Earn Money or Save Money

With only one of us earning money, our choice is simple: either we learn how to make do with the money we have or we have to make extra money. There are some ways we have found to make money at home. But our primary focus has been on stretching it.

Stretching money is a multi-faceted endeavor. Today I want to share with you my favorite websites that help make our money go further:

Freecycle
If we need something, we could earn money and buy it or go to Freecycle and get it for free! Freecycle is a wonderful source of all manner of free items. Its goal is to keep perfectly good items out of the landfill. People will post an email listing perfectly good items they no longer want that are available for free. All you do is arrange to go pick up and follow through! You can even request specific items. It has hundreds of local chapters. We've gotten many, many items from freecycle - couches, dressers, clothes, food, books, fencing, paint, a swing set, bricks, even a car - all free. It's saved us thousands of dollars in just the two years since we joined!

Craigslist
Craigslist is similar to a free, online classifieds newspaper. It, too, has dozens of local chapters. Anyone can post things for sale. We've gotten quite a few cars through it. They have a free section as well. No sense in making money at home if you can get it for free, right?

Addall
If I can't find a particular book, movie or cd that we want for free, Addall is my first stop. Addall searches ebay, amazon, and lots of other online stores for you. You can sort the results by price, title, or author. We almost never buy new anymore because of this great service.

eBay
We use eBay for hundreds of items we can't find through freecycle, craigslist, or addall. Expert searching (learn how here and here) is crucial to getting the best deals on eBay. So is bidding in the last seconds. Auction Sniper has been of immense help for that task. If time is not an issue, we search the completed auctions to get an idea of what price constitutes a good deal and how many times that item is likely to come up for auction. Then we will place bids based on that information. Most of the time we have to bid on several auctions before getting it for our low price. Recently, I've been bidding on a National Geographic DVDs. So far I've been outbid on 12 auctions. But I know, because of my research, that others have gotten it for my price. So I just continue to bid on new auctions for that same price. Eventually, I will probably get it.

Dollar Stretcher
For frugal inspiration as well as nuts and bolts help, I go to the Dollar Stretcher. They have so much good information there I could get lost in this site. Be sure to check out the topical index at the top of the page.

Next post I'll discuss how we are making money on the internet.

Thanks for droppin' by! Come visit again soon!

Momoften

Strategy for Lowering the Thermostat

One challenge in the winter is walking the fine line of keeping the heating bill low while keeping the peace among the natives. One of my sons has a circulation problem and his feet and hands get cold really easily. He's always the first one to voice his objections to the relatively precipitous fall of temperature in the house. So my strategy has been to cook the frog slowly.

You know that story about how to cook a frog? You put him in a big pot of cold water and let him swim around happily in there while you turn the heat on low. Slowly the water temperature rises but the frog is oblivious because the water heats so slowly he doesn't notice. Before long it's time for a frog dinner! In like manner, at the beginning of the cold season I leave the thermostat at about 72. The next week I turn it down a degree. The following week I turn it down another degree. I continue like this until someone in the family comments about how dreadfully cold it is. I tell them to put on more clothing. LOL. If I still get comments and I'm feeling magnanimous I might turn it back up a degree and leave it there for a week. Then I try again and turn it down and see how it goes. If I don't get comments I know they can tolerate it okay. And so it goes until I keep getting comments and cannot placate them. Then I turn it up a degree and that's where it stays until warm weather hits at which time I employ the same strategy in reverse.

Thanks for droppin' by! I gotta run now but come back and visit me again soon!

Momoften

One razor per year!

I was just listening to the radio show "The Best of Clark Howard" on WWWT in DC. One tip I gleaned from it was a way to extend big-time the useful life of a razor blade. All you have to do is rinse it off with hot water after use, dry it off on a towel, and then blow dry it! Simple! Imagine how much money our family can save just by doing this? Let's see. We use 5 per week at $.15 each x 52 weeks = $39. In 10 years it would cost us $390 to have smooth faces and legs! If we follow this simple little trick we can save $382.50! If you use only one per week you would save $7.65 ($76.50 in 10 years). Sounds great, right?

On the other hand, your return for your time isn't great. It's going to take you probably 30 seconds to rinse and dry your razor. That's 3.03 hours per year to save $7.65 ( a mere $2.52 per hour) not counting the cost for electricity. Couldn't you find some other activity that would save you more than $2.52 per hour spent?

If you have lots of time on your hands this might be worth it, especially if you want to decrease your landfill input. But if time is tight for you, this is NOT worth your time.

Momoften

Keep Warm with Corn!

Wintertime – time to break out the corn bags! What? You've never heard of corn bags? It's one of our ways to keep warm when the wind is sucking out the warmth in the house without spending a fortune on the heating bill. And they are really wonderful first thing in the morning to keep you warm while the house heats up. We've also used it for sore necks or cramping stomachs.

Here's how you can make your very own corn bag. Get some kind of sturdy cotton fabric. You can buy new if you want but using old towel, heavy shirt, sweatshirt or sewing scraps. Or if you want pretty, you could buy something from the local thrift shop on dollar day and cut that up. You can make your pad any size you want. We like them to be long enough to go all the way around the neck and hang down in the front some. Cut 2 identical pieces of fabric the shape you want it. Sew around 3 of the edges. Turn it inside out. Pour some dry deer corn, filling 75% full. If you fill it all the way you won't be able to bend it very well. Sew it closed by hand or machine.

If sewing isn't your thing, just heat a ziploc freezer bag filled ¾ full. Just be sure to put a cup of water next to the bag to prevent the grain from catching fire. (Wrap it in some kind of cloth to use.) Another alternative is filling a tube sock ¾ full and tieing it shut.

To use it your sewn grain bag, just spray it once or twice with water and stick it in the microwave as is for 2 minutes. Shake before using. The heat will last at least 20 minutes, especially if you put it a sweater or some such over it. Once it starts to cool off just repeat to heat it up again.

I learned from this great website (http://www.diamondthreadworks.com/microwave_heating_bags.htm that deer corn is a better grain to use than rice which is what I used to use. It's got really detailed directions and pictures.

These bags are also great for keeping your feet warm when you go to bed at night!

Thanks for droppin' by! I gotta run now but come back and visit me again soon!

Momoften

Come on in - the coffee is brewing!

Hi. Welcome to my blog! I'm glad you've joined me for a little one-way chat! Come on in. Pull up a chair and have a nice, hot cup of coffee while I share with you some of the things I've learned through the years and what life is like for a mother of ten children. LOL. Yes, I really do have ten children. Nope. No twins or triplets. All one by one. No, no adoptions either. All with the same father. No, I'm not Roman Catholic. Uh-huh. Not Mormon either. Just a Bible-believing Christian who believes that children do not cease to be blessings past number two. So now you know a few things about my situation. What topics exactly will this blog explore?

First off ,all things baby! There's no getting around it – I am a baby lover! Just ask my kids - I always admire every baby I see. And having one in the house for the last 22 years has been such a tremendous blessing to me! Of course, I've learned quite a few things about them along the way - practical things like how to handle a total blow-out diaper when you forgot the diaper bag and other important babyhood emergencies, how to make your baby go back to sleep within 20 minutes when he wakes up with croup two hours after you've gone to bed, the fastest, surest way to cure diaper rash, how we avoided ear tubes. You know, stuff like that.

But I have lots of other avenues to explore with you: homeschooling a large family, home management tips and mistakes, my approach to health and sicknesses, surviving raising five boys, surviving raising five girls! Approaches to saving money, of course, has to come up. Nobody has ten children and doesn't know how to save money! Staying married to the same man for 25 years and still loving it – now that's a rarity in this day and age. My journey of getting healthier and thinner. Sign language. Raising a child with Down Syndrome. Depression. Home birth. Homeopathy. Organic gardening. Lots of paths to explore together.

My husband will be dropping by from time to time on my blog but he's a great guy and tells the funniest stories.

I'm sure I'll post about all kinds of things – recipes, reviews, funny stories, opinions - basically whatever suits my fancy. And I have lots of fancies!

Well, thanks for droppin' by! I gotta run now but come back and visit me again soon!

Momoften