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Easy And Inexpensive Cake

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Easy And Inexpensive Cake

I just wanted to share a quick and inexpensive tip for making cakes. Buy a box cake mix on sale. If it is a white or yellow cake, add 10 oz. diet sprite, diet 7-up, or the zero calorie sparkling water. Then cook the cake as instructed on the box. You do NOT need to add eggs, butter, oil, water or anything else to the mix, just the soda and the cake mix itself.

Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke are fine for chocolate cakes, but if added to the yellow cake mix, it makes it a yucky gray color. NO added calories, no eggs, no milk, no water, no oil…. Voila! A VERY MOIST cake for .99 + soda (you can get the whole 2 liter for .99 cents and you only need to use 10 oz.)

 

Ok, I admit, this does sound strange but I just might have to give a try. I have heard of doing this with pancake mix before so maybe it would work with cakes too.

      -Tawra

For more money saving recipes and tips check out Dining On A Dime Cookbook.

 

photo by: kimberlykv

Great Things To Do With Baby Food Jars

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With a baby and two preschoolers, I don’t have the time or inclination to make homemade baby food. My Meijer grocery store puts Gerber baby food on sale frequently, and with coupons it’s the same price as generic.

One way to reuse those Gerber plastic fruit/veggie tubs is to rinse them out and put cheerios, goldfish, pretzels, and/or raisins in them for trips to the park, zoo, or car trips in the van. They contain just the right amount of snack for a preschooler, the child can get the lid on and off, and I don’t care if they get lost or are used as a sand toy!

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Organizing Kids’ Rooms

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Organizing Kids' Rooms

Organizing Kids’ Rooms

I posted a few tips about getting kid’s rooms decluttered but once you get it together, how do you get them to keep it that way?

One thing is to place a chart at their eye level. We often put the chore charts in the kitchen, which is fine, but you might consider putting a chore chart with just bedroom chores in their rooms. Write or place pictures of things like make your bed, pick up clothes, pick up toys and so on and, as with other charts, be sure to give lots of praise, stars or stickers when they do a good job. Kids tend to respond better to things that are put in writing (or in pictures) than they do with barked orders.

Train your kids. Show them how to do a chore. Then show them again and then show them again and again and again. We often think if we show children something once, twice or even three times they should be able to do it on their own but they can’t always learn things that fast. When I start a new job, if they show me how to do a job I have never done before for just one or two days, I can’t always get it. I would become very overwhelmed, discouraged and stressed. A good company will train you for at least two weeks every day. Our children need the same training and more.

Be specific when you tell a child to do something. Their idea of a clean room and yours are worlds apart. If you say, “Pick up your room,” don’t be surprised if they pick up two things and call it good. You need to say something like, “Pick up everything off of your floor.”

Work with your children. Whether you are an adult or child, you feel so much more motivated to do a job when you have someone helping you or encouraging you on. How many of you come to our website for encouragement and motivation? Children need encouragement from their parents so when you can, work together on their rooms, especially if they need a big clean up.

Make any cleaning up project a game. I was watching my grandkids today while Tawra was at the doctor’s office and told the boys I would race them to see if they could pick up all of the toys in the living room before I cleared the kitchen table and counters. You never saw any kids move as fast as they did trying to beat me. Of course I let them win.

I also get them to see if they can clean their rooms in less then 10 minutes or we all see how fast we can pick up 10, 15, 20 items.

We all do a better job if we have the proper tools, so buy small sized cleaning things for them like little brooms, dust pans, small dust rags (socks made into hand puppets are fun) and stools so they can reach things.

The biggest factor in helping control kids’ rooms is to get rid as much excess stuff as you can. They don’t need 50 race cars, 25 dolls or a shoe box crammed full of crayons. I used to have one box of 24 crayons in my room and you had better believe I took care of them because I didn’t want to lose that “special” color. If you don’t think your children have that many things, lay out their dolls, cars and other toys and count how many they have. I think you will be shocked.

Be sure to check out our Saving With Kids e-Book Series for many more tips like these.

Warning: Don’t become discouraged. It may be that only a couple of tips from this article may work for you. It has been a never ending battle throughout the ages (well maybe for the last 50 years) to get kids to pick up their rooms and to find functional ways to store things. Bigger people than I have tried to find the answer and so far have failed. Even if they get the storage down to a science, getting the kids to use the storage has failed.

The main thing to keep in mind is not to give up. It takes patience, time and work. This is one area where you won’t see the rewards of your hard work for many years – like about 20-30 years, but it will happen. It comes when your 20 year old son takes your trash out without being told. You sit there in amazement and wonder, “When and how did this happen?” Then there is the phone call from your daughter bemoaning the fact she can’t get the kids to keep their rooms clean.

Ahhhh, the sweet sweet rewards of seeing your offspring being tortured in the same way they tortured you years earlier! : ) : ) : )

       -Jill

Laundromat Savings

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Saving On Laundry

Hi there. I love your website and have shared it with LOTS of people in Roseburg, OR and anywhere else I might meet someone that could benefit from your advice and expertise. THANK YOU 🙂

I just wanted to share that my family and I (husband and 4 children plus one more on weekends) live in a small apartment with no washing machine or dryer. They do have a small room with laundry facilities on site but we can’t afford the cost for the amount of laundry we do! I have an arrangement with a good friend of ours to clean her house in return for using her washer and dryer.

This works out very well for us. I wash in the morning and clean up her house, which takes about 30 minutes to an hour (each day during the week but not weekends), and then swing back by later in the day and dry the clothes. Then I go pick up the kids from school.

This arrangement not only saves me TONS of money but it also saves my friend money and time because she doesn’t have to spend so much time cleaning. I admit I do not do a perfect job cleaning her whole house. I merely sweep and mop 1-2 days a week, load or unload her dishwasher and wipe everything down. I also take the time to fold any laundry she has in the dryer or sitting around and do her laundry (if she has any). I wish that more people could pull together to share resources in this way… -Cati

Thanks for the idea, Cati. I agree that sharing resources does help. I do this with my grown kids all the time. I do all of Tawra’s ironing and they do my yard work. For a while I didn’t have a washer or dryer so I would go to my son’s home and do my laundry and, like you, I cleaned or folded their clothes.

My neighbor and I do this, too. I needed a very tall ladder to pick my apples and in exchange I gave her apples and helped her to make apple pies. I babysit her dog and she takes me to lunch. 

It really is a great way to do things. Often I think we do this with out really realizing we are. It just boils down to friends and neighbors helping each other out, which is a great way to do things!

       -Jill

 

Medical Savings

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Medical Savings

We had to take my son to the emergency room again the other night. We aren’t the type to go for every little thing and usually go only for big, gaping, bleeding things but it does seem like we have to go there pretty frequently– so much so that I keep an "emergency room" bag packed and hanging by my purse. It includes snacks, sewing supplies, books to read and so on because going to the emergency room can and usually does mean a many hour wait. When the kids were little, I would sometimes have to take the child that wasn’t hurt with me, too. They would get hungry or restless and the things in my bag would help.

Recently, my son dropped a large log on his toe, cutting it and smashing it severely. (This is a hazard you don’t always hear people talk about with regard to heating your home with wood)  He is fine and needs just to be on crutches for a few days but he had a good tip for me to give to our readers.

When the doctors were fixing his toe, the nurse took out a large tube of antibacterial ointment to apply to it. He asked her "Are you throwing that tube away?" She said "Yes," and asked if he wanted it, since he had paid for it. He told me that it is a large enough tube that it contains enough ointment to last his family 3-4 years. Then she took a huge piece of gauze and cut a small piece from it. Again he asked to keep the remains.

You can ask for these things. My mom has gotten scissors that they used when putting in stitches or tweezers when they took out stitches. Also, be careful if you are admitted to the hospital to take your regular medications with you or have a family member bring them to you. These are called self administered drugs (medications which you take on a daily basis). Be sure to tell the doctor you are taking them and have them with you. Not all hospitals will allow you to do this but some will, so you might as well take them and ask if you can use your own medicines. It will be much less expensive than if the hospital provides them.

My mom had to go the the hospital and stayed there one night. They asked what regular (self administered) medications she took and she told them. The hospital staff gave the medications to her while she was there. Later, she received a bill for $529 just for 3 pills and 1 aspirin. She called the pharmacy and found out that a 3 month supply of all of the same pills together would only cost $125. If she had brought her own medications with her it would have cost nothing.

This is a perfect example of how many leaders (people in charge of hospitals, schools, government and business) are so messed up in their thinking and can’t use common sense regarding how to save money on medical costs, school costs, business costs, etc.

It isn’t that we need more money but we need to use what we have more wisely.

      -Jill

P.S. I didn’t write this to open up a can of worms about the medical issues happening in our country right now. I’m not burying my head in the sand, I just don’t want arguing on the blog. Please keep this in mind when you comment because if there is negative stuff I won’t post it. I just wanted you to be aware of some things you can do to save yourself money and to let you know not to be afraid to ask to take these things home with you.

P.P.S. I do appreciate all of the great nurses and sometimes doctors who ask if I would like to take things home because I have paid for them and they are about to be discarded. These people are a super help and kind in so many ways. Thank you nurses.

 

photo by: agacombahia

Saving Money at the Fair

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Save Money At The Fair
 

Save Money at the Fair

Note from Tawra. This was originally published in 2009

Last weekend, we went to our town’s fall celebration. Usually we don’t go to these things but the kids are older now (11, 10 and 6) and they’ve never been to an amusement park. We weren’t going to go this time but found out there was a $20 special where they could ride all the rides for 4 hours. Since we don’t usually take a vacation we thought they might like to go on some of the rides.

Even then, we couldn’t justify spending $80 for the 4 of them (Mike and the kids) to go so we asked the kids if they wanted to pay for some of it. They said sure. So Mike and I gave them each $6 and they paid for the rest out of their own money.

Just as we got there Mike and David got sick, so they took the baby and went home while I stayed with the other two. It was a small area and I was starting to get really sick (with my CFS) so I sat down at a table to watch while they rode the rides. As I was sitting there, I was so shocked at the waste.

Parents would buy each child his own funnel cake. The kid would eat 1/4 of it and then throw it away. Another kid got a huge 44 oz. drink, drank 1/4 of it and threw it away.

Now first of all, you have to be insane to pay $5 for a funnel cake in the first place but if you do buy something like that split it between everyone. There is no reason a child needs that much food or drink just for himself.  Growing up, I never remember having my "own" item of something like that. We always shared. Our kids did decide to use their own money and buy some cotton candy but we came home and made our own funnel cakes, which cost about .50 for 6 of them.

The two older kids had a great time and loved the rides but this definitely won’t be an all the time thing for us. It’s no wonder people are in debt when they spend $100+ at these types of things!

      -Tawra

 

Photo By: omaromar