5 Lessons We've Learned from Frugally Raising our Kids and more...

Here's What's New 5 Lessons We've Learned from Frugally Raising our Kids How to Save Money on Food Costs When Life is Crazy Get Up Early Challenge: Day 8 (I learned a valuable lesson yesterday!) How to Get Up Early - Even if You Have Young Kids 500 Things Decluttering Challenge: Day 7 (decluttering the garage, ugh!) Have you always wanted to write a book? :: 5 Lessons We've Learned from Frugally Raising our Kids Guest post from Sarah of The Jelly Jars My husband and I have three kids, and every time I hear reports about how much it costs to raise just one child these days, I wince a little (the latest data says close to a quarter of a million dollars per child). But then I remind myself that it doesn't have to be that way. Here are some lessons that I've learned as we try to raise our kids without spending too much money on them: 1. How to get creative with activities. We don't have our kids in more than one activity at a time (such as soccer, swimming, gymnastics, etc.), encouraging them to fully engage in where they are, and refusing to believe the lie that we have to push them too hard from an early age in order for them to succeed later on. Instead, we watch Youtube videos of gymnastics or ballet, for example, and either follow along with a tutorial or turn it into a fun family activity as we pretend our living room is the summer Olympic games. 2. How to find enjoyment through experiences rather than things. In the spaces of our lives that aren't taken up by school, work, or activities, we tend to do things together. We will go for a family hike, take a "nature walk" down the street, make muffins, or play a board game together. We own plenty of toys, but we also try to teach our kids that the most joy in life comes from relationships rather than objects, and model that through how we spend our time together. 3. How to find great second-hand deals. If you look at your local library, they probably have a section where they sell their old books for a fraction of what it costs to buy a new book. I've bought books at our library for a quarter each, greatly expanding our home book collection. We tend to buy board games at the local thrift store for two or three dollars rather than the fifteen or twenty they cost brand new. I also find gently used clothes that are still on trend at thrift stores, a huge benefit when kids grow so quickly and need new clothes so frequently! 4. How to make lots and lots of lunches! I make lunches every day, not just school days. If it's a Saturday and I know that we'll be out running errands over lunchtime, I think ahead and pack a quick lunch. Stopping to eat out add up quickly and I would much rather take ten minutes to put things together at home than get stuck with a big bill because we all got hungry before we got home. 5. How to teach our children about money. From a young age, kids can begin to understand basic money concepts. By watching the ways we save, spend, and give, they are learning how to do the same. Our kids have 3 jars labeled "Spend, Save, Give." When we give out allowance, the kids split it equally among the three jars. The "spend" money can be used however they choose, the "save" money is money they are saving for a specific item, and the "give" is to encourage generosity. An additional benefit in many of our methods is that they tend to be more relationally geared, creating a special bond in our family as we do life together. Raising a family can be quite expensive, but these are tactics that work for us as we try to be wise in how we spend money in the process. Sarah is a mountain-loving, dark chocolate-eating, Frank Sinatra-listening, owie-kissing, truth-telling, freelance writer/blogger who seeks out a passionate life with her husband and two kiddos. She writes at The Jelly Jars. photo source :: How to Save Money on Food Costs When Life is Crazy Do you struggle with letting the grocery budget get out of control when life gets busy? If so, Jessica from Life As Mom has a great post up on how to save money on food costs when life is crazy. :: Get Up Early Challenge: Day 8 (I learned a valuable lesson yesterday!) It's Day #8 of the Get Up Early Challenge and I re-learned a valuable lesson yesterday… If I over-pack my schedule and try to cram too many to-dos on my list for the day, even getting up early won't calm the rushing, busy, frantic feeling in my heart. So here's the honest truth: we had a rough morning at our house yesterday. Mostly because I struggled with major Bad Attitude… And it was contagious. I snapped at my kids, was curt with my husband, and just felt stressed about life. I couldn't figure out what was up… Until I looked at my to-do list and realized it was because I hadn't given myself space to breathe in my schedule today. I had scheduled too many commitments. I had put pressure on myself to do too many things. And I was feeling squeezed and squashed by it all. Instead of continuing on the Stress Spiral downward, I stopped and took a hard look at my to do list. I crossed some of the non-important things off of it, rescheduled an appointment, and made a much more simplified game plan for the afternoon. Then, I apologized to my husband for my attitude, kissed him for 15 seconds (it's hard to kiss your man passionately and be mad at him at the same time -try it! ;)), asked God for love and calmness and patience, turned on some worship music, and drank a Green Smoothie. The rest of the day went so much better! And I'm going into today reminding myself of this: Jesus didn't call me to a life of busyness. He says, "Come unto me and rest." He is not impressed by how much I do. He doesn't need my productivity. He's already finished the most important work on the Cross. Today, I'm leaving room in my life for quietness and space for my soul to breathe. I'll be hopping on Periscope around 7:30 to 7:45 a.m. to share some Morning Motivation encouragement and to some thoughts and insights from The 5AM Miracle book. I'd love for you to join me or watch the replay (just download the app and search for @MoneySavingMom). Are you joining me for the Get Up Early Challenge? If so, leave a comment on this post to let me know how you did with your wake-up goal this morning. We're in this together… And if you didn't hit your goal, that's okay! Give yourself grace, don't beat yourself up, and know that you can try again tomorrow! P.S. Read more about the Get Up Early Challenge here. Need some help and inspiration to use your mornings well? Download Day 1 of Make Over Your Mornings for free (scroll to the bottom of this page to sign up for it!) :: How to Get Up Early - Even if You Have Young Kids As we've been going through the Get Up Early Challenge this month, so many moms have written in and told me how they would love to get up early but they just can't figure out how to do so because they have young children. If that's you, this post is for you. However, I need to preface it with this: I'm all about grace, not guilt. If you feel like you're in a season of life where you're not supposed to be getting up early, then this post isn't for you. Just skip it. Also, remember that everyone's definition of "early" will differ, depending on life circumstances. I may be getting up at 5 a.m., but you could be getting up at 6, 7, or 8 a.m.. Everybody's schedule is different. Do what works for you, okay? Now that we have that out of the way, here are my tips on how to get up early even if you have young kids: 1. Cut the excuses. We can spend so much of our life living under lies. We live under the lies that we aren't good enough, we can't do that, we're not X. When we tell ourselves lies for long enough, we start believing them to be truths. Some people truly do thrive in the morning and some people thrive in the evening. But don't say, "I'm not a morning person" if you've never tried being a morning person before. If you've not gotten up early for 3-4 weeks in a row, you can't really say one way or the other what you are. So don't tell yourself "I'm not a morning person", if you've not proven that statement to be true. Ask yourself what kind of messaging you're telling yourself not just about this, but about all areas of life. Cut the excuses and don't let them hold you back, because you usually have to believe that you can actually do something before you'll really try to do it! 2. Go to bed early…if you can. You are not going to successfully get up early if you stay up late. You have to develop the discipline of going to bed early. What are you staying up doing at night? Is it productive or mindless? Some people get SO much done at night or they intentionally stay up to do something that they love and that refreshes them. I'm all for that! But if you're getting sucked into the rabbit hole of social media, or you're mindlessly filling time just to avoid going to bed, then give going to bed earlier a try! You might even challenge yourself to go to bed shortly after your kids go to bed. For some of you this won't work, and I'm definitely not asking you to sacrifice your marriage and time with your husband for this, but at least consider the idea of going to bed shortly after your kids do and then maybe getting time alone with your husband before they get up in the morning. 3. Try getting up 15 minutes earlier. Instead of feeling like you have to revamp your entire schedule and life, try making small changes over time. Even 15 minutes can make such a difference. By getting up 15 minutes earlier, you could have time to spend thinking, praying, exercising, journaling, reading God's word, and/or planning your day… there are so many different options! Pick one or two of these things that you are going to get up and do during the first 15 minutes of your morning. Then, challenge yourself to go to bed 15 minutes earlier and get up 15 minutes earlier and invest a little time into something that will refresh, encourage, and positively impact your life! 4. Take a nap when your kids do. As moms, we often think we shouldn't nap when our kids nap, because it's wasted precious time to be productive. But think about this: What if you were able to get up an hour earlier and really knock out your to-do list, so that you could enjoy a nap during your kids' nap time? Over time, I have become a big fan of napping. One morning last week, I took a nap around 9:30 a.m. because I realized I wasn't going to be able to make it through the rest of the day. Because I had gotten up early and I was finished with all of my important morning tasks, I was able to just lie down and take a short nap. I didn't have any guilt, and I felt so refreshed and rested for the rest of the day! 5. Teach your kids to stay in their rooms longer. I know this one is controversial, but as parents, we are in charge. In most cases, we can teach our children to stay in their rooms longer, so that we can have more time in the mornings to be productive. (Have you seen these Okay to Wake Clocks? I've had many moms rave about their effectiveness to me!) Think outside the box. Get creative! And remember to give yourself grace and focus on the progress you are making - not on how far you might be from where you'd like to be! What do you find helps you get up early each morning, even with younger children? P.S. For more encouragement and practical ideas, watch my video here on how moms of young kids can get up early. :: 500 Things Decluttering Challenge: Day 7 (decluttering the garage, ugh!) It's Day #7 of the 500 Things Decluttering Challenge and today we were supposed to clean out the garage and basement. We don't have a basement, but I can assure you I was not excited about cleaning out the garage - especially since it is currently freezing in Tennessee!! But I braved the icy cold garage and went out there and did it… not crazy thoroughly, but I did a quick sweep of it and found some items to get rid of - including a few Kid's Meal toys and paint that was all dried up. And some trash. Of course.  I was pleasantly surprised that the garage was not as cluttered as I'd pictured… and most of the clutter was stuff in the donate pile that I've collected by doing this challenge! Today's total: 32 items decluttered Total for the entire challenge: 283 items so far! I'm keeping a running total of all my items decluttered during this challenge as I thought it would be fun to not only do Daily Totals but also Overall Totals. How many items did YOU declutter today?? Leave a comment and let us know.  P.S. You can read more about the Decluttering Course I'm going through here. If you'd like to join me in going through it in January and get the videos, information, and printables every day, you can go here to purchase and get it for just $5.99 right now! :: Have you always wanted to write a book? Do you have an idea for a book? Or have you ever wondered what the book-writing process was like? Would you love to hear from someone who successfully self-published a book and become a best-selling author? On Thursday afternoon, I'm hosting a free live workshop with Chandler Bolt on how to become a published author. Chandler's story is so inspiring - he went from being a college dropout to a 6-figure business owner and bestselling author in less than two years! In this live workshop, we'll be talking about what he learned in the process and what you need to know to find your book idea and become a published author in 2016. In this workshop, Chandler will share: Which dream-killing myths about becoming an author hold us back from success (and how to FINALLY check "write a book" off your bucket list) More on how to find your bestselling book idea in under an hour - and turn your idea into a finished book in 3 steps How to effectively sell your book once it's written (without being "salesy") How many books it takes to become a bestseller (the answer isn't what you think) How to write, market, and publish your book - even turn it into a successful business Go sign up to join us at this Free Live Workshop here. 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