this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Yup, we decided to go with the new computer. It should arrive sometime next week. And -gasp- we're ditching the PC and going with a Mac.

First off, I submitted my post on Joy School to the Carnival of the SAHMs hosted by Kid-Daze. For some good thank you note ideas, check out this post at Lil Duck Duck and for a good laugh check out this post at Mommin' It Up.

And elsewhere around the world of blogs:

• Stephanie from Stop the Ride has a idea that worked when her daughter had an earache
• If you're planninag a trip to Disneyland, or a similar place, with small children, check out SAHMmy Says's post on the topic
• If you're looking for some help with your New Year's Resolutions, this post at The Simple Dollar shows how some Personal Finance basics can be applied in other areas.

The boys and I went to Target today. It was a different one than we were at last week and this one had many more clearance sweatpants and sweatshirts for little boys than the other one did. I gave Bug the choice between pants or a shirt. I was pulling for the pants, I knew for a fact they were $1.98 - I checked the tag. Monkey was screaming. Bug picks the shirt. I quickly throw it in the cart. Monkey still screaming. I go and pay. Monkey still screaming. I check the receipt and notice that the shirt was not $1.98, but $2.79. Hmmm... the sweatshirt I bought last week was 50% off, this one appears to only be marked down 30%. Monkey still screaming. I have thoughts of going back to look at the other sweatshirts, or asking at customer service. But (have I mentioned yet?) Monkey was screaming. We'll just chalk it up to the screaming baby tax.

The Tall One brought a home a much larger than expected Christmas bonus.

We weren't planning on doing anything special with the money, just putting it into savings, but we also weren't expecting this much since his boss traditionally gives things moreso than money. So now, purchases that were so far off are more within our reach. We got some extra Christmas money from TTOs grandfather to purchase a dining room set (I guess he didn't like sitting at the card table in a folding chair when he was here visiting a few months ago?), but not quite enough. We'd also like to buy a new computer (ours is over six years old). When we add up all the money we were given for Christmas along with TTOs bonus (and yes, he'll be getting an iPod Touch), one of those purchases can happen now and we'd still have enough money to put a nice amount into savings (savings for the one we don't end up buying, no doubt).

Decisions, decisions.

Do you have Christmas bonus money that you need to decide what to do with?

As my blog title would suggest, life doesn't always follow the plan in my head. But I'm happy to report that, more or less, Christmas pretty much went according to plan.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too, thanks so much for reading!

Chicken Divan

1 pkg. broccoli, cooked (10 oz)
2 cups sliced or cubed cooked chicken
1 cup rice, cooked
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. curry powder
Parmesan cheese
paprika

Layer rice, broccoli and chicken. Mix together soup, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and curry powder. Pour over the chicken mixture. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese and paprika on top.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

All ingredient amounts are very approximate! It's easy to adjust this recipe to fit what you have on hand and what your family likes. My mom always put the broccoli on the side, because otherwise my youngest brother wouldn't eat it. I usually put in less chicken and more rice and just how much broccoli I have left in the package.

I love reading the lists other bloggers make of their favorite posts from around the blogosphere, so I've decided to start that myself. First up are my carnival picks from this week:

The Make it From Scratch Carnival is up at Mrs. Micah. My post on reusing old Christmas cards to make placemats is included. I encourage you to check it out yourself. Here are my two favorites:

• Surround Yourself With Art from There But For The Grace of God. She has some terrific ideas for low cost artwork to decorate your home with.
• Verb shows how she reused tissue boxes. Such a good idea!

The Carnival of Money Stories is up at Time to Budget. There you'll find my post about my emergency fund along with these articles as well:

• How Christmas Cost Your Life Savings at Digerati Life. It discusses ways other than spending money on gifts that Christmas can cost a lot of money
• My Lack of Organization Costs Me Money at I've Paid Twice for this Already. I can relate. Though it usually seems that the things I buy duplicate of are things that I'll need another one of eventually
• Customer Service at its Best - Thanks SmugMug at My Two Dollars. It's so nice to see that some companies still have some great customer service.

And some other posts I encourage you to check out:

• An Easy (and frugal) Christmas Breakfast at Being Frugal. I may try the strata to go along with the Orange Rolls I usually serve
• The Computer in our Hands at Frugal Hacks. This article highlights some great printables and other internet resources. I'm anxious to check out the free sheet music sites.
• Making Gingerbread at Frugal Upstate. This post is from a few weeks ago, but I just recently had a chance to try this recipe, it's a good one!

A reader left a comment on my post about one way I intend to save my money next year asking what type of account I put the car money into. It's a savings account with ING Direct and I thought I'd turn my response to her into a post.

The Tall One and I have had accounts with ING for nearly six years now. We started out with a 12 month CD. We chose ING because, at the time, their rates surpassed anything we could find. After the year was up, we rolled over that money to a traditional savings account and within the last year added on a checking account with them.

What I referred to as sub accounts are really just additional accounts. Each one has its own account number. It's just very easy to transfer money between the accounts and INGs interface allows you to easily view them all at once so that it doesn't seem like they are all individual accounts, to me at least.

After we moved into our house, TTO and I determined a budget to spend on house related things. We put half of this amount into an ING account for him and the other half into one for me. At the end of each month, we'd add up how much was spent and transfer that amount out of our respective accounts and into either our checking or general savings account (both ING accounts). Now the money is gone in mine and I recently changed the nickname of it (it took me all of about three seconds) from 'Alison' to 'Car Expenses'.

We have a checking account with a local bank. This allows TTO to conveniently deposit his paychecks there. Once he's done that, most of it gets transferred out and into our ING checking account. It takes about three days to get there. What I plan to do this year is at that point take a pre-determined amount out of the checking and put it into the Car Expenses account.

We use our ING accounts for nearly all of our banking needs. With an ING checking account, you can electronically send payments or ING will send a paper check (and cover the expense of postage). We've done both and have never had any troubles. You also get a debit card that you can use to make purchases and to access your checking account funds from ATMs everywhere.

ING has been just perfect for us. And since we've discovered how to use multiple accounts to assist with our budgeting, I love it even more than I did before. If you'd like to open your own account with at least $250, I'd love to refer you (you'll get a $25 bonus and I'll get $10), just send me an email. I'll send you a link that you can use. I don't need to know anything but your first name and an email address. If you have less than $250, you can still open an account (there is no minimum), you just aren't eligible for the $25 bonus.

At the beginning of the month I planned a two week menu and bought all the necessary groceries then. Last week, all I had to do was a milk/bread/and produce run. Groceries for the first half of the month cost $101.34. Only $1.34 more than budgeted. I'd say that planning a two week menu versus a one week menu really helped me to stay within budget.

Yet, I opted for a one week budget this time around. With Christmas coming and relative who may or may not come, I planned through Christmas and then we'll see what happens. I spent $53.55 yesterday, which puts me pretty well on track to spend within my $200 budget for this month. It could have been about 40 cents less, but the cashier rang up my yellow squash as a zucchini, and zucchini cost almost twice as much. I saw her at first ring it up as a yellow pepper and cancel that out, but I didn't catch what she really rang it up as until it was all said and done (I'm sure I had to turn my head to tell Bug to sit down - why oh why do I take him shopping with me?). I could have gone to customer service to get a refund, but this store is set up horribly and getting back to customer service would've not been easy with two kids and a shopping cart full of food, so I opted not to.

No wonderful grocery deals, but Target had their Hanes kids sweats on clearance for 50% off. I got Buggy a sweatshirt for $1.98. He really wanted sweatpants, but they didn't have any in his size. A very good selection in sizes smaller than 2T, though.

We've taken the cost of our car insurance and divided it by 12 to figure out how much money needs to be allotted for that in the monthly budget so that we can pay for it when the time comes. We do the same thing for a few other things also. A great plan in theory, but in reality it doesn't always work that way.

If we go over in one category I'll tell myself, oh well, we didn't spend any money to fix the car, so it's all good. I mean, it's the bottom line that counts, right? We spent less than we earned. But it's not really, because if that money isn't earmarked for car fixing, should the car need repairs some month, we might not have the money.

In order to combat this, I've set up a sub-account within our ING account specifically for all things auto. Each month a certain amount of money from the paychecks will go into this account, so when it comes time to pay for car related things, the money really will be there.

I hope, at least.

Bug doesn't attend a traditional preschool, he goes to what's called Joy School. Joy School is essentially a co-op, you join forces with other moms and take turns teaching. The curriculum is all there for you and very easy to follow and teach from. It's mainly values oriented, but you can opt to do Kindergarten readiness activities each day too, which focus on letters, numbers, colors, and shapes.

Our group has three kids in it, so I teach one week (Tuesday and Thursday) and get two weeks off. My sister-in-law's group has five or six kids in it. They've chosen to have each mother teach an entire unit at a time, so she'll do one unit (usually about a 3-4 weeks long) and then get several months off.

You (and everyone in your group) purchases the curriculum and pay a registration fee. Those are all one time costs. There are two years of curriculum. I've already purchased one of them, and next year when I purchase the other one, I'll be able to do Joy School for as long as I want without paying any more money (unless I decide to purchase the optional storybook). So for the cost of a few months of traditional preschool, I've paid for many, many years of preschool for my children.

It clearly isn't an option for everyone, but it works well for us! Aside from the money benefits, I love knowing exactly what my son is learning everyday. I don't always check the lesson plans I don't teach, but there's been times when he's been referring to something he did at school and I can just check the lesson plan for that day to see what he might be talking about. It's also comforting to know the parents and families of the kids he associates with at school.

There's also an option to start a commercial Joy School.

If you're searching around for preschool options for your child (I know some schools around here will start registration very soon), this just might be for you. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!

Only a few ingredients and it cooks in the crock pot - what could be better?

Crock Pot Chicken and Potatoes

chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
Italian seasoning
potatoes
1/4 cup sour cream

Slice potatoes and cover the bottom of crock pot with a layer of potatoes. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning. Add chicken and sprinkle more seasoning on the chicken. Top with remaining potatoes and some more seasoning. Top with cream of chicken soup. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Add sour cream in during the last 30 minutes.

This is a versatile recipe that can serve as many people as you'd like, just adjust the amount of chicken and potatoes you put in. We like lots of potatoes, because potatoes cooked in the crock pot are super yummy!

Enjoy!

I was going to make Funfetti Cookies to take to a Christmas party tonight, but then had the brilliant idea to use a white cake mix instead of the funfetti cake mix and add my own red and green sprinkles. I didn't have a white cake mix, so I used a lemon cake mix, but they still turned out great. I skipped out on frosting them, because I think they are wonderful without the frosting. These cookies were tasty, easy, and Christmasy too! Also, easy on the budget since I used one of the fifty-nine cent cake mixes that I recently stocked up on.

This post is in response to a post on the same topic over at I've Paid Twice For This Already


I've recently written that we're trying to build back up our emergency fund after accidentally depleting it. We've always had a pretty large emergency fund, so large at one point that we were pretty much able to live off of it for nearly two years while The Tall One went back to school.

At the beginning of the year, it was at about $7000 and in February we were introduced to Dave Ramsey, who encourages a $1000 emergency fund until non-mortgage debt is paid off. We decided that that made sense to us and started aggressively paying off our car loan and then my student loan. But, we made sure to keep $3000 in our emergency fund at all times. This is the max out of pocket for our insurance and since I was expecting Monkey, we knew we'd have some big medical bills in our near future. After Monkey was born, we decided it was okay to pull back our emergency fund to $1000 and toss the remainder at TTOs student loan. We feel fairly confident that TTO isn't going to loose his job anytime soon and if something big were to happen both our parents are financially able to help us out.

But then I screwed up. We took out too much and didn't account for having to pay our car insurance the next month. So paying that knocked our emergency fund down below $1000. It's almost back there though, at which point I'll stop sticking every extra penny in it and put those extra pennies towards either TTOs student loan or our mortgage so we can get rid of our PMI. I'll still throw some money to the emergency fund, because really I want it to be back at $3000 so we could cover most medical emergencies that would come our way (I'm really hoping our tax refund will help that, if it turns out that it won't, I might change my plan and put the student loan and mortgage on the side burner for awhile).

Ultimately, I want it to cover 6 months of living expenses. But that's quite far off and we don't really have an action plan in place to get it to that point.

So, that's the long answer. The short answer is I'm quite comfortable with $3000 in my emergency fund.

I recently purchased some Christmas gifts from Amazon.com. I've read on numerous blogs about their guarantee that if the price drops within 30 days after your purchase, you'll be refunded the difference. Recently I was able to test that out, and sure enough, $2.49 is coming back my way (Oddly enough, the same amount that Chief Family Officer is being credited - she also suggests using a firefox add-on to track the price of things you buy).

You have to check prices and request the refund yourself. Raising4boys.com has a great post with step by step instructions on how to do this.

Take some old Christmas cards, posterboard, glue, scissors and clear contact paper and you get some lovely Christmas placemats.




Bug is having a great time using his play food and dishes and setting the table with them.

The Make it From Scratch Carnival is up at Summer's Nook. Go check out the quote she has on her page below the title, I love it! My chocolate chip cookie recipe is included and here's some posts I enjoyed:

• Felt Gingerbread Houses from Scribbit
• Easy Chocolate Candy from Stop the Ride! I've got a bunch of chocolate that is just waiting to be melted and have things dipped in it.
• Pre-Planned Page Packets for Scrapbooking from Laura Williams' Musings: Such a wonderful idea, and, minus the pictures, it would make a great gift for a scrapbooker on your list.

Go check out the carnival and find your own favorite posts!

This morning we woke up to rain and temps in the low 40s. Time to bite the bullet and buy a coat for Bug. The windbreaker just won't cut it anymore. I got him one at K-Mart, where all their jackets were 50% off. We bought his last one there and it held up for two winters and is all ready for Monkey to use next winter. I paid a good price for it, but I still feel like there was a better deal out there to be had. I always feel like that.

I checked the consignment store I like and didn't find a coat there, and I checked a few ads to see if coats were on sale and didn't find any, but I still feel like out there somewhere is a most wonderful coat for a fraction of the price I paid. And maybe it would have been at the next store I would have looked at. But is it worth it to find it? My time is worth something, as is my sanity (carting around two small boys in the rain was not the easiest task), so it seems a good idea to just find one and stop. Yet I still drive myself crazy wondering where that great deal is.

Easy Stroganoff

Hamburger
Sour Cream
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 package Dry Onion Soup Mix

Brown the hamburger and drain. Add the can of soup and the soup mix. Let simmer for a little while and then add sour cream to taste. Serve over cooked rice.

I don't have any measurement for hamburger - I usually use 1/2 to 3/4 of a pound when making recipes like this. I always do it over rice, but over egg noodles would be yummy too, I'm sure.

If you try it, leave me a comment to let me know how your family liked it!

We made these last night as one of our countdown to Christmas activities. It is my most favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I thought I'd share.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

1 cup margarine
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. soda
1 small box of pudding
2 1/4 cup flour
chocolate chips

Cream margarine, sugars, and eggs.
Add remaining four ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips.
Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes

I always make them with vanilla pudding, but using chocolate pudding makes a very tasty cookie too!

Enjoy! If you try them, leave a comment let me know how it goes.

Take some ribbon and drape it across a shelf or mantle along with your decorations. It's a great way to decorate a large space with a few things.

I try to save money and make all the dollars I spend really count, but Buggy thwarts me often.

He's a independent little guy, like most three year olds I imagine. He likes to pour his own juice. He does a fine job when there's not a whole lot in the pitcher and frankly, that's when I wouldn't mind a spill. It's when he tries to pour his own juice from a very full pitcher that it normally ends up the floor and instead of spilt juice I see spilt quarters and dimes. But he's only trying to help. And that's what got us into today's predicament. He wanted to help with the laundry, so I showed him to put the colored clothes into the washing machine and went downstairs to vacuum. He took it a step further and added the detergent. A whole lot of detergent. And now, despite the fact that I just bought some, I need more. Those massively huge, hard to handle laundry detergent containers are starting to look really nice as opposed to the conveniently sized ALL Small and Mighty that I love so much.

He's only three, I know it will get worse. But at least when he's a teenager I can take from his allowance.

Recently, this blog entered its second month in existance. I'm really excited about the success I've had thus far. I love writing for an audience and I hope my audience continues to grow.

I've been reading many blog posts about financial goals for the new year. I haven't joined in yet, but as this year comes to a close and The Tall One and I get a chance to sit down and talk about it more, I'm sure I'll share a bit here. Telling random people about things I intend to do does marvelous things when it comes to me actually following through.

So some background on me and money.

TTO and I are in our late 20s and have been married for 6 years. We bought our first house a year ago, and do have mortgage debt but would love nothing more than getting rid of it as soon as we can. Currently, we also have TTOs student loan, which has a balance of a little over $7,000. This past year, we paid of my student loan and our car loan (paid off seven months or so after we bought the car). We use credit cards for nearly everything, but pay it off in full every month and always have. We bought our house with 0% down, so we have the dreaded PMI to pay and we go back and forth on whether or not we should aggressively go after getting rid of the student loan or getting rid of the PMI. Right now there is not a whole lot of extra money to go towards extra loan payments while we anxiously await a raise for TTO.

So that's us. Really, I'm very pleased with where we're at overall, we're still young and I know it could be a lot worse.

The Festival of Frugality is over at Lazy Man and Money today. My post on Christmas activities that cost little or no money was included. One article I particularly liked talks about how millionaires are usually smart shoppers.

In the world of groceries, I decided to opt for planning out two week's worth of meals to take advantage of some good meat sales, and hopefully I bought enough to carry over into the second half of the month too. So I spent $60.61 at the store today. That, however, does not include the chicken I was going to buy. The store was out of what I wanted, so I'll have to go back another day. I don't anticipate paying more than $8 for that, so that still keeps me under $70, and in theory that's for two weeks (minus bread, milk, and some produce which I'll have to buy more of next week) so I'm on track with my $50/week. Maybe.

Some good deals I'm excited about:

• Brownie mix was on sale for $0.89. I had a coupon to save $1/3. That makes each mix about $.56 each.
• Albertson's sometimes gives out a coupon for a free loaf of french bread so long as you call in and do a survey on your shopping experience. I did this last time I shopped there, so I got a free loaf of bread this trip.

• Fruit snacks were on sale at Albertson's for $2 and many of the boxes had a $1 off coupon on them. Great, great deal. But, I realized that I would only be buying them because they're such a great deal, and when does buying something ever really save you money? It's not a normal thing for us to have around the house, and I actually have some now because I bought some for not quite as a great a price ($1.37 - they were on clearance and I used the coupon on the box). I meant for them to be a special treat for our trip, but forgot to take them, so they'll go in Bug's Christmas stocking. Since I'd only be buying them to take advantage of only having to pay $1 for them, I passed.

November is gone, but it left us some money to throw into savings!

We ended up with a $446.78 surplus. That does include The Tall One's bonus, but it also includes paying out the wazoo for gas for a road trip for Thanksgiving. Neither of those things happen on a monthly basis, but they don't completely cancel each other out, so our surplus for this month is a bit larger than normal.

In the world of groceries, I came under by $48.14. I try to stick to $50/week, so basically I spent no money on groceries the week we were out of town, and then some stocking up I did at Costco cancelled out our week without buying groceries.

I'm doing great on the Christmas budget. Only two more gifts to purchase and about half of the budget left.

My goal for December is to get our emergency savings back to its minimum. It was at a point I was very happy with, but then I goofed a few months ago. I paid a big payment towards TTO's student loan and didn't account for having to pay car insurance the next month and one last bill from Monkey's birth. So basically the car insurance and hospital bill had to come out of our emergency savings and we've been building it back up since then. We're close so as long as nothing that's "not in the plan" comes up, it should happen.

This week is even an under 5!

Porcupine Meatballs

1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg. beef Rice-a-Roni (though the store brand works fine, too!)
1 egg
2 cups water

Mix raw beef, egg, and rice from the Rice-a-Roni box (save seasoning packet). Form balls about the size of walnuts. Put in a deep frying pan. Pour water over and sprinkle the seasoning packet. Bring to a boil, simmer for 40 minutes or until liquid is gone (at least 30 minutes)

These really don't reheat all that well, so it's best to make this recipe for a larger group, so you won't have leftovers. Paired with a side dish (growing up we always had green beans with it), it's a good amount for 4 adults and a few kids. When I make it just for my family, I use about a half pound of beef. I've tried to half the Rice-a-Roni, but that gets tricky with the seasoning packet, so sometimes I mix in half of the rice with the meat and add the remaining rice with the seasoning and water (and I use the whole seasoning packet). The later seems to work best with a larger pan and what you get is basically some rice with meatballs.

If you try it, leave a comment and tell me how your family liked it!