Starting Fresh with my home

I won a fabulous prize package a couple weeks ago at Raisinghomemakers.com.

I started off super excited to even enter because of the 31 Days to Clean e-book (find the link and a youtube video about it on the right hand side of her blog).  My youngest daughter used to beg me each night to read the story about Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 in her children's Bible.  This e-book teaches us to have a Martha house the Mary way.  Martha spent time cooking, cleaning, etc, while Mary sat at Jesus's feet listening intently while He taught.  While there is nothing wrong with cleaning and serving, Jesus said Mary did the better thing by spending time with Him.  I want to please my Lord, spend time with Him each day and still serve my family by cleaning my home.

Unfortunately I've been in a rut and miserably failing at both tasks.  I'm constantly checking email and facebook, looking stuff up and learning how to be a better homemaker, mother and wife.  I clean other people's homes for a living (well, about 4 hours a week isn't really "a living" but it gives us a little extra money to toss into the emergency fund that Dave Ramsey said we should be building for Baby Step #3 now that we're completely debt free (except the house).  Unfortunately, I clean other homes, know how to be a great homemaker, but don't actually do it.  It's been a couple months since I actually cleaned my bathroom (other than just a quick wipe).  My kitchen is constantly covered in flour dust, and the counters covered in dirty dishes.  I get started on cleaning something, then I decide to bake a loaf of bread.  After all the kneading, the dishes still aren't done, but my arms are tired from grinding flour and kneading.  My home is no longer a castle fit for the man of this house.  It's no longer comfortably allergy-free for my health (and my little ones who also suffer from allergies).  I recently read that clutter can cause migraines, which have been an increasing nuisance to me.  My home is no longer fit to invite people over, or when they stop by unannounced to allow them to step into my home.  My home isn't filthy, but it's not what I'd like to present to people or have my husband come home to after a hard day at work.

At the beginning of 2011, I was challenged to read the whole Bible in 66 days.  I thought it to be a crazy and unattainable goal.  January 6th, I decided that I'd try to read it all in 60 days, since I didn't start on time.  I read 43 pages each night for about 40 days.  Then I started to struggle.  I knew I didn't have 2 hours each night sometimes, and I let other things get in the way.  The 60th day came and went, while I sat stationary in 1Corinthians.  After reading so much of the Bible, I gave up because I didn't reach my goal.  Once in a while I'd read a page or two, but overall, I totally neglected my relationship with God in many ways.

I'm motivated once again by this book to focus on why I clean, spend time with Jesus each day and to actually clean my home - not just think about it or read about it.

The Mary challenge for Day one is to come up with a mission statement and make it pretty.  I've been mulling over my mission statement for the past two weeks.  I would write something I think is great, then I change my mind and think it's corny.  I even tried to steal some other people's ideas at Joyful Mothering who is hosting a 31 days to Clean challenge.  This is what I finally decided on because I can't come up with something better.  It's an acrostic poem and I hope to make it all pretty to display in my hallway of aprons soon.  Right now my dear husband is trying to sleep after a 22 hour work day that ended at 5:30am.  That keeps me from my pretty papers and scrapbooking stuff.

Why I Clean

Create a castle for my family that I adore and want to serve
Lovingly train my daughters to care for their family and home
Eager hands that work bring glory to God
Able to have friends and family over
Now I can truly relax, breathe and enjoy my family

Coupons

I went to Safeway last week and saved a ton of money.  This is by far the best shopping trip I've ever had.  I recently attended a class in Highlands Ranch put on my Jennie from www.bargainblessings.com  I subscribe to www.thegrocerygame.com and usually come home with only things from Teri's list.  I save about 65% with the grocery game and only get 1 Sunday paper at that time (although I'm considering getting two, so I can get more of the super great deals).

I used a couple e-coupons, some paper coupons (from the Sunday paper) and some printable coupons (printed off my printer).  Jennie at Bargain Blessings shows a few super deals each week and hunts down rare coupons found on facebook and other websites to save more than anyone else I've found online.  The grocery game has unadvertised sales, so there are many more items to shop for each week.  The grocery game has a fee, but I save much more than I spend, and her site is so easy to use.  Bargain Blessings is free, but not as extensive.  Jennie gets free stuff all the time (lots of one item, too because she uses multiple coupons).

Couponing takes a lot of time and effort.  Couponing is an amazing way to save money.  I've got a great "stockpile" now (several packs of toilet paper fill the cupboard under one bathroom sink, drawers of free toothbrushes and toothpaste, super cheap razors, free cough drops, etc).  I occasionally get great deals on organic foods, cheap soaps, and convenience foods.  If it's free, I almost always get it (except when it's full of fake sugar, then I leave my coupons in the store near the item for someone who might eat that nasty stuff).

Here's what I bought.

12 cans of Campbells Soup
2 boxes of crackers (I had a free coupon for the crackers from Nabisco for being on a survey panel Kraft First Taste, I think)
1 half-gallon of buttermilk (half off cuz it was going to expire in a few days)

Everything was on sale.  When you use a free coupon for something, they give you the regular price as the price of the coupon, even though it's on sale, so I made money on the Stix.

Yes, you read this right.  I paid $2.41 for all of this.  94% savings off the regular price for all of these items.  How crazy is that?  This is typical of a Bargain Blessings trip.  There aren't a lot of items (obviously this won't feed my family of 5), but it's great for stocking up on frequently used items instead of paying full price for anything.  I might have been able to buy 2 cans of soup for $2.41 if it was regular price.  I couldn't have gotten a box of crackers or the buttermilk for $2.41.

I made 6 batches of buttermilk pancakes (we usually eat 3 batches at a time).  I also made homemade buttermilk biscuits and a buttermilk spice cake.  That used up the buttermilk before it expired.  I also found out you can freeze buttermilk, so the next time I found it on clearance, I poured it into some Ball canning jars, left 1/2 inch headspace, screwed on a white plastic freezer canning lid and put it in the freezer for the next time I need a cup of buttermilk.  It's rare that I need it, but occasionally I need some and hate to pay full price for anything!

Check out the websites above if you're interested in saving crazy amounts of money.  Bargain Blessings will work well in the Denver metro area, but she may know of a blogger close to your area that could help you at your particular stores.  Grocery Game is available in almost all areas and you can try it for free for 4 weeks.  I save about $200 each month on my food budget.  Before couponing I used to always try to shop for "deals," and bought cheap stuff so I figure I was already saving a bunch on my own, but save $200 more than I did doing it on my own.  If you are just buying whatever's on your list each week you would probably save much more.  You also have to rethink how you cook and shop.  You have to stock up on great deals when you see them and some weeks there really aren't many good deals.  Good luck and I hope you find a way to save some money!

Financial Peace

Jim and I attended Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (FPU) at our local church in February 2009.  I dragged Jim along, telling him I would spend my Christmas money on this class (it was discounted through our church, so it cost me $100.)  This covered the book, workbook, CDs of the class videos to listen to, and being able to attend 13 classes and watch the videos at church.  We took Alex, who attended youth group, and Trinity & Clara, who were some of the oldest girls in the nursery to church with us each and every Sunday night.  After just a class or two, Jim was enjoying himself and learning, as much as I was.

History and Lies

My idea of a budget was printing out where our money went.  Jim had just finished going back to school, where we racked up student loans to pay for school, and lived on the GI Bill and a tiny bit of income I made doing part-time preschool teaching and house cleaning.  When Jim got re-hired at Dell, we moved to Colorado.  This was the fall of 2008.  We had to purchase furniture, a TV (it had to be HD of course), and splurged on cable for the first time in our married life together (15 years at the time).  We also purchased a newer Suburban that was a bit more reliable.  A year earlier we sold our first home in TX, so we had a bit of cash on hand for the Suburban, and hopefully a down payment on a house once we determined where we'd live.  We didn't want to spend our actual cash, and the furniture and electronic stores had this great "no interest for one year financing" plan going on.  Of course we thought that was a great deal, and since we had cash in the bank, we knew we'd have that paid off the month before it was due.

Jim's student loan was only $11,000 and we only had to pay $120 per month.  This wasn't real debt, I told myself.  Neither was the great finance plans we had for the furniture and TV, since we had the cash in the bank.  It wasn't real debt to live off credit cards each month if I made the full payment each month.

LIES, it was all lies.  I tricked myself into believing these lies.  I had debt.  About $20,000 worth of debt.  I realized the error of my thinking during this class.  I realized how much money and worry I could have saved had I paid cash for these things.  Jim's student loan was decreasing by $65-75 per month.  I was giving the government $45-55 per month as a thank you for letting us borrow their money.  (That's how I explain paying interest to my little ones.)

Zero Budget and Budget Meetings

The first month of FPU, we learned how to make a "zero budget".  This means we have to allocate every dollar that comes in before we let it go out.  This was hard, especially at first, since so much had to go to pay the credit card from the previous month.  Eventually we moved to only using cash.  Dave Ramsey told the "nerd" - that's me, to create the budget.  I also had to present the budget and shut up while Jim looked at it. The "free-spirit" - that's Jim had to join me at the "budget meeting" each time we got paid.  His job was to change something in the budget.  The first meeting, Jim said, there's no money for tires.  I'll need $900 for Suburban tires in a year.  I calmly asked where I should get this money from, since that equated to a $75 deficit.  He blurted, "take it out of gifts."  Eventually we figured out how to still have Christmas paid for, money set aside for tires and other auto problems and still have money to pour into our debt snowball (step 2).

Baby Step 1: Baby Emergency Fund

Sell a vehicle, have a garage sale, unload everything you can on Craigslist, get a second job, whatever!  You need $1000 in the bank to pay for any minor emergencies that come up.  We had money in the bank, but wanted to keep some for a partial down payment on our home.  We finally sold the old, broken down Suburban.  It needed a new radiator, and each replacement resulted in a new minor broken plastic piece.  Jim got it all fixed up and running and we had a little over $2000 in the bank for an emergency fund.

Baby Step 2:  Debt Snowball

Throw everything you have at your debt.  Dave says ignore the percent interest on all debt for now.  He taught us to pay off our smallest debt first.  I paid every credit card, and put them all away.  I transferred all of my automatic payments from credit to debit.  We accomplished paying off our furniture in April, the TV in June, then in December we finished the last payment of Jim's student loan.  Every time I wrote the final check, I told Jim and we high-fived.  It was an amazing feeling.  If I had tried to tackle the student loan first, it would have shrunk, until the payments were due for our furniture and TV, which then would become the priority with all that back interest, and I would have been frustrated with not making anything go away until the end of the year.  When we paid the first debt, we got to throw that much extra at the second one, then when it was paid off we poured all of that on top of the payment on the next loan.  This becomes like a snowball effect, the amount you're paying on each loan grows as you pay off a smaller one.  You accomplish more, faster and with more determination.  We were like a "gazelle" running from the debt "cheetah" as Dave showed on a video one night.  We had gazelle-like intensity.  We paid off our debt on Christmas Eve.  It was like a present to ourselves.  We announced in on Facebook, told everyone we spoke to and were so excited!  We have a chunky mortgage on our home, but other than that WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!

Baby Step 3:  Fully Funded Emergency Fund

This is the step we're currently on, and will be on for about 2 years.  This is collecting an emergency fund that will carry us through 3-6 months of no income.  If Jim were to lose his job or if someone gets horribly ill, we'll have enough money to pay for all necessities.  This includes mortgage, gas for car, electricity, gas, water, 1 cell phone, and $1000 for medical coverage (hopefully we'll get it much cheaper).  We'll immediately cut the cable, other phones (cell and home probably), internet, spend no money on extra clothes or splurge on other fun things.  Jim and I have analyzed the budget together and have calculated the amount we'll need to save to be safe through hardships.  I've got a couple months worth of food stored up at all times (I stock up when I've got coupons that correspond with sales) and shop at a farmers' market for fresh produce, which I'm canning when it's a super great price.  This should also result in less food money being spent and we'll be ok for a while.  We currently have 1 1/2 months of emergency money, and Jim and I will take any job we can get to get by if something catastrophic happens.  We'll probably ask Alex to do the same.  We will use NO credit cards (in fact, we cancelled almost every one we had.)  Soon, we'll be getting rid of the very last one.  I'd like to have Baby Step 3 fully funded first.  I spent a couple hours cancelling every credit card months ago.  I shredded them and had Jim cancel a few more.  It was scary and freeing at the same time.  I'll be checking my credit report again (I do it 3 times per year free) and I'll see if I missed anything.  Each time we get a report we find something we forgot or didn't remember ever getting (nope - no one hijacked our accounts or stole our identity.)

Once this step is done, I look forward to working on the next steps.

Baby Step 4:  15% into retirement (pre-tax IRAs and Roth IRAs)

We are putting in the amount that Dell matches into the pre-tax IRA, but no extras at this time.  I'm looking forward to hunting down some great mutual funds that will be slow-growing stable investments.  Dave says to look for a 25 year track record of at least 10-12% returns.  There are a few good, quality companies that have good returns even in this bad economy.  Now's a great time to buy, since things are cheap!

Baby Step 5:  College Funding

Since we've got one child who will be college age in 2 years, we probably won't be helping out much in this area.  This is why it's even more crucial to teach him how to manage his money now, and encourage him to save.  We will be helping him by paying for half of his car.  He must pay his half in cash, as will we.  We're encouraging him to do his best in school and work while in college to make sure he doesn't go in debt.  Hopefully he'll chose to go to college and not incur any student loans or other debt to do it.  The girls will be encouraged to do the same, and hopefully at the time they enter college, we'll have a little saved for him.

Baby Step 6:  Pay off your home early

This and retirement funding are the steps I most look forward to.  I want to stop paying "thank you's to the bank" for letting me borrow their money!

Baby Step 7:  Build wealth and give!

Jim and I trust the Lord with our finances, and therefore have regularly tithed our 10% to our local church for years.  We also have a couple people/organizations that we donate to.  All of the money we earn is God's money.  Everything we own is His.  I'm recognizing this by giving.  Since giving regularly, we've never needed anything.  God has provided during all of our hardships.  He is good.

Learn More

Dave Ramsey is on facebook and you can also check out his website www.daveramsey.com  You can also check out some of his books at the library or buy them.  He's an amazing and fun teacher.  If you have the opportunity to go to FPU, do it.  You will learn how to save money by paying cash, learn to communicate better with your spouse about money and budgets.  You'll have less stress, fear and debt.  I am pretty sure the first FPU class is free, and most locations for classes offer a preview class.  Find a class near you.  You won't regret it.  You'll spend less on this class than you will learn to save.  I've cut my grocery budget about $200/month with tips from fellow classmates.  I saved hundreds on a new HE washer/dryer Jim found on Craigslist because it had a scratch/dent on the back corner, and a couple hundred more by asking for a cash discount.  I've also saved at Target, TJ Maxx and other places by asking for a cash discount.  We have more fun now that there's a specific envelope for "entertainment."  We specifically budget for it.  I won't get angry when Jim gets a new movie, Jim and I go out on date days or date nights now and can do it because we have budgeted for it.  I enjoy myself more, and have more money saved than ever in our lives (except right after we sold our house in Texas).  Thank you Dave Ramsey.  Thank you to my class leader.  Thank you to my classmates.  Thank you to Jim, my partner, my best friend, my husband for coming with me to the class and being open to change how we spend money.  Thank you most of all, God, for teaching me to be wise with the money you let us use!

Chores

Why do my children have chores?

I am primarily a stay at home mom.  I cook, bake, sew, quilt, clean, etc.  I also clean 3 other houses for a little extra savings to increase our emergency fund, and someday pay for part of my children's car, purchase something special for our home, etc.  After working for several cleaning companies, I've realized the value of frequent dusting and vacuuming.  I've learned how few people were taught how to care for their home, and how few children are expected to clean up after themselves.

What do they do?

Not every chore they do is paid.  They are expected to pick up and actually clean their own bedrooms (vacuum, dust, change sheets, sort laundry, etc.) before getting paid for other household chores (they clean a bathroom, vacuum, dust, dry and wet mop, take out trash, clean the inside of microwaves, etc).  My children are only paid for chores I would normally do in my home.  I still periodically do some detailed cleaning (blinds, oven/stove, windows, areas that are high or dangerous like the tops of cabinets, light fixtures, etc).  The chores they finish each week will help them know how to care for their own home someday.  These chores are somewhat consistent, but rotate each 12 weeks.  I created it on a spreadsheet, with income amounts for each chore.  I also colored several chores green.  This means they HAVE to do them.  The others can earn them extra money if they chose.  Once in a while I tell them the whole list is mandatory.  Some chores aren't required every week and are grayed out (yellow in this pic), since others may do it, I'd like to do a detail clean or it just doesn't need to be done on a weekly basis.

This is a sample of the first 4 weeks.  I print 8 weeks at a time, fold in half and give one to each child.  They check off their chores, then I look over their work (or sometimes have a sibling inspect), then we sit together, calculate totals, tithe, savings, and exchange money when their bags get full of coins.

How it works.

Jim and I instituted this chore list and income for our children after we attended a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University (FPU) class Feb 2009.  This class is detailed more in Financial Peace.  Since that class, we've become debt free except the house, and have accumulated 1 1/2 months of emergency money, that grows by a few hundred each month.  He also teaches adults (and kids) to use the envelope system for many of the regular purchases (food, gas, entertainment, clothing, etc) your family makes each month.  Dave advocates "commissions" for the extra work kids do.  My kids each have an envelope, bag or jar (their preference) for "CHURCH" (tithe - mandatory 10% of earnings), and "BANK" or "SAVE" (the next 10% of their earnings goes here).  The rest of their money is their own money to do with as they wish.  We have them calculate their "income", figure their tithe and savings amounts and use the rest of the money they earn to buy gifts at Christmas, friends' birthday gifts, save for something special for themselves, and splurge occasionally on candy or junk at the grocery store.  Sometimes I give a "bonus" for the person who completed largest percent of their chores, saved the most, or did the most thorough job.  The bonus goes directly to the bank.

Looking forward.

Paying my children income for work they do around the house will save me money in the long run.  While I teach them how to care for their own home and cook, we get time one-on-one to talk about stuff.  I teach them the value of hard work, helping, saving, tithing, counting money, and making change.  Hopefully these values will help them become excellent men and women who regularly and joyfully tithe, save and think before spending.  At this moment, Alex is debating whether to get his drivers licence (or permit) now or wait until he's 18.  He's looking at the large expense of paying for his insurance and not having enough money saved for his half of the car he'd like to purchase.  We've agreed to match what he spends on a car, to include special tools or equipment needed to restore an older car to good working condition.  He's taking a second Autos class spring 2011 to ensure he knows how to maintain and fix his own vehicle someday.  Alex is also working on the 100K mile tune-up on Jim's Accord.  Jim purchased all the parts with money saved in his auto budget, will have Alex read the manual and do the work, Jim will pay Alex, and everyone is happy!  Alex will earn money and have a better understanding of vehicles, and Jim will save money.

Since my children aren't all grown up, I can't say how they will turn out.  I am confident though, that God will direct them and teach them.  I am training my children in the ways of the Lord.  I am training them how to give, save, spend wisely, care for their homes and help others.  I pray that I am doing this in a way that will honor and please the Lord.