Our Interview With Kevin Swanson About Home Business

There is little more humbling than hearing one’s self recorded (especially when one’s self is from the South ).   Nevertheless, I was grateful to spend some time yesterday talking to Kevin Swanson on his radio program Generations With Vision, about family economics, sharing a little about our home business and how it all started.  (There was so much of I thought of later that I would have liked to talk about, but it was a very spontaneous interview.)

I think you’ll enjoy Kevin’s dynamic passion for family enterprise.

You can listen to it at Generations With Vision, if you promise to remember that my gift is writing, not speaking

Organize Your Life After the Holidays!

It’s no coincidence that the approach of a new year finds us making resolutions, new goals and priorities. There is just something so motivating about coming out of December–with all the stress behind you…but the mess still with you. You’re still suffering from a sugar high and you know this is the time to move toward health again. The house has taken the back burner to your overbooked calendar and now it begs your attention. You notice that the lack of routine and schedule has your kids a little out of whack and you’re eager to return to normalcy. Perhaps your spiritual food has been displaced with holiday food. Your finances need an overhaul too.

And you’re up for the challenge. So before I go tackle my ginormous to-do list, I thought I’d offer you the same encouragement and tips I’m trying to give myself (some of these came from my husband):

Regarding the house:

• Drink your coffee first (unless you’re trying to give it up, in which case, I have no idea how to encourage you there.)

• Tackle one room or area at a time. THIS is a hard one. You know the routine. You pick up an item from the kitchen and take it where it belongs and alas, that room is a disaster too, so you busily begin cleaning there. Resist the urge. My husband suggested that I take the stray item to the room it belongs and wait to put it up until I get to that room. Another tip is to have a box for stray items and just place them in that as you go through a room.

• Create a place for everything. If you can’t do that, toss it. Resist the urge to pine over each item, painfully imagining how and when you will use it. Once you toss it, you’ll feel much better, and you won’t miss the item. (Tip: Ask yourself, “Do I love it or do I need it?” If you answer “no” to either, it’s history.)

• If you have children, delegate. But be specific, because it is overwhelming to them too. Let the littlest ones be your “go-fers” taking trash and stray objects to their place. Give one a trash bag and make it their job to collect all the trash, or a basket to collect stray items, etc. Let them help you tackle the one room. Make it a race. Set a timer.

• Purge, purge like never before. This is the time to get rid of things you know just take up space. I try to remind myself that as soon as I toss it, I won’t remember it anymore.

• If you homeschool…give yourself a “reorganizing vacation”. Don’t feel the pressure to rush back to school until you’ve gotten everything under control. School time will be far more productive and pleasant if you’ll allow yourself that time. If you still feel pressure, maintain your daily reading and wait on the more stressful subjects.

• Study to get some great crock pot recipes and use it about twice a week.

Regarding your health:

• Last year I wrote, “Easy Health for Busy Moms” and I find it encouraging myself, even as I go back for a refresher. Great information and motivation in there to get your new year off to a good start.

• Change in baby steps. Add an extra glass of water to your diet (maybe switching at meal time).

• Find a good, whole-food multi-vitamin. I like “Alive”. Research on-line and ask around. Getting the proper nutrition is important to having the energy to accomplish all we must do in a day!

• Find some kind of exercise you will do. More than ever, at my “older” age, I’m realizing how important it is to exercise. Rebounding (jumping on a mini-tramp is an excellent, cold-weather exercise.) Not only does exercise do the obvious for your health, but it improves your mood and sense of well-being (by releasing endorphins). Who of us couldn’t use that?

• Just adding fruits, nuts and vegetables to your current diet is a great step. Make a glass of fruit juice or vitamin-enriched drink part of your morning routine.

Regarding your finances:

• Despite how painful it can be, a written budget is really the only way to stay on top of finances. We have found too, that the more variable your income, the more important it is to write out a yearly budget. For us, the bulk of our income comes in the summer. So unless we plan to spread it out over the year, we find ourselves lacking in the winter months. Dave Ramsey has the best resources I know of and I would encourage you to check out The Total Money Makeover–it was a life-changing book for us…truly.

• Actually use your budget Ramsey suggests the practical method of an envelope system. Whatever you have allotted for a certain category (food, clothing, entertainment), spend that and no more.

• Start a change jar. This is a very simple, painless way to save a little extra money for a rainy day. We’ve done this for years–sticking our spare change in a jar, and it adds up in a hurry. Think of something to save for and write it on the jar and get everybody involved!

• Learn to sell on eBay or Amazon. With a little forethought, extra cash throughout the year can be earned by selling items around the house. You could designate a specific savings goal for your eBay selling.

• Read our book, Finding Financial Freedom to see how we paid off $38,000 in consumer debt in five years, making less than $60K any year.

Regarding your spiritual life:

• Make a sermon part of your day. Or at least, every few days. With the convenience of Sermon Audio and similar sites, getting spiritually fed has never been easier. A few of my favorites: Voddie Baucham, John Piper, David Platt, Paul Washer, Ravi Zacharias, Alistair Begg, Joe Morecraft, Mark Driscoll…to name a few.

• Make Bible reading a priority. Even if you don’t get up early enough for quiet time, gathering the children around to read a portion of Scripture daily is not only a great spiritual benefit, but it paves the groundwork for habits in their own lives for years to come.

• Memorize Scripture as a family easily by playing By Heart Scripture Songs throughout your day.

Other random tips:

• Commit to reading a spiritually-challenging book once a month.

• Make a list of character traits you would like to improve, and begin praying, being deliberate and working toward those. (For me, cultivating a gentle spirit is at the top of my list.)

• Engage your children in more thoughtful discussion. Remind yourself that discussion is a primary means of education–and it can happen anywhere!

• Determine to be a blessing to your husband. So often this gets overlooked. But it should be a priority!!!! A family where the husband and wife are a team, where they cultivate friendship–that’s a family that will thrive. Just a sincere word of gratitude can go a long way toward being a “crown” to your husband.  Make him laugh, smile at him and just focus on being pleasant. You are the one person given to him to be his cheerleader. Encourage his strengths, and do not focus on his weaknesses. (It helps me, when I tend to want to dwell on his weaknesses, to redirect my thoughts to my own weaknesses. Wow. Changes perspective quickly.)

• Add laughter. This has been on my mind a lot lately. Life can really squelch out the fun if we let it. Adding a bit of laughter can change the quality of everyone’s life! Find something to laugh about…make jokes with each other, smile at your children’s antics. Nothing is so important that it has to squash our joy!

Praying the Lord would bless our homes this year as we endeavor to make them places where people thrive in the joy and comfort of our Father.

Easy and Cheap Gifts

You’ll love the  great, easy,  homemade gifts Kathy, at Teaching Good Things, has posted with the instructions.  We’ve both made these and been the recipient of these great homemade goodies.  If you need some last minute gifts but the cash is running low, consider some of these!

Great Christmas Gift Set

If you still have a gift or two to buy, I wanted you to be aware of our new, *for Christmas only* gift sets.

And just as important, we have a new scent that is scrumptious!!!  White Citrus is the perfect blend for anyone–it’s not too sweet, strong, fruity or flowery.  We are very excited about it

This gift set includes our homemade favorites:  Goat’s Milk Lotion in White Citrus, our peppermint Body Parfait, our new Honey Buttermilk Soap (see the pic. below), our soothing peppermint lip balm and a shower scrubby, all nestled in a beautiful, silver organza bag!  The set is just $17 plus shipping and we still have plenty of time to get it to you for Christmas!

(See the rest of our homemade skin products.)

(Limited number available)

Thrifty, Fun, Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas

One of my readers, Mrs. Taft, had some lovely pictures of the craft project they had been doing–homemade gift bows made from magazines.

And while I realize from a strictly money-saving standpoint, most people would not wager that the work is worth the savings,   if you combine the recyle factor with the thrifty factor and add in an especially important activity-for-the-children factor, I think it’s a winner Plus, it’s mostly just about fostering the habit of finding new uses for old things.  (If all that’s not enough, just imagine how all your relatives will marvel at your creativity )

Gotta love it!  Make your own gift bow from a magazine page!

My girls have so many dolls, but just like women can’t have enough jewelry (or shoes, or …), I suppose little girls need more babies.  (Interesting how they’re born that way and we have ‘em only wanting 2 by the time they’re grown?  Geesh, I can’t even post about crafts without interjecting something thought-provoking )

Anyway, it seems so pointless to spend money on yet another doll, just like all their others, yet I want to get them a special one that they’ll enjoy.

This homemade doll resonates with the answer!  I love it, I think my oldest daughter and I will enjoy  making them (she’ll basically tell me how to do it and show me as well-OK, it’ll be more of HER making it and me watching…I don’t *get* the sewing thing so much.)

I also thought, if we have time, we’d  make several extra outfits for them since little girl’s love dressing dolls more than anything! Instruction for a Folk Rag Doll. Let me know if you decide to make one!

How to make a wine bottle feeder:

(You’ll need approximately 6 feet of tubing or wire.)

We made these one year and they were a big hit!  If you’re not interested in cutting copper decorations, considering using artificial flowers.

1.  Wrap the copper wire/tubing around the neck of the bottle several times, and continue wrapping the wire until you reach the base, so that you have made a spiral, wire cage around the entire bottle.

2.  Take the last 3 ft. of wire and form it into a hanger for the bottle.

3.  Add 1 part sugar to 4 parts boiling water, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Boil another 2 minutes.  Allow to cool then fill the wine bottle.

4.  Insert the all-in-one bottle stopper, available at a bird supply store, and you’re done!  Add decorative copper cuttings if you wish.

There are 10 more homemade gift ideas in the Easy Homemade Gifts ebook. Since I’m really interested in helping you save money, for the next 3 days, I’m offering this book for $5.00 off the regular price!! Instead of $9.97 it is now $4.97!  Just enter the coupon code “makeit” at checkout!

***I had another idea:

Nothing is cheaper than FREE gifts, so I am wondering if any of you crafty ladies would like to offer a give away?  If so, email me and tell me what you are offering (with a picture, preferably), and I’ll post it in a few days.  Offering giveaways is a great way to get some exposure on your blog, by the way  I’m open to posting several give aways at a time!

My Tips for a More Peaceful/Frugal Christmas Season

If you celebrate Christmas at all, you know it can be stressful, even though we all agree Christmas shouldn’t be a time of stress, but rather of joy and celebration!

I deal with it every year.  Torn between traditions and finding a balance and keeping my sanity.  So I wanted to throw out some random ideas that I have either implemented or plan to for a more peaceful AND more frugal Christmas (because we all know one of the major stresses can be money.)

• I shop on line as much as possible and practice a few tricks:

• Look for things you can buy in bulk/lots.  For example, one year I accidentally came across a lot for sale–12 items–of beautiful chenille throws on Ebay.  Even with shipping, they were $4.00 each and we gave neighbors and friends one (so if you got one, now you know what a cheap giver I am…sorry!)

• If I buy from a store, I also search for a coupon code before I check out.  Yesterday I was browsing 
  Great Deals at CBD and found this coupon:  Free Shipping Code:  289128CZ

• Think outside the box.  Last night I purchased the ebook “Games for Everybody“, a delightful collection of simple and fun games (almost 200) for children and adults from a book compiled in the late 1800′s.  (One of our blog readers has an entrepreneurial son who started this clever, on-line business, Olde-Books!)  I’m always suggesting that my children play games together and they claim they don’t know any  So I’m going to print off some of the games from the ebook, bind them together in a hard copy and give them to my children for Christmas.  Then when they say “we don’t know what to play“…you know my answer!  Better yet, if you buy before Tuesday, get $1.00 off with the coupon code “wreath”!

• Think of food gifts.  I think this year we are going to get an easy peanut brittle recipe and make a ton of it, break it up and put it in cool containers to give all the men on our list.  I thought of the idea from a magazine we got in the mail–theirs cost $19.99, I figure we could do it for a few bucks.

• Get your Christmas cards cheaper.  I was too late to post the freebie, but the place where we got our cards for free is now offering 40% off your photo card order plus free shipping with 60 or more cards!  Seehere is where to go, and the 40% off coupon code is cards-30.  Just create your photo card then enter the code at checkout!  We really loved our cards (though I wish we had spent more time on the photo!)  Here’s how they turned out (except the real ones aren’t pixelated–don’t know why it uploaded that way

UPDATE:  I just received a new code in my inbox for 50% off at Seehere!  I’m almost sure this includes the photo prints and does still come with the free shipping.  The 50% off code is 2day, and only lasts for 2 days (ends 12/7).

You all must have tons of frugal ideas to lessen the stress of the holidays…do share!