General Conference

We interrupt finance week to share a post on helping kids get the most out of General Conference (I think most of you reading this blog know what General Conference is, but if you don't, go here).

We've heard of all sorts of things to help kids focus during the sessions of General Conference. What we decided to try this year is an idea I got from a friend and I think it will work well for our daughter:

We cut out the pictures of all the General Authorities and General Auxiliary Leaders, put them in various envelopes, and bought a special General Conference notebook. While we're watching conference we'll have our daughter find the picture of the person speaking (we'll provide her with the right envelope since she's so young). Then she can glue their picture into her notebook and take 'notes' or draw pictures to help remind her of what they are speaking about. Obviously, the older she gets the more effective her notetaking will become, but we're hoping this will be a fun way to start her in that direction.


What sort of things do you do for your kids? What have you found to be effective?

Money Saving

For the past 8 months we have been using homemade laundry soap. I know, I know... it sounds very complicated and old-fashioned, but it is quite simple and saves a ton of money!

The initial cost was about $11 to buy the three needed ingredients. I am about due to make another batch, which will last about 4 months. So, over the course of a year I will have spent $11 on laundry soap!

At that time I will have to buy another Fels Naptha bar (only costs $1). The other two ingredients will definitely last over the next year which means for that year we will spend $1 on laundry soap! Obviously, how long each batch lasts will vary according to family size and need, but it is so much cheaper to make it and it is no big deal for me to make it every 4 months.

Here are the three ingredients:

And here are the directions for making it:

Grate 1/3 of Fals-Naptha Bar with cheese grater. Dissolve in 6 cups boiling water. Add 1/2 cup each of Borax and Soda. Stir until dissolved. Divide into halves*. Pour each half into 1 gallon jug. Add water to fill jug. Shake jug before each use and use half cup per load.

*I actually have it in a 2 gallon container so didn't divide it in half but filled it up with water to the two gallon mark.

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.