Filed under
Money Thoughts
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by
Alison
on
10:12 PM
Today my blog celebrates its three month birthday.
Photo from Flickr
It's been so much fun and I must thank you, my readers, for making it something I really enjoy and sticking with me as I figure this whole blog thing out.
I am really pleased that with little effort from me (and some help from friends in high places) this blog has grown so much. I'm looking forward to putting a little more time into it in order to grow it even more.
Please let me know what you like, what you don't like, and what you might like to see in the future. I'm very open to suggestions because I feel I've not completely figured out where I want to go with this blog.
Thanks again for your readership and support (and patience) while I find my voice and my place in the blogosphere.
Filed under
Money Thoughts
,
by
Alison
on
7:56 PM
Yesterday TTO told me that the price of gold is at an all time high of a little over $900 an ounce.
We both cringe at such a number because six years ago he told me that the price of gold was quite low at $170 an ounce and we briefly discussed getting in on the action. And by briefly, I mean he brought it up at dinner we said maybe and never did anything. Why did we do nothing? I can't speak for him, but my thought (as a newlywed in my very early 20s) was that I'm too young to do something like that, investing is for older people, not me!
Famous last words.
Have you ever passed up on an opportunity only to kick yourself for it later?
Every weekend, I post a tried and true recipe (for my family at least) that has ten or less ingredients. Follow this link for more under 10 recipes
This is really a simple recipe, but I thought I'd share how we do. I never measure out cheese, so I really have no idea how much you'll need, probably approximately 1/2 pound.
Cheese Enchiladas
12 corn tortillas
1 small can (10 oz) of red enchilada sauce
1 small can (8 oz) tomato sauce
shredded cheddar cheese
Microwave the tortillas for about one minute, or until they are all soft enough that you can roll them up. Fill a bowl (that's large enough to fit a tortilla in) with both sauces. Put one tortilla in the bowl and cover with sauce. Put in a 8x10 pan, place a small handful of cheese in the center and roll up. Repeat with the remaining tortillas. Pour any remaining sauce over rolled enchiladas. Top with shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Our current favorite side dish is rice with mixed veggies. I put some frozen mixed veggies in with the rice while it's cooking and then, when the rice is done, add some fajita seasoning to taste.
Filed under
Budgeting
,
by
Alison
on
10:22 PM
A few weeks ago, I shared the struggle I was having on where to put the non-grocery items that I tend to buy along with the groceries. Stephanie from Stop the Ride! shared the following advice:
"I always lump that type of stuff together because I buy the groceries and the
TP at the same time. I use household for things that aren't replaced often like
towels. You probably need to up your grocery budget a tad."
I love the concept of using the household category for things that aren't replaced often. It's brilliant! It makes it, well at least more cut and dry than it is now. So, I'll up the grocery budget a bit to include things like
kleenex and toothpaste. And bring back the household budget for things like dish towels (mine are all falling apart, I could use some more). I took a look at what I averaged each month last year for household and lowered it a bit (since it sometimes used to include the shampoo and laundry detergent and won't now). It's important to note that I'm not introducing more money into the budget, just doing some rearranging. I hope by giving myself some more guidelines as far as what purchases go in what category, I can avoid household being too much of a catch all.
Filed under
Budgeting
,
by
Alison
on
9:03 PM
The Tall One and I are both spenders, yet as a team we seem to be able to save quite well. We balance each other out (or we thwart each other depending on how you look at it). When he's in a spending mood, I say no and that's that. Or I send him to the store to buy tortilla chips. Don't worry, it works the other way too. And sometimes, well, it doesn't work. We have a house and a brand new computer to prove it.
It works for us. It keeps money in the bank, but keeps us from living in a cardboard box with a computer that's as old as we are.
Find your balance with your significant other, figure out how you can mesh with each other when it comes to money. Recognize your weaknesses and your partner's. For example, I don't go to the grocery store with
TTO if I can avoid it. He always seems to find random things that he wants and can often convince me that we need them. When I'm alone, I might see something not on the list that would be great to get, but I can easily tell myself no. But if he's there to tell me yes, I cave.
My post last week about
my craft roomreminded me that I hadn't posted any craft ideas lately. Bug and I haven't done anything interesting lately, so I thought I'd share and old one.
I like to watch Trading Spaces and other shows like it and have seen them create their own artwork to display. I can do that! Or rather, my son can. I picked up a 2 pack of canvases at Michael's for about $6 (I used a 40% off coupon) and the paints I already had.
I chose the colors that I wanted him to use (and I painted the background on one of them, just so they wouldn't both be white) and let him go. So he got to paint (a rare thing in this house) and I got some very unique and inexpensive artwork to display.
I plan on getting some more canvases and doing them myself. I'm no artist, but I can do stripes or geometric shapes. And it always seems to look pretty cool on those decorating shows.
Filed under
Money Thoughts
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by
Alison
on
9:00 PM
Recently The Tall One and I met with a financial advisor to talk primarily about life insurance. Normally I don't go too crazy pondering all of life's "what ifs" but when it comes to life insurance, the "what ifs" are all that matter. And there are certainly a lot of them. The big thing we would want our life insurance to cover is the mortgage, along with a year or so's worth of expenses. That way, the surviving spouse wouldn't have to worry about paying the bills while adjusting to life as a single parent. But that's where things get complicated.
Choosing my "worth" was fairly easy and we decided a shorter term for me simply because once our kids are older, it will cost a lot less to get childcare. If TTO were to pass away, I would move to the state where my parents and most of my family live and, of course, I'd get a job (I have a degree in elementary education). I don't want to have to depend on the life insurance money, I would want to take care of myself and my children, but I do want some money there to help ease the transition and (now this is where things get really tricky) to help with my retirement. We're just not sure how much would be enough to replace what he won't be socking away in his 401K. It would depend a lot on how old I was when this happened. If I were still young, I would have a bit of time to build up my own retirement funds. If I'm older, the amount of years that TTO would have already contributed to his 401K would be higher and more helpful. We don't want to overbuy because every dollar is so important to us now, but at the same time I wouldn't want to find myself coming up short should the unthinkable happen.
It makes me sick to be thinking about these things and writing about them in such a matter of fact way, but it's a "what if" that TTO and I just can't afford to toss aside.
Every weekend, I post a tried and true recipe (for my family at least) that has ten or less ingredients. Follow this link for more under 10 recipes
Chicken and Corn Chowder
1/2 - 1 lb cooked and shredded chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can corn, undrained
2-3 cups diced potatoes
3 cups milk
1 chicken bouillon cube
Combine all ingredients and cook until heated through (be sure potatoes have cooked all the way). You can turn this into a crock pot recipe and use uncooked chicken - it will be very easy to shred once it has cooked all day. Just wait until the last hour or so to add the milk.
If you try it, leave me a comment letting me know how it worked for your family.
Filed under
,
by
Alison
on
3:57 PM
For this week's link love, I looked through the Frugal Blogroll and found some new to me blogs. I had a lot of fun checking out the many different sites that are on the blogroll. Here are some posts I think you might be interested in:
Have a great weekend! See you Sunday with my weekend recipe.
Filed under
Budgeting
,
Saving
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by
Alison
on
1:14 PM
This post is in response to Kacie's budgeting challenge over at Sense to Save. She's already on week two, and I had intended a post devoted to the week one stuff, but it didn't happen. I don't want to get too behind, so here's a combination post for the first two weeks of the challenge.
I've always had some sort of budget in place. When I was young it was very simple, but I still liked to keep track of my money and make sure I had enough for the things I wanted. I budget so I can see where my money has gone and have control over where it's going to go.
I'm always tweaking the way we budget, but currently The Tall One and I use Quicken primarily and a supplemental Excel spreadsheet. I like the simplicity of the spreadsheet, at a glance it's very easy to see what we spent our money. Quicken is very useful when it comes time to reconcile our bank and credit card accounts and for great year in review budget reports. I don't like entering everything into two different places, but for now it's okay since I haven't found another program that will give me the best of both worlds (and I am on the lookout, mainly because we switched to a Mac and need a Quicken replacement). Here's our spreadsheet template:
Click here to open a bigger one to look at
I love having the calendar there so I can compare bill due dates to pay day. And that'sthe calendar's only use, I fill it in with important dates. Directly to the right of the calendar is a Description column. I try and put the transactions right by the week in the month they occur, so if TTO gets paid on the 4th of the month and then again on the 18th, his paycheck will be entered alongside the first and third week. Each week has a grocery line, every other week has a gas for the car line. Bills are usually due the second or third week, so I try to put the appropriate bill by that week. If I go to the grocery store more than once a week, I put them all in that week, they don't each get their own line. I use the blanks to fill in things that aren't the same month after month, like doctor co-pays or clothing. the next column is what we budgeted and the final column is what was actually spent. The columns are calculated and totaled at the bottom, so it's easy to see how we're doing at any given time.
That's how I keep track of monthly expenses, the irregular ones (like car maintenance and insurance) have their own account at ING and get deposits each paycheck and sometimes more if we have a nice surplus at the end of the month. For more on how I budget with ING see this post.
It works for me! For the next month or so, until I decide to change it....
Filed under
Buying Things
,
by
Alison
on
9:13 PM
Yes, I admit it, I watch Wife Swap and *gasp* I usually enjoy it. I know it's far from quality, but I'm fairly certain there's worse TV out there.
Tonight's episode had a family who didn't manage money well (at least that was the message the producers wanted us to get). The family was eating dinner out and Mr. Voice Over Man said that at the time they had no income. The husband said something along the lines of - if we should save for eating out, why not just eat out now and worry about the money later? Eeek.
I wish I felt that way! I could have more clothes, more furniture, and travel more. It would be fun! Those are all things I'm saving for after all, why not just have them now? It seems like others around me now have them.
But, I don't want the worry that would come along with that kind of spending because for us right now, undoubtedly some would.
Some of our money buys things and the rest buys peace of mind and I like that.
The brain behind Remodeling This Life requested a picture of my craft and sewing room for inspiration. She thought, and I agreed, that it'd make a good blog post, so here goes.
My craft room is really just a portion of the guest room. I got the
pieces for the desk at Target (each cube, as well as the desktop is sold separately). It's not the cheapest desk option, but certainly not the most expensive either. I could have stuck with my card table, but I love how not deep this set is (14.5"). The room is very narrow, so when guests stay over, my table isn't taking much of their space. The fact that you can customize it to fit your storage needs is another reason I chose it.
The shelves came from Lowe's. They are just basic storage shelves. I wanted something cutesy, but cutesy tends to be expensive and often not so sturdy. These serve their purpose well.
This
rail and all the hooks on it came from IKEA. We've had a rail like this in our kitchen, but I got the idea from Creating Keepsakes magazine to use it for scrapbooking supplies. I've since seen rail sets like this designed specifically for scrapbooking, but they cost at least twice what I paid for mine.
I'm on the lookout for some inexpensive way to store my ribbon on the wall. I know there are things designed for that, but I haven't seen one cheap enough for me yet. I've thought of using a paper towel holder, but haven't found a style that would work (admittedly, I haven't looked too hard). Any ideas?
Every weekend, I post a tried and true recipe (for my family at least) that has ten or less ingredients. Follow this link for more under 10 recipes
Taco Soup
1 lb ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1-16 oz can of kidney or pinto beans
1-28 oz can stewed tomatoes
1-16 oz can corn
1 pkg dry taco seasoning mix
Brown ground beef with onion. Drain. Place in large cooking pot and add remaining ingredients. Stir well. Let soup simmer for about 30 minutes or low in crock pot for several hours. Crush tortilla chips in bottom of individual bowls; add soup and top with grated cheese. Garnish with sour cream if desired.
An alternative to the taco seasoning mix is to add chili powder and salsa to taste. I buy a big thing of taco seasoning at Costco because I like the flexibility it offers over the little packets. I can add as much or as little as I want when I make tacos or this soup.
Filed under
,
by
Alison
on
8:05 PM
This week I participated in two carnivals. The Festival of Frugality was over at Cash Money Life. My post about how I got a nifty rebate from my gas/electric company was included. The Make it from Scratch Carnival was over at The Common Room and includes my post on cooking using what you've already got lying around. Here are my picks for the week.
From the Festival of Frugality -
- Frugal Tips to Help Food Last Longer at Rather Be Shopping. Kyle offers up some way cool kitchen tips. I can't wait to make some ice cream sandwiches with graham crackers.
- You Don't Have to Pay for Your Child's College Education at Rocket Finance. Clearly this is a very individual matter, but since The Tall One and I aren't putting our children's college savings as too high of a priority (though we don't plan on leaving them high and dry) it was nice to see something in line with what we're thinking.
From the Make it From Scratch Carnival -
- Oreo Biscotti at MotherLoad: The MomAdvice.com Blog. I'm all about anything with oreos, so I'll be trying this out some day, they'd probably be super yummy dipped in hot cocoa.
- I Made it From Scratch....I Might Be Getting Good at This at The Miller Way. She made pita bread from scratch. How cool is that? I want to try this because I like pita bread, but it can be pricey.
From my blog reader and beyond-
Happy blog reading! And have a great weekend!
Filed under
Money Thoughts
,
by
Alison
on
10:49 AM
Today some good friends of ours put their house on the market in preparation to move out of state. And they are moving next week. Two months ago they had every intention of staying here for awhile. One month ago they were waiting to hear if the husband would be getting the promotion that would move them out of state. Talk about a quick change in plans. They've been working on tweaking their plan this past month to account for this new opportunity. It's a good reminder for me that while having a plan for the future is good, flexibility is key.
They are good friends and will be missed greatly. I felt like I had finally found a friend who I could call on a whim to do something when I was bored and both The Tall One and I enjoyed getting together with them to play games. I wish them much luck in this brand new adventure.
Filed under
Buying Things
,
by
Alison
on
9:56 PM
I spent $57.85 at the grocery store yesterday. That included that batteries I bought. And, as Bug so kindly informed me, "you eat yogurt, you don't eat batteries". So why should the batteries go into my grocery budget? And while I'm at it, I don't eat laundry detergent or toilet paper, why do I put them in with the groceries?
I didn't use to. Well, I sort of did. If I picked up some garbage bags along with my other groceries I wouldn't itemize my
receipt and put them in another category, but if I bought those bags at Target, they would go into the household category, not grocery. The household category bugged me because it was just a huge catch all so in November I did away with the it and started grouping those things in with my groceries, but I did not increase my grocery budget. For whatever reason, this worked out just fine that first month, and kind of okay the second month, but I can already tell it's not going to this month. Late last week I bought toilet paper and laundry detergent and spent $17.01. So that puts me way over for the month so far even though my two food shopping trips average out to only $5 over so far this month. Assuming normal
usage, next month I won't need to be buying toilet paper or laundry detergent, so next month I won't be having this debate, and next month will likely go just fine, maybe.
So do I resurrect the household category for things like this or up my grocery budget?
Switching gears slightly, I have two deals from yesterday that I'm quite pleased with. Yogurt was on sale 3/$1 and I paired that with a $.40/6 coupon. I also picked up some crescent rolls that were marked for quick sale at $1. I paired that with a $.25 off coupon. And I was thwarted once again by unadvertised specials. I used a store coupon at Walgreen's to get some oatmeal for $2, then I got to Smith's and saw that it was on sale for $1.87 there. I noticed that in this week's circular (that was good as of today), so I don't know if it's a monthly thing or if they started the deal early. Oh well.
Filed under
Buying Things
,
by
Alison
on
8:14 PM
This month's Reader's Digest has an article on debit card safety. The main idea was that debit cards don't offer the same protection as credit cards, but one thing in particular caught my eye:
When Ann Agent of Portland, Oregon, was planning to attend a children's book publishing conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she booked her hotel room over the phone by debit card. She and three colleagues intended to split the bill and each pay the hotel directly at checkout time.
Two days into the conference, Agent's husband called from home to read her a letter from her bank: Her checking account was overdrawn, and she was being charged $35 a day in overdraft fees. "I thought there had to be a mistake," Agent, 45, says. "I keep close track of my account balance."
Turns out when Agent reserved the room, the hotel "blocked," or held, enough money in Agent's account to cover the entire four nights' stay, plus miscellaneous charges, amounting to $580. This blocked every available penny she had and caused her to overdraw. The charges weren't reversed until Agent returned home the following Monday. (From Reader's Digest January 2008)
Holds such as this are normal in the travel industry and common at gas stations too. The article tells of a woman who bought $22 worth of gas, but the station blocked $75. It was right before a weekend, so the block wasn't lifted until several days later. Meanwhile, she didn't have much extra money to spare.
This is something that I knew in the back of my head, but never really realized the implications. If you time things wrong, you could bounce a check. Debit cards can be a wonderful tool to help you live within your means, but there are some drawbacks you should be aware of.
Every weekend, I post a tried and true recipe (for my family at least) that has ten or less ingredients. Follow this link for more under 10 recipes
I can't believe I forgot to post this last night!
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
3/4 cup apple juice
juice from one lime
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp instant bouillon
Spray or put some oil in a skillet, heat over medium heat, cook chicken until no longer pink in the middle, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from skillet. Combine remaining ingredients in skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thick. Spoon sauce over chicken to serve.
I usually only use 2-3 chicken breasts, but keep the rest of the ingredients the same. If your skillet is large enough, cook the sauce while the chicken is still in the skillet. That's what I do. I also use a bouillon cube instead of the powder and use bottled lime juice (I just eyeball it, I have no idea how much would equal the juice of one lime) instead of fresh.
If you try it, let me know how your family liked it!
Filed under
,
by
Alison
on
9:14 PM
The holiday has me very confused apparently. But here's some highlights from my blog reader and beyond:
The Make it From Scratch Carnival was hosted at Keeping Feet. My post on how I packaged up my holiday treats was there and be sure to check out HowToMe for some ideas and thoughts on framing pictures and Less Than A Shoestring has some ideas for eating while on the road.
The Carnival of Family Life was over at Mixed Metaphor. I submitted my post about the Screaming Child Tax. Some of my favorite entries include Kid Clutter Control: Thrifty Style by Mrs. FussyPants - the bins she made are very cool - and Allowance and Kids at Parenting Squad (I can foresee this being a problem for Bug, I'm glad I have a possible solution!).
And elsewhere in the
blogosphere:
There you go! Have fun reading and have a great weekend!
The other night I had beef burritos planned for dinner since I had some cooked hamburger in the fridge to use up. The Tall One suggested we throw in some of the leftover pork from our Christmas Day tamale making. He needed to push aside some beans to get to the pork and decided those would go great in the burritos as well. I saw some rice and suggested that. Originally, I intended to cook up some more hamburger for the burritos, but we had so many usable leftovers that I didn't need to!
Other ways that I use what I've got:
- Leftover taco or burrito filling becomes a baked potato topper
- The tomato juice left in the can after making chili becomes a base for either Hamburger Stew or Tomato Macaroni Soup
- Leftover chicken becomes sandwich filling
- Lunch meat becomes a baked potato topper
I love it anytime that I can reuse leftovers in a different way. It makes leftovers seem not so leftover-ish.
Or rather I will in 6-8 weeks.
I saw a billboard advertising CFL discounts from the local electricity/gas company. I looked into it, wasn't too impressed, but found something else more exciting. They also offer rebates for purchasing programmable thermostats and blankets for your water heater. We had bought the blanket in November and - hooray! - I still had the receipt. So I filled out a simple form and soon I will be receiving a check for $10 for purchasing something I was getting anyways.
Maybe your local utility companies offer similar programs. It certainly can't hurt to explore their web page a bit to find out.
I apologize that today's post is so late, but in order to do a monthly budget wrap-up, I needed to look at some numbers and decided to have The Tall One join me, so it took longer than I anticipated.
Grocery shopping is another story. I
started out so well, but ended up over budget by $28.47. Oops. In my defense, we hosted Christmas dinner and no, I didn't spend nearly $30 just on that one meal, but maybe half of it was extra little things I bought to make our Christmas meals special. And hey, I was under budget for all things Christmas by about $50 (I don't have an exact number because I wrote my exact budget number on a shopping list that is long gone), so if I threw the stuff for Christmas dinner into the Christmas category instead of groceries than I only went over by maybe $14. Not bad, but under is what I want, and after today's shopping trip I'm under for January.
Happy January and Happy New Year everyone!
