Category Archives: Life

Three years of blogging

Early in August, this blog passed a milestone, and it didn’t even occur to me until a few days ago that I missed it. As of August 3, this blog is three years old.

Normally when a birthday passes, people marvel, “Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday.” In this case, I don’t feel that way AT ALL. Instead, I’m all, “Seriously? It’s only been three years?! It feels like AT LEAST ten!”

My life is so drastically different now, it’s amazing to me that it was only three short years ago that I wrote the first post. For starters, just look at how skinny I was in the picture on the right — taken the night before my wedding a little over a month before I started blogging. Pfft.

  • My husband and I were newlyweds and child-free.
  • I was working full time while my husband was in grad school.
  • We lived in North Carolina.
  • We carried a large enough balance on our credit cards that we couldn’t pay it off in a month (though we were already well on our way to paying it off, and we’d drastically reduced our credit card debt in the year before I started blogging).
  • We were renters with no plans to buy a home for the foreseeable future.
  • We had no savings, no budget, and no financial plan.
  • The idea of saving money for an emergency fund, a down payment on a home, and our future was so overwhelming that I remember feeling like it was impossible.

I don’t feel like the same person I was when I started this blog. Probably because I’m really not!

  • I’m a mama now, which I suppose is the biggest change.
  • My husband and I have swapped roles, as I’m a stay-at-home mom while he brings home the bacon.
  • We live in Indiana again (and we couldn’t be happier about it!)
  • We no longer carry a balance on our credit cards.
  • We’re homeowners.
  • We have a healthy emergency fund.

Most importantly, the past three years have taught me that no financial goal is impossible. Sure, it can be overwhelming, but if we’ve been able to make it work on our income, you can, too!

We’re a single-income household earning pretty close to the median income for our area. And yet careful budgeting, prioritizing, and planning allow us to live comfortably — even afford some little luxuries — without living paycheck-to-paycheck.

It’s amazing how much can change in three years. I wonder what the next three years have in store for us! I have a few new goals:

  • Now that we’re homeowners, our focus is shifting to finally paying off our student loan debt.
  • We’d like to increase our emergency fund savings to provide extra protection now that we have a mortgage to pay.
  • We also have a list of home improvement projects we’d like to undertake once we’ve saved the cash.
  • Totally unrelated to our finances, I’d like to be that skinny again. Whether that’s possible remains to be seen. Oof.

I hope you’ll stick around to find out what the next three years brings. I plan to keep writing as long as you keep reading. Actually, for the first 6 months or so, no one was reading, and I kept writing anyway. So I guess I’ll be around as long as I’ve got something to say, whether anyone wants to read it or not. :)

Financial literacy, your kids & a chance to win a Flip camera!

Sorry, entries for this contest are now closed. A winner has been chosen, and I will be announcing as soon as I’ve received the prize from T. Rowe Price and contacted the winner. Thanks for participating!

When I was a kid, my parents were a pretty open book. We talked about money just like we talked about everything else. My parents never kept us in the dark. We understood the financial choices they made, and they shared things with my sisters and me candidly.

Now that I have a baby of my own, I’ve already put thought into how I’d like to educate him about money. I think it’s important for parents to talk to their kids about money from an early age. The lessons should be age-appropriate, of course, but I think we’ll start Judah’s financial education pretty early.

We plan to ask Judah to put aside a portion of birthday and Christmas money given to him by grandparents into a savings account. He’ll be allowed to make choices about how he’d like to use the money, but we’ll talk with him about the value of saving money and spending it responsibly.

I’m not sure where I stand on the topic of giving an “allowance.” My sisters and I were given an allowance off and on throughout childhood, and it was usually tied to completing certain household chores. I think kids should learn that contributing to the household by doing chores is part of their responsibility as a member of our family — not an incentive for money. However, I think there’s value in teaching kids that work = money, and if they want to earn an income, they have to work for it.

Most importantly, Tony and I plan to be open with Judah and future children about our financial situation and choices. When they’re old enough to understand, I’d like to teach them about paying bills each month and show them how much things cost. I’d like to go over the family budget with them to show them where our money goes and discuss our emergency fund, savings, and other financial choices in depth.

I want to encourage our children to work part-time after school when they’re teenagers, and give them financial responsibilities of their own like car insurance, gas, and spending money. I was given financial responsibilities as soon as I was old enough to work, and I think it taught me a lot about money management and responsible spending habits.

As part of their financial literacy campaign, T. Rowe Price asked me to write a post about talking with kids about money. According to a recent survey conducted by T. Rowe Price, they discovered that parents found it more difficult to talk to their kids about money than talking to them about dating, drugs, smoking, or alcohol. That sort of blows my mind. I think money is a topic that you can begin discussing with children at a much younger age than I would bring up those other topics.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as playing “store” or “restaurant” with a young child and teaching them to exchange play money for toys or play food. The lessons can grow with your child as you discuss more complicated financial issues like budgeting, saving, and investing.

To help parents start talking about money with their children, T. Rowe Price and Disney have teamed up to launch the Great Piggy Bank Adventure, an interactive website designed for children ages 8 to 14 to teach them about important financial concepts like saving, spending, inflation, and more complicated investing concepts. In addition to the website, T. Rowe Price is also the sponsor of the Great Piggy Bank Adventure experience at Epcot Center at Walt Disney World. There, children and their parents can learn more about financial planning in a hands-on, interactive environment.

I love the idea of the Great Piggy Bank Adventure, because I think it makes financial literacy fun for kids and parents. There’s no reason to feel overwhelmed about teaching your children about money. It can even be a game!

As part of their campaign, T. Rowe Price asked me to talk to you about how you talk to your kids about money. In exchange for your participation in the discussion, you’ll be entered to win a Great Piggy Bank Adventure Flip camera provided by T. Rowe Price. Here’s how to enter:

Write a comment answering one or more of the questions below. For each question you answer, write a separate comment. Each comment will be counted as a separate entry.

That’s it! It’s easy. The winner will be chosen randomly on Friday, August 12 at 9 p.m. EST, so you have until then to enter.

Here are the questions:

  • Is it easier for you to talk about drugs and alcohol than your family finances? If so why?
  • Why do you think it is easier for parents to talk about drugs and smoking than family finances with their kids?
  • Was the topic of money “taboo” in your family growing up?
  • What advice would you give to other parents talking to their kids about the family finances?

Good luck!

Disclosure: In exchange for writing this post, T. Rowe Price provided the Flip camera for this giveaway and also provided me with a gift card for my participation. T. Rowe Price is not involved in or responsible for the outcome of this giveaway.

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Reverse seasonal affective disorder

Regular blogging will now be interrupted for whining.

You know how a lot of people get depressed in the middle of winter when it’s cold and dark? I have the opposite problem. I get depressed every year around this time when I realize we have two more months of unbearable heat and humidity and misery. Ugh.

Fall is my favorite time of year, probably because it comes after months of torturous heat. I was much more suited to the cooler temperatures and shorter summers in northern Indiana, but my husband found a job in southern Indiana, and the heat will probably stick around until October here. I’m not happy about it.

I write this now, because I feel like I can’t be alone in this, despite the fact that people have disagreed with me my whole life. But here it is: I’d rather be cold than hot. I would absolutely 100% take sub-zero temperatures and snow and ice over heat and humidity. Don’t get me wrong, the cold season isn’t my favorite. I much prefer when the sun is warm, but there’s a slight chill in the air — when it’s cool enough for a sweater but warm enough that you don’t need a coat. But I’d still take the coldest day of the year over the hottest. I agree that it can be a downer when it’s freezing outside and it gets dark so early, but at least I’m cozy and comfortable inside. Our air conditioner is struggling to keep up in this heat wave, so when it gets above 95 degrees outside, even our house is insufferable.

In the winter I can bundle up in layers — shirts and sweaters and coats and scarves and mittens. When it’s hot, you can only undress so much before you risk being arrested. And when it’s this hot, you could walk around wearing nothing and still feel miserable.

I miss hearty comfort foods. I miss good food in general, because I’m sick of eating non-meals that don’t require an oven.

At night, even if it’s chilly inside, I can bundle up in a giant down comforter to keep warm and sleep soundly all night. When it’s hot, I don’t sleep well even when I kick off the covers and turn the fan on full blast.

So am I alone in this? Who’s with me? Anyone have a time share in Antarctica that I can buy for the summer months?

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How much money do I “earn” by living frugally?

Since I’m a stay-at-home mom, I don’t add any steady monetary income to our household (aside from occasional freelance work and sporadic income from this here blog). However, my decision to stay home has afforded me more time for household chores than I would have if I worked. To offset our lower income, I try to devote my extra time to tasks that reduce our expenses, and I consider the money we save as my financial contribution to our household.

I thought it might help motivate me to figure some rough estimates of what I’m “earning.” Hopefully you’ll find it helpful, too.

Cloth diapers

I initially invested about $300 in our cloth diaper stash, which will fit Judah until he’s potty-trained. The time I devote to cloth diapers is an extra 3 loads of laundry per week. I line dry them to fight stains, bacteria, and reduce electricity costs. I probably only spend about an hour washing cloth diapers every week. That four hours of work saves us about $30-$50 per month.

Breastfeeding

I realize that for working moms who need to pump, breastfeeding can be a considerable time investment. Since I’m with Judah 24/7, breastfeeding doesn’t take anymore time than formula feeding (in fact, it probably takes less time since I don’t have any bottles to wash). It saves us $75-$100 per month. Easy money!

Line drying clothes

I line dry about two loads of laundry per week, in addition to diapers. It takes maybe 30 minutes to hang and take down each load of laundry, so I spend about four hours a month line drying laundry. It’s difficult to estimate how much money we’re saving at this point. My dryer isn’t very efficient, so I often had to run loads through two or three dry cycles to get them totally dry. Estimates for dryer costs vary depending on your dryer, how many loads you dry, and how efficient it is. I estimate that we save about $10 per month by line drying. You could argue that $2.50 per hour isn’t worth the time it takes to line dry, but I find hanging our laundry relaxing, I like the way it smells when it line dries, and I like that we’re reducing our carbon footprint, so I’m sticking with it.

Eating at home

This is where I admit that even though I’m a stay-at-home mom, my husband is the cook in our house. Thankfully, since he’s a college professor, a lot of his work load involves grading papers and preparing lesson plans at home, so he’s home a lot more than the average full-time worker. So he cooks dinner for us every night when he gets home. I spend about 30 minutes a week menu planning, and we spend another hour and a half shopping together. Most meals take 30 minutes to an hour to prepare. All together, that adds up to 5 to 9 hours a week. There are too many factors at play to know exactly how much we’re saving, but we can easily spend the equivalent of our entire week’s grocery budget on two restaurant meals, so it adds up.

Coupons

I’ve really cut back on my couponing lately, because we’ve built such a huge stockpile at the drugstores. When I was clipping coupons every week, I spent probably an hour clipping coupons and planning shopping trips, and another 20 or 30 minutes in the drugstores. It’s tough to quantify how much I actually earned, but I could buy enough toiletries to last months in a single shopping trip for pennies per item.

Television

We cut our $50-per-month cable bill, and replaced it with Hulu, Netflix, and the library. Our memberships to Hulu and Netflix cost a total of $20 per month. Watching less TV costs us nothing, and forces us to get out and do other things. Win-win!

I eventually hope to add gardening to this list to cut our food expenses. Next year!

How does frugality enhance your income?

Photo credit: me!

Why I politely declined the invitation to your candle/purse/kitchen/jewelry party

Everyone likes to be invited to a party. I love parties! I don’t even mind if the hostess asks me to bring a dish. If I’m being welcomed to her home to enjoy the festivities, it’s the least I can do. And if it’s a shower, I love to bring baby or bridal gifts for people I love.

Unfortunately, the invitations I usually receive aren’t for parties. They’re for sales ambushes from trusted friends. “Come to my candle party!” is really code for, “Come to my house, eat some appetizers, and buy some overpriced crap out of my catalog so I can get free stuff or money.”

Maybe I’m being a curmudgeon here. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. The thing is, I don’t want to feel pressured to buy stuff I don’t need, especially when it’s typically so overpriced. Not to mention, it sort of makes me feel bad to know that I’m not being invited to a party simply because the hostess enjoys the pleasure of my company, but because I’m another person who may buy stuff from her.

When I choose to buy something, it’s because I need and/or want it, and I can afford it. I don’t want to feel guilted into buying things because my friend has provided appetizers or drinks, or because I feel responsible for supplementing her income. That’s not how business works. Good business is based on the exchange of money for worthwhile goods or services — not guilt because your friend is trying to start her “home business” if only her 20 closest friends would spend $200 each on the junk she’s selling.

I don’t like when sales people ambush me. I don’t like when they call me, I don’t like when they approach me in the mall, and I don’t like when they knock on my door. The last thing I want is to be solicited by a friend at a party.

If you want to build a business selling products, I don’t begrudge you that. By all means, let your friends know that you have those products available, and the ones who are interested in buying can come to you. But please don’t solicit sales from me under the guise of a get together. I’m too cheap to buy any of your overpriced stuff anyway.

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Happy Father’s Day

Since our son can’t talk (yet), I’ll speak for him.

Thanks for making him laugh harder than anyone else can.

Thanks for getting up early with him on the weekends so his mom can get some extra sleep.

Thanks for being so patient with him, no matter how unreasonable can be.

Thanks for providing the roof over his head, the clothes on his back, and the million other little luxuries he’s lucky to enjoy because of your hard work.

And thanks for giving him your pretty blue eyes — and the rest of your features while you were at it, because let’s face it, he’s basically your mini-me.

Happy Father’s Day!

 

I need to grow a green thumb pronto

One of the things I love most about our house is that it rests on about an acre of beautiful land. Unfortunately, we moved in a little late in the season to till and plant a garden, but you better believe I’ll have a mini farm back there next spring. Tony is looking forward to cutting down on the amount of grass he needs to cut, and I can’t wait to harvest fresh organic produce.

In the meantime, I put in a small raised herb and vegetable garden in the flower bed in front of the house. We planted red pepper, tomato, cucumber, sage, peppermint, parsley, oregano, rosemary, and basil. It’s my first garden, so I wanted to keep it small and manageable. But I have much bigger plans for the future.

Everyone who has visited us has walked around the property and marveled at the plant life. Unfortunately, most of it is overgrown and woefully neglected. That’s one of the downsides of purchasing a renovated home. The seller bought it a year ago, completely renovated the interior, and let the acre of property grow unchecked. In some spots, our yard has turned into a rainforest.

Exhibit A: Piles and piles of yard waste behind the shed that’s dead underneath but sprouting plants and vines on top.

Exhibit B: Dead wood stacked next to the shed that we need to do something about before it attracts termites.

Exhibit C: Patch of weeds with flowers underneath. In the spring, there were daffodils here. I have no idea what other pretty plants would thrive if we could get rid of all this weedy growth.

Exhibit D: Honeysuckle plant that may eventually overtake our house if we don’t get it under control soon.

Exhibit E: Brambles and brush that’s possibly hiding a mulberry bush and who knows how many critters. Yikes.

One of the ambitious plans I discussed with my mom was the possibility of planting a mini orchard – a couple small apple trees and maybe a pear tree.

Both my parents and my in-laws have come to visit the house since we moved in, and we walked the yard with both of them to get their help identifying some of the plant life. They all assumed the four trees with tiny fruit growing on them were crab apple trees. I decided I’d probably take them down to make room for my mini orchard eventually.

This weekend, though, I discovered that the tiny fruit on those trees has continued to grow, and they appear to be growing into real, honest-to-goodness apples.

Exhibit F: Mysterious fruit-bearing trees.

I can’t find a reliable way to tell if they’re true apples or crab apples. They don’t seem as round as crab apples. I cut into one, and it looked exactly like an apple on the inside. It also tasted like a tart apple. It was tart, but definitely sweet, not bitter. I haven’t been able to find out whether crab apples look and taste like apples, but they already look bigger than most of the crab apples I’ve seen in pictures.

One thing I’ve read in several places is that the only difference between crab apples and true apples is that crab apples are less than 2 inches in diameter. Some of the fruit on these trees is already 2 inches or maybe a little bigger, so I have high hopes.

If they are apple trees, they’ve been allowed to grow much too tall (25 or 30 feet). They also haven’t been pruned in at least one growing season, possibly more, because the previous owners of our home before the renovation were an elderly couple that probably didn’t do too much yard work. It looks to me like it’s probably been several seasons since they were pruned.

I’m not sure what kind of fruit the trees will yield this year. There is a ton of fruit on them, and I fear I’ll end up with a million tiny, too-tart apples (or crab apples) instead of a smaller number of plump, delicious apples. The trees are also full of dead limbs and look like they could possibly be sick in some places, so I need to do more research to determine if the fruit is even safe to eat.

I am feeling incredibly overwhelmed by all of the plant life we’ve inherited on this property. It’s an embarrassment of riches for this wanna-be gardener, but I feel like I’ve inherited too much for a beginner to take on at once.

Any tips on how I can save these giant apple trees – or advice on how I can determine if they’re real apple trees at all? I’ve grown unreasonably attached to the idea that they may be apple trees, and I’d like to rescue them if they are. I just have no idea how to do it.

Also, if you have any tips on what I can do about the rest of this hot mess, I’d love to hear them!

3 simple things you can do right now to improve your state of mind

This post was originally published on July 16, 2009.

to do list

Sometimes when my to-do list is a mile long and I’m short on time and feeling overwhelmed, I feel like if I can’t finish everything right now I’m going to lose it. Don’t you hate those days?

Well, when I’m having a day like that, there are a few things I do to immediately make myself just a little calmer. That little bit of perspective is usually enough to allow me to get it together and get things done.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, here are some easy things you can do to get it together:

Clear your space.

Even if you don’t have time for full-fledged cleaning, take some time to ditch the clutter. I’m talking about the papers on your desk at work, the weeks of junk mail and magazines piled up on the table, and the breakfast dishes in the sink. My husband uses the dining room table as an office, which doesn’t bother me, until he gets a few days worth of papers stacked up all around him.

Take five minutes to clear the space around you. Get rid of the clutter, throw the papers into the recycling bin, and put the little nick nacks back where they belong. This includes your email inbox. Go through your emails, tackle the easy stuff with a quick reply, and add more involved tasks and responses to your to-do list. You’ll feel better instantly.

Make a list.

Now that your space is clear, take a few minutes to prioritize your to-do list. If you’re anything like me, your to-do list is scrawled in no particular order or, worse, stored in your brain. By making a physical list, you can not only prioritize and visualize what needs to get done, but you’ll get the satisfaction of crossing off your accomplishments.

I usually try to tackle the most difficult tasks first, but if you’re already feeling burned out, it may help to start with something easy to help you recharge. Find an order that works for you, and take a moment to evaluate your list and determine the best way to get everything done.

Take a walk.

I know, it seems counterproductive to take a break when you’re already short on time. But sometimes you just need to remove yourself from the stressful situation and take a time out to gather your thoughts and your sanity. I write a lot in my job (and of course for this blog), and sometimes I’ll spend two hours looking at a blank screen before I get up and take a break. After a quick break, I often come back and finish the project in 30 minutes because I’ve had a chance to gather my thoughts.

If you can’t take a walk, at least take a few minutes to take some deep breaths. If you feel tied to your to-do list, it’ll only make you feel resentful and you won’t be as productive. Remind yourself that you’re in control of the situation, and you can take a break if you need to. When you return, you’ll likely be more focused.

What do you do when you’re feeling overwhelmed?

Receive weather alerts on your smart phone with NOAA weather radio app

I grew up in northern Indiana, where tornado warnings rarely mean business. Tornadoes touched down in our area a handful of times when I lived there, but they were always weak storms that caused superficial damage at most.

Now we’re living in southern Indiana, which is on the outer rim of tornado alley. The deadly storms in the south and Midwest over the last few weeks have served as a wakeup call for me. I’m taking severe weather warnings a lot more seriously these days.

Several weeks ago, before we moved into the house, we were living in a second floor apartment during some pretty severe storms. It was thundering and raining hard and the wind was heavy. The power went out. We weren’t really sure what to do or whether the situation was severe enough to warrant taking cover somewhere other than our second floor apartment.

We decided to stay awake, hang tight, and take cover if things seemed to get worse outside.

The next morning, we awoke to the news that a weak tornado had touched down just blocks from our apartment. It damaged some houses, knocked out some power lines, and downed trees. Thankfully, because the storm was weak, no one was hurt and no serious property damage was caused. But I felt uneasy knowing that a tornado had been so close, and we had no idea.

Our situation is a little safer now that we live in a one-story brick house, but I want to be sure we can keep up with weather alerts, especially if the power goes out or a storm hits in the middle of the night.

I did some searching for solutions, and last night I downloaded an app for my smart phone that works like a weather radio. It will buzz and notify me if severe warnings have been issued for my area. Because it doesn’t depend on my home Internet connection, I’ll receive alerts even in a power outage as long as my phone is charged. The updates come directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

At $3.99, the iPhone version is a good value for the money considering the fact that weather radios cost anywhere from $30 – $100. You can download the iPhone version here.

This particularly dangerous storm season isn’t over yet. Please stay safe, and be aware of alerts in your area, whether you use a smart phone, traditional weather radio, or local news reports.

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