Hey guys, head on over to Backyard Chicken Guide today and try this AWESOME recipe for healthy (yes, I said “healthy”!) and delicious pancakes.
Protein Packed Pancakes
Author: Laurie
Extreme Things We’ve Done to Save Money While Getting out of Debt
If you’re looking to get out of an extreme amount of debt, you’re likely going to have to take some extreme cost-cutting measures to save money and reach your debt free goal. We haven’t yet stooped to dumpster diving for dinners or making our friends’ kids gifts out of what should be in the recycle bin, but we’ve done our fair share of cutting costs. Here are something of the more intense things we’ve done to cut costs and save money in our home.
The Smart Way to Take Out a Car Loan
There seems to be a lot of chatter these days in the personal finance world on whether or not car loans are good or bad. When we first started on our journey to financial freedom, I was very much “anti-loan”. However, now that we’ve had nearly a year-and-a-half of straight education in the world of money, I’ve found that loans indeed can be a good thing – when done right. Here are some reasons a car loan might not be such a bad idea if you’re in the market to purchase a new or new-to-you automobile.
1. You can find an awesome interest rate. These are definitely the days in which taking out a car loan can be to the buyer’s advantage. Rates these days, for most borrowers, are awesomely low. In doing research for car loans for this article, I found rates as low as zero to two percent. That’s next to nothing! If you’re in the market for a car, make sure to shop around, and for car finance rates, click here. You might be surprised at the minimal amount of interest you’ll pay by simply getting a low rate. As an example, I called a nearby dealership to find out what the lowest rate available was. After I gave them our credit score, they told me I could likely get a rate of 1.65%. This would mean that, on a $10,000, 3-year-term auto loan, I would pay a total of in interest of $256.40, IF I didn’t pay the loan off early.
2. You can invest the money you have saved for the car, and earn more. If I did take out my mythical auto loan for that rate of 1.65%, I’m quite sure that I could find an investment somewhere that would earn my $10,000 more than $256.40 over the course of three years, provided I was willing to do my research on investments. No, I won’t earn that in a typical liquid savings account, but there are still many safer investment alternatives that can earn me a return of higher than 1.65%. Doesn’t it make sense in a case like that to invest the money I’d saved for my car purchase and take out a car loan?
3. You can keep your hard-earned cash on hand for emergencies. After you saved up a nice chunk of change like the amount it takes to pay for a car, the thought of parting with that cash can be a bit overwhelming, especially if it’s means your emergency savings or back up savings fund will then be non-existent. Taking out a low-interest rate car loan is often a better option, as you’ll be able to keep that money in your savings account for any potential financial emergency. In the case of the fiction $10,000 car loan, the interest amount of roughly $7.12 of month, at least to me, is worth paying for the peace of mind of knowing that I’ll still have that nice cushion of cash available should a financial emergency come up.
Only you know what’s best for your particular situation when it comes to buying your next car, but it’s important to look at the whole picture before deciding what the best way is to pay for that car. Best of luck to you in your search!
What do you think: is financing a car always wrong?
How a Family of Six Keeps Healthcare Costs Low: Part 2
Roughly a year ago, I wrote an article on how our family keeps healthcare costs down. Among the tips? Eating well, practicing good safety tips (such as wearing bike helmets), and knowing when to rest and relax. Today I thought I’d share more tips on how we manage our family health care costs.
With a larger family, it can be very easy for medical and healthcare costs to zoom out of control really quickly. Here are some of the things we do to keep our healthcare costs low.
1. We keep medicine costs to a minimum. How do we do this? Primarily by eating well, as in eating mostly whole foods, and by exercising. When that doesn’t do the trick, we turn to natural healing alternatives such as Oil of Oregano, Epsom Salts or health supplements that are tried and true based on our experience. On the occasion that we do need medicine, however, we make sure to shop around and to go generic whenever possible. By using these two techniques, we’ve saved an easy 75% on medicine costs in our family, and in some instances, closer to 90%. My mom is another perfect example: by switching the seizure med she takes for her Epilepsy to the generic version (on the advice of her neurosurgeon), she saves herself a good $90 every three months, and on a retiree’s budget, that really adds up.
2. We educate ourselves thoroughly on the healthcare plans available to us. Family health insurance can be quite expensive. However, if you’re willing to research the options, you might be able to find lower cost care in places you didn’t expect. If health insurance is offered through your employer, there are likely a few different plans available, and it’s up to you to find out which one suits your family. A quick Internet search will give you an idea of what healthcare options are available in your area. With so many health care companies out there, it’s important to do your research and find out which health care insurance route is best for you and/or your family.
3. We feed our minds as well as we feed our bodies. This may seem silly to some, but we’ve found in our family that, just like you are what you eat, you are what you watch, read or listen too. Having suffered from serious Depression for 7 straight years, I started looking to natural healing methods for help in managing my symptoms. After experimenting with diet, I found that eating whole foods had a profound effect for good on my moods. Being curious, I then started monitoring the types of shows I watched and the types of books I read. I found that the more violent books and TV I partook in, the more the Depression magnified within the days following. If I read positive books and watched funny or uplifting TV shows or movies, the Depression went away. Our minds and the lies that they tell us often have a profound effect on our health, so we’ve found it’s best to choose what we put into those minds wisely, and our health as a family as improved as such.
The cost of healthcare can be a scary thing these days, especially if you don’t know your options. Work today to educate yourself on what healthcare options are available for you.
What are your secrets for keeping healthcare costs low?
Our “A-ha” Money Moment
Once again, in honor of Financial Literacy Month, we’ve teamed up with our good friend Shannon from over at The Heavy Purse, and a long list of others who are committed to promoting financial literacy to all of the world. You can see last year’s post here. Our topic for this year, Our A-ha Money Moment, begins in November of 2012. Here’s the background: Read more
What’s Stopping You From Pursuing Financial Freedom?
One of the things that’s seriously on my heart these days is the seeming inability of so many who are deep, deep in debt to be able to take that first step to get out. My deep in debt friends, you deserve debt freedom so much, so today I’d like to address some of the possible reasons you’re avoiding taking that first step to debt free, in hopes that you’ll get up the courage to take that first step to financial freedom. Read more
Garden 2014 Update
So, remember at the beginning of the year, I had listed as one of our goals that we would not be nearly as slackerish this year on our veggie garden as we were last year? Due to lots of major tasks we ended up doing last year: storm clean-up, staining the barn, and a boatload of wood chopping, the garden last year was sorely neglected. Here’s how it looked by August or so.
Why, yes, since you asked, I am embarrassed by that picture. 🙂 But even with our sore neglect, we managed to get a few things in the cellar and to freeze a few bags of veggies too.
This year, however, we’ve resolved to do things closer to the right way. On Sunday, third daughter and I planted 76 little pots of seeds that we hope and pray will turn into a bountiful array of veggies.
Some of our pickins’ ?
2 kinds of cucumbers, 4 kinds of tomatoes
a variety of peppers, Walla Walla onions
3 or 4 varieties of lettuce
green beans, carrots, peas
pumpkins, watermelon
broccoli, cauliflower
honeydew, potatoes, yellow squash
We’re really working hard this year on tending well to our “garden”, making sure to water the seedlings daily. As of yesterday, the snow is gone and we can actually SEE our garden – WOOHOO! So far, our hard work is paying off, as some little baby lettuces popped up a mere three days after we planted the seeds:
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we’ve always had a small garden, but really are not very educated at all in working a large garden meant to provide a year’s worth of food for a family of six . But our goal this year is to provide enough organic, non-GMO veggies to feed our family for an entire year. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂
Are you putting in a veggie garden this year? If so, how’s it going? If not, how come?
Frugal Fajitas Recipe
If you’re a Mexican food fan, there’s nothing like a sizzling plate of fajitas to get your mouth watering. It’s easy to find a good fajitas recipe, and by using frugal tricks, you can make them cheaply too. Here I’ll share some tips from our Fajitas recipe, and some cheap ways to serve fajitas. Read more
Dealing With Debt Payoff Dragons
A little excerpt from one of my favorite children’s books made me think quite a bit about our debt payoff journey the other day. Author Arnold Lobel wrote a terrific series of children’s books called “Frog and Toad”. Frog and Toad are best friends who go on all sorts of interesting adventures together. Here is a little edited snippet from one of my favorite Frog and Toad stories, called “Dragons and Giants”:
“I wonder if we are brave,” said Frog. Frog and Toad looked into a mirror.
“We look brave,” said Frog.
“Yes, but are we?” asked Toad.
Frog and Toad went outside. They came to a dark cave. A big snake came out of the cave.
“Hello, lunch,” said the snake when he saw Frog and Toad. He opened his wide mouth. Frog and Toad jumped away.
Toad was shaking. “I am not afraid!” he cried.
They climbed a mountain and heard a loud noise. Many large stones were rolling down. “It’s an avalanche!” cried Toad. Frog and Toad jumped away. Frog was trembling.
I am not afraid!” Frog shouted.
They came to the top of the mountain. The shadow of a hawk fell over them. Frog and Toad jumped under a rock and the hawk flew away.
“We are not afraid!” screamed Frog and Toad at the same time. Then they ran down the mountain very fast. They ran all the way to Toad’s house.
“Frog, I am glad to have a brave friend like you,” said Toad. He jumped into the bed and pulled the covers over his head.
“And I am happy to know a brave person like you, Toad,” said Frog. He jumped into the closet and shut the door.
Toad stayed in the bed, and Frog stayed in the closet. They stayed there for a long time, just feeling very brave together.
Rick and I feel like this often on our debt payoff journey. It seems like for every dollar we pay off, another expense comes, working to destroy our efforts, and often we just want to hide under the covers until it all goes away. You might feel that way too, and that’s okay. What’s important is that you keep facing those debt dragons and giants, and keep working to destroy them until they’re gone for good. Don’t give up, even if you have to spend a few days hiding under the covers, pretending to be brave. 🙂
Fire Hazards in the Home You Might Not Know About
With Rick having worked on a local fire department for over 23 years, every once in awhile we’ll get to “reminiscing” about certain situations he’s experienced during his job as a firefighter. The other day, we got to talking about some of the more crazy fire experiences he’d either seen, or we’d had at our own house. You might find it interesting that we’ve had three potentially deadly “almost fire” situations at our home, simply because we are beyond safe concerning fire safety here. We don’t burn candles in our house, and anytime we have a bonfire in the yard, we tend to it meticulously, assuring that there will be no chance of it burning out of control or having embers jump out and cause trouble to nearby trees or buildings. Yet, we’ve had three instances in our own home where we could’ve ended up with a very destructive fire on our hands. Read more