Doodle Acres

In my continuing journey through How Did I Get So Busy?: The 28-day Plan to Free Your Time, Reclaim Your Schedule, and Reconnect with What Matters Most , I was asked to write down my 5 most important priorities.  These priorities are meant to guide me as I evaluate my activities as well as the items I put on my “To Do List”.  Here is my list in no particular order:

• Educating my children
• Spiritual growth of my family and I
• Clean yet friendly home for my family
• Strong marriage
• Living a financially responsible life

Please pray for me as I attempt to align my life with my priorities!!! 

White vinegar mixed with water is my favorite all-purpose cleaner.  I keep a spray bottle of it under my kitchen sink and in each of my bathrooms.  We use it to spray and wipe the counters and tabletop in the kitchen.  It is used daily by the children during chores to wiped down the bathroom counters, sinks and mirrors.

Another added bonus is the health benefits.  A few years ago when one of my sons was diagnosed with a mild case of asthma, his doctor was glad to hear that we use this wonderful cleaner because the typical cleaners are harmful to an asthmatic.

Saturday during our family cleaning time (now that’s the subject of another post), I used the vinegar and water spray to clean walls, wood stairs, bathroom tile, bathtubs, showers, etc.  I was amazed how well it performed on my shower stall.  (However I am currently on the lookout for a healthy spray to deal with discolored caulk).

And best of all, I can buy a gallon at Costco for only a few dollars (I don’t remember the exact price because it lasted so long!!!)

P.S. While searching for a picture of vinegar, I happened upon a post called, “66 Uses for Vinegar”.  Hope you enjoy it!!!

I happened upon Restaurant.com as I was browsing the internet just before Christmas.  The site offers gift certificates for local restaurants at significantly reduced prices.  As my husband and I usually go out to dinner once a week for “date night”, I decided to give it a try.  I bought a $25 gift certificate for $10 to a local burger joint (like an Applebees or TGIFridays).  In order to use the gift certificate, we were required to spend $35.  Our usual bill at this type of restaurant is usually about $35 plus tax and tip; so I figured that this would be a bargain ($10 for the gift certificate and $10 for the difference between the $35 tab and the $25 g.c. plus tax and tip).  

It worked out even better than expected.  The prices at this restaurant were a bit lower than Applebees so we even bought an order of 10 Buffalo wings to go (which the children enjoyed for lunch the next day in addition to the 1/2  of a hamburger I couldn’t finish and a bit of leftover pasta) to bring our tab up to $35.  The service wasn’t quite as fast as Applebees but this actually suited us just fine as the main purpose of our “date night” is to reconnect through uninterrupted conversation; but the food was just as tasty!!!

Note to all my frugal friends: We pay cash from our weekly allowance for our date night dinners.  We usually each pull $20ish dollars from our wallets to split the bill - very romantic, isn’t it?  But those ugly credit card charges would definitely be very unromantic!!!

Today at Money Saving Mom, Crystal Paine encouraged us to get our finances in shape in 2008.  Well we are blessed with an income that meets our needs and many of our wants.  We have worked hard on being fiscally responsible, have very little outstanding debt (only our mortgage), and generally live below our means.  However, as Len and I look at our finances, we can honestly admit that there is a lot of room for improvement with our spending.  In 2007, I FINALLY (after years of trying) got my grocery spending under control thanks to Crystal’s “Supermarket Savings Course” (see my right sidebar).  Of course this is always a work in progress as I work on trimming the fat off of my food budget.  However, if I never improved beyond where I’m at now, I think I would be satisfied in this area.

What I’d like to work on this year, is increasing our savings and using the savings to pay off a chunk of our mortgage.  This is going to require a hard look at our budget - a hard look!!!

I plan to take the next couple of weeks to take that “hard look” recognizing that it will be a process of negotiation with dear husband.  I’ll let you know what I come up with and look forward to hearing what others are doing via the links at Money Saving Mom.

With the price of fuel oil being so out of sight this winter, I have been keeping the thermostat set pretty low: 60 at night and 64-65 during the day.  I have found several strategies for keeping warm – a hot cup of tea, keeping busy (not sitting too long), and a comfy sweater.  Today, I’d like to talk about my favorite way to stay warm.

Well you may have heard the expression, “Cold hands, warm heart.”  Well I have a new one: “Warm feet, warm body.”  A pair of wool socks and a cozy pair of slippers go a long way in staying warm.  Growing up, I always heard that people lose most of their body heat through their head and feet.  This was my mother’s way of getting me to wear my hat.  Well now that I’m the mom, my advice to you is to warm your body by warming your feet!!!

You can find links to more money saving tips at Biblical Womanhood!!!

My perhaps most important laundry secret for saving your clothing from the garbage can is Spray and Wash stain stick.  I leave a stain stick in my top dresser drawer.  Every night, I “evaluate” the shirt I wore that day to see if it needs to be “stain sticked”.  It usually does because I always seem to forget to wear an apron!!!  I have resurrected many shirts with my trusty stain stick.  My trusty stain stick is so good that it will usually get the stain out on the second washing if I forgot to “stain stick” it the first time!!!

Around here, someone under the age of 18 always seems to be breaking a dish.  And we had gotten down to an insufficient number despite using Corelle (which are breakable in our home!!!).  I personally hate to eat off of plastic dishes.  Well I was lamenting to a friend recently about the my dish situation and wondering whether I should invest in another set of Corelle or just go to paper plates.  Both “solutions” were not floating my boat!!!  Then my friend gave me a great idea.  He suggested buying second hand plates at a thrift shop.  It turned out to be a great idea.  I got a nearly complete set of dishes for 8 (dinner plates, luncheon plates, bowls, tea cups and saucers) for $4!!!  Now I can eat on real plates without worry!!!  God is good!!! Thanks Don!!!

Today at the library I picked up a copy of The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn.  I periodically take out books on frugality and simple living.  I never read these books cover to cover but am happy to glean a few hints/tips to incorporate into my life and budget.

Well as I lazily read the book from the comfort of my armchair this afternoon, I came upon an article which referenced the USDA’s ”Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home at Four Levels“.  Now the article was written in 1993, so I decided to check on line for the current levels of spending for American families.  Recently, I had shared that I spend $120 a week on food for my family of 6.  I wanted to see whether this put me in the Thrifty, Low-cost, Moderate-cost, or Liberal plan.  I was thrilled to see that we were on the Thrifty plan.  Of course the author of The Tightwad Gazette spent about 1/4 of the Thrifty plan amount!!!  But you have to start somewhere and I’m happy for the gains I’ve made (although I know that I have more work to do in this area).  If you have any money saving tips, I’d love to hear them.  And I’ll post any ideas that I come across in my reading.  Let the sharing and savings begin!!!

Crystal Paine has a new blog called Money Saving Mom.  Her post called “Simple Tips for Living on Little” is very insightful and inspiring.  Through her course, Supermarket Savings, I have made great strides in reducing my grocery budget.  I had a budget of $180 a week to feed our family of six.  This sounds like a lot but we were spending much more than that!!!  We were constantly digging ourselves out of a hole.  For the last 12 weeks, I have been spending $120 a week and I have been paying $60 a week down as a principal only payment on my mortgage.  So believe it or not, this $17.97 course has saved me $720 (really more due to my overspending) in 12 weeks.  I am so impressed with this course that I have signed on to her affiliate program.  So if you are interested in the course, please click the link above or on my sidebar.  I hope it will bless you as much as it has me!!!

P.S. I should tell you that Crystal feeds her family of 4 on $35/week!!! I don’t think I’ll every reach that level but I do plan to go to $100 a week after the first of the year…