Brian and I have recently decided (ok... I decided and communicated the decision to Brian) that we want to teach Allison baby sign language. When I was young and naieve (about 2 years ago!) I just thought it was silly... why teach sign language? By the time your baby could understand and use the sign they'd be talking enough anyway, right? I've realized how INCREDIBLY wrong that thinking was. Talking by a year or 18 months? What on Earth was I thinking?
Anyway, we decided to try and it has been so much fun. We're just starting on signs for "milk", "eat", "more" and "please" (I want a polite child). The sign she sees most often is "milk" and she's really starting to understand it, I think. When we sign it to her she gets to excited and then gets mad if we're not quick enough with nursing or a bottle. She's also starting trying to make the sign herself. She'll watch her hands and make the sign, then look at us and get to excited and proud of herself. I can't wait to watch her continue to learn how to communicate with us. =) Anyone else (maybe with older kids) have thoughts on signs that would be useful to teach her? I'd LOVE to hear them!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Desperately Hungry
This post could have any number of titles, really. "I shouldn't have washed the sheets yesterday," or "Sudden Reflux Disorder," or "How do I know when I should take my baby in to see the doctor?"
I almost did call the doctor this morning. I said to myself, "If she does this again, I'm calling the doctor." She hasn't done it again though, and she's sleeping peacefully so I think she'll be okay.
It started at around 4:00 this morning when Rachel woke up crying. I went in to comfort her and she was acting hungry, so I brought her in bed with us and fed her. She had just fallen back to sleep and was busy snuggling up against me, trying to get comfortable, when she started coughing. I was stroking her head and telling her that everything was going to be alright when I saw a big white cloud form right above us. No sooner had I seen it than it rained down on us, completely drenching me, Rachel, and my nice, clean sheets.
My yelping and, "Oh, no! Baby!" woke Andrew up and he help dry me and Rachel off and got her some fresh pyjamas while I got changed, myself. I had to lay a towel down to cover up the big milk stain the was covering my side of the bed.
Eventually we all got settled in and slept well until seven or eight. I can't even remember when we woke up. Is that sad or what?
Andrew brought Rachel in to me and I started feeding her. She started acting like she had to go potty so we interrupted breakfast and she had a little potty time. She's so funny when she goes pee--it always takes her a bit by surprise. She'll start going and then turn around to look at me with this quizzical look on her face. I say, "You're peeing...that's pee pee," which she'll accept as a logical enough explanation and will turn back around. She understands BMs a whole lot better, probably because she has to do a little pushing so whether it happens in the potty or the diaper it feels the same (except the degree of squishiness after, in which case she prefers the potty).
Anyway, we successfully went potty and I laid Rachel down on her little mat so that I could empty the potty and wash my hands. While I was doing so I heard her ravenously sucking away at something. Expecting her to be sucking on her hand or foot, I turned around to see what she was up to.
She had flipped onto her stomach and was latched onto the floor! She had a nice clean seal, with her lips suctioned perfectly to the floor, and was sucking away. I didn't think that would be possible, but apparently it is if you're really hungry, which Rachel was so we went back to bed to finish giving her her breakfast.
After she had finished eating she looked at me, completely satisfied, and then started to drift off for her usual post-feeding shuteye, a slight smile gracing her face. Her relaxation was again interrupted by a coughing fit and, lucky for me, because she had just finished eating I was directly in her line of fire.
Cough, cough, BLAH!
She vomited up the entirety of her breakfast all over me, herself, and the towel that I had covering up the previous mess.
So Andrew ran into the bedroom and helped change Rachel while I changed myself...again. My third outfit of the day by 8 AM. I told Andrew, "If she does this again I'm going to call the doctor." I'm so worried that she'll get dehydrated or something but don't want to be one of those overreacting mothers.
As soon as she was back in my arms she wanted to eat again; she was still hungry, having missed out on two feedings already. It's been about a half hour since she ate and she's coughed a few times and has kept everything in her tummy, so I think she'll be alright. I hope she gets over this soon!
I almost did call the doctor this morning. I said to myself, "If she does this again, I'm calling the doctor." She hasn't done it again though, and she's sleeping peacefully so I think she'll be okay.
It started at around 4:00 this morning when Rachel woke up crying. I went in to comfort her and she was acting hungry, so I brought her in bed with us and fed her. She had just fallen back to sleep and was busy snuggling up against me, trying to get comfortable, when she started coughing. I was stroking her head and telling her that everything was going to be alright when I saw a big white cloud form right above us. No sooner had I seen it than it rained down on us, completely drenching me, Rachel, and my nice, clean sheets.
My yelping and, "Oh, no! Baby!" woke Andrew up and he help dry me and Rachel off and got her some fresh pyjamas while I got changed, myself. I had to lay a towel down to cover up the big milk stain the was covering my side of the bed.
Eventually we all got settled in and slept well until seven or eight. I can't even remember when we woke up. Is that sad or what?
Andrew brought Rachel in to me and I started feeding her. She started acting like she had to go potty so we interrupted breakfast and she had a little potty time. She's so funny when she goes pee--it always takes her a bit by surprise. She'll start going and then turn around to look at me with this quizzical look on her face. I say, "You're peeing...that's pee pee," which she'll accept as a logical enough explanation and will turn back around. She understands BMs a whole lot better, probably because she has to do a little pushing so whether it happens in the potty or the diaper it feels the same (except the degree of squishiness after, in which case she prefers the potty).
Anyway, we successfully went potty and I laid Rachel down on her little mat so that I could empty the potty and wash my hands. While I was doing so I heard her ravenously sucking away at something. Expecting her to be sucking on her hand or foot, I turned around to see what she was up to.
She had flipped onto her stomach and was latched onto the floor! She had a nice clean seal, with her lips suctioned perfectly to the floor, and was sucking away. I didn't think that would be possible, but apparently it is if you're really hungry, which Rachel was so we went back to bed to finish giving her her breakfast.
After she had finished eating she looked at me, completely satisfied, and then started to drift off for her usual post-feeding shuteye, a slight smile gracing her face. Her relaxation was again interrupted by a coughing fit and, lucky for me, because she had just finished eating I was directly in her line of fire.
Cough, cough, BLAH!
She vomited up the entirety of her breakfast all over me, herself, and the towel that I had covering up the previous mess.
So Andrew ran into the bedroom and helped change Rachel while I changed myself...again. My third outfit of the day by 8 AM. I told Andrew, "If she does this again I'm going to call the doctor." I'm so worried that she'll get dehydrated or something but don't want to be one of those overreacting mothers.
As soon as she was back in my arms she wanted to eat again; she was still hungry, having missed out on two feedings already. It's been about a half hour since she ate and she's coughed a few times and has kept everything in her tummy, so I think she'll be alright. I hope she gets over this soon!
Monday, February 4, 2008
Control your finances and budget with Buddi
There’s been a lot of chatter in the Mother’s Lounge recently about budgeting and money, especially with all these great posts about monthly menu choices. Many commenters and writers have asked about different ways of creating and tracking a budget and Nancy briefly mentioned Buddi, an open source (meaning it’s free and made by a community programmers in their free time), cross platform (it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux) financial management program that I use and love. Today I’ll show you how to get started with Buddi so you can take control of your budget and money.
Getting started
First, you’ll need to download and install Buddi. There are two ways to install Buddi in Windows: download an installation program or download a standalone .exe file. You’ll probably want to get the installation package. It’s easier to work with. Just click next a whole bunch of times until the program is installed.
You’ll also probably want to use the internet banking features for all your banks, credit cards, and investments. You could wait until the institution sends you your monthly statement, but why waste trees and put off account reconciliation until the end of the month? You can reconcile on an ongoing basis, as I’ll explain below.
Initial set up
The basic premise of Buddi (and finances in general) is to keep track of where your money goes. Your money can sit in a bank account, credit card account, stock investments, CDs, your wallet—wherever. When you spend money, you move your money from one of those accounts to a budget category. For example, when you buy groceries with a debit card, you move $50 from your checking account to the grocery category. When you get a paycheck, you put money in your bank account from a budget category.
When you first open up Buddi you’ll see a screen with 3 tabs: My Accounts, My Budget, and My Reports. The accounts tab shows your bank and credit card accounts; the budget tab shows your budget categories; the reports tab makes statistical reports (duh).
You obviously won’t have any account information or budget categories. You’ll need to set those up first. To create accounts, go to Edit -> Create Account. Choose the type of account you want, a name, and an initial value. If you want more account types (like CD, for example), you can add those under Edit -> Edit Account Types. You can change from the British/Canadian spelling of “chequing” in Edit -> Preferences -> Locale.
As you add all your accounts you’ll notice that they are nested in categories, as shown (click to enlarge the picture):
Now that your accounts are set up, you need to create budget categories, which also follow the nested idea. Switch to the My Budget tab, go to Edit -> Create Budget Category, and make categories. It’s best if you set up your parent categories first, like Salary, Church, Car, Entertainment, Personal, School, Utilities, and whatever else, and then add categories with those as parents. In the end you’ll have something like this:
Transactions and budgeting
Now that all your accounts are set up, you can start adding transaction information. On your My Accounts page, double click on an account to open it and add information. If, for example, I just bought $45.23 of groceries at Costco with my ING Orange checking account, I’d double click on that account and fill out the information like so:
Easy enough! Repeat the same process to add any type of transaction: income and expenses. Choose the order of cash flow between accounts and/or categories, put in the information, and save it. You can go back later and edit the transactions if there are errors. You can even set up recurring transactions in the Edit menu.
Buddi doesn’t just track your expenses though—it’s a budgeting and reporting program too. In your My Budget tab you can set your budget limits for each category each month, as shown:
Your net income/loss is shown in the bottom right corner. Buddi budgets on a monthly basis (in this case… you could change that to weekly, biweekly, quarterly, or yearly), so for March you need to enter the same values. Rather than type each amount again, you can go to Edit -> Copy Values to Next Period to copy everything to the March column, changing different category amounts as needed.
Once you have your projected budget set and records of your actual transactions saved, you can use the various reports on the My Reports tab to see how close you were to your budget. Voila! You have a full fledged budgeting system!
My Buddi workflow
There are a lot of financial management programs out there. Some, like Quicken and Microsoft Money, cost money and can connect to your bank accounts online and show you real time balance and transaction information. Others, like Buddi, are free but lack that backdoor connection to your financial institutions, meaning you have to keep track of every single transaction.
This is good. This lets you see everything that’s going on with your account and lets you remember transactions that you may have lost receipts for.
Here’s how I work with Buddi. I keep every receipt possible until I can input the information into the appropriate accounts, after which I get rid of all the receipts (unless I need it for a gift, return, church reimbursement, or whatever). During the month I check my different bank accounts online to see if the transactions have cleared. If they have posted online, I mark the transaction in Buddi as reconciled and keep going. The reconciled option is not enabled by default—you’ll need to go to Edit -> Preferences -> Show ‘reconciled’ checkbox for transactions.
I generally bring both Buddi and the bank website up on the same page and go down the two lists item by item, adding missed items to Buddi as necessary. In the end I have an accurate view of my total net worth, and a clear idea of how my budget is working.
For power users, there are a few plugins that let you import and export CSV spreadsheets that you can download from your financial institutions or previous financial software. You can read more about Buddi at Lifehacker, where they also have a plethora of financial advice.
So, Buddi has worked great for me for the past year and I’ll continue using it. I haven’t even touched its budgeting capabilities—our budget has been “spend as little as possible.” Maybe I’ll start actually budgeting since Buddi can do it so well.
Good luck getting your finances in order!
Getting started
First, you’ll need to download and install Buddi. There are two ways to install Buddi in Windows: download an installation program or download a standalone .exe file. You’ll probably want to get the installation package. It’s easier to work with. Just click next a whole bunch of times until the program is installed.
You’ll also probably want to use the internet banking features for all your banks, credit cards, and investments. You could wait until the institution sends you your monthly statement, but why waste trees and put off account reconciliation until the end of the month? You can reconcile on an ongoing basis, as I’ll explain below.
Initial set up
The basic premise of Buddi (and finances in general) is to keep track of where your money goes. Your money can sit in a bank account, credit card account, stock investments, CDs, your wallet—wherever. When you spend money, you move your money from one of those accounts to a budget category. For example, when you buy groceries with a debit card, you move $50 from your checking account to the grocery category. When you get a paycheck, you put money in your bank account from a budget category.
When you first open up Buddi you’ll see a screen with 3 tabs: My Accounts, My Budget, and My Reports. The accounts tab shows your bank and credit card accounts; the budget tab shows your budget categories; the reports tab makes statistical reports (duh).
You obviously won’t have any account information or budget categories. You’ll need to set those up first. To create accounts, go to Edit -> Create Account. Choose the type of account you want, a name, and an initial value. If you want more account types (like CD, for example), you can add those under Edit -> Edit Account Types. You can change from the British/Canadian spelling of “chequing” in Edit -> Preferences -> Locale.
As you add all your accounts you’ll notice that they are nested in categories, as shown (click to enlarge the picture):
Now that your accounts are set up, you need to create budget categories, which also follow the nested idea. Switch to the My Budget tab, go to Edit -> Create Budget Category, and make categories. It’s best if you set up your parent categories first, like Salary, Church, Car, Entertainment, Personal, School, Utilities, and whatever else, and then add categories with those as parents. In the end you’ll have something like this:
Transactions and budgeting
Now that all your accounts are set up, you can start adding transaction information. On your My Accounts page, double click on an account to open it and add information. If, for example, I just bought $45.23 of groceries at Costco with my ING Orange checking account, I’d double click on that account and fill out the information like so:
Easy enough! Repeat the same process to add any type of transaction: income and expenses. Choose the order of cash flow between accounts and/or categories, put in the information, and save it. You can go back later and edit the transactions if there are errors. You can even set up recurring transactions in the Edit menu.
Buddi doesn’t just track your expenses though—it’s a budgeting and reporting program too. In your My Budget tab you can set your budget limits for each category each month, as shown:
Your net income/loss is shown in the bottom right corner. Buddi budgets on a monthly basis (in this case… you could change that to weekly, biweekly, quarterly, or yearly), so for March you need to enter the same values. Rather than type each amount again, you can go to Edit -> Copy Values to Next Period to copy everything to the March column, changing different category amounts as needed.
Once you have your projected budget set and records of your actual transactions saved, you can use the various reports on the My Reports tab to see how close you were to your budget. Voila! You have a full fledged budgeting system!
My Buddi workflow
There are a lot of financial management programs out there. Some, like Quicken and Microsoft Money, cost money and can connect to your bank accounts online and show you real time balance and transaction information. Others, like Buddi, are free but lack that backdoor connection to your financial institutions, meaning you have to keep track of every single transaction.
This is good. This lets you see everything that’s going on with your account and lets you remember transactions that you may have lost receipts for.
Here’s how I work with Buddi. I keep every receipt possible until I can input the information into the appropriate accounts, after which I get rid of all the receipts (unless I need it for a gift, return, church reimbursement, or whatever). During the month I check my different bank accounts online to see if the transactions have cleared. If they have posted online, I mark the transaction in Buddi as reconciled and keep going. The reconciled option is not enabled by default—you’ll need to go to Edit -> Preferences -> Show ‘reconciled’ checkbox for transactions.
I generally bring both Buddi and the bank website up on the same page and go down the two lists item by item, adding missed items to Buddi as necessary. In the end I have an accurate view of my total net worth, and a clear idea of how my budget is working.
For power users, there are a few plugins that let you import and export CSV spreadsheets that you can download from your financial institutions or previous financial software. You can read more about Buddi at Lifehacker, where they also have a plethora of financial advice.
So, Buddi has worked great for me for the past year and I’ll continue using it. I haven’t even touched its budgeting capabilities—our budget has been “spend as little as possible.” Maybe I’ll start actually budgeting since Buddi can do it so well.
Good luck getting your finances in order!
Guest writer Andrew Heiss has almost graduated from BYU and is ready to put a steady cash flow into Buddi. Wait. No. He’s ready to be a grad student and continue to have a sporadic cash flow. It makes financial recordkeeping (and life in general) a lot more interesting.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Three Cheers for Rachel
In the past 4 days, we have changed 5 stinky diapers. We changed no stinky diapers yesterday!
And I just wanted to say that that's awesome! I know some people's babies don't relieve themselves all that often, but Rachel seems to empty her bowels pretty regularly. We still have the 6-8 poopy diapers a day--it never died down. Now that she's eating solid foods more often though, she seems to be able to "hold" it until we get her to the potty better. And I think that she may even be down to 4 BMs per day.
I just love it though. Her one poopy diaper on Thursday was changed by Andrew. And then she did two on Friday. None on Saturday. And two today. Everything else was caught in the potty!
Now we just have to figure out how to get her to hold her pee, I guess.
And I just wanted to say that that's awesome! I know some people's babies don't relieve themselves all that often, but Rachel seems to empty her bowels pretty regularly. We still have the 6-8 poopy diapers a day--it never died down. Now that she's eating solid foods more often though, she seems to be able to "hold" it until we get her to the potty better. And I think that she may even be down to 4 BMs per day.
I just love it though. Her one poopy diaper on Thursday was changed by Andrew. And then she did two on Friday. None on Saturday. And two today. Everything else was caught in the potty!
Now we just have to figure out how to get her to hold her pee, I guess.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
What the Buchanan's are Eating this month
It took me awhile to figure out what to plan for meals this month. I sat in front of my food shelves in the garage and tried to come up with meals that I already had things for so I could stick to my food budget better. Here is our menu for the month
Sundays
3 - Superbowl Party at friends house
10 - Sweet & Sour Crockpot Chicken with Rice
17 - Swiss Steak
24 - Chicken a la Orange with Rice
Mondays
4 - Steak & Onions
11 - Leftovers
18 - Potato Casserole
25 - Leftovers
Tuesdays
5 - Spaghetti
12 - Manicotti
19 - Fetticini
26 - Spaghetti again
Wednesdays
6 - Enchiladas
13 - Leftovers
20 - Quesadillas
27 - Tacos
Thursdays
7 - Eggs & Hashbrowns
14 - French Toast
21 - Pancakes
28 - Make-up Day
Fridays
8 - Subs
15 - Sloppy Joes
22 - Chef Salad
29 - Subs
Saturdays
2 - Used a Christmas Gift and got take out from Applebee's
9 - Celebrating Valentine's Day early and eating at the Melting Pot
16 - Pizza
23 - Pizza
I hope this menu works and if all goes well I really won't have to buy a whole lot of groceries because I pretty much have everything already.
Some of you have wrote about making your meat stretch buy having vegetarian meals. I have such a hard time with doing that because I don't like most of vegetables, so most of our meals have meat in them. Since I have a huge deep freezer in my garage I have the space to stock up on meats and I try to do that when a store is having a good deal on chicken or beef.
I like reading everyone suggestions on keeping to food budget. Thanks to all gave ideas!!!!
Sundays
3 - Superbowl Party at friends house
10 - Sweet & Sour Crockpot Chicken with Rice
17 - Swiss Steak
24 - Chicken a la Orange with Rice
Mondays
4 - Steak & Onions
11 - Leftovers
18 - Potato Casserole
25 - Leftovers
Tuesdays
5 - Spaghetti
12 - Manicotti
19 - Fetticini
26 - Spaghetti again
Wednesdays
6 - Enchiladas
13 - Leftovers
20 - Quesadillas
27 - Tacos
Thursdays
7 - Eggs & Hashbrowns
14 - French Toast
21 - Pancakes
28 - Make-up Day
Fridays
8 - Subs
15 - Sloppy Joes
22 - Chef Salad
29 - Subs
Saturdays
2 - Used a Christmas Gift and got take out from Applebee's
9 - Celebrating Valentine's Day early and eating at the Melting Pot
16 - Pizza
23 - Pizza
I hope this menu works and if all goes well I really won't have to buy a whole lot of groceries because I pretty much have everything already.
Some of you have wrote about making your meat stretch buy having vegetarian meals. I have such a hard time with doing that because I don't like most of vegetables, so most of our meals have meat in them. Since I have a huge deep freezer in my garage I have the space to stock up on meats and I try to do that when a store is having a good deal on chicken or beef.
I like reading everyone suggestions on keeping to food budget. Thanks to all gave ideas!!!!
My Thoughts on Budgeting
I know Heather's question on budgeting wasn't directed towards me, but I have a few thoughts about it.
First of all I think that budgeting is like dieting . . . or exercise . . . or scripture study. If you decide to make huge drastic changes all at once, you are likely to get discouraged. Elder Bednar said, "Small, steady, incremental spiritual improvements are the steps the Lord would have us take. Preparing to walk guiltless before God . . . does not result from sporadic spurts of intense spiritual activity" (Oct. 2007 conference).
Likewise with budgeting, I think we need to start with where we are. In order to do that, we need to find out where we are. I am a believer in tracking what you spend your money on for at least a month or two. I think we are often surprised when we do this at how much we spend on certain items. It adds up. Then we are able to make some informed decisions about what can be eliminated or cut back on to reduce spending. I am also a big fan of both spouses at least being aware of money spent. I spend so much more when I don't know where we stand on our budget which has gotten me into some trouble.
So then, after determining what you usually spend, you can look for ways to cut back (only a few ways at a time so you don't get discouraged) and decrease the amount alloted to spend - decrease by a manageable amount. Also, although I don't always do this, it helps me if I can divide my monthly food allotment between the weeks in the month so that I am making sacrifices here and there throughout the month instead of having a week of starving at the end of the month. (We're still working on this one.)
A few ideas about how to cut back:
Shop from a list. Don't buy things that aren't on the list. I make my list as I make my monthly menu. In theory this would cut down on shopping trips which cuts the "smaller" purchases which really add up. We gotta still work on that part too.
Figure out ways to stretch your meals farther. Don't waste leftovers like we do. If you find you have extra of some things at some point, figure out what you can do with them. (I waste a lot of sour cream and things like that because I only need part of it for a recipe.
To make a meal bigger (have more servings) add more rice or some other ingredient that is relatively cheap, and eat that meal for longer. Make double of whatever you are making and put some in the freezer. This saves time too. I love pulling a meal out of the freezer to eat!
Comparison shop. Buy cheap brands. With perishable foods, don't buy the biggest package you can find just because the unit price is cheaper if that means you are going to just let some waste. But if the food is nonperishable buy in bulk (a little at a time. Don't buy everything in bulk all the time.)
Plan meals well. I am starting to realize that it helps to group meals together that utilize the same perishable foods. It's not smart to use half of my head of lettuce in my dinner on the first day and then the other half the last day of the month. It will go bad in between. Another thing I want to work on is figuring out which meals are cheaper to make. I know I need to cut down on buying as much meat because it is expensive. Anyone have any good tips on this aspect? I can't think of things to make very often that don't have chicken or beef (the preferred meats at our house).
Have something to motivate yourself on small and big levels. For instance, this month we get to buy things to make yummy desserts that Matt will particularly love IF we have enough money to buy the ingredients at the end of the month. Hopefully that will help our self-control. Our large level goal is to pay off our mortgage as fast as we can. We love the idea of getting out of debt. So we allot enough money to double our mortgage payment each month. Plus any unexpected or unused money we throw at our mortgage as well. We are both obsessed with this goal which makes it kind of fun. When we are out of debt, we will suddenly have a lot more discretionary money each month. At that point, Matt really wants to raise our food budget so that we don't have to be quite so stingy. This principle of sacrifice now so that you can enjoy financial freedom later is a big Dave Ramsey thing. I know some people don't believe in doing this, but we like the idea. And it's not that we will go crazy just because we get out of debt. We'll be a little less stingy and be able to invest more.
Now, if you all want to completely ignore me, that's fine. I don't do all these things myself. But we are trying. And we are trying new ideas each month to improve. We have abandoned some ideas along the way that didn't work so much for us. Again, I really think it is important to work on this in a line upon line way. Don't try drastic things at once. If a month doesn't go so well, evaluate what you need to change (whether it is making a more realistic goal or working on self-control or whatever), don't be discouraged, and try again. That's what I think. I hope this helps someone. I hope it was understandable, not too much rambling. Good luck to all.
First of all I think that budgeting is like dieting . . . or exercise . . . or scripture study. If you decide to make huge drastic changes all at once, you are likely to get discouraged. Elder Bednar said, "Small, steady, incremental spiritual improvements are the steps the Lord would have us take. Preparing to walk guiltless before God . . . does not result from sporadic spurts of intense spiritual activity" (Oct. 2007 conference).
Likewise with budgeting, I think we need to start with where we are. In order to do that, we need to find out where we are. I am a believer in tracking what you spend your money on for at least a month or two. I think we are often surprised when we do this at how much we spend on certain items. It adds up. Then we are able to make some informed decisions about what can be eliminated or cut back on to reduce spending. I am also a big fan of both spouses at least being aware of money spent. I spend so much more when I don't know where we stand on our budget which has gotten me into some trouble.
So then, after determining what you usually spend, you can look for ways to cut back (only a few ways at a time so you don't get discouraged) and decrease the amount alloted to spend - decrease by a manageable amount. Also, although I don't always do this, it helps me if I can divide my monthly food allotment between the weeks in the month so that I am making sacrifices here and there throughout the month instead of having a week of starving at the end of the month. (We're still working on this one.)
A few ideas about how to cut back:
Shop from a list. Don't buy things that aren't on the list. I make my list as I make my monthly menu. In theory this would cut down on shopping trips which cuts the "smaller" purchases which really add up. We gotta still work on that part too.
Figure out ways to stretch your meals farther. Don't waste leftovers like we do. If you find you have extra of some things at some point, figure out what you can do with them. (I waste a lot of sour cream and things like that because I only need part of it for a recipe.
To make a meal bigger (have more servings) add more rice or some other ingredient that is relatively cheap, and eat that meal for longer. Make double of whatever you are making and put some in the freezer. This saves time too. I love pulling a meal out of the freezer to eat!
Comparison shop. Buy cheap brands. With perishable foods, don't buy the biggest package you can find just because the unit price is cheaper if that means you are going to just let some waste. But if the food is nonperishable buy in bulk (a little at a time. Don't buy everything in bulk all the time.)
Plan meals well. I am starting to realize that it helps to group meals together that utilize the same perishable foods. It's not smart to use half of my head of lettuce in my dinner on the first day and then the other half the last day of the month. It will go bad in between. Another thing I want to work on is figuring out which meals are cheaper to make. I know I need to cut down on buying as much meat because it is expensive. Anyone have any good tips on this aspect? I can't think of things to make very often that don't have chicken or beef (the preferred meats at our house).
Have something to motivate yourself on small and big levels. For instance, this month we get to buy things to make yummy desserts that Matt will particularly love IF we have enough money to buy the ingredients at the end of the month. Hopefully that will help our self-control. Our large level goal is to pay off our mortgage as fast as we can. We love the idea of getting out of debt. So we allot enough money to double our mortgage payment each month. Plus any unexpected or unused money we throw at our mortgage as well. We are both obsessed with this goal which makes it kind of fun. When we are out of debt, we will suddenly have a lot more discretionary money each month. At that point, Matt really wants to raise our food budget so that we don't have to be quite so stingy. This principle of sacrifice now so that you can enjoy financial freedom later is a big Dave Ramsey thing. I know some people don't believe in doing this, but we like the idea. And it's not that we will go crazy just because we get out of debt. We'll be a little less stingy and be able to invest more.
Now, if you all want to completely ignore me, that's fine. I don't do all these things myself. But we are trying. And we are trying new ideas each month to improve. We have abandoned some ideas along the way that didn't work so much for us. Again, I really think it is important to work on this in a line upon line way. Don't try drastic things at once. If a month doesn't go so well, evaluate what you need to change (whether it is making a more realistic goal or working on self-control or whatever), don't be discouraged, and try again. That's what I think. I hope this helps someone. I hope it was understandable, not too much rambling. Good luck to all.
An Introduction and Dinner with the Thornock's
Hi all! I'm Rosie... Bonnie and I know each other (she served in my home ward!). I love reading the posts here, so Nancy added me as a contributor. I love reading here, and I'm excited to contribute.
Anyway, reading here I "stole" the idea of monthly meal plans... before trying it I'd seriously gotten out of the habit of making dinner and into the habit of eating out. Not so good the the budget! Anyway, we tried it last month and it worked well, so here's what the Thornock's will be eating during the month of February.
1 - Leftovers
2 - Ginger Beef Stir Fry
3 - BBQ Pork Ribs (my friend April's recipe!)
4 - Mormon Mommy Casserole
5 - Wontons
6 - Haystacks
7 - Oven BBQ Chicken
8 - Pizza
9 - Taco Bean Soup & Quesodillas
10 - Chili
11 - Enchiladas
12 - Pork & Pineapple Veggies
13 - Parmesan Chicken
14 - Fondue (Valentines Fun!)
15 - Pizza
16 - Honey Lime Chicken Sandwiches
17 - Crock Pot Roast
18 - Tacos
19 - Chicken & Rice
20 - Lasagne
21 - Chicken Pockets
22 - Pizza
23 - Purgers and Fries
24 - Beef Stew
25 - Burritos
26 - Chicken Creole (my grandma's recipe)
27 - Eat out
28 - Lousiana Red Beans and Rice (Brian's choice)
29 - Pizza
Hopefully this month we'll be able to stick to both our eating out budget AND our grocery budget! =)
Anyway, reading here I "stole" the idea of monthly meal plans... before trying it I'd seriously gotten out of the habit of making dinner and into the habit of eating out. Not so good the the budget! Anyway, we tried it last month and it worked well, so here's what the Thornock's will be eating during the month of February.
1 - Leftovers
2 - Ginger Beef Stir Fry
3 - BBQ Pork Ribs (my friend April's recipe!)
4 - Mormon Mommy Casserole
5 - Wontons
6 - Haystacks
7 - Oven BBQ Chicken
8 - Pizza
9 - Taco Bean Soup & Quesodillas
10 - Chili
11 - Enchiladas
12 - Pork & Pineapple Veggies
13 - Parmesan Chicken
14 - Fondue (Valentines Fun!)
15 - Pizza
16 - Honey Lime Chicken Sandwiches
17 - Crock Pot Roast
18 - Tacos
19 - Chicken & Rice
20 - Lasagne
21 - Chicken Pockets
22 - Pizza
23 - Purgers and Fries
24 - Beef Stew
25 - Burritos
26 - Chicken Creole (my grandma's recipe)
27 - Eat out
28 - Lousiana Red Beans and Rice (Brian's choice)
29 - Pizza
Hopefully this month we'll be able to stick to both our eating out budget AND our grocery budget! =)
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