans, our meals did last three weeks instead of just two.  Again, as I mentioned in the last post, if we had leftovers we just backed the scheduled meal back another day.  We loved only six of the seven meals that we had found online; so, we really only used 13 meals.  The one that we did not like sounded good; but, it turned out to be a flavor that we didn't like at all.  Each recipe was doubled so we will not be eating that second one that we prepared.

As I also mentioned in the last post, we struggled with the timing of some of the crockpot meals on the days that I work.  Many of the meals that we were making had marked eight hours on low in the directions were actually done within six.  So, we decided that the next time we shopped for groceries, we would also purchase meal components for my work days.  If you are not familiar with the term, you probably are familiar with the theory.  Basically, buying food in bulk, separating and freezing meal sized portions.  For example, buy 5 lbs. of hamburger meat then separate into five 1 lb. freezer bags.  You can also go ahead and season the meat.

At the end of January, we printed a calendar for February and March.  We filled in a meal (either meal component or crockpot meal) for each night, with the exception of Valentines Day and our son's birthday.  We are actually going to celebrate Valentines on the 12th and we have gift card so we're not planning on spending much that day.

Anyway, after filling in with a new crockpot meal to make it 14 meals again and meal components; we found our meal plans lasting through mid-March.  Again, they could last longer based on how often we push a meal back because we have leftovers.  It was a little scary purchasing that many groceries.  It was approximately $550, though we got close to $30 in rebates among the apps that I have on my phone.  Refer back to my last post to find out about those apps.

This did include any breakfast, lunches, toiletries, and household products that we thought we would need in the next two months. As I said, we used to budget $600\mth for groceries; so, we could have spent up to $1200 in two months.  So, although we probably have to go back for milk and such, we feel we will see a substantial savings by the end of March.

Second, we did have some savings setbacks again.  First, our dryer died.  Now I have heard some savings gurus say that your dryer is not an emergency purchase; however, because Joel has to wear uniforms we wash almost daily.  We just felt that it would cause us to have to go to a laundromat everyday or our house would be constantly cluttered with a clothesline. Long story short, we decided that it was an emergency for us. Thankfully, we had made the effort to restore our emergency fund; as frustrating as it was that it was like starting all over again.

We also had a radiator go out in one of our cars.  We are family of four adults with a used car each; so, the chances of a car breaking down are pretty high.  Anyway, Joel decided that he could replace the radiator himself.  He went online to order a radiator.  We found out about Invisible Hand a few months ago and Joel had added it to his web browser.  If you are not familiar, basically while you're shopping it will search other websites for the same product.  It will alert you if it finds a cheaper price.  In this case, it saved us $30.

Third, I would mention due to the crazy OCD nature, I have continued to listen to YouTube videos and reading blogs about saving.  Over and over, I heard and read that you should check your homeowners insurance policy to make sure that you are not paying unnecessarily high rates.  As it turns out, since we were setup with a national insurance company, instead of a local company, the amount they were insuring us for rebuilding was extremely highly for this area of the country.  Joel called them to discuss it with them and they said that they only re-evaluate policies unless it is at the end of the term.  Joel shopped around some local insurance companies and Farm Bureau was more than happy to help us.  Due to that, we are expecting to see our mortgage decrease by approximately $200\mth.

Fourth, Joel reviewed our satellie TV package and decided to go with a smaller package.  He felt that we could live without (and barely watch) most of the channels that we would lose.  We are not quite there yet; but, we are seriously considering dropping it all together.  These days with so many options, such as digital antennas, Netflix, appleTV, Hulu, and many more you hardly need cable or satellite services.

We are expecting to see that emergency fund back within the next few months, barring anymore setbacks.  We are going through our stuff decluttering and finding things to sell.  Joel is going through his old textbooks to sell them using bookscouter.com.  We still plan to attempt a no spend challenge; but, we're not quite ready for that challenge yet.  We're still taking baby steps; but, we're going in the right direction, at least!

Baby Steps to Being Thrifty

After a series of unfortunate events right during the holidays, mostly car problems, we found our savings account pretty much wiped out.  So we decided, at the first of the year, we would work to replenish that savings as quickly as possible.  We have received more great news since that is only making saving more difficult!  Grrrr!!!  However, that is really not the point of this blog. ;-) 

Joel and I have always been pretty good at saving.  We keep a budget (thank you YNAB) and would try not to eat out as often.  However, this time, we decided that we would look for more ways to save.  So in true OCD fashion (because I can't help myself), I started watching YouTube videos and reading blogs on thrifty living.  Hours and hours of studying this subject.  Not everything that I heard was revelant to my life at this time, like how to save money on diapers.  If that's a need for you believe me there's a plethora of how to's out there.  I decided to share some of the things that I have learned so far, that I found relevant.

We decided that we would take baby steps toward saving which is recommended.  Our first is to try to use less of our grocery budget and eat at home.  I'm not sure if this sounds like a lot to you; but, we budget $600\month on groceries.  That's for a family of four adults; three of them being males.  However that does not count if we went out to eat and I'm sure you have a pretty good idea how much it costs for 4 adults to go to restaurants.  Especially considering, it was almost never fast food with the exception of Chick-fil-A.

Anyway, my first plan was to go through freezer recipe meal plans.  There are great blogs and videos on how to buy food in bulk to save money.  We had a marathon cooking session last Sunday afternoon making 14 freezer meals.  They have videos describing how to make 50 at a time; but, they recommend starting slow so you don't get overwhelmed.  They also recommend that you don't shop and cook on the same day!  They are absolutely right! We learned the hard way and I'm still exhausted!! 

We believe that our 14 meals will actually last more around like 3 weeks; because some nights we will eat leftovers.  That will take us to the end of the month. We have only purchased groceries once this month. We spent $260.  I am ecstatic about that amount.  What is amazing is that that counts breakfast and lunch foods; as well, we have very few spaces for pantry supplies so it was like starting from scratch. 

It hasn't been perfect!  We burnt the first meal in the crock pot! Let's just say I need to plan better since I don't have a crockpot timer and I work outside the home.  When they say 8 hours on low, they definitely don't mean 9 hours!  The good news was that we did not use that as an excuse to go out to eat.  We found food in the house to eat.

Also, we have been using Walmart Savingscatcher for a while on the nonperishable items. We actually used the money we had saved throughout 2015 to buy our groceries at the end of December.  So I highly recommend that app.  However, through the various blogs and videos, I learned about more apps that I could be using to get money back later.

I added 2 apps to my phone last week.  They both pretty much work the same way.  

First, the Ibotta app.  You unlock cash rebates on groceries that you plan to buy, such as, milk and eggs.  Generally, no specific brands required.  Scan the receipt proving you purchased the item.  They will add the rebate amount to your account.  When you get the minimum required amount, you can cash out through PayPal or get gift cards to Walmart, Starbucks, and many more.  I used a promotional code to set up the app and they gave me an extra $10 when I scanned my receipt.  With only one grocery shopping trip, I have $14.75.  I won't get that high amount again; but, it is nice way to start.  If you want to set up the app, you can use the code jafdror and get that $10, too.  Full disclosure, if you use my code, I will get $5, too.  But, hey they will give you a code to give out, too.

The second one is Checkout 51 that works really similarly.  However it doesn't seem to have as many opportunities to get rebates; but, it only takes a second to scan a receipt and it'll add up over time.  Warning though, you are not saving with these apps, if you are buying things that you weren't going to buy.  I only chose the items that I knew I needed like milk and eggs.

In the future, I will try to update you on how we are doing with our journey to save.  We still have much to learn and in the future, we are planning on tackling a no spend month.  Baby steps, my friends, baby steps!!