30 days of no spending-week 2

What a week this one was!!!! By the second day of this week, I had run out of both my flat iron cream AND my curl cream. While I am certain that this is not an emergency I really wanted to make it one! That being said, if you see me with crazy frizzy hair please just smile!

 The next thing this week brought on was a cheat! Gasp, I know, but it was NEEDED. We also kind of worked it in.  We left the money for McAllister's in the budget. We've gone almost every Sunday night since Stan died. We go with Patsy and the kids LOVE it. Ryan and I love that we can guarantee that at least once a week she doesn't eat alone. Not to mention Sunday nights are crazy and the kids and I all eat off the kids meal and it's only about $10 for all of us! This week Ryan was home sick, Landon had a fever, and Rylee was saying her throat hurt. Basically, every one as miserable and cranky. The compromise?? We would all forgo our $0.99 kids drinks at dinner (the kids LOVE their tea so I wasn't sure this would work), we would all drink water and then we would all go get a $0.79 icy  after dinner.  Came out a little cheaper and all the sickies would get some relief. Hannah was next on that list just an hour or so after dinner. We all got our cold frozen drinks and went home to oil up and head to bed. Everyone was much improved in just a day or two. Following our budgeted "cheat" the next day cleaning out some last things at the old house we found an envelope that had been pushed to the back. We are calling it the Heavenly manna of $15 of Bueno, $10 of Chick-Fil-A, $5 to On Cue, $20 to 7-11, and $10 to Wal-Mart! It was like we won the lottery! We were working hard to finish up at the old house this week so we were excited to see treats! We used one of the $5 7-11 ones and it was awesome. Wednesday we decided to treat the kids because they had been cooped up so much this week so we took the Chick-Fil-A card as well as some free kids meals coupons we had. All five of us ate for only $7 out of pocket, Ryan and I got to sit and relax, and the kids played for an hour wasting LOTS of energy. Priceless!!!!!!!!!! They needed it! (so did we)

The final cheat came as the MOST unexpected. My phone rang Wednesday afternoon and it was the realator of one of my in-laws rent houses.  (The just put it on the market last week.) THANKFULLY, we go to church with this lady or we would have had no way of knowing. You see, my in laws are on vacation over 700 miles away and she was calling to tell me a car drove through the house they are selling.  The neighbor called the number on the for sale sign and when the agent couldn't get a hold of them, she called me.  Ryan and I ended up spending about 4 hours at the house. Early on we had to run to Target to get a camera card so we could leave it with them. Knowing it could be a long evening/night I opted to get us both a pretzel and a drink to hold us over. Ended up being worth it since it was after nine when we got home! Thankfully we were finally able to get a hold of them (they were in the mountains) and insurance has the house boarded up. I just hate that their relaxing vacation had added stress and that they have a mess to deal with when they get home!

Life happened to the fullest this week. Yes, we spent money. NO, we aren't upset. The key for us was to mindful of our money. It would have been easy to just cheat. Instead, we made cuts, did what got us by, and thought cheap! We could have eaten a full meal out and spent lots, but we didn't. That's what is great about no spends. You remember to be in charge of your money instead of it being in charge of you!

30 days of no spending-week 1

Week one is OVER!!! I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  I feel like when we do a "no spend" the first week is always the hardest! So, I'm sad to say we weren't totally no spend, but we did make a pretty good go at it. Here is the week one run down. The first "offense"' happened Saturday. Ryan packed his lunch for work but forgot to put it in the fridge when he got there. By the time he finally got to eat almost 8 hours later, it probably wasn't safe so he ran to the cafeteria and got some grub. I'm saying good call on this one. He avoided food poising and his blood sugar crashing! A must both ways when you are charge nurse! The very next day came instance #2. Getting ready for church we realized that my kid who is going through one crazy growth spurt (an inch and a half taller in only 10 weeks!!!!) had no church shoes that fit!!!! Fantastic.  Thankful I used Payless' BOGO and 10% off plus a credit that I had with Paypal and now there are 3 pair of church shoes and Hannah's replacement boots (1/2 off) on the way for only $33 out of our pocket.  Those were the only two bad things.  One of the things we budgeted for was the State Fair, which we had tickets to prior to deciding to do a no spend month. This was a family outing with the in laws so we were going to go. In the spirit of money saving the kids and I opted to eat dinner at home and go for dessert at the fair. Ryan lives for fair food and it the main money maker in our home so I really encouraged him to enjoy it and eat dinner and dessert at the fair! It wasn't hard to convince him...like, at all. We shared things and had bites of each others, so we got samplings of everything we wanted and for our family of five, we rang in at $42 on food. That was $18 less than our goal! I've also spend only $152.85 on groceries for the month. That's almost 3 weeks of food, 2 freezer meals for a friend that is (hopefully) just about to pop, and a couple desserts for things! All in all I think week one was a success. A little more than we planned to spend but the hubs needs to eat on what ended up being a 14 hour shift and said child can NOT go barefoot to church. (Although she sees nothing wrong with it!) Here's hoping week 2 goes off even more smoothly!

30 of no spending....day 1!!!

Ryan and I have done a "no spend" month before and we loved it.  I don't know why we don't do it more! We are not terrible at controlling our spending. To be honest, what gets us is drink stops.  We usually get the kids something and 5 drinks several times a week adds up FAST! So late last night we decided that there really is no time like the present and we will start as soon as we wake up.  Maybe I should have thought this through...as in go to the grocery store before we start. I didn't. Time to get creative.  I was not going to have a strike on day one, Since we were out of bread tuna salad for lunch gets served in hard boiled eggs. That was close! There are a few exception to our no spend. What we are learning is that pre-planned expenses aren't what gets you, it's the impulses. That being said, we will still leave the money there for the kids and I to have our weekly Sunday night dinner date with Ryan's mom (after all, all four of us usually eat for under $10). Instead of just adding this money, we will work extra hard and it will come straight out of the grocery budget which will mean cuts on unnecessary grocery items. We also already had plans to go to the fair with the family. We will take our own drinks and we are already picking out the one food item we want.  Other than that we will just enjoy the sights and let the kids have fun. Besides, people watching really is the best part of the fair. That's it. Those were the only two things allotted for and everything else will just have to wait. The only spending this month will be necessities. We will pay the bills, medical expenses (we all have dentist appointments this month) and stick to our tight $300 a month grocery budget! I'm excited to see what we do this month.

Are there really "small things"?

There is a phrase that is so common and I've probably said it myself a time or two; "It's the small things".  The more I've thought about this over the last few days, the more it has made me wonder, are there really small things.  This is all coming from something that happened this weekend.  We were eating lunch at a little restaurant in what I'm pretty sure is the smallest town in America, and then IT happened.  My Rylee lost her very first tooth. We've spent lots of time wiggling it and waiting for it to happen on its own, but with a little push of her tongue and a tricky pull by me, the once dangling by a thread tooth was now in my hand.  SO SO SO bitter sweet. My six year old snaggle-toothed baby was beaming, smiling as big as the world, and I was full TEARS!!! I'm not supposed to be on the verge of a meltdown, I'm supposed to be happy. That's when it hit me.  Maybe these aren't small things.  At that point all my Rylee wanted to do was tell and show anyone that she could that she lost a tooth.  This was HUGE to her.  If it's big to her, it's big to me.  Furthermore, these are the moments in life Ryan and I thought we would never get to enjoy.  There was a time in our marriage when the visions of rocking babies, putting band-aids on boo boos, the tooth fairy, and playing outside all seemed to be unattainable to us.  Two surgeries and a year and a half of fertility treatments later and we were no where close to having a baby. Eventually, in God's timing He did see fit to allow us to be parents and it's things like this: the "small" things, that we don't take for granted for a second.  Celebrate with your kids. Make the big things to them big things to you!!! So now for my sweet Rylee, here it is...showing the world her lost tooth!!!

 

25 Random Acts of Kindness

The goal: 25 random acts of kindness (inspired by Christmas being Dec. 25)

Sadly we didn't make it.  We only made it to 14. At first I really upset by this.  The girls were having fun, Ryan was having fun, and I was having a BLAST!  We were able to do multiple things that we wouldn't normally do, for people we should, but don't normally think of.  We baked, we gave Christmas decorations to people that didn't have any, we gave money, we gave old coats that we had way to many of in the first place, the kids made things for people. ect. It was a lot of fun. It's really true, when you give of your resources, be it a skill, time, money, whatever--it makes you feel good.  That's not why we attempted this project, but it sure wasn't a bad benefit of it.  The best part of it all is that even though we were not expecting anything in return, there were things given in return. The Lord met several needs that we had and some that we didn't know we would have.  It's been fun to teach the girls that they are not the most important things in the world.  We were able to talk about things that would otherwise be hard conversations to have.  When we told them that there were children that had nothing-no extra clothes, toys, sometimes not even enough food, my little givers filled a laundry hamper of toys they had that they wanted to give "the kids" as they referred to them.  That blessed my heart.  To make it even better they didn't pick out old toys or broken toys. They even gave some of their very favorite things! Talk about convicting to me.  I'm so quick to part with things I don't like, want, or need but what about the things that I do like? Why do I think I'm more important than someone else or that I deserve to have this more? I was a great lesson for our entire home.  Next Christmas we will try again! We will start earlier instead of starting in December so things like illness, family illnesses, or weather (it is Oklahoma, after all) don't hinder us from reaching our goal.  We've also decided to tackle one project like this each month of the year! I would love to encourage anyone who reads this to consider the same thing.  It really is worth it!

Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

2013 advent

Here you go!!! This is this years advent calendar! Along with this list we have scripture readings every day and this year we are adding in 25 random acts of kindness to do this year!!!!  Because of the timing of the year some of them have already happened. All that is a blog post for AFTER Christmas! Merry Christmas y'all and don't forget, it's not all about the gifts under the tree! The true gift came long, long ago!

Cheap, candy-LESS Christmas stocking ideas



 

I've had a few people ask me about cheap and practical stocking ideas for children. I figured it was easier to just do a post about it. Here's some things you should know:

• the pictures below are the actual items that will be in my children's stockings this year (so please don't tell them!!!!)
• my children love simple things--I love this about them
• we don't emphasize Santa- we are not "anti-Santa". This is just not the focus of our home.  We do stockings but we don't talk about him coming down the chimney or anything like that. Therefore, they are not disappointed that nothing huge or glamorous was in the stocking they received.
• we teach our children to be grateful for even the smallest things-I don't know that they would be disappointed even if it were coal in there!!!
• Lastly, I think it's very important to really know your children.  Know what they like and dislike. You will notice that my 3 year old child's stocking is almost identical to my 5 year old child's. This is because they are best friends. They are interested in having the same things so that they can do them together, but the items bought cater to each girl's person interests too. (For example, the characters or colors may vary even though they are the same type of item!)

NOTHING in these stockings cost more than $5. Most of that is regular price, but there are a couple things that I used coupons for.

 
 

• coloring books
• markers
• crayons
• small puzzles
• lip gloss
• nail polish
• cute socks
• fun silverware (I got Landon Cars)
• necklace or earrings
• notebooks (I found ours in the dollar section at Michael's with the girls initials on them...no fight over who's is who's!)
• bubble tape
• fruit snacks
• fun hairbrushes
• stickers
• sunglasses
• character cups
• movies (look at Target, they have a $5 section)
• Band-Aids with their favorite characters
• small packages of trail mix or crackers
• ink pens (the ones I found were 6 color pens in the dollar spot at target)
• bath color drops (Crayola's are awesome)
• bubble bath
• character bath soaps
• character wash cloths
• small balls
• bubbles
• children's work books (you'd be surprised!)
• dress up jewelry
• t-shirt
• small stuffed animal
• books
• tokens or game cards to their favorite game place (Chuck E Cheese, Andy Alligator's, Celebration Station)

Those are just a few that I'm either currently using or have used before.  I'd love your feedback of what you would add to the list!