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  • Frugal Living Challenge

    Frugal Living Challenge

    The last few days in this challenge are things I personally don’t struggle with or are things I’ve already implemented in my life. I decided to combine them into one post as I just don’t have much to say on any of them.
    Day 8 – Learn to Control Impulse Spending.  Personally I don’t really care to go shopping. Unless of course there is a specific item I am buying. Going shopping just to shop, gives me anxiety, and I can get grumpy fast. Basically I don’t even go window shopping, because I just don’t see anything I need or want, because I haven’t thought about it previously. If you struggle with impulse buying, my suggestion is to stop window shopping. Then before you go shopping, make a list/plan of what you need.
    Day 9 – The 30 day list. I love this idea, and I think it could help a lot of people with impulse spending. Basically if you go to purchase something, instead write it down on a list. Mark the date that you wrote it down. After 30 days, see if you still want that item, how important is it to have, do you really need to spend the money on it?  You’ll probably find a lot of items being crossed off to never buy.
    Day 10 – Stop spending money to impress others.  Or in other words, stop trying to keep up with the Jones.  Be happy with what you have. When you look around at others, are you impressed by what they have? Or are you impressed with who they are?  I’m guessing the majority of us look more at a person’s actions then we do at the stuff they have when we evaluate them as a person. We may want what they have, but we’re not going to hold that against them if they are consistantly nice, and doing service for others. On the other hand, if we are only worried about getting the next big electronic device, and don’t take the time to give a smile to a passer by, take a meal to the mom who just had a baby, or can just be happy being us, we may find we lack friends, and close relationships. We minimize our own happiness, and people don’t want to be around sour people who can change the way they look at their life.
  • Frugal Living Challenge – Days 6 & 7

    Frugal Living Challenge – Days 6 & 7

    Day 6
    How living frugally, and being healthy can effect each other. I’d never really looked at it this way, but after reading Andrea’s post, I agree. Keeping our body, mind and soul healthy helps us live a frugal lifestyle. As well as living frugally can help us keep our body, mind and soul healthy. I loved this quote from her blog:

    When our minds are idle and disengaged we begin to seek fulfillment in external things 

    How true is that! So what can we do to keep our minds from being idle? I don’t know about you, but my mind always seems to be racing from one thing to another. I’ve got lists of things I need to do in my home that are constantly running through my mind. These range from cleaning lists, to daily routines with the girls. I’m also constantly evaluating the space in my home and rearranging furniture in my mind (since my body won’t let me actually move it right now).  I could sit and dream of the things I like, purchases that might make me happy, but I’m being honest when I say I don’t. So I guess my mind isn’t very idle, and I’m happy. In general I’m a very happy, optimistic person.
    It’s really funny (and sometimes frustrating), when I show Mark a craft I want to make. He looks at it, and says that’s cool. Later, I will find him browsing the internet for the same “craft”, but already made.  Yeah it would be easier to purchase it already made, but I really enjoy having something for both my mind and hands to do.  For example, later this month I’ll be making a Drum light for our new Dining Room. Not only will I have something to do that will keep my mind busy, I have also found a tutorial that will keep it at a cost cheaper than buying one brand new.  For more tips on keeping your body, mind and soul healthy while living a frugal life visit this post


    Day 7
    Make a plan to de-clutter.  We all have clutter, and for most of us it’s probably the clutter of stuff. Overtime we accumulate items that than get stored, put away for a rainy day, or we just bought because we like. For some of you your clutter may be in your diets, or your cyber space. Yesterday’s challenge was to make a plan to de-clutter. My clutter is found throughout my home. Especially with our Dining Room Remodel, the clutter has become more apparent recently. Here is my plan.  Once the Dining Room is finished, I will begin the de-cluttering process in the kitchen. I’ll be going through each cupboard and getting rid of anything I don’t need, or use regularly. Everything is going to be rearranged, and I hope the space we’ve added with the pantry, will allow the room to look more simple. 
    From the Dining Room I’ll be moving on to the baby’s room. It’s a disaster zone. We still have 3 months before baby boy is due, and his room has become a catch all. Everything I want to get rid of, or need to go through, has been tossed in there. We’ve even shut the heater vent in that room, and kept the door closed (hey no need to heat our stuff!).  It’s a mess, and quite frankly, I feel ashamed at myself every time I walk in there with yet another item.  Most of the items in this room are my pre-pregnancy clothes, clothes that no longer fit the Princesses, boxes of things to donate, and a bunch of my sewing/craft items. When I get to this room I plan on using this brilliant idea, found through pinterest.

    I love this! I mean having one place for everything that needs to leave your house, it’s just brilliant. Especially the library box!  I’m still trying to figure out a place to put in our home, but once things are a little more settled down, I’m sure I’ll find an easy place, that won’t be in the way.
    To read an interview with Courtney from Be More With Less, click this link

  • 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!