I noticed today that Dave Ramsey has a Thanksgiving special running on many of his books and cds for $10 each. That is a great deal. I think I may get a couple of books to give as Christmas gifts. I have to say that after reading Total Money Makeover my ideas about money and how I handle it changed drastically. I would highly recommend you look into this investment.

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I always thought I did a pretty fair job at saving money and using what I had on hand. After reading the post I found at Simple, Natural, Nourishing I am not so sure. Shannon has decided to embark on 2 months of no spending above the absolute necessities. She is not even buying food for awhile. I was very impressed with her for giving this a try. I mentioned it to my husband and he thought it would be an interesting thing to try at the first of the year. This would sure give us a great kick start to paying down our debt in 2009.

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I Timothy 6:8

"But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."

Do you ever find yourself struggling with being content with what you have and not wishing you had what everyone else seems to have? I know that this is something that I must daily ask the Lord to help me with.

I will often find myself looking at what some of my friends or neighbors have and wondering if there is some way that I could possibly afford it or maybe even barrow the money for it. That is when I have to stop myself and thank the Lord for all the wonderful blessings that he has already given me. I have a beautiful home, food on the table, clothes, and a family that loves me. What more could I need?

The one thing that I have been struggling with the most lately is my the unfinished renovations in my house. We bought our house last January and had to redo nearly every surface before we could move in. Luckily we were living with my parents rent free at the time. We had the money to do the things we needed to do to make the house livable. Then we were introduced to Dave Ramsey. We knew that we needed to get out of debt, but just figured it was something we would eventually get to.

As of April we decided to put the major renovations that we had left on hold so we could concentrate on getting every penny of our debt paid off. As of today we have been able to pay off all credit cards, medical bills, and have put a huge dent in our car loan, but to be able to do that we have not worked on the house except for things we can do for free such as clean up or things that cost very little.

This is where my contentment issue comes in. I want to feel like my house is finished. I can clean all day and still not feel like my house looks clean. We have no threshold between the dining room and living room, which means my 1 year old is eating pieces of grout. I have no quarter round in the living room and hall. We still have yet to get a new dishwasher and range hood. The biggest thing that is bugging me is that the master bath has been untouched and now has a leaky toilet that is leaking dirty water all over the nasty, original linoleum floor, and I have plastic tiles falling off of the wall. I would also like to finish the basement someday.

I am really struggling with not taking some of our debt money and finishing some projects. We would have enough equity in the house to possibly sell it and pay off our debts completely. The only problem is where would we live?

All of that said I am truly learning a lesson in contentment. I feel this is a way the Lord is teaching me a lesson I will never forget. I look around me and see a mess, but there are others in this world who would see a palace. There are some who have so little and barely a house that is standing. Who am I to complain? Thank you Lord for all the things I have been blessed with. I pray that I will always be thankful.

I thought you might be interested in seeing the progress we have made on our house since January. So here are some pictures.

The old dining room with blue carpet. We attempted to take down the wallpaper, but opted to spray knock down texture.

The living room with blue carpet. Who would put that over original hard wood?


Pre renovation kithen


The old kitchen

MMMM, grout. One of Jack's favorite snacks.

The basement. Thanfully the previous owners had the anchors put in the walls to fix the foundation issue. Don't you love the smoke stained orange walls and linoleum floor. I can pick all the tiles up and move them.

These are all current pictures of the master bath

Master bath

Another view of the current master bath

The living room

The dining room now.

A view from the kithen into the dining room. I love my new oven. The old one I had to go to the basement and flip the fuse box to turn it one and off. Plus it was BROWN.

Praise the Lord for my almost finished house.

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I had a reader mention recently that she was about $500 short per month from being able to balance the budget and stay home. I hope that this post will somehow help others see that you can make this work.

How much are you willing to sacrifice to stay home with your children? This is a question that I often have to ask woman when they ask me how I manage to be a SAHM on my husband's teaching salary. The other statement that I often get from people is "Oh, you are so lucky to be able to stay home with your children. Your husband must have a good job." I have to make sure that I am polite and say thank you I know I am lucky, but what I want to say to them is luck has nothing to do with it. I stay home by choice and I make choices daily that keep me there.

What are some of the luxuries or so called "needs" that you may have to sacrifice to stay home? I have decided to put together a list of things that my family felt we did not need and truly have not really missed. I realize that some of these things we may be able to have again in the future, but for this season of our lives they are not necessities.

I am going to put an approximate dollar amount to the things on this list so you can see how quickly you can "find" that extra $500 in the budget. It may not seem that you will have any material comforts left at first, but I think you will soon realize, just how little you really need to be happy. The Lord said that he will make sure that we have food to eat, clothes on our back, and a roof over our head. This is the ultimate picture of true contentment. To be happy with the simple things in life. I will not say that I am not still struggling daily with contentment, but I am trying.

• Cable tv Total we saved $100/month going with minimal cable, phone and internet.
• High speed internet (We do have DSL, but a slower version)
• Call waiting
• Caller ID (Ok this one I miss)
• Long distance telephone service
• Cut Blow money $50/month
• NO eating out except special occasions $50-$100/month
• Gym membership $50/month
• OnStar $15/month
• Budget groceries Depending on your family $100-$200/month
• Try to get your electric and gas on an average payment plan For us this saved about $50/ month
• Use less water, shower every other day. $5-10/month
• Eliminate trash bill (A little radical, but it can be done.) $30/month
• Cut back on your driving to save on gas (If you don't work this should be easier) $50-$100
• Cut family clothing budget. Try garage sales and thrift stores. $25-50/month
• Coupon shop or make your own cleaning supplies $10-15/month
• Put a $5 limit on gifts. This can force you to be creative. With coupons I still am able to come up with some nice gifts. $25-$50/month
• Cancel magazine subscriptions. $10/month
• Come up with free or cheap entertainment. Keep an eye out for coupons or free events, or try having a family night at home. $25/month
• Possibly sell one car $300/month
• Before quitting your job eliminate debt. $100-$300/month

As you can see these numbers can very quickly add up.

Realize that some of these changes will not be permanent. They are just some things you may have to sacrifice for a season to make your dreams come true. You can eventually start adding some small things back in. See Crystal's post here about living on a very bare bones budget of $1000 a month. It is amazing.

Think of saving money as your new "job." You are not technically being paid for it, but you are sort of making money. Remember all the expenses you will no longer have by not working out of the home. The average mom only makes a couple of dollars an hour after all the expense are paid so she can work, unless you have a very high paying job. That hardly seems worth it to me.

• Work Clothes $25-50/month
• Dry Cleaning $25/month
• Work Lunches $50/month
• Daycare! $400-500 per child per month
• Gas $100/month

Things you will gain as a SAHM...

• Seeing all your child's firsts and not hearing about it from the sitter
• Being able to go to all school events and field trips
• Showing your children by example how to live a Godly life
• Seeing those beautiful smiles first thing in the morning and knowing you will not have to leave them with someone else.
• Being able to stay home with a sick child and not miss work
• Home cooked meals
• A happier family because mom is not stressed out
• Time to plan a menu, shop, and save money
• Quality time with your husband
• This list could go on forever. You can add some of your own perks.

I would love to hear from you to find out if posts like this one are helpful or not. I have been getting the feeling lately that most of my readers prefer to just see coupon, deals, and grocery store post.

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I am sure that you have often read in my posts that a budget is a must if you are to successfully make the jump from working mom to stay at home mom. I can not stress how important it is to know exactly where your money is going. So this month even though it is already November 4th I thought I would issue a challenge to all you moms out there to write down EVERYTHING that you spend this month. The first step in creating a workable budget is to actually see where your money is going. I think you will be surprised. I know that the first time I did this I was very nervous. I knew that I did not always spend wisely and by writing things down my husband was going to know how much I really spent on things.

After our first month of writing down every penny we spent my husband and I were amazed to see how much money we actually just let slip through our fingers without even noticing it. By the end of our experiment we were able to "find" $500 a month extra to put into our savings account each month. WOW what a wake up call.

To help you out I thought that I would play along and post my family's daily spending so that I can remain accountable to sticking to my budget as well. At the end of the month I will post how well I stayed within our budget this month. I will work on getting the last 4 days up as soon as possible.

For more information on setting up a workable budget as well as getting out of debt I would highly recommend Dave Ramsey's total money makeover. His books and classes have changed the way my husband and I think about money as well as our outlook on paying off our debts quicker.

Leave me a comment below if you would like to join me in this. Together we can keep each other accountable.

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We have finally made the leap to no longer having a trash bill! I know it sounds a little bit strange, but this is something that my husband and I have been trying to do for several months now. I first got the idea after reading Tammy's blog and how she did not have a trash bill. At first I thought she was crazy, but after I thought about it for awhile I realized that it was actually a really smart idea.

Here is what we did...
-We realized that we had mandatory recycling in our city and we pay for it every month so we might as well use it.
-We made our goal to only have 1 bag of trash per week.
- I set up a recycling bin in the garage right off the kitchen.
- We recycled everything we could...paper, junk mail, glass, tin cans, and aluminum.
-My husband made a compost pile on the side of our house for the garden.

We decided to see how things went for 2 months and then make our decision. Since we try to buy as few prepacked foods as possible and reuse as much as possible we quickly realized that we would probably be able to easily meet out goal.
The result-2 months later we had managed to consistently have 1 bag of trash per week.
What did we decide to do with it? Well, we would prefer to burn it and not have to deal with it at all, but in our small suburb that did not seem like a good option. So instead we have been taking the 1 bag to my mother's house and adding it to her trash cart.

We did not see a reason to pay a trash company to pick up 1 bag a week. As of mid October we no longer have a trash bill. That is a savings of $35-$40 a month or $480 per year. This may not seem like a lot, but it is little things like this that add up to big savings. Especially if you are trying to save money so you can be a SAHM. Not to mention the way it helps our environment that God gave us to take care of.

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