Financial Goals For 2009

Money Saving Mom is hosting a link up where you list your goals. If you would like to join in post your financial goals and join in. Each month you will check in and tell everyone how well you are doing in making progress.

• Pay the balance on orthodontic treatment of $3400.00. All that we could deduct into our Medical Flex Account for 2008 was $7500.00 so I paid for all our medicines (prescription and over the counter) and doctor co-pays and the balance I paid to the orthodontist.
• Save an additional $1000.00 into our emergency fund.
• Stock up six months worth of food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and beauty products. In addition stock our medicine box with all the basic medicines.
• Pay what we promised to our church building fund.
• Reduce electric and home gas bills to budgeted amount of an average of $200.00 a month. I will make some draft stoppers for the doors out of old stockings, turn the upstairs air down during the daytime and vice-versa at night.
• Keep water bill at $75.00 a month by continuing to fill large bowl when hand washing dishes. I will install rain barrels for watering the garden. Try to be more careful about the kids clothes- make sure they are not sending clean, still folded clothes down to wash. Am I the only one?
• Sticking to a meal plan and filling the oven with meals to freeze. Use the crock pot. Keep meals prepared and quick things on hand so that we do not eat out.
• Keep cooler in the trunk so I can catch cold sales when shopping. Keep snacks like water, granola bars, nuts, crackers in car to eat while out so we don't eat out.
• Put money into seperate account for school fees and books, extra curricular activities, Christmas gifts, auto tag fees, Home owner association fees.
• Continue with envelope system for clothing, gifts, food, allowances, garage sale spending.
• Lose weight so I can actually wear clothes that I have. It is also easier to find cute things at garage sales in smaller sizes.
• Use material from worn or stained clothing for craft projects. Look for items at garage sales like sheets and cheap clothing in cute patterns to use in crafting.
• Learn to bake bread, tortillas, and other items at home.
• Make gifts this year for different occasions.
• Order non-hybrid seeds. Grow plants/vegetables from seed. Save seeds for new starts.
• Buy a pressure canner and learn to can vegetables.
• Be careful to use leftovers. Quit watching them swosh down the disposal. Stop the science experiments in the frige.

I think our goal for this year is not so much financial gain but to stock up. With grocery prices so high and interest rates so low I feel it is a better investment to buy the food at deep discounts so I am not paying the high prices instead of putting money in the bank. I think we will come out ahead having the food bought over money that will not spend as far if we get in a bind and are struggling any. We set a high goal with our building fund- above what we see an ability on paper, but I also know God to provide and would rather give sacrificially to that over building our accounts. I hope that my garden and ability to get good deals will be my ministry this year- being able to offer hospitality in our home or help others in need.

Eating on $25.00 a week

An article on Smart Spending caught my eye. The Illinois food bank issued a challenge to state officials, leaders, and residents to try living off of the average food stamp amount of $25.00 PER PERSON a week. I am a bit shocked after looking at the referenced site in the Smart Spending article. The people were having a really hard time and they even give a sample menu on their site. They have macaroni and cheese with green beans two nights. It is almost as if they are purposely trying to make the menu as unappealing and pathetic looking as possible. I will say that it is a lot more difficult to purchase food for one person versus two or more. The more you have the larger the package you can buy. It is also harder to buy everything you need in one week. When you have to count the whole price for a can of salt but you only use 1/16 of it. Even on a real case where the person is living on assistance after the first week you build a stock of basic stuff that you can use for the next week.

For $25.00 a person a week that would be $175.00 a week for my family of 7. Um, that is $700.00 a month. I budget $500.00 a month, but have spent $600.00 the last two months building up a stock of supplies. I don't think the challenge even includes cleaning products or toiletries, which are included in mine. I have a LOT of toothpaste and shampoo and buddies soap and deoderant. If you stink please come see me and I can set you up.

I know this budget isn't extravogant, but I think the people who need to use the services of financial aid need to be better taught how to save money. Many come from homes where no one taught them how to cook or shop or save money. Teach them how to match coupons to sales and get better deals. Teach them how to shop the loss leaders and sales each week on meat and vegetables. Show them a better menu than the one listed, one that looks more appealing, so they have a desire to work a little to get the deals and spend time cooking. Show them how much extra they are paying for convienience items. Show them how to cook ahead and freeze meals, how to make baby food, how to use leftovers.... the list goes on and on. Anything, but hand them money for food, then expect them to know how, then try to make people feel sorry for them that they have to eat off of $25.00 a week. Can I hear an Amen?

Looking at one of the blog of the people who took on the challenge here read the first commentor. They also participated and listed their much better menu. I want to go to their house for supper.

What do you think? Could you feed your family for $25.00 a week. What would you do to stay within that amount? How much are you spending per week?

Reducing Grocery Expenses

Now that you have made a budget how can you reduce spending in areas?

Groceries: Grow a garden. Even a tomato plant in a container will be a start to reducing what you spend. You also get the benefit that the fresh food tastes so much better and you know it has not been sprayed with chemicals to preserve your internal organs forever. I really recommend making a raised bed square foot garden. I made my first this year with two 4X8 foot raised beds. I am learning a lot about improving for next year. We had the best tasting tomatoes ans I will never buy another grocery store tomato again. We also had enough zucchini and yellow squash off of one plant each to feed our family of seven and still put up some in the freezer. All of my kids will not eat squash so if your family eats a lot you would need more. We got one squash and one zucchini every other day during growing season.

Shop the loss leaders each week and use coupons. Each week grocery stores advertise loss leader items on the front and back page of their sales paper. The store is actually taking a loss on these items in hopes of drawing you into their store to shop so that you will buy other products. The secret is to take advantage of these items and not allow yourself to be drawn into buying more items that are not a good deal. When you take advantage of using coupons with the loss leader many of the items are free or nearly free. Don't forget that you can use both a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon on an item. If a store is too far to drive take advantage of their advertised sales price at stores that will match prices like Walmart. Publix will accept competitors coupons.

Shop the CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid free after rebate or extra care bucks each week. Start out slowly in order to build up a supply of rewards or extra care bucks. It will cost you the first month, then you are "rolling" your earned paper money for the next months deals. Walgreens and Rite Aid have the free after rebate items. If you use a coupon when you purchase the items they still refund you the total purchase price so you actually make money. CVS gives you extra care bucks that print on the bottom of your receipt. They expire in a month so make sure to use them before they expire. Walgreens is now giving the Register Rewards bucks on certain items. They also expire and you cannot purchase the same items again to receive another Register Reward so be careful to do another deal or buy items you need. For more on this see my old post here.

Save all of your bits and pieces from leftovers in a container or ziploc bag in your freezer. You can also add a little water to a baking pan where you have cooked chicken or meat and make a gravy type mixture to save to flavor soups or rice. Once a week or once a month take all your saved leftovers and make a soup or casserole. You are making a free or almost free dish. I save leftover macaroni and cheese, rice a roni, hamburger helper, there are a lot of things that you can save to add to a soup. The cheese sauces and other spices will all meld together. Other ideas of where to add bits and pieces of leftovers: make a chicken fajita or bbq pizza, quiche, in a quesadilla, in a roll up, casseroles, make hot pockets, creamed veggies over biscuits or rice or pasta or potato, or in a panini.

Add filler items to your recipes. Add cooked beans and rice to tacos. You can decrease the amount of ground meat. Add zucchini or yellow squash to spaghetti sauce. Serve chili over a bowl of rice or a baked potato.

When a recipe calls for milk use powdered milk. You can reduce the amount of milk and add more water without affecting the flavor of most recipes. Experiment in reducing added ingredients in recipes that are flavoring until you notice.

Buy chicken bouillon and beef bouillon cubes for less expensive broth if you do not have homemade broth on hand. It is cheaper than canned or boxed broth. Don't pay for the water. Make it yourelf.

Buy dry beans and cook them yourself. It is really easy. I like to soak them overnight according to the package then put them in a crock pot with a hambone and some seasoning and cook all day. You can do the quick soak method on the stove, which is also on the package if you forgot to soak them overnight. You can also cook them on the stove.

Cook and freeze meals for busy times.. Don't forget to make breakfast,lunch, snack, and dessert items. You can freeze pancakes, muffins, breakfast burritos, bagel sandwiches, biscuits, and french toast for breakfast. You can make bagel or sub bread with pizza toppings, hot pocket type sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, tuna salad, chicken salad, or ham and cheese sandwiches. Make burritos or chicken enchiladas and freeze individually. Make up individual servings of soup, chili, chicken and dumplins, beef stew, pasta salad. You can freeze cookie dough, baked cookies, brownies, cupcakes without the frosting. Make cheesecake, pies, coffee cakes and other dessert items. I like to also keep cooked brown rice frozen in individual ziploc bags, twice baked potatoes, cooked beans, broiled vegetables, and other side dishes for quick side dishes to compliment a main dish.

If you have pototoes that are about to rot cube them and blanch in boiling water then immediately ice and put in freezer bags. Use for casseroles, soups, make mashed potatoes later, season and bake for a french fry type side or make hash browns.

An important thing to remember is to keep your spaces organized so that you know what you have. Have you ever gone to the store and bought an item full price because you don't know where it is or don't know you have it. Also, keep your pantry stocked so you don't run out of items. Start shopping your pantry instead of the stores. I am stocked enough that I am mainly just taking advantage of the weekly sales that I match with coupons.

How do you get started stocking up? Slowly. Each week, or shopping cycle, alot a certain amout for stocking. Start with $10 and spend that on really good deals. Next time, buy whatever is a really good deal for that week. If you don't have a lot of money to get going just do something each week and eventually you will have a full pantry and freezer. Here is an old picture of our pantry. As you can see in the photo I was low on canned foods, it is when I was organizing it before a shopping trip. I have over 20 boxes of unopened cereal that I store above the rod in the coat closet near the garage door. I now have the 5 gallon bucket that is filled with sugar. I have been buying the animal cookies at Sams and reusing the container for flour and rice. I buy rice and flour and sugar in 25 lb. packages then fill in with loss leader items. Right before Thanksgiving all the baking supplies will go on sale. Save up some money for stocking up at that time. In the summer bbq sauce and condiments go on sale. Stock up on candy after Halloween and Christmas and use for making cookies. Buy an extra turkey at Thanksgiving time. Ham will go on sale around Christmas and Easter. You can freeze them whole and cook later or you can go ahead and cook and freeze individual portions. Don't forget to save bones for making stock and flavoring beans and rice dishes.


Bean recipes
Recipes

Setting up a budget

Everyone is really paying attention to their money now that the economy has been struggling. It is really easy to let small amounts of money fall through your fingertips, twenty here, five there. The easiest way to control what you have is to budget and tell your money where to go. I love budgets, I am a real nerd. It is hard for me to conceive that everyone does not like to budget and work with numbers but I talk to people all the time and see that they really get anxious at the thought of having to sit down to budget. They look at it as torture or don't want to be "tied to a budget." It is not tying yourself down, it is freeing you to be confident that you will have money at the end of the month. It is just a tool to use.

How do you set up a budget? What do you include? Well, this is how I set mine up.
First, I make a list of all my expenses. Include everything. There are some things that you do not pay monthly, but you have yearly or semi annually, like car insurance or Christmas spending. Include those items. I take those items that occur less often than monthly and divide by the months that come between each payment. That is your monthly amount you need to save. What are some of the catagories?

Tithe
retirement
medical
House or rent payment
auto insurance
life insurance
food
gas-automobile
electricity
gas- home
water
cell phone
home phone
internet
cable
clothing
gift
school
activities(baseball fees, AWANA, dance lessons, etc.)
entertainment(movies,dinner out, family outings)
household(decorating, maintenance)
auto maintenance(tires, oil,repairs)
allowances

Think of anything that you are spending money on and make a catagory. I find that if I have more specific catagories that I am able to watch where my money goes better than if I try to lump a lot of things into one catagory like "household."

Next, I write the amount by each item that is the minimum required for that item. For example, what is the base amount charged for your phone. I do not add any extra amount for flexible long distance or add on features. At the top of my page I write our take home pay. I then take the amount we get for the extra two paychecks we get per year and divide by twelve and add that to the base monthly pay. I then subtract the amount of all the catagories and see if we have any money left or if we have used all the money. If you are over budget (don't have enough money for all the items) you have to go through and reduce things to fit. Take $20.00 of groceries, remove vacation funds, whatever you have to do to make your amounts work. If, after you remove/reduce all you can and you still don't have enough you HAVE to find additional income. You are really upside down and just are not making enough to support a basic life. Hopefully, you have money left, instead. Now, go back and increase items that you usually spend more on or make the decision to keep those items at a bare minimum and save the additional money. It is really cool to take what you think is a thrifty budget and sqeeze more by reducing catagories just $5 each or as much as you can.

I like to add up all the items that are not monthly expenses and have that amount automatically taken out of each check and transvferred to an additional account for saving it until the payment is due. It is so nice when Christmas comes to know you have money saved and sitting there when you go shopping.

If you are beginning to get control of your spending it is a great idea to put money for food and clothes and other items in envelopes and pay cash only for those items. It is much easier to control spending and know what is left. You end up making better choices in what you buy. You don't add items to your cart as easily.

I set up every bill that I could on automatic payment. I don't have to worry about trying to get a bill sent off. I set up our bills and checking account on a Quicken program to record and track spending. Through that you can set up your bills and it will show a list in order of what is due next. We get paid every two weeks so I sit down the Thursday before the Friday pay date and record all our payments. This way I only have to do budgeting stuff every two weeks. I pay/record every bill that will be paid or due withing the next two week period. I have been lazy and have not been recording our daily reciepts for purchases for items until that two week period. We have been living on a budget for our 20 year marriage so it is all second nature. If you are starting out you need to record them daily or more frequently just to keep a check on yourself. Better if you are using the cash system for items, you don't have to worry about recording reciepts. I love that I can sort on Quicken by catagory to see if I am on target for groceries or whatever catagory.

If you freak out at the thought of a budget I would love to know what it is that makes you feel that way. Is it a feeling of being told what to do? Is it a fear of not having enough? I am just curious what it is that makes you want to avoid it.