You’ve done it before – bought something that was a great price – only to find out that it was made cheaply and doesn’t work now.  If you had only bought the good quality one, you wouldn’t be replacing the cheap one!

My Grandmother was a true believer in you get what you pay for.  She always made sure to save up to get good quality cookware like the Cusinart Food Processor, which is expensive, but they last forever.  You could get one when you first get married and I bet it would last till your 25^thAnniversary.  I was so happy the Christmas when my dad bought me my Cusinart.  I use it all the time – for chopping, shredding, and pureeing.  And it even helps me save money!   How you say?  Because I do my own food shredding – and it only takes a minute.  Cheese for example when purchase pre-shredded is marked up a lot because you are paying for them to shred it for you.  I buy blocks of cheese at the wholesale club and shred it myself – so I am also saving money by buying in bulk.  Yes, some recipes say you can use a blender to puree the ingredients – but it takes twice as long and doesn’t come out in the right consistency.

My next love in the kitchen is my Kitchen Aid Mixer – yes, again expensive, but will also last a very long time.  Mine just turned 10 years old and purrs like a kitten and mixes like a pro.  Two reasons I love the mixer – you can put your ingredients in and have the freedom to walk away – continue cooking, bring dishes to the sink and it still is mixing, unlike the hand held kind that you are stuck holding.  Second are the attachments – a mixing paddle (which I use most of the time), a whipping whisk and a dough hook.   Don’t even get me started on the extra ones you can get – juicer attachment, sausage maker, and even a pasta roller!

So if you have been considering one, save up for one – in the long run you will save money.  You won’t be replacing either of these products any time soon.  My mixer 10 years ago was about $250, which is only $25 a year to own it!  See my logic!  And it will probably run about another 10-15 years!  Wow – only $10 a year by then!

I have written this post without any endorsement from these companies. 

-Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

One of the biggest financial mistakes I ever made was not getting the credit card – (because you need one to establish your credit history to improve your FICO) – but my mistake was using the card incorrectly!

Our society thinks it’s a privilege to be able to get a card with $10,000 limit and then go spend it all.  Do they have $10,000 to spend – no – so why are they spending it?  Because the credit card company allows them to  – but at such a high cost it’s not worth it.  On a smaller scale say you spent the month happily charging away, $200 here, $50 there, $100 over there…..by the end of the month you end up with $2000 and you can’t even believe it!  But say you can only afford to pay $100 a month for it….even if you cut up your credit card right then and there, here’s what will happen to you.  A $2000 credit card balance at 18.9% will cost you $421 in interest and 25 months to pay it off.  That’s over two years, and at the end of that time you won’t even remember what you were paying for!

Back to my mistake.  During my first week of college, I was all bright eyed and overjoyed to be away at school.  Unsuspectingly I walked into the courtyard and saw people giving away big bags of M&M’s!  I should have run, don’t I know better than to take candy from a stranger? 

Well they were offering credit cards to poor – unsuspecting college kids.  Why do credit card companies prey on college kids?  Because it’s easy – most students have little to no money, and love the idea of the freedom of a credit card.  The credit card company knows that many parents will help their kid out if they are having trouble paying the bill.  But FREEDOM is the last thing credit debt gives you.

So I happily filled out the paperwork and snatched up a 1 pound bag of Free M&M’s.  That was the most expensive bags of M&M’s I’ve ever bought!  A fast week later the card shows up in the mail.  At first it just sat in my wallet – untouched.

Then a friend came to me who was having car trouble and asked if I would use my new card to pay the mechanic and they would “pay me right back”.  My answer should have been “NO – why don’t you get your own card, or ask your parents” – anything other than yes!  So not only did they NOT pay me back right away, I had to chase them down for almost a year begging for my money.  Of course over the year the interest was piling up.  But the worst thing was when they finally did give me the money I made another mistake – I took the cash and spent it – when I should have paid off the bill!

So then I had debt, and it was easy to start adding more to it.  Clothes, shoes, plane tickets etc…and before you know it I had several thousand in credit card debt and as a young college student I had trouble just paying the minimum.

For almost 10 years I carried that debt around.  Always paying the minimum, but never getting rid of it, it followed me around like a bad rat.  Well, I thank God for my husband who was anti credit-card, so when we got married we made a budget to pay it off and when it was paid off  – then the Freedom came.  There is no freedom when you have credit debt looming over your head.  Do we have credit cards now – YES – it’s a must to maintain a good FICO score.  But we use them completely different. 

I use them to earn “points” and the credit cards get paid in FULL every month.  Every month.  So if we don’t have the money to pay it in full – we DON”T BUY it – we save for it.

Yes, it can be hard to be strict with yourself, but it’s worth the freedom.  Plus over time I realized all these “things” I had to buy never made me any happier.  I am much happier in a credit debt free life!

My favorite financial guru is Suze Orman and her book “Women & Money”.  I watch her weekly Saturday night program (actually DVR it and watch it while I do laundry) and follow the steps in her book.   A side note to the credit card debt – of course if you are in an emergency situation, credit cards can be a useful tool – as long as you use them wisely. 

-Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

Christmas and New Year’s can be the most exciting, eventful and stressful times of the year.  The whole month of December can rush by in a whirl leaving you freaked out by January 1^st – if you aren’t careful with your holiday plans.  Here I’ll share some of my Christmas tips on creating traditions, staying true to yourself and keeping it simple. 

The notion of our society for things to be better and bigger, and have more stuff plays to the nth degree at Christmas time.  Your neighbor has an icicle lined roof – you want an icicle roof.  Your friend gets a new necklace for the holiday party – you want a new necklace.  The kids have a mile long list of specific things they want – you run crazily from store to store looking for them.  The Christmas dinner – oysters, a roast and a 10 layer cake – not to mention the parties in the weeks leading up to Christmas and all the cookies, cakes and chocolate treats.  Somehow Christmas has lead to overindulgence in every area of our lives. 

Now don’t get me wrong I am not pooh-poohing on Christmas – just the ever increasingly materialist nature of it.

For years I got caught up in it too.  The presents, the decorations, the cookies… and for a long time I didn’t even know what I was celebrating.  Was I celebrating my family and how much I loved them?  Yes, but if I didn’t know the meaning behind all the celebration why didn’t I just do all this craziness in July?  Until I started to learn more about God and Jesus – Christmas was nothing more than a commercial celebration of overindulgence to me.  Now that I am actually celebrating the birth of Jesus it is so much easier to set limits on Christmas.  I don’t need to have it all – I don’t need a million lights in my front yard, I don’t need to buy the most expensive gifts, and I don’t even need to make a million cookies.  I have limits.  I have a budget.  And I keep the real meaning of Christmas in the forefront of my mind – as it is so easy to get swept up into the craziness of it all.

Somehow at the turn of the millennium everyone got PC – not a computer – but politically correct.  When I was growing up in the 80’s everyone said Merry Christmas and wrote it on their cards – today you hear Happy Holidays!  Ugh!  The fact is people are fearful – afraid to rock the boat.  Do you really think a riot will start if you said Merry Christmas to a Jewish family by mistake?  No – hopeful they would kindly say “we’re Jewish” and you would say “well then, Happy Hanukah” – you all smile and everyone would be fine!

Our country was founded “One Nation Under God” and now God has been taken out of so many things – by the way, are they still trying to take Him off our currency?  Even where I live in the Bible Belt, I still sense that people live in the PC world, not wanting to talk about their faith. 

Well Christian, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical – what have you – you’ll find a bunch of people that believe in God, and what God stands for, including the good rules of life as stated in the commandments.  Simple rules to protect us all.  But in our PC world where people want to take God out of everything, and not follow His rules we end up hurt and lost. 

So if more of us believers in God could come out of our shells a little more and speak up for what we believe in we might be a lot more happy and at peace.

Have courage, be yourself, don’t’ be afraid to say Merry Christmas – if you mean it then say it! 

Some of my friends ask if we do the whole Santa thing.  In some religious communities Santa is controversial.  But my thought is Santa is a representation of the Spirit of Christmas.  So yes, we absolutely do the Santa thing!  Growing up my dad always had my sister and I sit on his lap and read us ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Then we could barely contain ourselves for the rest of the night – waking up every hour to see if Santa came yet!  It was the best to finally get up in the morning and see the tree with presents.  That type of Christmas spirit is what I want my family to experience, through simple fun and family traditions.

To keep myself less stressed during Christmas season I start planning early, by making lists– a budget list for gifts, decorations and food, a Christmas card list and a To-Do list to make sure I am not over planning and things don’t get left out. 

After that I keep it simple.  I use a little creativity and ingenuity. A few lights out front, a few decorations (my front yard does not look like a store threw up all over it), a couple of batches of cookies – made with the boys of course.   Making sugar cookies is part of a family tradition I did with my mom.  The dough can be made in advance and put in the freezer, rolling out the dough and pressing down the tree shaped cookie cutters and then slathering them with frosting and sprinkles.  They taste like my childhood.  I hope my boys will remember the taste of their Christmas!

The Christmas tree is probably my favorite tradition.  For my entire life I have been fortunate enough to be able to go to a tree farm to cut down a tree.  Many years the snow was crunchy and deep, and we trekked our way through the farm to find just the right Christmas tree.  After my dad brought the tree to the car we’d stop in for hot cider and cookies in the little hut with a wood burning stove.  It was so special!  And I love that we have carried that tradition on with our boys.

Tradition keeps families together, bonds them.  Tradition holds their memoires tight.  Traditions are important – so pick a few simple ones you’d like to do with your family, and those memories will last a lifetime! 

- Helping you achive your Domestic Success!

photo by dawnzy

Financially speaking “money talk” can be a delicate subject to mention in your marriage .     

Back in the “olden days” young ladies would live with their family right up until getting married.  Then the newlyweds would have one checking account and one savings account.  End of story.

Well now as you know – things are much different!  Young women leave their parents household and have a career, get apartments and may have numerous on-line bank accounts and 401K investments – all before getting married!

So the husband and wife, who are used to having their own bank account, might have trouble with the concept of traditional joint accounts.  Derek & I tried traditional – it didn’t work for us.  With having a mortgage, multiple household bills and large family grocery bill I felt it was too hard to figure out what extra money I had leftover to treat myself to something.

So now we have Mine, Yours and Ours bank accounts.  We both have a checking account for miscellaneous items, we have a household checking account for bills, and a household savings account as a nest egg.  With all the on-line banking options it’s easy to move money around and even give personalized names like Wendy’s checking.  

So what about that nest egg?  If you don’t do this now – you need to start.  Pay Yourself First – before your bills!  Your goal is to have a 6 – 8 month nest egg for emergencies.  So calculate what your monthly expenses are, multiply by 6 or 8 and that is your nest egg goal.  It seems like a big number – right?  Well it is, and it might take a while to save that much, but these days if someone loses a job it might take 6 – 8 months before finding a new one! 

How do you pay yourself first?  Here are a few ideas:

• The first time you get a pay raise or bonus, take that extra amount and put it right into savings.  If you’ve lived without it before, you can continue without it.  
• When you finish paying off a car loan, take that same amount and put it in savings.  Again if you’ve lived without it before, you can continue without it.  

If neither scenario is in your immediate future – don’t worry – they will come.  In the meanwhile take a look at your monthly expenses.  Look for non-essential items, fancy coffees at the café, fast-food lunches, and shopping splurges.  Cut back or stop those and put that extra money into savings.

Trust me it Pays to Pay Yourself First!  Sooner than later your nest egg will be complete and you’ll have extra splurge money for vacations, fancy dinners and shopping sprees!

- Wendy

Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

At our household we have pitch pile day. All of those piles of papers, magazines, junk drawers – well if they don’t get taken care of year after year, what a mess you’d be in – think Pigpen’s house!

I love these ones from Pottery Barn.

Twice a year (at the least) in the Spring and Fall we pitch the piles.  We get out a big trash bag and get to it.  It is the best feeling afterward – so nice and organized.

Okay – so mine doesn’t really look like any of those  - but a girl can dream!

The piles get sorted 3 ways.  A Keep Pile - to be filed, A Move Pile – moved to an appropriate room/place, and my favorite the Trash Pile!

Some of us are born organizers.  Some are not.  When I was little my mom was working and she put my sister and I in daycare.  Part of her job was working with other children – so she felt terribly guilty for spending time with other kids.  Me?  I didn’t mind at all.  I have great memories of the fun I had there.  So once a week when she’d pick us up we got a new Matchbox car – it was great!  I’d even gotten to the point where I had a carrying collection box.  My favorite thing to do with the Matchbox Cars was to organize them by color in the box.

A born organizer I guess!  My sister was not.  Growing up her room was Pigpen’s house – you couldn’t see anything, there were piles and unorganized clutter everywhere.  But the good news is as a wife and mother now in charge of her own household she is organized and uncluttered! My point being that it’s our duty as both husband and wife to keep a tidy house – now it doesn’t need to be Martha Clean, but organized enough to be able to find things you need.

In order to make your pitch pile day effective, you just need some organization tools. You’ll need some filing drawers, shelving, and large & small rubber containers, which can be found inexpensively at your local Target or Walmart.  And the large heavy duty black trash bags are great for the Trash pile.

To get Pitch Pile Day going, pick the room you are going to start in.  Say the office.  If there are piles and papers everywhere, just start sorting.  Just three piles – Keep, Move, Trash.  If it ends up in the keep pile use the organization tools to store it in the office.  Put the Move pile things into the appropriate rooms in your house.  And then dump that hopefully large Trash pile out!  I find that when you really sit down to organize you will be surprised at how much of it really is trash. Yes, this project will take you longer than the usual tidying up, but it will be worth it.  And if you are consistent about doing it at least twice a year it will be easy to maintain!

Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

Household tasks – who does what?  It is never ending! 

It is something that requires constant attention – but does not need to be overwhelming.  Do you go by traditional husband & wife roles?  Husband does outside work, wife does inside work?  Or do you switch it up a bit. 

The traditional roles definitely didn’t work for me!  My issue with it was that I love to be outside.  So the outside yard work was right up my alley.  Especially these days while I am home with my little boys – it is a great escape to get outside with my iPod and cut the grass on a nice sunny day.  Not only am I getting ALONE time – but I am getting great exercise too!

So if I’d only known sooner…… there I was cleaning up after dinner on a Sunday night and realized it was trash night and mentioned this to Derek.  Thinking well I am doing the dishes – he should take care of the trash.  Time goes by, I am almost done loading the dishwasher – which felt like the umpteenth time that day – and the trash still hasn’t’ been taken out!  I get huffy, and instead of ask nicely, now I am complaining, “Derek I already told you about the trash – why are you dragging your feet?” Then a fight starts and we are both mad, and the trash still hasn’t been taken out.  We had several household issues like this – on both of our parts – both of us thinking that a chore needs to be done, so why isn’t my sweetie doing it?  And then getting mad. 

That why we started the See It – Do It chore system.  Here’s how it works – If you see a chore that needs to be done (that is normally done by your spouse) and you have noticed it several times and it’s still not getting done, and it’s starting to get you irritated – THEN DO IT YOURSELF!  And do so without complaining about it – OR making a BIG announcement that you finally did it.  Following this practice will lead to less tension and irritability and the task will get done!

After you keep that mindset, take the time to figure out what chores needs to be done – grass, trash, cooking, cleaning, etc. and see who wants to do what.  You both like them all (not likely), then share – take turns. 

I know what you are thinking.  “Yeah – right – I’ll see it and I’ll be the only one doing it!”  Of course you don’t want one spouse who ends up doing all the chores.  So that’s why you sit down and hash out the chore list.  Here’s an idea of things to put on the list:

• Yard work (grass, hedges, flowers, weed-wacking)
• Laundry
• Taking trash out
• Grocery shopping
• Cooking & dishes
• Inside house cleaning
• Exterior house maintenance
• Projects – Honey Do’s
• Picking up children’s toy messes
• Putting kids to bed/bathed

After assigning chores, you get a general sense of who is doing what, but again I stress – see something NOT done?  As Nike says – Just Do IT!  It takes a lot less time just to get the task done rather than complain, fight and still have to do the task.

-Wendy

Helping you achieve your Domestic success!