Category Archives: Budgeting

It doesn’t seem to happen very often, but every once in a while I hit upon something that just really works for one of my kids. The other day we had such an experience! With as many things as we have going on this fall, remembering those mundane, daily activities like helping Jessica brush and floss her teeth has become rather challenging (very embarrassing given that my dad is a dentist)! So….in order to increase the percentage of times we are remembering those pesky daily hygiene tasks, I created Jessica a chore chart! I had to modify the way we did it because in some ways Jessica is more like a 2 year old than an almost 4 year old. Here is a picture of this week’s chore chart:

First of all, there are pictures of all of her “chores” instead of words. If it is a “chore” that has to be done twice in one day (like brushing her teeth), then one has a sun drawn beside it and the other has a moon and stars drawn beside it. Since I make a new chart each week, I can add new “chores” whenever I think we are ready! Also, I knew that she would not grasp the concept of a sticker representing a penny or earning x number of stickers means you get ___. So, I made the boxes large enough that we could tape pennies directly onto her chart! She is also not responsible at this time for remembering to complete her “chores.” We help her remember now. Eventually though, she will be responsible for remembering herself. At the end of the week, we take all of the pennies off and put them in her bank. In order to use the opportunity to begin to teach Jessica about budgeting, I bought her a special bank that I found at christianbooks.com

Jessica was excited about getting a package in the mail and enjoyed helping put all of the stickers on her new bank! I was excited because I knew the visual nature of her bank would allow me to teach her a little about budgeting! The bank has 3 compartments that look like 3 buildings: a church, a store, and a bank. At the end of the week we divided her pennies into 4 equal parts. 1 part went into the church. 1 part went into the bank, and 2 parts went into the store. The next day, we took the pennies out of the church and took them to church to give to God (that was only slightly traumatic). Then that afternoon we took her to the Dollar Tree to pick out a toy to buy. It took quite a while for her to make a decision, but she was very proud of her purchase! Once we got home, she informed me that we needed to go to the bank next! I wasn’t planning to open her up her own savings account for a few more years, but I figure since she is interested I had better jump on it!! One of my next steps will be to replace the pennies with penny stickers and eventually just regular stickers. One baby step at a time….

The other night (when I was up in the middle of the night feeding John) I read an article in a Reader’s Digest a friend had passed on to me. The article was called The Cheapest People in America. I know there are many people in America that are cheaper than me; however, apparently I have crossed some kind of threshold when I impress my mother and my grandmother (the queen of all things frugal — no seriously). At any rate, my curiosity was peaked!

“Tightwads feel guilty spending money. Frugal folk have fun saving.” I think I fall into the second camp. I enjoy seeing how much we can save so that we have the funds to pay down debt, have me stay home with our children, purchase books and tools with which to learn new things, enjoy social outings with friends, etc. You will never make enough money to buy everything you want, but if you are careful with your money, you can have what you really want most. Even when we were making very little, we were always able to scrap together enough money to occasionally buy some books!

“The secret about cheap people: They aren’t necessarily cheap on all fronts. Some spring for educations or vacations, or they are generous with others if not with themselves.” We tend to spring for things that are important to us. Being debt free and having me stay home with our children are two things that have been important to us since we got out of school. Having some discretionary funds for learning and social outings has been important to us as a family since we got married. We both highly value education (and not just book learning), and we both tend to be somewhat introverted, so we try to attend social gatherings that we both find comfortable (like going out to eat with friends).

The last thing that I found particularly noteworthy is how completely immoral some people are! It’s one thing if you get a good deal on a purchase, but it is another thing to lie so that you can have something for free! For example, there are apparently lots of people who keep a McDonald’s coffee cup in their car so they can get free refills even though it is supposed to be per visit! Some people empty out condiments to take home from restaurants (Now I do save our leftover napkins and condiments, but only the ones we did not end up using that will be thrown away after we leave!) The article also mentioned a man who would come back into the movie theater holding his glasses and saying, “I found them” so that he could get into the movie free!! That’s just cheating!

Marriage counselors will tell you that the top 3 biggest problems in marriages are money, extended family, and sex. A psychologist quoted in the article said that “Couples often drive each other crazy when they’re Jack Sprattish in terms of spending.” David and I both like to save money; however, we tend to have differing ideas on how much to save versus how much to spend. I tend to want to save everything, and David wants to occasionally enjoy some of the money he has made. However, finances has never been a problem area for us. We both see the value of each other’s perspective and try to find a happy balance. …It also helps that I could never tell him not to buy something he wants…..I might give him a list of reasons that it might not be the best choice, but I would be hard pressed to deny him something he wants…..I am weak like that!

I suppose there are many ways you could choose to save money on medical bills; however, some of those ways could be detrimental to you health…such as not getting treatment for an ailment that requires immediate treatment. There is one thing that I do that does not negatively affect our health and that ends up saving us hundreds of dollars every year on medical expenses. I always pay by credit card over the phone and ask each company if they will give me a discount for paying the amount in full. Surprisingly, most of the time I can get a discount of close to 25% after our insurance has paid (If it was not covered by our insurance, I can usually get close to 50% off)!!! I was doing this the other day, and David asked “Why in the world are you asking for a discount?” I told him that asking for a discount has saved us lots of money in medical bills over the last several years but that the companies won’t offer it unless you ask….he was quite impressed!

With the economy on everyone’s mind, many people are searching for yet one more way to cut household expenses. These are 10 things we have done to cut costs over the years at our house. Feel free to post any ways you have been able to cut costs around your house.

1. Cut out Cable TV
2. Use cloth diapers
3. Grocery shop once a month (saves on gas and fewer impulse buys)
4. Learn to cook using cheap cuts of meat
5. Ration expensive foods like milk and meat but so you still meet your dietary needs
6. Use homemade wipes
7. Do repairs yourself
8. Don’t go shopping unless you really need something and only with a list
9. Stay home
10. Limit expenses to: food, shelter, electricity, gas, maintenance, insurance, and phone/internet (personal preference)

I thought today I might reflect back on the experiences in my life that have shaped the way I view and manage money. I have given this topic more thought recently as David and I have discussed what and how we will teach our children about money, particularly considering the current state of the economy.

I was born at a time when my parents did not have a lot of money. There were points where my mother says we were almost eligible for food stamps, which I have heard it was a little harder to qualify for food stamps at that time. My mother could make a pound of ground beef last five meals! She and her grandmother made a lot of me and my sister’s clothes. As a child, I remember going out to eat was really something special, and buying brand new store bought clothes was a real occasion! I also learned that no matter how little you have, there is always someone else who has less than you that you could share what you have with. I remember one night picking out some of our toys with my sister to give to a man we had met at church so his children would get something for Christmas. Another thing I have noticed when looking back is that we were truly happy. We learned to be happy and thankful for what we had and not worry about the stuff we didn’t have.

Over the early years of my childhood, my parents had more children (I have 4 siblings.), and our financial situation also slowly improved. However, our lifestyle only improved marginally. My parents had several goals such as educating their children in a Christian environment, and in order to achieve those goals, it meant continuing to live a somewhat frugal lifestyle. During much of my childhood I thought we were poor because the other kids at school received video games and other expensive toys for Christmas. My mother finally explained to me that we were not poor but that they chose to give us a lot of brothers and sisters instead. It was at that moment that I realized that you will never have enough money to buy everything you want and that it comes down to choosing the things that are most important to you and being happy with what you have. I think I received the better gift (my siblings) in comparison to many of my classmates who received nice clothes and toys every year.

As I became an adult, my parents situation continued to improve, and my youngest siblings have not been raised with quite as much emphasis on frugality. I have come to realize that my parents taught me three great lessons: 1) How to make the most of what you have 2) How to be happy with what you have and 3) I learned to be comfortable rubbing shoulders with people from a variety of financial backgrounds. All of these lessons have proved to be exceptionally useful in my adult life.

The first year my husband and I were married we made a collective income of $11,000 for the year! We chose not to seek any government assistance because my husband is a pull yourself up by your own boot straps sort of person. He felt that if we chose to get married even though we knew we would have a hard time financially the first year that we should suffer the consequences of that decision. I have to say it makes me feel good to look back at that year because I know now that no matter what happens we can make it. I do think that year was easier for me because of the lessons I had learned about money as a child. I also believe that very few of our friends were aware of just how little we made that first year because we were able to make the most of what we had.

Today we make significantly more than $11,000 a year, but we still choose to live frugally because of the goals we have: paying off student loans, paying off mortgages, and me staying home with our children. We also hope that our children will grow up learning some of the same lessons I learned growing up by watching the choices we make concerning our money and listening to our prayers. I have concluded that one of the great benefits of prayer is the time of reflection on all of the things you have been blessed with. If we don’t have a time where we reflect on all that we have, we will get caught up in all that we want but don’t have. I will leave you with a song my mother used to sing to us as children:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost
Count your many blessings, name them one by one
and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

My husband recently gave our computers a much needed upgrade. For the most part I let him do whatever he wants as long as he is buying the parts at a good price and doing the work himself. However, one decision I was involved with was which operating system we would be using. Windows is pretty much the standard, but it is pretty expensive. Also with Windows Vista, Microsoft gave themselves the ability to “spy” on your computer. This can be a very useful feature; however, that does not jive very well with our self-sufficient mentality! After much discussion, it was decided that I would switch completely over to Linux.

Linux is what is called “Open Software.” In other words, computer, math, and science geeks from around the world program software, and then make it available to everyone for free!! It looks very similar to Windows, and there are thousands of programs you can download for free to use on a Linux computer!! I have the basics: internet, calculator, word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, as well as a bunch of games! We just finished downloading a lot of educational games for children! The only down side is that since these games were all created by computer, math, and science geeks, there are lots of math and science games and very few English and foreign language games! I do have a few computer programs that are for use in Windows that I am hoping to use in Linux with a program called Wine. Supposedly, Wine translates programs created for Windows so that you can use them in Linux. We have not experimented with this yet so we are not sure how well it will work. However, I only have a couple programs that do not have a Linux equivalent so most of the time this is not a problem.

There is some troubleshooting involved, and there is no hotline to call for help. However, there are plenty of computer, science, and math geeks online posting information about how they fixed whatever problem they had. Linux appears to be a great option for us thus far. It is not for everyone, but definitely something worth looking into!

I am sorry, but I only have a picture of my daughter getting her hair cut. I don’t think David would appreciate modeling for my blog!

I cut all of the hair in our house. David used to wait and get his haircut when we went home to visit; however, as those trips got farther and farther apart he decided to let me trim his hair. Apparently, he thought I did a good job because now he refuses to see anyone else! I think the important thing to remember when cutting hair is to start out slow with a little trim. As you become more accustom to how the person’s hair behaves, you can take a few more risks.

Another thing to consider is the shape of the individual’s head. When I first cut my daughter’s hair, I didn’t have a lot of options because she didn’t have much hair to begin with! My goal was just to shape it up. However, I noticed after trimming her hair that she has an incredibly round face! I started searching on the internet for complimentary haircuts for people with round faces and concluded that the best thing to do would be to let her hair grow out (while occasionally trimming it to keep it even) and eventually layer it as it grows thicker.

One final thing I have learned from cutting all of the hair at our house is that cutting your own hair is very difficult! I am still trying to decide what to do with my own hair. For now it is fine as a bob with a headband, but I don’t think I will stick with that look. I am also not certain that I will continue cutting my own hair. I’ll have to let you know what I decide to do!