2015: The Cheaper Resolutions

Welcome to the New Year!  Yes, I am aware that it is February already and I am a bit late to the party.  For the record, I did start this post way back in December though.  I have just been busy working on the resolutions I'm about to dish on.

2014 was amazing because, well, this happened...

...and lots of other great things too that pale in comparison to the joy of Jr.-a job promotion, weddings, kindergarten and achieving some of our big long-term goals!  We have big things on the docket for 2015 too!

Resolutions:

-$5 Bill Savings Plan-Every time we receive a $5 bill this year we are going to save it. I thought this would be hard but it is an relatively painless way to save.  We've save over $100 so far.  So yeah, we are digging on this resolution!

-Pay off my student loans-Odds are you got them too. They drag on FOREVER!  

-Keeping up on paper clutter- Mail, receipts, school papers-its adds up quick if you don't have a good system.  I cannot believe the barrage of papers that sent home from school!  I am trying a few new things to keep up on all the paper clutter-art display for Lil' Miss(a la Pinterest) and the weekly basket for receipts, mail and misc. paperwork, and a new portable file tote. The idea is to sit down once a week and process the basket.  Ideally, it would be the same day and time each week and become routine.  Well, its not routine yet and I still need to break Mr. Cheaper's habit of leaving papers wherever.  Nevertheless, it is an improvement....and a work in progress.  Once I figure it out, I'll share what I've learned. 

-YNAB(You Need a Budget)-This one is my favorite!  I totally geek out on tracking and analyzing income and expenses.  For years, we had used the now discontinued MS Money for tracking.  It was like a member of our family.  After the demise of our computer with the MS Money, I decided to give Mint.com a try.  It was just not detailed enough for me. We made the switch to YNAB on December 31.  It is more similar to my beloved MS Money, and so far, I am happy(it may even be growing into love).  

So that's what we've been up to in the first part of 2015.  Still going strong on our resolutions...are you, friend?

Sunday the Not-so-fun-day

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it were Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day...


Ha! Clearly, The Bangles did not have children when they released that hit.  Nearly every Sunday, I spend the day preparing for the week ahead. I chop, dice, cook, and bake for the week ahead. We do multiple loads of laundry. I bathe the children. And I finish off the day by mopping the kitchen once the children are in bed.  I might not be running, but there is a quite a bit of hustling.  Its a good thing I have a tiny kitchen.  Perhaps, next week I'll strap on a pedometer for grins. It does help make the Mondays less manic, but it is not a fun day.

Today, as I was sitting watch the kids play together in the bath(and Jr.'s graduation to the big tub) I realized that I wasn't even soaking in the adorableness of my kids. My mind was spinning! Jeez, when was the last time I scrubbed the tub?  What load of laundry should I do next? Are the diapers dry? Why is Mr. Cheaper not vacuuming? He better not be parked on the couch! Am I the only one who gives a darn about the state of the house?! Did the leftovers from dinner get put away?  Jeez! I should be paying more attention to this baby in the tub! Maybe I should be taking pictures to humiliate them as adults? Are we done with this bath yet? I have mopping to do yet!

This is not how I want to spend my family time.  I want to spend my Sunday evening reading books(not folding laundry while Lil' Miss reads her books to me).  I want to play board games together. And laugh together as we make memories.  How the heck do I get there? If I don't prep for the week, we end up eating Taco Bell. And then, I am mired in mom guilt about that.  Or I end up cranky and yelling because I am trying unsuccessfully to get dinner on the table in a timely fashion.  And then we are late launching the bedtime sequence which involves a more widespread and deep-seated level of cranky.

Honestly, I sometimes have no clue how to get this whole mom thing down.  There is no manual. Ninety percent of parenting is subjective. I just hope that when my kids are grown they know that even though I was one cranky SOB at times, it was really because I was trying so hard to be the best mom possible. Every year. Every week, Every day, I woke up and fell asleep trying to be always be better for them.

The beginning...

I hope everyone had a great start to 2015!  I am still alive...just been over here getting through the holidays, the flu, and teething.  I just wanted to pop in today and reflect a little bit on our journey.

Prom 2004

It was Friday, January 23, 2004 and I had agreed to a date with the somewhat odd fellow(ahem...dragon shirt) from my favorite pizza joint.  I felt obligated to agree to this one date and give him a try being that he had the cajones to ask me out a second time after a brutal rejection the first time he asked.  Hello people, it was Season 10 of ER,  Dr. Carter was in Africa and a helicopter had just fallen on Dr. Romano...and there was no such thing as DVR!

Penchant for kooky hats...
Still can't believe I said "yes."

He took me to dinner, a movie(Along Came Polly), and sledding.  I met all his friends and his entire family on that first date. It was that first kiss that sealed the deal though. Sorry, Mom and Dad I love you now but on that day Dad was the most intimidating person I had ever met. Snow was falling gently and we were saying goodnight in the street in front of his parents house. The light from the street lights was making the snowflakes sparkle. Then he kissed me. The memory reminds me of a snowglobe.  When life shakes us up a bit, I just close my eyes and remember.  It was magic(and it still is)!  A beautiful beginning to a beautiful life together.

June 2009-I do not miss the mustache!

August 2007

And years go by.......

No Waste Wedneday: Giving

You may be asking how this became a No Waste Wednesday post.  I promise I will be back soon with more No Waste Wednesday recipes.  Keep reading...

Foster Sassy, one of more than a dozen
 fosters to be hosted by the Cheapers

 The Cheapers don't have much to give monetarily but we do have much to give.  We have found many other ways to incorporate giving into our life though. Years ago while debating whether we should open our home to foster rescued dachshunds, Mr. Cheaper said something that has stuck with me always. "Why not? It is the right thing to do."  That one comment from a conversation years ago has guided us into many giving opportunities.

Foster Teddy

What do the Cheapers have to give?  Much!
-fostering rescued dachshunds
-teaching Sunday school
-donated breast milk

Foster Fez and Lil' Miss, fostering was a great experience for her

Yes, you saw thought last one correctly.  This weekend, I handed over an entire cooler of milk to an old friend for his brand new daughter. He thanked me and said, "We are so are so grateful. This is one of the most selfless things anyone can do. You are supporting a life!" Up until that I had not even thought of the enormity of what I was doing.  To me all I was doing was spending 15 minutes each morning relieving a little pressure and evening things out a bit.  If you've ever nursed our looked closely at new mom and wondered why she seems so lopsided then you know what I am talking about. Staring down at a picture of that brand new baby it really hit me how important that gift was to my friend's family.

 I have donated over 800 ounces of milk since Jr. was born.  There is the "no waste" part of the post. Jr.  stopped taking a bottle at about 3 months and I had a freezer full of frozen milk that I wasn't about to let go to waste.  When Lil' Miss weaned we ended up wasting an entire freezer full of milk and it broke my heart. I found out about the some great


milksharing organizations afterwards.  I was surprised by the amount of people out there desperately searching for milk for their babies for all different reasons.

Why am I sharing this?  There may be ways to give, donate or volunteer that you have not even considered.  It is likely that you have skills that are needed in ways that you have not considered. My special skill right now just happens to be lactating.  Until recently, I didn't even realize how much that was needed by others.

This holiday season the Cheaper family urges you to take a moment to think of what you have to give. Is it cooking at the local soup kitchen?  Fostering for an animal rescue?  Sewing mittens or hats for those in need?  Donating socks or hygiene items to the homeless shelter?  There are so many ways that your community needs you.  Open yourself up to opportunities to give that you would not normally consider. The Cheapers urge you give more than monetary gifts this season.

Happy Holidays from the Cheaper family!

Mother and Daughter Pen Pals...A Window into my Daughter's Feelings

I, long ago, stumbled upon an article or blog where a mother and young daughter wrote letters to one another in a notebook.  That one notebook became volumes of notebooks over the years.  Lil' Miss couldn't even write her name at that time, so I just filed it away in the back of my mind for sometime down the road. We have arrived!

This week, I pulled out an empty journal that I had received as a gift years so long ago that I can't even remember who gifted it to me.  I talked to Lil' Miss to see if she wanted to be pen pals.  I would write a one-page letter to her and then turn the journal over to her and she'd get a brand new page to write a letter back to me.  To say it was the idea was well-received would be an understatement. I have to say for a kindergarten student she is an extremely dedicated writer. In her spare time, she LOVES to make cards and write notes for family members. While I was prepping Thanksgiving dinner, she made cards for everyone to wish them a happy Thanksgiving and thank them for joining us.  All her idea! I just supply the paper around here. She has a big heart and manners to boot!

The first night I wrote her a quick note for her telling her how excited I was to be her new pen pal. 

There are a lot of things I did not consider when undertaking this journey.  She is a kindergarten student. No big words, no cursive, and no sloppy penmanship.  In reality, a quick note is really not that quick when you have to bust out your kindergarten teacher penmanship.  

The next night, I sat down to read my first letter from Lil' Miss.  It wasn't how far she has come in the last few months with spelling and penmanship that surprised me the most.  It was the emotion and insecurity that came through near the end of her letter.  

"...I love you so much. I hope that you love me too..."

I felt like I'd been hit by a proverbial ton of bricks.  How can she not know?  Does she really doubt my love?  What am I doing wrong?  

Suddenly, my fun little experiment to help develop writing skills became about a lot more.  It was a new window into our mother-daughter relationship.  This year has brought so many changes to our family-Jr.'s arrival, the start of kindergarten, and just last month my departure from my part-time job that I'd held for the last 9 years.  In the whirlwind of all this change, I think I somethings have went awry.  I cried myself to sleep that night.  

The letter I wrote back affirming my love is little reassurance and cannot truly convey the depth of my love for her.  There really are no words to describe the intensity of a mother's love for her child. In these moments, I am thankful for the events that led me leaving my job(even though I miss working) because I need to slow down and truly be the parent I've always aspired to be. I am going to try harder every single day.  I will not let my sweet child feel doubt or despair caused by me.

Children don't come with instructions and we really have to just figure it out as we go along.  I am sure glad I took one little idea that I stumbled upon years ago. The letters have opened a door to what I hope well be a more nurtured relationship. I am looking forward to hopefully what will be years and years of letters to one another.  Perhaps, someday she will look back at our story we are creating and feel encompassed by her mother's love.

Paid up! Freed from the shackles of credit card debt!!!

We did it! No more credit card debt!!!! And we fulfilled our 2014 New Year's resolution to eliminate $300/month from our expenses! Woohoo! 

There are bloggers out there that with amazing debt success stories-"I paid off 25k in 6 months!" "We Paid of 50k in 2013!" and "We paid off 100k in 5 years!"  That is incredible...but that is not our story.

Things moved a lot slower here. And that's okay cause we still accomplished our goal.  And it took us 6 years to pay off that $20k of debt, a combination of credit card and medical(And $30k if you include the vehicle we paid off in that time).  I feel like this is a much more achievable pace for most. Mr. Cheaper has a good job that he loves, but it doesn't have a six figure income. And during that time 6 years he changed jobs three times. I worked part-time from home during those years so that I could care for the kids full-time. There were times it was downright awful and depressing, but we buckled down, made goals and lifestyle changes, and then stuck with them.  We learned so much during the difficult times.  It sucked, but I wouldn't wish that experience away because we learned so much. We really have taken that terrible situation and turned into a new life.  A cheaper, happier life!

So what's next for the Cheapers? This is certainly not the end of living cheaper for us. A)We still have medical debt cause babies aren't free(or even cheap), and B)we never want to fall back down the credit card debt rabbit hole.  We are currently hammering out some options for our 2015 goals.  Have I mentioned that this fiscally responsible life takes a whole lot of planning? We will share our new plans very soon. Promise.

So don't get discouraged if you can't pay off your debt at someone else's an astonishingly fast pace.  Set some goals, make some changes, and just move forward at your own pace.  Enjoy your new cheaper lifestyle!

A Cheaper Christmas...Sticking to the plan!

I am following up on my Saint Nicholas post by revealing how we keep it cheap and simple at Christmas.  Yep, even Santa is a little bit cheaper here. Necessity, through a few financially strained holiday seasons, set a precedent that Mr. Cheaper and I are perfectly content to carry forward.  We keep things pretty minimal and simple. Everyone, including our budget, has a holly jolly Christmas that way.    


Secrets to our success:

A)The Plan-They say "its the thought that counts".  Start thinking early. I usually start this around September.  We develop a list of potential gifts that the kids need or would like.  I choose the things that I(or Santa) would like to give and then forward my other ideas to grandparents, aunts, and godparents.

B)Research-As with pretty much every purchase I do extensive research to locate the perfect item at a target price.  And then, I aim for an even lower price by waiting for a sale or discount.

C)Set Limits-This can be a monetary limit or an item number limit. We keep a pretty strict item number limit.  The kids get new pajamas from us and something that we make for them(i.e. quilt, robe, art, etc.).  Santa fills their stocking with 2-3 small items, brings 2-3 bigger gifts, and a note from Santa.  And by bigger gifts I do not mean a game system or a trip to Disney. I mean they are too big for the stocking. We spend $50-75 total on these "big gifts". 

Last year, Lil' Miss received a toy horses, a stable, and trailer for the toy horses.  We have a rule about our Santa gifts-they need to be focused on developing certain skills appropriate for the child's age. The last few years, Lil' Miss has gotten things for imagination play(i.e. dolls and doll accessories) and lots of puzzles(from the Dollar Store).  Our plan for this year- Jr. will be receiving sensory toys and Lil' Miss will be receiving a carrier for babywearing her dolls and board games that we can play together as a family.  

That's it. Good planning and sticking to the plan is the key! No towering stacks of gifts. And no credit card bills!

Happy Holidays! 
Betty