Who Wants A Clean House?

I love the show Clean House.  I could live without watching the yard sale, but I love the before and after.  It's amazing how, once you clear out the clutter and bring some creativity in, ANY space can be attractive and useful.  That's how I want my house to be; attractive and useful.

It always amazes me how reluctant the people are to give up all of the stuff that is making their life miserable!  It once belonged to someone they loved or they got it at an event.  I never understood attaching so much meaning to these trinkets you pick up as you go through life.  Having a terrible memory, I DO understand being afraid you will forget those special moments with the ones you love.

One episode had an idea that I think would be useful to a lot of people in that situation.  They took pictures of the treasured items and made a scrapbook with space by each picture to write down memories about the MOMENT or PERSON that made the item special.  In the "after," the person had a usable space and something to remind them of what was really important (which was NOT the item).

I realized that this same thing happens in the rest of our lives as well, not just with stuff.  Those of you who have read my earlier posts know that I struggle with scheduling issues.  Why do we hold onto the clutter in our schedule that keeps us from enjoying the important things on our to-do list, like time with our family?  As my "office" job comes to an end, I plan on looking at my schedule as a space.  One that I want to be happy in; the "after"- attractive and useful, and with room for the really important things.

Purging

We often hear the expression "binging and purging".  Because we binge, or overload, we end up with more than we can use. All that extra must then be purged, or cleared out, for us to get back to a balanced state.  I have spent this week purging my kitchen.  I was hoping to get done in one day, but it took me two days just to go through the pantry and cabinets!  I tossed everything that had expired, donated everything that would expire soon that I wasn't absolutely positive I'd use in time and inventoried and organized everything that was left. 

I put the breakfast and snack foods that Josh can get by himself on a low shelf in the pantry.  The rest I grouped by spices, baking, mixes, pasta & rice, sauces, canned, etc.  Now I will easily be able to find things when I'm cooking or looking to see what I have as I plan my menu and shopping trip for the week.

I made several discoveries during this process.  When doing a task like this, we need to think about the "why" behind the "what".  Why did I have so many expired items?  Why hadn't they been used?  By looking at what I had that had expired, I realized that: 1. I had made plans to do a lot of baking at one point, bought all the stuff and then got distracted/busy and didn't do it, so I had a lot of extracts and things like that, 2. When I tried a new recipe, I would get a whole container of the ingredient and then not make the recipe again (at least not often enough to use all of that ingredient), 3. I'm a sucker for a good sale and had "stocked up" on items because they were a good deal rather than because I knew I would use them, 4. As with the "baking plan", I had gotten busy and bought "convenience food" rather than cooking at home, leaving many of my seasonings and other ingredients to expire.

So how do these revelations affect my future cooking and purchasing plans?  The main change that I need to make is better planning.  Going forward, I will check to see what ingredients I already have as I plan what to cook for the week.  Then I have to stick to that plan and not let my other "to do" items overtake my schedule.  The same goes for purchasing.  My goal is to purchase items on sale or with coupons, but I need to make sure they will be products I will actually use.  Otherwise, they'll just be a part of my next purge.

We can apply these same lessons to the other parts of the house.  Make sure that everything you have is something you will actually use.  If it's not, give it to someone who WILL use it.  When you find a good sale, only invest in the items you are sure you will use, otherwise it is just a waste of money no matter how cheap it is.  Once you have gone through what you have, keeping everything organized so that you can find it all will help you quickly see what you have and what you need.  That will help keep you from buying duplicates of things you already have.

573 Ways to Save Money

No, I'm not going to list all 573 ways here.  That's the title of a book by Peter and Jennifer Sander that I just finished.  I decided that, since my financial contribution to the household will now be largely through saving, I had better do some research.  They had all kinds of ideas, from the kooky "make a solar cooker" to the really practical.  Some were also repeated; they were trying to fill out a whole book, after all.  I have gone through and selected those that were the most practical for me.  Read the book if you want to see if there are others that would help you.

General Money Tips

• Keep closer tabs on your money.  Write down every penny you spend for two weeks.  You may not realize how much you're spending $1-2 at a time.
• Purchase concentrated juice, cleaner, etc and mix your own.  It will cost 1/2 of the premixed version.

Around the House

• Check the air pressure in your tires
• Change your car's oil and air filter
• Air dry your clothes (the dryer uses more energy than any other appliance)- you can get an inexpensive "indoor" clothesline at your local home improvement store. Toss clothes in the dryer for a few minutes to soften once dry.
• use rechargeable batteries and washable plastic containers rather than buying new batteries and plastic bags over and over.
• non-toxic household cleaner: 1/2 baking soda, 1/2 Borax.  Shake some out, add a drop of dish detergent and scrub.
• Clean off your refrigerator coils- they need to release heat into the air and all that dust holds it in.
• Rent a carpet cleaner at the grocery store- it's cheaper than buying one or paying others to do it.
• Learn to fix things yourself at www.doityourself.com, www.wonderhowto.com, www.viewdo.com or www.monkeysee.com
• Paint is the cheapest way to redecorate.  check your local home improvement/paint store for "mistints".
• Moth repellent: hang rosemary, lavender, mint, thyme or eucalyptus in your closet.
• Check the weather stripping and seals on doors and windows.
• Close the vents in unused rooms & shut the door.

In the Kitchen

• Go meatless a couple times a week
• Make your own food- premade versions can cost up to FIVE times as much!! 
• www.anniesrecipes.com 
• www.foodnetwork.com
• www.cook4seasons.com
• Tomato Sauce Recipes at www.recipezaar.com and www.101cookbooks.com
• Check out "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"- recipe available on www.motherearthnews.com  This recipe can be used to make pizza dough and sweet bread like cinnamon buns as well.
• Grow your own herbs and vegetables- it can be done in pots if you don't have a large yard.  Find helpful tips and recipes at www.helpfulgardner.com and www.eartheasy.com
• Buy a can of Campbell's condensed soup and go to www.helpgrowyoursoup.com for a free packet of tomato seeds.
• Make your own baking mixes.  Find recipes at www.budget101.com/convenience_mixes.htm
• Get a bottle and refill it at home instead of buying more.
• Offer to help a neighbor harvest their fruit in exchange for some.
• Buy in season & eat in season (or learn to can them for later)- check the local farmers market.
• Make muffins & coffee at home for breakfast on the go.  You can freeze the muffins for up to a month.  You can find recipes at www.eatbetteramerica.com

For your Health

• Bring your lunch!!  Whether it's to work or something fun, it's ALWAYS cheaper to bring your own food. 
• Save your waist and your wallet.  Set aside half of your meal for lunch the next day or use the meat from one meal to make another (for example you could take that leftover pork roast to make BBQ sandwiches). 
• Quit the gym- walk outside.  If it's raining, walk at the mall but leave your wallet in the car. 

For Looking Good

• Get your stylish friends together.  Have a party where you all bring some clothes, accessories, etc that you can trade or share among the group.
• Spa Skin Scrub: 
• 1/2 C. grated citrus zest, 1/2 C. almonds, 1/3 C. sea salt, 1 T. almond oil
• Blend citrus zest & almonds in blender, mix in salt & oil
• Store in glass jar
• Conditioning Hair Treatment:
• 2 T. almond oil & 4 drops citrus essential oil
• massage through hair & leave in 20 mins
• shampoo as normal
• Bath Oil:
• baby oil & a few drops of essential oil 
• mix & store in a glass jar

When Shopping

• ALWAYS ask to speak to a manager and ask for a discount.
• www.giftcardsagain.com saves you 15-20% when buying gift cards.  You can also cash in unwanted gift cards at www.giftcardbuyback.com
• Buy big ticket items out of season.  Ask a sales rep when the item you're interested in is cheapest.
• When you want a big ticket item, wait a week or even a month before purchasing and reevaluate to see if you are still willing to spend the money on it.
• Go in with a friend.  Split the cost of a rental cabin, buy in bulk & split it.
• Holiday Sales usually offer the best prices.
• Buy used online or at a consignment shop.  For sports items, try www.playitagainsports.com
• Make use of garage sales, but only for items you are already planning buying- don't spend extra money on things you don't need.  Even if those extras are cheap, that's still more expensive than not buying them.
• Compare prices on www.pricegrabber.com

When you Travel

• Check out www.reidsguide.com for colleges that rent out dorm rooms during the summer.
• Try a volunteer vacation.  Part or all of your lodging and food may be covered if you agree to spend some of your time volunteering.  www.habitat-nola.org, www.charityguide.org, www.sierraclub.org can help you find a volunteer vacation.  Some of the money you do spend may be tax deductible.
• Call the locales and hotels you would like to visit and ask when the off-season and cheapest prices are.  You can also ask if they are currently running any specials. 
• Check out www.travelzoo.com, www.us.lastminute.com, www.lastminutetravel.com
• Vacation in places with a good transportation system & skip the car rental.  
• Check out "rideshare" on craigslist or homeswap (for vacation) at www.homelink-usa.com

For Entertainment

• Create a babysitting exchange with friends who have kids of a similar age to yours.
• Create a book swap with your friends or go to www.bookmooch.com or www.paperbackswap.com
• Share magazine subscriptions with your friends.
• Increase your insurance deductibles & get healthy- your health insurance rates will be lower.1
  
• Have a picnic in the park and take your dog for a walk afterwards- you'll save money and improve your health.
• Light some candles, pour a glass of wine and read to each other.
• Check your local newspaper for listings of free events.
• Check your favorite restaurants for a newsletter- it may have savings in it.
• Call your local movie theater and ask the manager if there are any specials or "kids free" days.

Restructuring

For those of you who have checked in recently, you will notice some changes to this blog.  I have been trying to make sure that this blog is not only a good outlet for me, but can also be used as a resource for others.  Of course, for it to actually be useful, you have to be able to find the information you're looking for (assuming I've published a post or link about it).

I tried adding pages to this blog, but the way Blogger is set up, you can only do one "post" on each of those other pages.  Not what I had in mind.  I have kept a couple of those pages, for now anyway, but... What I have done now is to create additional blogs (using the Time to be Mom name theme).  I will still post all of my info on this blog, using it as "Home" and then, for those posts dealing with money, cooking, organization, home or inspiration, I will post them again on the applicable blog.  I have included links to these blogs on this page, so you can easily access them.

I'm looking forward to a year full of tips, tidbits and ideas!

Looking ahead to 2011

As last year, this will be another year of firsts for us.

This March we will be welcoming Bree, our first baby girl!!  Obviously, I'm going to be spending a good portion of the next couple of months preparing for her.

This will also be the first year that I will not be working (aside from some lessons) without being in school.  With Bree coming, I will not be advertising my lessons this year, so I will only keep the students I already have or get by word of mouth.  I will spend this year working on the house and taking care of Bree.  Next year, I can pick up more lessons again.  As I noted in my firsts few posts; for this year, I'm going to attempt to contribute to the household income not by trying to earn more but by saving more.  That will lead to several changes: not eating out as much, organizing the house so that we can find everything and will use the things we have, etc.

To begin that process, I invested in a freezer and a stand mixer (for pizza and bread dough that my hand mixer can't handle) as my Christmas presents.  I've also been looking at what I can do to improve the organization & storage options in my home.  Today, my mom, my mother-in-law and I are going in search of baby & storage items that are on sale!  We'll get some fun girl time and be useful at the same time!  As I said before, include someone else in your organizational challenge.  They might have a good idea or know of a product that can help you, plus it's just more fun that way!

This year, don't make the same old resolutions, make a plan.  Take those big goals and break them down into small steps that you can accomplish in a day or a week.  You will have a much better chance of success at that big item if you can see that you have been successful at completing the smaller tasks leading up to it.

I have started on my plan with my Christmas purchases.  I have also cleared Bree's room of items that we can't use for her and checked Josh's old carseat & stroller to see if we can still use them so I know what we need to purchase.  My mom will take care of painting and putting the room together once we have made our purchases.  She's the creative one.

Once we have made our purchases, the first thing I am going to do is work on a chore schedule.  I don't want to get behind or bogged down by the simple things that need to be done.  If I schedule time each day to take care of one or two of these "must-do" items, they won't build up and catch me by surprise.  One advantage to this is that, if we have unexpected guests, we should be able to get the house presentable fairly quickly.

The next task on my list is to go through the kitchen and inventory the items in the cabinets, pantry & freezer.  I will use that inventory to make a cooking/donation plan to make sure we use all of the food before it expires.  From there, I will move on to the laundry/mud room and cleaning supplies, then the mound of papers, magazines and miscellaneous items on my desk and organize my office supplies.

Obviously, it will take me several steps to get around the whole house, but each time I complete a task, I will feel a little better and be encouraged to do the next one.

Happy Planning and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Looking Back at 2010

Well, Christmas is officially over and the New Year starts in just days!  In this lull between holidays, I am reflecting over the past year before I begin planning for the new year.

This year has been a year of many firsts for us.

As Josh has gone from 3 to 4, he has been more and more able to do things for himself, though sometimes he still wants us to do them for him "just because".  While we were planning on having our second child before now, I think it will be a real blessing that Josh is so self sufficient before she comes.

This was the first year that I had enough riding students to have not one, but two weeks of riding camps.  Since I was going to be so occupied those two weeks and immediately before in preparation, I wanted to make sure I had some good quality time with Josh to make up for it.  This year, we decided that Josh was old enough (and big enough) to invest in seasons passes to out local theme park Carowinds.  It was perfect! He had never been before because he wasn't big enough for many of the rides.  It is half rides and half water park.  Between the two, we had an entire day to do nothing but play together.  I think this made a tremendous difference in the amount of impact my having had to do the camps had.

Josh also got his own first pony over the summer, thanks to a friend of mine.  Little Toot is a little Shetland who was rescued out of an abusive situation.  He is small enough that Josh can lead him and take care of him all by himself.  He is the most patient pony I've EVER seen.  He's a little cautious, but he will stand and let Josh crawl all over him as he learns.  As Josh gets too big for Toot, I'm sure Bree will be ready to take over.

Our other big first this year was Disney World.  Since I just did a whole post on that, I won't go all into that again, but all the practice standing in line at Carowinds really helped prepare Josh for that aspect of Disney.

This was also the first year that Josh was really aware of Christmas and all that goes with it.  My wonderful husband decided to try to use the Santa myth for good behavior.  He even found a website called Portable North Pole where you can create a personal message for your child from Santa. While we had been dealing with a few issues, once Josh got a personal message from Santa, he thought he was set and his behavior plummeted!  Finally, I told him I was taking one of the toys he knew we had bought back to the store and he shaped up.  

Lessons Learned

Lesson learned from Santa: kids under 5 need to see it for themselves.  They need concrete proof that something is going to happen.  They won't believe that they won't get it until they see it going back to the store.  You don't want to have to wait until Christmas Day for them to see that they aren't getting what they wanted and ruin Christmas Day (and not improve their behavior until then).  So, next year, we will be doing Santa for fun as a reward after he has behaved, but use a toy he can see (that you don't mind taking back) to help with good behavior.

There were some things that were not firsts, but that we can still learn from.  

For the second year, I did a full time office job on a temporary basis.  While I enjoy the work, we realized that I really wasn't adding much income and was adding a whole lot of stress to the whole family by not having any time to take care of things or spend with Josh.  So in the future, if I do work to earn income, it will have to be part-time or from home.

Speaking of finances, this summer I had more students than normal and picked up another school horse.  But then most of them stopped for the winter and I still have all these horses to feed.  I had picked up a couple of youngsters to train when the economy was better, but now, no one is buying.  In the future, I think I will only keep horses that I can use for lessons and personal use and maybe one for training, but not have so many that I don't have guaranteed income from.

After a few trips this year, we figured out that driving, while cheaper, also requires more planning ahead and may require an overnight stop halfway to the destination to give everyone a break.  Let the kids spend the afternoon running off their pent-up energy so they will sleep that night and be ready to sit in the car again the next day.  Also, once the kids are old enough to watch full length movies, a DVD player with a car charger is a GREAT tool!  One note: if you have someone in your family that gets motion sickness or otherwise does not do well on ling car trips, go ahead and invest in plane tickets.  While you'll have to spend more money, you'll enjoy your vacation much more if everyone is healthy for it.

Lasagna Recipe

Here is the recipe I used this week.  Everyone loved it- even Josh!  The original recipe is by Ann Hodgman and is on the Wonder Time website.  If you are planning to use this recipe for freezing, you can prepare the individual parts ahead (meat, sauce, veggies)or the entire thing.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef or ground turkey (or cooked chicken, Italian sausage, seafood, andouille, etc.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
26 to 28 ounces (about 3 cups) pasta sauce
Salt and peppe
r 2 tablespoons red wine (optional)
1 cup chicken stock
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons white wine (optional)
12 ounces (3 cups) freshly grated mozzarella
6 to 8 no-boil lasagna noodles
2 cups cooked, well-drained broccoli, spinach, peas, or other vegetables (optional)
1 cup (about 4 ounces) freshly grated parmesan

1.  Heat oven to 400. Grease a 9-by-13-inch pan. Thoroughly cook the ground beef, garlic, and herbs in a large skillet, stirring frequently and breaking up the meat. Stir in pasta sauce and bring to a simmer for about 2 minutes. Season to taste and add the red wine, if using. Set aside.
2.  In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring chicken stock to a boil. Add cream cheese, turn heat to low, and whisk until smooth, about 6 minutes. Season to taste and add the white wine, if using.
3.  Spoon half the meat sauce into the pan as evenly as possible. Sprinkle 1 cup grated mozzarella over the meat mixture. Top with 3 or 4 lasagna noodles. If using vegetables, toss them evenly over the noodles.
Pour the cream-cheese sauce over the noodles and cover with another cup of grated mozzarella. Arrange 3 or 4 lasagna noodles over the cheese, then spoon remaining meat mixture over noodles as evenly as possible. Top with the rest of the mozzarella and the grated parmesan.
4.  Bake until brown and bubbling, 35 to 45 minutes. (You'll need the longer cooking time if you have made and chilled the lasagna in advance.) Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes or it will be too gloppy to cut well. That would drive you crazy this late in the game.