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Here's What's New Get my new Make Over Your Calendar Course for FREE! 5 Things I'm Loving This Week (+ one thing I'm NOT loving!) "In the absence of data, we make up stories." Join the Money-Making Mom Book Club! How I Get a Day Off From Cooking Without Breaking the Bank :: Get my new Make Over Your Calendar Course for FREE! I'm SO excited to let you in on a little secret… I've been working on a short course for the past little while. It's called Make Over Your Calendar and it's a 7-day course all about how to set up your to do list and your daily and weekly schedule for success. So many of you have requested something like this and I'm thrilled that it's done. Best of all, I decided to give it away for FREE (yes, you read that right) to everyone who pre-orders a copy of my brand-new book by November 2. I know that many of you have been thinking of pre-ordering my book and because it really helps us out when you pre-order (this makes sure that Amazon stocks enough copies of the book so they don't sell out on launch week next week!), we wanted to do something special as our way of saying thank you. My new book is called Money-Making Mom: How Every Woman Can Earn More and Make a Difference and it will be available online and in book stores nationwide on TUESDAY (November 3, 2015). This book is for you if you are: Struggling with getting a business off the ground Wishing you could find a mentor to hold your hand Wondering whether there's a way for you to earn more Hoping to find better work-life balance Wanting to use your gifts to make a difference It's the manual I wish I had had when I started my very first online business 10 years ago. It's practical, inspirational, and relatable. You'll want to go grab a copy for yourself and maybe get another as a gift for a friend. Go pre-order your copy of Money-Making Mom here.* After you pre-order, fill out this form here and you'll get instant access to my new 7-Day Make Over Your Calendar Course - for FREE! But hurry, because this offer is only valid through November 2! *You can order either the hardback copy or the ebook to get in on this offer. You can order from Amazon.com or any of the sites listed here. :: 5 Things I'm Loving This Week (+ one thing I'm NOT loving!) 1. Flowers From Silas This child. He went to a Royals game with Jesse last weekend. He brought me home these flowers that he bought for me with his own money. Jesse said it was all Silas' own idea. (Jesse also said he tried to talk Silas out of it because they were kind of expensive but Silas had his mind made up!) There are days when being a mom is crazy hard, but moments like this make it all worth it. {Excuse the Cheerios on the floor. #RealLife} 2. My 8-Year-Old In-House Hairstylist Kaitlynn has spent hours this week working on perfecting some new braids and I've been her hair model to practice on - which I've been happy to do! I love this girl's creativity and how she is always trying new things, experimenting with ways to add more beauty to our lives, and forever thinking outside the box. She constantly inspires me! Plus, having an in-house hairstylist is sure nice! 3. A Box of Ice Cream From a Friend! Oh my goodness!! Look what showed up at our door this week?!?!?! Friends who ship you 8 cartons of special, incredibly delicious ice cream just because are friends for LIFE. Ice cream is my love language, in case you didn't know! And this is exactly just what I needed to carry me through Book Launch Week! Thank you so much, Kristi! Pretty sure my kids think you are the coolest person ever (no pun intended!) 4. Rejoicing in the Small Victories I snapped this picture earlier this week because I wanted to document that our bed was made before noon. Because when it's been one of "those weeks", you gotta look for victories wherever you can find them.   5. Friends Who Celebrate With You Launching a book into the world is a sort of a scary thing. You pour your heart onto paper. You have to spend months editing and re-editing. Then it goes to the printers. And you sort of wonder why on earth you ever got the crazy idea to sign that book contract. Because once the thing is published, you can't edit or delete like you can on a blog. But then, friends make videos like this one and post them on the internet and you forget all about being scared and you just laugh and smile and celebrate that the book is D-O-N-E and that other people are so excited about it with you. (And it also reminds you of how important it is to remember to take time and make time to celebrate others, too! Because it means so much!) One Thing I'm Not Loving: Termites Our furnace is finally fixed (it only took multiple guys and 5 visits on 5 different days to get it fixed!!!) but… drumroll… We also found out the same day that our furnace finally got fixed that we have termites. Really bad termites. {Although I'm not sure that there's such a thing as "not really bad termites!"} Our poor landlords! They have been the most gracious people ever, but I'm sure they just cringe anytime their phone rings with our number!! What are you loving this week? Tell us in the comments. :: "In the absence of data, we make up stories." So I'm a little behind in posting about our Book Club Book this week, but folks, this book is messing with me in so many good ways. I decided to extend this book club book through the next week since I don't want to rush through this book. And oh my goodness! I have underlined and dog-eared more pages than I probably ever have in any other book. And then I keep taking screenshots and texting them to people or reading the quotes aloud to my husband. Yes, this book is good stuff. So good, in fact, that I just bought it for two people this week! I read chapters 3-6 the past few days and it's hard for me to pick just a few quotes to share. But I'll try: "Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes they mean it. They're compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment." Whoa. This was hard-hitting. And a good inspiration to set and keep boundaries. "In the absence of data, we always make up stories." How much of the time do we jump to conclusions and start concocting stories about a situation - when we haven't taken the time to fact-check and make sure that are assumptions are actually true? This book has really challenged me in this regard. I realized how many times, I've not done my due diligence to check data and make sure I've gotten my facts and stories straight. I can let my brain run wild with stories that aren't true - just based upon a small little thing. For instance, if I'm in a situation with a friend and she acts kind of cold toward me, I have sometimes made up a big story - that I've offended her, that she doesn't like me, that she doesn't want to be my friend anymore… when it could just be that she has something hard going on and she's struggling with it. Or maybe she has been hurt by me about something. But I'll never know unless I ask instead of just make up stories. And finally, the above quote was really, really good. Powerful stuff. We'll slowly work our way through chapters 7-11 over the next week. I'll be scoping about them and blogging about them a few times next week. Are you reading this book right now? If so, I'd love to hear what's impacting and challenging you. :: Join the Money-Making Mom Book Club! Have you pre-ordered a copy of my book, Money-Making Mom? If not, what are you waiting for? It comes out on TUESDAY (woot! woot!) and if you pre-order this weekend, you'll get a copy of my brand-new Make Over Your Calendar course (just fill out this form here)! Want to go through the book with a group of other women? The wonderful girls at Brilliant Business Moms are hosting a book club during November on this book. Head over to their site to read all about the book club. And don't forget to grab your book and your pre-order bonuses this weekend. P.S. Thank you so, so much for your support of this book. You have no idea what your excitement means to me. Thank you for being some of my biggest cheerleaders in this… I wish I could throw a party for each and every one of you (or have the introverts over for one-on-one coffee!) just to personally say thank you! :: How I Get a Day Off From Cooking Without Breaking the Bank Guest post from Julia of Swirls and Spice After I married my husband, he suggested that I stop cooking on Sundays. This was an adjustment for me, and somewhat surprising since both of us come from families where our mothers served a traditional Sunday dinner after church. Furthermore, cooking is one of my favorite parts of homemaking, and yielding control of the kitchen is not easy for me. However, after making this our Sunday habit, I am thankful for the blessings of rest and refreshment that have come. Four children and several moves later, we now find ourselves in the suburbs of Chicago, where the restaurant selection is amazing and quite enticing. However, feeding six people isn't cheap when we are intentionally not cooking at home. Eating out four to five times a month was costing us nearly $300 - and that figure was separate from our grocery budget, which covered all of our other meals at home. Living on one income and spending so much money on restaurant food was simply not sustainable. After pondering our predicament, my husband came up with a cost-cutting strategy that still gives me a break from the kitchen on Sundays. We get take-out food for one meal, and heat up prepared meals for the other. The take-out food could be anything from fried rice to Papa John's pizza; and for the other meal, we rotate between several different convenience foods like Hot Pockets and taquitos. After taking these measures, our restaurant spending went down by half. (September's total was just $136.) My husband also has taken charge of microwaving or baking the food we eat on Sunday. However, our older children are also capable of following the heating directions if we ever decide to go that route. At the end of the day, I am thankful that we get two hot meals without me working in the kitchen for the whole day. After my break, I'm recharged to plan the remaining meals for the week, which I enjoy preparing mostly from scratch with whole food ingredients. Living debt-free doesn't necessarily mean a family has to stop eating from restaurants. So much of developing a budget comes down to prioritizing what your values are. By tracking our spending and planning carefully, it is possible to live inside our means and not feel guilty about taking a day off from cooking. The resulting freedom helps me to move beyond survival mode and avoid burnout as I serve my family. Developing recipes with healthy, affordable ingredients is one of Julia's favorite pursuits. At her blog, Swirls and Spice, you'll find a growing collection of dairy-free recipes. photo source You received this email because you are registered on www.moneysavingmom.com with the email address panatllc1.kate@blogger.com. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, you can easily unsubscribe here. Money Saving Mom 2020 Fieldstone Parkway, Suite 900 #313 Franklin, TN 37069 © 2008-2015 Money Saving Mom, LLC. All rights reserved.