Works for me Wednesday: Budgeting Helps

A while back almost a year ago I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University Class offered by my church. It was really an eye opener in many ways. Some of the awesome things I got from this class you can get too for free!

Check out Dave Ramsey's site offering free budget tools. This includes a download-able quickie budget, monthly cash flow planning, and an irregular income planning. Also you can sign up for the Dave Ramsey podcasts for free.

Check out the 7 Baby Steps that will change your Budget and your life! These steps most people will never get too, some have gotten to them and have to start over for various life reasons, some just need a reminder.

Baby Step #1 - $1,000 to Start and Emergency Fund
This step can be very hard to come by for some, and very easy for others... I urge you if you do not have a $1000 emergency fund set up start working on one today. This emergency fund can help in many ways, one of those ways is taking the annoyances out of things like your refrigerator going out, or a death in the family that is out of town. With this emergency fund in place you will feel at least a little more secure.

So start today, Get your budget in order. Check out the links above help you get on your way to financial freedom.

Frugal Friday! - Making Money Online

There are several different ways to earn giftcards online like Mypoints and Swagbucks. Today I am going to tell you a way to get money deposited into your Paypal Account on a weekly basis!

YouData is a website that offers you the opportunity to check out some really cool websites and earn money for looking at there advertisements. This is not time consuming or difficult. You also wont make tons of money. I made .46 today. On fridays they send out your payment to your paypal account.

This is not tons of money but since it took less than a minute too look at these ads, I consider it a nice way to make a couple of cents. There are some people who make $4 a week, this depends on your MeFile - which is how they know what ads to show you. Make sure you fill this out to the best of your ability to see the most ads!.

So check out YouData here today! I love to see the little additions to my paypal account it makes me smile knowing it wasnt that hard.

Works for me Wednesday: Blogs that help me!

Today I am going to let you peek in to some blogs that I Love and have helped me in shaping my home! I do not have very much time online on an average day surf the internet all day. I have come across a couple of blogs that I visit at least weekly is if not daily or even yes several times a day.

Moneysavingmom is an upbeat positive blog that I look at a whole lot. She not only shows you online deals and coupon deals, but she also gives budget advice, menu plans, and lots of links to do it your self type things. Crystal and her staff update her blog several times a day except Sundays.

Crystal at moneysavingmom is currently doing a 31 days to a better grocery budget video series. That I really enjoy as well.

Another blog that I visit at least once a week if not more is Springs Bargains. If you are in the Colorado Springs/Pueblo area this is a great blog showing you coupon match ups for the local stores. Carrie also shows deals on local attractions, restaurant deals ect.

Courtney at Women Living Well is an excellent writer who challenges you on issues like your marriage and family, as well as recipes, and holiday ideas and so much more. She is very positive and encouraging. This blog has reminded me to keep my focus on my husband, family and most of all God! Check out her blog and get encouraged today.

Budget isnt a bad word part 3

Budgeting really helped me in several ways as I have posted about the emergency fund, and car repair fund. Today I am going to talk about having a clothing budget. Many of you may be thinking are you kidding me Clothing is one of my first priorities, and others may be thinking like i did "I dont have money for clothes" All the while spending money when you just have to have a new pair of jeans because the only pair you had left that fit got a hole in it.

I have been there, many times I have been there. When I went through the Financial Peace University class with Dave Ramsey I listened when he said clothing was a necessity. I kind of laughed at first because I thought we cant afford a clothing budget then I started to think of all the times I had to buy something and the money had to come from somewhere else. We were spending money we might as well budget for it.

That is when I started budgeting for clothes for the whole family! I didnt budget much and many would laugh at how little I budgeted. We have $30 a month for my husband and I each and $13 a month for the kids each. We shop at resale shops for the kids or catch really good sales at stores like The Childrens Place and Old Navy.

I will share more on shopping on a budget for kids later on!
But I encourage you check out your budget this week and make sure you have a clothing budget even if you have a closet full of clothes and your size never changes you might need socks or underwear one day! And if you don't use your clothing budget each month keep the money in your clothing envelope and save it. You can use it later to buy something fun.

Works for me Wednesday: Foaming hand soap and dish soap

I saw a post on how to make your own foaming hand soap and dish soap on idreamofclean.net and so I thought i would check it out.

I bought 2 foam dispensers and a large bottle of regular dial hand soap refill. I was curious of how clean the foaming hand soap really made your hands, but I would say it does a pretty good job!

Check out how to make your own foaming hand soap and foaming dish soap here.

I have a feeling this large bottle of soap refill will last me a very very long time!
Enjoy and stay clean on a Budget!

Recipe: Pigs in the Blanket

Today I made one of my favorite freezer recipes of all time, Pigs in the Blanket! Yes I know this may sound strange for a freezer recipe but It is totally yummy, and if you dont eat them all before they even get back to the kitchen, they Freeze and reheat wonderfully!

Pigs in the Blanket

2 pkgs dry yeast ( 2 1/4 tsp per pack* Buy in bulk it is much cheaper!)
2 c very warm water
2 tsp salt
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c melted shortening
1 beaten egg
6 1/2- 7 cups flour
2 pkgs 8 count hotdogs
about 1 c cheese

Combine first 2 ingredients, add sugar, salt, and 1/2 cup four and beat for 2 minutes.
Add egg and melted shortening, beat until smooth.
Add flour 1 cup at a time, about 5-6 cups. Knead until smooth!
Set aside in greased bowl, cover with towel, let rise until doubled in size. (this happens quicker on top of the stove if oven is on or put inside the oven after turning it on for about a minute and then turning it off.)
Punch down dough, divide in half
Roll out 1/2 dough into a large circle and spread with softened butter (about 1/4 stick per circle)
Cut with pizza cutter into 16 pieces
Sprinkle with Cheese
Place 1/2 hotdog on edge of each triangle and toll
Place on greased cookie sheet (or what ever you have that will work lol)
Let rise again!
Bake in oven @ 400 for about 12 minutes
Remove to wire rack to cool and then bag and freeze or eat them all up!


This recipe is great for crescent rolls also just omit the hot dogs and cheese! I havent tried it yet but I bet this would be great with honey drizzled on before cutting and rolling up the crescents!

Based on a recipe calculator spreadsheet I saw on moneysavingmom the bread part of this recipe costs $1.79 for 32 Crescent rolls! That is .06 a roll! add the hot dogs and cheese and it is more like .18 a Pig in the blanket! Pretty good by my book, and if you bought the cheese and hot dogs with coupons it would be even cheaper.

Budget isnt a bad word part 2

Last week I discussed how it was before I went to the Financial Peace University class, this week I would like to discuss how it has helped us to have an emergency fund and Car repair fund, and ways it has helped us with the rest of our budgeting.

Dave Ramsey suggests you start with $1000 in an account that you can easily get to (but not too easy) for an emergency fund. If you have debt you are to make minimum payments on these until your $1000 emergency fund is in place.

An emergency fund is just that for emergencies, things like a death in the family and you have unexpected traveling, get laid off from work. Christmas is not an emergency, neither is that new outfit you have been wanting that went on a drastic sale.

When we put our $1000 into the account we did not want to have to touch it. So we kept it in there even when things came up that seemed like emergencies. One time our car broke down and we did not yet have enough in our car repair fund to fix it (more on car repair funds later) and so we decided since we had two cars we would just wait until we had the extra money in our car repair fund. We were patient and when it was time we got the car fixed.

You could argue that needing a car fixed was an emergency, but we did not want to pull from that account if possible so we waited.

Car repair Fund:
In Financial Peace University Dave Ramsey talks about having a car repair fund. This is for things like oil changes and other normal repairs. We did not have a car repair fund really, yet we were taking in one of our two cars in for a repair about every 3 months. Both of our cars have high millage and are older cars with quiet a few miles on them so we expect repairs need to be done on a regular basis.

This is how our car repair fun works for us. We set aside $100 a month for car repairs, taxes, ect. if we do not use the money that month it stays in the envelope. It amazes me that as I think we are getting quiet a bit of money in there something always comes up. But it is no longer an emergency. It turns into an inconvenience. It is inconvenient to take our car to the shop and use only one car. It is a blessing that we do not have to stress over little repairs.

It is amazing to me that we did not have this in place before, we have always had repairs that needed to be made on cars, yet it was not budgeted in our budget it was always an emergency. Not anymore! Thanks to our Car repair Fund Car repairs are not an emergency for us anymore.

The emergency fund and car repair fund bring a peace when it comes to the rest of the budget. Knowing that we have those there really help when I think we are extra low on money that month at least I know we are taken care of in a real emergency.

So I encourage you to reevaluate your budget and set aside some time to figure our how you can get an emergency fund and car repair fund going for you!