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Picnics & Old Lace

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Clean them scummy pots and pans

QUICK CHEAP TRICK

Now you see it

Now you don't

This is why... I took a used piece of foil rolled it into a ball and scrubbed the pot. Takes off the hardest pieces of noodles the gross baked on material and it just rubs off. I didnt use that much elbow grease. Reuse foil for the tough stuff!

 I know what you are thinking."Super amazing photo".

take an old lawn chair to exciting places!

So I am so behind with this blog. Sorry about that! I have been so busy doing the projects and honestly I haven't finished half of them. We have been busy with other things... like looking at houses. Yes that is right, this once over the head in debt girl, is 1000 dollars away from being completely out of debt! Yay! You can be to! Learn some tips here http://pennypinchingsisters.blogspot.com/2011/12/get-out-of-debt-fast.html

Moving on! So this quick project I did recently...

AFTER

BEFORE

This is the BEFORE and honestly of the 3 chairs I had, this looked the nicest. By the time I remembered to take pictures I had already painted the other two chairs, so imagine worse then this.






The problem with the chairs... I got them free from a friend. There was only 3 and she left them outside for years and they became porous and grungy looking. I tried spray paint. It let me down though... apparently the chairs where so thirsty they drank the color up. So I took paint I had from other projects and miss tints to make a happy looking chair. yay good old latex paint!

The three chairs I painted

This is why I paint in the grass... I spill

Loving this blue colorlu!

Could use some lemonade about now!

I will confess they scratched a weee bit
when  I took them apart.   

My cute little kitty princess loves the chair  

chalkboard table top

SUPPLIES needed:

2 tbs. NON-SANDED GROUT I got mine at Lowes the smallest size was 1 lb. less then $5 and I have lots left. Maybe the lower half of the walls will be the next project!

1 cup PAINT I used acrylic the large 8oz bottle equals 1 cup (next time I may try latex paint from a cheap miss-tint I will show you why later...) get creative and use any color your little heart desires!

1 resealable CONTAINER with lid 

1 awesome BRUSH! I might try  a foam brush next time so I don't have brush lines

Carefully MIX until smooth as you can! My brother always said glitter was the herpes of crafts... I found its partner in crime... black paint! It gets everywhere! I recommend doing this outside in something you don't care to ruin! 

Note to self... if you have little hands around.... Don't leave supplies unattended!

SCRUB table of surface you are painting.

Say HELLO to my LITTLE FRIEND! You can use regular sanding sheet if you don't have one of these. Apparently my husband loves me and used his SEARS card on buying this for us... I'm  in LOVE! With my husband to! He is a great hubby!

Use rag to get the DUST off.

Start to PAINT her! YAY!

I did 2 COATS let it dry in between.

Note to self... If you have a group of pre-teens come over tell them not to take the backs of there eraser less pencils  and  scratch the table.  

Good thing you thought ahead and kept leftovers in sealed container. Easy to do touch up. Just wish I used durable paint, like the miss-tints at my brother's work. He could have added more color to the pre-tinted paint for me for a perfect match for the same price of the acrylic. 

Take CHALK to the table! WOW! THIS IS FUN! Use a wet black rag to clean. Note to self paint can  bleed if wet... again I am regretting acrylic paint.

Love my table now! looks like a school class!

Kinda rustic look

Messages to family in the morning YAY!

Exercise! YAY! Netflix! YAY!

Earlier my sister wrote a post on exercise and it is great you should read that! I just wanted to add an idea I came across recently. We have had netflix for a while now, I love it, but I do so even more now! We usually use it to watch a movie here or there or run sesame street as back ground noise for my daughter. The other day I decided to start exercising again. One of those things I slack at around Christmas and gain 10 pounds. The jeans are getting tight and I can't bare to move up a size, unlike my sister I don't have motivation to exercise. Looking at my  exercise DVD collection covered with dust, I realized both of them didn't sound enticing. I sat on the couch and thought, "maybe I will give this one more shot and search on netflix". I was kinda hoping there wouldn't be one, so I could watch a movie on  my instaque.  Low and behold, I found several workout videos. Mostly, I was more surprised at my reaction.It seemed fun to do a new workout. With a huge selection from yoga to boot camp military style... I had a chance to find something I would enjoy. I randomly selected a dance workout and though I have sweat harder, it was really fun! My daughter danced beside me and toward the end they did a short ab workout that gave me a burn. It was kinda addicting so I tried another workout, tougher, but I enjoyed it! While I watched the Biggest Loser last night I didn't feel guilty like I normally do! So if you have an excuse like I used, that you don't have money for a gym, or that you don't have work out videos... netflix has them. It costs us less then ten dollars a month to have all the movies and now gym we need! YAY!

Why Eat Out? Easy Cakes for Breakfast!

My husband and I are almost ready to buy a house! yay! We are finally about there, but with a few things left on the list we are squeezing our pennies. It is a great feeling when you are almost reaching a goal you have set a long time ago, but when pinching pennies you have to find a way to have fun! We have been trying to eat in for all our meals lately and breakfast is no exception.My daughter would have scrambled eggs for every meal if I would let her. So sick of eggs and cereal, I have been making waffles and pancakes. She is two and thinks that since it says cakes at the end of the word they are cakes. So she tells me she wants "cakes" for breakfast. I was thinking, "yum cake for breakfast".  So I started tweaking my recipe for my plain Jane pancakes to... why do you need IHOP breakfast cakes!

PLAIN JANE CAKES
1 cup flour
1 tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
blend together, spray cooking skillet or waffle maker with oil, and cook on med heat to desired golden color.

BANANA CAKES
add
mashed ripe banana

and cinnamon  to batter
top with Carmel sauce (i just use a little from my banana split stash)
syrup
and whip topping






BANANA SPLIT CAKES
add
mashed banana to the batter

top with
desired banana split topping
such as
strawberry sauce, jam or fresh
pineapples
whip topping
Carmel
chocolate
nuts
bananas
whip topping

CHOCOLATE CAKES

add
couple tablespoons coco powder (to desired taste)
chocolate chips to batter
top with
chocolate syrup and mini chocolate chips and raspberries yum!

RED VELVET CAKES
add
red food coloring
1 tsp vanilla flavoring to batter
top with cream cheese frosting
nuts optional

CARROT CAKES
add
1 cup thinly shredded carrots
cinnamon to batter
top with
cream cheese frosting

Get out of debt fast!

I am not a financial advisor, but I will give you the best advice that I can, pulling from what I have learned in the past! With the New Year here, this is a great time to start this new resolution! I think everyone wants to be debt free.  Even those that have lots of debt can be free, with a little discipline and a few tricks I have learned!

First
Credit cards are the devil!

This seems to be one of the hardest things for people to wrap their heads around! I was lucky that I was told this young in my life and told often! However not everybody is aware of this!  I was just very surprised when I married into debt.

The problem with credit is that it's so very easy to use. When you need or want anything, you have a magic card that pays for it until you get your pay check. That is if you ever pay it back, by then there is always interest payments and other things you need to buy. It is a never ending cycle or so you think! This is just a quick example: you owe $3000  at 10 % interest rate (which is a really low rate for a credit card). You pay $100 towards it every month and $30 goes to interest! Basically you are throwing away more than $1000 in 3 years time! Credit Cards are designed to get you further in debt and make money for the credit company, not to help you!

Second

Interest rates make a huge difference!

Credit Card rates are usually higher than any other rates out there. My husband and I got rid of all his credit card debt by getting a new loan on our vehicles at 6.5% and using the extra money on the loan to pay off the credit cards. We now could easily pay off the credit cards that were at a ghastly 30% or so (this was just a few years ago when the credit card companies kept raising their rates for no reason). Most of the payments we made were going to interest only and by doing this, the opposite started to happen. It was fantastic! It really makes a huge difference what your rates are. Shop around to get the best possible deal for yourself. Consolidating your debt may help you as well. See what is best for you!

Third

Cut up the cards

That is right, cut them up! Even if you haven't already paid them off, get rid of them so you aren't tempted to use them! If you aren't adding to the balance then eventually you will pay them off! This may cause some discomfort at first, you will have to budget a little tighter. Once they are paid off, the money that usually goes to paying the credit cards will be in your pocket again. Be creative with new income ideas and on how to save money. Eventually you will be debt free!

Fourth

Pay Principle Only

Most loans you take out will allow you to make additional payments on principle only. I always ask before I take out a loan if they have any fees for paying the loan off early or paying principle only just in case, I haven't had a problem with it yet though. This takes discipline, but if you can pay any extra at any given time ask for the money to go as principle only! It will not count for the next month, but in the long run you will pay less interest during the whole term of the loan. This means shorter time for the loan and less paid out of pocket for interest.  

Fifth

The Roll Effect

This is a fantastic way to pay off loans! I just hope I don't lose you while I explain this! At the bottom of this section, there are two different websites that may help you if I lose you. Alright! If you can find a way to pay a little more toward your bills each month, this is a great way to get out of all your debt! I am going to use an example by using just $100 a month more! Lets say these are your loans below!  

1. car payment APR 6.5%  loan size $13,500 payment $264.14

2. visa APR 17% loan size $ 7,500 payment $186.39

3. Store Shop credit card 20% APR loan size $3500  $92.73

If these were your loans you usually pay $543.26 a month, by adding $100 more you will be paying  $643.26 until your loans are all paid off. This will not change for this example, but if it is too hard financially, just do what you can when you can. We are going to start by paying off the smallest payments first. In this case it would be the shop card. The extra $100 will be added to this loan payment every month, as principle only, until this is paid off. When we go to pay off the next loan we will have the $100 plus the shop card $92.73 to add to the visa card. Now we are adding $192.73 to the visa cards principle every month. Once this is paid off we have the $100 the $92.73 and the $186.39 from the visa card to put toward the car payment. We will be adding $379.12 to the principle of the car payment. This will pay it off shortly. When all of the payments are paid off that $643.26 that was paid every month will now be in your pocket to save, and to start buying things in cash with!

Just like a snow ball, you can pack a little snow together (the $100) and send it down the hill to pay off  a loan. As each loan gets paid off it makes the snow ball bigger and gives you more money to put toward the next loan.  After everything is paid off you will have a huge snowball, or a lot of cash, so you don't have to use loans anymore!

This really works and in case I am not making sense to you check this out!http://www.daveramsey.com/article/get-out-of-debt-with-the-debt-snowball-plan/ He uses a different approach but I am sure it works well to!

http://lds.org/ensign/2011/07/getting-out-of-debt-for-good?lang=eng This has a great visual with the example lists provided.  Read under "A Simple, Effective Method"

Sixth

Don't Buy New

I hope my husband learned his lesson here, I know I did! It was shiny and it looked oh so cool with all the added parts, chrome and all.  When I looked out the window of our apartment, I thought "there is a 700 dollar a month view. Too bad you cost even more for gas and insurance. Why didn't we just buy a house if we were going to spend that kind of money every month" as we would buckle our seat belt and drive off, away from our rented apartment. What I didn't understand is how we still owed 17k on a truck that was bought 5 years ago! I thought when you bought a car it was over a 5year period loan. I guess there are longer loans as well, when you get a loan from a dealer! As great as it was to have a super top of the line truck, with all the must haves and wants, it had its problems too. Not only the terrible payment we had to pay with an ugly dealer interest rate, but the truck had its problems. The lights constantly went out, the battery wouldn't hold a charge, the heater went out and boy was that expensive to fix. Other things that went wrong, the underside already started to rust, the DVD player hummed, recalls... etc... etc... When we finally paid it down enough that we could sale it, we couldn't count how much our losses were! We bought a little car for $500 from a friend, and put a couple hundred in fixing little things here and there. With a title in hand and savings of $900/month, we wore grins when we drove our little beater around! At the pump we were getting 30+ mpg. It may not be a shiny fancy truck, with chrome or a DVD player, but my little clunker got us everywhere we needed to go as we got out of debt. Get this... when we sold that little car after a year of pocketing $900/month... only putting $500 in parts the entire year... and paying $500 for it... we made $1500 on it! It sold 15 minutes after putting it in the classifieds for $2500!

Seventh

How to Stay Out of Debt

Keep yourself in check! Make goals to save money to buy something you want or need. Stay frugal with your money. Don't just buy things you want, because you have money in your pocket. Make long term goals to pay off your house, start on retirement, pay for your child/grandchild's college, and anything else worthwhile you might think of. You may enjoy finding fun ways to save money by couponing, shopping for the best prices, and through yard sales (both purging your treasures and finding someone else's). Check this blog often to get new ideas and to stay motivated!

Eighth

Refinance/ Consolidate

This is what I was referring to when talking about interest rates! When interest rates are as low as they are now, this could be a great option. This is tricky though, you have to weigh this one out to see if it is a good option or not. Consolidting on a credit card or similar loan may effect your credit in a poor way. The best way is how we did it, where we had a lower rate then a credit card and by using our vehicles it helped our credit.  We got hit pretty hard when the economy crashed. For us, it wasn't whether we would make the loan too long or if we would end up paying too much in interest by refinancing. We honestly could no longer pay all the bills from the debt my husband had previous to the marriage. We refinanced the new truck I talked about previously, since he had used a dealership and got a terrible interest rate on it. The credit union was very helpful letting us consolidate the credit card loans into our vehicles. They let us get a little extra added on the loan, for the truck, to help pay off the credit cards. We paid part cash for the the little affordable car (that I got a wonderful deal on) and got a small loan on it, to help my credit score. We were then able to get a much larger loan on it and paid most of those nasty credit cards off. Since we had even more credit card debt my husband had recurred, we needed an extra loan to pay this off. My husband had a motorcycle that was almost paid off, so we got a new loan on it as well. It was so nice to have all of our loans centered in one place. Whenever we had extra money we would put it toward the cars, until the cost on this was low enough to sell them. My husband had an old truck he drove after we sold his new fancy truck. After we sold my little car we bought another, from a friend, with cash.  My husband gave it a little tune up and it drove like a champ! Parts were cheap because we could get them from the junk yard! Once the cars were sold, we paid off the motorcycle quickly! In less than 3 years we have gotten out of $50,000 of debt! We are finally ready to look at homes now! You can do this too! It is so freeing to not have these bands of debt around our ankles!

Ninth

Set a Budget
This has been the hardest thing for us! My husband's work is not steady because he works for himself. This is the best way we found to make sure bills are paid and to stay out of debt: First, bills must be paid for the month with all the money we have. Second, we budget about $400 for food for the month. Third, bills need to be paid a month in advance, in case of a hard month. Fourth, extra payment on the loans principles only. Fifth, spending money ($100 or so very little). Sixth, any extra in savings. This may not be the best for you. However you decide to budget make sure you are getting out of debt and not adding to it. Knowing where your money is going every month can help you to find ways to tighten your budget in different categories.

Tenth

Add Job to Pay Debt

This may be selling crafts or baked goods, babysitting, yard sales, or cleaning houses.  Find an extra way to make a little money while you are getting out of debt. I found ways such as selling extra things around the house on a free classified site (pictures make a difference), I became quite good at this. We "pimped" out our Pomeranian stud and sold our female's puppies. Anything that could help us through this tough time!

Eleventh

Get Priorities Straight/Keeping Things in Perspective

Getting out of debt isn't easy, but you have to remember that you cannot let debt consume you and hurt your relationship. You and your partner need to work through the debt together, making sacrifices but focusing on what's important as well - your family and your relationship. Get a babysitter and make time to do something special with your spouse so you can remember why you fell in love. Set time aside to do group activities as a family to involve the kids as well. Don't let your debt get the best of you. Splurge on needs and pass on wants, when possible. By keeping your debt, family, and relationships your biggest priorities you can move into a less stressful part of your life and gain a stepping stone in your relationships. This has been a huge help in our marriage to get through this rough patch financially and it has brought us much closer.

Twelfth

Be Willing To Part With Toys

This was a huge sacrifice in our lives, but very worth while! I parted from my cute pink scooter and my little car that I loved. My husband made lots of sacrifices too. He sold his nice new truck, his snowmobile trailer, and recently 2 fishing boats (not in the best shape but none the less it was a sacrifice). You can do this by just not buying either! If there is one toy my husband loves it is a boat. If there is one toy that can really suck your money down, it is a boat. It is hard not to have a boat to him, but once we can buy a nice boat that doesn't need constant fixing in cash we might do so, in the future.

Thirteen

Get Organized

When it comes to working your way out of debt, it's all about organization -- believe it or not getting your documents organized can save you money!

Fourteen

Stop Eating Out

Eat in and save money, it is healthier and a great family activity. I promise eating at the table and discussing your day will bring your whole family closer! Even if it is just you and your significant other. If you aren't the best cook I can relate. When I first married, I thought a home cooked meal consisted of pouring dry noodles in boiling water and warming sauce from a can. With about 3 years experience, I now can my homemade sauce, make noodles from scratch, make home made french bread with garlic dipping sauce, and a toss salad for an every day meal.  A couple months ago we went to one of my favorite Italian restaurants for my birthday. It has been a long time since we have gone out so it was a big surprise when we hated our meals! My husband told me on the way home "I would rather stay home and eat your stuffed shells, honey". This was one of the best compliments I have ever received. Wow, I am not a so so cook anymore! It is so great to be able to cook better meals at a better price at home! Anyone can do it! My favorite site is allrecipes.com I pick what looks yummy and a 4 star or more. If you don't know what you are doing there are lots of tutorials on youtube.com so try that too!

Getting Out of Debt Doesn't Mean You Can't Ever Spend Again

Just make sure your splurges are not huge and won't compromise all the hard work you are doing to get out of debt!