How Money Making Mom is Helping Me in My Quest for Awesomeness

Yesterday I was blessed with the opportunity to be on a conference call with Crystal Paine.  And it was such a blessing.  

She is the creator of MoneySavingMom.com and is a New York Times Bestselling Author.  

Not to mention she wrote Money Making Mom which is being released November 3rd!  (but you can pre-order it now!!!  Go do it!  Click here  to go get it...I'll wait!) I am so blessed to be part of the launch team for the book and having read it I can tell you it is a-to-the-mazing! 

She's like Elvis to me. 

Like Spock to a trekkie.

Wow.  

So I figured I would only have the chance to listen to her but it would be neat so I did it.  And truth be told I almost didn't.  The kids had a harvest party at the exact same time but when I was talking to Nick in the morning he said "I really think you need to take that call."  So I did. Husbands are great for stuff like that. 

During the call, the moderator started reading questions that launch team members had written to ask Crystal; I was shocked when my question was read and then I had the chance to hear her answer it.  Later on in the call I indicated I had a question, never thinking that she would take my question. 

But she did. 

I felt like I was talking to Elvis. Or Alf, which is basically Elvis but cooler.  I'm not sure where I'm getting the hang up on Elvis, but let's just go with it shall we?

I asked her about keeping your self-confidence up and how to keep writing when self-doubt creeps in and you wonder why you should even write and/or you wonder who even cares about what you have to say. 

And the Lord must have known what I needed to hear because it truly felt like He was speaking through her.  She told me, "Lindsay, no one else has your story.  You are the only you.  The world needs to hear your story."  By the way I know what she said because I was frantically writing because I'm a dork like that.  You know it! 

Wow.  It was amazing and I thought she was such a good motivational speaker but as the conversation went on she didn't say "so and so's name, cool words, cool words, cool words" like she did with me.  It was truly heaven sent. 

Because if you've been paying attention it's been a little quiet on my end lately.  The self-doubt has crept in again.  I've been trying to fight it.  I've been trying my best to get the blog off the ground and running and trying to appear all cool when I'm not.  But I feel like I've been failing.  And if you've been around here, loitering for quite a while, then you know this is a broken record from me.  Lindsay writes, Lindsay feels like a fool, Lindsay doesn't write. And repeat. 

Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!

But I know this is a new page for me.  A new start.  Why you ask? Well...

I've been reading the Money Making Mom book and it has been simply amazing!  It got my creative juices flowing.  I've been lugging a journal around with me everywhere I go to write lists and hopes and dreams and just in general, to write. I love to write.  I always have.  When I was a little girl I used to BEG the teacher to LET me stay in from recess so I could work on a story I was creating. This book reminded me of that little girl: that I love to write.  It fuels me and makes me feel like maybe I'm not quite as awkward as I think I in real life am.  

The whole basis of the book, Money Making Mom is that all moms possess some star they can hitch their wagon to.  A God given talent that we can groom into something amazing.  I'm guessing (just guessing here) that we're not all going to come out of the gate making six-figure salaries a year but at least we can find something to do that will bring us joy or extra income to bless with or at least bring some grown-ups into our line of conversation before the monotony of cheerio scraping gets all seeped into our brains.  And isn't that what it should be about?  The blessing part, not the oat cereal goo that coagulates on high chair trays...you know what I'm talking about. 

I love this quote because it's not an inward, "what can making money do for me and my family?" perspective but rather an outward, God's love pouring out to help others through our talents perspective. That will help keep me pushing on when the walls feel like they are closing in and I lose sight of the talents and passions God has gifted me with. 

I really want to encourage you to go buy this book.  And if you're lazy like me and have dried glue on your sweatpants (I'm not even going to try to be cool today and call them yoga pants.  They're straight up, bought at K-Mart, sweats) from constructing zigurats then you can buy from Amazon.  That's how hipsters buy you know, so see?  You're one step closer to cool. I bet hipsters don't get dried glue on their skinny jeans.  I bet google would know...

And I bet that google knows that I'm back, Jack!  I've got a story to tell!! And it would tell you that Money Making Mom is a really good book.  Like I just did!  

In the meantime I'm working on conquering my fears and this doubt that Satan loves to bait me with.  And I'm working on understanding conference calls.  After multiple texts to my husband on the proper time to call in and how to do it and do I mute and this that and the other I realized that I have truly become a stay at home mom.  When conference calls seem foreign that fact kind of smacks you in the face like a good book.  A good book like "Money Making Mom."  You should go buy it. Work on it.  Amazon it.  Now.:)

Note: This blog contains affiliate links.  You can read my full disclosure policy here. 

My Monthly Grocery Shopping Trip

So Saturday I posted this picture on Facebook...

mentioning I spent less that $160.00 for almost a month's worth of groceries and I started getting questions on where I get things, how I do it...etc.  

So...I am here to tell you how I do it!  

 First, let's talk budget.  We feed our family on $300.00 a month.  That comes to $75.00 per person.  According to Indiana's SNAP website, if we were receiving SNAP (food stamps) we would be given $632.00 for a family of four per month, so in essence we are feeding our family for less than half the amount the government deems necessary per person.  I know that's crazy, isn't it?  Plus please note that we eat well!  Dinner every night, lots of fruits and veggies, packed lunch for Cal and Nick every day.  Plus we strive to eat whole foods and organic, natural foods as much as possible.  (Note here...this doesn't mean that we don't have snacks or junk food, etc).  It's just a general guideline we strive for.

With that said here are some of the deals I snagged this month...

 Organic milk, $0.99 per half gallon (normally running between $3.49-$3.99/half gallon) Completely not price related but fat free organic milk is so much creamier than ordinary skim milk...amazing!

 Organic Juice boxes, $1.19/case ($3.99 at target)...lunch box item for us

 GoGo Squeez pack, $0.99/box (normally $3.59)...for lunch boxes

Pad Thai noodle bowl, $0.99 (regularly $3.49)

 HUGE bag of Natural cereal, $2.29 (no idea the price of this size but the smaller size is in the $5.00 range at Whole Foods)

 A box of 8 yogurt pouches, $1.00 (one pouch is $1.50 at the store) Perfect snacks for on the way to Ballet or Tae Kwon Do!

 Monterey Jack Cheese $1.79/pound (those shredded cheese bags at the store with half a pound are around $3.00!) I use this cheese in the Pioneer Woman's

Corn Chowder Recipe

.  Yum!

 Full Circle Lasagna's, $0.99 (at whole foods these go for around $5.00 each).  I send these with Cal to school and if I am really running late they will heat one up for him to eat.

So I shop at all of these places and then I keep receipts and my cash in an envelope.  Out of my $300.00 for the month of September I have $148.47 left meaning I spent $151.53.  Here's where I went and the order I went to them in.  I'm also noting what I can consistently find there but I look through everything to find deals. Here you go:

1. Rentown, 1533 3rd Rd, Bremen (I get cheese and lunch meats from here...and sometimes they have awesome butter prices!)

2. Rite Choice, 1303 E. Market St, Nappanee (This is where I get yogurt for uber cheap.  I also get juice, gucacamole, eggs, and random things)

3. Dented Can, 25743 SR 119, Goshen (starbucks!, canned goods, cereals)

4. E & S, 1265 North State Road 5, Shipshewana (So.much.stuff!...yogurt, butter, meats, noodles, fruits, rice, cleaning products)

5.Forks County Line Store, 7900 W 310 N, Shipshewana (cereals, dairy products, meats, frozen goods)

6. Forks County Line Store, 508 E Warren St, Middlebury (cereals, dairy products, meats, frozen goods)

7. Aunt Millie's Bread Outlet, 206 W. Ireland Rd, South Bend (bread, buns, bagels)

I found lots of meat today at these stores but often I'll go to a butcher for meats.  Butcher's I like are: 

Martins Custom Butcher

Yoder's Meat & Cheese

These are discount grocery stores where, from what I can gather and what I have learned, they buy bulk foods all Auction style from places like Sam's and other locations.  Like if a product says "new!" on the packaging but it isn't new anymore then it gets sold to one of these places.  

Please know that these places do sell outdated products too.  So check labels!  Some things I am okay with being a little outdated, other things, no way.  It's all up to you.  

As I mentioned before I have $148.47 left in my budget.  I will divide that money by 4 weeks (some months it has to be 5 weeks and then it kind of gets dicey!  This month it will give me $37.11 a week.  With this I will buy milk, oj, fresh produce, and if I find some amazing deal along the way at a local supermarket then I can try to free up some of the leftover money to stock up.  

So that's how I do it.  I hope that that helps with your grocery shopping adventures!  And for pete's sake if you have any questions, please let me know :)  I'm just one Momma happy to help other Momma's!  

My fancy meal plan

As I mentioned in my last post, we do our grocery shopping on a monthly basis.  This month I decided I would make a realistic meal plan (for once in my life) containing meals made out of ingredients that we actually eat and that I know I would be able to actually find in the stores we frequent.

To do this I first posted a question on facebook, asking my friends what their favorite, easy meals were.  I got so many ideas.  I was able to match the friend to their pinterest page and then to find the recipe they were talking about there.  From that I got about 6 recipes.

From there I continued perusing meals on pinterest.  The criteria for meals included that they had to be easy to make (super quick or a crockpot meal), contain ingredients I knew we would eat, have as limited processed food as possible, and be available at the discount stores we go to once a month.

I found tons but I was also finding a surprising amount of recipes that call for chicken.  While I love chicken as much as the next girl, my husband is not too keen on eating nothing but chicken, chicken, chicken.

So I switched it up a bit with some familiar stand bys I make and I found a couple of recipes from magazines I have.

Here's what I came up with...

Fancy system, huh?  I did a column for each meal and then rows for each day.  My original plan was to actually have those meals on those days but what I have found is that sometimes we just don't feel like having what is on deck for that day so I switch it around.

Here are some of the ideas I've had for low budget, nutritious foods:
Potato Soup
Tuscan Bean Soup
Corn Chowder
Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole
Crockpot Beef Stew
Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu
Homemade pizzas
Meatloaf
Spaghetti Night
Quesadillas
Chili

You can find lots more things I've posted on my Pinterest Page here.

I'm not listing all of my meals this time, maybe some month I will :)  But I hope this encourages you to plan meals out, shop wisely to find bargains, and above all have fun with food with your family and feed them well!  By having a plan and knowing I have all the ingredients for dinner ready to go, I am a much calmer, happier Mommy.

Some months I do the Once-a-month cooking but I know not everyone is up for it and I can't do it every month.  So this is a good compromise for me.  Last month was so hurried that I was trying to throw meals together at the last minute and it was horrid.  HORRID I tell ya!  :)   So this month so far has been lots better!  Happy planning, friends :)

Menu Planning Meets Monthly Shopping

If you've read my blog for any length of time I am sure that you have heard me prattle on and on about how we work on a monthly grocery shopping system.  I love it.  LOVE it!  We've done this for years now but now that God has blessed us with a deep freezer I am loving it even more.  

The gist of it is that we live in a city surrounded by Amish land so once a month we drive around to smaller country shops run by cute amish families and stock up on groceries...some are salvage stores, some are local butcher shops, some are dented can type places.  There I can fill my fridge and freezer with some real beauties of bargains!  Seriously, we pray before (as) we go...that God will bless us with what we need.  That God will provide for us (and our budget!) through these trips.  And he always does.  But buying in bulk sometimes eludes me from meal planning.  I generally find myself buying general types of ingredients and then later on trying to piece together what I have to make meals.  It seems to work super, fabulously well the first part of the month but leaves me with large gaps of missing ingredients for recipes the last part of the month.  

Anyway...

The farthest away place we go takes about 45 minutes on the interstate, so it does take some time and gas, but if you are getting a lot like we do then it is definitely worth the trip.  Here are some of my all time favorite finds: 

5 pounds of Starbucks whole bean coffee for $14.97

King Arthur Organic Whole Wheat flour, 5 pounds, for $1.99

Fage case of 12 blueberry yogurts for $1.99

32 ounces of Chobani vanilla yogurt for $0.50 

And the list goes on and on!  

Well anyway, I love my bargains but my problem has been the difference that falls between shopping at these places and my meal plans.  For example, I've made a menu plan with something like clam chowder, but when I get to my said bargain stores, I can't find any of the ingredients I need.  So then I buy some of the ingredients, get home and discover though that I don't have

all

of the ingredients...so I am forced to shop our local grocery store where I pay two to three times more than I should on ingredients, thus cutting into my savings.  

So this week, rather than be daring and inventive with my meal planning, I decided to stick with meals containing ingredients I already have on hand or what I know, know, know is at our discount stores.  This way I will be able to plan good food ahead of time so I can be on top of my menus and save lots of money.  

To get ideas for meals I asked my dear friends on facebook, am perusing pinterest, and am going through the stack of magazines I have on hand.  I am going through to plan what I am going to serve for the entire month...breakfast, lunch, and dinner for every day of the month.  With only 28 days in February I figure this is a good month to start my new system :)  

Wish me luck as I tackle menu planning.  And I'd love to know if any of you have any pointers for planning meals or maybe some of you have some amazing recipes to share :)  

Look for my next post as I list what I am planning on making :)  

Vacation Planning

Here are the kiddos this past week spending their Toys R  Us Gift cards from Christmas!  

Yesterday we were driving, just the kids and me, when they started the incessant begging that seems to have become a normal occurrence.  

Don't get me wrong...I like to eat out too.  And I like to buy new things too.  Just not all of the time! This past week we had taken them to go shopping and it seemed right after they wanted more. And the kiddos seem to want something all of the time.  Their consumerism has gotten out of hand.  

So I turned off the Fresh Beat Band we were jamming to and had a serious heart to heart.  

We talked about having a goal for trying to save money.  We decided to make our September vacation our long-term goal.  

I explained to the kids that our vacation this year will consist of going to Michigan...way out in the wilderness Michigan.  When Emma asked how much we are going to need I explained that there are different amounts  depending on what we want to do.  If we just want to go camping and explore, maybe buy a souvenir then it will cost one amount of money.  Another step up we could get ice cream and do fun things like putt-putt and get more souvenirs.  And the top price point would mean we could stay at a hotel, have lots of fun and explore lots of things.  Emma chose the last one.  

Nick and I are still putting together the numbers for each "price point" if you will and the kiddos seem pretty amped up.  They suggested a jar to keep our vacation money in as a visual reminder of what we are working towards. 

 Nick and I have some of our own hints for saving money.  At Nick's work they give out gift cards to gas stations throughout the year which we save for vacations.  We then have those we can deduct off our gas budget for the trip.  We also have a rebate program from our bank where we earn money on debit card purchases.  If we book our hotel through their travel agent they double this money towards our hotel.  So far we have about $140 to spend towards a hotel so that can be deducted from our amount  needed.  We are always looking to use things up and utilize little pockets of resources we have available.  

Anywho, I am so excited that they got into the action of saving and working towards something!  I told them whenever they want something they should  think of our goal and what we are working towards saving towards.  

I was thankful too that they were listening long enough too to talk about how God wants up to be a good steward of our money.  

Matthew 5:20-21 "  And he who had received five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful with a little; I will set you over much.  Enter into the joy of your master.''

We need to take care of what God has provided us with and trust that  He will provide.  We need to be content with what we have rather than always expecting more.  

Hebrews 13:5 "Keep your life free from money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." "

I'd love to know how you all are teaching your kiddos to live frugally and to be content with what they have. Ideas please! :)  

Once a Month Cooking

For the month of January I got this idea that I would do once-a-month cooking.  

What is it about you ask?  

Well the idea is that you spend one horrid day cooking EVERYTHING for that month, freeze it, and then you will have meals every night to just thaw out and eat.  So we did our grocery shopping...

 I used this book.  It was my mother-in-law's and I snagged it at a garage sale at her house.  I was very intrigued.  She told me that she had never used it.  I read it and thought I could do it  It assured me that you can fit a month of food into a standard freezer.

I was a little leery however, as our new fridge (isn't she beautiful???) has a pull out freezer drawer.  Also, the prepared meals weren't going to be the only thing in our freezer, so I just knew that there was no way it would all fit.

 So I did two week cooking.  Which this book has a plan for by the way.  Two actually.  A regular two week plan and a low fat two week plan.

I was going to do this after church on a Sunday, but we had a sick little one, so I was able to start early in the morning.  I had the meat out.  

 I chopped all of the vegetables for all of the recipes.  I had to chop a lot of onions!

 One of the first things I made was marinara.  Dumped everything in and let it cook for two hours.

Here it is all canned up.  It is so super yummy!

After this part I basically stopped taking pictures because I was in too much of a  rush to get things done.  Now I would consider myself pretty familiar with the kitchen.  I do a lot of cooking and baking.  So when it told me it would take all day I was a little over confident and thought that surely it wouldn't take me that long.  But seriously! Let me tell ya, I cooked from the 7a to the 7p.  Sunup to sun down, yo.  I was exhausted.  Exhausted!!!

I could not imagine doing a whole month as I only did 2 weeks, but it was so worth it.

As we approach the end of the month, we had one more meal and then we are done.  The two weeks of dinners has worked perfectly for us.  Here's why...I do like to use cooking as a way to express creativity.  Sometimes I like to play with cooking and try new things.  So I've probably cooked like that once a week.  The rest of the time has been us eating sandwiches on the run between classes we are carpooling too.  We also eat at Nick's mom and dad's once a week when they take one of the kiddos a week.  And a couple of times we have eaten out.

So that's it.  Once a month cooking for us was only two weeks worth of meals, but it was so worth it.  I can't wait to do it again because I am hoping (hoping being the key word here!) that I will get better and faster with the processes and will be able to accomplish more in less time.

For this next month I've been researching new recipes to use.  This FabuLESS website looks amazing!!!  I am a HUGE Money Saving Mom fan and she has some great recipes and advice as well.  And I haven't checked it out too much yet but I can't wait to dive into the Thriving Home's website about freezer cooking.

So there ya go! I know I talked about this before with some friends and I am so, so sorry that it has taken me about a month to get this written.  And please let me know if you have any questions.  I would love to help!  And I am getting ready to do my freezer cooking for next month, so maybe we can all do it together :)