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Emerson Publications
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The Family First
Newsletter In this issue:
Dinnertime & Debt - Is
There a Connection? Back
to School, or Back to the Poor House?
Good morning!
Where has this summer gone? Seems like I was just packing up my Christmas decorations and now I'm counting the months (weeks?) before I'll be dragging it all out again. I hope you'll make the most of what's probably your last month before kids go back to school.
Many of you visited www.freezersmarts.com in the past week. If you haven't taken a look yet, you're really missing out. If you want an easier way to manage your meals and eating at home, take a look. If you go to the site, you'll see a free download with five of her easiest recipes PLUS a full 29 pages of information. If you find something you want to buy, you get a 10% discount as a reader of this newsletter.
Dinnertime & Debt - Is
There a Connection?
Jill Cooper said, "Going out to eat is one of the top five causes of debt. We go out to eat because we can't face a dirty kitchen. Get those dirty dishes out of the sink!! Keeping your kitchen empty of dirty dishes is the key to saving money."
How many times have you eaten out for one of these reasons:
Brenda Bennett, author of "What's For Diner?" has often said, "Plan to eat out. Don't eat out because you didn't plan." The cost of eating out really adds up. Even if you're "just" grabbing fast food meals, you can easily spend $5 per person. Eating at a sit-down restaurant can easily run $10 per person.
Let's say the Hall family eats fast food once a week, and goes somewhere nicer to sit down and eat twice a month. There are 5 of us. My favorite fast food is In-N-Out Burger, and going there costs about $25 (plus gas, because it's about a 10 minute drive). My kids' favorite sit-down place is Olive Garden, which easily costs $75 for all of us (and even more gas. Olive Garden's half an hour away).
Over a year, 52 trips to In-N-Out will cost us $1300. 24 trips to Olive Garden will cost us $1800. For a total of $3100. We will only have eaten 76 meals, which means that costs almost $41 per meal. Or just over $8 per serving. Plus all that gas!
Assuming my kitchen was clean & well stocked with food we like, could I feed my family for less than $8 per serving? Oh my goodness! YES!!
Money savings is the #1 reason my local freezer class participants give when asked why they participate. We make a week's worth of main dishes that will feed 6 adults for $50. Which comes to about $7 per meal for a family of six, or just over $1.00 per person. MUCH less than the $8.00 per serving average when eating out.
Freezer cooking saves us money in other ways, too.
I don't want to give you the idea that we never eat out. We go out to celebrate. Or for date night. But it's almost never because the kitchen is too messy to cook. Thanks to my freezer class and a determination to stick to my budget, eating out is a special occasion again. Not just my desperate attempt to avoid a sink full of dirty dishes.
Joey Hall is the creator and owner of
www.FreezerSmarts.com . Visit her website for your free starter kit, and
be sure to tell your friends about it! Being a Mom is a Career!
Do You Encourage Your Children to Play?
Your
children need to play. They need to play for many reasons. Many fathers today
remember spending countless hours playing with siblings or friends during their
childhood. Parents would drop you off somewhere and your imaginations would take
over as you became soldiers, famous ballplayers, dinosaur hunters, etc.
All around us, the adult world is being thrust upon our children at earlier and
earlier ages. We are encouraged as parents to help our young kids “get ahead”
academically or to buy them the latest fads in toys. As fathers, it is our
responsibility to look beyond all of this to what our children truly need. Our
children need to do what they do very naturally when they are given the
opportunity. They need to play. Are they paying you what you're worth? If not, contact us. Call 832-201-0863 and listen to a brief 10 second overview.
Back to School, or Back to the Poor House? Back to school is a time when many moms witness their money sprout wings and take flight, finding their homes at retail stores across America. I know that consumer spending is good for the economy, but I don’t take it upon myself to keep the entire US economy propped up, so when my first-grade son announced that he wanted a backpack with rollers, I saw this as a wonderful financial teaching moment. His school is small, and he doesn't walk to or from school. He didn't need rollers. I told my son that I would give him $8 toward a backpack. I told him that if he wanted a fancier one, he could put up some of his allowance money for the difference. That's the rule at our house. Mom and Dad buy the basics the kids buy the extras. It was amazing how my son’s perception of the need for rollers changed when his allowance was on the line. Yes, he has concluded, a regular backpack will do the trick this year. Thousands of parents are buying back-to-school supplies. From crayons and notebooks to calculators and lunch boxes, the list of what to buy can be as long as the list of your kids’ excuses. I know that you are anxious to get your kids back into school, but there is no need to take out a second mortgage just to get rid of them. Instead, use some of these money-saving tips from www.LivingOnADime.com and you can happily send your kids to school and keep some of the cash for mom’s back-to school celebration! *Wait for the list to come out and stick to it, otherwise you might buy things you don't need. Remember, the Bank of Mom doesn’t pay for frills. Any extras the kids want will have to be funded from their own cash reserves. I do understand that it is nice for kids to have “hip” back-to-school supplies. I look at yard sales and thrift stores for brand-name finds. For instance, I recently found a gently used Barbie backpack and a Barbie lunch box and no one would know that I paid $1.00 each instead of the $32 that Becky Johnson’s mom paid. Who says stay at home mom’s don’t make any money? *Don’t buy back to school clothes. Children don't need an entirely new wardrobe every fall. Some mom’s act as if aliens clothes-napped their kids’ clothes the night before school and the fashion police will come arrest them if they don’t buy the latest designer clothes right away. The kids wore clothes all year long, didn't they? If they need something like a new pair of shoes or new jeans then buy what they need, but don’t just buy a new wardrobe because it’s the thing to do. *Use back to school sales to your advantage. If you know your kids go through a package of socks, underwear or jeans every six months then stock up while they are on sale. The same is true of crayons, paper, notebooks, backpacks and lunch boxes. My son went through two backpacks and two lunch boxes last year, so this year we will buy two while they are on sale instead of waiting until the middle of the year when they are full price. We will also be checking garage sales between now and then to find any good deals on those items. Don’t be tempted to buy things that you wouldn’t normally use, though, just because they’re on sale. *Go through last year's school supplies to see which things are still usable. If my student has a working calculator, the Bank of Mom will not extend credit for a new one. *Limit activities to one at a time. Activity fees can add up fast. One at a time is the rule at our house. If you can’t afford the activity, it doesn’t hurt for the kids to use their own money to pay for it. The best way to teach them money management is to let them manage their own money when they have nothing to lose, instead of after they have maxed out the credit cards someone persuaded then to sign up for in college. Tawra Kellam is the author of Dining On A Dime Cookbook. For more free tips and recipes visit her web site at http://www.LivingOnADime.com/ . In 5 years, Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 personal debt on an average income of $22,000 per year. Don't leave your loved ones guessing...record
your information now.
Spending More Than You
Make
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questions or comments about this web site.
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