insurance broker

Today I’d like to tell you about my calendar.
I’ve just purchased my second “mom’s plan-it” calendar. I love this calendar because it includes a line for each member of the family (up to five). Being a four-person family, we use the fifth space to show the evening’s dinner plan, so we don’t have to answer the question a dozen times a day.

The kids love the event stickers and that they always know where to look for their stuff. It’s also great for mom and dad to be showing things like shift work, doctor’s appointment and which parent is driving whom where, which we always struggled with on our earlier traditional calendars.

I found this at Office Depot at the list price of $14.95, but Amazon.com has a much better price (I used a coupon on mine, so I didn’t pay full price).

Here’s an example of how we’re using the calendar at home.

DISCLOSURE: I’m not paid by the publishers of the calendar, however I am including my Amazon.com affiliate link.

Most of you know I’m a freelance writer, but until now, I’ve only written nonfiction. This month I’m joining hundereds of thousands of writers worldwide in an attempt to write fifty thousand words of fiction in thirty days.

If you want to try this adventure along with me (it’s only 1600 words a day on average) look me up at www.nanowrimo.org and I’m “jessc098.”

Never fear though, I’m working on Pennywise posts still including one on budgeting, saving, our debt freedom progress, several more $1 dinners, estate planning and making funerals affordable.

Check it out!

Here’s my $1 dinner.  I made it in vast quantities so it could be used for several dinners and lunches. This dish would make about 12 meal-sized servings. 

2lbs beets—mixed, yellow and red  $1.

2 aged bell peppers $.40

½ package mushrooms $.94

1 lb carrots $.69

2 lbs yams $1.70

2 Tbs white truffle oil (the cheap kind) $.68 (can substitute olive oil)

2 Tbs olive oil $.38

4 Tbs cheap balsamic vinegar.  $.20.

2 yellow onions $.20

1 head of garlic $.30

Large handful of sage from the garden or other herbs of your choice.

Kosher salt and pepper to taste.

Total cost: About $6.49 Total cost per serving: About $0.54.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large baking pan with deep sides (like a turkey roaster or the bottom of a broiler pan) dump chopped vegetables (about 1”) into the pan, and drizzle with oil and vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste. The garlic can be included in its’ skins or whole cloves without skins. Stir 3 times during baking.

 
Bake for 60 minutes at 400 and then broil for 5 minutes.

This dish is very versatile, and also saves well in the refrigerator. You can vary the vegetables to virtually anything you want, but I prefer root vegetables. Waxy, not starchy potatoes work best if you want to add potatoes. Squashes are great in this dish. (My preferences are pumpkin, butternut and zucchini). There are also many serving ideas for this dish—here’s just a few.

•         Just eat it like this—it’s delish and a favorite in our house.
•         Serve as the “meat” to a green salad with crumbled feta cheese.
•         Serve with a grain like rice, wild rice, quinoa, or barley.
•         Blend with butter and cream or milk to make a wonderful savory soup.
•         Roast a chicken right on top of this “mess” of veggies—but beware that you may want to use only golden beets—red ones will turn your chicken funny colors.
•         Serve over pasta with a brown-butter sauce, or a light sauce with sausage.

I decided to take a look.  I have a lot of “not especially productive” time in my days between actual projects and time when I’m just “available” for homework help for my kids–where I need to be available but at the same time, my time isn’t productive enough for real work.  I decided to give this a try.

It’s fairly easy to sign up (you’ll want to open a new email account for this) and you’ll want to make sure you’re not signing up for anything that requires you to pay to participate (there’s a few of these).  Today I took a “favorite coffee” survey and was paid $1 to choose from a quick drop-down menu. 

If you’re looking for some “snowflake” money to pay off debts, this might be a good idea.  Also, the minimum age to use Cash Crate is pretty young–this might be good for teens for gas money! 

The only giant red flag that I’m noticing right off the bat, is that some of these surveys are actually applications for credit–so read the survey title clearly (they are clearly marked).  Just because it’ll pay you $40 for your personal info, doesn’t mean you want a Discover card. A nice feature is that you can mark “ignore” on these items and limit your exposure to them.  

If you’d like to try CashCrate.com it is free and pretty easy to sign up!

<em>Also, on a side note, Pete from Bible Money Matters is the person who designed the logos for The Penny-Wi$e Family!  You can find his logo site at www.logosforwebsites.com and I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised with his rates and the quality of his work. </em>

Here’s the situation.  We live in a lovely condo in a planned community alongside a river. We’ve been here without difficulty for six years.  Last year, a large rain storm  flooded the river, and damaged an earthen dam upriver from us critically.

So here’s where we’re at.  Round-the-clock, we hear tractors filling 400,000 two-ton sandbags and placing them on top of the levy near our home. Those will be covered with plastic, and the plastic will have another berm of smaller sandbags to give the levy another 10 feet in elevation since the dam cannot hold as much water back.

In the event of  ”overtopping” (water spilling over the new, higher levy), we are predicted to get moderate flooding (about 5 feet of water).  Our condo is a 2nd story unit, so other than our garge, we’d have minimal damage.

In the event of a total dam failure upstream, we’re expected to have “total, catastrophic flooding.” 

We’ve got flood insurance, and a place to stay as long as we need to (thanks mom!) and enough in our emergency fund to cover our insurance deductibles, and enough insurance to cover our needs.

image credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

We also have a room-by-room evacuation plan and we’ll be drilling on it soon (so the kids and I can get the house ready and evacuate within a short period of time in case my husband isn’t home when the time comes). 

We’ve stacked up giant garbage bags–so as we leave, the bedding in each room can be stuffed into a bag, tied up and stacked on the beds.  The pets can be packed up and taken to grandma’s house, and everyone has all of their needs met.

So–if you were in my house, what would you be doing to get ready?  What valuables/sentimental items should I be thinking of having out of the house entirely? We’ve got the “grab bag” of emergency documents (insurance, adoption documents, etc) and the backup hard drive on the list.

If you’ve been through disaster like this–I’d love your ideas, especially if they’re frugal or if they’ll save resources as we prepare to get back on our feet afterwards.

Thanks in advance! (PS: We’ve already thought of selling the house, but as you might have imagined, the market is…umm… saturated).

One last note: the dam upstream from us will be replaced in five years, so we may not be out of the woods until then.

I’m going to refer you to NCN’s template for this as I think it’s as good as you’ll find.  You may also consider keeping your price-book on a PDA in MS Excel mobile file.

I began by printing off 35 of the sheets from the NCN blog, and pulling out a month’s worth of grocery receipts to get started.

This helps for a couple of reasons:

1. You can see seasonal trends, for instance the price of turkey is far lower in November than in May.
2. You can track stores for individual products. For instance, I know I save 30% by buying my daughter’s “Good Nites” disposable diapers at a liquidator store rather than the local grocery store (I don’t care if they have last season’s floral patterns).  Note: Please don’t harp on me for not using washable diapers for our tot. We’ve tried, but haven’t found one she won’t soak through… the laundry alone was costing us far more than disposables are, and I shudder to think of how much water we were using!

We’re splitting our shopping and price checking between a few sources:

1. Our regular grocery store, Win-Co which is likely familiar to West coast shoppers.
2. A local liquidator for non-food items.
3. A catalog food company, Azure Standard, for organic products, whole foods, staples, grains and really yummy organic cheeses.

Keeping all the prices on the price book (a 3-ring binder) provides us the guidance we need to plan menus within budget, and pick up the right products at the right stores.

Also, I use this for my business—tracking paper costs, printer toner and Post-It flags that I use in my business in large quantities. My printer toners are usually about $144 each, but I found them for $89 each from Inksmile (an advertiser here at Penny-Wi$e Family).  Rather than buying paper at the local office store, I’ve found better prices at the Kinko’s/Fedex store, and the local K-Mart.

In the past I haven’t home-made kids costumes, but I haven’t really had time either. This year, I decided to be thrifty. (Surprised?)

I traded the kids’ too-small costumes from last year for a pair of winter shoes for our little one from a local consignment store. Today I busted into the “Halloween bin” from the garage to take inventory. I found a big black feather boa leftover from a prior year’s decorations or costumes and combined it with a black T-shirt, some elastic (salvaged from a torn fitted bed sheet), and a manila envelope, as well as a mardi gras mask from a costumed charity auction from a few years back.

It took about 20 minutes to make this cute crow-costume for our four-year old.

Halloween 2008--A Crow!

Here’s how I did it:
1. Find a T-shirt (fitted women’s worked four our daughter–the length was perfect for a dress–but a hooded sweatshirt would also be great). Tack a length of the feather boa at the top of the shoulders and make an elastic loop to fasten at the wrist (this creates “wings”). Repeat on the opposite side.

2. Sew all but four inches of the remaining boa around the bottom hem of the T-shirt.

3. Sew the remaining boa around a piece of elastic to make a headband.

4. (Optional) Run a length of elastic through the bottom hem of the T-shirt, and pull it tight and tie it together to create a gathered look at the bottom.

5. (Optional) Tack loose feathers (there will be bunches) to the front of the T-shirt to make “belly feathers” for the little bird.

Mask instructions

For the mask, use a mardi gras mask with a triangle beak, or a headband with a beak. Alternately, you could add a beak to a hooded sweatshirt from felt. A mask could also be made from a painted paper plate.

If you have frugal costume ideas and would like to showcase them here, please email them to me at jessc098@gmail.com, and I will post them as well as a link back to your blog with instructions.