• MSN Moneyblog Smart Spending
• Re-Creazione
• Diaperswappers
• Lazy Man and Money
• Mighty Bargain Hunter
• Almost Frugal
• Frugal Babe
• Squawkfox
• No Credit Needed
• Four Pillars
• Broke Grad Student
• Savings Makes Cents
• BankerGirl
• Funny About Money
  

The Mrs. and I took advantage of an opportunity and got away for our wedding anniversary this year. Destination: Chicago. We had a great time, despite missing the kids. While there, I began to ponder, "just how 'not the jet set' is this vacation?"

In some ways, it easily qualified. Other had me feeling decidedly jet-set. I thought it best to do a rundown of our vacation and decide it point by point.



((Mind the giant gap, not sure what happened))

Everyone always talks about the fringe benefits of dieting like extra energy, sleep better, etc. Well what about the fringe benefits of a debt diet? After having our own debt diet and helping lots of other family does the same we have found that there are lots of fringe benefits.

Some are easy to assume others came as a surprise. Here are some of those great fringe benefits you can expect to see:

• Lose Weight- If you first thought is that I'm saying to starve yourself you are wrong. We found that by not eating out we saved more then money, we saved on calories as well.
• Better Marriage- There is something magical about agreeing on a budget it. It some how makes life with your spouse so much easier. Maybe it's magic, maybe it has to do with agreeing to your spending in advance. You can make your own decision.
• Peace- There is a peace that you feel when you take control of your own life. There is nothing peaceful about uncontrolled spending. In fact, it steals your peace and sense of security.
• More Time- With less stress, less fighting, less eating you, less time shopping something else wonderful happens. You get your life back! You manage to find the time to do the things that are important to you.
• Give More- It's a great feeling to give. To give your time, your talent, and your treasure. It's a lot easier to do that without the extra weight of debt.
• Cleaner House- After you get done selling everything you don't need to help pay off your debt you have a whole lot less to clean. And trust me, you will not miss the mess!

That is what I'm afraid some houses will look like thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). A quick summary of this act is that it will force all items made for children 12 years and younger to be sold in the USA to meet a set of standards. This is a good thing, except that they are making the makers pay for all the testing. This will likely put all small and medium sized companies out of business, except for the large companies that make cheap plastic stuff in countries like China. Why? They have a larger profit margin to work with and produce mass quanities of the same toys and disposible diapers.

For people like us it means we will not have a Christmas tree with wooden toys underneath. Our kids will not have the safe toys made by a dad in Texas in his own little "Santa's workshop". It means that I can no longer buy my favorite cloth diapers made by a stay a home mom in her sewing room. This is not the world I want to raise my kids in.

I've signed the petition and sent the letters. I'm asking you to do the same. Please help to save future Christmas for the next generation. For more information please visit the Homemade Toy Alliance's website. They have great details, sample letter, and the petition to sign.

Once you've done your part post here!

Today I'm posting the last of our Thrifty Christmas series. I have been having a lot of fun writing these posts and revisiting some of my fondest memories. I've also seen lots of great ideas on the web. That is why I've decided to make this last post a round up post.

What were my favorite online finds?

• The Toby Show had a wonderful post on Stocking Stuffers. These ideas didn't break the bank and were good for the environment.


• Paula's Ponderings has a great post on how to make a Christmas ornament out shaped like a tree out of paper. These look like a fun project!


• Green Mesh had a neat short video clip about showing a govern's mansion being decorated for Christmas on a budget. I liked the idea of using natural items to decorate.


• MaryAnne from Thrifty Crafty Mama posted a great idea for a kid's craft project. What grandma wouldn't love to have this tree hanging on their fridge?
  

These were just four of my favorite Christmas posts from this year. What are your favorites? Feel free to leave links to your favorite posts.

Earlier today I was thinking about all the fun things we did in our family for Christmas. Some of them were thrifty some of them not so much. But either way, we did have a lot of fun during the Christmas season.

Here are some of the fun things I remember doing as a child that did not cost a lot of money.

• We would sting popcorn for our tree.
• We would all help with making and decorating the cookies.
• Christmas Eve we would watch holiday movies, play games and eat lots of homemade goodies until it was time to leave for Midnight Mass.
• Play in the snow (a lot) with our cousins.
• Help wrap gifts.
• Go ice skating.
• Read lots of Christmas themed books while eating popcorn.
• Cuddling by the fire.

I hope that some of these ideas help to give your family the same warm memories I have from my childhood.

What are some of the traditions that you hope to carry on with your own kids, grandchildren or nieces/nephews?

Did you like the last tip but don't have the time or the money? If that's the case then this next thrifty Christmas idea might be for you!

The best gift I have ever received was the cutest homemade gift certificates from my husband and daughter. This is a great idea for a cheap gift for your spouse. It can be as practical or romantic as you would like it to be. There is nothing better then redeeming a gift card for a foot massage or a week free of laundry duty.

What are your favorite free gifts?

I have a bright idea to share today! Everyone loves to share the Christmas cheer. Some people, like my husband, love to share the cheer through outside Christmas lights. While that might not sound to frugal to some we do try to make it as frugal as possible.

Mr. NtJS uses outside timers to help save on the electric bill. He sets the timer so that the lights kick on at 6pm and then turn off at 10pm. Having the lights on for 4 hours a night will not break the bank while spreading a little holiday cheer.

Do you do anything special with your lights?

Christmas is less then 2 weeks away! Where has all the time gone? It feels like just yesterday we were enjoying summer weather. If you need a kids gift fast but don't have a lot of money to spend I've come up with a great gift idea that seems to be a hit every time no mater the age. The best part is they are made in the USA!

I came up with this idea earlier this year when my daughter was invited to a last minute birthday party for a boy in her class. I'd did not have any of my usual premade gifts stashed away so I was trying to find something quick.

What I came up with was a personalized art kit. I was able to find art supplies at local stores that were made here in the USA. They were Crayola, Kodak, and other brands. HOWEVER, you have to read the packaging because each brand only carries a few items made here. I was even able to find small spiral bound skitch pad diaries made in the USA using wind power.

I put crayons, colored pencils and paint dotters in a pencil pouch or pencil hard case. Then I took the skitch pad and added a sheet of colored paper to it and add their name using left over foam letters from another project. You instantly have a nice sized traveling art kit with the child's name on it for under $15.

Do you have any other in a pinch premade gift ideas that are good for the enviroment and/or made in the USA?

Do you have your stocking hung by the fire with care? We do! As a child I think that one of my favorite thing were our stockings. I remember always rushing downstairs on Christmas morning to see what little goodies had been tucked into my stocking.

As a child my stocking was machine knitted and had our names on them in a very early 80's style. As an adult I wanted to have a more timeless look to our stockings. I also wanted them to look a little more upscale. Of course, I didn't really have any money to spend on this picky project.

Want to know what I did? I'm sure you have lots of great guess but you will have to keep reading to find out.


I was lucky enough to score several boxes of home decor fabric samples from freecycle. I made a lot of different items from the fabric but hands down my favorite is our stockings. I used the fabric samples to quilt together very elegant looking stockings. I also embroidered our names on them for that personal touch. This project cost me nothing since I had all the stuff to make them already.

In fact, I would say that they made me money! I had lots of people comment on how nice they were. Some of them even asked me to sew them stockings. So I did make about a dozen of them some extra Christmas cash one year.

This is an easy project and you can use any fabric you already own. I think that it would be great to take some of your daughter's past Christmas dresses and make them into the stockings. It would have so much meaning.

Did you make your family's stockings? How did you do it?

It seems like when it rains, it pours. At least at house that is always the case. In fact, at this very moment I'm really paranoid that the other shoe (or in this case the 4th shoe) will drop. Let me explain.



We started a major remodeling project in our only full bathroom over Labor Day weekend that was not planned but forced on us by the house (ie. a bad leak). It's still not complete because everything that could go wrong has. Everything in the bathroom has been complicated by the custom everything in it from the 60's. The Mr. has been putting in some very long days and even weekends at work because of deadlines and less staff after the layoff. And every time we turn around something else is happening. For example in the last 7 days we found water in the basement because of our sump pump breaking. Of course that happened on the weekend so we had to pay extra for that job. Then on Tuesday night, actually make that Wednesday morning 1 am when the Mr. got home from working late, the only toilet we have in our house broke. Of yes, 1am. In the morning with a about 3 hours of sleep we realized that it could not be fixed because it was the "guts" of the toilet that broke and it is the orginal toilet to the house. So we were forced into buying a new toilet and installing it ourselves that night as soon as the Mr. came home. All these unexpected expenses are adding up fast.

Am I writing this to complain? I'm only partially venting. I'm really writting this for another reason. To remind everyone why it is important to have an emergancy fund that is easily accessible. Just last night I told the Mr. that I was really sad about blowing $645 on emergancy house repairs this week because I was going to have to not buy the kids some of the things I was planning on buying for Christmas and I was also going to wipe clean my new deep freezer fund to pay for these bills. He just looked at me and said "Don't do that. You shouldn't have to start over we can just use our emergancy funds for this stuff". As sweet as the statement was (and it really was). In my mind I could not justify dipping into the EF with the uncertain future of the job market. However, if we didn't have the extra savings for other items I would have been transferring funds from our EF savings account into our checking account yesterday afternoon so that I could buy that new toilet.

Do you have an emergancy fund in place? Have you talked to your spouse about what you would consider an emergancy? If not, start today! If you are dragging your feet just watch the news tonight and maybe that will motivate you to start saving for that rainy day.

And one last question for you. Is it raining at your house? If so tell us about. I'd love to have others join me in this little pitty party today!

I'm glad to see you have braved the snow today! Come on in and make yourself at home. Are you having problems finding gifts for some of your family and friends? It is so hard to shop for someone who has everything they need. Well, over the past few years we have come up with a couple ideas that seem to be working.

Have a seat while I get you some hot chocolate. Then we can visit.



Every year it seems to be getting hard to find gifts for our siblings, parents and grandparents. We ended up finding solutions for all of them but it was NOT one size fits all. My mom worked for Headstart as a teacher until she retired. Before that she worked at a daycare for mentally and physically disabled children (4-5 yr. old room). My sister works for a county agency in what is kind of a social worker/ educator position. She helps families who have or are expecting a baby with a disabilty or premature baby to a teen. During my college years I work for the local Salvation Army in their office but spent my holiday breaks volunteering to help them hand out or deliver items to those in need while crashing on the Caption and his wife's couch at night (dorms were closed over break). I also went on a couple missonary trips to Haiti during those same years. For my family we have seen people in try need first hand. The best gift we could give each, is NOTHING. We just want to enjoy our time together.

So what do we do? We decided as family that we would adopt a family in the county we grew up in for Christmas. My mom is still friend's with the local social worker. She always has a family that has fallen through the cracks and was not able to get help through the normal channels. She gives us the needed info (age, sex, clothing size, etc). We intern find a day we can all go shopping together as family. We make it a fun outing and spend the amount of money we would have other wise spent on ourselves. By the end of the day we have a car load of gifts for the kids and food for the pantry. All of us wish we could be a fly on the wall when those kids open their gifts to see their expressions. But just knowing that we made what could have been a very sad Christmas into a day of joy and thanksgiving is priceless. For our family we look forward to doing this every year.

On Christmas morning at my parent's house there are only a few presents for each of the grandkids. And that is it. Everyone is happy and know one misses the gifts that could have been. We just greatful for the opportunity to spent time together and give to those in need.

Do you give the gift of giving? Have you ever given to a charity in a friend or family's name for Christmas? How did they like or dislike the gift?

Well, it's getting late and baby needs to go to bed. I'll have to visit with you tomorrow about what we do for my husband's side of the family. Be safe on your way home!

Can you believe how fast time flies? Saturday was the feast day of Saint Nicholas! I'm sure most of you are scratching your heads right now going "huh?". Well, for those of you who have not figured it out yet, we are Catholic. I don't want to spend to much time explaining our faith and the Churches doctorine so if you have questions feel free to email us or do a google search (but please only read creditable sources). But the world's beloved Santa Claus is actually a true saint, Saint Nicholas.

The Church celebrates the feast day of St. Nicholas on December 6th. St. Nicholas was a wonderful man who did countless good deeds. Two of the things he was most know for was giving the poor money and protecting children. Centries later we have spinned the truth so much that we have ended up with a Santa who seems to have different motives on a different day.

Our house is different.



We have started a new tradition to combate the comercialization and greediness surrounding gift giving. Every year we celebrate St. Nick's feast day in a big way. We start be reading the kids stories of the saint's good deads. We have a few activities like coloring pictures. Then we bake our Christmas cookies for the year. And we bake a lot of them! What do we do with them? Do we keep them all for ourselves? No way, in fact we barely keep any of them. I usually keep one or two dozen, but the rest we give away.

Where do they all go? To the people that St. Nicholas would want to have them. We take them to our elderly neighbors (5 couples) who are basically shut-ins during the winter because of all the snow and ice we get. Then we take the rest of them to true shut-ins. I call our Church office in advance (or that morning) and get a list of people along with addresses and phone numbers. Everyone is so excited to see to see a young kids at their day with fresh baked cookies. Of course they are more excited to have companionship during the cold months. If you do this, please allow enough time at each stop. Most people would like for you to stay 30 minutes or more. They really are lonely and love to watch the kids play.

This is a great chance for kids to see what the true meaning of Christmas is. Our goal is for our children to understand that it is okay to only get a few small gifts. It's really about what you GIVE not recieve. Last year our daughter meet a lady who was excited to see us and was talking about how lonely she was since her husband died. She didn't have any family left in the area and could not get out because it was to cold. After we left my daughter had a lot of questions about the lady and her husband. Even though some of those questions I would rather avoid, it was a great learning experience for her. She felt good that she made the lady happy that day.

This is one the most important days of the holiday in our home. It is a tradition that our children will remember. It is also a tradition that only takes some flour, a little gas, and your time. The spiritual and emotional benefits are countless and down playing of recieving gifts is priceless.

Some of you might be thinking that this is a great idea, if I was Catholic. You don't have to be Catholic to explain the real Santa to your kids. If you would rather not, that is okay to. Just pick a day before Christmas to explain the giving part of the season and then do just that with your kids, grandkids, neices or nephews, or even the neighbor kids.

Did you celebrate St. Nicholas's feast day on Saturday? If so what did you do?

Are you ready for some more hot chocolate? I sure am! Just looking out the window at the snow this evening is making me cold.

What have you been up to today? I've been busy working on putting together Christmas present's while my oldest was at school. Why don't you sit right there and I want to show you how I reused some of my Christmas cards from last year. Hold on while I go grab the box...




Being the thrifty green mom that I am, I save every card, gift bag, box, tissue paper, and sometimes even wrapping paper. This project is one of my favorites. I took a nice shirt box that came from a store and I cover the advertising on it with a reused Christmas card. Here is one that I made for a friend.

Wonder what is going in the box? Some homemade T-shirt bags from Relay for Life shirts I found at a garage sale. My friend's dad had cancer and she is a big supporter of Relay for Life (and a fellow green mom) so I thought that she would enjoy the message while saving the planet one shopping bag at a time.

I have so many other crafty ways to reuse Christmas cards! I just wish it was not getting so late. Why don't you come on back tomorrow to visit some more.

See you soon!

So glad to see you again! Of course you can have hot chocolate. Doesn't the fire smell good tonight? We have to make sure not to start the fire until after the baby's in bed. Now that she is crawling and trying to walk we can not keep her out of anything! That reminds me of another thrifty thing we are doing this year...



With the baby getting into everything this year we made a tough decision. We are NOT putting up our big Christmas tree. This could have been a devastating blow to our 5 yr. old daughter, but we had another plan up our sleeve. In stead of the normal Christmas tree we are doing a traditional Jesse Tree that sits up high out of the baby's reach. Our daughter colored and cut out all the ornaments for the tree herself. Every night we read from the bible as a family and discuss what we read before she hangs the ornament that goes with that day's reading. It's a great way for us to teach her biblical heritage that leads up to Jesus. It's also a frugal way to avoid the big tree. All's you need is a tree limb and some paper really.

With the current financial crunch some families are feeling this year I'm sure that an expensive real tree is going to be a budget buster. There is nothing wrong with going this route instead. The point of Christmas is not the big fancy tree with high electric bill to go with it. Christmas can still be celebrated with traditions that go back farther then the "traditional" Christmas tree.

I'm glad you liked my daughter's ornaments. She worked really hard on them and is proud to put them on the tree ever night. She really does look forward to it. Do you have a tradition tree? If not what do you do instead? Have you ever used a Jesse tree?

I've enjoyed our visit this evening. I just hope I didn't keep you up to late!

It's official, I guess.... kinda. The National Bureau of Economic Research says that we've been in a recession all year. Finally, someone backs up our alarmist news media. Now would you people finally panic so we can get some really juicy news bites!?

Did you panic when you heard this news? Wall Street did. Then again, the Dow plunges 100 point whenever someone on the trading floor rips a loud fart. No, don't be fooled by their name - there is nothing official about the NBER. No magic powers. Nope. Just a bunch of guys.

In fact, a recession, by definition, still cannot be declared.

Why I'm smarter than this group of award-winning economists after the jump.


Maybe they fell asleep during Econ 101, or maybe they think that they get to write their own definition for the word. They can call it a downturn. A slowdown. Markers for a possible recession. But a recession it is not.

A recession, as defined in economic terms, is:

a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth.

"a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."

As we count down the days to Christmas let's not lose count of our budget. May the only red we see be joyful and not on our bank statements.

The Not the Jet Set family would like to give you a special gift this year. One of creativity, thriftiness and green. We will be starting our Thrifty Christmas series starting today and will go through the season. During the coming weeks we invite you to follow along with our family and see the way we celebrate Christ's birth while being good Stewards.

Come on in and take off your boots. Have a seat and get comfy while I get you a cup of hot chocolate to warm you up. It's cold outside today isn't it? While you sip your hot chocolate and get warmed up let's talk about our first Thrifty Christmas idea.


Homemade Advent Wreath

For to many years I tried to buy an Advent Wreath after Advent had started hoping for a good deal. Every year I found the same thing. They had sold out of the wreathes before the season even started. After my daughter gave me a wonderful gift last year the search is over! Her teacher helped them make the advent wreathes using their hand prints and construction paper. Then she cut sticky backed circle velcro tabs in half for the flames to be added. She also laminated them so that they will last longer. I love it and we will continue to use it every year. If you are going to make one for your family trying adding everyone's hand print to make it a true family project.

This project will help save you some green while staying focused on the true meaning of Christmas. It saved our family around $40 and gave this mom an extra warm fuzzy feeling.

What does your family use for an Advent wreath?

Well, it was nice chatting! You should come back soon and we can talk about some of our other Thrifty Christmas ideas while you enjoy some more hot chocolate. I was wanting to talk to you about our Christmas tree and show you some of the wrapped presents.

Honestly, the month of November was a blur! It has not been the easiest month personally because my grandfather has cancer and any day will be his last. I've been making lots of trips back and forth to "home" with the baby in tow. It's a three hour drive each way but worth every minute of it to see my grandfather and be there for my mom and grandma as they live through this experience on a daily basis taking care of him in his own house.

On to the budget... November's funds were kind of crazy. We started out by blowing through all but a couple hundred in the first week and half! But then we had almost one hundred left at the end of the month. Weird huh?


November's Budget Recap:

• Food - bulk food and meat for two months bought at the beginning of the month meant we had about $20-$25 to fill in the gaps for the month (ie. milk and yogurt)
  
• Cell Phone Bill- We always have lots of extra minutes at the end of the month, but this month with all the calls to home (and received from home) we blew through the minutes and then some. We were WAY over budget on that bill.
  
• We were under budget on gas because we planned for prices to go up.
• Had to cut Mr's new jeans out of the budget.
  
• Used the date night funds and beer funds as intended. It was a nice treat!
  

• Add line item for daughter's commissions (aka, chore money)
  
• Added extra for the gifts for the 5 family member's with birthday's this month
  
• Adding some extra towards Christmas gifts
• Surprise Doctor Bill- Why a surprise? Because we maxed out our out of pocket expense portion back in March. One of the three doctors our baby saw last month at the special clinic doesn't take our insurance so it was considered out-of-network. We were not expecting this since all the other doctors were covered by insurance. That ate up just shy of $100 of this month's funds.

• Fully fund retirement- partially funded via work 401k, not adding to Roth until after the new roof funds are fully saved
• Fund college savings again. - adding this month
• Save for new roof- continuing and should be have enough funds by spring

Do you ever play the what if game? Sometimes there will be an event that triggers those what if thoughts for me. Last week my mom told me that a guy from the small town I grew up in won $250k from a lotto ticket. Right away I had thoughts of what he would do with it. Things that would waste the money and be bad for one's health. All things that made me cringe.

So then I thought what would I do if it was me. Of course I don't play the lotto or gamble in any form so I would never actually have that kind of a windfall. But it is fun to pretend!


$100k to taxes (this is just a rough guess as to what the taxes would actually be)
$25k tithe (10% off the top for our tithe, God ALWAYS comes first)
$20k metal roof (our roof is 30+ years old and is starting to leak)
$5k house repairs (our old house has lots of little repairs that are needed)
$95k pay off house (nothing like the security of a paid off house in a bad economy)
$5k car fund (both are vehicles have over 83k miles and we need to start saving for new ones)

WOW!!!! That money went fast. I can see why so many people who win large sums of lotto money file bankruptcy. When you hear quarter million dollars it sounds like a lot. But as you see, it really doesn't go that far once you take out for taxes. In fact, after taxes and tithing half the money was gone. You actually only have $125k to spend. The one nice thing would be the paid off house which would add an additional $875 a month to our budget.

Do you want to play along? Tell us what you would do with the money!

Black Friday has come and gone. Cyber Monday is upon us. The shopping frenzy continues. At Thanksgiving, my aunt was talking about catching a couple of hours of sleep and then packing up at midnight to head to the mall. A little crazy? Sure. But it's all in good fun.

The real question is:

Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on you life and all that you have to be thankful for. But we're not listing those here.

There's lots of healthy, frugal dishes one can prepare for family gatherings - large and small. But you're not getting those either.

We're out. Unplugged. Logged off. You should be too.

Ok, ok, one bit of advice

1. Stay out of the stores on Black Friday - you're better off sleeping in. The real deals are on Cyber Monday anyways. Relax. It's a holiday.
   

Even though I always get the winter time blues, this year my goal is to save some green while being green this winter. I'm thinking of not just the usual home energy costs, but beyond as well. There are so many wasteful things we do every winter so here is my list of ways to save.

• Thermostat- Our house does not have programmable thermostats and I miss them. This year we will be getting new ones to help cut back on our heating cost.
  
• Down a Notch- Our first winter up north after moving from the far south was a tough one. I was freezing if the house temp dropped below 72 degrees. As our family's bodies have adapted to the climate we have slowly dropped the winter temp in our house. Every degree lower does (obviously) save you money. We have also turned off the heaters in the bathrooms and the kitchen. If you have an unused room you might want to also consider not heating it as well. Every bit counts.



• Caulk- I think Mr. NtJS is starting to despise caulking. It is so important to make sure your windows are not drafty but also check your attic to make sure that all places for air to escape have been properly sealed.
• Curtains- If you have an older, draftier home consider making some heavy full bodied curtains. When the sun is shining on a window open the curtains to let the sun warm the house. When it's not sunny leave them closed to help keep the warmth from escaping. Going one step further. If you live in a really, really old and drafty house the cold air could be coming through the walls. We had that growing up. When I would wake up on really cold days, there would be frost on the walls in my bedroom. Now that is cold! To help with that problem you can hang large "decorative" quilts and blankets on your walls. This will help keep the draft down as well.
• Boiler- Our boiler is the original 1964 model - a classic! It still works but it is on it's last leg. Even though a new boiler would be a lot more efficient saving us money on the heating bill, it would cost us a LOT upfront. After discussing it with our boiler repairman last year when one of the water pumps went out, we decided it would be best to wait until the boiler started leaking or died a "natural" death. When the day comes, we do have money saved up that can be put towards the boiler and it will pay for itself in the long run as long as we live in the same house for many years.
• Netflix- save time, gas, and money by not going to the movie theater or the video store.
• Gifts- This is a big drain on our budget. Not only do I plan ahead for the usual people but I also plain on four "extra" gifts. It seems like there is always a person who I feel like I need a gift for at the last minute.
  
• De-clutter- While trapped inside it's a great time to start going through your house room by room and setting aside garage sale items for the spring and freecycling your other unloved items.
• Gardening- Sound weird? The best time to start your garden is in the winter. Well, actually it is the best time to start planning your garden. What you are going to plant where. It's also a great time to start seedlings indoors.
• Soup- Nothing feels better on a cold winter day then a hot bowl of soup. Soup also makes my wallet feel better. Soups and stews are great ways to make your food dollars stretch.
  
• Preventative Care- The best way to save money when hit with the winter bugs is to not get them. I'm willing to spend the money up front on healthy foods and supplements to avoid having kids miss school.
  
• Freezing- If you have put up a lot of frozen fruits and veggies over the summer you will notice your freezer will start to empty fairly fast if you are anything like our family. The more open space in your freezer the more it costs to cool it. My solution is to make extra casseroles and other meals to freeze. This warms up my kitchen keeping my heating bill a little lower, fills my freezer, and then when I use them in the summer it helps keep my kitchen a little cooler taking less energy to keep us cool on a hot day.
  
• Christmas lights- Mr. NtJS spends a little too much time and gets a little too much enjoyment out of programming the timer each year for the Christmas lights. Then again, it is a rather complex product with too few buttons. Anyways, I do appreciate the effort each year when I see the neighbor's over-the-top display left on all hours of the night. Ours only come on after dark, off again at bed time. Sometimes, just for fun, they'll kick on for an hour in the morning when it's time to go to work and school. Like I said, a little too much enjoyment in the programming.
• Bartering- Our neighbor has a plow blade and some time on his hands in the winter. We have loads of delicious home-canned goods in the basement. For a few jars of of our home-made apple pie filling, some peach butter, and some pear preserves, we get our abnormally long driveway plowed after every snow. Not a bad deal, eh?
• Junk in the trunk- This may not be what you think. A few hundred pounds of ballast over the rear axle of your rear-wheel-drive car or truck will increase your grip and keep those wheels from spinning so much. Try a few bags of softener salt (if you have a softener) or rock salt. Add as needed. I like to use rock salt as if all else fails, a handful can melt that ice or snow and get me in contact with the pavement again. Spinning your wheels wastes a lot of gas.
  

Netflix brought us another gem this month. I'd placed this one in the queue a while ago, only to have it bumped down repeatedly. We both enjoy a good documentary, but' you've gotta space them out a bit - you can't be serious all the time.

What Would Jesus Buy follows the Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping on their crusade to get their message out - something Billy struggles with a bit. No, he's not really a Reverend, and no they are not really a church. But you wouldn't know it.

Billy preaches to his congregation, as well as to real churches, about the evils of shopping - the social, moral, and economic irresponsibilities of the current consumerism. Micky Mouse, for example, is his anti-Christ. Products produced by slave labor, they have drawn his ire.


His protests - part performance, part real - have a delightfully comedic element. They attempt to exercise the demons out of cash registers, go caroling door-to-door to sign their versions of Christmas songs, and torment retailers in choir robes, marching and singing all the while.ONe quite memorable scene showed the group protesting outside a strip mall. While being escorted (poorly) off the grounds, Billy calls out through his megephone, "What would Jesus buy?!", in full character. "I'm pretty sure he wouldn't buy anything at Staples!" Classic.

The movie itself gets a B. The message gets an A.

Morgan Spurlock's flick is good, but not great. It lacked... something. I'm not sure what, but it certainly wasn't there. This was also somewhat true of Super Size Me. Maybe just a bit anti-climactic. It dropped off at the end, and lacked closure.

Rev. Billy is spot on. Jesus wouldn't buy this crap and he wouldn't buy it from Wal-Mart. He wouldn't support these working conditions. He wouldn't pass buy the local merchants to shop at a super-store. Billy has taken extreme measures here for a noble cause. I'm just not sure how effective his methods are. I'm sure it has quite the impact if you were to see him in person. It also seems like his demonstrations are rather short lived as he is constantly being led away by security.

Have you seen this movie? What did you think?

• Rev. Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping
• video clips from google
  

I missed The Office this week. One of the few shows that I really look forward too and will actually plan things around. Wanna get together on Thursdays? Sure, so long as we're watching The Office! Despite my best efforts, no Office for me this week. Fortunately, NBC has heard of this thing called the "web", and posts full episodes the next day. It would have to do.

Episode was great, btw - New lows for Michael and Dwight.

Commercials were interesting as well - New lows for Discover Card.

The ad starts out with "We are a nation of consumers... and that's OK".

Actually, no - I'm pretty sure it's not OK.


You see, Discover, we've become a nation of consumers. We used to be a nation of producers. This is a big part of the overall economic collapse we are currently facing. If foreign oil is the largest transfer of wealth in human history, then foreign plastic crap must be close behind. But keep on telling your target market that it is 'OK' - apparently some folks believe your advertising.

What's worse is their claim that you don't need to stop your spending on stupid stuff (as depicted in the ad by the people obviously confused with their shiny new toys). Just spend it on their card. Yeah, it's magic powers will somehow bring you 'prosperity' while you keep on buying 'lot's of cool stuff'.

Well. As long as it's cool...

This ad is an effort to tout the new features of the card. New online tools to show you how to pay your balance off in less than 30 years. Go ahead and add that to the long list of faux features - expense tracking (didn't know where your money was going, but now you can see who has your money) and spending pie charts (who doesn't like pie?). Because they care. Because they want to help you. Because they know that no matter what color the credit card is, you're very likely going to go out and charge it up, only to look for a magic pill later on.

This is not it.

No credit card has ever, or will ever lead anyone to financial prosperity.

Ashley at Wide Open Wallet posed the question a week or so ago - How do you teach value? I was a bit stumped. We'd tried explaining, at various times, why something was or was not worth it's cost. I never felt like any of it really hit home.

In reading Ashley's post, I thought about our oldest - age 5. She definitely didn't have this. But it's not for a lack of trying. These decisions are still very binary - I have enough money or I don't have enough money. I'm not sure, at this age, she could comprehend a concept like value. But it is something to work toward.

As always, we'll lead by example. We'll try to explain why we make the purchases that we do. We'll try and guide her she wants to buy something. But there has to be something more. Some way to harmlessly let her make purchases. Someway to get insight into her decision making.

Maybe... Monopoly?


She has a Junior version of Monopoly and we've been playing it together for about a year now. At first, she bought every property that she landed on. Kid in a candy store, right? Why wouldn't she by everything??? The more she plays it, the more sophisticated she's gotten. She doesn't buy everyone that she lands on now. Why? I'm not sure. Working on that one.

Monopoly has some properties with good 'value' in that they aren't that expensive, but can yield a descent payoff. Others hardly worth buying, and some you'll go broke just buying them. Trouble is, her 'buy everything' strategy works pretty well. She either kicks our butts or gives us a very good run for our money.

Maybe we'll just chill on this one for now.

In the meantime, here is a link to a detailed property analysis and Monopoly strategy. Looks like he has more time than I. Good stuff.

Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE to celebrate the birth of Christ and truly enjoy the religious aspect of the holiday. However, the rest of it is just goes against my values to much for me to truly enjoy.

Let me explain.

Mr. NtJS and I had set a limit of three gifts per child and one stocking for Christmas. The gifts do not have to be large either. We work hard to make sure that the items under our tree are of good quality (made in the USA and environmentally friendly when possible). We also de-emphasize Santa Claus (or Saint Nicholas as we call him) but instead focus on each week of Advent and the story behind Christ's birth. We would prefer to sleep in on Christmas morning (going to Mass the night before) and then spend the day in our PJ's having fun with the girls. Enjoy a nicely cooked meal at whatever time we get to it and munch on cookies all day.


What REALLY happens at our house? We spend from early October through Christmas Eve trying to convince our family that our children do NOT need tons and tons of plastic crap made in China. They do not need 5 new expensive dressy outfits each. Then we have the joy of spending out Christmas away from home. We grew up in neighboring towns so we have to go to everyone's Christmas gathering. Dragging food, gifts, and kids all over creation for two to three days. Then we have to rush home before it's time for the Mr. to get back to work. We are all tired, the house is trashed, the tree we didn't get to enjoy has to come down, I have to box up a ton of the girl's toys and clothes to make room for the new ones since their room is stuffed full from their birthdays and the previous Christmas's stuff. I'll spend the next couple months giving away the toys and the brand new stuff I don't feel we should have in our house.

Where is the joy? Where is the fun? Why do I have to compromise my values for the holidays?

I'm I just a stick in the mud? I'm I the only one who dread's Christmas because of these issues?
What do you do to avoid these negative Christmas feelings?

What is under your sink? Toxic petroleum based products produced overseas? If you look under my sink that's not what you find. You will find some of the most environmentally friendly cleaners made in the USA, some even mixed in my own home.

What are some good ones? Check out my list!

Bi-O-Kleen- I personally go through the bottles of Bac-Out fast. I use them on nasty (cloth) diapers. It takes the stains right out. They also care a variety of other cleaning products as well.

Borax- What would we do without Borax? I make most of my own cleaners and Borax is a staple in cleaning recipes. I was happy to see on my box that it is made in the USA. I'm not sure what I would do if it wasn't!


Charlie Soap- Like many cloth diapering mom's I use Charlie soap and love it! We wash all our laundry in it as well. Once my diapering days are done I think that I will continue to use it since it does a great job.

Dr. Bronner- Dr. Bronner is know for their soaps. They also have a special forumla for housework soap.

Environmentally Friendly Products- This company is best know for Ecos, their laundry detergent. Along with the laundry soap they produce a large variety of cleaners to fill all your cleaning supply needs.
Seventh Generation- This is the statement I found on their website:
"We manufacture our products at co-packers who use our unique formulas, and meet our stringent quality control specifications. These facilities are primarily located in North America to minimize our carbon footprint caused by transportation. Some of our products are made in Canada and in Europe.

Since we do not own our own facilities, we benefit from the state of the art equipment and manufacturing flexibility that our manufacturing partners can provide."

So do check their packaging before purchasing. They make a wide variety of products including toilet paper, paper towel, napkins, diapers, wipes, dishwasher soap, etc. I could list the items all day long! We personally use their paper towel and dishwashing powder.

Are there others that make their products in the USA? If you know of one that I missed that is both made in the USA and environmentally friendly please chime in.

Is there a specific product catergory you are wondering about? Please let us what other items you want us to write about. There are countless catergories to cover in our Made in the USA series so speak up to get your topics bummed to the top of the list!

The national economy is in the dumps. The local economy is no exception. In fact it has been hit pretty hard. So it didn't surprise me when I saw that the local news had a running segment coming up about feeding your family on a tight budget. Made sense to me.

What did surprise me was the amount.

"We'll teach you to feed a family of four on $100 per week."


My suspicions were confirmed when I checked the budget. Our monthly food budget is $400, roughly translating into 100 dollars per week. So they were going to teach me to be myself?

No. I know that many would consider this amount to be scant. I also know that our kids are quite young, though at times, our 5-year old can put away as much as we do. Still four mouths to feed.

I also know that we've gotten by on less - a lot less. I can recall, during my SAHD days, having to explain just how we could possibly be spending only $250 per month on groceries. I had to be wrong - it just couldn't be possible. Though the person in such disbelief was spending $700 + per month on a family of the same size, and our kids were the same age. I would have been in shock too.

So I put it to you, dear readers -
What is your monthly food budget? And how many are you feeding with it?

Some caveats that came out of the above debate:

• Our food budget is just that - food, for us. Not some, "we buy it all at the same store, so it's the same money" fund.
  
• We buy our dog food elsewhere, but it likely comes out of the same pot.
• Eating out is not included in this number as it is a separate line item called "Eating out"
• Even on our $400 / mo., we are buying organic milk and eggs, all natural beef, chicken, pork, and turkey, and many other organic products. No Kraft nothin'.

I never really thought about where my bath and body products were made. I was just concerned about what was in the bottle. Well, much to my surprise everything we use is made in the USA! For this category I reviewed some of the top all natural/organic brands since I feel strongly about the harsh chemicals used in traditional products. I was actually blown away by the great variety of USA made products I found.

Check it out for yourself!


Aveda- The response I received from Aveda was that the "bulk" of their products are made in the USA, but not all of them are. They never did give me an answer as to which ones where made here so you will have to look at the packaging to answer that question.

Burt's Bees- Who doesn't know Burt's Bees? Most large retailers carrier their products. Personally, I love their lip balm!

California Baby- I love CB's products! I've been using them on my girls for over a year and would not use anything else.

Dr. Bronner's- Dr. Bronner's has been making their soap in the USA since 1858. I have friend's who swear by their 18-in-1 castile soap.

Earth Mama- After having our youngest daughter I used their products for myself. I really did enjoy them and hope to give them as apart of baby shower gifts.

EO- EO has many wonderful products. Mr. NtJS uses their shaving cream and we both like it...

Giovanni- The Giovanni products we use are made in the USA. I'm not sure if all are since never did respond to my email requests. The packaging does say where the product was made.

Jason- I contacted them via their website and never recieved a response. I can tell you that at least some of their products are made in the USA, if not all. Check the container before buying.

Kiss My Face- I love the name of this company. This well known brand is still a small USA business. We have used a variety of their products and have liked them all.

Nature's Gate- Nature's Gate makes all of their products in the USA, except their organic deodorants (which are made in Canada). We use their tea tree shampoo and conditioner and really like it.

Scrappers and scrapping have taken on negative connotations in the recent years. It was bad enough to see the headlines night after night of another home owner, church, or business becoming a victim of this brainless, thieving crime. What was worse, was when a family member was hit.

I've seen graveyards stripped of brass vases. Churches relieved of copper gutters and A/C units - despite the A/C units being locked down in chain-link cages. Thousands of dollars of electrical cables cut down - while hot!

Then one day it hit me. Maybe these guys ain't dumb...


I realized that the reason they have such sticky fingers with metals is not from the jacket that they just melted off of those electrical lines (still dumb, btw). They are doing this because metal prices are (or at least were) up - bigtime. Maybe I was the dumb guy for having a box of random scraps as well as several copper cut-offs just laying around. It doesn't have to be such a sinister act. Besides, you're recycling! It was time I cashed in on the scrappin' gravy train.

I started consolidating my scraps and realized that I had more than I thought. I had replaced two junky aluminum storm doors with much nicer, all glass ones last Fall. Yeah, two aluminum doors + the trim pieces, just laying around. Copper cut-offs I had mentioned before, but also some brass joints and valves that were replaced.

As the dollar signs were rolling in my head, I looked forward to a few looming DIY projects - the kitchen remodel (including the cast-iron sink and crummy old faucet), the bathroom shower remodel (lots of copper pipe and brass castings), and the electrical system upgrade from fuses to breakers (big, heavy, steel box). My scrap run would have to wait. In the meantime, I found myself giving lots of things a good hard look, thinking, "hrrmm, I wonder what it weighs?".

It gets to you, so watch yourself, and stop eying the neighbor's old swingset.

A few weeks later I prepared my cache. Not all scraps are taken at the same rate despite being like materials. High dollar materials, like brass and copper, will be split between at least two grades each. A grade 1 piece pretty well like new. No solder on the copper, no steel screws in the aluminum - pure samples. Everything else is grade 2 or lower, though my recycler of choice had just 2 grades. Grade 1 scraps will of course fetch the best price, with grade 2 being half-rate, sometimes less.

Here is how I came out:

• The aluminum trim from those storm doors? Grade 1. They were little more than cut-off aluminum extrusions. I had about 5 pounds of trim (grade 1) and 30+ pounds of doors (grade 2). Would have been worth my time to look at reducing those doors down to parts to get more into the grade 1 bin. $15 in Aluminum
  
• Brass adds up fast. I had a relatively small box of brass, but it sure is dense and pricey. 11lbs of yellow brass netted me $15.40
  
• Copper on the other hand is fairly light and usually thin-walled. So while it pays well, you likely don't have as much as you think. 6lbs of grade 2 copper came out to $12
  
• Tin sucks. Steel, cast-iron and the like gets payed by the ton, not the pound. Meaning I had to weigh in, drive around back and unload it myself onto the giant pile of twisted steel scrap, and then weigh out. Not worth your time unless you have a large load. Here, the heaviest pieces of my haul brought in very little. This would explain the S-10s and Chevettes I saw - loaded to the hilt - weighing in and out. The scrap looked to rival the weight of the car! For their sake, I hope it did. 180lbs brought in just $14.40