Winkflash is currently offering 10 Christmas photo cards for $0.99 shipped. But you need to hurry, because this offer expires on Nov. 5th. So grab your camera & get a pic of the family!
Thanks, MoneySavingMom!
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
1st Christmas Card Deal - 10 Winkflash photo cards for $0.99 shipped!
Don't we all love getting darling pics of everyone @ Christmas? I love it, and I love doing it. But it can add up to be a huge part of the Christmas budget. So every Christmas I do my best to coupon & order from a lot of different spots as deals pop up -- to see just how cheaply I can get our cards. This year I'm going to share each & every card deal I land....so you can reap the benefits of it, too!
Winkflash is currently offering 10 Christmas photo cards for $0.99 shipped. But you need to hurry, because this offer expires on Nov. 5th. So grab your camera & get a pic of the family!
Thanks, MoneySavingMom!
Winkflash is currently offering 10 Christmas photo cards for $0.99 shipped. But you need to hurry, because this offer expires on Nov. 5th. So grab your camera & get a pic of the family!
Thanks, MoneySavingMom!
Monday, October 28, 2013
a new way to thrift
sometime i'll share the list local thrift & consignment shops that I love to hit up. but I need to just start with this one, because it has changed my life. Appleton recently opened up a goodwill outlet. yes, a thrift store outlet. where you load up your cart & pay by the pound. they roll out bins & then keep rolling in new ones the entire day, so the store is constantly changing all day.
I couldn't tell you how much I spend on each item (i'm not patient enough to weigh each thing to see if it's 25 cents or 75 cents!) but I can tell you this....I always leave with a 1/3-3/4 cart filled with mostly clothing & a few home goods & have paid anywhere from $16-28 each time. and i'm finding used clothes in BETTER condition than I do in my local thrift store. please know that i'm an average size, so i'm used to either not finding items for myself or having the items in my size being very used & worn at thrift stores. my favorites from my trips the last 4 months or so:
* brand new condition tops for myself from the limited, gap, etc.
* a like-new pair of jeans from lands end for myself
* snow pants for henry
* a stack of 10-15 piano books by classic composers (valued new @ $5-20 each!) for $5
* a new condition Cuisinart muffin pan (YES, I scrubbed it. it was from a thrift store!)
okay, if you have thrift store issues & just find the trip to be an unpleasant experience, please take along these tips before you give it another try.
1. don't go thrifting for one particular item. bring along your list of all the items you & your family will need in the next year. thrifting for the year makes a successful trip. it is a GREAT investment of time, b/c you are using your time to stockpile for the future needs.
2. have an idea of how much you will or won't pay ahead of time for a specific item. it is possible to thrift away all of your money for things that are lower quality -- it is much better to swipe ultra-cheap thrift finds.
3. expect the store environment to be less comfortable than a normal store. look at it as a fun treasure hunt & a sacrifice you make to save $ for your fam. thankfully, you can toss your items in the washing machine when you get home & take away any old or catty smells. I have the kids wash their hands after every thrift trip.
4. get rid of all pride. there is no shame in thrifting. I laugh when my kids get into it & are enjoying the hunt. doing things that help break them out of the American ideal that the goal is to make enough money so we never have to "stoop"....that alone is worth trips to the thrift store. I want to raise humble kids & this is one step towards that end. granted, I used to be forced to thrift to make ends meet back when we were newlyweds. we are now at a spot where thrifting could be out of our lives & we could just buy new, but I think God has so much better use for that $. right now thrifting is helping us put away extra for our adoption.
5. thrifting is one ethical way to not participate in the slave labor that many American brands participate in. for us, it's freeing up $ so that most new items can be fair trade or ethical.
I couldn't tell you how much I spend on each item (i'm not patient enough to weigh each thing to see if it's 25 cents or 75 cents!) but I can tell you this....I always leave with a 1/3-3/4 cart filled with mostly clothing & a few home goods & have paid anywhere from $16-28 each time. and i'm finding used clothes in BETTER condition than I do in my local thrift store. please know that i'm an average size, so i'm used to either not finding items for myself or having the items in my size being very used & worn at thrift stores. my favorites from my trips the last 4 months or so:
* brand new condition tops for myself from the limited, gap, etc.
* a like-new pair of jeans from lands end for myself
* snow pants for henry
* a stack of 10-15 piano books by classic composers (valued new @ $5-20 each!) for $5
* a new condition Cuisinart muffin pan (YES, I scrubbed it. it was from a thrift store!)
okay, if you have thrift store issues & just find the trip to be an unpleasant experience, please take along these tips before you give it another try.
1. don't go thrifting for one particular item. bring along your list of all the items you & your family will need in the next year. thrifting for the year makes a successful trip. it is a GREAT investment of time, b/c you are using your time to stockpile for the future needs.
2. have an idea of how much you will or won't pay ahead of time for a specific item. it is possible to thrift away all of your money for things that are lower quality -- it is much better to swipe ultra-cheap thrift finds.
3. expect the store environment to be less comfortable than a normal store. look at it as a fun treasure hunt & a sacrifice you make to save $ for your fam. thankfully, you can toss your items in the washing machine when you get home & take away any old or catty smells. I have the kids wash their hands after every thrift trip.
4. get rid of all pride. there is no shame in thrifting. I laugh when my kids get into it & are enjoying the hunt. doing things that help break them out of the American ideal that the goal is to make enough money so we never have to "stoop"....that alone is worth trips to the thrift store. I want to raise humble kids & this is one step towards that end. granted, I used to be forced to thrift to make ends meet back when we were newlyweds. we are now at a spot where thrifting could be out of our lives & we could just buy new, but I think God has so much better use for that $. right now thrifting is helping us put away extra for our adoption.
5. thrifting is one ethical way to not participate in the slave labor that many American brands participate in. for us, it's freeing up $ so that most new items can be fair trade or ethical.
revamping christmas
so now that Christmas shopping is coming to a bit of a close for me, i'm going to share some of my favorite spots to make purchases count. and first, please know....
i am lazy, so researching things like crazy for Christmas has been just a bit painful. i stumbled on a post from jen hatmaker last Christmas...and it kinda turned my approach to Christmas upside down. if i'm going to be spending $ on gifts, i want to make the $ i spend count....and i truly want it to be used to help others...rather than harm them.
this is hard for me, because.... i'm super cheap. like....it needs to be 60-90% off retail price cheap. and fair trade or ethical items are rarely cheap. because that's what it's about -- the power of the dollar being used to help others out of poverty. so how in the world can i choke out the $ to buy gifts with impact?
1. buy less. (?!?!?) i wish i could say this is easy, but it's not. spend less where i can & limit the amount. @ Christmas, we're doing the 5-gift plan for our kiddos: a gift you wear, a gift you need, a gift you want, a gift you read & a gift to give. easy. kids get items they use, an item they really want, and something to give. (more on that later) they loved it & liked opening their gifts. :) they knew ahead of time it would be 5 & they were happy. (though i'll admit i was scared to try this last yr!) no kid looked up at us on Christmas morning in SHOCK that they didn't get enough. they were happy & much less overwhelmed than they were on previous Christmases. once the paper was shredded & laying everywhere, they didn't have to fight huge piles of gifts to figure out which one they would play with. it was an easy choice to turn to the gift they really wanted & just play with it.
2. wrap up the giving - the kids could choose ahead of time their gift to give. this year we are concentrating our catalog-flipping time on catalogs filled with gifts the kids can choose to give the impoverished in other countries. last year henry chose water, merian chose sheep, and emmett chose ducks.
3. buy intentionally - this is a new one for me this Christmas.. i have taken a lot more time to try hard to make sure the new items the kids get can mostly be products whose production & sale improve the lives of those around them. listen to me. i was numb to this until last year...i thought this hocus pocus about fair trade, slave labor, trafficking, etc. was just kind of a conspiracy theory. (ugh, so embarrassing to admit that.) but this uneducated girl did not take time to learn that some of the products i was buying really were hurting others badly. and though my purchase alone can't save everyone, it can make an impact in the lives of some. and that is enough, because when we all use our purchasing power to do that together...hurtful cycles are stopped & lives are changed. i am responsible for the ways my spending helps or hurts others, end of discussion.
try it out...check out your favorite brands at free2work.org & see where they stand. you might be surprised! they do a great job of updating the site as companies make changes for the better or worse, so it is a great resource.
4. fill Christmas with meaning - what happens when so much time is given back to us from the materialism of the holiday season? we can get back to the meaning of Christmas again. i'd love more ideas & am working each year on honing this. we keep our traditions fairly simple, b/c our lives are busy ones. but here are the couple we do each year no matter what:
* each night in december we take time as a family to read the advent book to the kiddos -- it's their favorite! and we love spending time as a family learning again about God's great plan of redemption.
* we pack shoeboxes for impoverished kids in the world & this year hope to do it as a community party
* our new goal is to be able to start finding creative ways to volunteer as a family, so the kids can see the joy it is to those who are hurting & lonely during the holidays.
i am lazy, so researching things like crazy for Christmas has been just a bit painful. i stumbled on a post from jen hatmaker last Christmas...and it kinda turned my approach to Christmas upside down. if i'm going to be spending $ on gifts, i want to make the $ i spend count....and i truly want it to be used to help others...rather than harm them.
this is hard for me, because.... i'm super cheap. like....it needs to be 60-90% off retail price cheap. and fair trade or ethical items are rarely cheap. because that's what it's about -- the power of the dollar being used to help others out of poverty. so how in the world can i choke out the $ to buy gifts with impact?
1. buy less. (?!?!?) i wish i could say this is easy, but it's not. spend less where i can & limit the amount. @ Christmas, we're doing the 5-gift plan for our kiddos: a gift you wear, a gift you need, a gift you want, a gift you read & a gift to give. easy. kids get items they use, an item they really want, and something to give. (more on that later) they loved it & liked opening their gifts. :) they knew ahead of time it would be 5 & they were happy. (though i'll admit i was scared to try this last yr!) no kid looked up at us on Christmas morning in SHOCK that they didn't get enough. they were happy & much less overwhelmed than they were on previous Christmases. once the paper was shredded & laying everywhere, they didn't have to fight huge piles of gifts to figure out which one they would play with. it was an easy choice to turn to the gift they really wanted & just play with it.
2. wrap up the giving - the kids could choose ahead of time their gift to give. this year we are concentrating our catalog-flipping time on catalogs filled with gifts the kids can choose to give the impoverished in other countries. last year henry chose water, merian chose sheep, and emmett chose ducks.
3. buy intentionally - this is a new one for me this Christmas.. i have taken a lot more time to try hard to make sure the new items the kids get can mostly be products whose production & sale improve the lives of those around them. listen to me. i was numb to this until last year...i thought this hocus pocus about fair trade, slave labor, trafficking, etc. was just kind of a conspiracy theory. (ugh, so embarrassing to admit that.) but this uneducated girl did not take time to learn that some of the products i was buying really were hurting others badly. and though my purchase alone can't save everyone, it can make an impact in the lives of some. and that is enough, because when we all use our purchasing power to do that together...hurtful cycles are stopped & lives are changed. i am responsible for the ways my spending helps or hurts others, end of discussion.
try it out...check out your favorite brands at free2work.org & see where they stand. you might be surprised! they do a great job of updating the site as companies make changes for the better or worse, so it is a great resource.
4. fill Christmas with meaning - what happens when so much time is given back to us from the materialism of the holiday season? we can get back to the meaning of Christmas again. i'd love more ideas & am working each year on honing this. we keep our traditions fairly simple, b/c our lives are busy ones. but here are the couple we do each year no matter what:
* each night in december we take time as a family to read the advent book to the kiddos -- it's their favorite! and we love spending time as a family learning again about God's great plan of redemption.
* we pack shoeboxes for impoverished kids in the world & this year hope to do it as a community party
* our new goal is to be able to start finding creative ways to volunteer as a family, so the kids can see the joy it is to those who are hurting & lonely during the holidays.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
beginnings
because i never do things in order, we'll just call this the beginning...but it's really not. since i missed the window of sharing @ the beginning, we'll just start here...1 year in.
let's just get this out of the way. we are normal people. our marriage isn't perfect, we have kids who act up & are way naughty @ times, and our home life probably looks a lot like yours. if you have a cluttered house & struggle with keeping paper piles organized, that is. we just love Jesus & have talked about adoption as a distant possibility in the future since the beginning of the marriage. a very normal thing to do, as statistics show that over half of couples consider adoption at some time or another. and as the years are passing by, i've realized that i have a choice to move forward with that conviction or just continue to sit on it & do nothing. but moving forward is uncomfortable, filled with a world of unknowns, & a ton of saving & fundraising to make it happen.
so how did we make the decision? nope, no amazing story to go with it. just a deep conviction as we prayed that we need to be obedient to do what God put on our hearts. and the unknowns were big. after we shared we were moving forward & started raising funds, we realized we had no idea what we were doing. i had no idea i was supposed to choose a country to adopt from before we chose our agency. (!) that was a huge task for us. we're the couple at the restaurant that asks the waitress to come back at least 2 times...b/c choosing our meal is just an overwhelming task. kinda weird...but that's us!
we took 6 months to figure that out & seek God -- and honestly we still had no huge obvious message from God as to where to go. so we went with our gut & the country we felt led to... ethiopia. i love african babies & children and my heart has gone out to the impoverished of africa for years. i always thought i needed a deeper reason than that -- but i finally grasped that a desire to make a difference in the life of an orphan is enough of a primary reason.
then came the work of researching adoption ethics & figuring out what adoption agency to go with. but this summer, we finally took the leap to go with AWAA. this fall we are lined up with our local home study agency & moving forward again. and i cannot contain my excitement.
they call this stage the paperwork pregnancy -- and i've always thought the term was SO weird. but here i am, acting like a typical momma. my way of nesting when we are waiting for more adoption paperwork has been to prep like crazy for Christmas. it's crazy & i was laughing at myself for my frenzy. but then this past week i received a hefty pkg from our home study agency...telling us that we have just over a month to complete 18 hrs of joint online adoption education & a bunch of other paperwork. thank goodness November's Christmas shopping is done, b/c it's going to be busy with other work!
let's just get this out of the way. we are normal people. our marriage isn't perfect, we have kids who act up & are way naughty @ times, and our home life probably looks a lot like yours. if you have a cluttered house & struggle with keeping paper piles organized, that is. we just love Jesus & have talked about adoption as a distant possibility in the future since the beginning of the marriage. a very normal thing to do, as statistics show that over half of couples consider adoption at some time or another. and as the years are passing by, i've realized that i have a choice to move forward with that conviction or just continue to sit on it & do nothing. but moving forward is uncomfortable, filled with a world of unknowns, & a ton of saving & fundraising to make it happen.
so how did we make the decision? nope, no amazing story to go with it. just a deep conviction as we prayed that we need to be obedient to do what God put on our hearts. and the unknowns were big. after we shared we were moving forward & started raising funds, we realized we had no idea what we were doing. i had no idea i was supposed to choose a country to adopt from before we chose our agency. (!) that was a huge task for us. we're the couple at the restaurant that asks the waitress to come back at least 2 times...b/c choosing our meal is just an overwhelming task. kinda weird...but that's us!
we took 6 months to figure that out & seek God -- and honestly we still had no huge obvious message from God as to where to go. so we went with our gut & the country we felt led to... ethiopia. i love african babies & children and my heart has gone out to the impoverished of africa for years. i always thought i needed a deeper reason than that -- but i finally grasped that a desire to make a difference in the life of an orphan is enough of a primary reason.
then came the work of researching adoption ethics & figuring out what adoption agency to go with. but this summer, we finally took the leap to go with AWAA. this fall we are lined up with our local home study agency & moving forward again. and i cannot contain my excitement.
they call this stage the paperwork pregnancy -- and i've always thought the term was SO weird. but here i am, acting like a typical momma. my way of nesting when we are waiting for more adoption paperwork has been to prep like crazy for Christmas. it's crazy & i was laughing at myself for my frenzy. but then this past week i received a hefty pkg from our home study agency...telling us that we have just over a month to complete 18 hrs of joint online adoption education & a bunch of other paperwork. thank goodness November's Christmas shopping is done, b/c it's going to be busy with other work!
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