Decorating your porch for FALL on a BUDGET

I’ve never been one to spend a lot of money on decorations. And this year is even more a reason to keep the fall decorations budget to a minimum. My husband and I are on track to be totally debt free by the end of 2019! This is something we’ve been working on for awhile {with a few setbacks though} and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! So this year for the fall decorating budget we put aside $20…yes TWENTY dollars to create a beautiful fall scenery on our uncovered front porch.

And truthfully I wasn’t worried at all because I knew I could make that happen! A few things I knew I wanted were fresh mums and pumpkins. A bale of straw and some dried corn stalks would have been icing on the cake but sadly there was no room to splurge for these…maybe next year.

How to decorate your uncovered front porch on a BUDGET for fall

If you’re like me and don’t have a lot of money {or maybe nothing at all} to put toward your fall porch decorations here are some tips to help you to create a beautiful porch on a budget.

FIRST use what you have. This is a rule I use for decorating year round. If you incorporate things you already have you are literally spending nothing.

SECOND this one is a favorite of mine…if you have relatives that are tossing things out ask if you can have them. My father in law had this AMAZING pile of, well junk, on his property and every time we would go over there I would search through his junk pile lol! He gave me full permission to take whatever my little heart wanted and boy did I always find good stuff to take home. My husband didn’t always agree ha! A couple things I picked from his pile that I used in my fall porch décor

• the rusty old chair

• old broken window

Both of these things I keep on the porch year round and thank goodness I rescued them because they are absolutely perfect!

THIRD check your Facebook swap n shop pages/groups. People love getting rid of things, even for free. This is so my personality type too! When I’m tired of looking at the clutter I go in full on purge mode lol! Just this last weekend the overwhelm from daughter # 4’s bedroom was really getting to me. So, naturally like a lot of moms do, I took in the roll of trash bags and just started tossing anything and everything that I hadn’t seen her play with since the start of summer. It’s a little embarrassing but I filled 7 kitchen sized trash bags full of gently used toys and some clothes that he had outgrown.

FOURTH shop around for the best prices. Even though supporting small business is always on my mind because I own a small business, I do shop at Walmart. And I don’t feel guilty about it. One day when we are rich we will be able to shop small all day everyday but for now, while raising four daughters, I have to pick and choose when we can afford to support small business.

FIFTH make your own décor. If you’re crafty jump on some DIY PINTEREST boards to get some ideas of what to make. I suggest skimming your crafty stash to see what you have too. The OG barn wood looking sign is one I made, DIY PALLET SIGN for our front porch for fall. It’s actually a school spirit sign. We live in a pretty small town and school spirit is alive and well here. Since our school colors are orange and black I try to incorporate school spirit into our décor. It makes it a little more fun for our girls too because we are visually saying ‘go school’ and I know that’s encouraging for them. Just be sure whatever pieces you put out there that they are protected from the elements if needed. To make this sign I just used leftover pieces from other projects, check out these SCRAP WOOD PUMPKINS

Now that you have some tips on how to make the most of your budget here’s how I spent my $20 for my DIY fall porch decorating

• $3.98 large pumpkin at Walmart

• $2.98 bag of mini gourds

• $4.84 mum x2

• 3.96 orange spray paint, I only used 1/3 of it

Technically I went over the $20 by .60 BUT I do have 2/3 of a can of spray paint left over for another project, so in my mind I only spent 1/3 of the price for this project lol!!

I really wanted fresh mums but I couldn’t afford the GORGEOUS ones from the local farms. Just one mum would have taken up my entire budget. I opted for the cheapest large mums I could find at Walmart but they had UGLY bases. The green/brown color that just screams cheap flowers. I loved the more decorative bases but those too were not in the budget. Instead I grabbed a can of spray paint, and not the $1 can because I knew the coverage on that would be awful, and sprayed the bases orange in matte finish. This was the PERFECT solution!

See my video below on how to easily spray paint your ugly fall flower bases.

I’d love to hear how you are planning to decorate your front porch for fall. Leave a comment below ;)!

How to lose the anxiety when it comes to talking to your spouse about money

I didn’t grow up poor, I grew up in a family that made poor financial decisions.

I grew up with a very anxiety ridden relationship with money. I watched month after month, year after year, of my parents constantly fighting about it. I honestly didn’t know that it was possible for a married couple to have a money talk without someone calling names, bringing up something totally unrelated to the conversation at hand, and the other one storming off fuming and screaming as they walked away. I thought this was normal and how all married couples “talked” about money.

I thought it was so normal that I never wanted to have money talks with my own husband. I wanted so badly to avoid a possible argument because I never wanted my own marriage to be like my parent’s. It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s a very real thing. Financial anxiety. There are women like me all over the world who struggle with financial anxiety. They are so overwhelmed with the thought of a possible argument that they never bring up the finances. Money is kind of a taboo topic in society anyway throw in your own emotional baggage you have with it and it’s something you really don’t want to talk about so you avoid it.

How did I finally get over this anxiety? I came across a book called The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. It was just what I personally needed. If you are sensitive and don’t appreciate a blunt forward approach then this book might not be for your but it was just what I needed, and what millions of others needed too.

Reading this book I realized I don’t have to live in the shadow of my childhood feelings about money. I don’t have to carry that fear I had for so many years. I can let it all go. I can move forward and talk openly about finances with my husband without the worry that we might have an argument. I realized how my parents handled and dealt with their finances wasn’t normal. Yelling and name calling isn’t a normal way for adults to behave and deal with their problems.

The Total Money Makeover isn’t all about your feelings, or how to deal with anxiety at all. But by putting Dave’s teachings into play every single month I was able to slowly peel away the anxiety. I slowly got comfortable with each talk we had. You don’t have to live in fear of money conversations. My husband and I are proof that you can break the cycle of your upbringing.

Here are some tips to help if you’re feeling like money anxiety is preventing you from talking openly about finances with your spouse

• Breathe. This will help clear your head and calm your nerves. I do this all the time. I still struggle with social anxiety and sometimes it feels like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. Sitting quietly and just breathing helps so much to calm myself down.

• My husband and I rarely have an argument but not talking about things just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation about money can be just as worse as having an argument. Get uncomfortable and have the conversation. The more you do this the more comfortable the conversations will get.

• Get organized with your bills. When I don’t write them down every single month I notice my anxiety starts to spark again. Keeping my brain on track and everything written down keeps me from worry. I use a simple monthly bill tracker that fits right in my planner that I love, you can get it FREE here.

• Have a drink first. I don’t care how this sounds I enjoy having a glass of wine. It helps calm my nerves and helps me to relax. If a glass of wine does the same for you, cheers!

• Talk about the details when the kids aren’t in the room. While I think it’s important for parents to teach their children about money and the proper way to use it, having your kids in the room while your trying to talk money one on one with your husband is just going to make that anxiety and tension go up. You aren’t totally focused on the conversation while sweet little Susie is spilling her drink on the floor and little Johnny is saying “mom, mom, mom” over and over again. I’ve been there and it skyrockets my stress levels. I prefer to talk about our finances while our kiddos are in bed, watching a movie, or playing in the backyard.

• Lastly, take small steps to the money talks. Jumping full force will just set you up for failure. You need time to break down the anxiety barriers. Giving your mind room to process and day by day get over why you have your money anxiety. It’s not a race, it’s your life.

Grocery budgeting to feed your big family, how to master this so your fridge is never empty

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It’s a no brainer that the more kids you have the more you’re going to have to spend at the grocery store. But that doesn’t mean you can only afford rice and beans. You just have to get a little creative with your shopping list and meals.

We have a relatively larger sized family, there are 6 of us. Granted our girls are young, elementary aged and younger so they don’t eat like teenage boys, but don’t underestimate these girls. They can put back some food. Especially our toddler. I honestly don’t know where she puts all that food.

As our family has grown over the years we’ve learned to get a little creative with our meals to really stretch the groceries every week. Some weeks are harder than others, especially in the winter months when everyone is working on packing on that thick winter coat and it seems like everyone is constantly hungry. But that’s a whole other post all together.

How do I feed our family of 6 for $400 a month? I don’t use coupons and I certainly don’t hop from store to store to chase down what’s on sale that week. BUDGETING and meal planning. I’ll admit before my creative business took off I absolutely was one of those coupon queens. I was really good at it, even teaching others how to do the same. But those days are long past me while I’m working on building my own crafty empire for our girls to carry on if they wish.

So back to business, if you’re disciplined you too can feed your family every month without going over budget.

Almost every single meal our family eats we get it from home. We don’t eat fast food a whole lot, we don’t dine at fancy restaurants {that’s not really our thing anyway}, and our girls don’t eat school lunches. We can pack a lunch for less than $1/day per person.

Our family spends $400 a month on groceries but it’s not the same amount every single week. Some weeks we might spend $140 while others we might only spend $50. Things like meat and cheese we buy in bulk so we don’t run out of those more expensive items as quickly.

Here are the same tips and strategies I use every month when I grocery shop.

• The first thing I do each week is meal plan. You can create your own or use the same meal planner I use, it’s totally FREE. The way I plan my meals is I ask each family member something they would like to have for dinner. Most of the time it gets added to the menu but occasionally mom and dad X a suggested meal if it’s way out of budget, like steak, or if it’s something most everyone else is tired of having.

• Buy selectively in bulk. We have a membership to our local SAMs Club but we are very selective about what we do and do not buy from there. Things we buy are some meats, lunch meat, sliced and shredded cheese and that’s pretty much it for food. Everything else is a little more expensive to buy at the bulk store.

• Find a great discount store to shop at. The one we shop at weekly is Aldi. It has come a LONG way since the days when I was a kid. Most of them in our area have been given a big makeover so they are set up like a regular grocery store vs the old style layout they used to have.

• Use cash when you go to the store. We are fans of the Dave Ramsey method of using cash and it truly works. We personally do not have any credit cards but even using a debit card we ALWAYS spend more than budgeted, so use cash and you will be forced to only spend what you have in your wallet.

• Buy ingredients that you can use for more than one meal. Things like rice and potatoes can be used for lots and lots of different meals and they cost next to nothing. You can make anything from taco rice to rice pudding with a $2 bag of white rice. And with potatoes you can use them in several different dishes, shepherds pie, perogies, garlic potato wedges…mmmmmm!!! Just get creative with it.

• Pack lunches. This is HUGE! Eating out adds up very quickly. That $5-$10 at lunch every single day can add up to $25-$50 a work week for just one person.

• Try making your sweet treats. Most of the time buying them premade costs way more than if you made them yourself. Take muffins for example. Our family loves them so I will make several batches of different kinds at a time and it costs approx. $3 for several dozen muffins. If I were to buy 1 dozen muffins even at the discount store we shop at, their cost would be $4. CRAZY! Granted it’s more work but saving at least $8 to make them myself and they are probably one of the easiest baking things to make, sign me up! The same goes for brownies, cakes, cookies, and granola bars. These are all things you can make at home and costs significantly less to make vs to buy.

• One thing that we bought a long time ago that truly helps us stay on budget is using a Food Saver . We use this every single month. From left over foods that would have gone had in the fridge to freezing the meats in bulk. This is an investment worth your hard earned money.

• Last but not least buy in season. Produce prices change from season to season so those foods are typically next to nothing during the summer months. That’s when our family eats an abundance of the fresh stuff. Not that we don’t eat any in winter, but our dollar doesn’t go as far in the winter so we are extra selective about the produce we buy during the cold season.

I hope these tips help when you’re grocery shopping for your large family. I know without these tips our family would be WAY over budget every single month.

50 activities to do as a family that won't break the bank when you're on a budget

50 Budget friendly activities to do as a family, affordable family fun

Having a big family is expensive. From the cost of living to healthcare, it’s definitely not cheap. But having fun as a family doesn’t have to break the bank. There are so many free and inexpensive activities you can do and honestly some are way more fun than blowing a whole paycheck at the theme park.

Here’s my list of 50 fun things to do with your family if you’re on a budget.

1. Park

2. Library

3. Walks around the neighborhood

4. Free days at the zoo

5. Local state conservation park

6. Explore a small historic town nearby

7. take a tour of the local fire or police station

8. Bonfire

9. Bike ride

10. Visit a local farm

11. Botanical garden

12. Small local museum

13. YMCA {this does require a membership but it’s super affordable and you’ll definitely get your monies worth}

14. Skating rink

15. Local pool

16. Picnic

17. Make a meal from scratch

18. Do a family craft

19. Play a game of cards

20. Family yoga in the backyard

21. Bird watching

22. Go on a hike

23. Clean up a local park or school yard

24. Make a fort in the living room

25. Camp in the backyard

26. Stargaze

27. Feed the ducks

28. Play charades

29. Play a game of kickball

30. Roast marshmallows

31. Jump in the leaves

32. Find a local creek and look for arrowheads

33. Make cards and deliver them to the local nursing home

34. Find a dollar movie at the theatre

35. Go to a local high school play

36. Plan and make dinner all together

37. Paint rocks and hide them around your town

38. Visit a local flea market

39. Make a family dream board

40. Wash the family car together

41. Have water balloon fight

42. Go fishing

43. Research your town’s history and then go out and see the sites

44. Bird watching

45. Visit a local spray park

46. Make a bird feeder using recycled materials from home.

47. Take goofing family pics at the park using your phone and a tripod

48. Volunteer at the local pet shelter

49. Find a local festival with free activities

50. Have a karaoke night

I hope you get some fun ideas from this list and even add more of your own.

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