If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Many of you have already signed up to receive our free budget spreadsheet, but recently this new way of budgeting has caught my eye. It’s called the Balanced Money Formula created by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi in their book, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.
The basic principle is that no more than 50% of your after-tax income should be spent on necessities, such as your mortgage, utilities, food, transportation etc. Then 20% should be put into savings and the remaining 30% should be spent simply on the things you want. Doesn’t that make things easy? Get Rich Slowly has a great further write up with charts, if you’d like to read more.
I will admit if you are a stay at home parent living on one income, having your needs only take up 50% of your take home money is tough. But keeping your spending in percentages is a nice way to work. Maybe at this point in your life 80% of your take home salary goes towards needs, 10% towards savings and 10% towards wants. Or 80% is needs, 15% wants and 5% goes towards savings. You can see how you can customize it for your current financial situation and as time goes on you can work towards the 50-30-20 principal.
I think this is a great concept because it makes living with in a budget much simpler and can’t we all use a little more simplicity in our busy lives? I also like how this method of budgeting gives you a generous 30% to spend on things that you simply want. As you know, I love to be frugal, but I also like to indulge in the occasional luxurious baby item or that seasonal pumpkin spice latte when the mood arrives.
How do your percentages look? What do you think of this budgeting method? If you are searching for the perfect easy to use budget spreadsheet, take a look over here.
While reading my Google Reader, I found the cutest homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie Costume made by the fabulous mom behind Make Baby Stuff. Not only will it make your little one adorable on the big day, but it doubles as a chair cushion. Who doesn’t love a multi tasking costume?
Only one more week friends until Halloween. Do you know what you and your children are going to be? There are thousands of ideas out there, but I’ve narrowed it down to a great child-friendly list of homemade, frugal and last minute Halloween costume ideas:
I know I just posted about Craftsbury Kids, but I just found out about this giveaway they are having and I couldn’t stop myself from posting about them again. If you are the winner, you win all of these lovely things plus nine other adorable baby must haves! The total package is worth $450!
Go here to learn how to enter. Hurry contest ends today!
This weekend I was reading a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Sew Liberated, who’s pregnant with her first. She wrote a really funny post about a conversation she had with her husband about why she smelled burnt popcorn as they were going to bed. You can read for yourself what turned out to be the burnt popcorn smell.
Many woman experience a heightened sense of smell during their pregnancy. I know I sure did and it didn’t help with the morning sickness experience at all! Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what the reasoning behind it is, however having a stronger sniffer is attributed to estrogen increases. In fact this heightened sense of smell is thought to cause morning sickness. If you go even farther, some think that this attach on the nose helps the mother to avoid eating toxic things that could harm the baby.
Other strange sense things that can happen when you are pregnant is with taste. While I used to be a habitual Altoid popper, I never could finish one, or even leave one in my mouth for very long, during my pregnancies. Don’t even mention what regular peppermint toothpaste did to me! And then there’s that metallic taste that just won’t go away.
Many pregnant woman talk about having altered vision, hearing and touch also while pregnant. Amazing, isn’t it, how our bodies can change while growing a baby. What did you experience? What sensitivities did you have?
I’ll be the first to admit that I like to be frugal. I realized years ago when I chose Art as my major in college that I probably wasn’t going to be making a ton of money during my career so I would have to learn how to stretch the money I had to the best of my ability. During my working out of the home years I saved as much as I could which has served us well during this time of me being at home more with the kids.
I love seeing how much I can save with a sale and I try and use coupons at the grocery store when I get the chance. Luckily there are plenty of wonderful frugal blogs out there that I can indulge in when it comes to learning about how to better manage my money. I want to share these great links with you to inspire you too:
Once a Month Shopping-Save More by Shopping Less by Get Rich Slowly
Enjoy a Simple Christmas with a Well Planned Budget by Simple Mom
A Penny Saved is… $6,977.03! by A Dollar Plan
Works For Me: Cheap Haircare by Rocks in my Dryer
What are your favorite frugal blogs to read?
There’s been a lot of talking on the forums about the cookies that jump started my labor and I’m thrilled to see that it’s helped other woman too! Lord knows that when you are ready for the baby to come out, you’ll do just about anything. Luckily these cookies are really tasty. It’s a super spicy gingersnap recipe that you can find here. If you cut the amount of cayenne in half and roll them dough balls in turbinado sugar before baking, they are perfect holiday cookies too.
Here’s my story on how they worked:
These cookies, really can jump start your labor if spice is your trigger for labor to begin! My husband has always loved ginger cookies, so a week before my due date I decided to make these cookies for him as a thank you for putting up with my very pregnant, hormonal self. I made this in the morning and ate more than my fair share of both raw dough (yes, I know, shame on me) and baked cookies. I took a nap and when he came home from work, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the plate of cookies to present to him. Literally as I was walking toward him with the plate of cookies in my hand my water broke and we were off for the hospital. Since then I have passed this recipe onto a few friends and amazingly enough, it’s started their labors too! Give these spicy ginger cookies a try and pack your bags.
Autumn Items from Craftsbury Kids
has long been one of my favorite websites to look through when I’m shopping for baby things. I love them because they sell such a wide variety of cute, handmade and high quality things that families can treasure for years and even generations.
Recently Craftsbury Kids has opened a new shopping section and it’s filled with all sorts of autumn goodies like the ones above. Just look at those little shoes, how can you resist? And that hedgehog? Sweet! Happy Shopping!
Happy First Day of October! I took a walk with my little ones today and it really does feel like fall is finally here. Halloween is officially 30 days away today, and if this month goes as fast as September went, we better get on top of costume and party planning! When my youngest son was born on October 9th, I just didn’t get into the Halloween spirit, at all. I had a two year old on my hands and a newborn and Halloween just seemed like too much work. But as I sat there on Halloween night in jeans and a t-shirt with two boys who also weren’t dressed, I felt really pathetic. I vowed then that I wouldn’t let any fun holidays pass us up because of my own poor planning.
Luckily for us Hilary and Whitney of Rookie Moms have taken all the headache of, ‘what in the heck am I going to dress my baby as’ out of Halloween with their great Halloween Costumes for Babies Guide. They’ve got all kinds of ideas from simple new sew costumes to ideas for the frugal minded. They even include a handful of ideas for costumes for you if you are pregnant. How great is that. Please do go check it out.
