DIY Easter Egg Colors - and a Gift!

Yes, we are having a great time looking at all of these recipes for all-natural ways to dye Easter eggs this season.  But, I have to be honest, I am not obsessed with this all-natural stuff. If I can make it happen, great. If not, I don't freak out.  So, this is not in the all-natural category. This is more of the time and money-saving category :)

I was a bit stressed because I had gotten sick the week of the free Easter egg dye kits at Rite Aid. (Not that a buck is a big deal, I was stressed because I forgot to even get a kit!!)  Anyhow, I remembered a recipe I saw last year...and I tried it from memory. I don't even know what the other recipe was as far as drops, etc. But this worked GREAT for us!

Just grab your vinegar that we are all now cleaning with! (Check out my cleaning posts here!)  :) In each cup, put in just 3 drops of food coloring.  I suppose you could use more, this is just what I started with.  Add 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1 cup of warm water and gently mix. That's it!!!

I was tempted to try a different way of doing so with onion peels, carrots, raspberries, etc. But, for me, this was about saving time and money.  My 12 drops of food coloring that I use for everything was totally cheaper since I didn't have all of those foods already.  And, I wanted to get it done without a trip to the store. I just didn't have those little color tablets!

These colors came out great! I wish my camera was better so that you could see how vibrant they are. We still love the old "white-crayon-surprise" look to the eggs because it brings back memories of coloring them with our own parents.  To go along with our De-Cluttering series, we chose not to get all stressed out about how "beautiful" the eggs came out. We focused on having fun with the kiddos and just enjoying the moment.  That's what it's all about, right? Ahhh. Cutting out the crap.

Speaking of "what it's all about", I guess that is what Easter represents. Actually, that IS what Easter represents.  For us, it is the most important holiday ever!  What greater thing could have been done than to have our creator join us here on earth, suffer just as we do (except worse), and then choose to die for us so that we may live forever? Do you know anyone who would do that? Good golly, I am WAY too selfish to ever consider giving my life for the ungrateful sinners that we all are!  What other gift could we ever want more than eternal life? 

There is nothing that I would rather have and therefore, I need to use this precious life I have been given to do HIS work, not mine.  I realize that many of you may not appreciate this gift, just as I did not for a long time.  But, since this blog is about sharing, I feel that I need to share the best part of my life with you - Jesus.  HE is the answer to our difficulties, especially when you feel like there is no way out.  

As you probably know by now, my daughter Ella passed away in 2008.  Before then, I was living for me, myself and I. I wanted the big house, the nice car, the perfect kids and tons of money in the bank.  I would have traded it all (except my kids) if I could just get her back. In that worst moment of our lives, my husband and I found our way back to Jesus. He was all we had to lean on. And He WAS there for us. I would not be here today without him.

Now, my life is not perfect, but it is SO much better than it would have been if I had continued on the path I was on. I can't stand the importance that we place on our money and material things.  Give me food, shelter and love and that is all that matters. I would live in a cardboard box if I had to-if that was God's plan.  My little human brain has no idea how to navigate this world on my own. No one can do it on their own. We think we are super-human. And that is what is wrecking this world.

I pray that all of you find Him this Easter if you are searching for your purpose.  We talked a lot about that in our De-Cluttering and Organizing posts. He is the only answer and I would be selfish to not share Him with you.

God bless you this Easter.  I love my readers so much...and so does Jesus! <3

***Check out my other posts about spring cleaning and organizing if you haven’t already!

  Deep Cleaning The Shower

 The Mudroom

 Message Center

 Organizing Your Mind

Decluttering:The Basics

Toys Made Easy!

Don't forget to follow me: Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!

My Almost-Free Disney Vacation: Part 5 - Food

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to eat! Well, that's actually one of my favorite things to do ANY time, but we'll just roll with vacation for now! :)

We all know that everything at Disney, including food, is VERY expensive. And with a family of 5 to feed for 6 days there, I was looking for a solution that wouldn't break the bank.  If you are here for the first time, you may want to read up on the first posts of the series for a better understanding of this post:

"My Almost-FREE Disney Vacation Series (for 11!):

Part 1: The Basics

Part 2: Airfare

Part 3: Hotel

Part 4: Disney Park Tickets



Growing up, my family had just enough to get by. I never knew the sacrifices my parents made for us to have the "cool" once-a-year jeans for the beginning of school...or the spiral perm that I just HAD to have! Times were tough and even today, we sometimes have to sacrifice for our kids. But, it's totally worth it! When preparing for this trip for the WHOLE family to take (and we all love to eat), I realized that there were very few options for "discounted Disney" anything.  But, I didn't want to walk around the parks and say "no, you can't get that cheeseburger, get a hamburger instead..."  Well, maybe not that extreme, but you know what I mean! If you are caught up on our series, let's take a look at a solution:

So you've seen how we got our $5 flights from the Southwest credit card deal.  Now for those of you that have gotten cards recently, you may have noticed that you were bombarded with tons of other credit card offers soon after, from various banks.  The Southwest card is through Chase and  shortly after I was approved, I received another offer from Chase for the Disney Rewards Visa card. This was a "no annual fee" card, so I immediately investigated the rewards.  Basically, for every $100 you spend on the card, you get 1 "reward dollar". Then, you turn in your "reward dollars" for Disney gift cards. 1 Reward Dollar gets you $1 on the Disney gift card. You also get 10% off a $50 purchase at Disney Stores with this card and a few other perks. But at 1% cash back, I wasn't really interested...At least not until I saw the offer they gave me!

You see, when you see ads on TV or online for card offers, these are most often offers for the "general public". BUT, in the mail, you often get "targeted" offers, special ones just for a target audience. So, being a Chase Southwest cardholder, I received an awesome one!  Normally, the sign-up bonus for this Disney card is a $50 Disney gift card after the first use of the credit card. But my offer was a $200 gift card after spending $500 on the card in 3 months! Sign me up!  Wowee! 

Now, I had $200 to spend on food at Disney. OK, so I knew that I still didn't want to eat out EVERY meal at Disney for a few reasons: 1.) We had recently spent a day in Disneyland for my daughter's competition and it took a LONG time to agree on a place to eat, order the food, wait for the food, find a table, eat the food and get back to the part of the park you left off at. 2.) We weren't even hungry for 3 full meals that day.  Our family is a "small snacks all day" family. Our meals are small, so did we really need to plan all that time just to eat? For us, it would waste time. 3.) I didn't want to "plan" out all of our meal times. We are more of a "eat when you are hungry" family when we are on vacation. We always have snacks and drinks on hand to tide us over until the next meal.  For a nice "sit down" meal, you usually have to plan way ahead. No thanks. 

So, I knew that we may be able to swing this park food thing for roughly around $200. Now, what to do about the snacks?

I'm not sure about your kids, but getting them to sit and eat breakfast when they know they are going someplace fun is a challenge.  Our kids aren't generally very hungry in the morning, so I knew this was a time when we could eat at the hotel.  If you have read Part 3: Hotel of this series, you will see we stayed at the Walt Disney Dolphin. They had a variety of places to eat right at the hotel, PLUS, there was a nice refrigerator in our room. SCORE! In our vacation world, refrigerators rock!  So, I began to make a list of the breakfast foods they love.  We didn't have a microwave right in our room, but we did have one that we could access in the buffeteria! Another score!

OK, so maybe you are thinking, "I don't want to have to worry about making food, bringing food, storing food, etc. I just want to eat."  By all means, you can certainly do so.  However, I just want to share how much TIME this saved us as well. And, having snacks helped kill time in the longer lines for the rides and during the theater shows that little kids may not attend to very well. Our snacks were a necessity! I'd urge you to consider it if you have young kiddos:)

Now, I will write about ground transportation in another post, but I want to let you know that with our private transportation from the airport to the hotel, we were able to stop at a Publix grocery store for 20 minutes for FREE! :) This allowed the whole family to buy any items they needed and bring them to the hotel for the week without lugging all of it on an airplane. AWESOME!

Here is a list of some of the items I purchased at Publix:

-3 cases of water
-Gallon of Milk
-Bread
-Bananas, Oranges
-Cold Cuts
-Gogurt and Yogurt cups
-Cheese Sticks
-Bagels
-Cream Cheese
-Roaring Waters Juice Boxes
-Chips, trail mix
-Mayonnaise 

The store was much more expensive than at home.  But I still stayed under my $50 budget...right at $49 total! :)

And here is a photo of the food that I packed into a carry-on suitcase. Now, remember, I use LOTS of coupons, so this costs well under $25.  Some of the items included:

-Ritz, Goldfish crackers
-Peanut Butter
-Tuna Fish Pouches
-Box of Shredded Wheat Cereal
-Coffee Singles
-Cereal Bars
-Protein Bars
-Pop Tarts (hubby's fave)
-Applesauce To-Go
-Hickory Farms Cheese (non-fridge till opened)
-Candy...I needed candy.
-Fizzies (to turn water into soda...not paying $3 for a soda for the kids!)

I also brought dish soap, plates, baggies, sandwich boxes, small water bottles, plastic utensils, wet wipes and 2 insulated lunch bags.  These were all necessary for travel to the parks...well, not the plates, I used them at the hotel to MAKE the lunches!  I also had small food storage containers that sealed well to make the tuna fish in and take there without leaking.  Also, we put ice from the ice machine in them to keep things in the lunchbox cool until lunch! :)

So, you can see, we were pretty decked out with breakfast and snacks. I tried very hard to keep it as healthy as possible. And, success as far as my definition of "healthy". No danishes, donuts or 

sugary cereals for us! Very tempting, budget-wise, though. :)

The Execution:

I was SO excited to be able to enjoy the parks with my family! I didn't want to spend all morning getting 3 kids ready and then making lunches.  I had the most people in mine, so it took the most planning for the next day as far as getting everything ready. Each night, we would wash baby bottles and had the kids choose their lunches for the next day.  We'd get them ready, put them in the fridge and then just grab them the next morning!  I also made up baggies of snacks for the day as well. Each of the two bags had a kid lunch, mom or dad's lunch, water and snacks. My baby got her own diaper bag of goodies, still! :) It took a bit of planning each night and we were dead tired most of the time, but when we heard "I'm hungry" in line for the Toy Story ride, we were glad we did it! :)

Did we overspend?

OK, so I spent under $75 on food from home and Publix and had $200 for the park food. TOTALLY enough! In fact, we still have over $30 left on the card. Yeah. That was AFTER our "let's get ANY foods we want in Epcot to try!" It was SO much fun to get ANYTHING we wanted. Honestly, we were NOT that hungry at Disney. Way too much to do!  I am SO very glad I listened to the advice of others and did NOT purchase the dining plan. It would have taken WAY too much time to get the value out of it that we would have paid for after researching prices and what we actually ended up eating !  I  would recommend the dining plan to people that don't focus on budget, want the luxury of not having to plan, and have a bit more time to spend in the parks. 

Conclusion:

If you are concerned about budget, I highly recommend bringing or buying your own food to supplement your meals at parks.  Even if you want a burger there, you don't need to buy the fries and soda that go with it if you have other snacks and your own drinks that you bring. You will be surprised how much money you can save!

We had so much fun just enjoying each other there that food wasn't really our focus. I don't think that booking a fancy dinner at a restaurant with all 4 kids would have been relaxing or worth it...maybe when they are older. We enjoyed sitting in the rocking chairs outside the Country Bear Jamboree and watching the road show while we ate our own lunches on the front porch...the kids loved it!  And, we were much more relaxed as parents that we could say "yes" to those special food items like ice cream and candy apples at the parks!

Do you have a way to save money on food at Disney? I'd love to hear it! Comment below!

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest! Save money & share life with me every day!

10 Ways to Lower Auto Insurance Premiums

 

As I mentioned in my post "10 Tips For Saving Around the House", the first 3 months of the year are the most expensive in our household.  One of the reasons is that most of our annual insurance premiums are due.  In an effort to decrease the cost (as it rises every year, like it or not!), I began doing some research to see how our family could lower the premiums.

If you haven't shopped around in a while, here's what you should know!



1.  Pay Annually - When you sign up for an auto insurance policy, you most likely will have the option to pay annually, quarterly or monthly. With most insurers, if you pay on any other schedule than "annual", you will be paying an additional fee for that luxury.  If at all possible, pay annually!

2. Collision - When choosing your coverage, consider whether or not collision is worth it. Collision insurance is NOT mandated by law as liability insurance is. Collision insurance is what will pay if YOUR car is damaged or needs to be replaced.  Hopefully, chances are good that you won't get into an accident. But if you do, you need to ask yourself whether or not you need collision, or if your car just isn't worth repairing or replacing with the cost of the policy itself.  In general, people say that if your car is worth $2500 or less, you would be better off putting that policy money into a savings account to accrue interest in order to save for another car. But, you have to make the call.

3. Low Mileage? If you are someone who only drives to the grocery store and back once a week, or if you have someone in your home who does most of the driving for you, let your agent know.  Many insurance companies have discounts for drivers who seldom drive.  They usually call them "low mileage discounts."

 4. Necessity - When deciding on how much coverage you need, make sure you are adequately covered, but don't go overboard.  Remember, companies love to sell you anything you will buy.  You need to remember
what you can actually AFFORD and what is actually NECESSARY.

5. DD Course - OK, this is something I have pondered for a while and just haven't gotten around to. Yup, the Defensive Driving Course. According to the New York Safety Council, you will get a MANDATORY 10% rate in your auto insurance premium in NY. WHAT? That is huge. I need to do this. Right now, it is only $24.95 for the online course...Hmmm.....

6. Combine - Check to see if your insurance company gives a discount for combined insurance. Many times companies offer auto AND home insurance. The company WANTS to have a bunch of policies out there, that is how they make money. So, they are more inclined to give out discounts for them.

7.  Deductible - The deductible is the amount out-of-pocket you will pay once an accident occurs.  For instance, if you back into your garage and damage your vehicle, if your deductible is $200, then you will pay that $200 first and the insurance will cover the rest.   If you INCREASE your deductible, then your premium will decrease.  I would suggest that you increase it to whatever you think you could feasibly pay if an accident were to occur.  That will guarantee your lowest premiums.  When you have decided on that amount, deposit that amount into an account so that you will have it in case of an accident. 

8.  Minimal Damage - If you have an "accident" such as backing into a pole, etc. and the damage to your vehicle is minimal, contemplate making a claim before doing so.  Each time you file a claim, your insurance company may raise your premium, or even cancel your policy if they think you are an "unsafe" driver.  If you can pay out-of-pocket for the damage, I would consider doing so.

9. Multiple Cars - This, to me, is a no-brainer. However, in doing my research, I have found that people in the same household often have different insurance companies for different vehicles. WHAT? OK, know that you will DEFINITELY save money by switching them all to one company. Whew. Scary!

10.  Update - If you have an auto policy and something has changed, such as your mileage to/from work has decreased or you have a young driver with a clean record for a few years now, update that information with your agent. You may just end up decreasing your policy. It is worth the extra effort to do this every time you encounter a change if it is going to save you money!


Do you have any other suggestions when shopping for auto insurance?  I'd love to know...I'm gonna go make some phone calls!

While you are here, check out my other Money-Saving posts!

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest! Save money with me every day!

Spring Cleaning Made Easy-Part 1: Shower

Ok, folks! I know it may be hard to believe, but spring is just 3 days away! WHAT? Yes, March 20 is spring and you know what that means...SPRING CLEANING TIME!

Ick, spring cleaning...

Well, I hate it just as much as the next guy, but it is my mission to make it easier for you this year!  I am going to try writing a weekly post to help guide you on how to get through this "cleaning business" with as little stress as possible. I am going to give you tips on doing this quickly and effectively so that you will have more time to get out into that sunshine...when it finally comes! :)

Since it is Week 1, I am not going to get into "heavy cleaning", but I am going to make it a bit easier for you to do your regular "cleaning" so that you have some extra time to start the heavy stuff.

Let's start with the shower.  It is dirty and it HAS to be cleaned at LEAST once a week!



Shower Cleaning Tricks:

Shower head:

OK, is your shower head clogged and you have been showering in water that spouts in all directions, including up? NO MORE...time to get rid of those clogs!  



BEFORE - Eeeww!



My Almost Free Disney Vacation - Part 4: Park Tickets

Welcome to Part 4 of "My Almost FREE Disney Vacation" Series. If you haven't read the other parts, here they are to catch you up!

My Almost Free Disney Vacation:

Part One - The Basics

Part Two - Airfare

Part Three - Hotel

If you haven't been with me long, I began this hobby just one year ago this week! This "hobby" is what I call "The Miles and Points Game". It involves using the bonus points that credit cards give out in order to travel for free...by spending virtually little to no money on the cards!  See the other posts for more details!



So, we have covered the airfare and hotel for all 11 of our family that took this vacation. For my immediate family of 5, we spent $40 total on airfare and $120 on the hotel for 6 nights. Still under $200!  Now comes the tough part of the bargain - Disney World tickets...for 5 days!

As you may know, there are many places to buy your Disney World tickets and they come with a variety of options. You can get Base Tickets (one park per day), Park Hoppers (multiple parks per day for a hefty fee), add-ons, etc. Base tickets are the cheapest and allow you to go to any of the 4 parks on any of the days, but only one park per day.  Ticket prices recently went up in February 2014, ours were a bit cheaper last year.  I LOVE undercovertourist.com for finding the cheapest tickets!  Check out the prices there.  If you are going without points, I'd buy your tickets there, they are very reliable - some of my family got their tickets there for this trip!

OK, back to the point. Now, I mentioned that I have only been doing this a year now. I have read and read and read about this, but my family was still somewhat skeptical at the time.  They were excited about getting their hotel and airfare for basically free, so they weren't too worried about paying for the Disney tickets. Therefore, they did not seek out another card for that purpose. (Hence, buying them at undercovertourist.com) BUT, I am adventurous and have stellar credit, so I wasn't worried and figured I'd go all in!  We decided on 5-day base tickets (one park per day) since we had 4 kids and figured they would be napping in the afternoon.

I was researching cards that could be used to reimburse travel expenses with points and came across the AMEX Blue Sky card. At the time, you could earn 30,000 bonus points after spending just $500! CRAZY! The offer now is just 7,500 points, bummer. With this card, you purchase anything that is coded as a "travel" expense and then you trade-in increments of 7,500 points for every $100 you want to reimburse from your card.  No Annual Fee.  Hmmmm...the wheels were turning.

But Disney tickets aren't exactly a "travel expense", right? Then...the light bulb went off. Or "on" I should say!  The credit card erases anything that codes as "travel", right? Well, what if I bought the Disney tickets at a "travel" agency!?!? 

Applied, approved!  And hubby? The same!

So, since 30,000 points translates into $400 in reimbursed travel expenses, that was a total of $800 that we could get reimbursed! SCORE!

And guess what...it worked! We needed 3 tickets because of the ages of the kids and each were between $270 and $290ish. I forget the exact total...   Anyhow, we used our AAA membership and headed there to buy the tickets!

On one card, we bought 2 tickets for a total of just under $600. We used all 30,000 points to get reimbursed our $400!  Then, the other card bought the last ticket for just under $300.  Because the ticket was not an exact $300, we traded in 15,000 points for a $200 reimbursement. We could have traded in an extra 7,500 points to cover the 90-ish dollars, but didn't want to waste any of it since we knew that we could use it for other expenses in the future.

Overall, we spent a total of just under $300 for our 3 tickets for 5 days!  Not too shabby! :)

So, again, I have done LOTS of bargain hunting for tickets and there is absolutely no one I have found that can beat undercovertourist.com.  And they are reliable. I can vouch for that!  But if you are trying this out, consider a travel card that can reimburse anything coded as 'travel'.

Conclusion:

When looking at cheap or free travel, you kind of have to think "out of the box" when maximizing your budget. I thought ALOT about how to get outside of that box! And EVERY bit of energy, time and chaos was totally worth it! I can't WAIT to tell you about it!

Did you like this post? Share it with someone who may be able to use it. Or pin it for later if you are planning a trip to Disney!

And check out the other posts about Disney to get you started on saving on other things there!

Don't Screw Up Your Cash Back Redemption Like Me! Ugh!

 

This post is for anyone that has a CASH BACK credit card and uses it for the actual "CASH BACK" feature like I do. Or at least, I DID until I found out that I have cheated myself out of 50% of my earnings with it! AARRRRGGGG!!!!



The card I am going to feature is my FAVORITE "cash back" card. It is the Capital One No Hassle Rewards Card.

***WAIT!***    If you don't have this card, please don't stop reading! This information is beneficial for ANY cash back card you may have! I am using this one because this is the easiest way to teach you how to navigate any card that you may have, it may save you the costly $500+ mistake I made two years ago!

Now, before I get into details, there are a few things you need to find out about your cash back card and redeeming your rewards if you don't already know them by heart:

1. How are your cash back points/miles earned?  Do you get 1 point per dollar spent, or do you get 2/$ at grocery stores? Do you get 3 points for your first $1500 in purchases?  These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself. It is SO important that you know how your cards will best be utilized. It is also important to know HOW MUCH you have spent in order to earn those points you are redeeming...we'll get into that in a bit.

10 Tips to Savings Around the House!

 

For this post, I was inspired by the fact that I think our family spends more money in the first 3 months of the year than any other time of the year! Our health insurance, of course, has skyrocketed this year and our coverage has diminished greatly. Of course, I had another surgery, so the $6,000 deductible has already been met. Ugh. Then there's our home and auto insurance...they are all due in March. We have our property taxes and our expenses to open our ice cream business in April...oh, joy!

I think no matter what the financial situation may be, people are always looking for new ways to save money. So, I thought I would gather up some tips that are simple, yet easy to forget. They may not pertain to everyone, but you should be able to find a few that are helpful, I hope!

I also have a video about this on youtube at Saving Money Around the House.  Check it out if you have a second, it has some other tips on there as well! Or, you can check it out below. Wow. I was younger. A lot younger! :)

1. Are you paying for a checking or savings account? Oh, my! Before I began couponing, I had NO idea that banks even did this. I have never had to pay for an account...ever! I can't even fathom someone else charging me to keep my money for me? Um, there's not a lot of defense for this...get one that earns money, or is free at least! Also, purchase your checks online at a discount...my bank charges crazy money for ordering checks. Thank goodness they don't rope me in anymore!

2. Cut out the clutter! I have to be honest, clutter drives me insane! My husband is not a pack-rat really, but he does like to keep things that he thinks we will need...like original boxes for our cell phones....I think we had 5 or 6 before he threw the ones away for the phones we had already trashed.  Anyhow, clutter can definitely add stress to your life.  AND, some people relieve stress by what??? SHOPPING! Ugh. You can see how the cycle would continue.

But, an even better advantage to getting rid of the clutter in your home is that you can sell some of it on ebay or craigslist! Make some money while you are at it. We have countless unopened toys and clothing our kids never used. I generally give away the used, but you can make a pretty penny selling unused items, try it out!

Also, when you are making a large purchase such as a TV, car, appliance, etc...wait 30 days after you decide to purchase and make sure you are still in love with the one you are purchasing. Actually, this rule can go for many items. Well, if you are in a grocery or clothing store, you could probably knock it down to 10 minutes or so if you are unsure about an item!

Money Saving Monday! DIY Teeth Whitener - AWESOME!

 

Believe it or not, my 7-year old daughter inspired this post when she said, "Mommy, why do all the adults have yellow teeth?" Hmmmm. Well...have you ever wondered the same thing? Here are a few reasons our pearly whites look like they have been invaded by the sepia effect:

• Drinks - Are you a fan of coffee, wine, tea or soda? Prepare to be yellowed! So many drinks are acidic and can open the enamel up to being stained. Make sure to at least rinse your mouth after eating or drinking anything if you can't brush.
• Foods - So many foods can stain your teeth! Berries, pickles, ketchup and potatoes are just a few!
• Medications
• Disease
• Poor Hygeine
• Age (let me know if you find the antidote for this!!!
• Trauma

Top 10 Tips & Tricks to Save on Food - (But Coupons Rock!)

 

Ok, so many people watched my episode and have asked me for advice on saving money on food. However, the majority of people *think* they don't have time to coupon. OK, we will just go with that even though I think that excuse is not always valid. But, I have compiled some tips just the same to help those who want to start saving money! You're welcome! ;)



Here are my Top 10 tips: