Saving $1200 a year on phone services

I've decided that my goal for the coming year will be to set aside 20% of our income.  We're currently at a pathetic 5% and I'm looking to change that.

So each month, I'm going to be tackling one of our budget categories and trying to cut back. First I did groceries. Obviously this will be ongoing. I've started my price book, dabbled in couponing & took to stockpiling up on sales items.  I've got an inventory of my deep freezer to keep track of everything, but I do need to organize and take inventory of my pantry.

For this month, I decided to see what I could do to decrease our cell phone, landline & internet bills. I started by saying goodbye to my iPhone. We have WiFi here at home and I just wasn't using any of my data. But Verizon requires a data plan so that was $40 that was just being wasted. So I bought a used "no data required" old slider phone from ebay for $12 and will be using that from here on out.

We've got our land line & internet bundled for $112 a month with taxes. So I just averaged that out to $56 each. I called to get them seperated and had my number transferred over to Basic Talk. I bought the box at Walmart for $9.98 and my monthly bill is now down to $11.82. My internet is going to be $54 a month now. So I went from paying $213 a month (for a landline, cell phone & internet service) down to $106. That's just short of a 50% savings and at the end of the year I'll have saved a cool $1200.

The Wheels are Spinning

I called on a piece of land last night to get some details. There are very, very few options in our area that fit our criteria. Like, two. Two options. So I called on our first choice. Got the information. It's still looking good; still our first choice. But gosh. The numbers. I've got all these numbers floating around in my head; all these scenarios. If we use the equity in our current house to buy the land; if we got a bare land loan to pay for it; where will the money come from? How will we make the payments? How will we make those payments AND save up an emergency fund. Is that even possible? We'll rent out our current house once we're out of it and that will bring some extra income but what about until then?

Sure, we can trim the fat & live super frugal now--but what about in the coming years? How long can we keep that up? Grocery costs will (presumably) keep rising. The kids will keep growing. They'll keep requiring more & more food. They'll keep wearing out their jeans at an alarming rate.  At some point, I'd probably like to have a smart phone again at some point (petty, I know).

The bottom line is I just need more information. I need to meet with the custom home company and see what the options are. I need to find out what our payments would be for each scenario. I just need to keep chipping away at it. But in the mean time, I feel like I'm just treading water. The wheels are turning but I'm going no where fast.

I need to slow down. And work on the first step. Back to the basics. Get more information. Keep saving money. First things first.

This week's shopping trip

 

I'm feeling really good about my shopping this trip. Since I bought 50 lbs of beef a few weeks ago, I was able to really cash in on some of the great sales happening right now (mostly baking supplies). Here's a few of the deals I got. For reference, I usually shop at Safeway (the only store in my small town) and I do print coupons but I don't get any from the Sunday paper (maybe some day). 

• Carnation Milk for 50 cents/can (cheaper than Safeway store brand with sale & coupon)
• Nestle Chocolate Chips $1.67/bag (cheaper than Safeway store brand with sale & coupon)
• Spaghetti noodles (Safeway brand) .88/box (I think I might be able to get these cheaper at some point, but I'm getting low).
• Kraft Mayo-I'm really proud of this one! $1.49 (usually $4.99! Safeway had a sale & I used a coupon)
• Swanson chicken broth was BOGO so I got 2 for $1.59 each-cheaper than the Safeway brand
• Flour- 5 lb bag for $1.71, that's $.34 a pound, which is 1 cent more per pound than Costco (not sure when my next Costco trip will be)
• Whole Chickens were .79/pound so I bought 3 (I already have 1 in the freezer)
• I also bought another Turkey for $.69/lb

Ultimately, my goal in stockpiling is to decrease my overall grocery spending. It involves menu planning, shopping the sales, finding coupons, keeping a price book & sticking to a list. This week I bought a lot of things that weren't on sale, but ended up spending $66.76 for 54 items. Between my card savings, my J4U savings & my paper coupons I saved $60.96 

How it all began

More and more lately my mind has been on ways to save money.  Before having my first child, I worked as a loan officer. Despite the fact that math is not my strong suit, I've always loved crunching numbers. I remember being about 8 when I approached my mom with a plan to start getting paid an allowance. I had it all set out. How much each job would be worth, how I would spend (and save) my money. My parents never did pay me an allowance. But that didn't deter me.

Anyway, here I am. Twenty years later. Crunching numbers. Clipping coupons. Turning off lights. Hang drying clothes. Ditching my smart phone (soon!) All with the goal in mind of saving up enough money to buy some land & build a house.

We bought our current home when we were first married. To say it was a fixer upper would be an understatement. It is a double wide trailer with an added on kitchen. The master bedroom had a hole in the subfloring. The carpet was (still is actually) blue. The walls were horrid wood paneling.

The guest bath was adorned in turquoise & purple.

3rd bedroom flooring

But none of it compared to the classiness of the master bathroom. That's an Eeyore decal on the wall, and, yes. The word "Pooh" is spelled out in tile on the floor.

Why on earth would anyone buy a "house" like this? For one, it was incredibly cheap. And two, it had a pretty amazing kitchen.

We figured we'd fix it up, sell it, & double our investment. Then 2008 happened and the market crashed. Nobody was buying houses in our area. And we'd had our first baby & were pretty settled. So we just kept working on it as time went on. One project at a time. We started having kids and the five years flew by. I honestly thought we'd only be in this house for 5 years. It's been 7, and we'll likely be here a few more. But that's ok. We're content. Content but working towards the next big thing. A house. With acreage. Within a few miles of our our small town, but not IN it.

Getting Frugal-er

Maybe that should say "Getting More Frugal". I was trying to be clever. Eh.

Winter is coming. We'll have one more "surge" of income & then things will be tight until March. This happens every year. My husband works in a more or less seasonal industry. When things are slow, he'll bring home half as much as he does when business is...busy.

We've been putting money away, but our furnace recently died. More specifically, the fan motor. So obviously that needs to be taken care of. Fortunately we have the money on hand, but we did have to dip into our mini e-fund.

All that being said, I think the first place to cut back is groceries. I think we do ok with our grocery shopping, all things considered. We live in a small town with only one grocery store chain (Safeway).  We are 30 minutes from the nearest Walmart & about 45 minutes from all other major stores. We're a family of 5. 

It's becoming very clear to me that we need to go a step further in order to make our grocery budget stretch a bit more. I know that this will mean:

Stockpiling on sale items
Creating a Master Grocery List
Creating a Master Meal List
Making & Utilizing a Price Book
Buying in season produce
Freezer cooking
Buying Bulk
Making my own cleaning supplies

So that's the plan. 

Beginning with the End in Mind.

There is a great thread on the Well Trained Mind forum (henceforth known as WTM) asking for advice from homeschoolers that have been at it for 10+ years. Naturally, it's filled with brilliance.  My favorite piece of advice, though, was this.

So. My 4 year old son.

In 16 years.
He's learned to drive.
He's graduated high school. Public or otherwise.
He's working. Maybe through college. Maybe not.

But what else?

I hope he is kind. Generous. Happy. That he is passionate about life. I hope, with all my heart, that he knows & loves Jehovah God. Whether he loves Him or not is out of my hands.  That depends on my son alone. But I can give him knowledge.  I can equip him to make his own decisions. That much I can do.  If I can inculcate in him LOVE; love for God, love for others, a love of learning, I will count our journey a success, and I will thank God for leading me.

Of course I want my children to read and write. Fluently. To do arithmetic and beyond. To be well acquainted with the world around them. And how it came to be. How they came to be. I hope he has knowledge of mankind's past mistakes, and I hope he can learn from them.

But that's icing on the cake. I truly believe that success or failure is measured by how we treat our fellow man. I believe it is measured by how we're living up to God's standards. How God views us. And I'm quite certain that God doesn't mind that I'm not fluent in Calculus. 

I hope in 16 years, my boy (now  a grown man) can cook for himself and do his own laundry. I hope he can keep a tidy home. I hope he is a good, loving man. A humble leader. Whatever path he chooses, I hope he walks it with confidence.

These are the things I hope for my son. The things I hope to help him accomplish in the next 16 or so years.

Right Start Math: Why I Chose it & First Impressions

I don't think I'll ever be NOT overwhelmed by the resources available to homeschoolers. Which, of course, is wonderful, but it does put cause me to feel a lot of pressure over curriculum choices.

Our math curriculum is especially important to me because, well, I'm terrible at it.  And you really, truly cannot get away with not doing math in day to day life. It 's very important to me to lay a strong foundation. That being said, here's some factors that lead me to Right Start.

• It's conceptual: I've heard Right Start described as a good program for an 'American taught' instructor to teach the Singapore method of mathematics. Singapore math focuses on the why before the how, rather than the other way around.
• It's heavy on manipulatives, light on worksheets: My boy doesn't mind worksheets (and I love them) but I think it's important at this age and for firm foundations to be able to "see" things. I love that it's hands on.
• It's a combination of spiral & mastery-The spiral vs. mastery theory gets my head spinning every time. I see benefits to both, and both will be a better 'fit' for a certain type of learner. The fact that Right Start claims to be a combination makes it an easier choice for me.  
• Based on mental math rather than counting by rote. 

Some concerns (prior to seeing the curriculum first hand):

• Cost: Choosing Right Start for our curriculum turned otu to be the easy part. From tehre, I had to decide whether to start with level A of the 1st Edition or the 2nd. The 1st edition costs $110 for the starter kit. The 2nd edition? A whopping $255. Why the price difference? The 2nd edition kit comes with ALL of the manipulatives....for all of the levels. And Right Start says that most of these things will be used in Level A, too. But, after talking to a homeschooler who HAS the 2nd edition; most of the manipulatives are NOT needed for Level A.  I ended up buying my 1st Edition kit gently used.
• Teacher intensive: I'm actually ok with this. At this age, pre-reading, pretty much everything is teacher intensive. Besides, I'm truly looking forward to 're-learning' math.
• It's conceptual- for someone who didn't learn math conceptually, teaching math taht way does give me a bit of pause.

 Once I received the curriculum & flipped through it, here's some things I noticed:

• Very few worksheets. Very. I think I counted 27 worksheets to 77 lessons. This is something that Right Start prides itself in; keeping everything hands on. 
• The manipulatives look very simple. Nothing too "What the heck is this & what would I use it for?" I like that.
• Looking further in on the lessons, I've noticed that they encourage you to say upper numbers differently. For example "ten-1" if eleven and "2-ten" is twenty.  "2-ten 5" is twenty five. This will take some getting used to. Shawn already knows his higher numbers as eleven, twenty, and twenty five, but I don't think he'll have any trouble switching back and forth. 

All in all, I'm anxious to get started. The kids caught sight of the Abacus and have enjoyed playing with (and fighting over) it over the past few days. Surely that's a good sign.

Looking back: Our year in review

I use the term 'homeschooled' very loosely here. I aimed for sit-down-at-the-table school work 3 times a week. Sometimes it happened, sometimes not. But every time we sat down to 'do school' the kids would tear through whatever I had planned/thrown together and ask for more. Since fostering a love of learning is at the top of our priority list, I feel pretty good about that. 

I stuck my toe in the vast ocean of curriculum and discovered some really great products. Here's a few things we did (and my thoughts on them). And just for a reminder, my son, Shawn, is 4 and Laila is 2. Initially, I tried to keep her away from anything real formal, but she wants to do everything her brother does.

Ready2Read: I've only purchased Level 1 Unit 1 but it is a huge hit.  My 4 year old loves the puzzles and there are plenty of activities to go along with. I will probably purchase more to supplement our other phonics programs. I haven't figured out a good way to organize it all yet, but well...I haven't put forth a lot of effort to do so, either. Annie has a ton of other printables for sale, and I do plan on using a number of them for my PreK girl this year.

Bob Books: These are good; but Shawn tends to memorize the books rather quickly. I definitely don't feel that they are enough to be a stand alone phonics curriculum.We'll probably continue with them in some form or another.

The Reading Lesson: This is ok. It's kind of dry but we really haven't used it consistently for long enough for me to dismiss it. We're taking it nice and slow. The minute Shawn gets frustrated, we move on to something else. He does read with them. I wish it were more hands on, but that's where Ready2Read comes in so handy.

Singapore Math: Love the idea behind conceptual based math. I got the Singapore Essential Kindergarten A workbook and it is more PreK level than K, I think. Thought it's below his level, Shawn does enjoy it. We'll be using RightStart Math this fall.I love that it's based on the Singapore method and is very hands on. I've heard its a good teaching tool for those of us who learned to do math the 'American way'.

Handwriting Without Tears: I bought the Kindergarten Teacher's manual as well as the kindergarten & PreK workbooks. This was Laila's first official workbook and she LOVES it. She also loves the "At the Top!" song. I bought a CD to go with HWOT, but I accidentally bought the preK CD instead of the K CD. Arg. I really wish it was available to download. I bought the Alphabet Construction set to go with it, which the kids & I both love.

Morning Work: I blogged about this before, but we are STILL loving this little booklet. It's a nice way to transition into our school day & it has enough different activities to keep my guy's attention.  Shawn's finished the upper case letters & now gets to draw ladybug spots to match the number, which he adores. I'll definitely be keeping this up & purchasing the next one when the time comes.

Education.com: I used this to make my 2 year old her own little morning workbook. I just printed out some color by number, tracing, patterns, and other various worksheets. She's not great about seeing the need for following directions :) so she went through this really fast.

Butterflies:We ordered & observed our own caterpillars turn into butterflies. The kids really enjoyed it, but I think I was even more enthralled by the whole process. I plan on doing this every year.

Kiwi Crate: I really like the idea behind Kiwi Crate and I've only ever got one Crate that I wasn't very excited about (the Earth day one...that being said, we haven't done it, so the kids might adore it). On the other hand, I always end up feeling bad because most of the stuff just ends up getting thrown away later on. But, I suppose that can be said about a lot of craft stuff. Our subscription is on hold now, but I still plan on getting it from time to time. It would be great if they offered an every other month subscription. I think this makes for a great gift idea.

Costumes from the bird themed Kiwi Crate

ABCMouse.com: I have a love/hate relationship with this site. But now that I'm typing, I'm not sure what I hate about it. . .I think Shawn is starting to grow out of it, while Laila is just starting to get the hang of using the mouse & doing the activities.

Board Games: We played Sorry! which helped us start counting past 10 (as did hide & seek) and helped with 1:1 counting. We also learned taking turns & good sportsmanship.  My favorite though was Scrabble.  We got the current favorite book (Click Clack Moo at the time) and picked out words & then copied them on to the board. Eventually it turned into Shawn picking a random word, me writing it, and him finding the tiles. Lots of fun!

2013-2014 Curriculum Choices

The choices when it comes to homeschooling are overwhelming to say the least.  Living in Washington state, I can more or less teach what I want, how I want (especially since schooling isn't even required until age eight). At the kid's current ages (Laila will be 3, Shawn will turn 5 in November, missing our district's kindergarten cut off) a curriculum really isn't necessary. Really. But I like structure and I see any curriculum as nothing more than a tool. It isn't the boss. The minute it starts causing more problems than it solves, out it goes. 

Originally I had decided to enroll in an online charter school. Then I decided against it. Back and forth. And again. Currently, I'm leaning towards going it on my own. The Charter school just closes too many doors. No Handwriting without Tears. No year round homeschooling.  Their only viable (in my eyes) option for language arts is Moving Beyond the Page. And I'm not 100% sure I want to do that. Of course, the biggest 'pro' for the Charter school is that I wouldn't have to pay for the curriculum (their selected curriculum). This would be huge bonus if I had my heart set on the (very expensive) Moving Beyond the Page. But I don't.

I have discovered that I am very drawn to the Charlotte Mason approach to education. Bible memorization,focusing on character values, short lessons. I like that. Having said that, my priorities this year are to instill good character values & a love of God.Then Reading, Writing & Arithmetic. Here's what's in my toolbox for my kindergartner.

Math: Right Start Math. I love that this is conceptually based & very hands on.We'll be starting with Level A.
Reading: My oldest will probably sit in on our AAR Pre-Reading with my Preschooler, but he'll primarily be doing The Reading Lesson as well as Bob books. I might add in Explode the Code...but maybe that's overkill. We'll see how the year goes.
Writing: Handwriting without Tears. Love this program. I'll also have him copy down the scripture of the week.
Science: Elemental Science. I'm really excited to try this out.
History: We'll be focusing on Bible history for now. I'm also excited to introduce the Little House on the Prairie books to the kids.

For my Pre-Schooler:
Math: Whatever. The girl can already count to 20 and knows patterns, shapes, colors etc. We may, at some point, do some Singapore EarlyBird...we'll just see how much she wants to do.
Reading: AAR Pre Reading Level and lots of read alouds
Writing: We're working through the PreK Handwriting without Tears. She loves it.
Science: She'll sit in on Elemental Science if she wants.
History: Same as her big brother.  

I'm working on a list of Read Alouds to work through this year. I'm tentatively planning on some form of year round schooling...but I haven't delved any further into it than that.  I need to bulk up my homeschooling fund, so I've got some time to plan :)

Weekly Wrap-Up

It was a good week. With an 8 month old now officially underfoot and crawling like a mad man, we're finding a new groove. The baby has been waking up earlier, thereby taking an earlier morning nap, which affords us more uninterrupted school time.

I found a local homeschool group and I was excited to find out that they do weekly meet ups at various local parks.

This week, we made a concerted effort to reduce screen time.  Which, naturally means more Mommy involvement (which, of course, is good and ideal, even if it is more challenging). We played a lot of Memory (and the kids shock me every single time with how well they do). In the morning they asked for their various screens quite a lot. I had to make suggestions of alternative activities time and time again, but by the afternoon, they had quite easily slipped into the 'new normal'. And were thinking of things for us to do themselves. And you know what? It felt good to say yes.

I also made Shawn a Morning Workbook. I made the cover in PSE using a couple Digi Scrap kits I had in my 'stash', then laminated it and bound it. We love it.

For the actual work part I printed off Teeny Tiny Teacher's Kindergarten Morning Work. It's perfect. Shawn insists on doing at least 2 pages at at time; each worksheet has just enough to keep things moving, while getting him in the 'school time' mentality. I love how the coloring portion is smack in the middle. Shawn is still in the very beginning stages of writing, so I write some things down in highlighter and he traces it. This is the best job he's ever done at writing his name. :)

I'm sure I'll write more on the subject, but Shawn will be 5 in November, and up until this week, I had fully intended to do "Public School at Home". Fully Intended. But I'm rethinking that now. And in the last 2 days I've gone from 95% planning on doing the school-at-home-thing to 95% planning on going it...on. my. own. It's only Kindergarten, right? And by golly, if I want to spend a month immersing the Littles in what life was like in the days of the Pioneers then I think I should be able to do that. And for it to count. Because it does. Of course it does.

So that was our week. I hope the next goes just as smoothly. 

I'm Linking Up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

In my life this week....

In my life this week…

The beginning of the week can be summed up with two words: Stomach flu. Only my husband and the baby got away healthy. We were literally up all night with a vomiting 2 year old. On the upside, my 7 month old slept "through the night" for the first time the same night.You win some you lose some. 

We also got a new (to us) minivan! A 2009 Town & Country. It's the newest car we've ever owned, and the best part is that we  paid cash! Very, very cool! My husband & father in law drove 6 hours (one way!) to claim this Craigslist find. The hubs insisted it was worth it.

I'm grateful for....

Our typically healthy state. It's pretty rare for us to get utterly wiped out like that, and, here we are, just a few short days later and we're all up & running again.

Things I’m working on…

A positive reinforcement chart. This is just as much for me as the kids. I find myself nit-picking lately. Not being clear as to what my expectations are. Like I said, we've all been sick so it's been an "off" week, but this can't become a habit.

We'll also be working on the 7 creative days for our Family Worship Evening, so we'll help the kids create a book depicting each 'day'.  I'm going to try to get most of the components ready before hand.  I'm ridiculously excited for this project.

My kids' favorite thing this week...

Corn meal in cookie trays. I saw this idea on Pinterest; initially I was utilizing it for honing pre-writing skills. The kids did that for awhile and then the cars came out to play. My oldest son (4) spent no less than an hour at a time driving the cars, making hills, burying the cars. He just couldn't get enough of it! My 2 year old daughter loved it too. She also spent a good amount of time using spoons and measuring cups.

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of corn meal that ended up "escaping" their trays, but I'd say the mess was well worth it. 

I'm linking up to the Homeschool Mother's Journal over at the iHomeschool Network

hello.

I wish I had a Pinterest worthy photo to go at the top of this post. Maybe that would make me feel better. More at ease. Introductions are always so awkward.  Who are you? Why are you blogging? In this time...in this place...what could you possibly have to offer? What new thing do you have to say? Fortunately, almost no one reads the first post of a blog at the time it's published. It's not usually until after they're somewhat of an established reader. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. 

Well, my name is Jenna. I'm blogging as an outlet.  If I were to "type" what this blog is going to be I'd have to say a "lifestyle" blog. That's right. THE catchall of blog types. The I'll-write-about-whatever-comes-to mind-blog.  If you happen to get anything from it; well, that's great. That's the cherry on top.


I'd like to tell you that I'm going to have something witty to say every week. Three times a week. That I'm going to have tips and stories and how not to's on a regular basis. That would be nice.  But we're just getting started out; so let's not over commit. I have three kids; three wonderful under-the-age-of-four kids.  And I'd like to keep the As-Soon-As-I'm-Done-With-This-Post-Honey's down to a minimum.

You can be sure that when I do post there will probably be run on sentences. And typos. Because always, almost always, something done imperfectly is better than something not done at all for fear of imperfection. Maybe that will be a big theme of this blog. Accepting the 'less than'. Fixing what we can and accepting what we can't (golly--that sounds familiar--accepting the things I cannot change & whatnot).

So, hello. I'm Jenna. And there may be more awkwardness to come.