Life on a Budget

I have definetly caught the budgeting bug!

I swear to you for the first time in my life I actually look forward to getting our bills each month.  Can you believe it?  I know, me either.

We have been working hard to keep our heat turned down, our wood stove cranked up, lights off and spending to a minimum.  Our children are adjusting as they at first couldn't understand why we just don't run out for ice cream or a new sweater or .... "fill in the blank" like we used to.  I have reduced my drive thru coffee habit - down to about once every two months.  Scott has trimmed his eating out budget to a fraction of what it used to be.

Here are the top reasons I am so thankful for our new budget:
1.  I feel like a grown up.
2.  It has caused me to be more organized with paperwork than ever before.  I even know what we paid for utilities for the past 2 years so I can have an idea what to actually budget for each month!
3.  We can be more purposeful in our giving!!!
4.  Choosing where to spend our money is empowering!
5.  We can make our dollars stretch farther when we respect them more!
6.   Prioritizing our personal expenses means nothing truly important gets left out at the expense of something less important!
7.  I am more thankful for the conveniences and goods we exchange our money for - heat, services rendered, internet and more.

For our family being thrifty and purposeful during the winter months is absolutely essential as our business slows way down from the full and bustling summer and fall.  While we have more time together we have much less money to spend, it's feast or famine!  I will take the family time and enjoy it more when I realize we  have prepared well!

How about your family - do you budget?  What are your tips and tricks to staying on track?


I use Dave Ramsey's online budget worksheets printed right off of his website for free in order to make a monthly budget.  

Potager & making old weed patches useful again

Here is a little corner of the potager with zucchini, potatoes, asparagus, beans & peas growing.  The large flowering plant in the back is celery from last year that has gone to seed - I'm going to try collecting and saving them even though they may be sterile.  They were from nursery starts last spring.  Even if they don't grow it was lovely to enjoy their seedheads in the garden while they lasted. I also have carrot seeds to save this year from last years remaining carrots - those will be good as they were from heirloom seeds to begin with.
Out of all my hobbies, potager gardening is by far my favorite!  I love the process of creating a beautiful garden that produces fresh delicious and nutritious produce to feed our family & friends.  It's so incredibly rewarding to eat what we have grown - even though I know I cannot take full credit.  It's up to the sun and the rain and the cycle of life that our creator so graciously lavishes upon the earth to sustain us and it! 
I also just planted a corn, bean & pumpkin patch in another garden area down by the pasture.  The corn was from starts (we got a late start) as we just finished preparing the ground - it used to be a weed patch after years of going to seed.  In order to make it useful again we cut the weeds down, layered old newspapers over the top, next I layered used chicken bedding and covered with black plastic.  We left the garden this way for about 3-4 months and then covered it with new top soil mixed with compost.  I have one more garden area that I am starting this same treatment on so that in the fall I can plant a cover crop and have it ready next spring hopefully. 
One of my goals with gardening is not spending much money on it.  We have chickens who provide fertilizer and straw to amend garden beds.  We also have lots of ashes from our wood stove, fireplace, barbecue & fire pit.  Another free amendment is used coffee grounds and tea leaves (I supplement by taking bags from Starbucks of their used coffee grounds since ours isn't enough).  Some of the neighbors save their newspapers for me too.  I'm learning to save seeds and I usually start most of the plants from seed directly into the garden.  It just doesn't make much sense to me to spend a lot of money on the garden since it doesn't take long before you could have bought all that produce much more cheaply!
My absolute favorite time of day is in the evening when the sun is starting to go down.  I wander down to the chicken coop to gather eggs, take food scraps & fill waters.  Then I make my way back up watering the gardens and checking to see how they grow.  It's quiet and peaceful and I feel alive and present in the moment.  I know, some garden experts say to water in the morning and sometimes I do but it's such a good way to wind down the day I can't stop myself! 
How does your garden grow?
Blessings,
Olivia

Inspired

It's all about my kids right now.  I am so inspired to live creatively in each moment with them.  To play games, to have tea parties and learn new things.  To find every oportunity to make learning fun.  To pick up new materials and live inventively.  I picked up some great new books at the thrifstore in town for 25 cents each and we have learned about Abe Lincoln and so much more.  I love to be inspired!  Don't you!

If you know of any really great blogs where moms post about creative play and creative spaces for their kids, I would love to know of them!  That is the kind of blog I want this to be!

Blessings,

Olivia

Our Journey to Debt Freedom

We have begun a journey to a different way of life around here! 

Here are the top 10 ways we have begun to re-order our finances:

1.  We SOLD  our nice but expensive truck (we will save on monthly payments, insurance and excess fuel) !

2.  We SOLD our Terry Camper Trailer bringing in extra funds to pay for necessary household maintenance such as painting the trim and touching up the house paint, reroofing the outbuildings etc. 

3.  We have begun to sell other items like unused tools and sports equipment.  We are almost ready for a big yard sale too, getting back to basics!

4.  We have changed our health insurance policy to a HSA Plan that allows us to take advantage of more tax credits and reduces our monthly payment by $423!

5.  We watch our grocery budget carefully and shop between Grocery Outlet, Costco and Safeway buying items at the lowest comparable price.

6.  I have been keeping "short accounts" of our checking balances and watching the pennies very carefully!  Finding new places to save and planning where each dollar can best be applied!  Using the Dave Ramsey worksheets!

7.  We paid off our credit cards and closed the accounts! 

8.  We are now debt free except our home loans.  This is the next step!!  Our first goal is to pay off the home equity loan on our house as quickly as possible (now that we don't have any other debt) and either refinance or sell.   

9.  This one actually goes against one of my other "being thrifty" posts but I have actually been avoiding yard sales!!!  I realized we don't really need anything else right now! 

10.  We have been more creative about finding free or inexpensive entertainment instead of paying for a day Miniature Golfing or bowling ($50 a day) or something else - we take advantage of the things already around us!  Such as a membership to a community center & pool we only pay for a family of 6 $73 per year!

So that's about it, so far, although I'm sure there will be more to come! 

On being thrifty, more thoughts

Well, I just finished reading "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey.  The best thing about reading this book is it has changed the way I look at debt.  Before I started reading the book I thought some debt was normal.  I have never liked having loans and lines of credit but I always thought it was like an emergency fund.  Well, here's an idea, how about actually having an emergency fund instead?  How about making some changes in our spending style to live beneath our means. 
So, after talking to Scott, we are rethinking the way we spend money.  Here are some changes we are beginning to make:

1.  We are selling the large gas guzzling truck we use for work to save on fuel and get rid of the large payment.  We have an older truck (much older) we can use for household needs. For client meetings and work Scott can take our paid off Tahoe when necessary.  (Eventually we will need another vehicle appropriate for meeting with clients and hauling the catering trailer but for now we can make do with the vehicles we have in order to save money).  Once we sell this truck we will have no debt besides our mortgages.

2.  We are selling our camping trailer, canoe and also having a yard sale.

3. All the money we make off the sale of the above items will go into a savings account as part of a 3 month emergency fund.  In addition to the savings we also plan to enlarge our storage of emergency food & water.  Once we have this savings in place we hope we will be able to start paying extra on our mortgage in order to pay it off early. 

4.  In order to scale back our monthly expenses we are switching our health insurance to a higher deductible and opening a Health Savings Account.
5.  We are holding off on buying discretionary items and watching our grocery budget closely to keep it low.

The point of all this?  To drastically reduce the amount of debt we have (primarily our home loans) in the next 5 years so that we are able to be good stewards of the resources God has given us. 
I was right when I thought some debt is "normal" but one of the main points in the book is these days "normal" is broke!  We don't want to be broke, we want to be self sufficient, responsible, and generous with what we have.  We're not going to be babies and cry about scaling back!

             (Because it's not as cute as the real thing!)
We are going to get real about saving and investing in the future so our little ones can have a brighter one! 

Feel free to post a comment on my blog to share any other good ideas to reduce debt and make the most of the income you have.  I would love to hear what you all are doing too!
Best,
Olivia

Reasons 1 Year Olds do NOT help you be thrifty!

1.  They wash your cell phone in the dog water...oh, and remotes also.
2.  They help you unravel the toilet paper whether or not you need some...
3.  They hide keys in unusual places so you have to search for hours...(I'm factoring in time spent here!)
4.  They try to eat the cat food if left out...
5.  They throw just about everything down the stairs to see what happens...
6.  They remove the batteries out of remotes so eventually you have to hide them all and hope the other small people in the house keep them hidden too.

7.  They find a tube of watercolor paint in their older sisters drawer and spread it around on the sheets, floor and their own clothing.....

Do you see that sweet little face though?  I know it sounds well, exhausting! But I wouldn't trade these days, these hours or even moments for anything.  By now I know this darling age is so fleeting!  So we will laugh at the adventures and buy another cell, remote & roll of toilet paper!  And I will take delight in the last of these baby days!

On being thrifty... tips & tricks to try

I am so into the idea of pinching pennies right now. In part because it is necessary for us during the slow season (winter) of our business to stretch our dollars until spring starts to improve cash flow. Also in part because it is a good feeling to know I've been eliminating waste and being wise with our money. Wasted food, wasted clothing that was perfectly good or household products that could have been stretched out. These are the things I've been paying closer attention to. I thought it would be fun to share some of the tips I've come up with or found from various sources.

1. I take my children's clothing to the consignment store when they outgrow it. They will sell the items that are still sellable and donate the rest. Then I get some store credit to spend on used but new looking items. I have found the most darling clothes (especially for Carolyn) for $1 to $7 a piece depending on the item. If it cost $7 it was really special!

2. I have all sorts of interests that I've been able to delve into simply by logging into my online library account and requesting books be sent to my local library. I have searched for books on gardening, home decor, potagers (french kitchen gardens), chickens, financial planning, and much more. There is so much information and inspirational books ready at my fingertips for free!

3. I love to bake muffins and breads, cookies and cakes from scratch. These can be a cheap afternoon snack or breakfast food or part of a school lunch. Much better than prepackaged already prepared food with preservatives. We also enjoy homemade pizza, a lot of soups and other dishes that have simple ingrediants but utilize a variety of what we have on hand. I have also been substituting less sugar than the recipe calls for to see if things still taste good and use less of what we have.

4. Trying to cut back on paper towel use with washclothes and substitute saran wrap for ziploc bags. There are lots of areas we can cut back on in this area. Like paying attention to how much water we use etc. On that note I usually make at least 2 children use the bath water and often 3. (not usually 4 there is something about that number that seems too much! the last child will take one the next time) In this case, I start with the cleanest child and work down. This is never the boys!

5. My last tip for today but I will probably post more another time...Yard sales and flea markets and thrift stores! I am hooked. I cannot wait until yard sale season is really in full swing. This is how I decorate my home! It's often how I clothe my children and stock my cupboards with useful kitchen tools, china and such! I've even got the children into it! Scott amazingly was on board from the beginning, apparently he had already realized long ago that you can find some pretty great deals on manly stuff like motors, tools, athletic equipment etc.

Finally I must say that I do not choose to be thrifty because we are broke. I choose it because it means we can spend money on other things. It means I can change my style on the drop of a dime because I dont have tons of money invested into anything. We can eat out more because we've saved money elsewhere which is something our family really enjoys especially when it's raining and we can't be outside. (also because we have a catering business and sometimes it's nice to have someone else preparing the food). It means we can have a big family and not spend a fortune on just getting clothing, food and shelter. And best of all, being thrifty is fun. It's the thrill of the hunt and the great deals that get me! I guess you could say it's kind of a hobby!