Financial Advice

I've contemplated many times how to write this post as I'm never quite sure how much detail to go into.  I love reading articles about how people got out of debt, however, most of those are written by people who make a decent amount of money so they obviously have more to work with.  I have a bit of a financial background (BS in Finance) but not much of these tips come from what I learned in the classroom😉.  When I started this, I originally had more day to day budget tips as well, but it was way too much so those will be in a seperate post later this week or next week.  This is more long-term financial advice.

I'll start with why this has been such a difficult post to put together and my #1 tip:  Trust the Lord and pray.  To be honest there have been some months in the last year when Howie was out of work that the only explanation I have for how we even had money in the bank is the Lord providing in various ways through the generosity of others to providing side jobs, raises, etc.   

My 2nd tip is cutting the cord!  As a married couple we've never had cable only Netflix, Hulu, and an antenna to get local channels.  All the shows we watch are on those, and while I might have to wait awhile for the whole season to be on Netflix, it's worth it. 

My 3rd tip is using the snowball effect to pay off debt. This comes from Dave Ramsey, and for me it's really more of a mental thing.  We started with my smallest student loan, and paid as much as possible, it was such a great feeling to have one of them gone.  I had 4 total, and will be making the last payment next month! 3 years ahead of schedule!

My 4th tip is to have a plan for extra money.  I prefer to actually write it all down, where literally every dollar is going to go.  The biggest chunk we get is our tax return, and the first thing we do is tithe 10% of it, then build up savings to whatever our goal happens to be, then we use a large portion to pay towards debt. Lastly, we look at what we have planned through the year, and set aside what we need for big things like vacations and birthdays; this also keeps us from needing credit cards.  

My 5th tip is to pay your car insurance 6 months at a time when possible.  I started doing this years ago. Unfortunately, I was using a credit card, because I didn't have the cash set aside and I ended up paying more in interest than I was saving.  Now I have 10% of each paycheck directly deposited into our emergency savings account, which we keep at a certain minimum, and the extra that builds up on top of that is enough to pay the car insurance every 6 months.

My 6th tip is one I've heard for years which is whenever you get a raise, increase your percentage that you contribute to your 401k. This year I got one of the biggest raises I've ever gotten at almost 4% so I increased my 401k contribution from 4% to 5% and plan to do that each year.  The good thing about this is it's not money you're used to seeing in your paycheck, so you don't even miss it.

My 7th tip and last tip is NO credit cards.  I learned this the hard way, I got my first credit cards in college, and it was a great way to pay for books, and it was interest free at the time.  Fast forward to when Howie and I got married; we ended up having to use a good bit of a workman's comp settlement he got to pay off all my credit cards😞 - not a good feeling at all.  The good news is we haven't used them since, and will avoid them at all costs!  If you can't afford to pay cash for it, you can't afford it! That's why an emergency account is so important.  I feel like this last statement might come across pretty harsh, but when you really think about it, there's quite a bit of truth there.  

What is your best financial advice?

Tot School Week 8

It was my original goal to start back to tot school with Sam on Monday but between Howie starting school back that day, a doctor's appointment, a grocery store run, and having to be at work at 1, I pushed it back to Tuesday.  I'm going to try have a bit more of a routine with her and "school" so she starts to know what to expect each day.

On Tuesday we started with praying and our bible story, I want to read a page each day of her little bible. And also worked on her memory verse from Sunday school which was "God is our provider".  I didn't think about it until Thursday but I could have done creation crafts with her each day since that's what we were reading.  Next week I'll read ahead and see what extra we can do.

 

After bible study we moved onto our new letter "M" and I was also trying to focus on the shape circle (although it really didn't work out like I had planned).  She used cotton swabs to paint her letter and worked on colors a bit with this as well.

 

She also "read" a couple of books to me.

 

Next was her favorite thing.  I've had some shaving cream in our hall closet forever that we aren't going to use and for some reason I feel like this was something we did in art class back in elementary school.  I just sprayed a bunch on the table and let her have at it.  She thought it was so fun to play with, I did attempt to show her how you can draw/write with it but she just loved the feeling in her hands lol which is completely appropriate for her age:). This is definitely something we will do again although I will probably take it outside and strip her down to her underwear and maybe add some food coloring to it as well.

 

On Wednesday daddy did her bible study with her before he left for work.  Then we did more with the letter M and colored her princess coloring sheets.

She was actually much more interested in eating the Cheerios. 

 

Thursday we just did our bible study and abc's then took advantage of the nice weather and played outside a lot!

 

Today is Friday and we will just do bible study and abc's before Howie and I both go to work then tonight take advantage of all of us being home and have some family time:)  

What are your Friday night plans?

Baked Chicken Caprese

To be completely transparent on here I am not a great cook.  I have a few dishes I cook well and I love to bake but Howie is the main (better) cook in our family.  However I was able to cook this dinner all by myself😉.  I found a basic recipe for an easy baked chicken caprese and a Parmesan crusted zucchini.

 

For the chicken I put 4 pieces of chicken breasts in a casserole dish, seasoned with pepper and sprayed olive oil on it, added sliced Roma tomatoes, a leaf of basil and some shredded mozzarella cheese to each one.  As you can see in the picture the cheese got a little too done, if I were to make it again I would add the cheese a little bit later.  I baked it for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

 

For the zucchini I mixed together 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, 1/2 teaspoon of dry basil, and 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder.  I sprayed olive oil on them as well and then sprinkled the above mixture on it.  Baked at 350 for 15 minutes then broiled for 3 minutes to get a little crispy.

 

What I ate Wednesday

Today was my first official day on the 21 day fix.  For breakfast I tried the shakeology, I mixed it in the blender with a little ice, a cup of 1% milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  This was one of the recommended recipes that came with the shakelogy and it was ok but the cinnamon was a bit too strong and I pretty much had to chug it.  I also had 1 scrambled egg with a little picante sauce.

 

I didn't have a morning snack since I'm usually not hungry until lunch and for lunch I had a turkey sandwich with cheese, lettuce and mustard on whole wheat bread with a piece of celery and some peanut butter.  I'm assuming that 2 pieces of bread is my two yellow (carb) containers.  Sandwiches are a staple in our house, that's where my carbs will be each day!

As you can see I like to use fine china😂

I had a banana and a Spark at work for my afternoon snack and then for dinner I had packed everything up in my containers but I forgot to take a picture before I put my salad all together.  It was leftover grilled chicken with a blue container (healthy fats) of mozzarella shredded cheese and for a dressing I used a Greek yogurt ranch dip that I had on hand because I hadn't thought of seeing what kind of dressings they recommended.  It was actually really good but that could just be because I was so hungry!  I also had some cantaloupe.

 

I've already got our dinners planned for the rest of the week, I have a feeling the tough part will be packing lunches/dinners for work.  

What's your favorite meal to take to work?

21 Day Fix Initial Review

I don't know about anybody else but to get back on track with healthy eating and exercising sometimes I gotta spend a little money.  With the thought being if I spend money on it (knowing how frugal we are) I'm more likely to stick with it, at least to get my money's worth:)  This time I went with the 21 day fix from beach body.  We did P90X a few years ago and I really liked the workouts but I just don't have time for hour plus workouts anymore or the patience to be honest.

What I like initially liked about this program is that the workouts are 30 minutes which is perfect for what I can do and the eating isn't as restrictive as other programs we've done.  Also its only 21 days which really isn't that long and I'm hoping to "reset" my body and get down a few pounds before getting pregnant again at some point.

Last week before I received everything in the mail I decided to go ahead and get a little jumpstart.  Which means getting some fruits and veggies and buying some new workout clothes:). I found this shake at work (Walgreens) on clearance for $5, can't beat that deal! I like to use the Spark from Advocare for an extra energy boost and to get more water.  I would also like to get some measuring tape before starting to see the difference there.

The top left picture is supposed to be of my new workout clothes, however, Howie informed me it looks like just a picture of my feet.  It's much easier to add a caption then remake that picture lol.

My first impression when I opened the box is how small the containers are😳.  However I started the eating part on Monday before this all came in the mail and I felt like I was pretty accurate with serving sizes until I got home and saw the actual serving sizes!  I hadn't planned on ordering the shakeology but they had a free offer so I'll try it for a week.  I read through most of the eating plan and something that really stood out was the substitutions page, it says "Three times a week, you can replace a yellow container with a treat".  I like this because I'm hoping it will help me not to feel deprived even if I don't eat a treat knowing that there is an option for it can be helpful mentally.  There is also an app (free) to help track your containers and workouts for each of the 21 days.

 

I'm hoping to share more each week on how it's going.  You can do anything for 3 weeks, right???  Now off to do the first workout!

2 1/2 years old!

Sam turned 2 1/2 on December 29th:)

She now weighs about 30 pounds and is 36 inches tall.  Her teeth have finally almost all finished coming in, only 3 left!  

 

Turns out Sam is about the opposite of both Howie and I in that she is definitely a social butterfly!  She loves being around other kids (especially her cousins, she's obsessed with them!).  In the last update I mentioned taking her to storytime, we still do that and she really enjoys it.  When my mom and niece came to visit last week, Sam insisted on doing storytime at home, she pulled a chair out and stood on it with a book demanding that everyone sit on the floor for storytime.  She can definitely be bossy, trying to rein that in though.

 

 

Another thing that has been a big change is her vocabulary!  She says full sentences, although usually just Howie and I can understand what she's saying.  Her newest is to say "I don't want to ....!"  I've found that I was underestimating what she could say/learn.  I was shocked when she was able to memorize her memory verse from Sunday school even though it was just 3 words.  That's also something I plan to incorporate more when I start Tot school back up with her.

Its so heartwarming to see how she prays now.  She used to just fold her hands and then after we prayed she would say amen.  Now she says "Thank you God for Harley, Ri Ri, and Sassy" (her cousins).  Sometimes she'll add in food and other people but without fail everytime she says those 3 first.  

She also was in the Christmas Program at church.  One of the older girls sat on the stage with her to keep her from running off and she had a line at the very end she said,"I love you Jesus!"  

 

 

Our biggest issue lately has been sleep!  For the last two weeks she's woken up anytime between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning.  She used to sleep until at least 8 or we thought she was anyway.  She's just recently learned how to open doors so when she gets up she goes and turns on all the lights in the house and then comes into our room telling us to get up.  Needless to say Howie and I have been exhausted lately!  Especially since 2-3 nights a week I don't even get home from work until 9:15 so going to bed early doesn't usually work out:(

 

How do you deal with your little ones sleep regressions??

New Year's Resolutions

It's quite cliche but I'm trying to get back on track with the blog and this is an easy post to start with:).  Here are my goals for 2017 (or at least the month of January lol)

1.  Complete the 30 day challenge devotional that we're doing at church.  

2.  Start school back with Sam.

3.  Complete the 21 day fix. 

4.  Be debt-free by the end of 2017.