May Accountability and New June Goals…
May FLEW by! Wow! I can’t believe I have just six weeks left until the due date! (I hope she is not late! Its hot!!)
Here is how we did with our goals in May…
1. Continue to trust in the Lord as our provider.
The Lord is so faithful. We have been absolutely blown away by His provision for us! We had a talk yesterday about all the “ebeneezers” God has given us just this month. So many! So when we start to waver and worry, we remind each other to remember those “ebeneezers” and remember His faithfulness! This time has truly been amazing in our marriage and our faith building.
2. Bring our savings as close as we can to our goal by the end of the month!
Woohoo! We met our savings goal! Yeah!
3. Finish our diaper stockpile.
Done and done. We are going to use some of our gift card/returns money to get some Butt Paste– I heard its amazing. Beyond that, we have a full stash and have decided not to over stock as we’ll be moving only a month after she’s born. We don’t want to have to move TONS of diapers!
4. Put a plan into place for our summer yardsale! (Time, date, place.)
We have a place– my mother-in-law has offered up her yard! We have a couple dates in mind. One being super close to the end of the school year, which may be too much for me at this point. We may have to push it out another weekend.
So, not a bad month! Thanks Lord!
Here are our new June goals:
1. Continue to keep the Lord at the center of ALL things!
2. Stay away from the icecream store! (I caused our budget to go over by about $20 last month with my trips to the icecream store! We have a plan now. We keep a carton in the freezer and can only order $1 sonic cones or go out on $1 scoop Tuesday at Baskin Robins! Being pregnant=being an icecream fanatic, right? 
)
3. Put together an awesome yardsale!
4. Stay within or under our monthly budget this month.
That’s it! I’ll let you know in a month how we did!
Here’s the new goal chart!
I just made it! This one is decidedly more girly, but Nate is okay with that. We thought it would be fun to go with a meter type goal management this time verses the thermometer. I just used a brad to attach the arrow I cut from a scrap to make the piece movable and wrote dollar amounts from what we now owe all the way down to zero.
As usual, this was made using a lot of scraps! I also used some of my new paper from that steal of a deal I got a few weeks back.
Its living on the fridge now! Yeah for goals and visuals!
WFMW– Meeting Goals!!
We made our savings goal! Praise the Lord!
My hubbie and I set a goal for our savings that we were hoping to meet by the time our baby would come in July. Its not the end of May yet, and we reached it! We are so excited and so blessed by the way that God provided for us!
This savings is by no means our 3-6 emergency fund. For us, it is just a cushioned start to help us transition from a very basic savings to one that has more means for a family of three! We feel great about it and know that once we get the student loans paid off, we can continue to build this emergency fund.
Our next goal… pay off our smallest student loan! We are hoping to do this before the end of the summer! If we can, it will make our monthly burden of bills a little lighter. There isn’t much left on this loan, and if we keep at our goal like we were with the savings goal, we really could do it! That would be amazing, especially considering that we were just hoping to build the emergency fund!
Having the visual for the hubbie was key to this working for us. Nathan was constantly aware of where we were concerning our goal. He was also constantly reminded as we kept the visual on the fridge! I need to make a new visual of our loan we need to pay off! being “one” when it came to our goal was very helpful!
Here’s hubbie with the visual when we first started…
He is pumped to take on the next goal!!
Our Old Navy Adventure…
Nathan and I braved the crowds at Old Navy for $1 flip flops. I had my heart set on getting a black pair as I only had brown and often wear my black maternity pants. Flip flops would make the outfit more weather appropriate.
Well, we got there just 10 minutes after opening and had to literally fight the crowds to get to the women’s flip flops! I was worried for my belly made it difficult to weave through the crowds! We were in line for an hour and a half! Nathan kept asking me if it was worth it. We agreed it was worth it for the sake of the story! We decided I must blog about it.
As we were in line, we heard an Old Navy employee– a very worn out teen-aged young man– tell the story of getting punched in the face by an irate customer over some flip flops! Wow! We were quite shocked. We got to know the people in line around us and heard some sweet well wishes from a mom of four who admired me for putting up with standing on concrete for so long while pregnant! (I just wanted my $1 black flip flops!)
On our way to the check out, we picked up abandoned pairs for my mother-in-law and brothers-in-law! (We wouldn’t give up our place in line for anything!) They were excited to have the cheap flip flops and not the sore feet from standing in line so long!
It was an adventure for sure!
Tightwad Tuesday- Dealing With The Dumps On A Budget!
I have been updating you all on the status of my husband’s job as he is a first year teacher and budget cuts are happening nation wide in schools. My hubbie got his RIF letter last week. His contract was infact eliminated. His job is now open to teachers of higher seniority in the district.
Already we are praying about another opportunity– so we are not worried! God is our provider!
The day hubbie got his letter, he did feel quite down in the dumps. He was sad to face the fact that he’ll really miss his students. He spent a lot of time building relationships with them, and now he is moving on. I could tell he needed a little cheering up. What can you do to cheer up your hubbie when he just got layed off and your tight budget is about to get tighter? Take him to Sonic for happy hour!!
I used some cash I had from overage at Walgreens last week and we both got slushies. Grand total– $1.80!! We sat and talked and prayed for a whole hour before we went home. My hubbie was blessed and felt much better. A little can go a long way!!
Click HERE for more Tightwad Tuesday tips!
Making My Home A Haven…
Tammy has a pile tackling challenge for this week’s Making Your Home A Haven challenge. You all know how much I love to organize!! The unfortunate thing is– I’m running out of things to organize! I know, its a major problem in my mind.
I’ve gone through and really thought about what I haven’t organized yet. Here is a small list I made that I will also report on for the Restoring Order challenge at The Homespun Heart later this week!
*clean out another tub of supplies to use for baby clothes (yeah for awesome showers!)
* Organize craft supplies
*Go through top shelf of office closet
That’s all I could think of for now… I’m sure I’ll find more areas to organize at some point! I’ll be back with pics later tonight!
Click HERE for more pile tackling inspiration!
Natural Cleaning Products!
I’ve been looking into all different sorts of natural cleaning products for our home. I’m not super earthy– just a little bit. BUT I am super sensitive to icky chemicals on my skin and in the air. Its only been magnified by pregnancy! I found this post on passionatehomemaking.com (great blog by the way!) and I love this idea! Use hydrogen peroxide!
Click HERE to read it!
Frugal Friday– making do!!
We do not have a dresser for Molly and we probably won’t buy one. The budget is tight, and we just don’t have room for one right now! My solution, use what I have!!
I went through all my cupboards at school and cleaned out all the stuff I no longer need. I brought home the empty tubs and started organizing Molly’s cute little clothes by months. To make this project just super fun for me, I made some adorable little labels out of pink and green paper scraps! The labels state which sizes are in each tub. I think they turned out cute and now I feel all organized!!
I anticipate getting more clothes at the upcoming now THREE showers I have left before she arrives. Yes that’s right. I will have had a total of FIVE baby showers for this little one! Isn’t God awesome? He’s totally providing for us.
Lately I’ve been looking at challenges– like not having any place to put Molly’s clothes– and figuring out how I can solve that problem without spending any money. FREE is always good for the budget. Plus, that usually means that I get to use my scrapbook supplies somehow!
WFMW- Using paper scraps!
I love to make my own cards! I save our family TONS of money every year making my own cards for all occasions. With two more showers coming up soon, I figured I could use some more thank you type cards.
Instead of cutting up a new piece of paper, I went to my scrap box. I keep all my little scraps from scrapbooking. I put the smallest ones in ziploc baggies somewhat by color. Bigger scraps go in bigger baggies. In the bigger bags I have cardstock scraps, patterned paper scraps, Christmas paper scraps, and a big bag for plain white card stock scraps.
I challenge myself to make entire cards out of scraps. Right now I am even in the process of making an entire mini album out of scraps! Why waste your stash?
One of my favorite ways to use scraps is to cut out a shape from a “less desirable” patterned paper or cardstock scrap. Then, I pick a fun patterned scrap to set my color palette for the card and match other little scraps to that main pattern. I cut the ugly piece into a shape– a star, heart, flower– and then cut strips of scraps to paste on top of the ugly guy.
Here is how I started with one of my cards:
The ugly orange plaid heart was the base. I used a cut up thank you card I received -(free cute paper people!) as the main pattern. I dug through my scrap baggies to find coordinating scraps. I used a pre-folded piece of white card stock for the card.
Next, I just start cutting strips and gluing! Here’s what it looks like from the back:
Then I start cutting around the shape.
With this card, I used a bit of the solid red and yellow scraps behind the heart to help make the card pop a bit more. I used a nail file to rough up the edges a bit.
Here is the finished product with two of my other scrap-only cards I made!
The flower card has a button in the middle. I think that one is my favorite! To make the flower, I cut out a pedal shape and repeat it five times.
Lots of fun and a super way to frugal-ify your paper crafting! I barely used any of my scraps and I have three great cards!
Works for me! For me WFMW ideas, click HERE!
April Accountability and new may goals…
This is late. Sorry. I got lazy about this and realized today that we are half way through May and I haven’t yet updated you all on April or posted May goals! The accountability is pretty important to me, so even though its late, I’m pressing on!
Here were our goals from April. I wrote how we actually did in italics below.
1. Continue to trust in the Lord as our provider. I know this isn’t a real measurable goal, but I know when I am not trusting in the Lord– and I need to keep this goal at the forefront of my mind! God is so infinitely good and truly desires to bless His children! We felt tested this last month, like the Lord wants to truly strengthen us in our trust in Him. We also felt so blessed by all that He provided and taught us. He brought us closer as husband and wife through it all! I know that God will provide for our little growing family and want to continue trusting Him with all that I am.
I’ll be honest. I had a few hormone induced breakdowns this month about how frustrated I am with our situation. Its hard to keep waiting– and I abandoned trust in the Lord a couple times.I have a totally amazing hubbie though. He has continually pointed me back to scripture and prays with me and for me about this very issue! He said today that he is grateful for this time. What better time to see the Lord work? What better way to live than in full dependence on His plan and provision? Yup. My hubbie is pretty awesome. He helps me stay the course– h0rmones and all.
2. Bring in an extra $50 in snowflakes. I love doing this! Already this month I’ve brought in $12 through half.com! I’m hoping our consignment sales will materialize as well. We still have stuff up on Craigslist, so hopefully some of that will sell as well! (No more no shows!)
Well, we were super blessed to also receive a refund for overpaying for Nathan’s seminary tuition. We tried to get this money back earlier, and it didn’t work because of the payment plan we’d set up. When we tried again a couple months later, the school was able to refund us after the payment plan completed. Sweet! Thanks Lord! The refund coupled with my half.com sale really boosted our savings -emergency fund.
3. Returns to Target. I have a few items I need to return at Target and I have been putting them off because I just hate dealing with this store! They are the Target nazis! They are not kind with returns or coupons and it drives me CRAZY! But I must take care of these returns for the sake of our budget and our family. (I think I can, I think I can!)
Yeah!! I finally did it! I hate Target! They wouldn’t take one of my items back. Arg. I had another return to Kohls. They took it without question, gave me a full refund, and because I had used a coupon to purchase the item, they gave me Kohl’s cash to spend too! Now THATS the way to get my business. Too bad they don’t have a baby registry.
4. Get utilities down to $60-62 this next month. I think we can lessen our bill by $7, if not more. We are using less heat now and its staying lighter into the evening! Plus– we have gotten back into our frugal habits with energy usage and it can only get better from there!
We way surpassed this goal. Yes!! We were down to $49!! Thanks Lord!
5. Truly stick to that $200 food budget! I must I must! I went grocery shopping today and did quite well, so I’m feeling confident! Our simplified organics approach will help greatly!
We actually decided towards the end of the month that we needed to extend our budget to the $250 range. I just wasn’t able to buy balanced food and diapers and still stay sane. I’m not blessed with stores that double and triple coupons. I have just regular ol stores and my Target is the homebase for the coupon Nazis of the world. I often felt discouraged reading other deal blogs. I saw all the good stuff these ladies were getting for so little and felt like I was failing. Once again– hubbie had me look at how they were doing this. Almost all the time, they were getting double or triple coupons!! I save about $75-100 a month with coupons, but still– not as much as others!!
What I came to realize is that doesn’t matter. I’m going to do my best with what I’ve been given. I actually stayed well below the $250 budget– $30 under actually and still purchased a few diapers! I’m feeling better about all this now. My husband is very happy with the quality, variety, and nutritional value we are getting in our food now and I’m happy to have less stress each time I plan my grocery shopping!
Now for May…
1. Continue to trust in the Lord as our provider.
2. Bring our savings as close as we can to our goal by the end of the month!
3. Finish our diaper stockpile.
4. Put a plan into place for our summer yardsale! (Time, date, place.)
That’s it! Some of these goals we’ve already been hacking away at! I’ll let you know how we did next month– hopefully on time this time around!
