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  • Frugal Living Challenge – Days 4 and 5

    Frugal Living Challenge – Days 4 and 5

    Day 4
    Reducing your household bills. Again, another great article over on Frugally Sustainable!  Most of the tips she suggests I already try to do. Things like getting rid of cable and a landline. Although there are a great number of educational shows I miss, I can find them online if I really want to watch them, but even better I can head outside with my kids, or create something inside with them. I do miss a landline, and Mark and I have looked into putting one back in. Right now though, we’re doing fine with just our cell phones on a minimal plan (you really don’t need text messaging). 
    For this challenge I decided to try and save money on drying clothes. I already feel that I do a fair amount of saving by doing my laundry all in one day. But I could save even more by line drying some of our clothes, like delicates and the girls dresses. Not only will this save money by using the dryer for less clothes, but it will also save our clothes from unneccesary machine damage. I won’t even go into how many clothes my dryer has ripped apart recently (snapped bra strap, ties on girls dresses, holes in socks).  Perhaps I need a new dryer, but really, it does it’s job, it’s just very rough on our clothes.
    I know Mark isn’t as thrilled with this new adventure as I am, but he let me indulge as I used my amazon gift cards (thanks Swagbucks!) to purchase a retractable line dryer to hang across the basement.
    I even started looking into these felted wool dryer balls. Supposedly they cut the drying time down a lot, and take the place of dryer sheets, cutting out that expense. Has anyone used these? I’d love to know if they’re worth it!
    Day 5
    Today’s challenge is cutting costs on your grocery budget. This is perfect for me today, since I didn’t get grocery shopping done yesterday, I will be headed out today.  Andrea’s listed 50 tips on how you can save money on your grocery budget, and asked us to pick a couple to implement into our lives to save us money.  Here are some of her tips I’m going to try out –
    • Cook Ahead. I was planning on making a bunch of freezer meals anyways, for when baby comes. It wouldn’t hurt to start now, and either weekly or biweekly make a bunch of meals. I’ve pinned a ton of ideas for frozen meals, pantry meals, and crockpot meals that I can easily put together.
    • Eat leftovers, instead of eating out. We don’t eat out a whole lot, but we do waste a fair amount of leftovers. I’ve already put this as one of my other goals to minimalize our waste, but it will also save on our grocery budget as well.
    • Package your own snacks. I know I can do much better at this. The Princesses get hungry, and then I can’t find anything for snacks, so I buy gummies or candy for them. I’d like to be better at this. Perhaps have a bowl of  veggies in the fridge that they can always get if they’re hungry. Or buy crackers, raisin, etc in bulk.  While I’m at Winco today I’ll be checking the bulk section for any healthy snacks I can purchase.

    Here are some things I have already changed that have shown a significant change in our grocery budget.  I shop at a store called Winco. They only accept cash, debit, or checks. This cuts their overhead charges, allowing them to reduce prices, but also forces me to pay more attention to the money I spend.  At winco you also have to bag your own groceries. One less person the store has to pay for a job we are perfectly capable of. I also am always on the lookout for their ads. They don’t go out often, but when they do they always have at least one coupon for a free item! So check your area for a similar style shopping experience.  I also only go to the store once a week. I make a meal plan on monday, and then head to the store with a list so nothing is forgotten.

    I can’t wait for tomorrow’s challenge!! By the end of the month I’m expecting to see our household expenses minimalized quite a bit through Andrea’s 23 days of Frugal Living, and I hope I can continue with all her advice after the 23 days!

  • Frugal Living Challenge: Days 2 and 3

    Frugal Living Challenge: Days 2 and 3

    I know I said I was going to post daily, but well, the weekend happened, and I just couldn’t spend it online with so much time to work on our kitchen. So here are my personal updates, and takes on the last few days of the Frugal Living Challenge.
    Day 2
    Saturday was all about going to the minimum. Finding ways to scale back, and learning to live with what you have.  I really liked the tips Andrea posted.  The biggest problem I found in setting a goal for myself here, was that I already do most of them. I like to leave lights off, and open the blinds for some natural lighting during the day, I don’t shower daily, because I don’t need to. Unless my kids are getting extremely dirty, they don’t bathe daily either. I try to do all our laundry in one day as this saves heating costs on the dryer (it’s still warm as you put in the next load, therefore not needing to use as much energy to get hot). 
    After looking around at what I already do, and then browsing the Frugal Living Forum, I located an area we could be less wasteful.  When we have leftovers, I tend to forget about them. They get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten. So my goal to scale back, and waste less is to eat our leftovers. I know I always plan a night for leftoever, but I’ll be honest, rarely do we end up following through that night.
    Day 3
    
    Sunday Andrea explored the idea of downsizing our homes. She challenged us to see if we could downsize, would it be possible, and would it benefit our families. Having just bought our first home, I don’t see us downsizing to a smaller home anytime soon. To be honest, I don’t ever see us purchasing a smaller home than this one. We’re quite comfy here, and we plan on growing our family larger.  For me instead of thinking about purchasing another home to downsize, I suggest looking at the space you have and finding the most efficient ways to use that space. Take for example our recent kitchen remodeling. We had a 2 shelf open pantry that only went up half the wall. Then it was an open bar like space to the family room. To us, this was wasted space. Yes I could’ve decorated it all nice and fancy, but in reality it was just a dumping grounds for clutter. So we made plans, and put those into motion to build a full floor to ceiling pantry. This offers us the much needed space for all our food, and gets rid of one more place for clutter to accumulate.  So although I may be upgrading my space, I’m also “downsizing” the need to ever purchase a home for the space.
    Yesterday, as I sat through church, a scripture was read that really made me consider this option to downsize.  It’s found in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi chapter 2:15 “And my father dwelt in a atent.”  At first look this scripture seems insignificant. But when we put the story behind it, I think it has much more meaning. Lehi was commanded to flee Jerusalem, and take nothing with him but the neccessities. He left behind all his money, and valuable items, and took only his family, food, and shelter. While traveling to the promised land, they lived in tents and hunted for their food.  As I thought about this scripture, I wondered whether I would be prepared to leave all behind if I was to be commanded to flee. Although I see that as somewhat unlikely to happen to me, I do see more practical circumstances happening. What if Mark were to lose his job (education can be a very unpredictable employer). Where would we go, what would we do?  Those questions I followed up with “What can I do without? What could I leave behind?” 
    I know we won’t be intentionally downsizing our home anytime soon, but if the neccessity arose that we had to, I know we could. I’m starting to look at our things in a more practical manner.
  • Frugally Sustainable pledge

    Frugally Sustainable pledge

    Would you like to be more frugal, and get a large community of like minded individuals to help you a long the way? 
    Frugally Sustainable has put together a 23 Day Frugal living challenge, that starts today!!!  I took the pledge, and I am so excited to work on daily goals as well as long term goals in becoming Frugally Sustainable. I really loved Andrea’s post for today’s goal. It gets you thinking about what Frugal Living truly means.
    She mentions how being cheap is not neccessarily frugal living, but rather it’s enjoying what we have and getting out of the mindset that more is better. So giving it some thought, I feel that I already do that. There’s always more I would like, but I am perfectly happy with what I have.  So today, as I think about how I personally need to redefine frugality, I plan on just looking at everything around my house, and giving thought to whether I truly need it, or could do without it. If I can do without it, then I will look at whether I enjoy it, or if it’s just taking up space. If it’s taking up space, what can I do with it to bless someone else’s life? 
    I’ll be blogging daily about the challenges in the 23 Day Frugal Living Challenge, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. If you want to join the challenge, just head over to Frugally Sustainable and follow the links to join the forum!   
  • Take the Rodelle Challenge

    Take the Rodelle Challenge

    Have you heard the buzz? Rodelle has a challenge going on right now to find the Best, Worst or Funniest Baking moments you’ve shared with your family and friends!  Head over to the Rodelle Facebook page to share your memories! Who knows, you could be 1 of 3 Grand Prize Winners.  What do the winners get, a Years Supply of Premium Rodelle Baking Goods and a KitchenAid!!!  Share stories, pictures and videos right on their wall.

    Rodelle sent me some vanilla beans to try out. I have never worked with vanilla beans before, so I’ll be making some memories this week as I try them out, and make some yummy goodies with my kids. I love this time of year when the baking begins and I get to share the memories with my kids, and the goodies with our friends.  I searched pinterest and found these yummy looking treats to make using vanilla beans:

    Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

    Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting

    Vanilla Bean Scones!!

    Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Bars

    I’ll be back later this week with at least one of these recipes and how it turned out!!! 

    Don’t forget to visit Rodelle’s Facebook Page and take the Rodelle Challenge!  You have until December 25th to enter those stories, pictures and videos!

    *This post was sponsored by Rodelle. I received Rodelle Premium Vanilla Beans in exchange to write about the Rodelle Challenge. All opinions and ideas are my own.

  • My Closet is Prettier than Yours – week 1 “After”

    My Closet is Prettier than Yours – week 1 “After”

    Photobucket
    Have you all seen this challenge over at Trulie Scrumptious? It’s the “My Closet is Prettier than Yours” challenge. Ash and Roz have dubbed September Organize your closets month.  This last week we spent organizing our Linen Closets or bathroom closets.  You can see my before pictures over here.
    I probably would have been done a little sooner this week, except I get hit with a head cold/flu bug yesterday and was completely laid out!  Thankfully I woke up this morning feeling a million times better, although not 100%, enough to actually do some organizing.
    And with that, here are my after photos!
    This is the top half of the kids/guest closet. Even I have to use a stool to reach the top, so I decided instead of crowding under the kitchen sink, I could store all the cleaning supplies up here. There is no way the Princess’ are going to get into those.  And then of course our stock pile of lotions, shampoos, and potty training reward jar (empty yes, it hasn’t been used for awhile).
    Here we have the bottom half the kids/guest closet. Thanks to pinterest, and some googling, I found a lot of people putting their laundry baskets on the bottom shelf of their linen closets. I loved this idea! We had been alternating between in their bedrooms and in the hallway, and I didn’t like how either of those looked. Now it is hidden away, and the Princess’ find it fun to toss their clothes inside the closet.  I then used some wicker baskets I had laying around; one for all the combs and brushes, and one for all the washcloths.  Thanks to Mark’s mom we have these nifty plastic containers that are helping store all the little hair clips, ties, nail polish and clippers.  I love our newly organized closet!!

    If you recall, we don’t actually have a closet in our master bathroom. So we have this behind the toilet shelf unit. It has been really handy, but very disorganized. I am now pleased to say, that this “closet” makes me very happy. The decoration on top, followed with useful organization on the next two shelves is very refreshing.
    Admittedly though, this photo is a bit staged. We have many, many more towels that will be on the bottom shelf. They are just all dirty at the moment due to a lack of washer/dryer this week. So instead of letting it look empty I dressed it up a bit with the hand towels, and washcloths.  I do wish it could always look like this though.
    Do you want to get in on this challenge? I hear there’s a prize for the Prettiest Closets at the end! Head over to Trulie Scrumptious today to learn how you can enter your closets! (Just be warned, my closets are going to be the prettiest!)
  • My Closet it prettier than yours challenge

    My Closet it prettier than yours challenge

    This is my kind of challenge! Head on over to Trulie Scrumptious (a trulie scrumptious blog!) to get in on the My Closet is Prettier than Yours challenge.  For the rest of September they are focusing on one closet per week. This weeks challenge is the Linen Closet.
    Are you ready for my Before pictures? So not pretty right now.
    The kids bathroom/guest bathroom closet
    The bottom half
    The top half
    We don’t actually have a real closet in our Master bathroom, so I figured I’d try and dress up the space we use:

    There’s still time to enter this contest! So make sure you go link up your closets!