Search Results for: budget

Save Money and Eat Healthy: Rent an Apple Tree

September 3, 2013 By MelissaB 10 Comments

When my health began to suffer a few years ago thanks to stress, being overweight, and having some intestinal issues, I started taking much better care of myself. That meant eating organic foods, following a Paleo diet, and losing over 70 pounds.

I used to always say I didn’t have money to buy organic foods, but my health issues weren’t cheap, so I decided in the long run, eating the best food I could was a priority, even if it was more expensive. Over the years, though, I’ve found ways to cut costs on eating organic. One way is renting an organic apple tree.

How Does Renting an Apple Tree Work?

I simply Googled “rent an apple tree” to find one near us. Then, I rented one apple tree for $55. All the apples on that tree were mine. I paid in the spring, and the Paula Red apples were ready in August.

The farm called me to tell me when the apples were ripe, and then I and my family headed out to the orchard to pick the apples. It took less than 45 minutes, and we left with 94 pounds of organic apples.

What Did We Do With All Those Apples?

Paula Reds don’t stay good for long, so we turned them into applesauce. (And we ate a lot of them fresh.) We ended up with 28 quarts of applesauce, which I stored in the freezer. It took me, my husband and son working together 7 hours to process all of the apples.

We didn’t have to add any sugar because they were naturally sweet.

How Much Did We Save?

The lowest price I have been able to find for organic applesauce is $2.50 for 16 ounces at Trader Joe’s. Just like our applesauce, Trader Joe’s applesauce only contains organic apples. There are 32 ounces in a quart, so one quart of Trader Joe’s applesauce is $5.00.

One quart of our homemade applesauce from apples on our rented tree is approximately $1.96. Overall, we saved $85 and will have enough applesauce to last us through the winter.

We also signed up for another apple tree in October for apples that are suitable for storage. We’ll be able to keep them in our refrigerator for several months and eat them fresh. If we get another 94 pounds, we’ll be paying just 58 cents a pound, which will be a significant savings over the grocery stores where I can never seem to find organic apples for less than $1.99 a pound.

It’s Not Just About the Savings

Still, it’s not just about the savings. What matters is that we know exactly where the apples came from and how they were processed. In addition, they are local, in season, and organic, which is the best way to eat food.

If you want to feed your family healthier foods but feel that they are out of your budget, don’t despair. There are several unique ways to feed your family organic food on a budget. Renting an apple tree is just one of those ways. We’ll be sure to do this again next year.

Have you done something like this? Do you buy food direct from the farmer?

Original Photo Credit:MetaphoricalPlatypus, on Flickr.

Investing in Your Personal Finances

July 9, 2013 By Shane Ede 6 Comments

In business, we talk all the time about investing in your business. We’re not talking about actually buying stock in your own company, although there are those that do that as well. What we’re really talking about is investing the things that will make your business better. For a cab company, that might mean investing in an extra cab or two. Or replacing some of the older cabs in the fleet with newer ones. It might be something as simple as sending an employee (or yourself) to training. But, as much as we talk about investing in our businesses, how many of us actually invest in our own personal finances?

How to Invest in your Personal Finances

Investing in your personal finances can be something as complex as buying new investments. But, it can also be something as simple as providing yourself with the training you need to improve your personal finances. What part of personal finance scares you? Is it the budgeting? Is it the balancing? Selling? Buying? Investing? Maybe you just don’t understand how savings accounts work? Investing doesn’t mean you need to spend money either. All those things I just listed can be learned online for free. It might take a bit longer because it isn’t all consolidated like it would be in a course. You might need time sorting through sites like this one learning what the authors have to teach. But, it can be learned. And, when you’re done, and you understand something a bit better, you’ll have invested in your personal finance.

Earning Dividends on your Personal Finances

In the investing world, dividend paying stocks are the ones that many investors (for sure income investors) will look at first. Why? Because, even if the stock doesn’t gain any value, it’s still going to pay that dividend out in most cases. The people who run the company have invested in the business to improve it enough that it can pay some of it’s revenues back to the shareholders. You can do the same. As you invest in your personal finances, and implement the things that you’ve learned, your finances will get better. You’ll be working on them all the time to improve them. As they get better, you’ll start earning dividends on your investment. Maybe it will be in a higher rate of income. Maybe a higher rate of savings. Or, maybe it will just be a higher rate of understanding that leads to a calmer sense of where your finances are headed.

The quicker you start investing in your personal finances, the quicker you’ll start earning those dividends. Click on a few of those links in that list up there. Learn about something that you don’t feel in control of. Invest in your personal finances today.

Earning > Saving

May 20, 2013 By Shane Ede 25 Comments

Saving is a finite solution. You can only save so much, can only be so frugal. Your power for earning is unlimited with the right resource (you), the right tools (knowledge), and the right force (hard work). That isn’t to discount saving. Saving is an important part of the equation too. But, because of it’s limited ability, it can only be so much a part of your overall wealth and financial independence equation. Do you know what limits savings’ ability? Your earnings. You can only save so much as you earn. If you only earn $8 an hour, you can only save $8 an hour. Far less, really, because who can live on $0 an hour? Not many. So, the more you make, the more you can save.

There’s another side to that, even. The more you make, the more ability you have to make more. That’s the root of the old saying, “It takes money to make money”. While you can actually make money without having much money, the more money you have, the more opportunity you will find to earning more money.

Increasing your earnings isn’t always an easy equation to solve, though. Many people feel like they’re trapped in the job they have, the payscale they’re in, and the life path they’ve chosen. Not at all true! Your earning potential is unlimited if you combine the resources at hand and improve the ones that aren’t. You’ve already got you. Increasing you knowledge of the work you want to do is pretty easy as well. It just takes a bit of time, and some crafty searching online. Pretty much anything you want to learn about is available online. Heck, there are even entire sites dedicated to free college courses. All you need is to dedicate some time to learning whatever it is you want to learn. You can find that time by taking it from some of your TV watching time.

Follow all that learning up with some good old fashioned hard work. That’s it. Just hustle a little. Unfortunately, there isn’t any magic formula for that one. I don’t know how to motivate you to work. I don’t know the right things to say to you to make you want it. You’ve got to provide that part. If you can’t find the motivation to pull yourself away from American Idol for an hour to learn something, or work on making yourself a better earner, there’s just nothing that I can do for you. You’ve got to find that part for yourself.

But, listen. If you’re capable, like me, of getting your finances under control; of learning how to keep a budget, pay your bills on time, and learn from mistakes, there’s no reason you can’t learn how to earn more. You CAN learn how to do something you want to do. You CAN learn how to make yourself more marketable. And you CAN earn more. And, if you do, you WILL tip the scale in your direction. You’ll start to earn more. You’ll be able to save more. And you’ll find that opportunities will present themselves to you.

How are you going to improve yourself today?