Debt Snowflake Challenge Week One and Having Fun!

Happy Friday fellow bloggers and followers. It has been a great week for snowflaking. It's so motivating to collect up my little "flakes" and package them for debt repayment!

Why I have never tried this, I will never know! For several years I have read lots of blogs which practiced this method. Everyone had wonderful success too, but did that motivate me? Nope!

Recently I stumbled upon this wonderful blog. Melissa will be updating every Friday. She had had some great luck this week with a unexpected deposit fee. Stop by and see what all the buzz is about!

The hubby and I have decided that all of our snowflakes will be tucked away in our new ING Electric Orange account.Then once monthly they will be assigned to the smallest debt to quickly clear up according to Dave Ramsey. I know its not the popular method over paying off high interest debts first but I like Dave's ideas. He the the "go to" guy in my book.

Here is the breakdown for this weeks "flakes".

Profit from my little baking gig $94.00

Rounding off my hubby's paycheck to the nearest ten dollar increment $8.65

A check for $2.84 from old insurance company

This makes a grand total of $105.49! In the old days this would have floated away somewhere on the weekend. What a waste! But no more, every dollar is going to work as hard as we do!

I am kind of still in limbo on what to do about my coupon savings $ and the balance in my grocery envelope. Currently they are hanging out together. The plan for now is to build a stockpile of no more than 3 each items of all our toiletry and household supplies. We have only two choices for grocery shopping in a 40 mile radius Walmart and Aldi. Not as great as I would like but I am determined so save regardless.

I welcome any input on this. I would love to hear how you all do it. You just gotta love feedback from the pros! Have a wonderful weekend and happy snowflaking. I am off to see how everyone else did with their first week.
Hugs, Deb!!!

More Frugal Blog Love!

                                                              photo credit: pennyjar.org


So glad you dropped in! I hope everyone is enjoying the new year. I was blessed with some free time over the New Year's break and I decided to revisit some of my old favorite frugal blogs since one of our resolutions for 2012 was getting back to frugal living and eliminating debt. I found several amazing new ones also.

One of them is Frugal In Florida. Frugal is a working mom of grown kids trying to keep it on the cheap in balmy Florida! That alone is enough to hook me! But while browsing around her blog I found out about her great plan for 2012 The Year Of Zero . Hop on over to see her rules for 2012. I personally love 1, 9 and 10. I have joined in and they are in my rules for 2012! Nothing like making blogging buddies with the same ideas to keep you accountable in the year ahead.

What rules would you have for finances in 2012? I think Frugal In Florida is going to inspire us all in 2102. What are you still doing here? Get on over there! I'm right behind you!!!! Let's all be fab and frugal!!!

                                                                   Hugs, Deb

Goals For 2012. Keeping It Real!

Two posts in one day??? I'm really going nuts hunh? In keeping with my goals for the year it is necessary. One of my personal goals is to blog more. A perk of blogging is that it keeps you accountable. Totally win-win for me!

Crystal at Money Saving Mom's is blogging about goals, setting them and being more intentional. This is a great post and a great blog! Make sure you stop by and link up with your 2012 goals.

KEY GOALS FOR 2012

1.MOVE CLOSER TO HUBBY'S WORK

This goal servers many purposes. Financial, will save $600 per month driving expenses alone. Of course this means a higher rent of $325.00 more but it will cut out huge costs on tires,oil changes and general wear and tear on the car.

The biggest benefit is that my husband will gain 4 hours a day. We are all winners on this one, not counting his safety and sanity!


2.RESEARCH AND PURCHASE A NEWER CAR

Because we live so far away...we wore out our car. As much as I would like, paying cash is out of the budget. We will have to settle for a decent down payment then pay off aggressively.


3. SNOWFLAKE DEBT

We will be snowflaking any cash windfalls, rebates, or money earned in overtime and the baking and soap business profits. I will put up my weekly and to date totals on my sidebar to keep me on track.

4.DATE NIGHT

Sadly, hubby and I put each other on the back burner! No more! We are going to set a frugal date night and keep it once a month. If you have any ideas, share them PLEASE! I will post any of our great ideas as we try them out.

5. GROW MY BUSINESS

My baking business is slowly growing, I'm catering small affairs, Doing 2 sandwich deliveries a week plus my monthly bread customers and holiday orders for baked goods TRIPLED in 2011 season! But I could do more. I will be adding products and participating in our local farmers market this year again. My soap and body product line took a backseat at Christmas. This year Country Moon Apothecary will expand and debut at the farmers market. My goal is to add at least 10 new items by the end of the year.

That's about it. Not many I know but it is a handful for us. I want to be diligent and succeed so this is just right for us. We are so excited for the new year. So many possibilities and the whole year to tackle them!

What do you want to accomplish in 2012? Share with us!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome 2012!

Hello All! It's a new year, time to make some goals for the new year! Isn't it great to have a clean slate? A whole fresh clean calendar full of possibilites! As you may have noticed, I am very exccited for a new year! What are your resolutions or goals for the coming year?

I have been surfing around looking for some new frugal and personal finance blogs. One of my mains goals this year is to make our money work harder. I have lapsed into somewhat of a unfrugal mode in the last few months. It has left me and the budget feeling bloated and wasteful. Being disorganized is the key problem that always leads me to unfrugal ways!

SO..I am getting in gear and throwing out all my wasteful unfrugal habits! I will be menu planning, cutting the fat from our budget, making better use of my coupons even snowflaking my savings and small income streams.

What is snowflaking? It is taking extra money and pooling it to pay off debt. Now this is a incredibly basic definition. There are so many wonderful examples out there so I will just let you go HERE this is a wonderful explanation.

I found Melissa's blog, Mom's Plans and I have been so excited! I'm on board for the Debt Snowflake Challenge. Please visit her wonderful blog and join in. We have nothing to loose but debt!

I have another great blog to share with you to but I thought I would do one per post. Got to give these bloggers each their due!

What are some of your 2012 Goals? I will be sharing as we go. Blogging about them is a great way to keep me motivated and accountable? How about you?

Thank you so much for stopping by. Now that I am getting on track I can frugally dream about my other loves, tablescaping and gardening. Its going to be a exciting year around here hope you will follow along! Happy New Years and best wishes in all you goals!
Deb

Halloween Tablescape Treat With No Tricks!

Hello fellow bloggers and tablescapers! It is one of my favorite times of the year! I am definatley still a kid when it comes to this holiday! I am sure most of you will agree. I am linking up with Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. I am sure there will be many trickers and treaters participating this week.

I just bacically added a few items to my last years decor. I found some smoke colored water goblets perfect for Halloween. My wonderful hubby purchased this Pumpkin overlay at Marshall's for me. I layered it with a white tablecloth and loved the results! Thanks honey!

So here it is, my litttle Halloween table complete with secret potions!!! Enjoy and Have A WONDERFUL HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by! Sorry this is posted late! Blogger just now decided to let me in. This happen to anyone else? Looking forward to all the wonderful Thanksgiving posts to come!

A Tablescape for the Birthday Star

Good Morning and thanks for stopping by! I thought it was time to do another tablescape since it's been a while. Our youngest son turned 15 over the weekend so it was a great time to pull out some dishes. Fall and Halloween are his favorite time of year. So my challenge was to combine his love of music with a bit of Halloween using things that I already had. Not easy but here is what I came up with.

I think it has a elegant tone tying in red, black and silver stars. After all 15 year olds are way too cool for a kiddie birthday table. As I am reminded. We had a great time and I made Stromboli, salad and his favorite Peanut Butter Chocolate cake.

I will be in trouble for posting the birthday boy but I couldn't resist! I wish that I had added black place mats, they would have grounded the place settings more. Next time I will set up the night before because the candle light would have served this table better. Always learning!


I thought I would add this quick and easy cake recipe also for all you other peanut butter and chocolate lovers.

Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Peanut Icing

1 yellow cake mix (from scratch just doesn't hold up)
1/3 to 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter (depending on your taste)
2 pound bag of powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 stick or 1/2 cup of room temp butter
1/4 cup of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup of crushed peanuts or nut topping (I just crushed my own with a Ziploc and a rolling pin)

First mix your cake batter to the mix instructions. Add the peanut butter and mix well. I used 1/3 cup this time but you can add up to 1/2,  any more and it doesn't work well. Pour into  two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans, I used 9. Bake at mixes time and temps. I did 350 for 25 mins. Cool layers on baking rack.

While cakes are cooling. Place butter in large mixing bowl with 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Give it a little mix. Slowly start adding powdered sugar, mixing well. Once you have half of the sugar mixed in add the cocoa. Now you can judge if you want to add some of the milk. Finish by adding remaining sugar, adding more milk till you get your desired consistency. This makes quite a bit of icing.

After cakes are cooled, place one layer on cake plate and ice just the top. Place the second layer on icing its top as well. Dipping your cake knife in warm water will help with smooth spreading. Now you can rotate cake as you ice the sides. Lastly take your crushed peanuts and press them into your sides of the cake.

I handed the bowl of extra icing to the kids and let them fight it out! It was worth the ten minutes of "When is dinner going to be ready" being silenced. Use your own discretion on sugar overload!


Thank you so much for stopping by. I am linking up with Susan for Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch.

My Weekly Blog Hopping Finds

Welcome everyone. I hope everyone is having a great fall Monday morning. I have been enjoying some time catching up on my blog reading. I stumbled on a wonderful one too. I am so excited to share it with you. It is called A Fanciful Twist, Vanessa is an amazing artist and blogger. I cant wait to dive in this blog for AMAZING eye-candy!

On October 22, Vanessa will be hosting a blog party. I'm so excited, I cant wait to participate. You can too. Hop on over to her wonderful blog. Read about it here for all the details.

So if you love being inspired by amazing photography and art make sure you head on over and lay your peepers on all the wonderfulness. Thank you in advance Vanessa and I am so excited to find your blog!

Have a wonderful Monday friends and glad you stopped in!