Money Savings: Birthdays

I'm switching my days this week since payday isn't until Tuesday - my menu plan will be up Wednesday. And I'll have a Going Back to Nature post on Friday.

Sometimes when you're trying to save money, you have to get creative with everything! So how do you save money on brithdays? Glad you asked! ...

**Make your own birthday cake - either from scratch or with a mix. There's plenty of blogs and websites with tutorials or ideas for decorating ideas. Here's a few to get you started: Barbie Cake video, Drive-in Movie Theater, Star Wars, Lego Cake.

**Forgo the decorations - they're expensive and unnecessary. Most younger kids won't even notice and you can explain to older children why you're not using them.

**If the birthday is around a holiday, you can buy decorations when they are deeply discounted and use them as decorations for the party. This could work for holidays such as Valentine's Day, Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, etc.

**Use comics or brown paper bags for wrapping paper. You can decorate it with stamps, stickers, markers, etc. or just wrap with ribbon for a classic look.

**Serve only cake and punch in the afternoon instead of a big meal around lunch/dinner time.

**Invite only family and/or close friends instead of everyone you know! Less people = less money.

**Combine birthday parties if they're close together. This cuts your costs in half!

**Make your own invitations on the computer or with stamps (if you have them already - stamps are a big investment if not).

**Don't spend money on activities for kids. They're just as happy playing at the playground or running through the sprinkler.

**Buy second-hand gifts. There are great finds on e-bay, Craigslist, thrift shops, etc.

**Any other ideas? Leave a comment.

My Library List 8/22 - 9/5

I've been a little slow on the reading this week. I got about 5 books at the library but one I didn't care for so I just flipped through it; another I decided to wait on because I didn't realize it was from a series (#3) so I want to read the first and second books first. Then, I started back up with reading the Bible every day, so I don't have as much time to read my library books. Also, (see ... lots of reasons!) I've been trying to "soak up" my TV time, because (if you'll remember) I'm getting rid of cable next month. So here's my list of reads:

Non-Fiction
Financial
-Ramsey, Dave
--More Than Enough
I just started this one so I don't have much to say about it. But everything I've read by Dave Ramsey so far was excellent! So I'm sure this book will be too ... I'll review it next week.

-Bach, David
--The Automatic Millionaire
This is the book I didn't really care for. He doesn't agree with budgeting. He thinks credit cards are okay. And he thinks that people can become rich just by automatically putting a specific amount of money into savings (or investing) every month. Now I could've missed something else because, like I said earlier, I didn't finish the book. But I think that's just stupid -- I guess I've been listening to Dave Ramsey too long!!

-Burkett, Larry
--Debt-Free Living
This book was okay. Some things I had to overlook (another Dave Ramsey thing) - like the "credit cards are okay", etc. I enjoyed reading the stories about people - how they got into debt and how they got out, which was intertwined with his teachings. He had a lot of scripture throughout the book, plus an index of scriptures about money at the end that I really liked. He also has a book that solely dedicated to what the Bible says about money (The Word on Finances).

Government
-Levin, Mark
--Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America
I have not finished this book yet either, but so far - it's eye-opening! I think everyone should read this book. Some of it is a little dry (my opinion, I've never been excited about history), but I've learned some things about our history and government that I would have never known without this book.

Fiction, Christian
Suspense
-Blackstock, Terri
--Never Again Goodbye
I have not started this book, but it looks really good. And I've enjoyed the Blackstock books I've read so far. It's about a woman who gave up her child for adoption and later comes back into her life.
--True Light
This is book 3 in a series - Restoration. It's kind of a sci-fi series about how this star caused all electricity and computers to stop working, and how people are living in this new world. What I read of this book so far was good. I just decided that I should start from the beginning instead of the middle!

Going Back to Nature: Reduce Consumption

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about reducing consumption.

I still get amazed by the fact that Going Back to Nature (sometimes "going green") can save so much money! There are so many ways to reduce consumption - because there's so many things that could be/need to be reduced!

**Water - Wear clothes more than once so you're not washing as often; most of the time, they're not dirty anyway. Only wash full loads of clothes. Take showers instead of baths. Cut your shower time. Use only one glass (to drink from) all day so you're washing less dishes. Run the dishwasher only when it is full.

**Packaging - Buy in bulk (if you'll use it all) to reduce packaging. Drink filtered water from the tap instead of buying bottled for home. Buy a reusable bottle to take when on-the-go ... there's times when I get a soda or water when I'm away from home and end up throwing it in the trash because there's no recycling area around.

**Electricity - Use a clothes line to dry clothes; it can actually help whiten whites too! Use CFL or even LED bulbs instead of incandescent. Lower the temperature on your heater in the winter and turn up the temp on your a/c in the summer.

**Paper - Reuse paper that only has writing on one side; I use it for my grocery lists and random notes (thanks mom!). Bank online and use e-bills. Opt-out of credit card offers and junk mail.

**Gas - Carpool. Don't drive aggressively. Observe the speed limit. Properly inflate your tires; check them once per month. Empty your trunk.

**Other - Make or buy reusable shopping bags. Use rechargeable batteries.

Menu Plan 8/23 - 8/31

I shopped for the rest of the month (instead of just one week) and got out the door with $75 worth of groceries. Not bad considering I bought two 8-packs of batteries, two sizes of Zip-loc freezer bags (which I will admit, I wash and reuse when I can!), and dishwasher detergent. Plus we're having meat again!!! YEA!!

Creamy Chicken and Noodles
Pepperoni Pizza
Mexican Casserole
Chicken Burritos
Ravioli with homemade tomato sauce
Salisbury Steak - this is a new recipe; we'll see how it goes
Creamy Chicken and Rice - the reason I've never posted a recipe for this is because I just throw together rice, cream of mushroom soup, and cooked chicken breasts; easy meal, I made up the name!

My Library List 8/8 - 8/21

The library is definitely being utilized by a lot of people - all the books I want are checked out! So I haven't been able to pick up any more financial books. Here's what I have read in the past two weeks:

Fiction, Christian
Unsure of the category ...
-Beverly Lewis
--The Secret
This book wasn't that great to me. It took me a week to finish it. I found the plot going way too slow! The book is over 300 pages long and it's just book one in a series. I think the whole series could have fit into this book if she would've cut out all the "filler". But I did enjoy reading about Amish family life. It's very interesting and enlightening.

Thriller
-Terri Blackstock
--Ulterior Motives
This book was great. I read it in two days. It's older (1996) but I was looking on the shelf for a different one (that wasn't there) and thought I'd pick this one up. I really love the Christian element of the book. It makes for a wonderful aspect to the plot.

Romance
-Christine Lynxwiler
--The Reluctant Cowgirl
I've only really read two romance novels in my life (this being the third). I guess I thought they weren't really "my cup of tea", so I had a bias against this book going in. But the book completely turned me around. I really enjoyed it. And will be looking forward to more romance novels in the future.

Going Back to Nature: Cut the Clutter

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about cutting the clutter.

Last year I got rid of car loads of junk, literally. Some of it was in good enough condition to donate. Some of it had to be thrown away. But overall, our house looks better for it. Our garage can actually fit a car with no problem. And we didn't have to pay any money for being over the weight allowance when we moved last year. Our closets are clean and I can find things when I want to.

I know it's hard to get rid of things. It took me years of living on my own carrying around most of that junk through five moves to get rid of it. But once I realized the fact that it was just taking up space and I really wasn't ever going to use it again, I was able to get it out of my house.

Now you're probably thinking - what does this have to do with Going Back to Nature? Ponder this for a while. One hundred years ago, how many families had closets, attics, garages, basements or even storage units full of "junk"? If you've ever been in older houses you've probably noticed that they don't even have that much closet space (if any at all) let alone room for piles and piles of junk. People just didn't have more than they needed back then. It was a principal, just common sense. No one really thought about it. It just happened!

Okay, you're probably thinking your stuff is not junk it's important ... but how much of it have you used in the past year? What about in the past two years? If you haven't used it in that long, odds are pretty good that you're never going to use it again! It's just taking up space and sometimes even costing you money to keep it. Think about how hard it is to find what you're actually looking for or how much you're paying for your storage unit or how much you're paying for extra weight when you're moving (and volume if it's a self-move). Get rid of it. Today!

Menu Plan 8/16 - 8/22

Since we flip around our meal schedule so much, this week I decided to just write a list of meals for the week and then we can pick which meal we want to make everyday. Also, we're doing meatless meals all week to save money so our grocery bill was only $45 this week!

Spaghetti (we didn't have it last week)
Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Twice-Baked Potatoes
Chicken Enchiladas (leftover)
Pepperoni Pizza

Homemade Tomato Sauce

Well, I told you I was going to give you the recipe so here it is!

Tomato Sauce
(adapted from Better Homes & Gardens)
Makes: 4 servings Cook: 8-10 hours

28 oz	can whole tomatoes, undrained and pureed OR crushed tomatoes
6 oz	can tomato paste
1 c	onion
½ c	celery
½ c	green bell pepper
1 t	garlic powder
2 t	dried parsley
1 t	sugar
1 t	dried basil
1 t	crushed oregano
½ t	salt
¼ t	pepper

Optional: Puree onion, celery, and bell pepper with tomatoes if you want a smooth sauce.

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker. Stir. Cook on Low for 8-10 hours or on High for 4-6 hours.


**See?! Easy as pie! Although making pie never seemed that easy to me! We have had problems with the taste of the tomatoes in the end result but I think it has to do with the cans of tomatoes that we used. You can definitely add or subtract spices to your liking!

Going Back to Nature: Reducing Trash & Recycling

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. I've been working on reducing our trash and recycling a lot lately so I thought I would share some of what we do and what else we can all work toward.

**One of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of "garbage" you're throwing away is to recycle! In most cities you can recycle glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, magazines, and newspapers. Plus there are many websites out there to help you recycle almost everything else (such as electronics and hazardous materials)!

The best place to find a recycling center near you for almost any item: Earth911
Other websites: Yahoo! Green (recycling electronics), Recycling hazardous materials, stop junk mail, get rid of credit card offers

**The next thing you can do to reduce your garbage: stop using all those single use items (dusters, mops, wipes, plastic bags, etc.) You can buy a microfiber duster (which is essentially what the "Swiffer dusters" are) and wash it in your washing machine. You can use a regular mop with a washable head, rags with bottled cleaners instead of wipes, and washable plastic containers instead of plastic bags.

Robert and I employ as much of the above as we can into our day-to-day lives and I'll tell you, by doing that we went from having a full kitchen bag in a matter of a day or two to going most times over a week before the bag is full. Sometimes we have to empty it because of the smell and not because of the volume. I also empty our other small trash cans into the kitchen can - so the one bag a week is all the trash we have! Our recycling container fills up much faster than the trash can.

Some other ways to reduce trash that I'm hoping to apply in the future:
**Use cloth diapers and cloth wipes instead of disposable. It is amazing how much waste disposable diapers produce. It is estimated that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used every year in the U.S. alone resulting in 3.4 million tons of waste added to landfills every year!
**Start using cloth napkins instead of paper. They're easy and simple to wash with the rest of the towels. Just don't get white -- they'll stain!
**Use rags for wiping up messes instead of paper towels.
**Use wash cloths instead of sponges to wash dishes (much more sanity and it reduces waste).

It's also unbelievable how implementing all these things can actually reduce your costs as well. While the initial outlay may be more expensive than just buying a single package of swiffer refills, cleaning wipes, diapers, napkins, paper towels, etc, the overall savings will really start to add up!

Menu Plan 8/9 - 8/15

This is our menu plan for the week. After such a good "run" last week, I decided I wanted to just plan for one week at a time. It just seems so much simpler and so far, I've saved money both weeks (last week and this week) at the grocery store - not sure if that has anything to do with shorter planning though. So here's the plan for this week: (we didn't have the chicken on 8/1 so I put it in this week's plan)

S	8/9	Spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce
M	8/10	Chicken with Black Bean Sauce
T	8/11	Tuna Noodle Casserole
W	8/12	Chicken Enchiladas with homemade tortillas
R	8/13	Pepperoni Pizza
F	8/14	n/a
S	8/15	Cheese Ravioli with homemade tomato sauce

I will post the recipe for the tomato sauce later this week.

My Library List 8/1 - 8/7

I have started getting back into reading. Lots of reading! Remember when I said the library was a great resource for books? Well, we've been utilizing the library quite a bit lately and saved TONS of money over what it would've cost to buy all these books - plus it keeps our home "clutter-free".

Good books I've read from the library lately:

Non-Fiction, Financial
-Dave Ramsey
-- The Total Money Makeover
-- The Money Answer Book
-- Financial Peace Revisited


Fiction, Christian
-Paul Robertson
-- According to Their Deeds

Hopefully, I will be going back to the library soon as I have finished these books already (in about a week)!

Going Back to Nature: Fast Food

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week, I wanted to talk about fast food, especially since I ate it like three times this past weekend!

Some say that fast food isn't all bad. -- Was that supposed to be a joke?! Even if it's "nutritionally" acceptable, it was still processed and includes tons of preservatives.

A few weeks ago I saw this post through Amy at The Finer Things. Please view this ... it's an eye opener. And you can even click on the pictures to see them larger - if you dare! Just look at the pictures. Really look at them. In case you didn't read the post that went along with the pictures - It is a five year old Happy Meal. It was not refrigerated, just left in the pantry. For five years. It did not rot. It did not attract ants or flies or maggots. And it looks almost the same as what you get now!

This is what we put in our bodies, some of us on a regular basis! In fact, over 25% of Americans consume fast food every day!

Many meals (sandwich, fries, and drink) in today's fast food restaurants have at least 1000 calories and more than 100% of your daily intake of saturated fat, plus the occasional trans fat. In fact, nine of Hardees'/Carl's Jr.'s burgers have more than 100% of your saturated fat in the burger alone!

Since McDonald's is the most popular fast food chain, I looked at the nutritional facts for the typical Happy Meal (cheeseburger, small fries, and child-size Coke): 640 calories, 24 g fat, 7 g sat. fat, and 1 g trans fat. Yes - the McDonald's website says the meal contains 1 g of trans fat even though they say they have eliminated them! (And just to note, the cheeseburger contains 0.5 g trans fat and the fries and Coke says 0 g trans fat but the total is 1 g!) Another shocker - the french fries are prepared in vegetable oil containing "natural beef flavor" -- no wonder we all think they're so good!

I was debating whether to use the milk and apple slices for the Happy Meal nutrition facts, but decided against. Because, let's face it, how many of us actually get a salad (or something similar) when we eat at a fast food restaurant? I was trying to go for the "best" sandwich and fries combo, but again, how many of us order a kid's meal either?!

Other interesting fast food facts:
1. Every month, approximately 9 out of 10 American children visit a McDonald's.¹
2. Today the average American child sees more than 10,000 food advertisements on TV each year.²
3. By 2000, one out of eight American workers had at some time been employed by McDonald's.³
4. 96% of Americans have visited McDonald's at least once.³
5. McDonald's is serving an estimated 22 million Americans every day and even more abroad.<sup>3

1</sup> Spurlock, Morgan. 2005. Fast Food and the Supersizing of America. New York, NY: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
² Ritzer, George. 2008. The McDonaldization of Society 5. Los Angeles, CA: Pine Forge Press.
³ Smith, Andrew F. 2006. Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

C-School Update

Robert's not leaving yet. Somebody screwed up so they're scheduling him for the October class (hopefully ...). The October class was the original plan, but then he received an email saying a flight was scheduled for the August class so we thought he was going then. Nope, they were just trying to make us scramble to get ready.

Well, I'm glad he'll be here for a little while longer, but either way he'll still be gone for two months.

Menu Plan 8/2 - 8/8

Well we only grocery shopped for this week until we know for sure whether Robert will be going to C-school or not. We didn't go to the beach this weekend though! Instead we were lazy, went grocery shopping, went to Barnes & Noble and the library, then had a flat tire and spent like 2 hours at Wal-mart waiting for them to fix it. So here's our menu plan of the week. I tried to keep it simple and use up what we have in the house.

M	8/3	Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo with corn and salad
T	8/4	Pancakes or french toast with eggs and bacon
W	8/5	Chicken Tostadas
R	8/6	n/a
F	8/7	Pepperoni Pizza
S	8/8	Steak and mashed potatoes