Complaining

So for 4 days, Ellie has been complaining about the same thing, over and over.  "I don't feel good.  I'm sick."  Normally I would be very compassionate about this and do what I could to make her feel better...but I can't find anything wrong with her.  Usually if she complains of some physical ailment we suggest going to the bathroom, burping, eating or drinking something, laying down with a blanket, etc.  And 9 times out of 10 she's happy to try all of those things and then magically she feels better.  Not the case this week.  I have suggested anything and everything I can think of to "make her feel better" and she rejects all of them and then goes about her merry way playing, running, singing, whatever.  She certainly doesn't act sick.  Once she even said, "I have a headache."  So I said, "I'm sorry you have a headache.  Can you point to where it hurts?"  She pointed to her stomach.  Hmmm...starting to think she isn't actually sick.  She complains during breakfast, while we're sitting in the car, or whenever she seems to get bored.  I ask her what she wants (thinking maybe she's fishing for some snuggling or medicine) and she doesn't want anything, it's like she just wants to complain and announce to anyone around her that she is sick.  I really think it comes down to one thing: attention.

This morning I got to my breaking point with it.  I wanted to lash out and be like, "STOP COMPLAINING!!!"  I didn't.  But I really, really wanted to.  And then, just as the urge to yell or fuss at her was unbearable and I was about to give in, I realized something.  I've been doing the same thing....all week long.  Not complaining about "not feeling good," but complaining about how much I have to do.  How stressed out I am.  How I need to clean this room.  How I need to catch up on all of the dishes and laundry.  How I don't feel like cooking dinner.  How I'm just so tired.  And it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I am modeling a whiny, complaining behavior to my daughter and she's going along with it by complaining about the only thing she can think of to say:  "I don't feel good."

I feel so embarrassed.  I have a home.  Plenty of food.  My healthy little family.  Heat in my house.  The ability to go visit with other family members next week for Christmas.  Yes, there are stressful things going on in our family right now, but nothing that compares to having our needs (and so many of our wants) met.  And yet I sound so ungrateful when I replay my own words.

Isn't it amazing what our little ones can show us about ourselves?

Lord, change me.  Forgive me for my bad attitude and incessant complaining.  Thank you for blessing me and my family with so much.  Help me to remember what my life is about instead of focusing on what I think I lack.  Help me be a good role model to my children.

Freezer Cooking Plan

I have finally finished my freezer cooking meal list in preparation for Grace's birth.  I have been working on this list on and off for a couple of months now, adding and deleting things as I get new ideas.  I'm pretty set that this is my final FINAL list, so I'm posting it here for anyone who is interested in what I'll be cooking in the next few weeks!

I was blessed to be part of a paleo soup swap this past weekend (we don't necessarily eat paleo as a family, but certainly not averse to it and I welcomed the opportunity to fill my freezer with some variety!).  There were 7 of us participating, so each of us made 7 batches of some type of paleo soup and then we all swapped so that everyone comes home with 7 freezer bags containing a variety of soups.  I made a paleo chili which turned out really well in my opinion (tastes just like normal chili minus the beans and it was FULL of tons of veggies!).  Since I knew this was coming up, I decided to simplify my life and count all of the soups as part of my baby preparation freezer cooking.  This is what I currently have stocked in my freezer:

1. Curried Chicken and Sweet Potato Soup
2. Paleo Chili
3. Cream of Zucchini Soup
4. Paleo Minestrone
5. Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Soup
6. Turkey Soup
7. Tomato Beef and Basil Soup
8. Tater Tot Casserole 
9. Chicken Enchilada Casserole
10. Green Rice Casserole (side dish)

The last three items on this list were things I've made in the last couple of weeks and just haven't used yet, so I'm just planning to hold on to them for the post-baby cooking hiatus.

These are the meals I still need to make:

1. Sour Cream Noodle Bake x2
2. Spaghetti Casserole x2
3. Baked Ziti x2
4. Crockpot BBQ Chicken x2
5. Italian Crockpot Chicken x2
6. Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops x2
7. Beef Tacos (using homemade taco seasoning)
8. Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken Tacos
9. Crockpot Loaded Baked Potato Soup (I'm just going to prep the base for this soup and freeze it before cooking since dairy isn't totally reliable after freezing)
10. Cheesy Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas

Most of the casseroles that say x2 make enough to fill a 9x13 with one batch, so I usually just split the batch between two 8x8 pans and then I have two meals for the price and preparation of one.  With the exception of the enchiladas, these are all tried-and-true recipes for our family that we really like (the enchiladas just sounded good in the moment and they're easily freezable, so we'll see how that turns out).  Yes, my list is heavy on the pasta and carbs, but I know these are meals my family loves and will legitimately eat without complaining (which equals a happy mama, especially post baby!).  Also, we unashamedly love carbs in this house :)

So I have 10 recipes to make, which will bring my total freezer meal count to 25 (plus one side) when I include the stuff that has already been made.  I am trying to focus mostly on dinners this time since breakfast and lunch are pretty simple meals in our household anyway.  Also, it's far cheaper for me to buy convenience foods for breakfast and lunch to have at home than it is for dinner.  If I get around to it I would still like to make some banana bread or something like that, but definitely not critical at this point.

Now my task is to find the time to get all this cooking done before January.  Even though I'm not planning to have Grace until the 17th, I feel a sense of urgency that I need to get all of this stuff done by the end of the year.  I have had a lot more discomfort with this little girl than I did with either of her sisters and it makes me anxious that Grace will be the one who decides to put my body into labor.  We are trusting that whenever Grace comes is God's plan, BUT it would be nice if we could just have a plan and stick to it for once haha.  We planned for Ellie to be a natural birth (instead we got a c-section 3 weeks early), Piper was a planned VBAC (ended up with a c-section at one week late), and now Grace is a planned c-section and I'm nervous that she's going to do something crazy haha.  

Right now, I'm torn between finishing Christmas preparations and freezer cooking.  I probably should focus on the Christmas stuff since that's next week and Grace isn't supposed to be here for another 4 weeks, but I also don't want to be 39 weeks pregnant and trying to do all this cooking (it's already pretty difficult at 35 weeks).  Maybe I can just be a little crazy and do all of it this week...?

Speaking of crazy...the past few days have been pretty discouraging.  Our house in Lynchburg is up in the air again (tenants have moved out, two showings for new tenants have been scheduled and then canceled at the last minute) and we're trying to decide what to do with the house.  Should we rent it again and then have to face all of this stuff a year from now?  Should we try to sell it and take the loss on the house?  We have been praying about it for the past week and we're just looking for some direction.  It is so tiring to be dealing with the emotional, mental, and financial strain of the house while anticipating Christmas and a new baby coming, not to mention our goals of financial freedom and how we feel like we're just treading water and making no progress right now.  I know we are making progress on our goals, but these are like teeny tiny tiptoe steps and that's about all we can handle right now until we can get the debt snowball rolling (or I get a job).  Anyway, it's a lot to think about right now when we have so many other things to focus on, too.  I think we have at least decided to contact a few different people and get some more information before making a final decision, so I'm praying that God would speak to us through those communications.  If you are interested in praying for our family, we would certainly be humbled and grateful if you could lift these things up to God on our behalf!

Other than some mental stress, we are doing so well.  Our little family is healthy, we live in a house that we truly enjoy being in, and we feel so at home and settled in our community.  These times of stress are just opportunities for me to call on Jesus and grow closer to Him, so I'm trying to focus on that right now instead of being frustrated.  I know that God hears us and knows what's happening and what the eventual outcome will be, so I'm trying to visualize all of these things sitting in His hands instead of weighing on my shoulders.  Plus, we have so much to be joyful about, so my goal is to have joy and peace regardless of what's happening.  Merry Christmas! :)

Grocery Shopping: It's Exhausting

One of my least favorite things I have to do is grocery shopping.  Mostly because it is just so tiring.  It shouldn't be that big of a deal for me, but I guess having two children, being 30 weeks pregnant, navigating the aisles with an extra large cart that has a kids' car on the end (haha), and trying to stick to my list and budget is a lot to take on.  Does anyone else feel this way or am I just being whiny? :)

I know I could go shopping in the evening when Billy gets home from work, but by then I've got to make dinner, get everyone fed and cleaned up, and then I would have to go into town (at this point it would be 6:30 or 7:00) and I'm just done by then.  Usually in pajamas and ready to sit on the couch.  I love having the evening at home to hang out with Billy and the girls and get a little relaxation time after a full day.  There are still times when I do feel like getting out for a bit when Billy gets home and he's always more than willing to stay home with the kids, but in this season of life I seem to have the most energy for that task in the morning, so I just take the kids and we get it done.

Today was a little tricky...Ellie is going through the whiny stage and also wanting to change her mind every few minutes.  She was certain she wanted to walk today (instead of riding in the car part of the cart with Piper) so I let her walk.  After about 3 aisles she was ready to sit in the cart, so I told her, "Okay, but if I put you in you can't get out until we're done shopping.  Do you still want to ride?"  And she said yes, so I put her in.  Well, within about 90 seconds she was over it and wanted out again, but I said no.  Then she gets whiny, and when I ignore the whining she gets even more angry and starts yelling.  Typically, reasoning with her works pretty well and she usually does great when we're in a store, but she just had an off day today (don't we all?). I am really working hard on my reactions to my kids' inappropriate behavior and so today, after reasoning and discussion didn't work, I just ignored her.  That was SO hard for me.  I was boiling inside and wanted to just explode on her.  But obviously that's not teaching her or Piper anything productive, so I stayed calm (miraculously).  The whole time she was carrying on all I could do was take deep breaths and keep saying over and over, "Lord, you are with me and you have the power to make me not react negatively, please give me self control and help me to just get this grocery shopping done!"  She did calm down after a while but never stopped asking to get out (which definitely frays my nerves).  Thankfully, Piper was having a good time and stayed chill all throughout our shopping so it could've been so much worse.  I wish I could always be so calm and not blow up on the girls, but I'm trying!

Speaking of working on my reactions, this book is why I'm doing that:

In our book club we're currently reading Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions by Lysa TerKeurst.  It's all about identifying our emotions and reactions and then learning how to control them in a more biblical way.  Pretty good stuff, I'm about halfway through it and I can really see some good progress in my life, at least with the kids.  I am definitely an exploder when it comes to my children, but I tend to stuff down my emotions with everyone else.  I am dealing with the exploder side of my personality right now (I think that might actually be easier than tending to the stuffing habit).  One thing at a time!

Anyway, we got our regular meal stuff and another 15 pound turkey at Kroger, then went to Costco for 5.5 pounds of ground beef.  We are still doing well on our budget (I spent about $78 this week) so we are still on track.  I'm still factoring in that freezer meal/Thanksgiving week at the end of the month where we won't need to buy as much, so we should be fine for staying at or below our grocery budget for this month.

Our spending in other categories is also improving significantly.  We have an eating out budget now, and we were under budget for the month of October and so far doing fine this month.  Eating out is still very tempting, but we're feeling it mostly on the weekends now instead of during the week which is good.  And we have the budget in place, so we CAN let ourselves splurge on eating out every now and then.  We ate at Chick-fil-A on Friday night for dinner and Ellie was so excited.  We told her we were going to eat there that night and her eyes got so big and she said, "Ohhhhhhh, we're going to eat at Chick-fil-A!!!"  We want it to be something special rather than expected, and it seems like our kids have already made that transition.  And other than paying bills, all of our other spending has been made through gift cards (so we don't factor those purchases into the budget).

Our menu for this week:

Breakfast:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos (for Billy)

Oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs, muffins (for girls)

Lunch:

Sandwiches, leftovers, fried rice with eggs

Dinner:

• Santa Fe Soup, cornbread
• Twice Baked Potatoes, veggies, bread
• Burrito Casserole with rice
• Whole chicken (in the fryer), veggies, bread
• Crockpot White Chicken Spaghetti, veggies, bread
• Crockpot Creamy Tomato Soup with grilled cheese
• BBQ Meatballs, mashed potatoes, rolls

Extras:

Homemade chicken broth

Cinnamon doughnut muffins

I'm not sure yet if I'll make any freezer meals this week.  The burrito casserole is a new recipe we're trying and the author didn't specify if it goes in an 8x8 or 9x13 dish, so we might just see how much it makes and then go from there.  We might have some extra chicken that I could freeze for chicken tacos or something like that, so I'm just going to play it by ear.  

Now....I think I will go read or do something relaxing for a bit!  I hope to have a quiet, calm evening tonight and just enjoy being home. :)

Is it seriously November?

We are midway through the week and I've been intending to blog for the past three days and well...yeah it just didn't happen.  We've had a good normal week so far, which also means that the girls' nap time = my nap time.  I am grateful that I finally feel like I have a little more energy than I did a few weeks ago, but I still battle with the pregnancy exhaustion (and knowing that it won't end when Grace comes just makes it that much more....exciting haha).  Last night I was putting a casserole dish away in a lower cabinet and literally got out of breath just crouching on the floor.  Nothing makes you feel fatter than when you get out of breath doing nothing.

Anyway, I wanted to post our weekly menu and quickly update on our budget.  I spent $75.73 on groceries this week (so technically 73 cents over budget haha) but also felt very accomplished with what I purchased.  We got all of our weekly meal stuff, plus enough to make two extra casseroles for the freezer, and a turkey.  We are hosting two Thanksgivings at our house this year (which I'm so excited about!) and are responsible for the turkeys so I needed to make sure I purchased at least one this week.  Kroger's deal is 79 cents per pound for a turkey as long as you spend $35 on other groceries, so I figured I could just work it into my regular shopping trip.  I plan to do the same thing next week and maybe the week after depending on how many people we end up planning for.

Another exciting thing this week is that we FINALLY turned our deep freezer on...yay!  When I got home from the grocery store and tried to put the turkey in our freezer it just wasn't happening, so Billy turned the deep freezer on and thank goodness it works!  It came with the house we're renting so we weren't sure if it was in working condition or not.  Definitely exciting because now I can make a freezer cooking plan to prepare for when Grace is born and I have TONS of space to store all of the food.  I've already started working on that list...now to find a day in December that I can actually get all of that done!

Here's our menu for this week:

Breakfast:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos (for Billy)

Oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs, muffins (for girls)

Lunch:

Sandwiches, quesadillas, leftovers, fried rice with eggs, fruit, crackers, etc.

Dinner:

• Soup from the freezer, green beans, and fried potatoes
• Homemade pizza for Billy and the girls (I had book club so I made potatoes for that)
• Crockpot BBQ Chicken, steamed corn, and English muffin bread
• Tater Tot Casserole (one for dinner and one for the freezer) with green beans
• Chicken Enchilada Casserole (one for dinner and one for the freezer) with rice
• Creamy chicken and pasta with veggies
• Santa Fe Soup (this is a use-what-you-got type of recipe that's basically a spicy chili) with homemade cornbread
• Twice Baked Potatoes, steamed broccoli, and bread

I know there are 8 meals listed for dinner this week but I had enough to plan through Sunday instead of Saturday and figured that might work better anyway (since I rarely want to do grocery shopping on Sunday and usually just wait until Monday morning).

I am also trying to make some extra meals every week to store in the freezer for those times when I just don't feel like cooking or when we need to use our grocery budget to stock up on bulk items (which get expensive fast but also last forever or are cheaper in the long run).  So far, I have two casseroles in the freezer and plan on putting two more in this week.  Probably by the end of this month I will have enough for a whole week of eating freezer meals, so we will reallocate the majority of our grocery budget that week to put toward the baby-preparation-freezer-cooking marathon.  My goal is to save up $150 to make freezer meals so we'll see how that goes.  I'm hoping to make 30 meals this time around...which is a daunting number for me!  Before Piper was born, I made 14 dinner meals as well as some random extras like banana bread and muffins.  Even with only 14 meals it was such a huge help.  The first two months of Piper's life I hardly did any cooking because of our freezer meals and our loving friends/family who brought food.  

My goal is to make life as easy as possible on myself after Grace is born.  I had a lot of expectations with Piper's birth that just didn't happen (such as my all-natural and perfect VBAC...ha!) and I don't want to do that to myself this time.  I know I'm having a C-section this time, which means that I have to plan for my recovery as well as taking care of my family.  We have two flights of stairs in our house that I know I will have to go up and down multiple times per day, and that's just the way it is.  Our bedroom is on the top floor, the girls and our living area/kitchen are on the main floor, and the dog and girls' play area/TV are in the basement.  Because I will definitely have to do stairs right after surgery, I have to take it easy on everything else.  Cooking won't be realistic (hence the freezer meals).  I won't be cleaning the house or doing laundry for at least a couple of weeks, so that's where my dear husband steps in.  He is already AMAZING at keeping up with the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher) but I plan on buying a giant load of disposable plates (and putting all of our freezer meals in disposable pans or freezer bags) so that at least we won't have as many dishes as usual to wash.  Laundry is my thing (it's the one chore I really don't mind doing at all haha) but I can't lift baskets of clothes up and down the stairs so he'll have to take that one over for a while.  And on top of all of my surgical restrictions, I will have three precious little girls to care for.  My priority is to make sure that everyone is fed and loved and that I heal properly from surgery.  Everything else can wait.  

So that's where my mind is these days.  We have a busy but exciting month ahead of us as we plan for two Thanksgivings, getting Christmas gifts in order, deer season, and the UVA-Tech football game at the end of the month to celebrate Billy's 26th birthday.  We will even have a few days sans children that weekend which is pretty exciting!  We love our girls, but we also know that we just need time away from them every now and then to be Billy and Kristen instead of Daddy and Mommy.  Plus, it will probably be the last time we get a chance to get away before Grace is born....and then we will be a family of 5!  Ahhh! :)

Budget Update Week Two

We are still going strong with our budget!  We have now gone 9 whole days without eating out AT ALL (this is seriously a big deal for us)!  Every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, plus dessert some nights, drinks, everything) has been made at home.  I have definitely felt tempted to say, "Can we just eat out tonight?" But I followed my menu plan, even on the days when I didn't feel like cooking, and I'm SO glad I did!  Sunday was especially hard since both Billy and I were sick (he seems to be over it, I'm feeling a little worse today but it's just a cold so it could be worse).  I just made one of the easier things I had planned for this week and we're doing the same tonight.  If I can make sure to plan ahead some simple meals throughout the week, it is so helpful when something unexpected comes up.

This past week's recipe success (everything was good, this was just extra, surprisingly good) was definitely the crock pot creamy tomato soup.  I was quite surprised, considering I never even liked tomato soup until a few weeks ago when I had it at a friend's house.  This was even a low-calorie "skinny" soup, and it still turned out great!  It was perfect for a cold Saturday night.  It was also very inexpensive to make.  We figured we spent about $2 on it (for 6 servings), but I also had most of the ingredients on hand.  It would definitely be a less-than-five-dollar dinner, even if you had to buy most of the ingredients.  I even used homemade chicken broth that I made after cooking a whole chicken this week.  Very simple and so good.

I wanted to post our menu plan for this week, since it helps me to have it in multiple places (just in case my list on the refrigerator gets snatched by little munchkin hands...)

Breakfast:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos (for Billy)

Oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs, pancakes (for girls)

Toast or muffins from freezer (for me)

Lunch:

Sandwiches, quesadillas, pasta, leftovers, baked potatoes (whatever works that day)

Dinner:

• Cinnamon rolls and bacon
• Beef tacos and rice (I use this recipe for making my own taco seasoning)
• Baked sweet and sour chicken with fried rice (this is one of Billy's very favorite things for me to make; it's a lot of work, but very good!)
• Sour cream noodle bake (x2), easy homemade french bread (x3), green beans (We are taking meals to two different families this night, so I figured we might as well all eat the same thing to make life a little easier!  The casserole fills a 9x13 dish, so I plan on making two batches which would equal 4 8x8 casseroles--1 for each of the families, 1 for us, and 1 for the freezer)
• Potato soup and English muffin bread
• Crockpot Italian chicken using homemade Italian dressing with potatoes and corn
• Freezer soup and bread

Extras:

Apple butter and applesauce (I ended up using the crock pot a lot this past week and never seemed to have a free day to make this stuff...and I got a little lazy.  I really need to get this done this week!)

I am realizing that we go through food a lot faster now that we're eating at home pretty much all the time (duh).  I always felt like $50 worth of groceries still seemed like a lot of food at the end of the week...but that was really because we weren't always eating at home.  Now I'm finding that we're definitely using up what I buy and $75 doesn't seem like much.  I'm still trying to plan inexpensive meals that usually leave us with leftovers, since that helps a lot when it comes to lunch the next day.  I've also been trying to stock the freezer when I can (like muffins for breakfast/dessert, casseroles that can be split into two 8x8 pans and have one for dinner and the other goes in the freezer for another week).  Right now we are doing fine and staying under our weekly grocery budget (I spent $72 this week), but I'm also noticing that we are going without some of the things I put on the list (mostly wants and not needs).  Definitely a good exercise in prioritizing!  This week I actually circled the items on the list that weren't necessary so I would know what to skip over if we started coming up close to our limit.  Of course, today I realized that we're very low on sugar, but we have enough left in this week's budget to pick that up without going over.  Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that my perspective has really changed now that we're actually eating what I buy.  This is definitely a good thing and I'm interested to see how things go over the next couple of months.

I'm really excited for November, because it will be the first full month of our budget.  It's hard to really see the big picture for the month of October because we weren't on track for the first half of the month.  We can already see a huge difference in our eating out budget (we're actually under budget for that, even with starting in the middle of the month), but all of the other categories are kind of messed up.  So I'll be glad to start a new month and see how we adapt things as we go along.

I have to brag on Billy for a minute...he has been very diligent with selling some items we've had hanging around for about three years.  He inherited a ton of comic books from his dad and has been avoiding selling them for a while, just because it's a bit overwhelming to go through all of them and list each individual book.  He has been working on listing and selling comics multiple times per week and everything he makes from that is going straight into our student loan debt.  He is also selling some DVDs that we don't need anymore and putting those profits toward the debt as well.  It's amazing how we've both become less attached to possessions when we look at our debt.  We are being much more liberal with selling our stuff (and we also console ourselves that when we're out of debt, we can replace those things with better versions haha).  If it's something that's taking up space, not being used, and has monetary value, we are basically selling it.  And it feels good!

Simple Christmas Gifts for My Girls

So in my last post I mentioned Christmas.  I REALLY love Christmas.  Not so much the buying and exchanging gifts part (that stresses me out a little), but more of the excitement I feel during that season.  I love the decorations and beauty of Christmastime, the cooler weather, snuggling at home with my family, and the opportunity to tell my girls about baby Jesus.

I almost always try to be frugal with gifts for Christmas and take advantage of sales and/or coupons, because otherwise it can get really out of hand.  Last year, I purchased all of our girls' gifts using Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks which really helped with keeping our budget low.  This year, we purchased their Christmas gift back in May (I know, that seems crazy!).  I knew what I wanted to get them already, so when we went to IKEA for my birthday I made sure to go ahead and purchase their play kitchen, plus a few accessories to go with it.  This is their main gift this year.  We plan to assemble the kitchen (otherwise they would be unwrapping two cardboard boxes with no pictures on them, which isn't very exciting haha).  We will wrap their accessories, which include the pots and pans, kitchen utensils, and the baking set.  Other than those things, our girls will have their stockings to open (but that's it).

We have always wanted to be intentional about keeping Christmas gifts low-key and simple for our children.  We obviously still love to buy them something special and want them to be excited, but we also want the focus of Christmas to be on who Jesus is, not on how many gifts we can get.  We give gifts because Jesus gave us the most amazing gift of life with Him.  So, the girls will be getting their kitchen stuff and stockings.  Thankfully I paid cash for the kitchen way back in May with some of my birthday money, so that expense is done.  All we have left are their stockings...

I am really determined to not spend a whole lot of money on their stockings, but I still want them to be full of fun things.  So far I've been focusing most of my energy on Ellie's stocking (mostly because she's easy to find things for at this age).  Here are some of my ideas so far:

Repurposing broken crayons: We have been accumulating a huge collection of broken and yucky looking crayons for a while now.  I saw this tutorial for melting broken crayon pieces in ice cube molds to make new, colorful crayons in fun shapes and decided to give it a try.  I purchased these rubber ice cube trays from IKEA for 99 cents each and it worked perfectly!  I've had some issues with popping the fish crayons out of the mold, so I'm going to freeze it next time and hope that helps, but otherwise the other crayons came out great.  I plan to get Ellie a new coloring book (probably from the Dollar Tree) and include these fun crayons with it as part of her stocking since this girl LOVES to color right now.

DIY Necklace Kit: Ellie has really gotten into stringing pasta on pipe cleaners lately and making her own bracelets, so I thought it might be fun to make her a necklace kit with precut strings and a variety of beads.  I already have some yarn and beads from other projects I've done in the past, so I'm going to try to use what I already have and maybe pick up a few more things from the Dollar Tree.  I also want to get a small plastic box for her to keep all of these things in.

Personalized Canvas Tote Bag: This was completely unplanned, but a couple of weeks ago at our local mommy group we painted canvas tote bags for our kids.  I didn't even think of using this as a stocking stuffer until I almost gave it to Ellie, so I decided to hide it away for Christmas instead.  This cost me $2 total and was very simple to do.

Books: My children are book lovers (just like their parents!) and we really go through the books in this house.  My sweet girls are also a little too rough with books sometimes, so I try not to spend a whole lot of money on something that might end up being duck taped later (which literally just happened over the weekend...my Poppaw lovingly taped up some of my girls' favorite books that were falling apart).  We happened to be in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and I scoped out the clearance section for anything my girls might like.  I found two board books that were originally $5.98 each but marked 75% off, so I ended up paying $1.49 for each book.  These are just simple board books that aren't anything extraordinary, but we happen to have another book that's part of the same series and the girls really love it so I figured they would enjoy two new ones with the same format.  These are too big to fit inside the stockings so they will just be wrapped and put under the tree.

Swap Group or Thrift Store: I'm part of a mommy group that meets twice a month to just get together, pray for each other, and have some encouragement over the normal joys and frustrations of being moms.  Our meeting this week was the big swap, which just means that people bring things they want to get rid of (clothes, toys, household items, books, etc.) and we lay everything out on tables and everyone can just shop and take home what they want for free.  I almost didn't go to this week's meeting because I was tired and didn't feel like getting dressed (I know, sounds pitiful but I have been tired all of the time lately).  The meeting starts at 9:30 and I didn't roll out of bed until 8:30...and then I still had to get dressed, feed the kids, and get them dressed and out the door by 9:15. But I kept thinking that the girls needed to get out and play with friends for a little bit and it would do me some good to get out of the house so we went and (gasp!) we were on time!  Anyway, I wasn't planning on looking for things to take home but then noticed the toys....and thought what a great opportunity to save money on stocking stuffers!  So I loaded my arms with random trinkets and toys to put in the girls' stockings.  I mean, it's free and I usually just buy junky fun things from the Dollar Tree anyway, so why not?  I found some toy cars, dog figurines, a fishing pole, purse in the shape of a dog, and all sorts of randomness.  I know not everyone is part of a mommy group that does a swap meeting like this, but I'm sure you could find similar cheap and fun things at Goodwill or wherever (or even swap trinket toys with another mommy friend!).

I also came away from the swap with this....

I know.  It's ridiculous.  But I saw it and couldn't resist taking it.  The tail is falling off and the stuffing is coming out, but I figured I could sew it up a little and the girls would have a good laugh over it.  I'm thinking of putting this under the tree as another gift.

Everyone has a different opinion on used items.  I have always been a bit hesitant about buying used items and it's really just a personal/psychological thing.  Normally, I would feel a little weird about filling my kids' stockings with used toys, but now that we're trying really hard to save as much money as possible to put toward student loans it doesn't bother me.  We're not poor or drowning financially....we're just being smart!  And looking at it that way makes me feel like I'm doing a good thing.  My kids don't care one bit where these things come from or if they're brand new or used.  Why not take advantage of that now, while they're young and carefree, than to try to introduce it when they are older and more aware of some of the stereotypes of buying used?

Billy and I have already decided that we are just doing stockings for each other this year.  We have had a great year and were blessed with Billy being given the opportunity for a special project in Florida, so he made a lot of money working overtime.  If we had been a bit smarter we would have used that extra money to pay off loans, but we weren't really committed to that endeavor at the time.  We bought a new TV to replace our other one which had been having some problems and upgraded to iPhones (which we love and definitely don't regret buying).  Since we've already made some pretty big fun purchases this year, there's really nothing we need.  We're just looking forward to having a simpler Christmas and spending our time doing fun things as a family instead of Christmas shopping!

Budget Update Week One

Well, we have been on our tighter, more aggressive budget for one week now!  I thought I'd update a little on the various things we're figuring out along the way, just to show that a budget is ever-evolving and it definitely takes two people to collaborate on it.

First, we decided on our new grocery budget.  We are allotting $75 per week now instead of the $50 we had been doing before.  We also added in $20 per month for Shelley's dog food, which makes our total monthly grocery/household items budget $320.  Obviously this is never set in stone and we will reevaluate if necessary, but we thought that was a good place to start.  I actually went grocery shopping yesterday on our new budget and felt very encouraged.  I was able to shop at Kroger for our regular weekly items and spent just over $50, then went to Costco and bought 6 pounds of ground beef (which should last us at least three weeks) and a bag of bananas (which just happen to be cheaper there) and spent $22 and some change, so for this week we're right around $73.  It felt good to be able to buy not only the necessities, but also to stock up on ground beef for a few weeks since that just makes menu planning and life a little easier.  Whenever I buy ground beef in large quantities I almost always go ahead and brown it all at one time rather than portioning out the raw stuff to cook later.  It saves time when I'm cooking to already have the meat browned and ready to go.  I saw this idea for cooking ground beef in the crockpot and it makes life SO easy.  I just pack all 6 pounds into the crockpot, add some seasonings and a little water, and leave it on high for 3-4 hours or until brown.  I usually do this while I'm home so that I can check it periodically and give it a stir, but I actually forgot about it yesterday and ended up leaving it in way longer than usual (to the tune of 9 hours on high!).  I thought for sure it had burned, but miraculously it was fine!  I then portion it out and freeze it.  Super simple!

Second, we have realized very quickly that this has to be a team effort.  When we got married 6 years ago, I tried being involved in paying the bills and checking the bank account online and ended up feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.  I'm a control freak by nature, so I wanted to control every little bit of our money but wanted Billy to do the dirty work (such as paying the bills and handling logistics).  After arguing and feeling overwhelmed and anxious about money, we decided that I would take a step back and trust Billy to handle it.  This worked fine and isn't a bad way to do things, but with our new financial goals we have to do this together because it's just too much for one person to deal with.  Billy is fantastic at paying the bills and recognizing where everything goes (he's definitely a numbers guy) so he still manages the logistical aspects of our finances, but I just have to be "in the know" now.  That's kinda hard for me, to be honest.  I either want to know everything or nothing at all, and sometimes knowing everything is NOT fun.

We had a "heart-to-heart" last week that brought me up to speed on our spending habits and it was....painful.  I had to recognize that I was making some big mistakes (Billy was too, so it's not just me) and that was hard to hear.  I especially have a hard time when I realize I've done something wrong, because I feel guilty and then tell myself I'm a failure.  I immediately went to that place during our talk and Billy could see it happening and snapped me out of it.  God bless him.  After some tension and drama on my part, we resolved that this has to be a two-person effort.  Billy has great vision and is the big-picture type of person.  Me, I'm very much a let's-get-through-this-day type of person who sees all the little details.  Individually, that might make budgeting a bit of challenge, but together....we can totally do this!  Billy has the vision for our future and can see our goals (he says 5 years is short term, I say that's long term...again, an example of how we see things differently!).  I can see some of the day-to-day stuff and handle more of the little details that help us stay on track throughout the week.  Now that we are both up to speed, I'm feeling even more confident and excited as we move forward.

Third, our first week on the budget we ate out only once!  This is a big deal for us, as we usually have dinner out at least once during the week and then eat lunch or dinner (or both) out on the weekends.  I'm also really bad about swinging by a restaurant and getting a drink, which doesn't seem like much when you're spending $1-$2 but it adds up fast.  We went to Roanoke on Saturday, so we ate lunch out while we were there.  We also got milkshakes from Chick-fil-A as our date night treat (Granny and Poppaw graciously offered to watch the girls so we could get out for a couple of hours).  Other than those two things, we haven't purchased any food or beverage from a restaurant!  I have been more thoughtful about menu planning and making sure I give myself enough information so that I have EVERYTHING I need and don't have to make a last-minute run to the store (which ends up increasing the impulse purchases).  This is our menu plan for this week:

Breakfast:
Any combination of oatmeal, toast, fruit, pancakes, and/or pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (from freezer)

Lunch:
Sandwiches (peanut butter or cheese for the kids, roast beef for Billy)
Quesadillas
Macaroni and cheese
Leftovers throughout the week

Dinner:
1. Creamy chicken and potato soup with English muffin bread (this was a last minute meal I threw together with what I already had because I didn't make it to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon and it actually turned out great!)
2. Sausages and leftover soup for Billy and sandwiches for the girls (I had book club and took leftover soup with me as we usually do a soup and salad night there)
3. Whole chicken in the crockpot (I just coat the chicken in seasonings and pour about a cup of some type of soda over it, then let it cook for 8-ish hours on low) with cheesy hashbrown potatoes (a new recipe that I'm making tonight)
4. Spaghetti casserole  (I double this recipe and divide into two 8x8 pans and put one in the freezer for another week), green beans, and bread
5. Crockpot creamy tomato soup (this is a new recipe, so we'll see how it turns out!) with grilled cheese sandwiches
6. Crescent roll chicken pockets (using the leftover chicken from the crockpot meal), easy oven roasted potatoes, and veggies
7. Soup from the freezer with homemade bread (8 of us did a soup swap back in August so we've been having a "freezer soup" every other week or so, which also gives me at least one night of dinner that is pretty much already made! I think we're doing venison stew this week)

Extra items I plan to make this week:
Cook ground beef in the crockpot (done!)
Apple dumplings
Crockpot apple butter (will also be canning this)
Applesauce (if we have leftover apples after making apple butter)
Homemade chicken stock

Having a very detailed menu for the week helps me plan ahead and not fall into the trap of just going out to eat.  I keep my list on the refrigerator so there are no excuses about forgetting or not having time. I usually check my list first thing in the morning so I can mentally prepare for whatever I'm making that day and even get my prep work done in the morning.  I also consult our calendar for the week when planning the menu so I can take into account things like book club or visiting family.  I try to plan easy meals on days that will be fairly busy and the more time-consuming meals on days when I know we have no plans.

I'm feeling good about where we are in this right now.  There's still a lot that needs to be discussed and evaluated, but for now I think we're making big strides.  One of the things that's been on my mind lately is Christmas and we've already discussed how we're celebrating and spending this year.  Since I have a lot of ideas about Christmas (it's my favorite time of year...I'm even listening to Christmas music as I type this post!) I want to share some of that in the next post. :)

Earning Free Gift Cards through Rewards Programs

For the past few years, I have been exploring some offbeat ways to save money while being a stay-at-home mom.  Being here for my kids in this season of life is my priority right now because that’s what God has specifically called me to do, but there are still some at-home methods I can use to either save or make a little extra money on the side.

I will preface this list by saying that you can’t just earn money for free; there is always a cost.  In this case, your investment is time and energy.  For some of these ideas, there is very little investment; others are a bit more involved.  These are things that work for me in my season of life, because my children have a mutual afternoon naptime of about 2-3 hours.  I usually use this chunk of time for myself, since the rest of the day is pretty busy.  I often spend this time sitting in bed reading or surfing the Internet reading blogs, searching Pinterest for new recipes, or catching up on facebook or email.  I’m already on the Internet during this time, so these activities are convenient for me.  Anyway, here’s a short list of ways to earn free gift cards that have worked for me:

1. Swagbucks: I’ve been using Swagbucks for about three years now, and it is definitely one of my favorite ways to earn gift cards.  To give you perspective, I have earned about $320 in Amazon gift cards since becoming a Swagbucks member, so that’s right around $100 in free Amazon gift cards per year. And I’m not even that hardcore about it.  Some days I’ll spend a little more time trying to earn points, and other days I do the bare minimum or don’t even do it at all.  There are SO many ways to earn points through Swagbucks, but I typically use their search engine (which randomly rewards points for searches), answer the daily poll, watch videos, and complete surveys.  Money Saving Mom has a whole series on 15 Ways to Earn More Swagbucks which includes a lot more detail on how to maximize your earning.  You can redeem your points for many other things, including restaurant gift cards, electronics, department store gift cards, and gas cards, but I find the Amazon gift card to be the best use of my points since I can order gifts, books, toiletries, and even groceries through Amazon.  Swagbucks also has a fantastic referral program, so if you do sign up, would you consider using my referral link? :)
2. Shopkick: Shopkick is another good program to use for earning free gift cards, especially if you enjoy browsing in stores (which is fun to me!).  Basically, you download the app for your phone (they offer both Android and iPhone apps) and each time you enter a participating retailer, you can earn points or “kicks” for walking in.  For our local area, the participating stores for walk-ins are Target, Old Navy, American Eagle, and Best Buy.  Literally all you have to do is walk into the store and you’ll automatically earn kicks (anywhere from 35-200 kicks depending on the day and store).  Most of the time, you can also earn kicks by scanning specific products at stores after walking in (Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Walgreens, Costco, and CVS).  The app tells you what products to look for and you earn points by scanning the barcode using your phone.  I redeem my points for Target gift cards since that’s my favorite place to shop, but Billy uses his points for Best Buy gift cards.  It does take a little longer to earn gift cards compared to Swagbucks, but I find it kinda fun and easy to do, especially if I’m already going to that store or will be nearby anyway. I have used my Shopkick-earned Target gift cards to buy fun things for myself, gifts for other people, and even diapers.  We have also earned Shopkick points on date nights since I like to walk around stores and window shop anyway, so you can even turn it into a frugal date night!  Yes, we might be a little weird, but it’s fun!
3. Bing Rewards: I just signed up for Bing Rewards this week, so I can’t attest to its long-term results yet, but it is SO easy.  Once you sign up, you can complete up to 30 searches on Bing (I really just click the links in the related searches list so I don’t have to think about it) and you automatically earn 15 points a day that way.  They usually also have one or two “special offers” that you can click on that allow you to earn one or two points.  And that’s it.  So I’m only earning 15-20 points per day, but if I do that every day I can earn one $5 Amazon gift card per month.  That doesn’t seem like much, but there’s also very little investment on my part.  It took me less than 3 minutes to meet my quota for today, so to me that’s worth it.  They also have a referral program, which isn’t amazing but can still be helpful with maximizing your earning. 

These three rewards programs can really help you save money in the long run, especially on fun purchases.  We try not to pay for anything we order through Amazon since I usually have some gift cards stored up.  Last year, I bought all of the girls’ Christmas gifts with Amazon gift cards earned through Swagbucks.  Over the summer, we used them to purchase a new single stroller for Piper.  Currently, we’re using them to purchase this season’s episodes of The Walking Dead since we don’t subscribe to cable (another great way to save money!).  We are also planning on using these rewards sites to fund our date nights, since many of them have restaurant and Regal Cinemas or Fandango gift cards available as rewards.  If you’re interested in earning some free gift cards and have a little time to invest online or on your phone, I would really encourage you to try them.  I was very skeptical at first, but now I am seeing the huge perks for myself and my family in this season of life. 

Achieving Financial Freedom

One of our biggest goals as a family is to live debt free.  We have some big dreams that we are excited about and want to pursue, but it’s hard to accomplish much when you’re living in debt.  It feels like this weight hanging over us and we’re ready to just get rid of it!

We are currently trying to be a bit more aggressive with our budget in order to make this happen.  After living in the less-than-$25,000-per-year income for the first four-and-a-half years of our marriage, it was so nice to have a little flexibility after Billy got the job at Dynamic.  We have had a higher and more reasonable income for almost two years now, and we have been so blessed by that.  We have been able to relax a little more, enjoy some things we weren’t able to do before, and not worry or stress so much over finances.  However, we are also realizing that we will never be able to achieve our big dreams until we are financially free, so it's time to get aggressive about paying off our debt.  Thankfully, our debts only include our mortgage on the house in Lynchburg (which we currently rent out to cover the cost of the monthly mortgage payment), what's left of our student loans, and a couple thousand dollars on our van.  That still sounds like a lot, but we try to keep it in perspective that at least we don't have credit card debt and we have paid off my student loans, so we only owe on Billy's now (which is still a significant amount).  With our higher income, we have crept into some not-so-great habits, like eating out pretty regularly, not being as diligent with the grocery budget, buying little things here and there just out of convenience, etc.  Billy has been working on a more detailed plan of how we want to do this, including a more streamlined and organized monthly budget, a debt pay-off plan, and how we can hold each other accountable with our spending habits.  Our ultimate goal would be to pay off our van and student loan debt in 5 years (so by the time we're 30).  This is based on our current sole income from Billy's job.  If I were to start working again during that time, it would (hopefully) go a lot faster.  

There are a bunch of tools we plan to use to accomplish this goal.  First, we are actually increasing our weekly grocery budget (which seems counterintuitive, but let me explain).  Three years ago, when Billy was laid off from his job and we had our precious newborn Ellie, we got very strict about our grocery budget and set it at $50 per week.  This was supplemented by the WIC program, since Ellie was on special formula due to her severe reflux issues.  We were only feeding the two adults and the dog at this point, since Ellie's needs were covered by WIC.  We haven't adjusted this amount in the past three years.  Now, we are feeding two adults, two children who eat like adults sometimes, and a dog (with no government assistance in case you were curious).  Fifty dollars isn't realistic anymore, but I kept trying to force myself to stick to that for some reason.  I was really skimping on buying things that I saw as unnecessary (things for breakfast and lunch) because I kept trying to stay in that $50 budget.  I know that doesn't make sense, and looking back I don't know why I let it be that way for so long, but it was like a personal failure to not stick to the archaic budget.  I didn't even communicate this to Billy, so he wasn't really aware that I had this internal struggle over the grocery budget.  So, because I had set our budget too low, we were running out of food in the middle of the week and then having to run to the store last minute, which means I ended up spending more money anyway.  We were also resorting to eating out when I didn't feel like making something or when what we already had at home wasn't very appealing.  So, in an effort to reduce our overall monthly food expenses, I am giving myself some grace and just raising the budget to be more realistic for our family (we haven’t decided yet what our weekly amount would be as I need to spend some time researching and thinking through what would be more realistic for us).  This is in an effort to reduce our eating out and impulse purchases, as well as increase the quality of our meals at home.  I really think that by buying more of the foods we enjoy that might be more expensive (like meat and fresh produce) and less of the cheaper but not so great foods we can make eating at home easier and more enjoyable. 

Another way we are trying to rein in our spending is by using mint.com.  Mint is a free budgeting tool that basically logs and categorizes your spending for you, so you can keep track of your monthly budget without a lot of work involved.  You connect your bank account(s) to mint.com and they keep track of every purchase you make on your debit or credit card by logging it into a budget category.  You also have the ability to log cash purchases if applicable.  There is some initial work involved, since you need to set up your basic budget and occasionally tell the program where certain purchases need to go.  For example, any purchase made at Costco is automatically logged in as a grocery purchase, but you might have to manually categorize it if you were buying car maintenance items or something like that.  They also have a free app for the iPhone, which makes keeping up with your budget very easy.  I can literally check my phone while I’m at Kroger to see where we are with our monthly grocery budget before buying something at the store.  I actually made a purchase at Kroger after Billy set up our account and the purchase was already logged and categorized by the time I got home, so it’s quick to update your information.  There are also a lot of fun geeky perks to Mint, such as different charts to provide a visual for understanding your spending, as well as the option to create financial goals that help you see your progress along the way.

Finally, we are planning on just cutting back a bit.  This means being way more intentional about our spending and having to plan ahead a lot more.  There are going to be those nights that I don’t feel like cooking dinner, and we are going to allow ourselves the occasional night out, but we won’t be able to be as free with that as we have been.  Also, we’re making it a personal goal to not spend as much money on date nights (which are very important to us!).  We don’t have those too often (maybe once a month or every other month at this point), so we have plenty of time in between dates to try to earn money in creative ways that can fund our nights out. 

We have a few different methods we’re implementing (some old, some new), which I’ll share about in the next post (because it’s a lot of information to take in!).  We also just want to be more simplistic with our date nights.  Typically, a date night for us is dinner at a super nice restaurant and a movie at the theater.  Definitely not a cheap night.  Instead, we want to do more free things, such as window shopping (which is one of my favorite things to do), walking around downtown, driving on the parkway or through the national forest, etc.  Or, if we still want to see a movie, we can pay for that with gift cards that we earn online for free (which I’ll share later).  Some other options we’ve talked about include eating dinner at home and just going out for dessert and coffee, renting a movie at Redbox to watch at home after the kids go to bed (and if we get a free rental code, all the better!), or just having dinner at some cheaper, new-to-us restaurants instead of our typical fancy places.  The goal isn’t to make our lives miserable, but to learn to have fun in ways that are outside our norm and to save money in the process.  Every bit we save makes us that much closer to being free!

We’re really excited to see where God takes us through this journey.  I plan on sharing some more ideas and posts in the future that are hopefully helpful to you, but also just to help me keep my momentum going.  It’s so easy to get burned out financially, so I want to stay excited and motivated to pursue our goals and blogging is one way I can do that.  Thanks for reading!