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Why My Health Became a Priority

May 9, 2022 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Growing up, my parents were overweight and inactive. I was chubby through most of my childhood and disliked physical activity. When I was in my 20s, I slimmed down and exercised sometimes, but not much. In my 30s, I still exercised occasionally, but not regularly, and my weight crept back up. I knew as I aged I should exercise more, but I just couldn’t find the motivation. That changed when I began to experience heart issues.

Why My Health Became a Priority

Heart problems run in my dad’s family. I always thought I was fine because despite my inactivity and being overweight, my bloodwork always came back normal. Cholesterol was in normal range as was blood sugar. I knew I’d have to get serious one day about my health, but I kept putting it off.

When I started feeling heart palpitations, I went to the doctor. I had a stress test, and the doctor told me I had a heart murmur, arrythmia, and PVCs. His prescription? Walk two miles every day.

Implementing the Doctor’s Advice

When I received this advice from my doctor, I was obese and inactive. I started walking and watching what I ate. At first, I could only walk a half mile a day. But the more I walked and lost weight, the easier it became. Now, a year after that doctor’s appointment, I’ve lost nearly 50 pounds and am walking two to two and a half miles a day. My heart issues have largely subsided, and even better, my fasting blood sugar has dropped nearly 15 points.

Getting Healthy Doesn’t Have to Cost a Lot

For the first few months, I walked outside. However, I spent $350 to buy a treadmill to avoid walking in the Arizona heat. That’s all I have spent on my journey to get healthier.

When I compare that cost to how much I would pay in medical bills and medicines I would need if I didn’t take care of my health, getting healthier is much cheaper.

Benefits of Prioritizing My Health

There are two major benefits to prioritizing my health.

I Feel Better

Now that I’m exercising regularly, I feel much better. I sleep better, and my body feels lighter and stronger. I am able to get more done in a day.

I Avoid Expensive Medical Interventions

I should have exercised regularly years ago. Who knows? Maybe if I had, I would have avoided having any heart issues or at least delayed their onset. But I can’t change the past. Instead, I’m focusing on eating healthy and exercising regularly. Even starting these habits in midlife can affect the quality of my life as I age and help me avoid expensive medical interventions.

Final Thoughts

Many of us are guilty of thinking we’ll start a healthy lifestyle. . .sometime. But I’m here to tell you there is no time like the present. Not only will you feel better, but you’ll save yourself money by avoiding expensive medical interventions and chronic conditions.

Read More

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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 Arizona where she dislikes the summer heat but loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

5 Tips to Save on Groceries This Year

March 21, 2022 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

The price of groceries recently! Ouch. In the last few months, I’ve been shopping the same way I typically do, and yet, my grocery bill for my family of five has increased several hundred dollars, and my freezer and pantry are emptier. Enough is enough. The food prices are rising rapidly, but I’m utilizing these tips to save on groceries this year.

Prices Will Be High for Awhile

Prices will be high for a while because of supply chain issues due to the pandemic and the current war in Ukraine. However, if you’re willing to change your behavior and preferences, you can save on groceries this year, even with the market instability.

5 Tips to Save on Groceries This Year

Change Your Menu

Our family makes every meal at home, and we don’t eat extravagantly. However, I’m looking at changing our menu. We’re gluten-free and dairy-free. That means staples for most people, like bread, cost us significantly more to buy gluten-free. During this time, I’m limiting how much bread we use and instead am switching to naturally gluten-free carbs that are cheaper such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rice.

I’ve also searched the Internet for low-cost meals. Many bean-based recipes appear, but my family doesn’t want to eat beans several times a week.

Instead, I look two different places.

Depression-Era Recipes

For Depression-era recipes, I love the YouTube channel, Great Depression Cooking. Clara, the host, shares stories about her life and frugal recipes her family ate during the Great Depression.

Frugal Recipes Around the World

To make meals more interesting, I’ve prepared frugal meals from different countries. Some of our favorites include Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes with cabbage), Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake), and Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish omelet with potatoes and onions).

Use Less Meat & Fish

Part of our strategy to change the menu involves using less meat. Sometimes we have meat-based meals, but I’m currently trying to avoid having those regularly.

Find Meals with Reduced Meat

Instead of meat-based meals, I’m trying to make meals that center around vegetables and starches with some meat. When I do that, I can use less meat. For instance, when I make spaghetti, I add about six ounces of cooked ground beef. That half pound of meat is cheaper than using an entire pound for our family of five. I also look for soups and chilis that require a half-pound of meat or less.

Buy Cheaper Cuts

We enjoy roasts and steaks when we buy ¼ side of beef, but we haven’t purchased beef that way in over two years, so we’re only eating ground beef, which is the cheapest form of beef we can find.

Likewise, I still want to have fish in our diet, but I have found cheaper ways to buy it. I can buy cod pieces at Trader Joe’s for $4.49 per pound. Whole fillets cost approximately $10 a pound, so I buy cod pieces and make fish cakes instead of serving fillets to my family. We’re getting the benefits of eating fish at a much lower price.

Allocate Some Money to Stocking Up

One of the best ways to lower your grocery budget is to save some money each week to stock up on sales. Let’s say you have $150 a week to spend on groceries. You might use $120 to buy your weekly groceries and reserve the additional $30 to stock up on items that are on sale.

Maybe you find a clearance sale on ground beef marked down to $2.99 a pound instead of the regular price of $6.99 per pound. If there are ten packages available, you might buy all 10 for $29.99 total. (This is a deal I found two weeks ago, and I snatched up all ten. I promptly went home and made ten meals. Most of the meals are in the freezer now, so we can eat them in the next few months, saving us money on our upcoming grocery trips.)

Some weeks you may not find any good sales. That is okay. Let that $30 rollover, so the next week you have $60 to use for stock-up buys. Then, when you find a good sale, you can take advantage of it without wrecking your grocery budget.

Try Reverse Meal Planning

Some people carry this idea further by reverse meal planning. Instead of going to the grocery store with a list of items you need to buy, you go to the grocery store and look for food on sale or clearance and try to buy only those items.

Then, when you get home, you make a meal plan based on the items you already have. If you bought cheese at a discounted price, and you have ham from a sale two weeks ago, you might combine the two together with potatoes and milk to make scalloped potatoes for your family.

If you’re creative and can think of ways to use different foods, reverse meal planning can help you keep your budget low even when food prices are high.

I use this strategy, but only for a few meals a week. I’m not creative enough to plan all our meals this way, especially with our dietary restrictions.

Order Online

Another option is to order your groceries online. Some people love ordering this way because they limit their impulse buys. You only order what you need, so you can stick to your grocery budget.

I do sometimes place online orders, but our local grocery store is often out of the items that I order. Therefore, I only place online orders about twice a month. I like to go into the store to find discounted and clearance items, which I can’t do when I shop online.

However, by using both online shopping and going to the store on alternate weeks, I can save money.

Final Thoughts

The cost of groceries is high, but I’m hoping by regularly using these five tips to save on groceries this year, I can avoid going over budget.

How are you fighting the high price of groceries?

Read More

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

Living on a Tight Budget: Should Groceries Be the First Place You Cut?

Even More Ways to Save on Groceries

MelissaB

www.momsplans.com/

How YNAB Changed Our Finances

February 21, 2022 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Years ago, when my husband and I were first married, I had a budget binder. It was simply a spiral notebook, and on each page, I put a different budget line item such as “groceries” or “electricity.” Each time we were paid, I put a certain amount in each category. When I paid a bill, I deducted the amount from that category. It was a tedious process, especially in a category that had a lot of deductions, like groceries. In desperation, I started researching budgeting software. I tried several before finally settling on You Need a Budget (YNAB). There are so many ways that YNAB changed our finances!

What Is YNAB?

You Need a Budget (YNAB) is a budgeting software based on the envelope system of budgeting.

The YNAB Principles

The YNAB system has four principles.

Give Every Dollar a Job

Using YNAB, you should budget every single dollar that you receive. Doing this helps you map out how to spend your money. If you have $40 left in your grocery category, you might need to have a small shopping trip and eat up the items in your pantry so you can keep within your budgeted amount.

Embrace Your True Expenses

Your true expenses are not just the ones that are due every month. You also have to budget for those expenses that you only pay once or twice a year like car insurance, property taxes, home insurance, and car registration. You should also budget for irregular expenses such as vet and medical bills.

Roll with the Punches

Your budget is flexible. If you only have $40 left in your grocery budget but your food costs $75, you can move $35 from another category to cover the overage. Things happen—roll with the punches.

Age Your Money

The age your money principle refers to how long it takes you to use the money that comes in. If you have money coming in that you don’t have to use for 30 days, your money is 30 days old. The longer you use YNAB, usually, the older your age of money is. Currently, our age of money is 73 days.

YNAB Trainings

YNAB has many free training videos, so you can watch those to learn more about the principles in YNAB and budgeting. In addition, the creator of YNAB, Jessie Mecham, wrote a book, You Need a Budget: The Proven System for Breaking the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of Debt, and Living the Life You Want, that you can also read to learn about the YNAB system in-depth.

How YNAB Changed Our Finances

I started using YNAB over six years ago, and the program has revolutionized how I handle our finances.

Electronic Version of My Budget Binder

At its core, YNAB is an electronic version of my old paper budget binder.

Easier to Use than Paper

However, using YNAB is so much easier! All of those calculations I used to do on paper? YNAB does them automatically.

More Flexibility

Plus, when I put in an expense, I have the option to split the cost into several categories. So, if I spend $70 on Amazon, I can split the expenses into separate categories such as $45 for groceries, $15 for toiletries, and $10 for spending. I love that flexibility, and the process is so much easier and quicker than doing it by hand.

YNAB Is Portable

Plus, I can always consult my YNAB budget on my cell phone. I never carried around my budget binder previously, so I would have to guess how much I had left in each category.

Create a Budget Buffer

Besides being easier to use than my clunky budget binder, YNAB taught me new budgeting principles such as creating a buffer. When you first start using YNAB, you’re encouraged to create at least a one-month buffer. That means that slowly you start covering next month’s expenses with this month’s money. Say, at the end of the month you have $150 leftover. You don’t go out to eat to celebrate. Instead, you take that money and put it in some of your categories for next month. Then, slowly, you keep adding until you have all of your categories for next month covered with this month’s money.

Having a buffer gives you an automatic one-month emergency fund and gives you a sense of security. It also makes budgeting easier. You can pay all of your bills at the beginning of the month instead of waiting until you get your paychecks during the month because the money is waiting to do its job.

Can See Your Finances in One Glance

What I love most about YNAB is that my husband and I can see our finances at a glance. Since I do all of the budgeting, YNAB allows my husband and I to sit down every one or two weeks and together look at where we stand financially. My little budget notebook never made much sense to him, especially because he’d have to flip through 20 pages to see the amount of money in each of our categories.

Easy to Track Net Worth

The best feature is the net worth feature. Often when we feel like we’re not making much progress financially, we look at our net worth and see that we are improving our bottom line. We sit down together at the end of each month to go over our net worth.

YNAB’s Price Increase But We Kept It

Recently, YNAB had a significant price increase. I thought about searching for a cheaper budgeting software. However, my husband said no, he wanted to stick with YNAB. He feels it is a valuable tool that makes budgeting and money management easier for me. In addition, he loves how easily he can keep up to date with our finances thanks to the program. He feels that YNAB is well worth the price, even after the price increase, so we’re staying.

Final Thoughts

YNAB has changed our finances and made them so much easier to manage. If you’re looking for budgeting software, I highly recommend You Need a Budget.

6 Unexpected Baby Expenses to Budget For

How to Feed Your Family on a Low Budget

P.s. if you’re looking for a good all around quality site to review while you’re working with YNAB, consider Moneycrashers.com. I’ve been following them for year – and their advice is generally really solid.

MelissaB