Happy New Year! And come help me help you with your resolutions.
January is a time of year when a lot of people become interested in saving money, resolving to pay off debt, live within their means, spend less of groceries, buy less stuff, eat out less, stop throwing food away, and so on.
I'm working on planning out blog posts for the coming year, so I'd love to hear what money-related resolutions you're making this year. If I know what you're working on, I can make my blog more helpful for you.
So, talk to me! What money-saving topics do you need help with?
The money saving topics really aren't why I read The Frugal Girl. The posts that most interest me are recipes and finding contentment with life. I know you have done that, but periodic posts help remind and reinforce.
Agree completely.
Happy New Year! This is the year I'm spending thinking about OTHER people's money. I quit blogging (as The Mrs) and QUIT MY JOB AT THE BANK (erp) to stay at home with my kids and open a financial planning business that specializes in setting up a spending plan and living within your means. I'm excited and scared.
Kristen, it's thanks to you that I even started thinking about this. Your encouragement in my first year of blogging to concentrate on a plan to stay at home was a big help to me, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
I hope your 2013 is full of great things! (I'm sure it will be. You're pretty good at making things great by thinking about them anyway.)
--Sandi
Oh my goodness! I'm really happy for you, and I hope your new business is super-duper successful. It will involve spreadsheets, right? So that means you are guaranteed happiness. =P
You know me so well! 🙂
I'd noticed a blog slowdown and figured something like that was in the works. Makes me sad, though - and you still owe me some maple candy.
This comment showed up in my email inbox, and I was confused for a minute...like, why would someone think I'm quitting my blog? And then I read the part about the maple candy and realized you were talking to The Mrs.! (email notifications don't show who you're replying to.)
I have always been terrible at budgeting, and since my husband's income is higher than we need to live on and we are able to save quite easily, I have never really limited myself at the grocery store. I never really knew how much money I was spending on groceries.
A couple of days ago, I decided to go through our bank and credit card statements and figure out how much money I'd spent on food in the past year. I was shocked at the total.... I averaged $800 a month!!!! Yikes!!! I thought I was spending about $500 a month!!!
My goal is to cut that back to $600 a month, which I fell should be attainable since we have only two adults and three preschoolers to feed. I also just finished reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollon and I am hoping to make some positive changes in what we eat. We eat fairly healthy already, but I want to cut out more processed food etc.
So I guess I'd be interested in what your guidelines are for how much you spend per family member, and how you economize at the grocery store!!!
I recently quit my job to be a SAHM. My son is older though so my main focus while he is in school is the house & our budget. I want to rock our budget like a hurricane & get it whittled down - especially the grocery budget! For the 3 of us, I am still spending around $400 and that is far too much! I KNOW I can get it down to $200, especially considering of the 3 only 1 eats meat.
I love this blog. No matter what you write about I will read it. Thank you for all your hard work & providing your help! <3
For the first time in 2012, my husband and I set a savings goal with a real dollar amount. We took Dave Ramsey's advice and wrote it down. Each month we updated our goal vs. reality paper, and it really helped. I am happy to say that even in a year where we welcomed a new baby, did some major car repairs and bought plane tickets to visit family, we met our dollar amount goal. JUST BARELY... but we did it.
Our goals for 2013 are to continue to pay down our last outstanding debt (a student loan), purchase a used car with cash, and save for a down payment on our first house. And I think it goes without saying that we'd like to do this without accumulating any additional debt. Sometimes I think we take that effort for granted. However, considering that we used to juggle several credit cards, two car loans and the student loan, it is sometimes a challenge to remember that we don't live that way anymore. Everything we want, we must find a way to pay for with CASH, while continuing to pay off our last debt and continuing to build our savings.
We are working on saving more into our retirement accounts and paying down debt.
We don't have any debt, aside from our mortgage, but we don't save as much as we could or as I would like to. Something like a monthly step toward reaching financial/savings goals might be cool.
I really love all of the DIY and homemaking stuff, too. It has educated and inspired me to try many things I might not have thought of, like refinishing old furniture, planning meals, and making my own bread and yogurt. All of those things add up and improve the quality of my life, even if they aren't grand schemes for getting rich (and perhaps moreso).
hear, hear!
Agree.
Yes!
Learning how you work with your husband (and kids?) to make and reach financial goals would be interesting to me. How do these discussions work? Was it hard at first?
I think just remarks about your daily life with frugal tips as you think of them without trying too hard to be always writing frugal ideas is what I like. Your lifestyle reflects your core beliefs.
Like this one.
I wonder more and more about how you manage on one income. With four kids. We're doing fine with two incomes, no kids, and a TON of student loans. But I don't think we'd ever be able to manage on one. I'm in awe of this and want to know more.
Also would like to hear about your kids + money, investment and retirement things you've planned for, and how you manage your wants with the money (You touched on this before... but I find myself struggling with wants more and more lately...and can always use a reminder/update).
Hi Kirsten.
I'm working on... cooking all my meals from scratch and refusing to waste money on eating out because I have not planned properly.
I like to cook a lot on Sundays and bring packed lunches to work with me. I work very long hours and sometimes this needs to be lunch and dinner. Ideas for this would be fun.
I am going to try to coupon but it is very hard to do in Canada it just isn't the same as the USA.
I hope to save enough money by not eating out and also spending very little on myself that I can pay off one of my high interest loans. I get paid twice a month, I don't have a very high salary and I'm the only source of income... trying to find ways that I can make additional (not just minimum) payments on my debt so that one day we'll all be happier. I've considered second jobs, selling my things etc, thought of what services I might be able to offer people for a fee I'm not quite sure...
Sort of a long winded answer but that's what I'm working on.
Your site has helped me with some of these things already. I'm inspired to not waste food, to plan meals around left overs and make more food from scratch.
This year I also hope to start a food garden and grow my own herbs.
Happy New Year thanks for all your hard work!
I would love frugal ideas about health and weightloss! Ways to work out in the winter months without a gym membership?
I'm trying to find ways to save money to take art classes! I got a membership at a local art center for cheap, but classes are still $250+ and my oil paints are ancient and need replacing. How do I sell things/save for this?
I'm also a grad student that has 70k+ in student loans. I'm in deferment until June 2014, but want to start paying it down ASAP! Any poor, unemployed student tips you could give throughout the year would be great!
The best poor unemployed student tip I can offer (as a poor employed semi-student, and formerly a poor unemployed student) is to do exactly what you have done: identify one lasting area of comfort, and focus on that. Cut down everything else that you possibly can, but to retain your sanity do something that gets you social, creative, and outside of academe for a while each week. Outside of that one focus comfort, everything else must be frugal so you can "snowball" your debt. And pay over principal if you possibly can - even before the loan comes out of deferment! Good luck!!
Regarding working out without a gym membership...
I use an iphone app called Nike Training Club. It has a whole bunch of guided workouts ranging from 15 to 45 minutes, and all of them use just a few basic pieces of equipment (medicine ball, light hand weights), or just your own body weight (like pushups!). I have found this to be really useful because I don't have to be motivated to leave the house.
Granted - this is only frugal if you already have a smartphone! But the types of exercises in the app can easily be done without it.
After living a frugal life and paying down my debt, some family members consider me better off than them. In fact they think I should be helping them and providing them with supplemental monthly income. They try to guilt me into feeling bad for how pathetic their lives are, but there were years and years when they had a lot more than me and flaunted it and never ever helped me. So in 2013 how do you keep telling these people no?
If I may jump in: practice.
Seriously.
Role play it with a friend, rehearse in your head, speak it to a mirror. As part of your practice, practice not saying why. If you give reasons, you give others the opportunity to argue back. Maybe read Miss Manners on the subject. Whatever method works for you, remember that you don't owe your hard-saved money to people who don't take care for themselves. It won't be easy at first, and it will be harder if you've helped out in the past. But it will get easier over time, as people get used to the fact that your "no" means no.
It may help not to let them know how you're doing (how do they know, anyway?). It may also help to realize that if you don't give them money, they will resent you for it; but if you do, you will resent them. Either way it comes out badly - so since you've picked which bad outcome you prefer, stick to your guns about it.
This quote helped me a lot:
"When it comes to a choice between feeling guilt or resentment, choose the guilt every time. If refusal to take on responsibility for another person's behaviors burdens you with guilt, while consenting to it leaves you eaten by resentment, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide."
Ooh, great question.
I want to:
Eat out less
Stop making impulse purchases
Craft and stick to a budget
Meal plan and stick with the plan
And make extra money from home
Oh, and I want to pay off debt.
Here are a few of our financial goals:
*sell our condo (that's on the opposite side of the country from where we live now)
*cut unnecessary spending ($5 here and there is adding up)
*budget for the medical expenses and baby stuff necessary a new little one due to arrive in September (our babies will only be 13.5 months apart, so we need a second crib and possibly new clothes if this one is a boy)
*save to pay cash for a good condition, used minivan in 1-2 years
*move out of our rental apartment into a rental house (we won't be here long enough to commit to buying again)
*DH really wants a new position (at the same company) where he'll almost always have day shift with weekends off and have greater promotion potential
*commit to making kitchen basics from scratch (bread, yogurt, etc.) almost all of the time instead of only periodically
*Take a mini-vacation as a family of 3 before the baby arrives
We are facing a paycut at my husbands office which took effect early in December and a likely health insurance increase also. We are a pretty frugal family (one income) to begin with so finding a way to live with the 20% paycut has been difficult. There are only certain areas which can be cut anymore and one of those is in my grocery shopping. Even that is hard to cut as I already shop Aldi and food prices continue to rise. Need to focus on planning well and not wasting what we buy. Also need encouragement on how to do this without feeling "deprived" and trying to live this change while still feeling grateful for all we do have!
Also would like to focus on teaching my children to handle money well - they are 7 and 13.
I would also like to learn about teaching kids about money at various ages.
Me too!!
The increase in food is really noticeable. Sigh. I know I am thinking twice about my purchases.
I like your recipes the most. They help me eat in, save money, and be a little more healthy. And they are usually simple and can be modified easily.
We are currently living on one income (I'm a SAHM of 3 kiddos, one with multiple special medical needs that would prevent me from working right now) and we recently found out our medical expenses are increasing a lot. We were barely scraping by as it was so I'm feeling incredibly nervous about finances in general. I do love to cook and have been doing more and more from scratch, both as a hobby and for financial reasons. I would love to read more about cooking from scratch and any money saving tips. I love your blog by the way.
Being a stay-at-home mom and making the budget work! My daughter was born four months ago. My husband and are prayerfully considering becoming a one-income family so I can stay home... right now I work part time.
Oh! Maybe some thoughts on the vocation of motherhood, thoughts on how to make ends meet when you are just missing your budget (within $100-200 each month)?
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on parenting. How does bedtime work with four? It seems to take hours to get my one toddler in the bed. How do you teach them to be Godly? What do you do when they get in your hair?
Thanks for all your words of wisdom. 🙂
I know this doesn't apply to you and your family at all - but maybe some blogs on NOT wasting food when you live alone?
I'm a retired senior, live alone, and some days it seems I toss out more than I eat - not happy about it, either. It's very hard to cook enough for just a single person - any help would be muchly appreciated!
My solution for that problem was, er, other. Rather than trying to cut the recipe down to one person, I'd make a half batch and freeze it in portions. Alternately you could use a cookbook designed for one. There are a ton available although I'm not in a position to recommend any specific one.
This is what I do too and it works for me.
If you have single friends, you might try to have each make a dish and portion it. Label each dish and just know ahead of time who doesn't or can't eat what. You pick a day when you can all get together and trade. It's at least an option. It would get you some variety. 🙂
I don't need help with money-saving - over the past few years I've learned how to spend my money mindfully: on things that matter to me and not on things that don't.
What I need is to learn how to spend my time the same way. I fritter away my time then look back and wonder where my free hours went.
Yes! (again 🙂 ) I should be doing way more at home than I'm doing.
The frittering of time has been on my mind a lot lately.
Yes! I'd love to see how you put into practice the "21 days to a more disciplined life," for example.
I will second William's request.
Me too.
After 14 months of unemployment, I started a new job in November. I did accumulate some debt during that period of unemployment so my first priority is to pay it off.
I'm interested in learning about how others make the decision to replace an aging car and tips for dealing with increasing car repairs. My philosophy has always been to buy a new car and drive it until it dies, but we are a one car family and having reliable transportation is really important.
With food prices increasing, I'm interested in trying more bean-based recipes.
Love your blog Kristen! Happy New Year to all : )
I buy super-reliable and safe cars, then drive them till they get expensive to repair but not till they die on the road. The period when they're almost but not quite dead on the road is very expensive. It may be more out of pocket that year but it's frugal over the life of the vehicle. It's also a damn sight safer.
A few more hints:
- A 1-3 year old car is typically in the sweet spot of age vs cost, yielding a very good value for the price.
- Use the Consumer Reports evaluations of new and used cars. Once you decide what to get, spend the $12-14 to get CR's report on that type of car. You'll learn more than you thought existed about the pricing for that vehicle, knowledge you can use when negotiating for the vehicle.
- If you go to a certified dealer for a used car, you'll pay more and get more in the way of warranty and truth-in-sales. If you buy from the owner you'll pay less but have no warranty and it's up to you to find out any problems with vehicle. If you buy directly from an owner, it's critical to take the vehicle to a good and trustworthy mechanic for a thorough review.
- Negotiate! If you're not comfortable doing so, ask someone to do it for you.
BTW, I bought a new car a few years ago. I did a lot of research and suggset you consider the Honda Fit. It's extremely safe and should last 10 years or more. The Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla are also safe and long-lasting but the Fit is a lot less expensive albeit with noticably less umph.
Thank you very much for this useful information, WilliamB! I'm starting to gather information on how to buy a car, and this is very timely! This is such a big purchase that I want to take my time and do it right.
On this note, Kristen, I'm also interested in reading about how you go about making major purchases (house, car). You'll have to excuse me if you've already talked about these... I need to go through your archives one of these days!
You're already doing it right, by taking your time. Go you.
The Consumer Reports arrived yesterday after I wrote the above. It lists the Honda Fit is one of the best car values for the money, costing less than $.50 per mile (the assumptions behind that calc include that one buys a new car, drives it for 5 year, and drives 12,000 mi/yr).
If you can, I recommend you get a copy of this month's CR - does your library have it? It has good info for the stage of search you're in.
I'll look for this at the library. Thanks!
Let's see:
-I have lots of fitness/running related goals
-Learning to bake bread & try English muffin bread/bagels
-Sticking to our budget
-Saving for the kids college
-Paying down our mortgage
-Finalizing/figuring out our wills & guardianship papers for the kids
-One date night (or, lunch) with the husband + two friends get togethers/month
-Make $1,000 in extra money through the course of the year
-Increase our charitable giving
-Organize/declutter one room per month
I'm nothing if not optimistic. 😉
I want to keep better track of where my money goes. I know we spend less than we earn, but I don't really have a budget and couldn't tell you how much we spend per month in each category. We don't have debt, but I suspect we should be saving more for our kids' education, and our retirement.
I also want to do more meal planning. Lately there have been too many nights when I start thinking about dinner at 5:00 p.m. I should reorganize my pantry and eat up some of the older stuff in there. Why did I buy potato flour?
I want to keep better track of my kids' allowance. I forget to pay them, I forget to dock pay when they don't do their chores, and I get annoyed with my spender (my other is a saver.) As others have said, kids & money is a good topic!
My husband is very good with computers. He is in charge of budgets at his work. So he does same thing at home. He created an excel spreadsheet for me with categories of where we spend money. For example: groceries, electricity, mortgage, cellphone, gas, etc. I keep all receipts and at the end of the month add them up, then type in the numbers into appropriate category. He also created another sheet where he keeps track of income and how much money is leaving the bank (for example: paying bills, paying off credit cards). Maybe this is something that can work for you too.
I'm young and life is not settled yet, so I have actually found it difficult to try to stick to a standard monthly budget. This year I'm going to set a budget just prior to each new month. Bills and specific spending plans (such as obedience class for my dog) will be budgeted carefully, and I have some big savings goals for the year. Otherwise, I just identify how much I have leftover from these goals to spend on food, clothing/essentials, entertainment, etc. I write down in my journal everything I spend and add it up periodically to check my spending. Compared to a standard budget or spreadsheets, it's not as plug-and-play, but it keeps me sane, realistic, and aware of my spending habits even though they change all the time.
Much like what Natalie said, my husband has several (complicated) excel spreadsheets he uses to keep track of our long-term budget. This is what we use to plan for large-scale spending (cars, mortgage, vacations). But because neither of us is tempted to use credit cards incorrectly, we use them almost exclusively (and reap the cash-back/travel benefits). This makes Mint.com a great option for short-term budgeting for us, as it tracks all of our credit card spending and makes it easy to categorize. This way we don't have to keep receipts or go through multiple websites to figure out what was spent where, it links to all of our credit cards.
I would like to know more about what homeschool curriculum you use and also approximately how much you budget for your curriculum purchases.
I think that I am most interested in your thought processes. For example:
1. Do you ever start whining in your head about something you want but shouldn't get and then turn your thoughts around? I'm pretty good at that but would love some more tips on how to do that.
2. How do you plan your menus - your thought process?
3. What plays through your mind when you think about all of the gazillion things you have to do that day? Do you ever get overwhelmed?
4. How do you keep focused on what you need to get done and not get sidetracked?
5. I'd love to learn to celebrate more without spending more. I just don't celebrate life very much and I know that it can be done without spending money! Two examples: My goal for birthdays this year is to learn how to celebrate the person instead of focusing on the gifts. I also want to learn to celebrate silly things - first day of school, last day of school, 4th of July, first day of spring, first snowfall of the year, etc - but I'm a terrible planner. Any hints for doing either of those things?
6. I want to declutter. I'm not sure what a true minimalist is but, to me, you are a minimalist - what kind of thought process does a minimalist have?
7. How do you keep your house so clean???
8. How do you make yourself do things that you don't want to do?
I'm sure there are more but that's quite enough for now! Thanks Kristen!
Here's an idea I found for celebrating in your family. I liked the idea so much, that I used it for three different families for a family Christmas gift this year. Just have one special red plate, and then when you want to celebrate someone's accomplishments or cheer someone up on a blue day, that person gets to use the red plate for dinner that day. I read this idea in a book years ago, and I was also the person who got to use the red plate when I was a dinner guest in one of my student's homes as well. It does really make a person feel special! The only thing you have to do is buy the plate, and then celebrations can be spontaneous! I did find it a little difficult to find a red plate that could be purchased without buying an entire set of dishes, but right now Wal-Mart (at least in Canada) has a red dish set you can buy individually very inexpensively. I think a plate is about $2.50 and a matching mug is $2. Hope this is useful!
I have been trying to downsize and get rid of "things". Having too much stuff can really take a toll on your inner peace and is a lot of work. Plus, the more you have the more space you need, the more storage you need, the more time it takes to take care of.....it adds up. Both in time and money. I know this, just having a hard time putting it into practice. It breaks my heart to hear my younger mom-friends think that they need to have so much.
There are some great suggestions here already 🙂 I really enjoy your posts about your family, and I find myself filing away ideas for when I have kids (in the distant future!).
I guess also I would like to see a post on whether you feel overwhelmed when you have a million different things to do and how you deal with that. One of my new year's resolutions is to be more resilient, so I would love some tips 🙂
This isn't really finance related, but my husband recently started a job where he usually works evenings (goes in around 4pm) and does not get home until midnight. You seem to really have it together when it comes to working around your husband's different work hours. I would love to see a post about how to better deal with this (meals, sleeping schedules, etc.). My New Year's resolution is to only buy products made in the USA. You can check out my blog if you are interested in the details.
Hi Kristen, no specific questions, just wanted to say thank you for keeping up such a wonderful and inspirational blog. Every day I look forward to reading it...it is a daily reminder for me of how important it is to keep life simple and focus on being a good wife/daughter/sister/friend to the people I love and avoid the temptation of the material things that we (with the help of certain societal expectations) mistakenly think will bring happiness to our lives.
I loved your 365 blog, but realize that was something you decided to discontinue. But maybe a weekly or monthly post with snapshots into your regular life would be possible. I just loved seeing how your family enjoys libraries, thrift stores and hanging out at home through your excellent photography.
I was thinking about something else. What are some things that you are not willing to be frugal about? Or is there something that stands out that you were frugal about and wished you made another choice?
I make a budget with room for misc. and unexpected expenses but somehow throughout the month we end up spending too much in these categories. We are making VERY little money right now so every dollar counts but something always comes up. I don't know if the solution lies in strapping down (we are already living on so little) or just allotting more money for these categories. I'm working on getting a better paying job but things are hard right now. Maybe we just need more self control? IDK help!
I want to start composting. Should I build my own bin or buy one? Is there a certain way to stack the waste? When do you move it to the garden?
I would love a post describing how and when you began composting!
Thanks,
Jenn
We have no debt (except mortgage) and our financial goal is to save $400 a month. Which is no problem since my husband is putting his car payment into savings and I'm adding another $150. With both of us working at Walmart that's something. We have no problem surviving on what we make.
We're already frugal is every way but groceries! For two people we probably spend $400 a month! We tried cash, but if my husband knows there's cash in the house and where...
How can I cut this in half? Or even a third?
Kristen,
do you consider baby formula as groceries? Once we started keeping track of our groceries spending I was pretty good at keeping it at $300/month. Now our baby is 7 1/2 months old, is no longer breastfeeding, so we have to buy formula and other baby food which brings our spending to just over $400. Any advice on how to save on baby food/formula will be greatly appreciated.
Contact the brand you use. Online or send a letter. They tend to send out coupons every so often. If you aren't brand specific, you can signup for the brands you use.
Some of my favorite posts are when you talk about your mindset. I think this makes all the details possible. You have a wonderful way of thinking about things that I love hearing. Very inspirational.
Hi Kristen, and happy New Year! We are a family of 6, like you, and now that our kids are getting past the toddler stage, we would like to travel with them more. However, the typical hotel room doesn't have the capacity for 2 adults and 4 kids, but the cost of two rooms is prohibitive. We use Capital One air miles to offset some of our airline costs, but would like some tips on how to find affordable vacation accommodation that will have room for all of us.
Thanks for all your helpful posts!
Have you tried renting a cabin ...?? Maybe check into townhomes for rent. You'd have to see what is available. A hotel w 2 large beds and if possible 2 cots might work. Not sure what hotels offer.
My husband and I plan to buy our first home this year, and we are trying to approach it from a frugal standpoint. What do we really NEED in a home? How can we inexpensively furnish our home with quality pieces? When can we make home repairs on our own, and when do we need to call in the professionals?
Also, I need to get in the habit of making a meal plan for each week and sticking to it. My job requires very long hours, so by the time I get home, my brain is too tired to make a rational decision about what to prepare for dinner. If I get in the habit of making a weekly meal plan, I can plan ahead and eat more wholesome and affordable meals.
P.S. I opened up an ING savings account so that my husband and I can save up for a trip to the U.K.! We've already saved up quite a bit, and I'm very impressed with the online savings account. Thanks for the suggestion!
We are saving for a trip to Ireland for our daughters wedding. But, my big goal this year is organization. Lack of it affects the finances, as I have been known to misplace a bill here and there. Also, to get the basement finished so my small pantry down there becomes a large one. I used to be a big couponer and buy in bulk when possible. Then, our basement became a storage unit for other family members. Now, that stuff is moved out so we can finally get our homeschool classroom set back up and finish my pantry so I can stock up again during great sales and using coupons. With the clutter gone, I can save in that manner again to the tune of getting our food bill back down to around $250 a month for 7 people.
We have somehow run up a good bit of credit card debt - again. This is a pattern, where we're doing so well that we aren't concerned with budgeting and we whittle our money away ... and then rack up the debt again. Over and over.
With some help from your posts, I've started saving right off the top, in different kinds of accounts. But my next goal is to create a realistic budget and then figure out how to pay off our credit cards ... and hopefully, make some permanent life changes so this doesn't happen again!
I enjoy reading all of your posts, so keep up what you're doing! 🙂
I'm starting to de-clutter by selling items that we are no longer using... I've joined some local Facebook "swap shop" groups, and have made a few postings on Craigslist (an eBay attempt several years ago was not successful); so far, my success rate is < 50%. I'm wondering if you (or any of your readers!) have any suggestions for how to "sell your own stuff" more effectively.
With my kids clothes/toys/supplies, I've been consigning them at several seasonal Consignment Sales and have had great luck with that. Ideally, I'd like to find a similar opportunity for the adult clothes and household goods.
I'd welcome Craigslist hints, too. My success rate is quite low.
I love your recipes and have used many of them, but I find them difficult to find again once they have passed.....any way you could work on a Recipes tab so that they are all in one place?
I second that.
I love your recipes and have used many of them, but I find them difficult to find again once they have passed.....any way you could work on a Recipes tab so that they are all in one place?
I love your recipes and have used many of them, but I find them difficult to find again once they have passed.....any way you could work on a Recipes tab so that they are all in one place?
I love your recipes and have used many of them, but I find them difficult to find again once they have passed.....any way you could work on a Recipes tab so that they are all in one place?
My biggest goal (long term) goal right now is paying off my home - while improving it. I have owned my home for 12 years, and I'm down to around $18K and I'm wondering how fast I can (reasonably) pay it off. I also want to get a new roof for the house and garage, and pay for it in full out of pocket. Then I would love to get glass block windows in the basement, and a new window and garage doors for the garage (and be able to pay for it out of pocket, or at least 12 months same as cash if needed - I don't know how you feel about that!?! but sometimes it works for me).
I also want to be able to pay for my son's tuition for his school in May. He will be in first grade next year and is currently attending a private Catholic school. I'm so happy with how he has done this year that I definitely want him to go again next year.
Lastly I would like to continue to declutter my life. Last year I focused on getting a lot of clutter out of my home, and I want to continue this trend in my life. Really, its all about simplifying and saying NO (thank you!) more often, and cutting out what is no longer needed. Whether that is junk in my home, or extra bills, or mental stress - less is coming back in style this year . . .
I haven't really made any resolutions at all this year (I rarely do). But the main reasons I visit the blog are:
- recipes - especially the ones (ie. homemade granola bars) that are not meals so much as ways you can reduce the amount of pre-made food you buy
- environmentally-friendly tips
- ideas/reminders of fun free/cheap things to do
- product reviews - whether it is a big ticket or small ticket item, I appreciate the fact that you prefer to spend more up front for a longer-lasting item
Thanks for all your tips.
Hi FG just want to say I very rarely comment but I read your blog quite regularly and find you super inspiring!! I would love some more tips on homeschooling frugally, and how you maintain your families healthy food commitment on a tight budget. My family is coming out of a lot of Medical bills and depleting our savings in 2012 so this year my husband and I are crunching down and increasing our savings like crazy but because of the health issues were also trying to be way more healthy. I need to figure out how to do both. Please your guidance and wisdom would be beyond appreciated. Thanks
I have the same china 🙂