One For the Money

Sometimes it can be overwhelming to even think about finances, let alone setting up a plan to actually improve them. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a great pamphlet (20 pages long) that makes finances easy to think about and to change.

It's called One For the Money and you can download it here or here, or pick it up for free at any one of these locations.

Basically it goes over proper money management, developing self-discipline (includes a debt elimination calendar), using a budget, teaching family members (including young children) the importance of work and how to make good decisions, and a few other valuable lessons. It is straight forward and easy to understand, and if finances seem overwhelming it is definitely a great resource to start you off on the right foot.

*If you haven't viewed the video on How-to-get-out-of-debt, scroll down, it's worth it!

Money, Money, Money!

This coming week is going to be devoted to topics involving money! We'll post resources, ideas, and tips to get out of debt, earn and save money, and anything else we can think of that might be useful.

For those of you who would like to contribute your thoughts and ideas to our money week, please email us so we can include you as a guest blogger!

With that in mind here is our first piece of advice (thanks for posting it on your blog Ruth!):

A Learning Experience

Our daughter will be 3 in April and lately we've been discussing ways to teach her the value of money. We want her to realize food, toys, and basically everything we have, gets paid for with hard earned and saved money. We've come up with several ideas, but one that seemed to work quite well for her was actually giving her a dollar and having her spend it.

I went with my sister-in-law to a craft store and gave Victoria a dollar (4 quarters) and told her she could spend it any way she wanted to. She was beyond excited and it didn't take long for her to decide she wanted a container to hold her treasure box coins.

We searched and searched until she felt like she found the perfect container (a little more than a dollar. I didn't mind helping out a little, especially since it was so cute!). When we got to the check-out and I told her to put her dollar on the counter to pay for her container she started crying. She told me the dollar was hers and she wanted to keep it. Which was great because then we got to talk about how she could either keep the dollar or get the container, she couldn't do both. After a few more tears she finally decided to get the container.

The rest of the day she would ask if we had bought certain things throughout the house. At the dinner table she said, "So... all of those things we get at Ikea we have to pay money for!" (I told you we love Ikea at our house). Long story short - I think she understands more than ever why we don't just go out and buy a new toy when one gets broken.

Her new bed... sort of

On Sunday night our daughter begged to have the sides taken off her crib so she could have a big girl bed. After talking to her about some of the rules of big girl beds (i.e. not joining us in bed in the middle of the night and other such things), we took the sides off. She loves it and has slept through the night without any problems. Yesterday I took her to Ikea to officially make it her 'new' big girl bed by having her pick out some bedding for it. This is what her bed looks like now:



To get a pillow, comforter, pillow case and duvet cover cover it was $36. I thought it was a great deal and luckily she chose something that we can use for a boy too.

Things She Loves

Here are a few of the things we've been enjoying lately:

Making snow castles.

The day before we put food coloring in ice-cube trays and they added a fun touch to our snow castles.

Making new hair bows.

My sister-in-law came over and we made a few different styles and colors. They were surprisingly fast and easy to make. And for whatever reason my daughter actually wants to wear them even though she has never liked hair stuff before.

Ikea toys.

She loves the train set and practically lives in the tent (I'm amazed at everything she can put in there - including the train. I'll have to take a picture when I'm not feeling so lazy!). She also can't get enough of her new stool.

Tis' The Season!

Last year we didn't deliver goodies to family and friends for Christmas. I blamed it on moving halfway across the country a few months prior, but I think it was really just laziness. So I decided this year I had better make up for last year and get something delivered to those nearby family and friends! This is what I came up with:

I absolutely love chocolate covered pretzels and they were surprisingly easy to make. The thing that took the longest was melting the chocolate, but once it was melted it was a quick process.

I had my daughter help out as well. This is how hers turned out (I think we'll just let her eat them!):

Christmas Countdown

We made a paper chain to countdown to Christmas. The days are written on one side of the chain and a fun activity is written on the other side. Like so:

Some of the activities are things we'll do as a family, others are things my daughter and I will do during the day. Some of them are family traditions as well. Here are a few of the things we'll be doing:

December 3rd - decorate tree
" 5th - make gingerbread houses
" 6th - make Christmas placemats
" 12th - sing carols as a family
" 14th - deliver goodies to family/friends
" 17th - buy presents for Daddy
" 19th - family movie night (watch a Christmas movie)
" 20th - go see the lights at Temple Square

What are some of your family traditions and how do you countdown to Christmas?