Frugal Babe » family

Simple Parenting

FrugalBabe — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:39:06 +0000

A few days ago, I got an email from a reader named Katie who had this to say:

I was wondering if you would be interested in a post for us with kids or soon to be kids as in my case. I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and agree with a lot of things you do/believe when it comes to child rearing. I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about life in a couple of months and would love to hear more of your thoughts on things. Maybe a post about “What I wish I could have told myself when I was pregnant” from what you have learned now or even a summary of what you did that worked well or wouldn’t do again. I hope that makes sense. I fight a lot of the consumerism that is thrown at you, but still feel like I am getting too much of what I don’t need and maybe not enough of what I do need.

Also, what did you do for toys for your boys their first year? I firmly believe in no noise making, lights flashing toys as they just over stimulate. I am going to load up on books and other simple toys.

Thanks in advance! I don’t always do the things you do, but really appreciate your ideas and putting yourself out there. As I have simplified my life, it has been really wonderful reading about what others do for ideas and overall support!

None of us can go back and get a “do-over”, but since we have two boys who were born three years apart, we’re sort of getting to do things over with our second little guy. We have done some things differently, although we’ve also repeated a lot of what we did the first time around. In general, I’m more focused on “less is more” now than I was four years ago. If you haven’t read The Minimalist Mom’s Guide To Baby’s First Year, I highly recommend it. I even got to contribute a section to it, which was definitely an honor. Her site is a great resource.

Here are some of my thoughts on the early years of parenting, in no particular order:

We use the sling much more frequently now than we did when our first son was a baby. We use it on walks (just like the first time around) but I also use it when we’re grocery shopping and just around the house when our son is fussy and needs to be held. I have a sling that I can use for front or back carry, so I just put him in it on my back and I can go about whatever I need to get done. He’s often on my back while I work in the garden or wash the dishes. It’s a great way to get him to fall asleep, and I don’t have to worry about whether he’s safe or getting into anything. One-year-olds have to be watched pretty much constantly, and the sling takes away any concerns about his safety during times when I’m very busy.

We also don’t use a crib at all anymore. We used one with our older son – he slept in it until he was about two. When he started climbing out of it, we switched him to a toddler bed (found on Craigslist) so that we could keep using our organic crib mattress. We still have that toddler bed in our room, although our son now has a big boy bed in his room too. Most nights he opts to sleep in the toddler bed in our room. For the past year, we’ve had the crib in the bedroom with the big boy bed, but we weren’t using it. Our baby sleeps with us at night. I cannot even express how much easier that is for us. Instead of one of us having to jump out of bed in the middle of the night and go to another room to get a crying baby, all I have to do is wake up (barely) for just a second when he starts moving around. I get him nursing and then I can go right back to sleep. He falls asleep when he’s finished eating, and we all get a great night’s sleep. Since he doesn’t have to wake all the way up and start crying to get our attention, he’s still half asleep through the whole process too, which means he falls back asleep very quickly. Naptime during the day happens either in the sling (or jogging stroller if we’re out on a walk and our older boy is riding his bike – I have to jog to keep up with him now, so no sling), or in the toddler bed. So we recently passed our crib on to another local family who needed one.

EDIT: Although we’re big fans of co-sleeping and have seen how well it’s worked for our family, there are some situations where it’s not safe. Co-sleeping is not a good idea if either parent is a smoker or very obese, or if either parent is under the influence of drugs or alcohol when going to bed. Also, bedding should be firm and free of things like fluffy comforters. If you’re a very sound sleeper and worry about the possibility that you might roll onto your baby, trust your instincts and put your baby in a crib or bassinet close to your bed. There’s more information here on the pros and cons of co-sleeping. And as with anything else, make your own decisions based on your own research and what feels right to you, rather than what anyone else does.

We got rid of a lot of our baby clothes before our second son was born. We had tons. I had purchased some stuff at Goodwill; we had received lots of clothing gifts, and I also have a friend with a little boy who is 8 months older than our first son – she had given me several bags full of clothes over the years. We just had too much clothing. How many swim trunks does one little kid need? So before our baby arrived last year, and then again when he was a few months old, I sorted through the baby and kid clothing we had and donated several bags of stuff. Last week I was getting out the 12 – 18 month shorts from our clothing stash, and I found about 12 pairs. Given that I wash laundry several times a week, there is no possible need for that many shorts. So I donated half of them – better that they be used by someone else than just take up space in our drawers.

I’m not a fan of toys with blinking lights and batteries either. But my MIL likes them, and so our boys occasionally get them. I’m certainly not going to tell her what she can and can’t buy for our boys. Some of the gifts we get end up being donated, but some of them turn into things that our boys enjoy – blinking lights and all. Although my ideal toy box would mostly have just simple wooden and cloth toys, and books, I have to remind myself that I’m not the one playing with them. So within reason, our boys are allowed to keep toys they get as gifts, regardless of whether those toys are things we would have picked out for them. We do have a “one in, one out” rule for toys that we instituted about a year ago. It’s been a great way to keep toy clutter at bay. If our son sees a toy he wants at Goodwill (we only buy toys at thrift stores), I remind him that he’ll have to pick out a toy at home to donate. As soon as we get home – before he gets to play with the new toy – the first thing he does is go to his room and get a toy that we put straight into the donation box.

Our favorite toys (and the ones that our sons have enjoyed the most) are blocks, Legos, books, a train set (Brio and Thomas with wooden tracks), a big bin of 2×4 offcuts from our basement project, Lincoln Logs (three complete sets, found at Goodwill for a total of $10), a wooden castle that my parents made with our son, a play kitchen and lots of felt food, and a farm set that we found at a garage sale (lots of animals with a big fold-out barn). He also has a set of Construx that we found at Goodwill – it’s identical to a set my husband had when he was a kid, so the two of them have had lots of fun with that. Homemade play dough has also been a big hit over the years. This week we discovered Playmobil, and it’s currently our son’s favorite toy by far. I found a Playmobil set at a thrift store for five dollars, and he loved the pictures on the box. I had heard that they made good quality stuff, so we brought it home to check it out. It’s fantastic, and he’s had hours of fun taking everything apart and putting it back together. I looked it up on Amazon, and it sells for $75 new. So our five dollars was definitely well spent. One small part (that holds a wheel on) was missing, so I called Playmobil today to see if I could order a replacement part. Not only are they sending it to me, they’re sending it for free – not even a shipping charge. Definitely a quality toy, and it’s hard to beat that level of customer service.

So as far as toys go, for our almost four-year-old we’ve found that the best toys are the ones he can make things with (play dough, blocks, etc.) and things that he can take apart and put back together using his imagination (Construx, Lego, Playmobil, blocks, the farm, the kitchen, etc.). And of course, there are the “non-toy” toys too: the great outdoors and my own kitchen stuff come to mind. Our son also loves books. We get lots of books as gifts, although in general I prefer to use the library (and I recently culled our book collection to make it a bit smaller – we donated a lot of books to the library). With the library we can constantly rotate our books – for free! – so we don’t have to maintain a huge shelf of books in order to have plenty of reading material.

Incidentally, we’ve never gotten into “educational” toys or electronic gizmos that claim to teach children various stuff. We’ve taught our son all sorts of things just by playing with him and having him help us in the garden, garage, kitchen, etc. And he has taught himself lots of stuff by playing with interactive (but non-electronic) toys and poking around in the yard. Toys that encourage a child to be creative and figure things out are great for learning – you don’t need “educational” toys or videos, especially for very small children.

For our one-year-old, we have a small canvas bin of toys. One with blinking lights (a gift from my MIL), and the rest are made of wood or cloth – plus there are several board books in there. We also have a set of toddler-size Legos that our little guy likes, and he loves the blocks too (both boys share those for the time being, although our older son gets a bit tired of how his little brother “plays” with blocks – knocking everything down as fast as possible).

We have spent very little money on our boys over the years. But we’ve had so much fun with them, and we feel like our family has everything we need (and then some, as do most American families). We have an old hand me down jogging stroller that’s probably from the mid 90s that does exactly what we need it to do: allows me to go for a run or keep up with our son on his bike while taking our baby along for the ride. I couldn’t even guess how many miles we’ve put on that thing, but I’d say it’s well over a thousand. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have spent big bucks on fancy strollers and have then ended up using them infrequently at best. This is just one example, but the point is that you can do just fine with stuff that isn’t top of the line, and with second hand stuff. And you can get by without a lot of the stuff that is considered a “must have” for babies.

We don’t have a changing table. I got a little roll-up changing mat at a thrift store and we keep that next to the storage tub where we keep our cloth diapers. We roll it out on the floor and that’s where were change our son. We use wash cloths as wipes, and four years into our cloth diaper journey I can definitely say that they are a lot easier than I had expected them to be.

Going for walks and taking advantage of parks is something we do very frequently. Several times a week I walk around town with the boys (well, these days I jog around town, since I have to keep up with an energetic little biker). We stop at parks or the library, or sometimes just do errands while we’re out. Whatever we’re doing, I find that getting the boys – and myself and the dog – outside makes the day better. Even in the winter, we make a point to bundle up and get outdoors. This is something I’ve been doing ever since our older boy was a few days old. I have a second hand Moby Wrap that was ideal for the early days of being out and about. The baby was completely tucked inside it, all snuggled up, and we could walk all over town. Check Craigslist for a Moby Wrap if you want one – I got mine for about half of what they sell for new, and it had only been used once.

Nursing is worth the effort. With our first son, the first few weeks of nursing were so painful that I cried every time he latched on. I had no idea before hand that it was going to be that difficult. But as far as I was concerned, there was no other alternative – period. Our midwife checked his latch and said it looked good, and I had no mastitis or anything like that. My nipples just needed to get used to their new job, and it was quite the process. Those first two or three weeks seemed like an eternity as far as nursing was concerned, but after that it got much easier. Our son breastfed for two years, and I cherish the memories I have of nursing him. So, so glad I toughed it out through the hard parts. When our second son was born, it had been a year since I’d nursed a baby and I was a bit concerned that it would be painful again. But it wasn’t – not at all. I guess two years of nursing had toughened things up a bit Anyway, our second little guy is almost 13 months and we have an excellent nursing relationship going. We waited until he was about seven months to introduce solid food, and while nursing still seems to be his favorite way to eat, he loves sitting at the table with us and feeding himself whatever we’re eating.

Speaking of baby food… you don’t need to buy it, and you also don’t need to spend lots of time in the kitchen making and freezing homemade baby food. It’s really not that big a deal at all. As long as you’re eating nutritious food yourself, you can just feed that baby whatever you’re eating. We’ve done that with both of our boys, and they’re both good eaters. We’ve never bought jars of baby food or boxes of infant cereal or teething biscuits or anything like that. We have a little baby food grinder (like this), although to be honest, most often than not we just mashed things up with a fork. Our boys eat whatever we eat, and it’s been that way since they first started eating solid food. That’s made picky eating pretty much a non-issue in our house, since there are no other options besides what the rest of the family is eating.

This post has gotten a bit longer than I intended. I hope it’s helpful, and please feel free to ask questions in the comments if you want me to talk about something I haven’t addressed here. We all do things differently as parents, and in many cases there isn’t one right or wrong way to do things. This is just what has worked for us, and the things we’ve learned along the way. In general, the more time you can spend with your children, the better – and time trumps money in almost every situation. It’s definitely a good idea to have some money stashed away (that’s always a good idea, but even more so when you have a child), but you’re not depriving your kid if you skip the trips to Disney Land and choose to spend your vacation time poking around in the woods and looking for pine cones – in my opinion, that’s a better way to spend time anyway, and it sure is a whole lot less expensive.

Thanks for the questions Katie, and best wishes with the last few weeks of your pregnancy! I hope you have a wonderful parenting journey.

Simplify Your Family Life e-Book Sale – $29 for $375 Worth of eBooks!

FrugalBabe — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:07:54 +0000

Every once in a while, numerous authors band together to offer a large collection of e-books at a steeply discounted price. Today marks the start of an awesome new e-book sale put together by Corey from Simple Marriage and Mandy from Life Your Way. It’s a collection of 38 e-books covering all sorts of family-related topics (food, cooking, homemaking, marriage, minimalism for families, simple living, parenting, entrepreneurship, etc.). Purchased separately, the books would cost $375. But this week only – now through 8am eastern time on Friday April 20th – the whole collection is only $29.

Lots of great reading material, no paper clutter (e-books are awesome like that!). Plenty of motivation, ideas and inspiration to help you simplify your life, focus on what’s important, and enjoy the family life you’re creating. Several of these e-books are written by some of my favorite bloggers, and I’m excited to dig into them. You guys know that marriage, family, and simplicity are all high on my list of important things. I know that’s the case for a lot of you too, and I think quite a few of my readers will love this e-book collection. The price is lower than the Simplify Your Family Life sale last year (it was $47 in 2011), and almost all of the e-books this year are different (33 new ones, in case you purchased the collection from last year and are wondering about duplicates).

Here’s a link to the sale and here are the details on what you get for your $29:

Parenting & Kids

4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions by the Moms at 4 Moms, 35+ Kids ( retail price $7.99)

Flourishing Spring by Michele from Frugal Granola (retail price $5.95)

Mindset for Moms by Jamie at Steady Mom (retail price $4.99)

Nurturing Creativity by Renee from FIMBY (retail price $3.00)

Parenting with Positive Guidance by Amanda from Not Just Cute (retail price $9.00)

Truth in the Tinsel by Amanda from Impress Your Kids (retail price $6.99)

Minimalism for Families

101 Ways to Simplify Your Life by Laura at Journey to a Simple Life (retail price $9.95)

321-Stop by Lori at Loving Simple Living (retail price $9.97)

Inside Out Simplicity by Joshua from Becoming Minimalist (retail price $11.99)

Simple Ways to Be More with Less by Courtney from Be More with Less (retail price $9.97)

The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to Baby’s First Year by Rachel at The Minimalist Mom(retail price $9.95) I even have a short guest chapter in this one!

Food & Cooking

Get Lean Recipe for Success by Nisha at Healthy Mom’s Kitchen (retail price $37.00)

Got Dinner? by Susan from The Confident Mom (retail price $4.00)

How To Cook For Yourself: A Complete Beginner’s Guide by Rachael at Kitchen Courses (retail price $35.00)

Plan It, Don’t Panic by Stephanie from Keeper of the Home (retail price $4.99)

Real Food Basics by Kate at Modern Alternative Mama (retail price $6.95)

Real Food, Real Easy by Erin from The Humbled Homemaker (retail price $9.95)

Smart Sweets by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship (retail price $9.95)

The Everything Beans Book by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship (retail price $9.95)

Homemaking

2012 Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner by Susan at The Confident Mom(retail price $9.00)

Clean Start: Your Guide to Natural Home Cleaning by Michelle from Open Eye Health(retail price $4.95)

Complete Printables Download Pack by Mandi from Life Your Way (retail price $7.00)

Food on Your Face for Acne & Oily Skin by Leslie at Crunchy Betty (retail price $7.99)

From Debtor to Better by Barry from Debtor to Better (retail price $15.00)

My Buttered Life {Summer + Gift Giving Editions} by Renee from MadeOn Hard Lotion(retail price $10.00)

Not a DIY Diva by Melissa from The Inspired Room (retail price $3.99)

One Bite at a Time by Tsh at Simple Mom (retail price $5.00)

That Works for Me by Kristen at We Are THAT Family (retail price $8.00)

Marriage & Relationships

A Simple Marriage by Corey at Simple Marriage (retail price $4.99)

Buck Naked Marriage by Corey at Simple Marriage (retail price $2.99)

Entangled by Amy from Permission to Peruse (retail price $4.99)

The A to Z Guide: 26 Ways in 26 Days to a Happier, Healthier Marriage by The Dating Divas (retail price $9.97)

Entrepreneurship & Blogging

Blogger Behave by Laura at 10 Million Miles (retail price $4.99)

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too by Mandi from Life Your Way (retail price $12.00)

Make Money Blogging by Tara at Feels Like Home (retail price $4.99)

Tap Into Your Unique Creativity and Self Expression Webinar by Lisa @ WellGrounded Life (retail price $39.00)

Tell Your Time by Amy at Blogging with Amy (retail price $4.99)

Your Blogging Business: Tax Talk & Tips from a Bookkeeper Turned Blogger by Nikki @ Christian Mommy Blogger (retail price $4.99)

The Simplify Your Family Life Sale is brought to you in part by Plan to Eat, and online meal planner that helps to simplify eating at home. When you purchase the e-book collection, you’ll get a coupon code for a one year Plan to Eat membership!

I hope you love this collection of e-books! Pick up yours sometime between now and Friday – sale ends at 8am eastern time on Friday.

Fun With Ice

FrugalBabe — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:18:00 +0000

I got inspired this weekend by Regina of Mommy’s Making A Mess (lots of good ideas over there!). So our son and I whipped up some colored water and made our own ice blocks. I don’t have any food coloring, so we thought about what we could use instead. I had a beet in the fridge, so I peeled it (the beet went into our green smoothie) and we stuck the peels in a jug of water and swished them around for a while while the water turned a lovely shade of pink.

Then we hunted through the cupboard and decided to try spirulina and turmeric. The water with spirulina turned very dark green (almost black). But once the ice froze, we noticed that some of the spirulina had settled to the bottom and the ice chunks actually looked more blue than green.

The turmeric turned the water a nice shade of yellow, and while some of it did settle out as the blocks froze, the ice was still quite yellow in the morning. So are the insides of my muffin trays. I think they might have a permanent gold look to them now.

Here are the muffin trays after our son filled them up with colored water (plus a few with plain water for comparison).

We set them outside at about 7:30pm. It was 36 degrees, so we told him it would be a little bit before the temperature was cold enough to start freezing water, but that by the time he woke up in the morning, they would be nice and solid. His bedtime is 9, and in the hour and a half between setting them out and going to bed, he probably looked out the back door about six times, to check on his ice. It was taking way too long to freeze as far as he was concerned. Good thing it did most of its magic overnight while he was sleeping. Otherwise, the anticipation might have been too much for him.

When he woke up in the morning, he ran to the back door and called for us to come and look. He was so excited about his ice blocks.

He got them all into this pan and then said “I could just look at these all day, they’re so awesome!”

Anyway, this is an easy, free (or nearly free, depending on what you use as food coloring) activity that you can do with your kids. If you have food coloring in your pantry, you’ll probably get more vibrant colors than we did. But if you don’t, you can have fun thinking of ideas for coloring your water. If you live somewhere where the temperatures aren’t going below freezing at night, you could just stick these in the freezer over night (and I’m jealous too, by the way. Definitely ready for spring around here).

Have fun!

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

FrugalBabe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:32:58 +0000

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.

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

FrugalBabe — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:07:03 +0000

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?

Downsizing My Craft Supplies

FrugalBabe — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:04:43 +0000

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…?

Settling Into Life With Two Boys

FrugalBabe — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:50:55 +0000

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.

Simplify Your Family Life – Awesome E-Book Sale

FrugalBabe — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:58:52 +0000

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!

Christmas Our Way

FrugalBabe — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:50:00 +0000

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.

Non-Extreme Minimalism

FrugalBabe — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:37:17 +0000

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.