So often, dear friends of mine have claimed that cooking is just not in their wheelhouse. Among these women are some of the fiercest, strongest, most incredible women I know. It makes me sad to know that these talented and accomplished women see themselves as “less than” in any way – especially feeling inferior as a wife and/or mom simply because they’ve put their energy into learning and practicing other skills more than they have into the skill of cooking. So… in their honor, today let me impart to you three SIMPLE tips that even the most basically skilled chefs can accomplish with confidence and will allow you to “go…
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We Failed in July. See How.
As you probably already know, we budget out all of our money (as best we can) every month before it’s even in our hands. Some (like Dave Ramsey) refer to this as a “zero-based budget.” Some call it a “goals-based budget.” Whatever you choose to call it, the gist is that you make a plan for your money before the month even starts so you can avoid that awful question of, “WHERE DID ALL OF OUR MONEY GO???” Have you ever felt that way? I KNOW we have. Well, here’s the thing. Even if you’re a “budgeting expert” you aren’t perfect, and this month, we are a great example of…
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Weekend Wins for Feeling Accomplished as a Homeschooling/Working Mom During COVID-19
In the last 8 weeks (or however long we’ve been doing this… feels more like 2934 weeks, right?), I’ve gone through the stages of “grief” just as you have (and probably still are) over the loss of what my life used to look like and how it’s changed since the Shelter-In-Place orders and new country-wide regulations and social expectations. Within those grief stages, we’ve had to do things like: reorganize our schedules, reset our expectations, rearrange the ways our home functions, apologize to the people we love for responding in less-than-perfect ways (times a million), find new ways to feel accomplished since it’s seemingly impossible to meet the old expectations of…
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Easy + Sustainable Home Learning Management System — FREE Video Tutorial!
If your family is anything like ours, you’ve gone through seasons of feeling like you’ve “got it all figured out” (which only lasts a day or two) and seasons of feeling like a complete chaotic failure when it comes to homeschooling and home learning. I have good news, though! Regardless of how many more weeks you’ve got in your homeschooling career, I was finally able to film and edit a quick video tutorial showing you the system that has been a game changer in organizing and managing our two kiddos and their school work (both physical and digital) for the last several weeks. I hope it’s helpful to you and…
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That Crushing, Drowning Feeling: A Peek into a Private Conversation
Last week I had a DM conversation inside Instagram, and it was one that made me think, “If she has these questions, I’ll bet she’s not alone in her wonderings!” So I’d like to share what we discussed with you here. Cool? Great. Her questions were these: Are you debt free aside from your mortgage? If so, what is your motivation for frugal spending? Is it because of a frugal upbringing (or in spite of your upbringing, maybe)? She shared that for her, she knows that before she can truly get “on board” with some things, she really needs to fully understand them and know that they are “just” and…
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Our Family’s Top 10 Immunity Tips: What We Use To Stay Well During Cold and Flu Season
I don’t know what it is, but I feel like the sickness going around JUST WON’T LET UP!! The funk tried to grab ahold of three of the four of us this week, but thankfully it didn’t last long or hit too hard! I’ve been fighting back tooth and nail (or should I say, “with essential oils and vitamins”)! I want to share with you some easy things that we do in our family to boost our immune systems and fight back agains the onslaught of germs that seems to be never ending this season. Hopefully this will encourage you in seeing how a few simple steps, done regularly, can…
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What We Spend in a Month as a Family of Four
When I was still in the research phase of figuring out the best way for our family to budget, track, and actually make progress toward our financial goals (without being trust fund babies or both of us having to work around the clock), one of the topics that drew me in the most was being able to see examples of other families’ actual budgets and their actual routines/management of those budgets. Considering that, I want to share a bit of our own budget with you, but before I do, I need for you to promise me something. Promise me that you will not try to build your own budget based…
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If You “Budget” This Way, You’re Wasting Your Time
Before I started organizing our monthly budget with my current system (using The Sustainable Budget Blueprint), in order to know exactly how much we were spending in each category each month, I had to choose an impractical or unreliable tool to rely on: A. the automatic breakdown of our online banking tools (which just guess categories based on the location of the purchase) B. spending hours going back through all of our spending to try and make my own best guesses as to which category each purchase should go under. Have you ever tried to categorize a purchase from Amazon, Walmart, or Target? Without the actual receipt, GOOD LUCK. Seriously.…
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How to Convince Your Spouse to Stick to the Budget
Anyone else ever felt the age-old struggle of dragging a fallen horse through the mud in the sense of trying to convince your spouse to JUST FOLLOW THE PLAN and stick to the budget?? Just us? Nah. Can’t be. Can I share with you the best, easiest, most effective way to get them on board? Find a goal to work towards that actually motivates them. What is something that they really would love to purchase, a trip they would really love to take, an experience they would really like to share with the family? If they aren’t working toward a goal that is more important to them than the joy/relief…
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MUD: The Secret to Consistent $ Tracking Through The Month
I am constantly hearing about how easy it is for my clients/readers to “fall behind” the tracking of their spending throughout their months. It causes them to feel like a failure, like they aren’t “good at” budgeting, and like they can never get enough traction to make their budgeting efforts worthwhile. THAT IS THE WORST! It’s also, unfortunately, not surprising because it IS one of the most challenging things about budgeting. Consistency. It’s the cornerstone of making progress with your financial goals, but it’s also the one thing that is SO easy to fall to the wayside in the midst of your busy LIFE. What’s the answer? What I call…
