Frugal Friday-preparing for life's sudden changes

Today is Frugal Friday over at Hearts In Service and I am joining the link up once more. Stop by and see how others are being good stewards with their blessings.

To some, preparing for life's sudden changes doesn't seem like it fits into the "frugal" category. Truth is however, being prepared is at the heart and soul of being frugally minded.

Today's post comes directly from what is happening in my family's lives this week. With the economy and job market and such being what it is, I felt that perhaps others might be able in a similar  boat or even will be in the future.

This week has been really hard.

Earlier this week my husband came home with some potentially bad news. Without going into details, I will just say this...my husband is upper management and often they are the first to go when there are issues within the company. As of right now, the future of his current job position is unknown. Unknowns are scary, especially when it involves your livelihood. For hubby to find another job it will mean relocating to who knows where too.

Also this week we got word that cost associated with the treatment of our oldest is going to be much higher than expected and we would need to start paying for that in a few weeks time. Still trying to figure out how we will make those cost as well. Either way, things started looking grim in our household this week.

Our family was in a similar situation some years ago and thankfully we learned some valuable lessons then that can help us now. Preparing for sudden change was one of those things. Had we had been more repaired then, we would have saved ourselves a boat load of money and warehouse full of stress and grief.

So, what are some ways to prepare for life's suddens turns and changes?

1. Be thankful!  Just because things in your life are not going exactly how you had planned or would like them to doesn't mean there are not lots of things to be thankful. Having a good attitude and thankful heart and not only required for those who are happily frugal but also essential for living a balanced and healthy life, both emotionally and spiritually.
So even though I can see all the challenges we may or may not face in the very near future I still know we have soooo much to be thankful for. This week when the worry and sadness started to slip its way into my heart and threatened to suck the life right out of me, I focused on all the blessings we have and how very grateful I am.

2. Get rid of life's clutter. Many of us have lives that are filled with different kinds of clutter. There can be the obvious physical clutter of having too many things but there can also be emotional and spiritual clutter and time clutter, the type that takes up all your precious time because you have too many things on your plate.
Start by really looking within and identifying those internal and spiritual issues that have your heart all cluttered up and choking for air. We have to address these most important matters before tackling other obstacles in our lives, so for myself this is always first on my list and honestly its an on going process, but thats ok because it is suppose to be.
Next, look at what all you have on your plate. Is it keeping you over scheduled and stress? Look at these things and compare them to your top priorities in life, dump the rest for the time being. You can't handle your most important duties in life effectively if your time is spread to thin on things of lesser importance.
Last of all, get rid of all that physical clutter. If your sudden life change involves a move or even having someone new come to stay with you, having to deal with physical clutter is going to make either one more stressful and complicated. Personally I have been in a situation where we needed to move fairly quickly and I was faced with packing a home with too much stuff. It was a nightmare to say the least. This was also costly as we had to pay extra for more moving boxes to move soooo much unneeded items. I highly recommend stream lining your things now to not only make your present life more enjoyable but also to be prepared for whatever life brings you in the future.

3. Get organized.  Having to make a sudden change is sooooo much easier if you know where everything is and have all your important resources lined out. Organize your belongings in a way that would make it easy to pack up if needed. Get your important paperwork and documents together in one place if possible. This makes it easier to grab and go if needed as well just keeps you sane during any type of life change. Update your address book and get your important contacts lined out as well. Once we had to move on the fly, I forgot about this and it took me months to try and recover some addresses and phone numbers I needed. It is amazing how much money being organized can save you, trust me!

4. Try to make some extra money. This kinda goes without saying for those of us who are thrifty but some people don't make the connection. Having extra cash stashed away for a rainy day is essential!!! You really never know when your family might need it for an emergency. There may be a case when someone you know has hit a tough situation and also needs a little help from you and having something set aside could be a great blessing to someone in need. Thankfully during our sudden move some years ago, we had just sold one of our vehicles and had a little extra dough in our savings. Moving is expensive and without that extra we had on hand I don't know how we could have afforded to cove the cost we had associated with uprooting ourselves and moving to hubby's new job opportunity.
Having a garage sale(we had no idea our recent job issue was on the brink when we planned our garage sale lol) is a great way to tackle decluttering, getting organized and making extra money. Even just placing some items on craigslist can bring in a bit of money. Depending on your situation you could maybe make things to sell, babysit, clean others homes, mow lawns, run errands, etc.... Finding ways to make extra money isn't always easy, but I believe it is essential to at least give it a go and see if there are any dollars to made.

5. Be realistic. When my husband first told me about the potential job issue this week I will admit I fell apart momentarily. I had built how things should be in my mind and when it seemed it might not be so, I was shattered. One particular thing that kept nagging me was preparing for the baby. If we had to move and/or we found ourselves in dire financial strain, how would I buy all the things a new baby "needs". In my head I was thinking about how my plans for making and preparing the new nursery would not be able to happen and that that would be a disaster. Realistically, a newborn doesn't need it's own room and it certainly doesn't care if its a perfectly decorated one at that. Realistically if we had to move and didn't have a space for baby right off, we could just share. We were planning on using a co-sleeper beside our bed anyway. If by the time the baby is too big for the co sleeper and we are still not in a situation where we can give the baby its own room, we can just do a trundle under mine and hubby's bed, Little House on the Prairie style. I really had to force myself to be realistic and see that I didn't need all this stuff I previously thought.
Sometimes we don't look at things realistically and we are caught off guard too. Not looking realistically at what your families needs are can cause some needs to go unfulfilled if your not careful as well.

Whenever have to do something in haste or are forced into a situation we are not prepared, it can wreck havoc on our finances and well being. Stay ahead of the game by preparing for whatever life may bring your way.

Yard Sale Time!

This is a busy week at our house as we are getting ready to have a yard sale! The last yard sale we had was when we moved cross country about three-ish years ago and sold pretty much everything that wouldn't fit in the moving truck. It is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated since then in a relatively short period of time.

We are now in a position where we need two big things before the new baby arrives.....money and space! Even though I am having this baby "frugal style" there are still things we need to make and purchase since this will be our first baby since our other children were adopted as young children and not newborns. When hubby and I sat down and put the pencil to the paper to figure out what minimum we will need to tackle the must do baby projects and to purchase the must have baby items, the number shocked us. Add the need for money with the need for more space and a more streamlined household and the perfect solution is a yard sale.

Growing up my family had a yard sale pretty much every summer. My mother and aunts would pool items to make a fantastic sale. I think my favorite part about it was sitting around visiting with everyone all day. Even though we lived in rural setting we still always had a crowd and sold out by the end of the day. We hung our sign at the church and the one tiny gas station down the road and it always seemed to bring in just the right amount of people to make the sale a success. A few times my cousins and I operated a lemonade stand as well, which is exactly what my daughter is hoping to do at our yard sale. Yard sales hold a lot of nostalgia for me and I am excited to be having one again.

One thing I am NOT excited about is the prep work for a yard sale. The week before a sale seems to turn my house inside out, piles and stack of items sorted through and priced take over. The kids have been instructed to go through every nook and cranny of their rooms and pull out anything that doesn't fit, is broken(for the trash not the sale) or they simply don't want anymore. As motivation for this we let the children keep all money made from selling their own items. This often results in big unorganized piles like the one pictured below, in various areas of our home.

This is my daughter's unsightly pile of clothes and misc toys and such she has decided to put in the yard sale. I did warn her that all clothes will need to be freshly washed and pressed before the sale so she still has a bit of work to do. lol

As for myself, I have lots of clothes to get rid of as well as books, home decor items, a few electronics and crafty stuff. I am struggling quiet a bit with my collection of pyrex and other glass kitchen items. I have sooooo much of it but since our kitchen in this home is so much smaller than previous ones, I simply don't have room for most of it. So, I am spending a lot of time this week trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.

All items that don't sell will simply be donated.

Yard sale week is a time where I relax my pickiness about the order of the house and just let it be since we don't have an extra space to just process yard sale items. It will be worth it when the sale is over and I know none of these things will be coming back into my house and I have a little extra cash in my pocket.

Anyone else planning a yard/garage sale this summer?

Menu Plan Monday- Making Meals When The Food Budget Is Almost Gone

It's Menu Plan Monday again over at the Organization Junkie and as usual I am joining the link up. Check out my menu then head on over and see what others have cooking in their kitchens this week.

We had some unexpected expenses come up last week and over the weekend and it pretty much wiped our grocery budget clean for this week. I have a tiny bit left over from last week so this week we will be getting by on about $25 cash and whatever is the pantry and freezer. Challenges can be fun and interesting if you let them be however and this week I choose to let it be a positive instead of a negative.

Here is what we are chowing down on this week.....

Breakfast

oatmeal with fruit

muffins

eggs and toast

cinnamon toast

cereal

smoothies

*some will be repeated a few times within the week*

Lunch

leftovers

egg salad or PB sandwiches

loaded salads

soups from the freezer

crock pot mac and cheese with carrots

*some will be repeated a few times within the week*

Dinner

spinach quiche with fruit

homemade pizza with caesar salad

veggie stir fry

loaded baked potato bar

falafels and salad

breakfast for dinner(pancakes, eggs, bacon)

hamburgers cooked on the grill with oven fries

I have most of what I need for the above menu except for some of the fresh produce, eggs, milk and a teeny bit more hamburger meat. I have a new large bag of flour so I don't have to worry about running out of ingredients to keep us stocked in sandwich bread, muffins, hamburger buns, pizza dough and pancakes. We bought lots of potatoes in bulk earlier this year so I always have potatoes in my basement along with with rice and usually try to to keep some frozen veggies in the freezer at all times. You can make several meals just from rice, veggies and potatoes and if you have a few extra ingredients you can stretch them even further. According to my price book....I really should do a post on that soon.....I can get everything I need for my $25 budget this week. Hopefully we won't get any more surprise expenses this week but if we do I know things will be just fine because I am choosing to have a good attitude. 

Whats on your family's plate this week?

Frugal Friday- Transforming Cold Weather Clothing Into Warm Weather Clothing...with a tutorial

 Today I am linking up with Terri from Hearts In Service for Frugal Friday. Head on over and see what others are doing to be good stewards with what blessings they have. 

It is that time of year again when must transfer from cold weather clothing to warm weather clothing. Some people live in climates where the temperatures from season to season don't differ much and they don't have to make any changes to their wardrobes. For folks like us who live in a climate where we have very distinct seasons and temperature changes throughout the year, this isn't always a possibility.

Having to maintain multiple wardrobes is expensive, especially when growing children are involved. Today for Frugal Friday I will show you how we help cut the cost of changing seasons when it comes to clothing by modifying our winter pieces into summer pieces.

At the beginning of summer I have my kids try on all their clothes and whatever doesn't fit gets donated or taken to the 2nd hand store where we get store credit for whatever we bring in. The rest of the clothing that fits is evaluated to see which pieces can be used again next year (either for the same child or a different child) and which pieces are good candidates for some up cycling. Those that can be modified I transfer into warm weather clothing by simply cutting off the pants to make shorts, capris or skirts and cutting of long sleeved shirts at the elbows to make a new cooler shirt for the hot temps of summer.

My daughter was able to fit into most of her jeans when I did my evaluation this week. She had one pair of khakis, two pairs of blue denim, one pair of black and one pair of navy pants that fit. This is enough to get her through the summer easily so we got to work.

First thing I did was have her try each pair on again then she decided if she wanted them to be turned into capris or shorts. I then measured and mark each pair so I would know where to cut them off.

Then I laid the jeans out on my table and measured and marked again.

Next I fold the bottoms up and pinned them as shown above.

Make sure you don't pin the front and back of the pant legs together! I have done this numerous times and ended up sewing the leg holes completely shut. Always run your hand up through the leg hole to make sure you didn't make this mistake.

You can choose to cut the remainder off or leave it and go directly to sewing. I choose to cut it off because it tends to annoy me when trying to run it through my machine.

You want to sew about here where I am opining with my pencil. Once you have sewn all the way around and have removed the pins, simply whack any leftover material off and then fold back the bottom. Its best to press the seam at this point to get the results.

This is the end product. I have not pressed the seams yet in this picture but you get the idea. This technique is really usually for blue jeans that have that wonderful factory hem that is hard to replicate. Now you can't even tell they were ever long pants, they look as if they came from the store as a pair of shorts instead.

By the time I was finished my daughter had three pairs of shorts and two pairs of capris for her summer wardrobe and all for basically free. I didn't use the above explained method for each and every pair of pants I modified however. She wanted a few pair to have that trendy frayed looked so for those I simply whacked them off where needed then ran a stitch a little ways from the bottom to keep them fraying beyond where we wanted. After a few washes they will be perfectly and fashionably frayed.

 Here are five pieces finished except for the two pair that will get frayed in the washer later today. These with a few skirts I plan to make using some material from from fabric stashes, will be plenty to get my daughter through the summer which means I won't have to spend a dime on new shorts for this season. Free is about as frugal as you can get. :-)

I was also able to get some good scraps for my fabric stash! Not sure what I will use them for yet but I know something will come up. 

Our New Homemade and FREE Coffee Table

Furniture can be expensive! Unfortunately every home needs a least a minimal amount of furniture. So, what do you do when you don't want to spend a lot of money on a new piece but you feel you do need a particular piece of furniture? You don't ever have to buy furniture from a actual furniture store, whose prices are usually marked up quiet a bit anyway. There is always resale shops, garage sales and craigslist. I have used these sources many many times to furnish our home and ended up paying way below retail for my items. At times however you would prefer to not spend any money though. When that situation comes up I often check out our local Freecycle group first to see if anyone is giving away what I need and to post a want ad for a particular piece. You would be surprised at what all people give away and it is much better to pass it on rather than things ending up in the landfill. When I decided I needed a coffee table recently all of the above mentioned sources were unable to provide me with one, so I decided to make my own out of thin air which means for FREE.

Thankfully I am blessed with a super handy husband that can pretty much make any vision of mine come to life. I am soooo not handy with tools beyond the basic screwdriver and even then I get frustrated at times. Together, hubby and I were able to use what was piled up in our garage to make our family a new coffee table that we could put to good use.

A few years ago my husband brought home some wooden shipping crates he got from his place of business. They are always throwing these out once they unpacked them so he brought some home. We both loved the industrial rustic charm of them and knew we would be making something out of the crates, we just didn't know what yet. After putting in some new wood flooring in our foyer area we realized we had about enough pieces left to make a coffee table top. The flooring we bought at our local Restore by the way and got about $500 worth of premium flooring for $12.00! I can't remember if it was myself or my husband that came up with the idea of using the shipping crates for the base of the coffee table but after barely an hour in the garage making leftover pieces fit, we had a brand new FREE coffee table!

Ta da!!! We still want to put some feet of some sort on it but we will wait till we come across a bargain for those, for now we are happy with it just sitting on the floor.

What I love about our new coffee table, besides being free, is that has that rustic quality about it that we love and also stands up to kids. The top is made of flooring so I don't have worry about what kind of abuse this table will surely take over the next several years. All the corners and edges are somewhat rounded and smooth so it is fairly baby safe as well. I also love that it has stamped shipping labels which I think adds character and a bit of whimsy to the piece.

I am in LOVE with the metal corners that came on the crate!

The top is made of flooring that is suppose to looked worn so it works great!

There are lots of ways to make your own coffee table. I have seen them made from everything to cinder blocks to wooden pallets and even an old car hood. I personally like unique items that are handmade over something anyone can buy at a big box store. If you keep your eyes peeled you can find all sorts of items for absolutely free that you can fashion into various pieces of furniture with spending little to no money at all. 

Here are some other examples of homemade coffee tables I found online, I think they are all amazing!

Made by putting simple wooden crates together

Old doors turned into a super cute table!

Pallets simply stacked and used as way cool table

An old window with a picture behind it and legs added makes this adorable coffee table

basic pluming parts and some old wood into an industrial chic coffee table

These are just some of the examples I found, if you look online there is no limit to what people are creating for their homes. I encourage anyone that needs a new piece to better server their family to first look around and see what you already have on hand to make what you need. It is very satisfying to know that you fulfilled a need for very little money while getting to flex your creative muscles.

Frugal Friday..........Frugality: It isn't a poor person thing, its a smart person thing!

A few weeks ago I was standing in line at the library waiting to check out the stack of books and movies my daughter and I had selected. Standing in front of us was a woman and her son, they had an impressively large stack of items that the son was struggling to hold. Fed up with the armload the woman's son sat the books on the table beside the line and began arranging the books to better fit his arms. A few books I have read in the past came tumbling off the tower of books and landed in the check out aisle and I immediately recognized them. The books were about frugal living and saving money. I stepped closer and bent down to give them a helping hand when I heard the mother scold her son in a loud whisper, "hurry up and hide those books, we don't want people thinking we are poor!" The boy who looked to be about my own daughters age, anxiously glanced around him while fumbling to hide the frugal living books under the piles of other items they were checking out. I was immediately filled with pity and sadness for this mother and son who were now sporting bright red faces and trying to plaster fake smiles on their faces.  Unfortunately what I had witnessed just then really illustrates our current societies attitude regarding frugality.

Not too many generations ago frugality was looked upon as a worthy virtue, it had no barring on whether or not someone was "rich" or "poor" but rather was a show of character and brains. Most everyone was frugal in one way or another, it was a way of life that demonstrated good stewardship, appreciation and a good head on your shoulders. A man, no matter if they were considered rich or poor, was considered a fool and of weak moral fiber if they did not practice frugality.

Nowadays our society has made the word "frugal" an ugly word and has attached shame it. My only guess to why we have taken such a drastic turn from our roots in this matter, is that the recent generations of Americans have become more materialistic and consumption driven than any generation in our past. We have fallen into the "bigger is better" mentality and are obsessed with what other's think of us. We place our value of ourselves and of each other on material items and how things appear on the outside. This type of thinking as driven the notion that only the poor and less worthy are frugal. The real truth however is quiet the opposite.

Some families that are poor in finances may have to be more frugal out of necessity, this is true, but not all folks who are low on funds practice frugality. In fact, many people who consider themselves "poor", actually would not be as much so if they were a bit more frugal. Sadly societies definition of what is poor is strongly mis construed. Even if you have very little money, you can be rich in more ways than even the top financially wealthy people in our country. Money is only a small part of it and even so, American families who live at the poverty line or below have more money that most of the worlds population.

Many families who are not struggling with finances choose to be frugal as well. These families might not have to be frugal just so they can put food in their bellies but they make the choice because to them it is a matter of character and because it is the smart thing to do. I read a study a few years ago about millionaires that really made me think. The study showed that most super wealthy people are extremely frugal. These people drive older vehicles, live in homes that are nowhere near luxurious and appear to their neighbors as average low to middle class folks. They are wealthy because they are frugal, they are wealthy because they are smart with their money and resources. Oh sure there are lots of wealthy people who love to show off their money, big houses, fancy cars, lots of shiny things, you know the type. This type of person usually has poor relationships, is internally unhappy, over stressed and of low character. I want none of those things and I am sure many others would agree.

My husband and I  confuse many people I am sure, especially those who know enough about us to know how much my husbands salary is. We are very frugal yet my husband earns a wonderful living. People often assume we are stingy and cheap if they know his salary or if they don't they assume we are poor because of our frugal ways. Truth is we are neither. We choose to live in a way that is a reflection of our beliefs and what we consider to be of good character. It is important to us to be good stewards with what we have been blessed with, to do anything less would be wrong in our eyes. Does this mean we are rolling in the dough while we spend very little? Not at all. While we do have a very decent income we also have some not so decent medical bills that we have to pay every month. Also we like the idea that the more we save means we can give more. If more people were frugal then more could be given to others so that we may all survive. We have higher goals for our money than to spend it all on material things and to some this seems silly.  Stewardship, wisdom, character and security are far more important to us than having shiny things to dangle in front of others.  We live in a very average modest home. According to the banks assessment of our income we could qualify to live in a home twice if not three times the value of our current home. But why struggle to pay a bigger mortgage and be stressed out when a more affordable option is just as good and frees up more money and resources for other goals. We have lived in much larger and fancier homes and truth is they didn't make us more happy just more stressed. As a stay at home mom I can tell you I have much better things I could be doing with my time than cleaning 5th bathrooms spread out across 3 different floors! Never again!

I am not trying to say that there are not those who truly struggle on a daily basis and for whom frugality is the only way to survive. I am also not saying that we are better than others for choosing to be wise with our money when it may not be a necessity for our family. (Trust me, we have made plenty of unwise choices in our marriage but we have learned from all of them and if anything they have taught us the value of living frugally.) What I am saying is that being frugal is a good idea and way of life for everyone. The poor and the rich can be frugal or not, thriftiness isn't really a good way to judge someones financial wealth but it can be a good way to judge someones priorities and moral fiber. I know plenty of people that earn very little yet appear wealthy because they eat out constantly, live in a fancy home and have expensive vehicles and toys. These same people struggle with making it from pay check to pay check, are up to debt to their eyeballs and are unhappy and over stressed trying to have it all and live above their means. A frugal person that earns more money is far wiser than a poor person that has lots of "stuff" because they are frivolous with their money, yet on the outside the more financially wealthy frugal man appears to be the poor one. Its all about perception of reality and finding those lost priorities that our parents and grandparents had right generations ago. Being frugal is nothing to be ashamed about but rather should be celebrated. In truth, frugality has very little to do with how much money you have in your bank account, it has everything to do with how much character you have in your heart.