While I was uploading videos onto my computer from this weekend (a process that has now taken over 24 hours…), I found this little gem….Davey’s first diaper change caught on camera just hours after Seton was born. At the time, we didn’t realize the diaper would have a blue line if it was wet. In my post labor exhaustion, I told Davey to “just touch it” to see if it was wet bahahahahaha
Growing up, my family rarely went out to dinner. When we did, we were not allowed to order sodas because they were too expensive. Water for everyone, it was. While this was frustrating as a ten year old eyeing the root beer on the table next to us, I learned the importance of saving money by resisting the temptation to spend it on things that don’t matter.
Luckily, my husband was taught the same thing.
My husband is in the business of saving money to make money. His theories on saving money have debunked the old saying, “money doesn’t grow on trees.” The truth is, if you have a little money, you can make a little money. If you have a lot of money, you can make a lot of money. The trick is to save enough money and plant it in the right soil.
Since Davey’s job is showing people how to save money, invest money, and watch money grow, I asked him to name the most important steps for someone to take control of his financial life.
1. Figure out where you spend your money
Start by making two lists. The first list should include all your monthly essentials such as bills, groceries, and rent/mortgage. Make a second list of things you spend money on each month but you don’t need to live. Include entertainment, cable, Internet, and haircuts.
Add up all these expenses and subtract them from your monthly take-home pay. If it looks like you are coming up even, it’s safe to say you going into debt. Consider making lifestyle changes by coming up with ways to live below your means. By getting rid of internet at home, learning to cut you own hair, bringing lunch to work, and going to a pre-paid cell phone service you can easily keep another $100-$200 in your pocket.
2. Start using cash
Credit cards can be a good thing for building credit and getting rewards. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of spending money you do not actually have. By using cash, you will have better control over your finances. If you are in debt, using cash should be a priority. Quite simply, if you don’t have the cash for it, you cannot afford it and you should NOT be buying it.
3. Pay down debt
There is good debt and bad debt. Good debt is necessary debt like student loans or home mortgage. Bad debt is generally considered voluntary and related to credit cards and unsecured loans. Pay off all bad debt first. If you have credit card debt, pay off one card at a time. Start to pay off chunks of the high interest card first while paying the minimums on the others. Also explore using debt consolidation such as a home equity line of credit (HELOC). This should get all your debt in one place and usually at a lower interest rate. If you do this, be sure to not go back to the credit cards.
Here are some resources:
National Foundation for credit counseling (www.nfcc.org)
Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies (www.aiccca.org)
4. Save and live below your means
Start your retirement savings… NOW. This is the most important thing you can do for yourself. Talk to your human resources at work to discover how you can have a portion of your paycheck immediately deducted and placed in a retirement account. Additionally, consider starting an IRA through an investment firm.
Also, don’t forget to have an emergency fund. Everyone’s emergency fund size is different and should be at least 3-months of your essential living expenses. This money should only be used for emergencies.
5. Make money automatic and automatically
Start by trying to make everything automatic. Use the budget lists you created in step 1 to figure out what bills you have and when they are due. If you get paid on the 1st and the 15th of the month, be sure to set up automatic bill payments equally to each paycheck.
To make saving for retirement automatic, talk to human resources at work (see above) or call your bank and ask them to move $100 on the 1st and 15th of each month from your checking account where your paycheck goes to a separate savings account.
The trick is to get money out of your account before you have a chance to spend it. Pay yourself first. If you decide to go the whole month without saving but pledge to save whatever is left at the end, chances are you will have nothing left to save.
With these 5 steps, you will seeing your savings grow and have more control over your financial life.
Our household has been eating oatmeal for breakfast for as long as we have been a household. We eat it completely for the health benefits and not at all for the taste. Because it tastes disgusting. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.
Davey got tired of shoveling down mush every morning so he decided to cook it with almond milk, cinnamon, and some honey from his hive.
Now we eat amazingness every morning. I have successfully tricked myself into thinking I am eating dessert for breakfast.
Ingredients
2 cups almond milk (vanilla almond milk is EXTRA tasty)
1/2 cup Steel cut oats
A couple dashes of cinnamon
A spoonful of honey
Raisons
Directions
Bring almond milk to a boil. Stir in oats and turn heat to medium-low. Let oats cook for 20-30 minutes. When oats have softened, stir in a couple dashes of cinnamon and a spoonful of honey. Top with raisons.
This recipe is for one person. Double if cooking for two.
Goldilocks would say it tastes just right.
I am concerned about my husband. He seems to enjoy making carnival foods like homemade cinnamon sugar pretzels and homemade caramel corn. I am bracing myself for the day he approaches me with the idea to start a food stand for the carnival and live our life on the road. If you know my husband, you know the manifestation of this idea is entirely probable.
There is no question about it, Davey is the chef/cook/baker around here. He likes to keep busy, so I think it’s one way he keeps himself entertained when we are at home. I get the benefits of being the taste-tester and blogger behind it.
I wanted to share this recipe for Homemade Caramel Corn because its fun to eat in the fall and will make great Christmas gifts for coworkers, neighbors, and teachers.
Davey found an original recipe here and modified it a bit. Here is how he did it:
Ingredients
1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels (about 16 cups popped corn)
1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/6 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Pop popcorn kernels over stove or with use of an air popper. Once the popcorn is done, empty into a large baking pan.
In a small sauce pan, melt butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt over medium heat. Once melted together, stir and bring to a boil. Boil for 2-4 minutes.
Take caramel mixture immediately from stove and drizzle on top of popcorn. Stir the popcorn to coat evenly. Place popcorn in oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to redistribute the caramel mixture.
Cool mixture. Continue to stir occasionally to prevent clumping.
YUM. Try not to eat the whole thing. Just try.
Postpartum has been a long road. And not the kind of “oh, what a journey…” road. The first days after Seton’s birth I didn’t so much want to roll over in bed. I was definitely not dreaming of tying up my shoelaces and going for a run. But eventually, albeit after many weeks, I found myself promising the exercise gods that I would never complain about working out again as I watched Netflix count down to the next episode of my TV marathon in utter disbelief that my current state of life existed on a couch. Being restricted from doing something just makes you want to do it, right? I longed for the feeling of my tennis shoes hitting pavement, my heart beating through my chest, and my frequent breath mixing with the fall air.
We may be anxious to return to running after pregnancy, but it’s important to make our comebacks gradual. Lots of changes just happened to our bodies and, as mothers, we now need our bodies to take care of our babies. Being injured isn’t an option.
To prepare for running, I encourage you to strengthen your abdominals and pelvic floor muscles through the abdominal progression and pelvic floor exercise progression I recommend. Having strong abdominals for running can reduce the risk of injury to our backs, hips, knees, ankles, and even should girdles and necks! The abdominals will work to stabilize our backs and pelvis to allow the limbs to generate movement for each step.
I also encourage you to strengthen your gluteals. You should do this the same way I recommended doing it throughout your pregnancy: by performing Hip Abduction with Lateral Rotation (“The Clamshell”). You can read through the steps in my post Top 3 Exercises Every Pregnant Woman Should Do.
When you feel as though your abdominals and pelvic floor muscles are strong enough that you can keep them contracted throughout the course of the day (even when going up/down stairs or getting up for the floor while holding your baby), you are likely ready to begin a running progression. Make sure your doctor has cleared you to exercise!
To begin, start with running and walking at one minute intervals, aka run a minute, walk a minute. Prior to pregnancy, I told my patients to do this for 30-minutes. But, now that I am experiencing the joys of postpartum first-hand, I recommend doing this for as long as you can up to 30-minutes. I started my progression (ahem, last night) and barely made it to 18 minutes. I walked that last 12 minutes telling myself, “whatever, I’m strong…I pushed a human out of my body!” as I somehow heard my heart beating the way you do after an insane workout.
Since you are only running one minute at a time, use the minute to focus on running with good form. After pregnancy, our bodies will forget we have abdominals and gluteals, so we will be relying on muscles like the tensor fascia lata (TFL, which is the muscle that controls the infamous IT band) that can lead to injury. Focus on contracting your abdominals. Review my post Improve Your Running Stride Part II: The Gluteals which will help you use your gluteals to improve your stride.
Once you hit this walk/run cycle for 30 minutes, start aiming for running 2-minutes, then walking 1-minute up to 30-minutes.
Add a minute to your running spurts when you feel ready (should be every three to five runs), and so on.
Keep in mind:
Do not push yourself too quickly. Your muscles need time to catch up to what you are asking your body to do.
Do not set time goals until you are confident you can run with good form.
If you’re having unusual aches, pains, or … ahem, dare I say leaking, talk to your physical therapist.
And, lastly, you may want to wear two bras. 🙂
This was my reaction to finally getting the green light from my doctor to exercise:
Hopefully you enjoy you first run back as much as I did.
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