Ahead of the Game

Have you ever noticed how the LDS Church is so ahead of the game? The Word of Wisdom was revealed in 1833 and some of its points are just being "discovered" by modern-day scientists. The Family: A Proclamation to the World was given to us in 1995. Now we are coming to grips with the problem of governments wanting to declare marriage between two people of the same gender as legal. There are a lot of people now agreeing with what was set forth by our leaders 13 years ago, and hopefully Prop. 8 will pass in California this upcoming election.

Since I am so into the personal finance thing, I have noticed in the past couple of years that more and more personal finance gurus are coming up with "new" ideas that we've had access to since April 1975 (7 months before I was born!), when Elder Marvin J. Ashton gave a talk entitled "One for the Money." This talk was formatted into a pamphlet that you can get for free at the distribution center or download for free at providentliving.org. If you want to order a bunch, you can find them at www.ldscatalog.com item # 33293 (you may have to pay shipping.) This is a must-read for everyone, in my opinion.

It's been a rough year for many financially, but I truly believe that the counsel we've received from our Church leaders will help us through these turbulent times. We need to get out of debt, get a good supply of food, and set aside some money for harder times to come. As always, if any of you have any specific questions or concerns, I would be happy to help.

Jenni

What's the deal?

I went to Wal Mart the other day to get our normal brand of spread (fake butter), and when I got home and opened it, I noticed that it looked a little skimpy. So, I checked the label and noticed that they are now packaging only 15 oz. of spread when they used to package 16 oz. They charge the same amount, but you're getting less for that price, so actually the price is going up. I kind of feel like they think I'm stupid.

I noticed this a couple of months ago with my boxes of pasta. I used to get 16 oz., but now I only get 13.5 oz. per box. For my food storage purposes, I would much rather pay more for the same size of box because my storage room is limited, and now I have to buy more boxes. Has anyone else noticed this in their shopping?

Jennie

Our Big Announcement!!

In my last post, I said that I didn't have a lot of time to post, but that's not the entire truth. I've been so exhausted and nauseous that I don't have a lot of desire to get on the computer or really do anything else. Why do we forget how miserable these first couple of months of pregnancy can be? We are really excited to have another baby, but I think I must be getting too old or something - it seems harder than last time.

I was going to try really hard not to tell anyone until I was at least 12 weeks or so, but I want you all to know why I'm not posting much and to get any sympathy you can send my way (grin)! I'll keep you all posted as things progress!

Jenni

Money Makeovers

I’m sorry I haven’t been more diligent in posting. I have about two hours to myself on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when I plan on doing most of my postings, but I have found those hours have been filled with other things these past two weeks. One thing I have been doing a lot of is reading

A lot of you know that I enjoy personal finance. I just finished reading a book by Dave Ramsey called The Total Money Makeover. When I read books like these and they talk about debt elimination programs, I kind of wish we were in debt so I could follow through with one (totally crazy, I know). If you don’t know what a debt elimination schedule is, it is organizing all your debts from the smallest to largest amounts and then paying the minimum on all except the first (the smallest). You use all your discretionary income to pay that debt down as quickly as possible. Once that one is paid off, you move to the next one with all the money you were paying along with the minimum payment until that one is paid off and you keep moving down the line until they are all paid in full. I once spent two hours working on a debt elimination schedule for a stranger I met in a personal finance forum on the internet. If any of you want one, just give me the word.

Since John and I don’t have any debt beside our mortgage, I decided that I could use the principle of a debt elimination program to create a savings program that implements the idea of intense focus. John’s yearly raise kicks in the first of October and so I was re-evaluating our budget and making some changes. John and I spent some time discussing it the other night and are really excited to follow through with our plan in order to reach some of our goals.

For anyone who would like the abbreviated version of the Total Money Makeover (which I thought was really good), just read the Church’s free pamphlet, One For the Money. If you would like any one-on-one help with budgeting or debt elimination, I would be happy to help.

Jenni

Trip to the Farm

This past Saturday, we took a trip to my sister's house to see her new baby horses. Her husband and sons went back to Nebraska or some place and got four one-year old colts.

My sister also has a couple of miniature mules, or hennies. These two mules are named John and Jenni. It so happens that male hennies are called johns and females are called jennies, so they thought they would go ahead and name them in our honor (at least, I think its an honor).



TJ and Seth thought they were monkeys and kept climbing the fence (with dad behind ready to catch any missteps).

All about gardening

This summer has been a year of learning for me in the area of gardening. Things I've learned:
--Don't plant tomatoes too close together
--Birds love strawberries
--Tomatoes ripen on their own time
--Children love to pick things whether they're ripe or not
Here are some photos of my garden:


This is a good view of my tomatoes. John made this cute fence to keep the kiddos from walking on the garden and picking too soon. We didn't count on the tomatoes growing up and out.

This is a view of my strawberry and raspberry patch. I only had one of the four raspberry plants I planted last year come back, but five of the six I planted this year seem to be doing great.

This is just a cluster of tomatoes - still very green.


These raspberries are on one of the shoots from the plant I planted last year. I have about 8 shoots that are loaded with berries - I can hardly wait until they are ripe!!!



This is one of the first of my large tomatoes to ripen. Abby says it looks like a heart. John says it looks like a butt... what do you think? Take the poll at the end of my blog roll to voice your opinion.

My New Life

Since the kids started school this last week, I decided I needed to get my life on some sort of schedule, and get organized. My goal is that I can keep things in order around the house so that I can free up more time to spend with my kids. Does anyone else feel like they spend too much time doing things for their kids, and not enough time being with their kids? I feel like I show my love to them by washing their clothes, feeding them and doing dishes, keeping a clean house, but I'm starting to understand that while those things are important to me, they are not as important to my kids. I need to be "in the moment" with them a little more.

My plan is to get up in the morning and accomplish a list of chores before they wake up (a load of laundry, bed-making, dishes, pick up). Then, I have set a chore for each day of the week: Monday is vacuuming; Tuesday, toilets; Wednesday, dusting; Thursday, sinks; Friday, mop floor. Saturday will be family chore day. It seems to be working OK. I like doing only one load of laundry a day, but I don't like that my basket is always full. This is a work in progress, so I'm willing to entertain any ideas as to how you all keep it together!