21 Day Fix- Week 2

Alright let's start off with a little honesty!  I didn't really want to write this post:(. I've been pretty bummed this week because after the initial 3 lbs lost, I lost 1 lb at the beginning of the week.  That means basically all week I have weighed the exact same.  And the thing is, I've been sticking to the meal plan (mostly) and doing the workouts!  I'm hoping it's just the whole gaining muscle thing but it seriously doesn't help my motivation.  I need to be able to see some results.  However, I have 1 week left and I'm determined to finish it strong and see what happens.  This is where taking measurements beforehand would have come in handy.  I'm not sore from the workouts anymore and this is the week that they give an option of 2 workouts a day so I'm going to try that, at least a few days.  Edited to add I have definitely noticed a difference in flexibility, can actually touch my toes with some of the stretches.  And my sweet tooth has not tempted me like I thought it would either.

A few things that might be hendering me is I don't drink near enough water and not eating enough protein.  Those are my goals for the week.

I tried this combination for a protein shake and it tasted ok but was way too thick.  If we had ice that might have helped.

 

I really like the corn tortillas, added some scrambled eggs, little cheese and salsa, made a pretty tasty breakfast.

 

Our daily budgeting tips

As promised here are my best daily money saving tips.  I'm sure some of these you have heard before, but its things that we specifically do to save money.  Also keep in mind, both Howie and I are natural savers, him even more so than me, that makes some of these things pretty easy for us.  

1.  Pack a lunch for work!  This is really a matter of self-discipline, we eat sandwiches A LOT.  We refuse to spend that kind of money eating out every day.  That's not to say we don't ever spend money out on lunch, we just know it's a bad habit to create.  

2.  Don't pay extra just for convenience.  An example for this would be diapers.  I try to only buy diapers when I have a coupon and they are on sale.  This does require planning and stocking up,  obviously there have been times that I've forgotten and unfortunately had to pay full price, but it is worth the effort on certain items.  I like using an app called "coupons" to find coupons for diapers.  I'm not big on couponing for everything, but for diapers and personal care items I do try.  

3.  Buy off brand as much as possible.  This is pretty self explanatory, however; there are exceptions, with some things buying cheap can be expensive.  The vast majority of groceries we buy are off brand products.  With items such as tools, some cleaning supplies, detergents, etc... We do buy slightly higher quality.

4.  Make as few trips to the grocery store as possible.  We generally go once a week and get whatever we need for the whole week.  Sometimes I will make a second trip later in the week to get more fruit or veggies and I always spend more than I had planned.  This involves extra planning to make sure you get everything you're going to need for the week.  Meal planning is key with this one!  I know some people only go once a month or once every two weeks, and are able to get everything then. We frankly don't have the space to store that much food.  Once a week is what works for our family.  Wasting food is where we really struggle, we really need to work on that!

5.  Accept any and all hand me downs.  Especially with kid's clothes!  I don't even know how much money we have saved not having to buy clothes each season/size.  Howie and I also wear our clothes out,  we literally wait for holes to appear before buying new jeans lol.  Thankfully for work I wear scrubs everyday, so I don't feel the need to buy a lot of clothes.  

6.  Utilize your local library.  Sam has thankfully been given quite a few books, because I am all about just checking books and movies out from the library (FREE).  One thing to be careful of is not losing/breaking movies.  Sam broke a DVD awhile  ago and cost us $25.

7.  Find a good budgeting app.  We previously used the Mint app and it was really helpful.  It links to your bank account and shows how much money you spend in different categories.  Unfortunately, our bank updated their app and it's not compatible with Mint anymore.  I need to find another app that will work because its super helpful.  If you're like me, sometimes at the end of the month you sit there thinking "where did all this money go?" and that's where an app becomes helpful.  

8.  Self-control.  This is probably the hardest, but in order to keep a budget it is essential!  I struggle with this more than Howie, which, is probably why he doesn't like going to the store with me😉.  There have been many times I've put something like clothes or shoes for Sam in my cart and MOST of the time I turn back around and put them right back up, recognizing she really doesn't NEED it.

What are some of your money saving tips?

Full disclosure:  We are by no means perfect in this area but are constantly striving for improvement.  Our #1 financial goal is to be good stewards of what God has given us.

Reflections on the last 2 weeks

When I decided to post every day (M-F) for 3 weeks I was really wanting to challenge myself to see if I could come up with that much content and if it would be quality stuff to read and write.  At the end of week 2 I can see that while I may be able to write every day it's not all created equally.  I discovered I really like writing about financial issues (I already have 3 or 4 more ideas) and it appears people like reading that as well.  I also discovered that writing about food and fitness is not something I particularly enjoy and while I will finish my posts about the 21 day fix, some of the other stuff won't be making another appearance.  Of course I'll always enjoy writing about Sam and mom life stuff so that won't be going anywhere:).    

A little on my finance background.  When I initially chose Finance as my major I had wanted to turn it into a career as a financial advisor.  However, the further along in my schooling I got it became apparent, that profession makes their money off of selling life insurance (for the most part) and I'm not a salesperson.  I really wanted to help people with financial decisions, goals, budgeting, etc.  I'm hopeful that maybe I can do a little of that with this blog.  Still praying about what that would entail specifically and if that's where the Lord is guiding me.  

Starting next week my goal will be to post around 2-3 times a week and hopefully it will be better content.  Quality over quantity is my goal.  I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read these, thanks for your support!  I hope everyone will enjoy the slightly new direction.

I love adding random pictures😉

 

Oh the Joys of Childbirth

I made this list shortly after I had Sam:)

Things I wanted to pass on to other first time mom's and also to remember for the next one.

A little throwback Thursday!

1.  Take a shower as soon as you can, I for some reason put it off till I got home thinking it would hurt or something but it felt amazing.

2.  The cramps (after-contractions) while breastfeeding are pretty painful in the beginning but lessen in intensity as the days go by (stopped after about 5 days for me)

3.  Don't be afraid to use the lactation consultant.  Ours was awesome and without her help I probably would have given up.

4.  Bring a stool softener with you, I didn't get mine till the 2nd night and you can take it twice a day.  Keep taking it when you get home (3 weeks after I'm still taking it once a day when I remember)

5.  Bring some fruit/veggies to snack on to help things go smoother.  I had way to much fast food while in the hospital cause the hospital food was so bad.

6.  Don't feel bad if your hubby changes most of the diapers the first couple days:). 

7.  Don't let them pressure you into supplementing if you are planning to breastfeed.  Your body makes just the amount they need.  Sam went 9 hours at one point in the hospital without latching well because we were still trying to figure out the breastfeeding but we figured it out and she was fine.

What other advice would you pass on to a first time momma??

What I Ate Wednesday

To start off when I was first planning these 3 weeks of posting Monday through Friday I wrote down what each day's post would be.  Unfortunately I shouldn't have planned multiple "what I ate Wednesday's" because I pretty much eat the same thing and it's really not very interesting lol but it's 7 am, we're headed to the zoo soon and I still need to do my workout so here it is😉

For breakfast I tried the other protein powder I had bought on clearance a couple weeks ago and I had to choke it down😩.  I mixed it with just some almond milk and then had a half serving of grapes.  I have such a hard time eating breakfast, food doesn't even sound good until about 11.

 

For lunch I had one red container of scrambled eggs with a little salsa and then some carrots with this delicious Greek yogurt dip.  This is such a weird combination for lunch.  I still wasn't very hungry but had to go to work and wouldn't be able to eat for quite awhile.  

 

For dinner at work I just had a turkey sandwich with mustard and cheese, celery and peanut butter, and some cantaloupe.  I also had a banana and a Spark as my snacks.

 

21 Day Fix- Week 1

Yay!  I completed week 1 and survived those workouts!  I never did take measurements but I have lost 3 pounds so far.  Some things I really like about this program right now:

 1.  I can still eat carbs and cheese!  Granted they are limited but I don't feel deprived and I plan out what I'm having each day to best take advantage of what I can have.  There were a few days that I went slightly over and I'm ok with that:). 

2.  It forces me to get out of comfort zone and cook more.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!

3.  It is helping Sam eat better as well since we aren't eating out or eating a bunch of junk.  Saves us money not eating out as well!

4.  The workouts are kicking my butt!  It's only 30 minutes and the first few days I was soooo sore.  I have had to do a lot of the modified moves simply because I'm not in great shape right now, hopefully by the end I won't be needing to do those at all.  As far as equipment, I've only needed some small dumbbells and a towel (I need to get a mat instead of using the towel).  

And the not so great things:

1.  I'm not a huge fan of the shakeology.  I really should be having one after my workout each day, it just doesn't sound good:(. I did use it to make these healthy muffins that surprisingly turned out really good.  

2. The yoga workout.  I'm just not a fan of yoga probably because I'm the most inflexible person ever; instead of doing that workout I walked a mile.

3.  One thing I haven't cut out is my coffee creamer and that is simply because people have to be around me each day and I would rather nobody be miserable😂.  

Here are a few meals I've had so far with this taco salad on top being my favorite.  I had this 3 times this week and I'm still not tired of it.  I mixed in some kidney beans with the meat to stretch it a little further.  Technically beans are considered a carb but since it's mixed in I can't really measure it, I didn't worry about it.   

As you can see I love my cheese!

Steak, (small) baked potato, and squash.

Fried egg on a piece of toast.

What are your favorite go to healthy recipes?

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?