Fabulous Financial Solutions

Today, I made a pot of split pea soup. It consisted of a couple of cans of chicken broth, the rest of a leftover onion, salt, pepper, a ham hock and of course, the split peas. I simmered it on the stove for about two hours. Shortly before dinner, I steamed some brown rice. We ate the split pea soup over the brown rice, and spiced it up with hot sauce. I figured out how much this cost me to make, and it was only five dollars! That’s $1.25 per person! Actually, it’s even less than that, because I have leftover soup to eat for lunch tomorrow. And that’s in spite of two people getting seconds!

I’ve been on a “slow carb” diet lately, and I’ve found that one of the easiest (and cheapest) things to eat is beans. One of the ways that I save money is by taking my lunch to work–as if I’d rather eat cafeteria food anyway!–and lately, what’s been in those lunches is beans. Specifically, a half can of refried beans.

Refried beans can be purchased for about a dollar a can. Since each can gives me two lunches, that’s fifty cents per lunch. I put a couple of tablespoons of cheese on my beans as well, at a cost of about fifteen cents. So, I’m spending $3.25 on my lunches–for the week!

The downside to this is that after a while, I will get tired of refried beans and cheese. Then it will be back to chicken breasts, which is considerably more pricey!

This summer, I decided to quit drinking soda. It wasn’t because of weight, because I was already drinking diet. It was because the acids were starting to hurt my teeth. One day I thought, “Why am I wasting money on a drink without nutrition so my tooth enamel can get all messed up?”

The biggest challenge was finding a replacement. Tea was it. I buy those big family-sized bags of tea, and have found that two of them will make an entire pitcher. I sweeten it just a bit with Splenda, and I’ve got a healthy drink, that won’t hurt my teeth, although it might stain them a bit if I don’t keep on top of my tooth whitening.

Everyone in the house likes to drink it. I make a pitcher of unsweetened, so that people can drink it that way, or add sugar instead of Splenda. It’s taken about ten dollars a week off my grocery bill, which is the sweetest thing about it! And, with all the good stuff in tea, I feel like I’m doing something healthy, a feeling that soda will never give you.

I’ve learned that energy is definitely equal to money. Times when I am exhausted and not doing anything besides sitting on the couch reading are not times when I am doing anything to improve my financial situation. Not that there’s anything wrong with reading, of course. I’m referring to those times when it feels like that’s all I CAN do!

Eating healthily and taking vitamins does a lot to improve my energy, as does getting enough sleep. We all talk about how important those things are. What doesn’t get mentioned very often is how important they are to earning money, especially if one is self-employed. Believe me, it is much easier to go to a job everyday and sit at a desk if you are not feeling well than to motivate yourself to finish a project at home.

Not only will treating yourself right help you financially, but you will also have a much cleaner house.

I’ve been trying to lose weight, and to that end, I’ve quit buying snack foods. I’ve also quit running by fast food restaurants. What this means is that I am stuck with the food that I have bought for the week, which largely eliminates those midnight runs to the fridge since there is no snack food!

I’ve found that this strategy has saved me quite a bit of money. I feed a family of three for about $100 a week, and we have a good diet with healthy foods. An added benefit besides weight loss has been that we now eat at the table much more often. My kids really enjoy this time, and enjoy helping to prepare meals and set the table. Who would have figured? It’s way better than the restaurants we were eating at so frequently, and I love the savings.

Just the other day, I learned that the Kroger card can be pretty useful. I’ve had one for years, but I’ve never used it for anything but checkout. Now they’re running a gas promotion where you can get 10 cents off per gallon per fill up if you’ve spent $100 that week, which I do. My mom really needs to save gas money, so I gave my extra card to her.

Another bonus I’ve found is that you can log onto the Kroger website and download coupons to your card. All you have to do is enter the card number and choose the coupons you want. For me, the hard part is remembering what I put on there. If you load coupons that are for products you don’t buy all the time anyway, you’d better write down what is on there! I believe they expire after 30 days.