Homemaking 101: Fab Product Finds

Last week, I mentioned on the R&R Facebook page that I was totally feeling old because I was getting overly excited about coupons and minivans.  Well, this post only adds to that aging feeling!  Perhaps instead of seeing it as a sign of aging, I should see it as a Growth Moment and rejoice that the LORD is growing my passion for homemaking.


I am all about finding products that can make life a little easier and this little gem is one of those products!  I had a smaller, less powerful sweeper that just wasn't getting the job done, so we headed to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and found this Electrolux sweeper.  It is cordless and light AND it has the built in hand vac that you can remove and use.

In addition to the sweeper, I found this Bath Stone by the checkout.  Since we moved in, I have had horrible trouble keeping hard water stains out of our toilets.  Well ... not any more!  This little bath stone is AMAZING.  It totally cleaned up the stains and the potty is now sparkly!  At a play-date this week, I mentioned my love for the Bath Stone to a friend and she said she had used a pumice stone and got similar results.  

And my last find at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, were storage bins on clearance for $3.99!  These days I can't get enough baskets, bins, etc. 

I totally wiped out my stash of 20% off coupons with this Bed, Bath, & Beyond trip, but I bet I know where I can get some more. :)

Money Saving Mom Book Review and GIVEAWAY

***Congrats to Jennifer for winning the book!  Email me so I can get it to you!***

I have followed the Money Saving Mom blog for quite some time.  Of course I love the deals Crystal posts on the site, but more than finding a fabulous bargain, I love her focus on stewardship of the home and finances.  I have found recipes, coupons, and organization ideas and have been challenged by her goal setting and focus on budgeting and using cash instead of plastic.  When I found out she was releasing a book, I was super excited to see what she would include.  It was released yesterday and I read it yesterday.  Below are a few of my favorite take aways from her book.

• CASH: This totally goes against everything I know as a bank marketing director where we want to put debit cards in peoples’ hands because they make a huge amount of $$$ for banks, but she reinforces the cash only system.  We have tried this a few different times and always end up going back to the card.  I know from our personal experience that we spend way less when we use only cash.
• COUPONS: I used to laugh at my mother for clipping and using coupons thinking that $.50 really isn’t that much, but wow was I wrong.  I have been much better in the last year at using coupons, but I still have not been super consistent. Crystal gives a down to earth approach to couponing and helps you identify what is a good bargain and what is in not.
• CLUTTER: She comments that if your life is cluttered than you are going to have a hard time meal planning, budgeting, and couponing.  Her chapter on clearing out your house and life motivated me to get up and work on my closet.  Even though it hurts, I need to admit that I am probably never going to fit in the dress that I wore to my rehearsal dinner ... time to get rid of it. :)
• CLARITY: I don’t know about you, but I can get way overwhelmed when I read blogs or books about all that different women do to run their households efficiently and cost effectively. From making their own tortillas to dishwashing liquid, there are a TON of ideas out there to save money and time.  I often think I should be doing more and there are probably a lot of areas I could be doing more.  She talks about looking at the cost savings per hour of different tasks to see if the cost savings are really worth the time investment.

I am going to be giving away a copy of this book either on your Kindle or a hard copy in your mailbox! 

You can enter the contest twice: 1) Leave a comment on this post 2) Leave a comment on the Rubies & Rewards Facebook page and tell share your goals for 2012 in regards to home management, couponing, or budgeting.

Be sure to enter the contest by Friday at midnight and I will announce the winner on Saturday!

Healthy Habits

Source

We have drastically changed our eating habits at the Ramsey house over the last few weeks.  It is paying off, but man is it hard.  We are seeing some weight loss and just overall feeling better, so that helps keep us going. I wanted to share a few of my diet related thoughts with you and share a recipe that has been a mainstay lately.

• Food Addiction: I don’t think I ever even gave a second thought to the fact that I am addicted to food in an unhealthy way.  One of my good friends recently told me her dad always said, “We eat to live, not live to eat.” I am pretty sure that I have spent my fair share of time living to eat.  I really struggled the first week we changed our diet.  I found that I was somewhat dependent on sweets and crackers.  I was really kind of cranky because I couldn’t have those two things!  In an odd way, I found myself praying for the desire for those things to go away and for strength to turn down the temptation.  We didn’t go into this with a “fast mentality” but it is almost how it turned out.

• Cost: Eating healthy isn’t cheap.  We try to stick to a food budget around here and I have blown that out of the water lately.  I am thinking a garden of some sort will definitely be in our plans for Summer 2012.  

• Preparation: Eating healthy takes preparation.  Whether it is getting up earlier to get breakfast cooked and a lunch packed for Hal or pre-cutting veggies to make dinner preparation go more smoothly, you have to think ahead and since I have small kiddos I have to get some things done in advance of dinner.  

• Recipe: We have loved this chicken.  I don’t really have exact measurements because I just do it to taste.  I like things with a little more vinegar than Hal does, so make it how you like it!

Bruschetta 

Bruschetta Feta Chicken (Say that five times fast!)

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

Feta Cheese

Tomatoes

Red Onion

Fresh Basil chopped finely

Fresh, minced Garlic

Balsamic Vinegar

Olive Oil

Salt 

Pepper

Grill your chicken breasts or bake them in the oven.  While chicken is cooking, prepare bruschetta.  Chop onions, basil, garlic, and tomotoes.  Add vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste.  Once chicken is cooked, place chicken on pan and then top with bruschetta.  Sprinkle with feta cheese and place back in 450 degree oven until cheese is soft.

How do you keep your family healthy?

How do you keep your grocery budget reasonable while using fresh fruits and vegetables?

Price Matching

Last month Alisha shared with us about being good stewards of the money God has given us.  She mentioned how she saves money each month by price matching.  Today she gives us a quick lesson on how to get started.

I am challenged often by the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) when it comes to both my time and money. This passage, as well as many others in the bible, speaks of being a wise steward; in fact, I’d say the defining characteristics of a “Wife of Noble Character” in Proverbs 31 are her stewardship and generosity. While there are no specific commands in the Bible about how to save money (and therefore not a right or wrong way to do it) I have found price matching to be one of the least time consuming and most profitable ways to buy and eat fresh produce without spending a lot of money.

Two key reasons price matching works so well based on where I live are that 1) we have Wal-Mart and 2) we have Aldi. While Aldi definitely has the best prices on just about everything, it isn’t always convenient for me to get there and they don’t always have everything I need in a particular week meaning I have to shop at multiple stores which can be hard with two young kids. 

This is where Wal-Mart’s ad-match policy comes in handy. You can find their policy here.  This policy states that Wal-Mart will price match fresh meat and produce when the product is offered as the same unit type (lb for lb; unit for unit.) The policy also states that you do not have to have the competitor’s ad with you (although I always have it on my mobile device to show the cashier in case they request it.) And of course, they price match non-perishable items as well.

So how does it work? I have signed up to have our local store’s ads automatically emailed to me so I receive the ads first thing Wednesday morning. I typically meal plan and make a grocery list every Friday, so between Wednesday and Friday I glance through the ads to see what is on sale and add things to my list that I know we’ll eat. (Next to each item I write PM and the price as a reminder to myself.) The front page of the ad usually has the “loss leaders” which are the items that are priced super low to get you in their store.

Then when I’m at the store, I simply buy the items on my list and when I go to checkout, I try to put the items I am price matching on the belt first and tell the cashier I have things I need to price match. They ask which items and what the price is, and they adjust the price as they ring each item up. It’s that simple!

So what did I price match this week? 

At Aldi, I price matched the following fruits that we used for breakfast and snacks this week.

Grapes- $.79/lb.

Bananas- $.44/lb.

Cantaloupe- $.99 each

Something to note is that peaches, nectarines and plums were all $.19 each, but I was not able to price match them, because Wal-Mart sells these by the lb, not individual units.

In recent weeks, pineapple were $.99 each, avocados $.29 each, 1 lb strawberries $.88, 4 lb bags of oranges $1.49 and 3 lb bags of apples $1.29 so we always have a good variety of fruit to eat. I’ve never tried to price match meat but know many who do; a few weeks ago fresh ground chuck was $1.88/lb at our local IGA store which was almost half the price of fresh ground chuck at Wal-Mart.

Have you tried to price match at your local stores?  Do you have any tips you can pass along?

Meet My Friends: Why be Frugal?

I mentioned in one of my early posts that I am so blessed to have an amazing group of women that I call friends. God has gifted each of them in different ways. I am excited to share them with you ... but only for a day! :)

I probably would define my friendship with Alisha as a “blog friendship.” Although she lives in my hometown, we have gotten to know each other through our blogs and Facebook. We have kiddos about the same age, so we have gone through similar experiences at the same time. Alisha is an awesome manager of her home. She often writes about recipes she is making or activities she does with her kiddos, but her ability to spend frugally and wisely in regard to groceries, home products, and personal products is a huge challenge to me. She blogs at “Save More—Give More,” where she mentions her goal of spending $200 a month on groceries and $0 a month on toiletries and household items. That’s right, I said $0!!! In this post, she is sharing why it is important for us to be frugal, and she will be sharing more tips and tricks in the months to come.

Why Be Frugal?

People have asked me why they should try to save money, especially if they’re in a place where they don’t need to save money. To me, the answer is because it isn’t their money to begin with. Consider what God says in Psalm 50:9-10: “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.”

Often times as Christians we think we’re suppose to give God 10% and then the remaining 90% is ours to spend as we please. This self-centered (and many times legalistic) mindset causes us to lobby, justify, and even fight over how the 90% is spent in our marriages. With over 2,300 verses in the Bible about money, it’s clear that God wants to be involved with 100% not just 10% of our money. God doesn’t need that 10%, just as the other 90% isn’t ours that we’ve earned and deserve.

Once we see ourselves as simply stewards of whatever amount God chooses to give us each month, we need to seek the Lord’s guidance on what He would have us do with that money and how we should spend it. We are given what we have to meet the needs of our families and the needs of others. When you consider that a mere $.25 can provide a meal for a child overseas (quite possibly the only meal they will get that day) or that $5 is considered a good daily salary for someone providing for their family in a third-world country, you quickly realize that the money we “waste” on seemingly little things isn’t such a small amount. All of a sudden, a candy bar at checkout is three meals in Uganda; and more practically, paying $2 for a pound of strawberries (instead of price matching for $.88) becomes four meals you can provide for someone else, all while giving your family the same item you had planned to.

When we think of our money as God’s money given to us to glorify God, we have an entirely new perspective on what we spend money on as well as how we buy the things we do. This is true for big items like housing and transportation, as well as the smallest things, like the above mentioned strawberries. Saving money changes from something only poor people do because they have to, to something we should all do as wise managers of our households as well as managers of the money God gives us.