Monthly Archives:

April 2015

April No-Spend Challenge: Ways To Lower Your Utility Bills!

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Hello again, savvy savers! It’s a new day, and time for a new challenge! Did you know that you can request from your utility companies, your gas, water, and power companies, an itemized summary of your peak and non-peak hours and service pricing? Did you also know that you could be saving as much as 1/4 off of your bills monthly? Well, you can! Here’s an example…

Starting last Spring, my water bill went up by 20% in a months time! Not that it was a lot of money, but in a year’s time it would have amounted to $400.00! I set out to figure out how to reduce this amount!

 Here’s what I did:

  1. I started by calling my city water department, who did not return my call.
  2. I then called my city managers office, and was informed by a kind gentleman there, that water, like electricity has a variable cost, and there are peak and non-peak times of the month, season, and year when water charges are higher, so countries and cities can offset the cost of public works projects in many areas. He also said, that you can request in writing, that your city water department tell of you of current charges, pending spikes for everyone, etc.
  3. When I found this out last summer, I noticed that charges were higher the last week of the month, so I implemented new water usage strategies in my home; I purchased rain barrel systems to attach to my gutters, which I now use for watering my garden the final week of the month, I also do not wash during that week, making sure all of my wash is prepped before that time, for example.
  4. I also checked all of my toilets, plumbing, and water lines for any leaks or pipes that needed to be replaced; luckily they did not!
  5. Just these two changes saved me $38.10 monthly!

What’s better? I then went on to repeat this process for all of my other services, too! I found out that every county seat in this country must provide customers that opportunity to learn what are peak and non-peak hours for consumption. I requested this from my local power co-op, and was then able to see that later in the week, from 7-12 am nightly power premiums were less in price, so I adjusted my washing, drying, dish-washing, and vacuuming to this time. I also found out the same schedule from my city managers office, in terms of out city water department, and adjusted watering for my garden to Sunday’s and Wednesday’s, as the water was nearly 20% less in premiums on non-peak times.

With just these two changes, I was able to save over $400.00 last year!

 So today, I challenge you to pull out your paper and e-print utility statements, check out your peak and non-peak hours, and then write your companies and request an itemized usage statement so that you too can reduce your overall gas, power, and water consumption rates in your neck of the woods! 

So today I challenge you to start the process of seeing where you can save on your utilities, too! Be sure to come back this evening to see today’s recap!

Here’s to saving,

misty1

Save Hundreds Annually With Meatless Monday’s

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Hello again, savvy savers! This week’s Battle Of The Bulge Series, Budget-Style will focus on going meatless! As well, here is my weekly health breakdown: Today I am 31 years young, I am 5’6”, and weigh 202 lbs; this week past week I have lost 3 pounds. My lifestyle is beginning to change, as I have ventured into Yoga this week, and now incorporate this ancient-practice once a week into my Battle-Of-The-Bulge lifestyle changes.

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1) Limiting Your Cancer Risk. There are numerous medical journals and studies that suggest eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables may reduce cancer risk; noting that both red and processed meat consumption is associated with colon cancer.

2) Potentially Reducing Heart Disease. A 2012 study from Harvard University study found that replacing saturated fats with foods rich in polyunsaturated fat, the lipids found in nuts and vegetable oils, reduces the risk of heart disease by twenty percent.

3) Help Stave Off Diabetes. Research suggests that higher consumption of red and processed meat increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

4) Help curb Obesity. Cutting meats out of your diet, even for one day a week, can help lower body weights and body mass indices, according to a recent study from Imperial College London.

5) You May Live Longer. Red and processed meat consumption are associated with increases in cancer mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality.

6) You Can Improve Your Diet. Consuming beans, lentils, or peas one day a week can result in higher intakes of fiber, protein, folate, zinc, iron, and magnesium. with lower intakes of saturated

7) You Can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint.The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide; which is 3-times the amount emitted by cars.

8) Water Conservation. Going meatless for one day a week can help conserve vastly needed fresh water supplies, as an estimated 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into a single pound of beef production; feeding the cow and the like. Soy, in comparison, uses only 220 gallons of water per pound consumed.

9) You Can Help Lessen Fossil Fuel Dependence. Consider this, according to the FDA, 40 calories of fossil fuel energy are expended, for every one calorie of beef consumed in this country. Eating one day a week without beef, for example, is a great way to cut fossil fuel demand.

10) Cutting Your Food Budget. Cutting meat out of your weekly menu by one day will save you nearly $20.00 a month, and $240.00 annually!

11) Causing You To Think Outside The Box. Going meatless one meal a week will cause you to look for new ways to prepare dishes. Think globally. Try more ethnic dishes. Going meatless can help expand your culinary palette!

Here’s to the Journey!

Misty

April’s No-spend Month Challenge, Day 3: Affordable Menu Options!

Hello again, savvy savers! So, for Day 2 I am challenging you all to come up with a list of a list of meals, with all of the staples being comprised of your freezer, deep freeze, stockpile, and pantry items. You will need to come up with:

  • 13 Breakfasts
  • 13 Lunches
  • 13 Snacks
  • 13 Dinner Options
  • 13 Desserts

Each option will be eaten twice for the remainder of the month, as the entire month will be rotated bi-weekly. Now, this task may seen daunting to you all, but consider the following:

  1. No-spend months are a great time for 5-can soups, dump cakes, casseroles, and pot pies. 
  2. This is also a great time to consider “Food Swapping,” with family, friends, and neighbors, where you will prep meals and then exchange the meals accordingly. 
  3. This is also the time to consider menu streamlining; eating the proper amount of meals, as well as small snacks throughout the day, as well as cutting your dependency on carbonated beverages, and instead eating healthier options all around, will not only fill you up more, stave off food cravings, which will ultimately end up costing you less the month over. 
  4. Consider using “Meatless Monday,”  food options; you can save up to $240.00 annually using this method once a week!
  5. You can also check out sites like SuperCook, where you can add the ingredients you have on hand to their database, to find recipes to suit your stockpile of goods!
  6. My best tip for today’s challenge, “Rollable Meals,” or meals that leftovers can be made into different meals using the same ingredients; for example on day 1 you make double the amount of hamburgers and a pan of brownies for dessert. On day two, you can take one patty, broken up and make breakfast tacos, and as a beef topped salad(s) for lunch, and using your additional reserved patties, make crockpot beef patties and gravy for dinner, and using your leftover brownies you can make two additional desserts to last the remainder of the week, brownie parfait cups, brownie flurries, or brownie and berry trifle!

Also, here are a few of my own recipes that can be made inexpensively:

 

Throwback Thursdays: Homemade Easy Bake Oven Chocolate Cake Mix & Frosting Kits, For Only $0.20!

Completely Couponed Coconut Mango Chicken Crockpot Curry

Blueberry Overnight French Toast Casserole!

1-Hour Freezer Cooking: Chicken and Dumplings!

Throwback Thursdays: Homemade French Dressing!

Making More Out Of Monday Meals: DIY Hot Cocoa Mix!

1-Hour Freezer Cooking: Frittatas!

Couponed Crockpot Chicken Mole!

Making More Out of Monday Meals: Misty’s Merry Maple Bacon Cookies!

Making More Out of Monday Meals: Homemade French Onion Soup Mix!

Easy Moroccan Tagine Chicken Recipe!

Neapolitan Trifle!

Cupboard Clearing Cake!

Couponed Crockpot Chicken Stew!

So, just get out a tablet, make a boxed grid; 11″x 8″, divide into a calendar, with seven boxes across, and four boxes down, and there you go! 

For further ideas, be sure to check out my Weekly Menu Section and Pinterest Menu Idea Boards!

Be sure to check Instagram tonight for today’s review!

misty1

Have You Taken The Handmade Pledge?

Hello again, savvy savers! Can you believe it’s already Spring, and Earth month? I for one am super excited as this means it’s time to unearth all of my stored planters, hangers, wreaths for the months ahead, and to scour Pinterest for new, funky upcycled design ideas! With this idea in mind, for this weeks Throwback Thursday Post, I want to speak to you about a very personal point in my life, handmade crafts. 

As many of friends and readers may know, but I am all about homemade.  I love all things upcycled, homemade, homespun, and Indie. I have placed many such touched within my home and garden, and have even tapped into my Art School past when creating this blog and my ETSY shop, Shadow Cat Crafts. I love the idea of all things handmade! These fond thoughts stem from a childhood filled with my Grandmother’s DIY macrame plant hangers, made-from-scratch recipes, DIY flower arrangements, and eclectic furniture styles, that were more throwback that a half-price sale at Pier 1! She filled my mind and spirit with the idea that all one needed for a fulfilled life, and home, were your own two hands!

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With this idea in mind, today I want to urge you all to consider making strides this year to support your local (and online, of course) Indie, Handmade Market merchants.

Why support Indie? Well, the indie design movement is made up of independent designers, artists and craftspeople who design and make a wide array of products without being part of large, industrialized businesses. They are supported by a growing number of indie shoppers who are seeking niche and often handmade products as opposed to those mass-produced by corporations. Such products may include jewelry, ceramics, glass, furniture, art, paintings, metal work and much more.

Indie designers often sell their items directly to buyers by way of their own online shops, craft fairs. street markets and a variety of online marketplaces, such as Dawanda, EtsyMintd and Lov.li. However, they may also engage in consignment and/or wholesale relationships with retail outlets, both online and offline. Much like current socially conscious folks support Fair-Trade merchants, likewise we should support Indie markets, too! When you support Indie, you support people in your own neighborhoods, local community, country, and in the global community as a whole; buying handmade means you support People Sourced Goods!

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The most dramatic reason to support this movement is that the indie design movement can be seen as being an aspect of the general indie movement and DIY culture. The DIY movement has brought together several networking groups like craftster ,craft mafias, indiepublic and Street teams formed through ETSY; all groups that help host chats weekly to share ideas, craft shows, and marketing ideas to empower small, homespun businesses!

Thus far, over 108,600 individuals have joined in the DIY movement and pledged to buy handmade. I encourage you to take the pledge this year, too!

I love the spirit of this movement. As Indie Artists do not follow any rules or guidelines in their art yet are very professional with their business. Indie brings the spirit of crafters, like my beloved Grandmother Ms. Carol, back to the public’s focus, in a funky new way, and I love it! Moreover, in today’s ever changing, fast paced, anonymity-driven world, often the purchases and gifts we can give that are handmade, hand-spun, and handcrafted, is just as valuable, if not more, than those purchased in mass retail! 

I encourage you all to consider taking the pledge to buy People Sourced Goods.  
 
Here’s to homemade,
misty1

31-Day No Spend Challenge Day 2: Kitchen & Pantry Organization

 

Hello again, savvy savers! As many of my readers and online friends may know, I am always juggling several projects, business opportunities, scholastic goals, and home projects at any given time. With so much constantly going on, it’s sometimes easy to forget one of my main passions, and antithesis for this blog, the ability to save money, while live a better live, in hopes of having a “whole living blog,” to help me have a better run life. So, for 2015 I have decided to take an old-school approach to spending, and so for every other month this year, for the months of February, April, June, August, October, and December I will be participating in a NO SPENDING month cycles! 

Why this crazy idea? Well, a month of NO spending is an awesome way to both reset your spending patterns, as well as to either kick-start your budget or revamp and make changes to any existing budget you or your family may have. This is also a great challenge for personal responsibility; you can track what you have been spending your hard earned funds, and keep yourself on track, in terms of responsible spending thereafter. 

I will be blogging daily about my NO SPEND struggles, victories, and suggestions from the previous day, and will be posting easy-to-follow daily challenges for my readers during my no-spend months. As well, each Sunday will share what I’ve learned, saved, and gained from this challenge as part of my Weekly Goals & Reflections Posts. I hope that many of you will join me in this challenge, as we can all you use more ways to save around the home.

 

 

The rules are pretty simple:  

  • No spending on anything  beyond absolute necessities.
  • Eat from your pantry & freezer as often as you are able.
  • And make changes to the way you purchase and consume goods, services, and commodities in your home. 
  • The idea of the challenge is to keep up with your daily activities,, but the main goal is simply to stop spending.  
  • This challenge can be a life changing experience, as you may just be amazed at how your mindset and perspective will change after just a month of seeing how you can enrich your life, without spending more!

Challenge 1: Part 1, Commitment

This first challenge has two parts. The first part of the first challenge is committing to the challenge itself. Knowing that starting any personal challenge, starts with following through with the challenge itself, and this no-spend month is no exception! 

Also knowing that this April is not just about not spending, although that will be our main goal.  I always challenge each of you to find ways to live well, live better, find new sources of joy, will spending less. You may just find out just how much we already have, and how little more we really need.  And hopefully, by the end of them month, a life rich with family, friends, and creative planning, secured by fiscally responsible measures, will be who we truly are. In addition, I hope to make my posts comments section a place of encouragement and accountability for us all, too!

I’m not gonna lie, there presumably will be tough moments, and for that reason, with one week remaining, stock-up on any items you currently feel you cannot do without. But the biggest reason for following through with this month daily challenges? In the month of February, I was able to save $1,456.87

This month is not about thinking what you won’t be spending and economizing on, but what you are saving for!

With that in mind, for today’s challenge, I encourage you all to physically take a few  minutes to make a list for this month, to include the following:

  • How much you plan to save this month.
  • What are your long-term financial goals.
  • What activities will you plan this month, to take the place of your spending.

 

 

Challenge 1: Part 2, Pantry Organization

I should warn you from the get-go:  my challenge is going to be geared around a lot of cleaning, organizing, self-and home inventorying this month! This is done in an attempt to re-wire our spending habits to include less conspicuous consumption, and finding more contentment is the ability to live off of what we currently have, and moreover, can afford! This is a spend less, dig deeper kind of month!

So today, we are going to start by taking stock of exactly what we have on hand. And if  you are a couponer/stockpiler like me,  you probably have more than a few forgotten packages hidden in the recesses of your pantry, and it’s time they come out to play!

Here’s a few tips for cleaning up your home pantry:

  1. Clear your kitchen counters, kitchen islands, and table before you begin to allow you so you have adequate work space. 
  2. Empty your pantry.
  3. Put like items together; all like items should be grouped separately into piles.
  4. All open containers need to be grouped separately.
  5. Any items that you will not be eating in the next six months, discard.
  6. Any items that will expire in the next three months, that you will not eat, group separately and donate. 
  7. Wipe down and sanitize cleared shelves.
  8. Take a sheet of paper and create an inventory of what you currently have in your home pantry.
  9. Keep in mind, when placing items back into your pantry, arrange items closest to expiration, nearest to the front of your shelf, and those items farthest from expiration towards the back of each shelf.

A few additional tips to keep in mind:

  • All shelved goods should be checked and rotated seasonally, and this is a task that should be placed on your calendars accordingly. 
  • Place all unopened containers in your pantry in like areas; cans with cans, boxes with boxes, jars with jars.
  • Open snacks, cookies, and candy should be taken out of the pantry and placed in other areas of the kitchen so that they can be easily consumed.
  • Be sure to wipe down the front of your pantry; this includes cabinets, panels, knobs, etc.
  • Take a well needed break, for a job well done!

Stay tuned for my end of day report updates, which will be reported to Instagram!

Here’s to saving.

misty1

April’s No-spend Month Challenge Starts Tomorrow!

Hello again, savvy savers! Tomorrow starts a new No-Spend Month Challenge on The LadyPrefers2Save! So, here is a re-cap of last months start, the ground-rules, and the basics for this month:

As many of my readers and online friends may know, I am always juggling several projects, business opportunities, scholastic goals, and home projects at any given time. With so much constantly going on, it’s sometimes easy to forget one of my main passions, and antithesis for this blog, the ability to save money, while live a better live, in hopes of having a “whole living blog,” to help me have a better run life. So, for 2015 I have decided to take an old-school approach to spending, and so for every other month this year, for the months of February, April, June, August, October, and December I will be participating in a NO SPENDING month cycles! 

Why this crazy idea? Well, a month of NO spending is an awesome way to both reset your spending patterns, as well as to either kick-start your budget or revamp and make changes to any existing budget you or your family may have. This is also a great challenge for personal responsibility; you can track what you have been spending your hard earned funds, and keep yourself on track, in terms of responsible spending thereafter. 

I will be blogging daily about my NO SPEND struggles, victories, and suggestions from the previous day, and will be posting easy-to-follow daily challenges for my readers during my no-spend months. As well, each Sunday will share what I’ve learned, saved, and gained from this challenge as part of my Weekly Goals & Reflections Posts. I hope that many of you will join me in this challenge, as we can all you use more ways to save around the home.

The rules are pretty simple:  

  • No spending on anything  beyond absolute necessities.
  • Eat from your pantry & freezer as often as you are able.
  • And make changes to the way you purchase and consume goods, services, and commodities in your home. 
  • The idea of the challenge is to keep up with your daily activities,, but the main goal is simply to stop spending.  
  • This challenge can be a life changing experience, as you may just be amazed at how your mindset and perspective will change after just a month of seeing how you can enrich your life, without spending more!

There are a few exceptions to the rule as follows:

  1. Unavoidable expenses related to employment, such as gas, are okay.
  2. Unavoidable school related expenses.
  3. Doctors appointments, veterinarian appointments, co-payments, family/pet prescriptions, and therapy sessions are okay.
  4. Do keep existing service and repair appointments that can’t be rescheduled to “Spending” months, such as hair appointments, lawn care services, trash removal, in-home repair services, etc.
  5. Do keep existing tithing and charitable giving.
  6. Do have an adequate stockpile of necessities prior to beginning this challenge, such as pet food, bedding, litter, laundry detergent, dish soap, snow salts, bottled water and emergency staples (if you live in areas frequently affected by seasonal weather), etc. 
  7. Do keep up with healthy living habits. I will continue to use my envelope saving system to fund app purchase rebates (iBotta, Shopmium, Snap by Groupon) for fresh produce and milk savings that may pop-up during my no-spend months; due to my PCOS I need several servings of fruits and veggies daily, and these app savings help keep my freezer stocked on a budget. 
  8. And it goes without saying, please do pay all of our monthly obligations; rent, mortgage, insurance, utility payments, banking fees,  student/financial/business loans, medical expenses, and assumed or credit card debt. 

February is not just about not spending, although that will be our main goal.  I always challenge each of you to find ways to live well, live better, find new sources of joy, will spending less. You may just find out just how much we already have, and how little more we really need.  And hopefully, by the end of them month, a life rich with family, friends, and creative planning, secured by fiscally responsible measures, will be who we truly are. In addition, I hope to make my posts comments section a place of encouragement and accountability for us all, too!

I’m not gonna lie, there presumably will be tough moments, and for that reason, with one week remaining, stock-up on any items you currently feel you cannot do without today;  you will also need pens, paper, a clip board, laundry basket, and an open mind these coming weeks!

I’m not sure how many of you are on board for this month’s challenge but the gauntlet has been tossed, and I am calling on all of you all to try this challenge, in your own way, with your own rules, and just to do this with me. Right here, right now let’s both commit to a whole month of no spending, starting tomorrow!

Here’s to Saving,