Search Results for: budget

Frugal Multi-Cultural 4th of July Party Suggestions

July 1, 2015 By MelissaB 13 Comments

The 4^th of July is just around the corner, and with it, the official launch of summer. A favorite American pastime, a barbeque 4th of July party offers you the chance to enjoy the weather and the company of friends while enjoying tasty foods. If you don’t have much money to devote to entertaining, consider moving beyond the traditional favorites of hamburgers and hot dogs and trying some of these unique, cultural party food ideas.

Main Meals

–Fajitas on the grill. Buy some lower cost steak, chicken breasts and shrimp. Season them, grill them, and then mix them together so each fajita contains a mix of the three meats. Grill some onions and peppers on the grill, slice them, and make a fajita bar complete with tortillas, shredded lettuce, guacamole, onions, peppers and meats. Of course, you can choose to use only one or two meats depending on what is on sale at the grocery store the week of your party.

For a solid review of which grills have the best value, consider checking out: smokeygrillbbq.com. Its a nice little review site that I found last month – worth a read if you get a chance.

–Taco bar. Prepare a few different taco fillings with homemade seasoning including ground beef, chicken, and a vegetarian option such as black beans. If you have a bit more money to spend, buy some lower cost steak and also offer steak tacos. For variety, offer flour and corn tortillas. Then let your guests choose their main fillings, type of tortilla and their toppings. (Perhaps choose from shredded lettuce, cheese, refried beans, tomatoes, onions, guacamole, etc.) If you want to be even more creative, consider making your own pico de gallo.

–Pulled pork. Be your own pit master and search the web for the myriad of homemade bbq sauce recipes. Create your own bbq sauce and delight your guests with delicious, homemade pulled pork.

Side Dishes

Having spent the majority of your money on the main meal, consider these low cost side dishes. Choose the ones that best match what you are serving as the main meal.

–Deviled eggs. Even in today’s economy, eggs average 10 to 15 cents a piece, making for a very low cost side dish.

–Japanese potato salad. Potatoes can also be very cheap. If you want a new, creamy twist on potato salad, consider making Japanese potato salad. Your guests will most likely enjoy this newer version of an old classic.

–Corn on the cob. At some road side stands and farmers’ markets, you can find corn on the cob for 10 to 15 cents an ear. Consider going beyond the traditional and instead making some Mexican corn on the cob popular at food stands. Either add olive oil and red pepper, or add a blend of butter, mayonnaise and cheese. Again, search a site like food.com to find a variety of recipes.

If you have a small entertainment budget, consider some of these meal ideas. Most of them will require less meat per person than the traditional hamburger, and your guests will love the variety.

photo credit: Signe Karin

Is Not Keeping Up with the Joneses Boring?

April 27, 2015 By MelissaB 3 Comments

We’ve been on a journey to pay off our debt for 3.5 years now. At first, we were gazelle intense, but then I burned out from working too hard, so we slowed down on the debt repayment.

Last year, we moved to Arizona from Illinois, so our money became much tighter as we faced unexpected moving expenses. (Aren’t there always unexpected expenses when making such a long move?)

To make matters worse, in the first 3.5 months of 2015, we’ve faced $5,000 in unexpected car repairs and dental bills.

The good news is that even though we haven’t made significant debt repayment progress over the last year, we’ve been able to pay for all of these most recent expenses in cash, without going further into debt.

Basically, each year for the last 3.5 years, our budget has become tighter and tighter. We’ve definitely NOT kept up with the Joneses.

Yet, we’ve not found this type of life boring.

We Appreciate Splurges More

If anything, living this way makes us appreciate a “treat” that we used to take for granted. For instance, I homeschool my kids, and my daughters recently completed preschool and kindergarten. They were both very excited about moving on to kindergarten and first grade, respectively, so my husband and I decided to take the family out for a treat.

We went to our favorite restaurant. We went for breakfast, so the bill would be cheaper, and we used a $25 gift card that we had gotten at Christmas and saved. Because we had not gone out to eat in about five months, the kids were beyond thrilled. All of us enjoyed the meal greatly.

Because we haven’t gone out to eat in so long, doing so was a special treat.

Before we got on a budget and started paying down debt, we often went out to eat three or four times a week. Honestly, because we did it so often, going out to eat had become boring. Now, because we don’t do it very often, we appreciate the meal when we do go out.

Because we have simplified our lives, we are able to enjoy special occasions much more.

We Have Plenty of Fun—For Free

Just because we aren’t keeping up with the Jones and are on a budget doesn’t mean we aren’t having fun. Just this week, my mom was in town for a visit. We took her to a national park, which had free admission that day. We watched artisans make homemade tortillas and weave baskets. We listened to a local band, and we got an excellent tour of the site. Before heading home, we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the grounds.

Last month we went to the Tucson Festival of Books. There was so much to do (for free!) that we stayed over five hours. We could have stayed even longer.

Going on a tight budget and deciding NOT to keep up with the Jones can be difficult at first. Now, however, we’ve done it for so many years that we find living this way actually improves our quality of life.

Living on What You Earn Can Make You Feel Broke, and That’s a Good Thing!

February 23, 2015 By MelissaB 4 Comments

Living on what you earn can be a difficult thing. For many, it seems like a little like a foreign language; difficult to learn to do, and backwards. But, if you can learn it, and transform your life into one where you’re living on what you earn, it can make a whole lot of difference. You’ve got to start somewhere, though. I, like you, haven’t always lived on what I earned.

Almost all of my life, I’ve owed someone something. When I was 19, I needed a car. My parents, tired of having me call them late at night after my old, beater car had broken down—AGAIN!—, decided I should buy a new car.

I didn’t qualify for a loan yet, so my grandpa lent me the money, and I paid him back with a small amount of interest, which was less than I’d pay borrowing from the bank and more than he’d make in a safe investment.

Soon after, I went away to college and took out student loans and started running a balance on my credit cards.

By the time I finally paid off my student loans a few years ago, my husband had his own loans that we had to pay.

Can you see me, just like the proverbial hamster running on the hamster wheel?

I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.

Until one day, I said, “Enough!”

No more.

Time to live on what we make.

Time to stop borrowing.

Time to start saving.

And that’s when the real challenge began.

Our society is built on borrowing. Borrow for school, borrow for a car, borrow for a house, rent to own, pay in 10 easy installment plans.

I’m done living that lifestyle, but in turn, I’ve picked a much more challenging lifestyle—living on what we earn.

Cutting Until There’s No Room Left to Cut

The first thing I did was develop a frugal, written budget. That meant taming our grocery budget from $700 to $1,000 a month to $500 a month to feed our family of 5 with gluten, dairy and corn intolerances. It isn’t easy, but we’re doing it.

The next step was to keep a record of everything we spend. Honestly, I hate keeping this record, so that alone is incentive to spend less.

I spend an hour or so every week, reconciling the budget and making sure we’re on track.

I also started regularly saving for irregular expenses. Every other week, I put $120 in an account earmarked for utilities. In the winter, our utilities fall far below that, but I still keep saving the money for the expensive summer months. This way our utility costs are the same all year long.

Handling Unexpected Expenses

While the new budget can feel somewhat restrictive, what I find most difficult are the unexpected expenses. Just recently, I found that two of my kids have cavities (quite a few!), and the price for fixing them is around $400. I have money set aside in a medical fund, but filling the cavities will just about wipe that money out.

The problem is that we have many other medical expenses–$188 for my son to get new glasses and an eye exam and a pending $3,300 expense for him to get braces. I could put his braces on an interest free payment plan, but we don’t do payment plans anymore, interest free or not.

Instead, we had to make hard decisions like canceling our trip to see family this summer.

Living on cash is definitely not easy, but I know once we get through the next couple of years, as our income increases, it will get easier.

We are, as Dave Ramsey says, “Living like no one else so later we can LIVE like no one else.”

Do you eschew debts and payment plans, or do you use them in moderation to meet your goals?