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10
Jan 2012

Saying No – So That You Can Say Yes To What Matters

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I’m a people pleaser.  Always have been, probably always will be.  I want to make people around me happy, and that means that saying no is not my strong suit.  If people ask me to do something or go somewhere or help them with something, I usually say yes.  That’s fine most of the time, but sometimes I’d prefer to say no.  And that’s harder than it sounds.

My husband is very good at saying no, and very good at putting his family first above all else.  If something is going to interfere with his time with us, he says no, and it doesn’t bother him at all.  But for me, I find myself saying yes more often than I’d like, in order to avoid the guilt that sometimes goes along with saying no.

I’ve always been able to say no to things like girl scout cookies and the guy who comes to the door selling magazines to pay for his spring break trip to Mazatlan.  But it’s much harder when it’s someone I know.

I’ve been getting some practice with saying no lately, and although it’s still not easy, it feels much better afterwards, knowing that I’ve stayed true to myself and the people who matter most to me.

One of our neighbors brought over some cookies at Christmas with a note saying that she was starting a monthly ladies card game night at her house, and was inviting all the ladies in the neighborhood.  Her husband passed away last year, and I can definitely understand where she’s coming from.  But I’m in a very different situation.  My husband and I both work (from home, but we’re still working), and we have two little boys.  We’re also in the middle of finishing our basement and the yard is an ongoing project.  When I have free time, I want to spend it with my husband and our boys, or with our extended family and a few close friends.  I don’t want to make new friends right now.  That might sound selfish or odd, but I just don’t have space in my life to add anyone else right now.  Give me a few years, and things will likely be different.  The boys will be in school, our basement will be finished – by then, I might have room for new friendships.  But for now, nurturing the relationships I already have is my priority.

Anyway, I opted to not attend the first get-together, and figured that was the end of it.  Then a couple weeks ago, the lady who was organizing the whole thing stopped by our house to ask me again if I wanted to join.  I politely told her that we were just too busy with the boys and the basement, and thanked her for inviting me.

A few days later, another lady stopped by with her pre-teen daughter and said that the first lady had mentioned that we’re too busy with the boys and she was offering her daughter as a babysitter so that I would be able to attend the card nights.  Again, I politely said thanks, but no thanks.

Then yesterday, another lady from down the street contacted me to see if I was aware of the ladies night plans and would I like to come along?  My husband said I must be the coolest lady on the block, since everyone is trying to talk me into joining the card game.  He’s sweet.

Anyway, I told the third lady that I’m just not taking on any more commitments right now, and thanked her for contacting me.

In all three cases, I used strategies that my husband and I learned a long time ago when we read The Power of a Positive No – definitely a good book if you have a hard time saying no.  Add it to your library list!

And in all three cases, even though it was a bit uncomfortable for me to say no at the time, I felt good about myself afterwards.  If I had said yes in order to avoid the uncomfortable feeling, I would have been bummed afterwards, thinking “what did I get myself into?!”  I respected myself and my own desires and my commitment to my family and friends.  I avoided spreading myself too thin.  Even though the card game night would only be once a month, it’s easy for once a month things to spawn other commitments too – especially when lots of people are involved.  One of the ladies sells candles at house parties, which means that there would likely have been more uncomfortable moments of feeling obligated to do or buy something in the future if I had become part of that group.  Which would have been a bummer, especially since it’s not really a group that I want to be part of in the first place.

Anyway, I’m feeling good about saying no.  For some of you, this might be second nature.  But I know that there are plenty of you out there who have the same struggles I do when it comes to saying no.  It’s definitely a skill worth building though.  Remind yourself to be true to what really matters rather than what’s right in front of you at the moment.  Make a list of what’s important to you and tape it to your bathroom mirror as a daily reminder.  And then focus on those things.  Don’t sacrifice them in order to please other people or avoid temporary discomfort.

Leo Babauta wrote a post recently about making room for a new year, and the second item on his list involves clearing his schedule as much as possible, which he noted often means saying no to people.  His list is great, and I would add to it a reminder that January 1 is a very arbitrary day to make changes in your life.  You can make changes any day – any hour of any day, really.  And an uncluttered schedule is a beautiful thing.

Before I go, I want to share this DIY post with you.  Three pieces of homemade furniture from one piece of plywood.  Pretty awesome.

 

 

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Category: family, goals, just my life  8 Comments
23
Sep 2011

Earning An Extra $500 A Month As A Stay At Home Parent

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When I asked for reader feedback on what you wanted me to write about, I got this comment from Kaytee:

Any tips on being a basically SAHP (my husband will be a SAHD once our baby is born) but also earning a little income on the side? To have a reasonable chance of surviving on just my income, I’ve told my husband if he really needs to make $500/month. It’s just an estimate at this time, since I have only SWAG as our budget will change when he no longer works out of the house (no more $500/month in gas!)

Congratulations on the soon-to-arrive little one!  I love this question, and I think it allows for a lot of creativity in terms of solutions.  $500 a month isn’t a huge amount, and I think it’s a very reasonable goal for a stay at home parent to have.  One thing to keep in mind is that if you file taxes jointly (which most married couples do), the additional income will be lumped in with the income of the primary earner for tax purposes.  So if you need to clear $500/month, he might need to earn 25% or so more than that to account for taxes.  When I had a part-time job at the local library before our son was born, I had them withhold an extra $50 in federal taxes from each paycheck to account for this.  Otherwise they would have withheld very little money, as my income there was quite small.

Now for some ideas…  I’ll share thoughts that I have as well as things that have worked for people I know who needed to earn a bit of extra money.  I assume you’ve already cut expenses as far as you can, since that would be my first suggestion.  As far as ways to earn a little extra money, here are some possibilities.

  • What does your husband do now?  That’s where I would start.  Can he take the skills and knowledge he has in his current job and capitalize on it in a very part-time capacity after your son is born?  Depending on the nature of his job, he might be able to set up a system for providing as-needed assistance (from home, preferably) to his current employer or someone else in the same field.  If he’s a highly skilled worker, on-line and/or telephone consulting might be an option.
  • He might be able to be a virtual assistant, especially if he has good phone and computer skills.  For our own business, we’ve been utilizing an answering service for the past 3.5 years, and they’re fantastic.  If we can’t answer the phone, clients who call our business get a real person on the phone, 24 hours a day, instead of voice mail.  The person who answers the phone takes a message and emails it to us immediately.  I believe that the company we work with has operators who are in a call center, but I’ve read that a lot of virtual assistants work from home.  You need a quiet place to work, which isn’t the easiest thing to come by when you have children.  But $500/month doesn’t require an awful lot of hours.  Naptime and some evening/weekend hours (when the other parent is home) might be enough.
  • Does your husband have strong computer skills?  He might be able to start a service helping individuals or businesses who need help setting up/maintaining a blog or website, but don’t have the budget for a high-end web designer.
  • If he’s a dog person, he might be able to set up a part-time dog walking business.  I take our two boys and our dog for a walk every day, usually for at least an hour.  Juggling kids and dogs does require a lot of focus (no cell phone conversations these days during my walks…), but it’s great to get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors.
  • Blogging might be an option, if he enjoys writing.  It’s definitely not a get-rich-quick plan.  I’ve been blogging for five years now, and my blog makes about $300 a month.  Over the last four years or so, my income from the blog has varied from about $100/month to about $400/month.  Granted, I only post once a week or so now that we have children – posting more often would definitely help if my goal were to increase my income.  So if there’s a topic that he’s passionate about, there is definitely money to be made with blog advertising, affiliate sales, and possibly your own e-book sales (although it seems like everyone and their cousin has an e-book now… my opinion is that e-books are a good option if you’re a really great writer and the stuff you’re saying is truly valuable to people).
  • Is a part-time job outside the home an option?  With the current state of the economy, he might find employers are more willing to consider a very part-time employee, since they wouldn’t have to spend money on benefits.  Perhaps he could work a few hours a week outside the home, either in the evenings or on weekends, when you’re home with your son.
  • As a blogger, I get lots of pitches from freelance writers who are writing for all sorts of businesses as part of their web marketing.  A lot are spammy, but some represent truly reputable sites.  If your husband writes well, he might be able to make some money as a freelance writer.  I have no idea what percentage of freelance writers are successful at earning money, but it’s definitely a job that can be done from home during the baby’s nap.
  • I have a friend who spent a summer working very part-time for the government (BLM? Fish and Wildlife?  Something like that) to determine whether sheep had been killed by predators (wolves or bears).  The government would reimburse ranchers who lost sheep to predators, but they would send people out with gps coordinates to the location where the ranchers reported the carcass, so that the kill could be verified before payment was made.  This job basically involved a lot of hiking (and some unpleasant stops along the way to examine sheep carcasses), and I think my friend earned something like $75 or $100 per sheep.  This was several years ago and I have no idea if the program is still active, but it’s an example of thinking way outside of the box when it comes to earning money.  Another person I know – who was a full-time teacher – earned some extra money on weekends and during the summer by counting grasshoppers on public lands.  The government wanted to determine how bad the grasshopper infestation was, so they paid him to hike around and count grasshoppers.  Again, I don’t know if this program is still active, but both of these examples are things that a person could do while carrying a small child in a sling.
  • This is another idea that might have been easier before the market got saturated, but reselling items of value has the potential to earn a few hundred dollars a month.  Yard sales, low-end thrift stores (the high-end ones have mostly caught on to the fact that some things have quite a bit of value in the resale market), and even the free section of Craigslist might yield things that could be sold for a profit.  I recently sold a 1980s Schwinn bike for $150.  I bought it for $5 several years ago, and it had been gathering dust in my garage ever since I got my cruiser bike.
OK readers, it’s your turn.  What ideas do you have for Kaytee and her husband?  How can he bring in an extra $500/month while being a stay at home dad?
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Category: family, work  19 Comments
11
Aug 2011

Downsizing My Craft Supplies

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Ten years ago, my sister-in-law got me hooked on scrapbooking.  I started out with a scrapbook full of my pictures from the time I spent living in Africa, and then moved on to scrapping our daily lives.  I did several albums over the years, and always enjoyed working on them.  Then we had our son, and my scrapbooking came to a pretty grinding halt.  I know – most people start scrapbooking to record their children’s lives, and my timing is a bit backwards, but it is what it is.  I did about 20 pages of his baby album the summer after he was born, but it stops when he’s about three months old, and the rest of the pages are blank.  I’ve made a few gift scrapbooks since then, but have switched to mostly posting photos on Facebook for friends and family, and archiving them on the computer for us.  I still imagine myself scrapbooking again, but with our business, two little boys, our garden, exercise, etc., my days are completely filled up now, with no time left over for crafting.  If I have a free hour in the day, I’d rather spend it playing trains with our son than making a scrapbook page about him playing trains.

Someday I may come back and work on our son’s baby book again, and someday I might start a baby book for our second son.  But that day is not now, and it’s probably not likely to be anytime in the near future.  What is likely to be happening in the near future is our basement finishing project (I know, we were supposed to be starting on that months ago.  But the garden had to take priority in the spring/early summer, and we had a baby in the middle of all that too…).  We decided that the less stuff we have in the basement, the easier it will be to work down there, so we started clearing stuff out.  One whole corner of the basement had been devoted to my craft supplies, even though I’ve done very little crafting since we moved here.  There was a large table (covered in craft stuff) and a set of floor-to-ceiling shelves next to it, all full.  I had stuff that I didn’t even remember (my mother-in-law has been buying my scrapbook supplies for ten years, a lot of which I had never opened).

I’m not getting rid of all of it.  We’re planning to include a counter-top-style built in craft area in the basement, with some shelves under it to hold supplies, and a place for my sewing machine.  But the area will be a lot smaller than the current “craft area”, so some pruning was in order.  I started by going through my fabric scraps and sorting out all of my felted wool scraps (I had used them to make diaper covers for our son a few years ago, but haven’t used them since and don’t have any plans to use them in the future).  I posted a listing on Craigslist for a free box of wool scraps and soon got a reply from a lady who has a “very crafty” ten year old daughter who would love the wool.  We emailed back and forth, and it turns out that the little girl loves anything to do with crafts, and the mom said she would be thrilled to have any craft supplies that I don’t need anymore.  Knowing that a specific little girl would be getting my stuff made me much more motivated to clear out my supplies.  They’ve been gathering dust in our basement for two years, and she’d actually be using them.  After about an hour down there, I’ve got quite a stack for her:  a drawer organizer, a shelf organizer, a large bag of fabric scraps, the box of wool scraps, and a large box of various scrapbook supplies.  Hopefully they arrive with a car that has lots of trunk space…

I also listed the table on Craigslist, and had several responses right away.  Listing things for free is an easy, fast way to get rid of stuff you don’t need anymore.  And one of the bonuses of purchasing things used is that when it’s time to part with them, you don’t feel a need to recoup the money you spent on them, since it wasn’t much to begin with.

So this weekend, we should have a person coming to pick up the table and a little girl getting lots of craft supplies.  My craft area in the basement feels much more manageable now, and I think it will all fit in the smaller area we’re planning for it.  As time goes by, I’ll revisit the craft supply question.  If I’m still not using what’s left, I’ll let it go.  There’s really no point in holding onto stuff just because we imagine ourselves using it someday.  In an interesting coincidence, Miss Minimalist wrote a post today that addresses the same issue.

Are you holding onto stuff you don’t use, just because you imagine yourself using it someday?  Or because someone gave it to you and you feel like you shouldn’t get rid of it?  Or just because…?

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Category: family, hobbies, just my life  10 Comments
19
Apr 2011

Settling Into Life With Two Boys

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Thanks for all the congratulations and well-wishes on the birth of our second little guy!  We’re doing great.  We’re settling into life with two boys, and so far, it’s awesome.  As far as frugality goes, we’re keeping on with our usual path.  One nice thing about having two boys is that we have boat loads of hand-me-downs from our older son that will be perfect for our new little guy.  I had planned to re-use a lot of the clothes even if we had a girl, but now we can re-use everything.  Several people have asked us what we need for the baby, and I honestly can’t think of anything at all.  The stuff that we used with our son went into the basement when he outgrew it, and we also learned with him that we didn’t need nearly as much stuff as the baby stores would like us to believe.

Our son is 11 days old now, and I noticed today that our credit card statement shows almost no activity at all over the last 11 days.  Having a newborn is a nice excuse to stay home, cuddle with your babies, and not go anywhere.  Which means no spending money, and that’s a nice bonus.

Last year, one of my friends decided to try cloth diapers, and bought a gently used set of all-in-one cloth diapers that she found on Craigslist.  She tried them for a few days, but decided she preferred disposables after all.  Then, being the awesome friend she is, she gave me the whole bag when I got pregnant!  We bought one package of disposables to use for the first few days after our son was born.  We wanted to keep things as simple and easy as we could at first, and delaying washing diapers for a few days made sense.  But by the time we used up the disposables, I was itching to get back to cloth.  We noticed that the disposables leaked a lot, which doesn’t happen with our cloth diapers.  And I hated seeing the garbage can fill up with diapers.  So now we’re back in the world of diaper washing, and we’re loving the all-in-one diapers.  They grow with the baby, so they should work for a good long while.

I just bagged up all my maternity clothes to give to my friend who gave us the diapers, since she’s hoping to have another child eventually.  I swapped them for all of the regular clothes that I hadn’t worn since last summer, and it felt like I was getting all new stuff – no shopping needed :)

It is nice to start out this time with some of the baby stuff that we didn’t get until our first son was older.  The Moby Wrap has already come in very handy, as has the ring sling that my mother and I made a few years ago.  Carrying our first son in a sling worked great, and I did  it until he was nearly two.  So this time around, I started right from the start, and our baby seems to like it as much as his big brother did.

I hope you’re all having a good week.  And while we’re on the topic of babies, let’s all send lots of good birthing vibes to Gina – aka the feminist Breeder – who is anxiously awaiting the birth of her baby girl.

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Category: baby, family  5 Comments
21
Mar 2011

Simplify Your Family Life – Awesome E-Book Sale

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We finished transforming our backyard shed into an office today!  And yes, pictures will be coming soon.  We still have to paint the exterior and put a porch on it (because of course you can’t have a backyard shed/office without a cute little porch!) but the inside is finished.  One giant project that can now be checked off of our list.

I also just found out about an awesome new e-book package sale, and I know some of you will be interested in it.  It features books from a lot of my favorite bloggers, and includes 30 e-books for $47.  The retail value if you bought each book on its own would be $453, so this is a steal if you’re interested in even a few of the books.

The package deal was put together by Corey from Simple Marriage and Mandi from Life… Your Way.  It’s a collection of books devoted to simplifying your family’s life from all sorts of different perspectives, and it’s available until March 25th at 2pm eastern time.  As an added bonus, a portion of each sale will be donated to The Mentoring Project, an organization that works to provide mentors for children who are growing up without fathers.  So what’s in the e-book package?  Lots of good stuff…  Here’s what you get for $47:

Family Minimalism

Inside Out Simplicity by Joshua Becker (retail $11.99)

Simple Guide To A Minimalist Life by Leo Babauta (retail $9.95)

The Minimalist Mom by Dusti Arab (retail $17)

Food And Cooking

5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes by Jules Clancy (retail $37)

Healthy Snacks To Go by Katie Kimball (retail $6.95)

Healthy Eating Handbook by Melanie Thomassian (retail $27)

Real Food On A Real Budget by Stephanie Langford (retail $18.97)

The Real Food Cleansing Guide by Lisa Byrne (retail $29)

Green Living

Simply Car Free by Tammy Strobel (retail $9.95)

Healthy Homemaking by Stephanie Langford (retail $12.95)

Herbal Nurturing: A Family Healing and Learning Guide by Michele Augur (retail $8.95)

Intimacy And Marriage

Stripped Down Marriage by Tony DiLorenzo (retail $12)

A Simple Marriage by Corey Allan (retail $18)

Buck Naked Marriage by Corey Allan (retail $9.50)

15 Minute Marriage Makeover by Dustin Riechmann (retail $27)

Getting Lucky With The Wife by Sarah Baron (retail $18)

Money

The Super-Charged Guide To Financial Freedom by Jeff Nickles (retail $14.60)

The Hybrid Homemaker by Melissa Gorzelanczyk (retail $17)

Organizing

Organizing Life As Mom by Jessica Fisher (retail $9)

Tell Your Time by Amy Lynn Andrews (retail $12)

Parenting

Parenting With Positive Guidance by Amanda Morgan (retail $9)

Finding Educational Activities In The Most Unexpected Places by Angie Kauffman (retail $7.50)

Personal Development

Your Life. Live It.  Love It.  by Sherri Kruger (retail $19.95)

The Gratitude Journal by Sherri Kruger (retail $5.99)

Flying By The Seat Of My Soul by Tess Marshall (retail $5.97)

The 7 Week Life Cleanse by Katie Tallo (retail $20)

How To Be Rich And Happy by John Strelecky and Tim Brownson (retail $19)

Travel

Family Camping Handbook by Katie Kimball ($4.95)

Work At Home

Smalltopia by Tammy Strobel (retail $27)

Holidays

Thanksgiving Your Way + Planning Printables and Christmas Your Way + Planning Printables, by Mandi Ehman (retail $7)

Click here to buy all 30 e-books.

I’ve already read a few of these books, but not most of them, and there are several that I can’t wait to read.  The usual disclaimer applies here… as with any affiliate e-book sale, if you buy the package, I get a commission.  I feel like this e-book package fits perfectly with my blog, and I think it would be a great resource for my readers too.  Themes of simplicity, green living, nutritious food, happy families, healthy marriages, strong financial skills… these are some of the things that are most important to me, and I love that they are the sort of topics these books address.  Happy reading!

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Category: family, other bloggers  2 Comments
20
Dec 2010

Christmas Our Way

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We’ve already opened all of our Christmas presents.  Yep, we march to our own drum around here.  We have gradually simplified Christmas over the years, and eliminated nearly all of the gift exchanging we used to do.  My husband and I long ago stopped giving each other material gifts (for any event, including birthdays and our anniversary – we do things for each other instead), and although this is our third Christmas with our son, we have never bought him any Christmas gifts.  We’ve also stopped exchanging gifts with friends – none of our friends need anything, and neither do we, so it works out well.  My mother in law loves to give gifts though, and she continues to send a box of presents each year for Christmas.  She usually sends three or four small gifts for each of us, along with some clothing for our son.  I make her a scrapbook of her kids and grandkids each year, and from what we’ve heard, usually about half of their retirement community ends up seeing the scrapbooks.   This year, I made her a purse-sized one (using a 40 page, 4×6 album) so that she can carry it around easily.  It was the only Christmas gift I made this year (other than food I’m making for some friends and neighbors), and I had a blast making it.

Anyway, we got her Christmas box last week, and decided that it made more sense to space out the gift-opening rather than cram it all into one day.  We knew we weren’t going to open presents on Saturday, since we’re going to have all of my family here, and none of us exchange gifts.  We thought about doing it on Friday, but then we figured our son would have more fun with each gift if he opened them individually.

In addition to a couple of shirts and some pajamas, our son got a little dump truck, a small wooden train set, a couple of books, and a Mr. Potato Head.  He opened one each day, and got to thoroughly focus on each gift, one at a time.  Personally, I liked that a lot better than a big gift bonanza on Christmas morning.  Like I said, we follow our own drum beat…

This past weekend, our town held a food drive to benefit local families.  We talked to our son about it, and explained that there are people right here in our town who don’t have enough food to eat.  We took him with us to the local grocery store and loaded up a cart full of non-perishable food.  I didn’t have coupons (yet), but I paid close attention to sales, and we were able to fill the trunk of our car with food.  We took it over to the food drive headquarters, where some very enthusiastic volunteers were standing out in the cold to greet us.

We could have gone to Toys R Us and spent that money on a toy for our son.  But he’s already happy pretty much 100% of the time, and there isn’t anything he needs.  Donating food felt so much better, and our son spent the rest of the day asking questions about “kids who don’t have food” and talking about how we got them some food.  I know he’s only two, but I feel like we’ve started laying a good foundation for him to grow up with a sense of compassion and generosity.  And that’s more important than any toy could ever be.

Last week, I wrote about the book How To Shop For Free, and I’m excited to start using a lot of those techniques to buy food for the local food bank.  For my own family, it’s true that there aren’t really that many coupons or stellar deals on the sort of food we eat.  But the food bank needs non-perishables (as opposed to the fresh and frozen produce that I tend to buy for us), and it’s possible to strike a happy medium between my own grocery habits and buying a bunch of junk.  When we shopped for the food bank on Saturday, I was careful to avoid junk food, but nearly everything I bought was on sale.  I bought mostly whole grains (oats, whole grain pasta, etc.), canned veggies and beans, natural peanut butter (with nothing added), etc.  I know that there are lots of coupons available for food that is relatively nutritious and fits the guidelines of what the food banks are looking for.  I’m planning to make this a monthly adventure with our son, and hopefully by combining coupons and sales I’ll be able to stretch our donation budget even further.

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Category: family, just my life  16 Comments
24
Nov 2010

Non-Extreme Minimalism

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This post from Minimalist Mom really resonated with me today.  It perfectly describes my kind of minimalism, and I agree with Rachel that it’s much more likely to be embraced by a lot of people than extreme minimalism.  I have no desire to live out of a backpack or move somewhere new every few months.  My family lived in several states when I was a child, and I traveled quite a bit in my 20s.  When I finished college, I joined the Peace Corps and headed to Africa for two years with only what I could fit in two suitcases.  I know that I can live perfectly well in a tiny house with no running water or electricity, and a ceiling made of old burlap sacks.  But I sure do appreciate the fact that the house I live in now has a washing machine and electricity.

At this stage in my life, I’m very happy to live in one place for a long time, working on our mini-farm and raising our children.  And I like having things like a couch, bed, and dining room table.  The extreme minimalist movement has inspired me to clear out clutter and stop shopping, but I have no desire to get rid of all of our possessions and become a family of wanderers.

Most of the extreme minimalist bloggers are very attracted to the idea of a location-independent lifestyle, and thus tend to earn a living from something online – often blogging and/or writing e-books.  Although my husband and I want to stay in our current location for a very long time, we have been self-employed for eight years, and began transitioning our business to be online-only around the end of 2003.  These days, everything we do to earn a living is online and over the phone, which means we work only from home (or wherever we happen to be, if we’re not at home) and can be very flexible with our time.  This is far better than the days when we were slaves to our alarm clock and commuting back and forth to jobs we didn’t really enjoy.  And since we work from home using the internet, we do technically have a location-independent life… that’s why we were able to sell our house in the city and move to a small town last year.  While I might not be into the idea of constant travel right now, I do very much love the way we earn a living, and how flexible our lives are.  Stay tuned next week for an amazing e-book package aimed at people who want to pursue location-independent self-employment… it makes for a good lifestyle, even if you are perfectly happy staying in one location.

What I liked about the post from Minimalist Mom was the idea of appealing to the masses.  I don’t think that most of us really want to live out of a backpack and wander from one place to another long-term.  But I think that the idea of a peaceful, less cluttered life without debt is appealing to a whole lot more people.  People want less stress, they want homes that are easier to clean, they want more flexibility with their time, they want more financial stability.  Applying some of the ideas of minimalism (like getting rid of excess stuff, not over-scheduling ourselves, and spending our time and money doing things other than shopping) can help nearly all of us achieve a better lifestyle in some way – and it doesn’t mean that we have to ditch our beds and living room furniture in the process.  Simply being mindful of our purchases, getting rid of physical and mental clutter, and focusing on what we really want out of life will make a huge difference in our lives.

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Category: family, minimalism, other bloggers  8 Comments
01
Nov 2010

Getting Rid Of Our TV Was The Right Decision

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We got rid of our TV in early 2009.  We were staging our house to put it on the market, and trying to make it feel as big and open as possible.  So the TV and the table it was on were banished into storage.  When we moved a few months later, we opted to leave the TV behind, and have been without it for the last 16 months.

Obviously, that means we don’t pay for cable or satellite TV.  We have cable internet (a necessity since we work from home and do all of our work over the internet), and we also have a $9/month Netflix subscription.  Between Netflix and a laptop, we have no need for a TV or traditional programming at all.  There’s no hulking entertainment center in our living room.  In fact, our living room only contains seating (a chair, couch, and loveseat that we got from my husband’s aunt when she replaced her furniture last year), a footstool, a big plant, a little cabinet to hold our son’s books, and a coffee table.  It’s a relatively large room, and I love how open it feels.  It’s very inviting – plenty of comfy places to sit – and encourages conversation and togetherness, since the seating all faces each other, rather than facing a TV.

When we want to watch a movie or a TV show, we set the laptop on the coffee table and either watch a DVD from the library or Netflix, or we watch something from the extensive Netflix streaming options.  Yes, our screen is only 17 inches, but we thoroughly enjoy our setup, and especially like that we can take it down and put it away when we’re finished.  Over the last year, we’ve seen all or part of a variety of shows:  Dexter, Lost, Prison Break, Weeds, Bones…. all shows that would normally have required at least basic cable TV, and in some cases, premium channels like Showtime and HBO.  And we haven’t seen a single commercial in over a year and a half.  One of the major bonuses of watching TV shows via Netflix is that a show that normally takes an hour (like Lost) on regular TV only takes about 42 minutes on Netflix, because there are no commercials.  I’m especially grateful for the lack of commercials lately, because I’m sure that every second one has been political mudslinging for the last couple months, and I can definitely do without that.

Our son has pretty much always lived without a TV.  He was less than a year old when we got rid of our TV, and hadn’t yet figured out how to turn it on (we never turned it on when he was awake).  But we have an iPod that we let him play with whenever he wants.  We mostly use it as a music player and book reader, but we’ve also downloaded a bunch of free toddler games to it, and our son loves to play them.  They require him to constantly interact with the game – usually they will hold his interest for about 15 minutes, and then he’s ready to move on to something else.  But about a month ago, we added a Netflix app to our iPod.  It allowed us to access the streaming Netflix library on the iPod anytime we had wi-fi internet access.  Our son quickly figured out how to get into the Netflix app, scroll through to the kid movies, and watch whatever he wanted.  We started noticing that instead of playing a game for15 minutes and then moving on to play with his blocks or read a book, he would sit and stare at the iPod, watching a movie, until we took it away from him.  It was as if he was in a trance.  He was glued to the screen, watching The Cat in the Hat and Dinosaur Train, over and over again.  He didn’t have to think or do anything like he does with the games – there was no interaction required, so he would just sit there forever, watching movies.

I’ll admit, it did make my life easier.  I was able to work without being interrupted every 3 minutes to come build a block city or read a book.  I truly do understand how it gives parents a break to be able to plunk a kid down in front of a TV.  And at least the Netflix movies didn’t have any commercials.  But after about two weeks, both my husband and I realized that the Netflix app on the iPod had to go.  Our son was never choosing to play the games anymore.  Every time he picked up the iPod, he would immediately opt for a movie instead, and he rarely stopped watching until we took it away from him.  So we removed the app.  Our son was frustrated that day and the next, looking for the Netflix icon on the screen.   But by the next day, he had forgotten about the movies.  He went back to playing games on the iPod every once in a while.  He stopped asking for it constantly.  He went back to asking me to play with him all day long.

Our brief experiment with having quazi-TV available to our son proved to us that we made the right decision when we got rid of the TV.  I know that if we had one in the living room, we would either be constantly monitoring to make sure he wasn’t watching TV, or else we would have just started to give in and let him watch it.  The tiny screen on our iPod had a magnetic hold over him when it was playing a movie, and I have no doubt that a big TV screen would be the same way – probably worse.  And it would have included commercials too.  I’d much rather that he spend his early childhood playing in the backyard, going to the park, building cities out of blocks, and reading books.  And in terms of money, our $9 Netflix subscription is definitely a lot cheaper than most cable or satellite TV packages. (No, Netflix is not paying me to write this post!)

Have any of you given up your TVs?  If not, do your children seem to be hypnotized by the TV when it’s on?  If you’ve kept your TV and have children, have you figured out a way to effectively limit them to little or no TV?

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Category: family, just my life, kids  32 Comments
22
Oct 2010

Thank You, And A Winner Of The E-book Giveaway

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Thank you all for the kind words you left on my post from Wednesday!  I’m about four months along, and Frugal Baby is due in early April.  We’re all very excited, and I’m looking forward to sharing our frugal adventures as a family of four.  So far, we have only purchased a car seat.  We will also buy a new organic crib mattress at some point, as we’re planning to have our son continue to sleep on his for quite some time.  Other than that, there is really nothing at all that we need.  Most of our newborn clothes are very gender neutral, although if we have a girl we’ll be on the lookout for some used clothing in larger sizes.  I’ve checked on Craigslist a few times and found huge lots of baby girl clothes for about 50 cents per item, so I have no doubt that we’ll be able to get everything we need very easily.  If we have another boy, we won’t need any clothes at all, as we have tons that our son has outgrown.  Some of his larger stuff is gender neutral too, like jeans and plain colored shirts that would work for a boy or a girl.  Almost all of the diapers that we’ve made over the last couple years are still going strong, so I doubt that we’ll need to make any more.  Now all we have to do is wait another five-ish months to meet our new little one!

There were 43 entries for the e-book giveaway that I posted last week, and I used random.org to pick a winner:  Cradled on the Waves, your e-book should be coming soon, directly from the author, Laura Cowan.  Congratulations!

I’m currently reading another great book about eco-friendly, frugal ways to raise a baby, written by the authors of Green Baby Guide.  When I finish it, I’ll be offering it as a giveaway too, so stay tuned.  And I hope you all have a great weekend!

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Category: baby, family, other bloggers  10 Comments
13
Sep 2010

Kitchen Projects

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Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Between garden harvesting/preserving and all the outdoor projects we’re trying to finish before the weather gets cold, we’ve been pretty busy.  I have 19 quarts of tomato sauce canned now, and no longer have to hover over the directions to make sure I’m not making any mistakes.  We still have a lot more tomatoes to harvest, but the process of canning tomato sauce is no longer daunting to me.

Each time I’ve canned, I’ve saved a bit of the sauce to put in the fridge and use right away.  I made this pizza sauce, which was honestly better than any sauce I’ve ever bought.  I love to make my own pizza, but I’ve always purchased those (expensive!) little jars of pizza sauce, and I can’t believe how easy it was to make my own.  I used pureed tomato sauce since that’s what I had on hand.  Starting with some of my tomato sauce, it took about ten minutes to make the pizza sauce, and cost almost nothing.  Much better all around than the store-bought variety.

I’ve also made spaghetti sauce, which turned out great and only took a few minutes.  No recipe – I just used peppers, basil and onions from our garden, plus garlic, mushrooms and some dried Italian herbs.  It turned out great, and like the pizza sauce, only took about ten minutes starting with my basic tomato sauce.  So I think we should be pretty well set for tomato-sauce based dishes this winter.

I also baked bread last week, which was another great success.  I used this recipe, but (you know me!) I tweaked it a bit,  Instead of five cups of white flour, I used three and then added two cups of whole wheat flour.  Later on, when the recipe calls for adding whole wheat flour, I subbed half a cup of oats and used whole wheat flour for the rest.  I also cut down the honey in each step to about 1/4 cup.  The recipe makes three loaves of bread, but I only own one bread pan, so I made one loaf and divided the rest into 24 bread rolls (after the initial rise/punch down of the dough).  They’re in the freezer now, and all I have to do when we want bread rolls is let them thaw/rise on a baking pan for a couple hours and then bake them for 15 minutes.  Simple, and much less expensive than buying organic whole wheat bread and rolls at the store.

One more kitchen experiment that turned out really well recently was this raw cinnamon raisin bread.  I followed the recipe just as it was written, except I used honey instead of agave (there has been some controversy about agave lately, and I’m just more comfortable with local honey right now).  Anyway, this recipe is definitely a winner.  Both my husband and son came back for thirds, and it’s a great way to get lots of really nutritious foods like seeds, nuts, veggies, and fruit.  The zucchini and carrots came from our garden – we have plenty of each, so I like recipes that help me use them up.  I know that a lot of my readers probably don’t have a dehydrator, but you could always spread the dough in a pan and bake it in the oven for a while.  Definitely a toddler-approved recipe, so I wanted to share.

We’re also working on putting up a fence around our utility area in the back yard.  That’s where we have our compost bins, our cold frames during the summer, our scrap wood/metal, and stuff like shovels and rakes.  It’s all stuff that we need in order to have our mini-farm, but it’s not the prettiest area, and not particularly safe for our son.  We’re hoping to have that finished within the next week or so.

Other than supplies for the fence, we haven’t been spending much money at all lately.  Far too busy!  My thrift store habit is completely gone – I don’t even think about shopping these days.  I’m still getting rid of clutter, although at a much slower pace these days, because there just isn’t as much stuff in our house anymore.  It feels good.  The time I used to spend browsing around in thrift stores is now devoted to hanging out with my husband and son, or tinkering around in the kitchen.  Much better.

So that’s what we’ve been up to.  I hope you’re all having a good September so far!

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Category: family, food  9 Comments
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