It’s official, we’ve graduated - from the minivan stage that is.

I have no complaints about my ‘05 Toyota Sienna beyond the fact that it was a minivan. The convenience and practicality of a minivan with young children was simply too big to discount any longer than we already had. I did fully love the ability to open and close sliding doors with the touch of a button, not to mention the fact that it drove like a car. But I was never in love with the look of a minivan, even though Vin Diesel drove the same make and model (right down to the color of ours) in “The Pacifier” and I made it nearly four years. So there were no tears shed by me to trade it in for our new Pathfinder.

Up until last week we were looking at the 300M but we couldn’t ignore the fact that it would be a huge inconvenience when grandparents came to visit that we couldn’t fit 6 people in it. So we started looking at mid-size options and after an eternity at the dealership Friday night drove home in my new baby.

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Shopping Sharing Blogging

I love Kohl’s. Don’t get me wrong, I hate shopping but I love saving money. A few weeks ago my husband and I braved the store for some shopping. With all their 40-60% off sales we not only got more than we had planned but kept shaking our heads walking out the door at how little it cost and how in one stop we’d done nearly all our shopping. From that trip I got $30 toward my next purchase at their store and a 20% off coupon in the mail to boot. So yesterday I forced myself to go out again so as not to waste the $30.00 which expires today or the extra 20% off coupon which expires Monday.

The kids are getting their toys for Christmas and this year my hubby and I are getting a dining room table - a nice one. It’s being delivered on Monday. My daughter is so excited to use my wedding china for our Christmas dinner and on a new table to boot. So I was thinking a great place to put the $30 was toward a nice table cloth/setting for our Christmas dinner. Well at first I was intimated because our table is huge and the size table cloth I’d need was $49.99 by itself. Then I saw the 60% off signs everywhere. So I got all this (over $100 of price tags) for…..drum roll please……

….a whopping $13.40! Now that’s my kind of Christmas surprise.

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Shopping Homemaker Holidays Blogging

Need I say more? No, but I will because it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to. *giggle*

Consumers continue to experience the great rip off. It just slays me how companies constantly reduce the quantity, size and/or quality of their products yet their price tags only experience growth. Hmmmmm. Most of the time they’re pretty sneaky starting reduction in small increments so you may actually wonder if it really used to be bigger or if you just have a hazy memory. Another favorite is to go straight to packaging where they’ll reduce the quantity to make it fit. Then they’ll slap an ad on the front saying something like 30% more free! Free my arse, we’re paying more for less but this is supposed to give us a warm fuzzy about it. Another great tactic is to change something and then wait for a period of time reintroducing the old as new. This morning I saw my first Trix commercial showing round shapes as new. I nearly laughed myself silly all the while my kids are looking at me like I’ve finally lost my marbles. I guess it is new to them, but hopefully they’ll join me for a giggle when in a few years they reintroduce the fruit shapes as new.

I feel like the leading lady in the movie “Misery”, you know the part where she’s screaming about getting ripped off when the cliff hanger of your favorite movie or show ends with a car going over the mountain but the next show continues changing it so the car never actually went over. I know that feeling of wanting to stand up and scream to the entire audience that you’ve just been ripped off that they just changed it to trick everyone. In fact, it was the first thing that popped in my head when I took this picture showing how the double stuff Oreo is now what the original was. Maybe they’re gearing up for the introduction of the triple stuff cookie so we can finally get a real double stuff again.

I don’t mean to sound so pessimistic but what happened to letting inflation just be more for the same? I’d even be okay paying more for more. But I’m really growing tired of paying the same and/or more for less. Pretty soon the normal size roll of toilet paper will have all of three squares and we’ll run out of words beyond “mega.” *laugh*

Rest assured that it’s not your imagination that packages are getting smaller or products are not all they used to be. It’s part of the great consumer rip-off….errr corrective….errr deception program. Ah call it whatever you want, just know it’s real. *wink*

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Shopping Food Blogging

We went out and bought a new computer monitor last night. I lamented having to do it and the entire process took WAY too long, but boy was I glad for timing this morning when I woke to find my old monitor had died in the night. So this morning I hooked up the new one and can I just say “Behold there was light and it is good!” LOL I’m so glad I can keep up with my computer activities today! I got a 19″ wide screen this time with a good brand name behind it. Hopefully this one lasts more than a year! *wink*

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Shopping Blogging

Darn it anyway. Two items in my home that receive A LOT of use are dying on me. My computer monitor and our TV. Naturally, they would start crapping out at the same time. *frown*
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If this is the first Simple Balance tip you’ve read, make sure you click on the rainbow image as it will take you to the index and overview of the series. ;o)

So, it’s the holidays and most people are feeling the sense of the hustle and bustle that go with it. As I was sitting here thinking this morning, I realized how much of what I wanted to say fit so well with this series. So today you get a quadruple whammy as tips will cover: Organizing & Planning, Technology & Resources, Family & Entertainment as well as Cooking & Shopping!
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It was about this time two years ago when we purchased our last car. The holiday season was approaching and we had a year of long distance travels coming up. We knew we needed something that worked better for our family. My back couldn’t continue taking the constant reaching and stretching to restart the movie on the laptop every time it got bumped, and my nerves sure couldn’t take many more long road trips with our two kids getting more verbal and active with each other. As you can see from these pictures, the decision made everyone happy travelers!
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Okay this one is the easiest tip so far. It’s something that helps with both cooking and shopping.

Cooking & Shopping Tip: FoodSaver

If you don’t have one, get one. They are awesome and a worthwhile investment. Mine has paid for itself several times over. It’s several years old and not nearly as sleek looking as the new models but it still works great and I’ve put a lot of miles on it. Here’s what I love about mine:
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Yesterday I started a series on simplicity and balance. I pointed out the greatest reasons why we strive for them and why it’s so tough. I challenged the reader to take the first step by making the simple choice to become aware of where you spend your time and energies. I also shared, through example, the importance of breaking down our tasks by explaining that this tip sharing concept would be made into a series of smaller and more manageable posts. Today’s task is to organize those smaller steps.

Here’s what I’ll cover in this series: (more…)

It seems that some things in life are never ending.  Two as wife and mother are balancing the budget and coming up with meals.  But the good news is that I’m finding some things that are making me more successful at both so thought I’d share.

First - finances: I was recently introduced to Mvelopes.  So far so great.  I have always tried to do a system similar to this but most of it stayed in my head or was something that came up by way of review when balancing the checkbook.  And doing things after the fact isn’t very helpful when it comes to managing finances. 

Side step: I love that things are so easy for balancing these days - like I no longer have to manually enter my transactions into my Quicken software, just do a quick click on the one step update and everything from my bank drops into my accounts.  BUT this also makes it very easy to spend more because I spend less time actually interacting with the spending process. 

This new program seems to be providing a missing link for me and added to two other practices I’ve recently implemented, I’m seeing a big difference.  The other two are: 

1. Breaking down bigger payments into weekly installments.  

I set up automated, recurring payments each week for 1/4 the amount of the total bill in my banking institution’s free online banking tools.  It keeps things more even in my account, eliminates late fees and forgotten bills and it gets me ahead as there are a few extra weeks each year.

2. Pulling out some actual cash to push in a cash stash envelope at home. 

I find that actually seeing and touching my money helps me value it more - which means spend it less readily.  It’s such a peace of mind to know I have some cash on hand for emergencies or pleasures.  The key to keeping it for me is using larger bills.  I may only pull 10 or 20 a paycheck out for cash but when I can I exchange the smaller bills for 50s and 100s.  Amazing how something so simple can make such a positive difference!  

Second - meals:  Planning is critical.  It’s funny that I love organizing yet hate implementing meal plans.  They always feel so restrictive and complicated.  But, determined to get our dining out bill envelope down I forced myself to sit down with a few cookbooks Friday and compile a short list.  Here are some of the lessons learned from this week:

1. Keep it simple.  Don’t try to plan an entire week when you’ve never been good at planning even one day out.  I picked four dishes that looked good and didn’t assign them a day.
2. Make your spending expectations realistic.  Mine were out of whack because there were so few things I needed to complete the dishes that I was certain I’d spend very little.  As we left the store my husband was happy commenting on how that was so reasonable while I was mourning because it was nowhere near what I had on my radar.  On this note - DON’T take your family and DON’T go to a super/mega store with all the budget busters.  Half of my bill was a result of these two things!
3. Don’t be afraid of prices or trying something new.  I almost talked myself out of a bag of pre-cooked, shelled and de-veined shrimp because it was $10.00.  The other bags of uncooked were a fraction of the price (if money is more important than time this is the answer for you).  I’ve never bought shrimp at the grocery store before so was intimidated, but because this was one of only four dishes on my list and I already picked up the other ingredients for it I relinquished.  Last night we had that coconut shrimp and it was awesome!  How silly in hindsight that I even questioned $10.00 for an entire meal when we easily spend three times that in one meal dining out.  Good reality check. ;o)
4. Let go of past premonitions and habits - get off your ‘duff and get started.  Yesterday I hadn’t started anything yet and it was 5:00 p.m.  I was so tempted to just bag it and go out to eat.  But I forced myself to get up and at least look at my dishes menu.  When I read that the shrimp would thaw in 5-7 minutes under running water I realized the whole dinner wouldn’t take long to pull together.  The challenge is in getting started.  It was not only quick it was successful with the entire family enjoying the meal. 

So it’s mid week, we haven’t eaten out once yet, we’re spending more time together as a family, spending less money on food and I’m feeling a surge of success. 

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Shopping Homemaker Organizing Food