Speaking of superheros…

I have to admit that this last week I felt like supermom.  Not to toot my own horn or anything (TOOT TOOT!), but this is a breakthrough for me.

Look what I managed to do:

I know it doesn’t look like much in the picture, but I now have THREE meals made from scratch chillin’ in my freezer.  Made by yours truly.  All while I managed to study for a test, take care of my busy toddler, and then work all afternoon/evening. Oh, and I was fighting a cold.  BOO-YAH!

TOOT TOOT!

What you are looking at is a chicken & veggie noodle casserole (which is pretty good, I must say), and an Italian veggie & pasta soup.

Normally we try to stock up our freezer with a couple of frozen meals for the week, just in case we’re too tired to cook anything.  Typically we buy a bag of some sort of frozen pasta meal, which would consist of chicken, veggies, noddles, and some sauce.  It costs around $10 a bag.

By making my own convenience meals I was able to make three for just under $10.  I got triple the value by doing it myself.  Plus, I was able to control how much salt and fat went into it, without the preservatives too.  Yeah, I had to sacrifice some time.  But I gotta tell ya that it feels good to know that I am taking care of my family.  There is something surprisingly satisfying about it.  It feels so…wholesome, I guess that’s the word I’m looking for.  And I’m saving money, too.

I’m almost done with Miserly Moms.  I haven’t applied everything, but the few things I have done so far have worked out well.  Now I just have to keep it up as I try to master some of the other skills of being miserly.

I made the soup using a guide I found on a cooking blog I like.  The soup guide is awesome.  It gives you directions on how to make a soup out of pretty much anything.  The book I’m reading suggests instituting a soup night or baked potato night once a week, since it is an inexpensive but typically hearty meal.  On a night you don’t know what to cook you can use the soup guide to make use of some of the leftover veggies, proteins, and grains you have kicking around in your fridge and pantry rather than spending the extra money to go out.  Seriously, check it out.  The soup guide is in the left column if you scroll down.  You can thank me later.

Tags: frozen meals, soup, supermom

Mind games

The writer of the book I’m currently reading, Jonni McCoy, is not a financial planner or anything like that.  According to the introduction she is a regular middle-class mom living in an expensive part of the country who simply wanted to be home with her kids.  Since a higher income wasn’t possible, she had to find ways to make the money they had work harder.  That’s why this book appeals to me right now.  There is not much possibility of us coming into more money in the immediate future.  Hopefully someday, but not today.  Probably not tomorrow either.  So, we need to stretch our dollars further.

To some, the words “saving” and “delayed gratification” and “used, er… pre-owned” are foreign.  The notion of spending and needing less is kind of an old-fashioned idea in today’s society.  Our country is all about bigger, better, newer, faster, flashier, and RIGHT NOW.  As I’ve been mulling over the ideas presented in this book and how to make it work for me, I’m realizing that the first step is to change my mentality.  Before any of this can work, I need to get in the right frame of mind.

Generally speaking, I think I could say that I do fairly well.  I don’t buy a lot of “stuff”: magazines, clothing, drinks, home decor, movies, etc.  However, I am all about anything that will make my life easier, such as pre-packaged and frozen convenience meals and snacks, or the occasional fast food run when we’re just too blasted tired to try to cook anything at home.  While I may be making my life easier in the short term by throwing a frozen pre-packaged burrito in the microwave, I need to look at the big picture and realize that I’m not making my life easier in the long run.  The more money I spend on convenience items, the more money I am going to have to make to pay for them, which means the more I am going to have to work.  The more I work, the less time I have to cook a real dinner, which means I will default to a convenience item.  It’s a vicious, vicious cycle, people.

So far the book has been focusing almost entirely on food expenses, since that is probably the biggest spending opportunity for most Americans.  I remember putting together a spreadsheet several months ago of our monthly expenses and discovering that we were spending more than $400 a month on groceries.  $400+ a month!  For two and a half people!  I about gagged on my frozen burrito when I saw that number.  Since then I’ve been trying to make more of an effort in my meal planning so we can cut down on the cost, but truth be told I haven’t exactly followed up and stayed on top of keeping track to see if its made a difference.

I’m hoping that if I start applying the ideas in Miserly Moms that I will be able to actually make some headway.  So, it begins!  Ms. Jonni has outlined Eleven Miserly Guidelines to get me on the way to financial freedom.  Guideline #1:  Don’t confuse frugality with depriving yourself.  And the bottom line to doing that?  Make sure your goals are worth more than anything else.  Is being debt-free your priority?  Quitting your job?  Maybe having a family?  Maybe it’s having more money to go see the world?  Whatever it is, it has to be better than anything else.  Better than getting your nails done regularly.  Better than take-out three times a week.  Better than a giant Diet Coke from the gas station every day.

For me, I want to be able to spend more time with my family.  That’s better than all the hair highlights in the world.  Yep, mind over matter.  I can do this.

What do you think?  What makes being frugal worth it to you?

Tags: priorities, sacrfices

Excel spreadsheets, here I come…

I would venture to say that I’ve always been fairly good with my money.  I like to pat myself on the back when I see someone who is definitely not good with their money and feel thankful for the money smarts I have.  I generally am able to put off wants in order to meet our needs first, and I’ve always set money aside for savings.

However, I have never been a good with keeping a budget.  While I am always careful, I am not exact in my spending.  I could be more disciplined.

In fact, I need to be more disciplined.

The husband and I have goals.  A house that isn’t attached to someone else’s house, for example.  A garage (there aren’t many things I hate more than scraping ice off my windshield in the morning when it’s 2 degrees outside).  Not having both of us work full-time.  Taking our kids to the beach as they grow up.  A trip to Europe someday, hopefully.

Right now we live comfortably, if not lavishly.  But we have some debt weighing us down.  We both work- a little too hard it feels like at times.  I’d like to change that.  I’d like to get us to the point where our debt is gone and eventually I can stay home with my kiddos.

So, in order to accomplish this (as well as one of my new year’s resolutions!  I’m really sticking to them!), I’ve decided to start reading Miserly Moms: Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy for some tips on how to reach my goal.  So far I’m intrigued…and a little scared.  I see where the author is coming from, but can I really do it?  It’s not exactly easy, but it may be worth it.

Do you have a budget?  If so, how do you manage to stick to it?

Tags: book review, budget

The first review, part I

I’ve decided that the first book I will experiment with will be one on feeding my child, since I feel extraordinarily clueless in this department.  You’d think it would be pretty easy and straightforward, but now that she is eating mainly solids and largely eschewing pureed baby food, I’m kind of at a loss.  She only has about 5 1/2 teeth, so she limited in what she can chew.  Add to that the fact that she is a very busy baby and often finds exploring her world far more beneficial than eating and I’m really in a bind.

I think my anxiety is compounded by the fact that last semester I took a basic nutrition class, which was interesting and informative, but it has me all worried about eating a balanced, healthy diet.  It has me even more worried that I am not providing my daughter a balanced and healthy diet, because surely she needs it more than even I because she is growing and developing, and what mother doesn’t want her child to have every advantage possible in this difficult world?

My nutrition book often touched on the fact that after 6 months of age a child’s iron stores can become depleted and it is often worsened by having a milk-heavy diet.  Toddlers tend to love milk, and will often fill up on that rather than eat their meals.  While little ones need several ounces of milk a day, it shouldn’t be their main food source anymore.    Sometimes I’ll watch Claire drink her milk and the words milk-heavy diet… milk-heavy diet…will circle in my brain, causing me to get all sorts of knots in my stomach and wondering  whether or not she is depleting her iron stores that very moment and will soon become anemic.

So, I picked up a book at the library and dove in.  For this installment I’ve decided to read the book Feeding: The Brazelton Way, by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D.  Dr. Brazelton is a tenured pediatrician and a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Sparrow is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, so I’m assuming these guys know their stuff.  They’ve written several other books on topics such as sleeping, soothing a fussy baby, potty training, etc.

Speaking of people named Sparrow…did you hear that Nicole Richie had a baby boy and named him Sparrow- as his first name? No offense if you decided to name your litlle boy Sparrow, I’m sure he’s a gem, but I think that poor kid is headed for some wedgies and good poundings on the playground due to his sissy name.  Anyway, enough of potentially offending people.  Back to the subject…

So I’m about halfway through the book and there have been some good tips and interesting thoughts, as well as a few things I think may not apply to all babies.  Dr. Brazelton starts out by talking about the importance of using feedings as a valuable time to bond and interact with your baby and to help further their development.  He mentions that as the child grows and begins to feed himself, the parent may have a difficult time letting go and allowing the child independence during feedings, but it is important to do so.  I will admit that while I sometimes love that Claire can feed herself and can eat a variety of foods, I often miss the quiet times we had on the couch together where she would grip my thumb and little finger with her tiny hands, eyes half closed, as I fed her a bottle.  I loved being able to put her over my shoulder and snuggle with her as I patted her back.  She still gets a couple of bottles a day, and I adore that rare time when she’ll sit contentedly on my lap without squirming to reach or grab or crawl away.  I love seeing her so relaxed, eyes half closed again, clutching and rubbing her blankie as I feed her a bottle.  She can hold her bottle on her own, but I love holding it for her.  I dread the day when I have to take away the bottle completely and those sweet, quiet times will vanish. Throughout the book Dr. Brazelton frequently touches not only on the child’s ongoing development with the feeding process, but on the parent’s as well.  I have a lot to learn about letting my baby grow up.

Oh dear, speaking of my baby, it sounds like someone is awake.  I’ll have to dive into this later.  Stay tuned!

Tags: book review, feeding