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Is a Side Hustle Worth the Family Sacrifice?

June 20, 2022 By MelissaB 1 Comment

Side Hustle Worth the Family Sacrifice

When our kids were young, my husband and I struggled financially. My husband was getting his Ph.D. and worked as a graduate assistant. I had just quit my full-time job because the cost of daycare in Chicago for two kids under two plus after-school care for our oldest would cost me as much as I was taking home each week. We survived for three years like this until my husband graduated and started working a regular job and a side hustle. I also worked a part-time job from home. Now that we’re 10 years removed from that situation, we recently discussed if a side hustle is worth the family sacrifice.

Some Times You Have No Choice

I want to acknowledge that sometimes, you have no choice. Sometimes you have to work as much as you can to cover rent, buy groceries, and care for your family. For my husband and I, the first few years after he graduated were like this. We were in debt because we had lived off his graduate assistantship and student loans those last three years, and we needed side hustles to try to get out of the hole we were in. However, we should have set a limit for how long we would work our side hustles.

Dave Ramsey’s Influence

Fifteen years ago, I loved listening to Dave Ramsey, and I bought into the idea that we should “live like no one else so later we can live like no one else.” I accepted the sacrifice that side hustles required because I was sure that if we worked hard, we’d end up on the other side, able to check off the baby steps.

Is A Side Hustle Worth the Family Sacrifice?

We are now at the point where we’ve completed baby steps 1, 2, and are on baby step 3. However, we’re also at the point where our kids are now 18, 13.5, and 12. We lost a lot of our kids’ lives to side hustles.

Is a side hustle worth the family sacrifice? As a parent with older children, I can answer for us, it was not worth it.

What We Sacrificed for the Side Hustle

Side hustles have a dark side that most people don’t talk about. For us, these were the major drawbacks:

We Were Exhausted

Is a Side Hustle Worth the Family Sacrifice?

After my husband got home from his regular job and side hustle, I would start my work after being with the kids all day. I would often work until midnight and get up at 5 or 6 a.m. That was not enough sleep.

My husband and I were both exhausted all the time.

We Were Grouchy

Because we were working so hard and exhausted, we were also grouchy. Raising young children can be challenging under the best circumstances, but when you’re exhausted and grouchy, it’s not good for anyone.

Final Thoughts

Is a side hustle worth the family sacrifice? For us, the answer was no. Rather than following Dave Ramsey’s advice to hustle until you’re completely out of debt, we should have set a limited time frame for our side hustle. We hustled for far too long, and I’m sorry we missed out on some opportunities to spend enjoyable time with our kids when they were little because of that.

Read More

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MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Children, Debt Reduction, Emergency Fund, Frugality, General Finance, Guru Advice, Married Money, pf books, Saving Tagged With: family, getting out of debt, marriage, side hustle

Our Favorite Small Ways to Save Money

June 6, 2022 By MelissaB 2 Comments

Small Ways to Save Money

Inflation is hitting most households hard. We’re no different. Although we have improved our financial position over the last five years, we still aren’t where we want to be financially, so we continue to be cautious with our finances and not spend more than we need to. Lately, we’ve utilized small ways to save money that help us continue to improve our financial standing.

Let me clarify that we’re not saving a lot of money from any of these strategies, but, overall, they improve our finances.

Small Ways to Save Money

We try to save money in every aspect of our lives.

Discounts on Gas

We have a few ways we try to save money on gas.

Use a Grocery Store Rewards Card

Our local grocery store gives us points for our purchases. We can then redeem those points for an amount off gas. Last month, I redeemed enough points to get $1.00 per gallon off gas, bringing my per gallon price to $3.49 instead of $4.49.

Use a Credit Card With Cash back Rewards

One of our credit cards is giving 5% cash back on gas purchases for April through June, so whenever my husband and I fill up, we always use that card, so we get some cash back that we can redeem later.

Combining Errands & Staying Home

Not everyone has the luxury to stay home more, but we do because we both work from home. We try to limit our trips, but when we do make them, we try to combine errands so we’re not driving around multiple times per day or even per week.

Strategically Using Cash Back Credit Cards

I alluded to this above, but we strategically use our cash back credit cards to maximize the money we get back. We have three credit cards, all of which offer cash back. Every quarter, we opt-in for the cash back bonuses and utilize those categories for those purchases.

For instance, our Discover card offers 5% cash back for gas purchases from April through June, so we only use that card for gas. We use our other credit card that offers 2% cash back on all purchases for everything else.

Just as importantly, we also choose not to activate certain 5% cash back bonuses. For instance, one card is offering 5% cash back for dining out. We didn’t activate that one because we never dine out, and I certainly wouldn’t start dining out just to get 5% cash back.

Shopping Clearance Sales

I always like to browse the clearance section, but that’s more important now than ever.

Grocery Store Clearance

Recently, I have found some excellent grocery store clearance items. A week after Easter, I found a one-pound package of diced him on clearance for 49 cents. Yes, please! I bought two and used them as the meat in some soup recipes that I made.

Whenever I find clearance meat, I buy it and stick it in the freezer for later use. I also do the same with clearance dry goods, as long as they’re foods I know that we’ll eat.

Clearance Clothing

Small Ways to Save Money

A few weeks ago, my daughters and I went to Kohl’s to shop the clearance winter clothes racks. We bought our clothes for next winter at a steep discount. We’ve packed them away and will take them out in a few months when the weather starts to change. To sweeten the deal, we received Kohl’s cash, which we redeemed to buy winter boots that were on clearance.

Canceled Excess Subscriptions

With two teens in the house and one pre-teen, we have a lot of streaming services. Most of these aren’t expensive–$5 to $10 a month. However, when you have several of them, the price adds up. I polled the kids to see what streaming services they use, and I cut the rest. That saved us $20 per month, or $240 a year. While this amount isn’t huge, why pay the money when the services weren’t even being used? That’s silly.

Waiting to Make Major Purchases

One of the biggest ways we’re saving money in this current economic climate is to avoid making major purchases. Our minivan is 18 years old and has 230,000 miles on it.  We’d like to replace it, but new minivans are out of our price range, and used ones now cost almost as much as new ones. In addition, we don’t want to take out a car loan since the interest rates are increasing. Instead, we are waiting to buy a replacement vehicle.

That means we spent $1,500 recently repairing the van. My kids are constantly embarrassed about driving such an old minivan. (To be fair, I understand their feelings. The paint is peeling off, and the hubcaps are off. One passenger side door no longer opens.) However, we’ve decided, for now, that holding on to our current vehicle is the prudent option. Besides, driving around in such an old vehicle is character-building for the kids.

Saving on a Rental Car

Small Ways to Save Money

We took a family vacation this month, so we opted to rent a car and saved two ways.

Use Our Costco Card

First, we used our Costco card to save more than 25% on the cost of the rental vehicle. We only book rental cars through the Costco travel section because the discount is enormous.

Opted Out of Rental Car Insurance

We also opted not to purchase the rental car insurance. I called our insurance, and they confirmed that our insurance would cover any problems except for the rental car company’s loss of use charge should the vehicle be in an accident and unusable. We added a $6 rider to cover loss of use.

I also paid with our credit card that provides secondary insurance for a rental car. If we need to use our car insurance on the rental, this credit card would cover our deductible.

Final Thoughts

Living in a time of high inflation is difficult. We’re blessed that we’re both employed and are in a comfortable enough financial position that we can weather this current economic struggle. Even so, we’re taking these small steps to save money, so we can continue to improve our financial position.

Read More

8 Ways to Stop Food Waste

Save Money with Buy Nothing Groups

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MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Frugality, Married Money, Saving Tagged With: car rental, grocery shopping, inflation, rental car insurance, ways to save money

8 Tips to Stop Food Waste

May 23, 2022 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Tips to Stop Food Waste

Nearly every month, the cost of groceries seems to rise. What can you do? You need to feed your family, but the current high price of groceries is straining most families’ budgets, especially when combined with the high cost of other necessities such as gas and housing. For most families, the cost of food is the second-highest expense behind housing. (In our family, if I’m not careful, the cost of food is higher than our monthly housing costs.) While you may try to coupon or buy food when it’s at its lowest sale price, another way to save is to utilize these tips to stop food waste.

How Much Food Do Americans Waste?

According to Earth.com, the average American family “waste[s] nearly one third of the food they buy.” However, if they utilized strategies to eliminate food waste, “a family of four could save $2,000.”

If you haven’t made a conscious effort to stop food waste, now is the time.

8 Tips to Stop Food Waste

Years ago, my husband and I wasted quite a bit of food. Every week, we would have anywhere from three to six containers of leftover food that we would have to throw out. We would also sometimes waste fruits and vegetables. Now, we no longer do that; we rarely waste any food.

We used these eight tips to stop wasting food:

Don’t Eat Out Frequently

One reason we wasted so much food years ago was that we ate out three to five times a week. When you eat out that frequently, you don’t have the opportunity to eat the leftovers you already have or the ingredients you bought to make meals.

Not eating out dramatically reduced our food waste.

Make Meals You Enjoy

This seems silly to say, but make meals that you enjoy eating. I used to make casseroles because I liked making only one item for a meal that had the protein, carbs, and veggies my family needed. However, none of us liked casseroles, especially not leftover. The leftovers frequently went in the garbage.

Now, I make meals we enjoy, and they’re not wasted.

Freeze the Leftovers

We have two deep freezers, and I utilize them extensively to avoid food waste.

Freeze Leftover Meals

Tips to Reduce Food Waste

Sometimes I make a recipe that is supposed to serve eight, but there are enough servings for 12. We eat the meal once, and then we eat the meal leftover once later in the week.

By then, my family is tired of eating this meal, so if it freezes well, I freeze the last four servings. Then, about six to 12 weeks later, I pull it from the freezer and serve it to my family. They don’t complain because it’s been weeks since we last had that meal. I don’t complain because I get a night off from cooking, and I didn’t have to buy food at the grocery store for that meal that week.

Freeze Leftover Ingredients

You can also eliminate food waste by freezing leftover ingredients. For instance, I only use tomato paste for a beef stew recipe I have. Once I use one tablespoon, I have about two-thirds of the can left. Rather than just tossing it, I put the tomato paste in ice cube containers and freeze it. Each ice cube size of tomato paste is about one tablespoon. Now, the next four times I make beef stew, I don’t have to use a new jar of tomato paste; instead, I use one of my leftover ice cubes of tomato paste. Sure, I am only saving a little, but when I do this for many food items, the savings add up.

Create a New Meal Out of Leftovers

Luckily, my family doesn’t mind eating leftovers. If your family does, you can avoid food waste by making new meals out of the excess.

For instance, let’s save you have a pork roast for a meal and have leftover shredded pork. You could serve it just like you did the first time. Or, you could mix it with barbeque sauce and make pulled pork sandwiches. If you still had leftovers, you could use them later in the week for pork carnitas. Your family probably won’t complain about eating leftovers this way because you’ve made three different meals with the meat.

Don’t Buy More Than You Need

Don’t buy more than you need sounds simple but can be difficult. Rather than planning six meals you’ll make from scratch this week, only buy ingredients for four meals. You can serve leftovers for the other meals or make meals from what you already have on hand.

Buy Frozen Fruits and Vegetables

Tips to Avoid Food Waste

If you routinely have to throw away produce because it goes bad before you can cook it, consider switching from fresh to frozen. Fresh strawberries may go bad within a few days, but frozen strawberries last for months in the freezer.

We usually buy fresh fruits and veggies, but we also have several bags of frozen that we use to supplement our fresh vegetables. Frozen veggies give you more flexibility because you don’t have to use them within a few days.

Have a Pantry Challenge

We’ve all bought ingredients for a recipe, but then something comes up and we can’t make that recipe. Meanwhile, the ingredients sit on our pantry shelves. One way to avoid having miscellaneous items fill your pantry shelves is to have a pantry challenge. For one to four weeks, buy the bare minimum groceries and focus on using up the ingredients that you have on hand.

Not only is this a great way to reduce food waste because you’re using what you already have, but it’s also a good way to save money.

Final Thoughts

If you’re struggling with the high cost of food, use these 8 tips to stop food waste. Learning to not waste food could save your family thousands of dollars a year.

Read More

Feed a Hungry Teenager Without Breaking Your Grocery Budget

How to Feed Your Family on a Low Budget

5 Tips Save on Groceries This Year

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: Frugality, Saving Tagged With: eating out, food waste, groceries, saving money

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