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

It's late, so I'm keeping it short and sweet tonight. Then I'm headed downstairs for a popsicle.

My post on student loans was included in the Carnival of Money Stories (hosted at piggybankblues). Frugal Babe also had a college finances success story to share and Harvesting Dollars had a less than stellar experience purchasing grocery store gift cards.

Some more reads for you:

• 29 Free or Low Cost Ways to Save Money and Energy at My Two Dollars
• Why I Don’t Think I Would Have Done As Well If I Had To Work My Way Through College at Mrs. Micah
• Decorating: Use Your Eyes at Simple Mom
• Links: Creating Inexpensive Art for Your Walls at Blissfully Domestic
• What to do Before Age 30 to Set You on a Firm Financial Path at Accumulating Money
• Kroger's Fuel Discount: The Most Expensive Two Dollars I've Ever Saved at Frugal Dad
• Power of Snowflaking at Rather Be Shopping
• Surround Yourself With Constant Reminders at Gather Little By Little
• No More Waiting: Living Life Now at Remodeling This Life

I'm going to be taking a break from the Under 10 Recipes series during June, mainly so I can have a chance to test out some new ones! Look for other random recipes on Sundays though. I have some desserts I'd like to share!

Okay, so probably not. Unless you ask my three year old.

My Wednesday night guilty pleasure is watching Wife Swap and I'm always quite surprised at how often there's someone on there who thinks that having their children do chores is evil and wrong. Because of course the child will just wake up one morning as an adult and have a wonderful work ethic. Right. So tonight I was watching and thinking how ridiculous this one family was when I realized that I need to get on the ball with getting Bug to do more chores around the house. All too often it is just easier for me to do it. And not to mention quicker. But he is quickly approaching the ripe old age of four and there are things, like keeping his room clean, that he needs to be responsible for.

Enter the allowance.

Only I don't think he's ready for his own money. He thinks of money as something to play with and doesn't completely associate it with purchasing things. I don't think it would motivate him at all. He's a tricky one, he often prefers the punishment over doing what I ask him to do, so finding something to motivate him is hard.

Enter the children's museum.

He loves that place. I'm sure he'd do some chores and keep his room clean if going there was the reward. After mulling this over a bit, I've come up with a plan. He knows the reason we don't go to the museum every time he asks is because it costs money. In fact, he once said that if he had a million dollars (while listening to the Barenaked Ladies song with a similar title) he'd go to this museum.

So my plan is that if he keeps his room clean, I'll throw a coin in a jar (because you know we have plenty of those lying around). I have some other things in my mind that will earn coins in the jar, mostly behavior related stuff. Once the jar is full (it'll be a small one mind you) we'll "have enough money" and we can go to the museum. This is all very funny to me because I didn't want to really tie chores directly to allowance. But I think tying it to going to the museum will motivate him and since he already knows about the money and visiting the museum connection, I think it's a good way to teach him the value of a dollar. So that's what I think I'll do, I'll talk it over with The Tall One and see what he thinks.

I've written some other posts on teaching my children the value of money. We'll call this post part three, you can read part one here and part two here.

photo by chefranden

I've never known my father to bargain shop, and his mantra seems to be that if something costs more, it must be better (he's even applied that principle when buying milk at the grocery store). Yet, growing up, he was always harping on his kids to turn off the lights in a room no one was in and to close the front door if the a/c was on (but you better leave the door open if it's not - you can't cool the outside, but let the outside air cool you!). Apparently his priorities lie in cutting the electricity bill so he can allocate the money elsewhere.

A cousin of mine recently bought a beautiful new (large) house and lots of new furniture to fill it. Yet his wife told me he's too cheap to spring for a hotel room for their upcoming vacation (they'll stay with a relative who is eager to have them stay with them, but really doesn't have enough room for all of them). His priorities have nothing to do with luxury accommodations on the road, and everything to do with luxury at home.

I guess I tend to assume that once a person reaches a point in there life when they've got money to burn they spend much more freely and nothing is a concern. But obviously that's not true. I don't imagine it will be true for my family, so I'm not sure why I think it's true for anyone else - I can't imagine not making sure I'm getting the best deal or stocking up when something is a good price (clearly traits I didn't inherit from my dad) even when I reach a point where I can afford to do otherwise. Eventually I will save money in one area, so I can splurge in another. Which is the point my father and cousin are at. I'm doing that right now, it's just that most of the splurging comes in the form of paying off the mortgage or adding to our emergency fund. Everyone has different priorities, and those priorities shift as time goes on.

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 similar to the Mexican Pork recipe, but a lot simpler and more soupy. We had it for the first time the other night and it is so good. We originally had it as burrito filling, and then used leftovers for tacos. TTO, Monkey and I all loved it and I'm sure if Bug would have tried it, he would have liked it too!

Chile Verde

Pork Roast (bonless)
1 large can green enchilada sauce
1 jar of your favorite salsa

Brown the roast in a little bit of oil. Put in crock pot with sauce and salsa. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 5-6 hours until the meat is very tender. Shred with a fork and serve over rice or use as burrito or taco filling. Garnish with cheese, tomato, sour cream, cilantro or whatever you'd like!

I'm skipping the link love tonight because I'm out of town and have not been able to keep up with my reader! I imagine I'll have a long list of good reads for you next weekend.

Recently, The Tall One and I joined forces with two other families to start a baby-sitting co-op. We each take turns watching the other kids, so the other two couples can have a date night. This means we have two nights a month where we can go out without our boys! The first thing TTO said when I told him about or new arrangement was that we couldn't afford to go out two nights a month! But we don't need to have dinner and a movie to have a fun time together. Here are some ideas I've come up with for inexpensive date nights.

• Go for a walk - explore some new hiking trails or explore your neighborhood


• Play tennis or raquetball - check out your local high schools to see if there are courts you can use for free


• Make a nice dinner at home - be sure that it's something the kids wouldn't want to eat!


• Go to a concert - check out your local schools, colleges and universities often have student recitals for free or a small admission fee. High school concerts don't usually cost too much to attend.

What ideas do you have?

I read all over the blogosphere about how there are great deals to be had at Walgreens and CVS. There is no CVS nearby, but there is a Walgreens on every corner. For those not aware, Walgreens has two reward programs, purchasing some products will earn you a register rewards certificate good for a certain amount off your next purchase and you can get mail in rebates on other products. Each month a few items are free after rebate. A month ago, the lotion I buy for my boys was on sale (which made it the price I usually pay for it at Target) and, if you purchased four you would get a register rewards certificate good for $10 off a future purchase. I was excited because finally something I use and that is at a good price will help me earn a reward. I even had some coupons to pair up with it. With that reward, I bought a toothbrush that was free after rebate (along with some grocery items that were on sale and cheaper that at the grocery store). If you have the rebate put onto a Walgreens gift card, you earn a bonus of 10%. When the gift card came, I used it to buy some shampoo that had a $2.50 rebate. I hope to continue using the balance on my gift card to purchase free after rebate toiletries each month.

Want to learn more? Read Walgreens 101 at Money Saving Mom.

Today I took my boys to see Horton Hears a Who at the dollar theater. While there, I reminisced about my own movie experiences as a child. It was always such a big deal to go see a movie in the theater. We did it just often enough for it to be something special. I remember going with my family and my friends' families, as a big group, on our days off school. I remember going to see a double feature with my aunt and my brother. I remember taking my younger siblings on my own. And then I thought that really, this isn't a very expensive way to create memories for my kids. For under $6, we all got in and got some popcorn. I tend to get so caught up in what big thing I can do to make sure they have great memories of their childhood, but really things don't have to be big (and they certainly don't have to cost any money). And then Bug told me he wanted the movie to be over, that it was too long. Perhaps movie theater memories aren't for him.

Photo by plattmunk

Yesterday as I was driving to pick up Bug from school, I noticed what looked like the Sunday paper strewn about the road.  If only there I didn't have kids with me, maybe I would have stopped, but probably not.  

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
Here's a small twist on the common chicken and stuffing casserole.

Chicken Casserole
4 Chicken Breasts, cooked and diced
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 cups cooked egg noodles
1 box stuffing mix
3/4 cup butter
2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Mix first four ingredients along with salt and pepper. Place in 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle stuffing crumbs on top of mixture. Melt butter and mix with broth (and the seasoning packet if the stuffing has one). Pour over crumbs. Bake uncovered at 350 for 30 minutes.

Tonight The Tall One and Bug are off camping. The house sure is quiet without them!
Here are some articles from my RSS reader that I'd like to share:

A Good Budget is not an Iron-Clad Contract at I've Paid Twice For This Already - So true! I usually go over in at least one category a month, but because I've organized where our money goes, there is always extra money to cover it, either from the current month or a previous month.

Keeping Summer Essentials Handy at Frugal Hacks - A great list of things to have on hand to entertain the young ones during the summer months

Kyle's Coupons: Summer Fun at Being Frugal - After you've read the above posts on things to have on hand, read this post on things to do during the summer.

Three Keys to Finding True Happiness at Frugal Dad - Sometimes shifting your focus and your thoughts is all you need to do to find happiness

Look! Reusable Sandwich Wrap Tutorial at Ohdeedoh - Crafty, frugal, environmentally friendly, what more could you want?

Getting Back To Basics at Remodeling This Life - A list of ways that you can live more simply.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Any time we end up spending more money than we'd like to on something (like last week's airplane ticket mix-up), it causes me to complain that too many things keep popping up, that we can't get ahead financially. But that is so not true. Still, it seems that at times like this, I only focus on the fact that The Tall One's raise came later than promised (yet forget the very generous Christmas bonus he received) or think that it always seems we are spending extra money to visit urgent care instead of our primary care doctors (but I forget that Monkey's birth cost about half of what we thought it would) or get frustrated by the fact that we get the car fixed only to have it break again (but forget that we've since found a wonderful mechanic that charges incredibly reasonable rates).

The bad tends to cloud the good, but it shouldn't be that way. Life happens, but overall my family has been incredibly blessed and I need to remember the good too.

I imagine you've heard that the Kroger family of stores is offering a 10% bonus when you purchase a gift card. I decided to take advantage of this and purchase a $600 gift card today, because, well I buy groceries there and my money certainly isn't earning 10% anywhere else. One would assume since this has been plastered all over the internet (the personal finance blogs, at least) and in the store's ads and all over the store itself that the store's employees would know about the promotion and how to make such a transaction. You would assume wrong though. I waited for a really long time while the customer service girl tried to figure out how to correctly sell me the gift cards with the bonuses. The boys played peek-a-boo quite nicely for awhile and then quite not nicely for another while. Should you also have the pleasure of being the first person at your local store to want to purchase a gift card (and while It's not necessarily nice to tell the employees what to do, kindly suggesting something if they appear to not know what to do probably doesn't hurt) you may like to know the following:

• The cards are issued in $330 increments, thus if you want to purchase $600 worth (therefore getting a $60 bonus), you'll get two gift cards


• There appears to be a document explaining the steps necessary to make the transaction, it's perhaps beneficial to read through the entire thing before starting the process


• $330 needs to be put on the card, then when your rewards card is scanned, $30 will be taken off of the price you pay, so that you only pay $300 for a card that has a value of $330.

On a different note (yet in this case related), Discover Card has a great and on top of things fraud department and The Tall One and I finally succeeded in communicating effectively. Either making a $300 purchase at the grocery store or trying to do two of them in a row (the second one wouldn't go through) set off some red flags for the credit card people. I came home to a message on the answering machine asking us to call them. I called TTO to give him a head's up should he find an email from them and wonder what was going on. He had already received the email, called Discover and told them all was well. He said it was a good thing that we had talked about buying the gift card or he would have thought something was going on since I don't ever spend that much at once at the grocery store.

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

Grilled Chicken Wraps

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, shredded
2 tsp. oil
1 cup shredded cheese
1 medium tomato, chopped
3 Tbsp. Italian dressing
2 tsp. chili powder
4 flour tortillas (8 inch)

Brush chicken with oil. Grill 6 to 8 min. on each side or until cooked through (170ºF). Remove from grill; let stand 5 min. before cutting into strips. Place in medium bowl.

Add cheese, tomatoes, dressing and chili powder; mix lightly. Spoon evenly down centers of tortillas. Fold in opposite sides of tortillas; roll up burrito-style.

Grill wraps, seam-sides down, 8 to 9 min. or until golden brown, turning after 5 min.

They cook fast! It's been awhile before we did these, but they did get cooked a bit more than we would have liked. Keep a close eye on them.

Recipe from kraftfoods.com

I participated in two carnivals this week - the Carnival of Family Life (hosted by All Rileyed Up) which included my post, Not Following The Recipe . I encourage you to go and read this post - Can't See the Forest for the Trees from Innstyle Montana, it's a great take on what life might be like if money did grow on trees.

The Carnival of Financial Goals (hosted by Debt Free Revolution) included my post about savings goals. The format of this one is a little different, in the sense that readers will be voting in the comments for their favorite post. So click on over, read through the posts and vote for me vote for your favorite. I enjoyed Making Goals Adaptable from Financial Zip. Life changes in ways you don't plan for, it's important to know that it's okay to tweak your goals!

I'm behind in my blog reading this week and still have some catching up to do, but here are some articles from this week that I enjoyed:

• Anniversary Gift Idea - Recreate Your First Date at Frugal Dad - I love this! Recreating any of our pre-marriage dates would be a frugal and fun thing.
• Classy Parties on the Cheap at Cheap Healthy Good - A good article on throwing great parties without throwing your budget out of whack.
• Simple Writings Bring Simple Pleasures at Frugal Hacks - The mundane can be wonderful, it's all in how you look at it.
• How Much Does Driving Add to Diaper Prices? at Baby Cheapskate - It's always important to know if extra driving is really worth it, for everything, not just diapers.

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day!

I'm confused. Either we earned quite a bit more than we spent this past month (according to Quicken), or we spent seventy-five cents more than we earned (according to my spreadsheet). It is a bit more time-consuming to use two methods, but they both offer features that I like and, well, it works for us. Normally they both show the same numbers at the end of the month (or off by just a bit), but this is just weird. April was full of irregular expenses - we paid attorney's fees for our wills, paid my first year's life insurance premium, and state income tax - so I'm pretty excited about either outcome. I love that we have the money for those big expenses without pulling from one of our savings accounts. Our savings has been holding pretty steady these past two months due to several irregular expenses popping up. I was hopeful that things would settle down for May, but it isn't looking that way.

As for groceries, I normally shop on Tuesday or Wednesday and April had five of each, thus I made five trips to the store, thus my budget reflected that. I went over by $25, and spread over 5 weeks, that isn't so bad. I did a lot of stocking up - I bought 16 boxes of cereal all for less than a dollar each thanks to a fabulous sale paired with coupons. I bought close to 50 cans of tomato sauce, around two dozen cans of cream of chicken soup, and ten pounds of shredded cheese (for the freezer). And don't forget the cake mixes, oh and goldfish too, lots of goldfish. So, the theory is that by spending a bit more this month and stocking up will allow me to spend less over the next few months. Here's hoping.

Last month, you may remember, we made some plane reservations for a family reunion. Today we found out we bought tickets for the wrong weekend.

I thought it was the second weekend in July and had even been looking at tickets for those days. Then, when it was time to book tickets, The Tall One insisted it was the third weekend. Okay, it's your family reunion, you've been getting the email updates, you should know. But apparently he didn't know. His aunt had sent him an email a week before we bought the tickets telling us the dates. She also called and talked to me, though I use the term "talking" very loosely, I distinctly remember holding the phone to my ear, but remember thinking that I could not hear a word she was saying because Bug was screaming in my other ear and it's a good thing that she was planning on sending out an email. TTO talked to his parents before the email or the call happened and got the dates, but did he get the right ones or the wrong ones?

I'm not sure where we got our dates mixed up. I'd love to blame someone, but what good would that do? The fact still remains that a mistake was made and it will cost money to fix it. But I shall look on the bright side, stupid money mistakes do make for good blog posts.

Between this and our overdraft last month, we really need to get on the ball communication-wise, it would appear.

Much thanks to Emily at Remodeling This Life for providing me with so much blog material lately. She tagged me for the best financial move in college meme. All in all, I'd say The Tall One and I did quite well (we were married between our sophomore and junior years). There are a few things that I'd change if I could, but mainly because hindsight is 20/20 and I know how things turned out. But what do I think was our best move? That would be taking out some student loans

We received a nice amount of grants for our senior year, enough to pay for tuition and then some. And of course we were offered loans (because they always offer you loans). Since we could survive without the money we tossed around the idea of taking the loans and then throwing them into a one year CD. The loans were subsidized so we did not have to pay any of the interest that accrued while we were in school. By putting the money in a CD, we could earn some interest on it and then the money would be there for us to pay back after graduation or keep should we decide we needed it for something. So we did. And, since we graduated during a fabulous year for low student loan rates (we consolidated at less than %1) and a not so fabulous year for jobs, we decided to not immediately pay back the loan. And I'm very glad that we did. Five months after graduation, I got pregnant and then two months later, TTO decided he wanted to go back to school (in a completely unrelated field). The school he attended was tuition free, but did not provide any types of financial aid. The loans we took out while we were undergrads allowed me to stay at home with Bug while TTO went back to school full-time.

And now they are mostly paid back. And I know they are a sign of me being able to spend the first two years of my son's life at home with him, so I don't hate them too much.

I think that two factors played in our favor here. First off, we took out a modest amount, we didn't take all that was available to us and we understood the type of loans we were offered. Second, upon graduation we researched consolidation and knew that we were getting a great interest rate and that there was no way we'd be able to borrow money for that cheap from anyone else.

So yes, I think our best move in college was taking out those loans. It's one thing I wouldn't change if I could.

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

In my mind, some recipes are seasonal. For example, I think chili is best eaten on a cool Fall or Winter day, and won't make it during the summer (The Tall One thinks that's odd, but such is life). Pasta salad is a great warm weather meal though, and this is one of my favorites. The recipe comes from Kraftfoods.com and what I've written below reflects how I've tweaked it, but you can click the title to see the original recipe.

Pizza Pasta Salad

3 cups penne pasta, cooked, drained and cooled
4 medium tomatoes, chopped (about 4 cups)
12 slices pepperoni, chopped
1 cup Mozzarella Cheese, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup KRAFT Roasted Red Pepper Italian with Parmesan Dressing
chicken, cooked and diced or shredded

Toss all ingredients in large bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour to blend flavors

I'm not sick, but it sure appears that my boys are swapping germs left and right. I hope it doesn't come around to me again!

I participated in the Make It From Scratch Carnival (with my Green Chile Soup recipe) and the Festival of Frugality (with my Earth Day post). Thanks to Stop the Ride and Sound Money Matters for hosting. Here are some posts I'd like to share from those carnivals:

• A Quick Blanket from Life on Both Sides of the Pond
• Flowers for the Bride at Keeping Feet
• Friends, Family, and Frugality at Frugal Fabulous
• Don't Save Money on Everything at MoneyNing

And from my reader:

• Home Management Notebooks are a Great Idea at Simple Mom
• The Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Food Crisis at Cheap Healthy Good
• Avoiding Impulse Spending at Blissfully Domestic
• Wish I Had Some Pretend Money at Are You Going To Be This Way
• Why Debt Stinks: Life Doesn't Just Stop So You Can Get Out at I've Paid Twice For This Already

Have a wonderful weekend!

Long, long ago Emily at Remodeling This Life tagged me for a meme in which I'm supposed to list five things that cause me to break the budget. I've thought long and hard about this and sadly (or not) can only come up with three. Apparently I have a lot of willpower when it comes to spending - if I could only apply that to other aspects of my life, I'd be all set. So here they are:

Harry Connick, Jr Concert Tickets - He comes to town and I go. I tend not to care how much tickets cost. Luckily, The Tall One knows this. I say there's a concert coming up and TTO just tells me not to buy the most expensive tickets (as opposed to, well can we afford tickets? Doesn't matter dude, we're going).

Cute Pictures of My Children - I like decorating with photographs, and went a wee bit overboard when I had Bug's three year old pictures taken. I had some fabulous picture of Monkey taken when he was six month old and keep printing more of them to put up in various locations.

Ice Cream - I say that if it means going over the budget in groceries, I'll forgo the ice cream. But I lie. Actually, we don't have any right now. I think I was in such a hurry last time I grocery shopped that I *gasp* forgot about getting some. Gummy bears are often a culprit too, but since Bug really likes them also, I don't pick them up often because I'm mean and don't want to share.