Tag: budget

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Crafty! For the Holidays!

Updated 6/8/21

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Almost six months to Christmas. That sounds so bad, but time is just flying by. It is not on cruise control.

Get crafty even if it is not something you do on a daily basis. Look in children’s magazines, craft books and books that read easy to do!! Why! Why would you want to do that? Because you want to save money on Holiday spending this year! So becoming more creative, crafy, and inspired with ideas may help you.

Your gifts don’t have to be huge just something done by family, or by the children or by you for someone special in your life. If you are a crafty person, use up some of the craft supplies you have left in your special room. You know the one where all your art and sewing, or crafty supplies are hiding.

Some thoughts to get you thinking :

If you are a knitter, what about mittens and scarves.

How about making a lid gripper. Get some shelf liner. Cut approxiately the size of a hot pad 6″ by 6″. Single crochet or double crochet around the edges and you have a lid gripper. They usually last 1-2 years and then the grip may not be quite as good. People love them and you can get as fancy as you want with them. Use multi-colored yarn to make the gripper prettier if you want.

Sewing, just a beginner no problem. Purchase some fabric with a holiday theme. A nice cotton fabric and plan on making a holiday tablecloth. Be sure you get enough fabric to cover your table and hem it. Do a double turn, (each turn about a 1/2inch, so the hem looks nice, and professional. Make a tablecloth for someone in your family who is always generous to you.

Use scraps of colored paper from your children’s craft projects. Make a kaleidoscope picture, add pictures of your children, and put into a unique frame. Such a wonderful gift. Keep your kaleidoscope picture, light and airy, not filled with dark ,dark colors.

Design an angel tree of some kind and let your children pick one of the names off of it and make some small gift for a sick friend, someone who lives alone or someone who has been very nice to your family.

Be crafty and be frugal this year. Next year you will want to have a budget in place to help you plan ahead. For now go to Selection’s from Barb’s Resource Library and enter HELEN. The library is found on the upper right side my website Selections from Barb. There is a budget there you may want to start practicing with.

Good luck and have lots of fun. Get those creative juices flying.

DISCLOSURE
This blog is a personal informational blog. It contains my opinions, does not reflect the opinion of any organization I am affiliated with. This blog does not contain professional advice, only suggestions, informational ideas and tips. If a readers relies on anything in this blog it is at their own risk. This blog may contain mistakes and errors. I reserve the right to change this blog and change my focus or content at any time.‘s

Information found on this site related to Young Living Essential Oils , is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Not meant to cure, prevent or treat any disease.  Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using these products This blog contains affiliated links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you click on any one of my links and make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Want to join the Young Living Essential Oils adventure? Become a member here!

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Budget key to learning to live frugally.

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The above affiliate statement applies to any affiliate.

My beginning budget is geared to people who are really interested in living on a budge. It is very simplistic and one you can copy and play around with until you get it exactly the way you want it. . Those of you who have been budgeting for years will probably yawn when reading this, but maybe not.

Budget defined – a plan (a plan, not a written in blood for coordinating income and expenses. Is your family ready to come on board with this? Their support is wanted, needed and teenagers must be onboard.

To start write down your bring home pay for a month and then write down your expenses. This will overwhelm you at first. Try to be as thorough as possible. Remember we are just starting this. We are working on a budget at our house again and believe me it takes time.

Go slowly and decide after you all look at things what you want to tackle first. Be sensible as you want to make progress, little by little It reminds me of losing weight. Do one small thing the first month and by that time you will see what changes you need to make on your beginning budget sheet .

When listing priorities never leave out rent or mortgage, utilities and food. People who do this end in deep do! do! People tend not to pay the must haves first and then they are really floundering.

More information coming on budgeting and becoming frugal. It is an ongoing process and takes patience and practice.

Again always mention my Young Living essential oils. Learning how to help others by continuing to educate myself.

DISCLOSURE
This blog is a personal informational blog. It contains my opinions, does not reflect the opinion of any organization I am affiliated with. This blog does not contain professional advice, only suggestions, informational ideas and tips. If a readers relies on anything in this blog it is at their own risk. This blog may contain mistakes and errors. I reserve the right to change this blog and change my focus or content at any time.

Information found on this site related to Young Living Essential Oils , is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Not meant to cure, prevent or treat any disease.  Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using these products.

Want to join the Young Living Essential Oils adventure? Become a member here!

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Christmas-some tips for you to think about.

This blog contains affiliated links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you click on any one of my links and make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

The above affiliate statement applies to any affiliate.

Hope you are planning and preparing for Christmas,especially if COVID is still hanging around.

Money will be a big factor for many families this year, with many first time ever families looking for relief from being out of a job.

A goal for the upcoming new year -No spending mountains of money you do not have. Especially watch the credit cards as we begin to talk more about budgeting and living frugally.

Tips to start the conversation rolling about Christmas early, and help you plan for as nice a Christmas you can possibly give your family .

  1. Discussion with the entire family first. About gift giving and buying gifts for everyone in the whole extended family. Eliminate everyone you possibly can.

2. Think about thrift store options. I have found very nice coats, blouses, sweaters, work outfits at our local stores. Many stores also have holiday decorations that are really nice.

3. Remember use your creative side.

4. Watch for sales that could influence your spending. We are talking about good sales, for something wished for.

5. Purchase food for the holidays when you can squeeze your food budget.

6. No eating out while you are trying to come up with a good Christmas. Eliminate fast food places from your spending totally during this time. That could be money to buy a gift.

7. Get in touch with your baking side. Bake with family members and share the goodies.

8. Don’t forget those less fortunate than you. Give a little bit to organizations, churches, and food pantries.

9. Take a job, you don’t really like but take it anyway to get some income or extra income coming in.

DISCLOSURE
This blog is a personal informational blog. It contains my opinions, does not reflect the opinion of any organization I am affiliated with. This blog does not contain professional advice, only suggestions, informational ideas and tips. If a readers relies on anything in this blog it is at their own risk. This blog may contain mistakes and errors. I reserve the right to change this blog and change my focus or content at any time.

Information found on this site related to Young Living Essential Oils , is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Not meant to cure, prevent or treat any disease.  Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using these products.

Want to join the Young Living Essential Oils adventure? Become a member here!

Looking for Young Living products for you and your home? Shop here!

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Frugal! Living frugally, what does that mean to you.

We are all saying thank goodness this quarantine situation is almost over, we hope. Pat yourself on your back if you did a really good job of following the rules, with a smile on your face most of the time and a big thank you to everyone who helped us all.

The big word around is to learn to be frugal. So if you are going to try and do that I have a few suggestions listed below

Everyone is writing about, talking about # living frugally, but what does that actually entail? It is not something that is easy to do, it is like an #acquired taste and takes time to perfect.

Can you define frugal? Understand what it means to become frugal? One of the definitions of frugal is economical, thrifty. Right from Webster’s New American Dictionary.

Do you even have a working budget? Can you account for all the income coming into your home and going out? Are you prepared for a pandemic , such as what we just went through . What have you learned from going thru this pandemic. What has your family learned?

What I am doing is coming up with ideas of what being frugal means . They may be totally different from yours, however we all should know the basic is learning to live on less. Which is good as we in the United States sometimes waste more than we should.

Below are my thoughts. I hope they may be of value to you.

  • Shopping – do not buy non essential items when shopping. Things to wear or things for the home.
  • List – take a list to the grocery store. Trick is only buy what is on your list and retreat swiftly. What about a garden?
  • Budget as mentioned above. Key to learning how to live frugally! Break down income versus expenses. Takes some real soul searching to get this right. Lots of experts out on the internet who are good with budget areas.
  • Utilities- Get on the budget plan! You must however pay routinely on the budget plan. Miss payments and utility companies are not happy.
  • Car- maintain your car! You will not help your ability to live frugally with a new car payment.
  • Smoking, what a perfect time to consider stopping. Not the right time you say, but honestly when is the right time. Little story- I was a heavy smoker and needed to stop. Stopped cold turkey and a few days later, I found out I was pregnant with #6 child and promptly began gaining a lot of weight. Talk about not the right time. Let me say I was very difficult to live with. Good that came of that-A boy after 5 girls and I am so glad I stopped smoking.
  • Charity – don’t forget that part of frugal. Share what you can, it will make you feel better.
  • No job! Take a job, any job, to help you through these trying times.
  • Start an old fashioned, what I call a Christmas club and do not touch it.

Ok the above are just a start. I am sure you can add tons to this list. What a perfect time to begin, while you try to get your life back to normal. Take one day at a time. Don’t say it once say it as many times as you need. One day at a time.

Don’t forget to try an essential oil. There are really some great oils out there.

This blog contains affiliated links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you click on any one of my links and make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

The above affiliate statement applies to any affiliate.

DISCLOSURE
This blog is a personal informational blog. It contains my opinions, does not reflect the opinion of any organization I am affiliated with. This blog does not contain professional advice, only suggestions, informational ideas and tips. If a readers relies on anything in this blog it is at their own risk. This blog may contain mistakes and errors. I reserve the right to change this blog and change my focus or content at any time.

Information found on this site related to Young Living Essential Oils , is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Not meant to cure, prevent or treat any disease.  Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using these products.

Want to join the Young Living Essential Oils adventure? Become a member here!

Looking for Young Living products for you and your home? Shop here!