Blessings

So far the New Year has been relatively uneventful but since my husband sent me an email telling me I need to update my blog I thought I would share some of the blessings we are thankful for in regards to his news about his job.
If you do not already know, he is being let go (as is his entire department) on March 31. We made a decision to TRY and focus on God and all of the ways he is blessing us during this difficult time, so here it is...

This is an opportunity for Joe to find a job he really loves!
This happened AFTER we got out of debt - thanks Dave Ramsey!
His date of lay-off went from Jan 4 to March 31 in a span of 15 minutes.
This can be Joe’s mid-life crisis! (He got the news the week of his 40th birthday)
We decided to continue our giving to the church instead of lowering it when we completely renovated our budget. The next day my dad suggested looking at our 401k contribution. The amount of contribution that now goes into his paycheck instead of his 401k equals the amount we had considered lowering our tithe amount – plus some.
That same day we received a monetary gift – enough to live by our Emergency Budget for almost 3 months.
Someone who provides a service for us dropped the rate by $10 per month, without us asking.

December 2008
We had our 2nd straight year of All Cash Christmas!
We have had tons of encouragement and prayers from family and friends
We are living on an Emergency Budget and putting money in savings every month, we have realized that we can live on SO much less than we have been!
Found out about using an antenna instead of cable and we disconnected our land line saving us over $600 per year and we still get great channels!
Started using Cartridge World for our printer ink cartridges saving us over $10 per cartridge.

We know that God has a plan for us and we believe part of that plan was for us to learn to live on less. It is such a great feeling to have a little money in the bank rather than a ton of debt hanging over our heads. We continue to search for more ways to save - it has become almost a game for us! Thanks for taking the time to read this, hope you have a great week!

CHEAP Ink Cartridges!

As part of our frugal lifestyle I tried a new business in our town, Cartridge World, and I LOVE IT! We have a printer/fax/copier at home that uses a HP 21 Black Ink Cartridge and an HP 22 Color Cartridge. I went to Cartridge World and bought a refilled black cartridge for a grand total of $9.55. They have them packaged and ready to go and they have a 100 percent money-back guarantee. I received $1.00 off by bringing them my old, empty cartridge, but you do not have to. They also told me that the color cartridges for my printer are around $13.00.
If you try them be sure to get a "punch card", after you purchase 9 cartridges the 10th one is FREE!
We have used the black cartridge for almost 2 weeks and cannot tell any difference in the quality. My cartridges normally cost between $20 & $25 dollars, but now that I am using Cartridge World we will be saving a ton of money! I can almost buy 3 black in cartridges there for the price of one new one!
Just one more way to save, and for us every penny counts!

Frugal (as in free) TV

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope that you did too!
My dear husband went a few weeks ago and bought a digital antenna for $38 from Wal-Mart. It goes outside and is mounted to our fence. It is only about 6 inches by 10 inches or so and is one solid gray piece. With that we were getting 5 channels and were fairly happy. This week we went to Sam's and used the coupon we ordered online to purchase a digital converter box so that when all stations begin broadcasting in digital our TV can receive the signals. That cost us a whopping $4 after the coupon and once installed we now get a ton of channels!
So, for a grand total of $42 we now get 20 channels, with PERFECT reception for $0 per month!
Here is our line-up:
ABC
Nashville Weather
NBC
NBC en espanol
CBS
PBS1
PBS2
FOX1
FOX2
ION
IONLife
Qubo (kids shows - Veggie Tales, 123 Penguins, etc)
Kids Worship
MY30
5 Channels of Christian Programming including JCTV Videos
CW58

We are happy to be enjoying a little bit of TV all for FREE!!!
For other frugal ideas feel free to type the word "frugal" into the box at the top left of this blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

SNOW!!!

I love snow. I love everything about snow, the ways it feels, the way it smells, and they way it sounds under my feet.

Last night I forgot all of those things as I made my way home from Franklin in the snow. Normally, it is a 25 minute drive. Last night, 2 and a half hours. TWO AND A HALF HOURS! People were either driving 50 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road or 2 miles an hour causing everyone to stop and go, stop and go. Some people were sliding off the road while others, it appeared, just randomly drove off the road on purpose. There was a lady behind me at a stop sign. I turned right and stopped because all of the traffic in front of me had stopped. All she had to do to turn right was follow my tire tracks in the snow. But no, she decides to make a really sharp right turn immediately after the stop sign (maybe thinking there was a shoulder there?) and she bails off into the ditch. Her car is at a 45 degree angle, in the ditch! I have no idea what some of these people were thinking last night, we only had an INCH and a half of snow!

Anyway, this morning I woke up with a much better attitude and my renewed love of the snow. The girls have been outside already, throwing snowballs, ice skating in the coul-de-sac, making snow angels and a tiny little snowman. We laughed and played and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the snow crunch under my shoes. It is beautiful, the sun is shining on the snow and it is perfect!

Spiced Tea

Today the girls made spiced tea to give as gifts, they also decorated the tops of the jars by hot-gluing beads onto some padded fabric. I think they came out really cute!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup instant tea

1 cup Tang

1 cup lemonade mix (w/sugar already added)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

Add 2 spoons of mix to a coffee cup of hot water & enjoy!

Birthday

Monday was Casey's 11th Birthday and it was a really good day! We had cake and ice cream and she received gifts that she absolutely loved! A digital planner, a Nerf Target game, $50, a gift card to Target, and a gift card to Marble Slab.
What more could an eleven year old want? (Other than a cell phone which is not happening quite yet!).
I am excited to see her grow and mature, she is such a cool kid! And I am a little sad to see her grow up so fast, she is already looking forward to driving and college - slow down a little!
Most of all we thank God for giving her to us and all of the special times we get to spend with her.
Happy Birthday Casey!

New Ornaments!

One of the girls' favorite Christmas traditions is getting to pick out a new ornament each year. They tend to choose ornaments that reflect their interests or activities for the current year. Casey's have gone from frogs to soccer to photography. Cody's have gone from princesses to Rudolph.

I love having that history of their interests hanging on our tree each year, even more so this year as we hear our dear friends talk about losing every ornament they owned in a fire. They lost every keepsake and each child's hand-made ornaments. Our homeschool group rallied together and got them a tree and each family placed a special ornament on it so that they would not have a bare tree this year. It was a really neat idea.

This year Casey chose a silver picture frame with 2008 on it since she loves photography. Cody chose a Rudolph ornament that lights up, she absolutely loves it! It will be neat for them to have lots of ornaments to hang on their own trees at some point in the future, I may need to start buying doubles so that I can hang onto those treaured memories when that day comes!

We also made the wonderful smelling cinnamon ornaments last week, you can see how they turned out!