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1 Month Spending Fast – How to reset spending and save

Uncategorized · 

I’m currently doing a no-spend June. Back in 2018 and part of 2019 I did a no-shopping fast half of the year. I basically didn’t shop for anything that wasn’t perishable, I didn’t run out of it or wasn’t completely broken for over six months.

Past Spending Fast Success

This helped me get in touch with my spending habits and understand and work through everything that drove me to compulsively spend and become a shopaholic. Every once in a while, I look back on that and think about how much I learned and how easy it is to slip back into old habits when you live in a consumeristic society. The pressure to “buy buy buy” is on all the time, especially with how easy things are now to shop. You can get things delivered in two hours, pick them up at the store without ever going in, or you can get things to your house the same or the next day from all over the world. You can buy stuff straight from China for exceptionally cheap prices and you don’t feel guilty about even spending the money because of how cheap it is.

Saving $8,000 by Not Shopping

As the years have passed since I’ve done the spend fast, I realize I learned some valuable lessons about myself and the triggers that caused me to spend. It helped me reflect and work through issues I had that I was using shopping to mask. It also helped me save $8,000 in that six months. And now, as I’m on a decluttering journey, I really feel that this will help me reset my spending habits to better align my shopping goals with my goals for how I want my home to function.

By more carefully thinking about every purchase, I won’t be overwhelming myself by bringing in tons of impulse purchases into my home. And I won’t be just rebuying all the stuff I just decluttered when I’m feeling emotional and “spendy.”

Spend Fast Rules

June is the month when I will not buy anything that is not necessary. And by needs, I mean:

-Food and bills

-Broken things (that I don’t have something to replace it with)

-Something I’ve completely run out of (so if I have five chapsticks at home and run out of one, I have to use the other four before getting a new one.)

-Gifts (for other people, I won’t be buying myself gifts lol)

Using my backup items at home takes so many things off the table for me to shop for because I own almost everything I need: beauty products, clothes, shoes, home decor, kitchen gadgets, books, toys, and furniture (etc).

Decluttering While Not Shopping

Instead, I will focus on finishing the decluttering project I started when we moved back into our home a month ago. While our house was being renovated, we spent four months in a long-term Air B and B, and each of us went there with little more than one suitcase worth of stuff per person. The house was stocked with the bare minimum of items, with it being a rental. It made me realize that we functioned better without tons of options daily. We had fewer decisions to make, even with simple things like cups to drink from and kitchen gadgets to use while making dinner. It was freeing. And we didn’t miss the stuff we didn’t bring. In fact, I could barely remember what we had left behind in our cupboards.

When we moved back home, I opened boxes that were packed while they were putting in the new cabinets. I couldn’t remember what we had until I saw the items. And with the help of friends and family over a few days, we donated 2 SUV loads of amazing kitchen supplies to local thrift stores. I now have a kitchen will about 50% of what we had before I started decluttering. And I’m hoping this spend fast will help stop the influx of items from mindless shopping that filled out cupboards to capacity in the first place.

Spend Fast Goals

Decluttering

I hope to get a few things out of this spending fast. The first is to be able to declutter without cluttering the space again – that’s the biggest thing for me right now. When I get rid of five shirts, I feel like I should buy one new shirt to replace all those five shirts. Because they weren’t perfect. I didn’t wear them and wanted to buy one I would wear. That’s not a good idea when you’re on a decluttering journey. I think that’s something for later once all the decluttering is done, and I can see what I need as a whole.

Address Emotional Spending Patterns

The second thing is to address the emotional things that are causing me to spend and deal with them in other positive ways. I might get stressed out at work and then go on a little shopping spree even if I’m only spending $10 or $20. Those little things add up. So instead of doing that, I could work on a crochet project, project around the house, read or build something with my kids, garden, enjoy the library or do anything else that doesn’t involve spending money. My goal is to find better outlets for my stress or boredom.

Get Time Back

The third thing is, I hope it will give me back a lot of time I spend just window shopping. Browsing online, browsing Amazon, browsing catalogs, browsing emails, and instead, I can use that time to do the other things I want to do.

Save Money

I should add the fourth is I hope to save money. I don’t want to be just spending needlessly, even if it’s a few dollars here and there. It really adds up over the year. And a lot of times I can’t even remember what I bought. Saving money wasn’t the main focus, but I hope that is a by-product. I did save an incredible amount of money the year that I did the spend fast, so I’m hoping to be able to do that again. The bigger goals are to reset my spending habits, address the things that are driving my spending habits and get the time back from shopping to enjoy the things I love the most.

Have you ever done a spend fast? If so share below! What did you learn or gain from doing that?

Chocolate Cake Batter Smoothie

Recipes, Smoothies · 

Need a dessert that’s decadent and healthy!? I love this chocolate cake smoothie. It’s the definition of rich chocolate bake in its best form: batter.

While you’re not supposed to lick the bowl, this is almost identical to enjoying a spatula full of batter. This is a great way to introduce superfood smoothies to picky eaters as well. I love to just slip a few bits of spinach in there here and there. I end up putting a little more in each time. The goal is not to turn this into a green smoothie, just get a few extra greens in where you can. You also don’t need to add spinach in at all if you don’t want to. It’s just a bonus I have done for my kiddos before.

Ingredients:

  • 1 frozen banana
  • 1/2 cup of frozen strawberries
  • 1/4 cup of quick cook oats
  • 1 tbsp of cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp almond butter
  • 1 cup unsweet vanilla almond milk
  • 1 tsp of vanilla extract
  • top with water

Instructions:

  1. Add all of your ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.
  2. Top with shaved chocolate or extra dark mini chocolate chips for a more dessert feel.

Then sit back and enjoy your decadent dessert smoothie with all of the superfoods included!

Top Summer Smoothies that are Healthy and Refreshing

Uncategorized · 

With summer bursting through and bringing so much fresh produce, it’s hard not to want to eat some of it. Including in-season produce is a great way to add variety to your diet, eat what there is an abundance of in your grocery store, and potentially even save some money because in-season produce can often be the most affordable.

For a balanced smoothie, I like to follow the most basic combination. That is 1 Base Green, 2 Fruits, and 1 Fat or Protein.

Simple Smoothie Base:

Base Greens: Spinach

Fruit 1: Banana

Fruit 2: Mixed berries

Then I love to add things like a protein powder scoop, hemp hearts, or even some almond butter before I blend it up.

In the summer I usually see things like melons, a wider variety of berries, and a wider variety of greens on sale. Here are some of my favorite swaps.

For greens: Broccoli, Swiss Chard, Kale, Dandelion Greens, fresh herbs of all kinds

For Fruits: Apple, Apricot, Banana, Kiwi, Lemon, Lime, Pineapple, Strawberries, Cantaloupe, Coconut

Chart via https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/seasonal-produce-guide

Even avocados seem to be on sale more often, and I always try to scoop up a few extra for some healthy fats in my smoothies.

Try some of these awesome summer smoothie combos:

Strawberry Tini Smoothie

  • 1 banana
  • 1 cup strawberries
  • 1/2 juice lemon
  • 1/2 cup spinach
  • 1/2 cup kale
  • Pinch of mint (optional)

Tropical Vacation Smoothie

  • 1 cup kale
  • 1 banana
  • 1 apricot
  • 1/2 cup pineapple
  • 1 cup Coconut water

Green Dream Smoothie

  • 1 cup swiss chard
  • 1 banana
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 3 Kiwis
  • Pinch of cilantro (optional)

For each smoothie, add all the ingredients into a blender with a handful of ice. Top with water (or coconut water if desired) and blend. These all can be easily adjusted for what is available at your store. I find the balance of the banana base and 1 additional not-as-sweet fruit, and a serving of veggies to be perfect for me. Use more or less of anything you like or don’t like.

Adding avocado to any smoothie can bump up the creamy factor and add healthy fats to your smoothie that also help make the vitamins in the fruits and veggies more available for your body.

Happy blending! What’s your favorite smoothie for the summer? Leave the combo in the comments below!

Choose the Right Blender for Your Kitchen

Shop this blog below. Here are our top favorite blenders. These contain affiliate links that support our blog at no extra cost to you – Thank you for the support if you shop these links!

Our favorite blender is the Nutrabullet; we have had one for almost 10 years. But We have also used Vitamix, Ninja, and simple on-the-go blenders while traveling and liked them all. I recommend picking a powerful blender to enjoy a smooth consistency when blending frozen fruits and fibrous greens.

How to Easily Spring Clean without being Overwhelmed

Lifestyle, Uncategorized · 

Spring cleaning. Every year, spring cleaning pops up all over social media. It’s in all of our conversations. Maybe in passing someone mentions that they’re doing their spring cleaning, and all of a sudden you realize you’ve got spring cleaning to do yourself. But is spring cleaning just this primal urge that we have as women, or is it a lot of peer pressure? I have thought about this often.

Either way, there are reasons that we do spring cleaning. First of all, it can help lift the burden of so much stuff off of our shoulders. One time a year we dedicate time to get rid of and throw out all the things we don’t need. Sometimes, as we come out of a long winter, people feel the need for a new fresh start. I know that when I lived in the snow, after being hunkered down for months and months, it was really great just to throw open the windows clean out all the old crap and start over as spring was coming to life. 

And some of us just need a really deep cleaning in our house once a year. It’s nice to check off some of those things that we don’t do every single week. And there’s a reason for that. You don’t need to wipe down your floorboards, every single weekend. But how do we do spring cleaning, so that it doesn’t make our head explode? How do we do spring cleaning without losing our minds and wrecking our bodies over the course of a weekend? 

I used to do my spring cleaning in one weekend. I would dedicate one entire Saturday, and one entire Sunday, where I would just go crazy cleaning in the house. That means that for two straight days I would be on my hands and knees scrubbing, up on ladders dusting, and everything in between. Sometimes cleaning for eight to 10 hours a day and then it was all done.

But the sacrifice I made was my sanity. I felt all this pressure to come out of the weekend with a sparkling clean house. My hands were scrubbed or raw. My body honestly ached so badly that it took days for me to recover. I was stressed and then went back into the week unable to enjoy all the work I just did. I don’t want to do that anymore. So here is the change I have tried the past few years.

Instead of doing it over one weekend and bringing too much stress on myself, I instead scheduled my spring cleaning to last all spring. Now hear me out. I know we don’t like to drag stuff out, but a lot of spring cleaning has to do with getting rid of things that might just be sitting around or cleaning odd places that we don’t get to every day. This means all that stuff and all that dirt has been there for a whole year. It’s okay to let it sit for a couple more weeks. 

Break it Up

Instead of doing all of the work on one Saturday and Sunday, I divided it up over the course of four to five weeks. The easiest way for me to tackle it was to give one room and each weekend. That means one weekend I would tackle the kitchen, one weekend I would tackle a bathroom, one weekend I would tackle the bedrooms, and one weekend I would tackle the living room. This year, I added the garage to the list for its own weekend. 

While this seems like you’ll be giving up a lot of weekends, instead of doing eight to 10 hours and the whole house over a whole day I gave myself two to three hours in each of these rooms. That of course, over the course of five weekends adds up to 10-15 plus hours, but it wasn’t done at the expense of my mental health. 

Outline it on the Calendar

To really help break it down for myself, I wrote on my calendar each weekend, a time block where I was going to do a deep spring cleaning. And just because it’s happening in the spring doesn’t mean you can’t do this other times a year. In fact, I do this in the fall as well, but because we’re in spring and we’re talking about spring cleaning I’m just referring to this as spring cleaning. 

So the first thing is to write one of the rooms or areas of the house, each weekend on your agenda or in your phone notes and block off two or three hours. Nothing crazy. You don’t want to give yourself half a day because you will fill the time that you allot. So the best thing to do is keep it short and sweet. Go in, tackle what you have to do, and get it done. 

Get the Most Bang for Your Buck

The second thing I do is for each different room, I take time to evaluate where are the places that I can make the most difference. For example, in the kitchen, I do scrub the floors more regularly than I do anywhere else in the house, so I don’t put scrub the floors on my spring cleaning list. Instead, I put things like wipe out the refrigerator and throw out all the expired food from the pantry. These are things I don’t do on a weekly basis and I know that one good sweep will really clean up a lot of the kitchen. 

Another example of big bang for your buck cleaning is in the bathrooms. Same thing here. Find things that you don’t usually do and skip over the things that more regularly get done. You probably clean and scrub your toilets and your sinks more regularly than you clean out your medicine and products cabinet.

This is another place where I take the opportunity to get through all those old crusty jars that have just a little bit of stuff left in them. Toss them. If I have four or five half bottles of something I didn’t really love. I toss them. This is also the chance to clean out those drains. Yes I know it’s one of the most awful chores you can do but they need to get done for the health of your pipes. Faster draining sinks and tubs help keep the bathroom cleaner months after you do it. 

In each room, I go in and I say “What haven’t I done in a while, what areas can make a big impact by doing a little extra work?” Here’s are a few other things that I do room to room that I think really helped change rooms look and does a lot to clean it on a little time.

Dusting isn’t one of my favorite things to do, but dusting really does change a lot visually especially if you have a lot of knickknacks and decor. And dusting can kind of be a big task but can clean up a room fast and be a relife of your allergies. You can wipe down ceiling fans, baseboards, smudges on the walls. Cleaning out catchall drawers is another big impact task. 

In your bedroom and in the kitchen, there are a lot of cabinets and drawers. This is the time of year I take the opportunity to really go through and look at things and decide if they can go or if I should keep them. 

Map it and Check it Off

The third thing I do is I take the time cleaning to actually ask myself if I need all of the stuff I have stored and hanging around. If I haven’t used it in a whole year, I first asked myself why that is. Is it because for the full past year I haven’t entertained a single soul at our house, so I don’t have any reason for my serving plates? I’ll keep those. But if there’s a slicer, dicer or chopper thingamajig that I really loved and used for a month and now I don’t use it all, that can go. 

Forth thing I do is make a rough sketch of areas with a lot of drawers and cabinets that I have to go through. Give yourself some peace of mind by making a mini-map of all the cabinets and drawers on a notepad, and cross off drawers as you go through them.

If you don’t do things in one day, for example, in the kitchen you could list several of your cabinets and drawers, you want to go through and then give yourself a checkmark next to each as you go through them. It might take more than two hours in some of these rooms, depending on how much you want to get rid of and how much you want to clean, but this is a good way to help you keep track of where you’ve already been in the house so you don’t get frustrated trying to find the next place to clean. 

If you don’t want to doodle out the space you can place a post-it on the outside of every cabinet and drawer you want to go through and clean out and as you finish it, you take the post-it off. That way you can visually see how far you’ve come and what places are left to finish!

And that’s how I do it, I look in each room, I look at what could really use the most TLC, and I get to it, and I try to do it in the two-three hour period when the time is up, I look around and I ask, “Do I feel good about the progress I’ve made?” Most of the time, it’s a resounding yes. But if for some reason I only made it through half the drawers in the kitchen or the junk drawer still needs to be emptied out I just give myself one more hour on the next day, and I move on. 

Give with a Happy Heart

The biggest tip I have for a successful and less stressful spring cleaning is giving with a happy heart. Something to focus on when you’re going through your spring cleaning is how to donate happily. Donations are the foundations of lot of charities and can do a lot of good right in your community. Anything from clothes to kitchen appliances that you no longer use but are in great shape, are fair game. Most charities and organizations have a website where they outline exactly what they can accept.

The things you don’t use could be going to people who could be enjoying them. Cleaning out your cupboards and junk drawers can be really intimidating. If you go into it with a happy heart knowing that some of the stuff that you just don’t have a use for could improve someone else’s life might make it just a little bit easier to get through. I know one of the most intimidating things for me is going through my closet. It’s the bane of my existence. I honestly feel like clothes, as much as I love them, totally overwhelm me. 

So how do I clean out my closet? With the same small steps and remember to have a happy heart. I’d dedicate one day and two hours to start. I write down all the drawers\ I want to pull out and go through. I check them off as I go and I go through them with a grateful heart for everything that the clothes have done for me so far. I put them in a bag for donations when they no longer serve me, reminding myself that they are going to be loved by someone else. 

Learning to happily donate my items has changed how I feel about cleaning my house in general. If you look at it as a treasure hunt for someone else, it makes it a little easier. If you look at it as a way to find things to give with a full heart rather than just getting through spring cleaning might make it a little more fun than it was in the past years. 

So if you’re like me and you feel the dread of spending days and days on end or multiple weekends just whittling away in your closet or stuck in a cabinet somewhere deep cleaning in the kitchen, then try this new approach. I’m not sure if anyone already cleans like this, with just a few hours over the weekend throughout the entire spring, but it has really changed how I feel about spring cleaning. I no longer dread it, I see it as an opportunity to really dig into the corners of my house, but in small manageable chunks of time. I also see it as an opportunity to give somebody else.

I hope that splitting this up, doesn’t make anyone feel like it’s a normal cleaning chore because, at the end of the four to five weeks, it takes me to go through this, my house is so cleaned out, it feels great. Outside of the day-to-day cleaning, it’s nice to look down and see that all the smudges off the walls and windows are gone, at least for the next couple of minutes if you have toddlers! Happy spring cleaning.

Chocolate Mug Cake – Ooey Gooey Superfoods

Dessert, Recipes · 

Want delicious cake without turning on the oven and heating up the whole house? Also don’t wanna share? Then mug cakes are perfect for you! I have just added this recipe to my arsenal of quick and (sneaky good) snacks.
Added a scoop of super greens to this and it was perfection.

This is what I call my Ooey Googey Chocolate Chewy Mug Cake. If you can’t tell…the boys love being read Dr. Seuss right now. haha.

Some tips for cooking in the microwave. Know the wattage of your microwave and start with just 30 seconds. Add 15 seconds at a time after as needed. Don’t be a hero with it and attempt to cook it perfect in one guess. It’s a recipe for an exploding cake.

Ingredients: 

  • ¼ cup gluten-free flour
  • 2 tbsp Detox Organics Superfoods
  • ¼ tsp baking powder
  • 2 tbsp coconut sugar
  • Pinch salt
  • ¼ cup + 1 tbsp milk
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 tbsp chocolate chips

Instructions: 

  1. In a bowl mix together flour, Detox Organics superfoods, baking powder, sugar and salt.
  2. Mix in milk and coconut oil and combine. For a gooey center, add a few chocolate chips.
  3. Place in a large mug. Top with the chocolate chips. Batter can rise to a little over double so account for that in your mug.
  4. Microwave for 70 second in a 950 watt microwave. Check for fluffy cake rising and add 10 seconds if the inside is still too gooey. 
  5. Every microwave is different so start with 60 seconds and add more time if needed. And enjoy your ooey gooey cake!

Banana Bread Mini Loaves

Dessert, Recipes, Uncategorized · 

Ready to enjoy banana bread in half of the time it traditionally takes to bake? I love banana bread so much because it’s the best way for me to save bananas from the compost bin. Instead of them going to waste, I get to enjoy delicious banana bread. The best thing about the mini loaves is that they bake up in half of the time that larger banana bread loaves do.

Once these are done, they slice up and are delicious with a slather of butter. They warm up nicely after being refrigerated as well!

Ingredients: 

  • ½ cup packed brown sugar
  • ¼ cup oil
  • ½ cup almond milk
  • 1 egg 
  • 1 cup mashed ripe banana (2 bananas)
  • 1 cup gluten-free flour
  • ½ cup quick-cook oats
  • ½ tbsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp salt 
  • ¼ cinnamon 
  • Pinch of nutmeg

Instructions: 

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
  2. Grease pan a dark nonstick mini loaf pan.
  3. Mix together brown sugar, coconut oil, almond milk, egg, and mashed banana. 
  4. In a second bowl whisk together gluten-free flour, Detox Organics protein powder, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. 
  5. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix together until thoroughly combined. 
  6. Fill each mini loaf pan about ⅔ of the way up leaving room for the loaf to rise. 
  7. Bake for 30 minutes. Bread is done when you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. 
  8. Wrap individually and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

You can add more protein to this recipe by subbing out 1/2 cup of flour for 1/2 cup of vanilla plant protein powder.

Want to shop this recipe? (These include affiliate links that support my blog and cost nothing extra for you! – Thanks if you shop our links!)

Banana Oatmeal Fruit and Honey Muffins – Delicious, Flourless, and Gluten-free

Breakfast, Lunch, Recipes, Snack, Uncategorized · 

I always have bananas that are overripe in the kitchen and what feels like a barrel of oats. So I wanted to make a simple breakfast recipe that I could meal prep and give the kiddos for breakfast. So after a few minutes of cursing the always too ripe to enjoy bananas, I decided to try a recipe where I used two of our very favorite staples.

I do want to point out that the added fruit is optional, I just found that mixing in a handful of blueberries or chopped apples shook up the recipe week to week and kept the family feeling like they were eating something new all the time.

These are also very dense and not a fluffy muffin in any way. However the flavor is delicious and these whip up in no time at all. I really love that I don’t have to drag out the sugar or flour bags either for this healthier version of a breakfast muffin.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
1 cup ripe bananas (2 large or 3 small)
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1 tsp cinnamon powder
3/4 cup blueberries or chopped apples (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
In a large bowl mix oats and cinnamon powder together. 
In a second mixing bowl combine honey, coconut oil, eggs, bananas, and vanilla extract. 
Slowly mix in oats and cinnamon into the wet ingredients until fully combined.
Fold in chopped apples or blueberries if desired.
Using cupcake papers, line large muffin tins. 
Fill each muffin tin 3/4 of the way up.
Bake for 20-23 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow the muffins to cool and store in the refrigerator.

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Turkey Parmesan Meatballs

Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Uncategorized · 

Here is my favorite quick meal prep recipe that takes less than 30 minutes to complete and will work in many meals throughout the week. Made with lots of ingredients we always have on hand, these are delicious and freeze wonderfully if you make a double or triple batch.

1 pack ground turkey
1 egg
1 small onion diced
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1 cup of parmesan shredded cheese
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Roll into small meatballs. About 12-15 per batch.
Bake for 20-23 mins until internal temp is higher than 165 F.
The meatballs should have a slight crisp on the outside from the cheese crisping up.

One-Year-Old Gift Ideas

Lifestyle, Parenting, Raising Twins, Twin Pregnancy, Twins, Uncategorized · 

Buying baby gifts when our twin boys were under one was easy and consisted of soft toys, teethers, rattles, and activity gyms. Now that they are just over one they are starting to really interact with their toys, but haven’t developed enough language or strong preferences that they can tell us what they specifically like to play with most.

Instead, I have been watching them for the past couple of weeks and watching what they’ve shown a lot of interest in now that they are 16 months. So, I composed a list of their favorite things right now, and toys that they’re about to grow into. Toys they can grow into are ones they’re starting to play with in ways that the toy was specifically made for.

Sound Books

My first gift pick is sound books because our babies really enjoy being read to. They also love pushing the buttons themselves now instead of me doing it. When they are reading on their own or together with a book, one is pushing buttons while one is turning pages. I think they might even realize certain sounds go with certain pages. They can’t quite put it together yet with the specific button for each, but they are becoming more interactive with us when we are reaching for the correct buttons.

One of the things that gets the boys really into the books is us pointing to the picture in the book and then pointing to the coordinating sound button and going back and forth. The enjoyment they get from these types of books is enough for us to put these at the top of our gift list.

Toy Versions of Real Things

There are real things our babies love to play with or are enamored with that we don’t want them putting in their mouths like our phones, keys, or even the remote control! They see us using these things throughout the day and know they have some significance in our lives. This makes them want to learn how to use these things too.

For the remote, we saved an old remote from when we moved into our new house (and lost what is controlled or gave it away – who knows) and took out the batteries so they could play with it. Because it is a real remote they were very drawn to it and were pointing it and pushing buttons.

They also like lookalike versions of our cell phones or iPad, that have sounds and music on them. We received play tablets from a friend of ours that plays animal sounds and plays a lot of songs the boys love. We also received a gift of a baby cell phone that looks like the iPhone with the same shape and a touch screen. The boys really love pretending to talk on it and holding it up to their ears.

They also have a set of keys that can be frozen into teething toys. While they don’t look much like our real keys, they still love them.

Baby Dolls

The third gift idea that we’re going with this year is the gift of baby dolls. We have two little boys and I actually never considered baby dolls for them until somebody very generously gifted us two baby dolls for them to play with. They immediately loved the dolls and they just carry them around all the time. Fast forward a couple of months into having the baby dolls, and one day I looked over and saw one of the twins feeding the baby doll with a fake bottle.

I realized this is one of those cases where they’re learning to play with the toys differently. And I’m realizing that they’re actually growing into this toy in a way that makes it more real to them. At first, they just carried the baby doll around. Now they are learning to care for another being through caring for their baby. When they first got the baby dolls they would throw them down or step on them in playing. Now I’ve even seen them kissing the baby doll on the head the way we kiss them on the head. I realize they are in a phase of learning how to care for other people.

I think that this is a great age to introduce baby dolls to the boys. And I know a lot of people have said they didn’t give their kids dolls but just seeing the way that the boys are interacting with the babies, I think it’s really cute and so we will definitely be considering getting them another doll or even maybe just accessories like a spoon and a fork or even diapers or clothes for them to play with.

Simple Puzzles

The boys are also at an age where peg puzzles and chunky puzzles are super fun. The only thing is they’re still rampant chewers because they are both teething like crazy so we do have to watch that they are not gnawing off pieces of the puzzle.

 

We have a puzzle that has really large pieces in it with singular pieces that go in and out of one slot that is the right shape. It had some cars, trucks, and planes on it. They were chewing it pretty badly so we took it away for now.

They do have a shape puzzle that I found online that they are doing better with. And so we are going to introduce more of these types of puzzles to the boys, because they have shown interest in finding more things fit. I really think this is a good time to introduce them to a toy like that. [Update: The boys really enjoy the one-shape puzzles and now have a puzzle ball that is similar to a nesting doll, as well as a shapes cube that we are working with them pushing shapes into the right size holes all around the wooden cube!]

My First Activity Kits

If your one year old is walking pretty steady then my first activity sets are a perfect gift. The boys are more sure on their feet and have been balancing better and I think it’s a great time to introduce toys that are activity-based or sports-based.

 

Now is the time they’re learning to put steps together, move in new ways, and combine new hand motions. They’re starting to throw or roll things like balls back to us. They’re even starting to kick at a ball. It’s not super coordinated but I see the interest in learning this coordinated movement and so we got the boys their first set of golf clubs which will help with their hand-eye coordination.

I also see my friends and family getting their kids this age their first hockey sticks, soccer balls, and basketball hoops. While they may not be meant to turn your kid into a pro athlete, it’s definitely good because they’ve got the upright stability to walk and do other motions at the same time.

The boys got a basketball hoop for their birthday and it’s a really short basketball hoop that they can drop the ball into. I think that once your kids are walking and they’ve got a little more stability it’s the perfect time to introduce those my first sports kits.

 

All of these gifts were what I came up with after the last month or two of just watching how the boys are playing and changing as they develop and seeing the new ways that they’re playing with the stuff we already have.

I hope that these gift ideas gave you a good idea of what you can get for a one-year-old to explore! We did a lot of just sitting back and observing since they can’t tell us what they want yet, but they’re no longer just holding objects for entertainment. They’re suddenly finding a whole new world of play!

What was your favorite thing that you ever got your kid for Christmas or a birthday that they were just crazy wild about that you are so excited that you purchased? Let me know in the comments below!

Easy Money-Saving Apps and My Spending Fast Update

Education, Lifestyle, Money-Saving Tips, Uncategorized · 

Over the past year, I decided to do another spending fast. I wanted to give a recap of my one year spending fast, as well as some of the simple money saving tips we adopted. To make a bigger impact this time I went a little further with this spending fast. 

 

My Original Spending Fast 

 

Two years ago I did a spending fast for five months. I saved a ton of money and I challenged myself to basically buy only consumable products that I was completely out of. For example, I would not be able to buy new shampoo until all of the bottles in the house were empty. Including the ones lurking under the sink half used up. For non-consumable products, it was basically a no on all of them unless something was destroyed and I didn’t have anything else to replace it. If I had a t-shirt that got a hole in it, I could not buy a new one unless I had no other t-shirts in the house left.

 

I challenged myself to stop buying everything that wasn’t consumable. Even if I broke my phone, if it still made phone calls, I did not buy a new one. I didn’t break my phone thank goodness, but those were the rules and the only things that could be replaced were things that you could physically run out of. I challenged myself to really use what we already had and it was very enlightening about how much stuff we accumulate that we don’t even think about. 

 

So How Did I do on My Year Spending Fast 

 

Earlier in the year, the pandemic made it easier to not shop because the stores were all closed. I also decided to make it a little more challenging by limiting things that I didn’t limit the year before in order to better use what we already had. One of the things I did was put our family on a stricter budget for takeout. That was one thing I still spent a lot of money on during our original spending fast.

 

I did have to make one exception though. I said no spending money on clothes, except after giving birth, because I did change sizes so I did actually have to purchase some shorts this summer. I did not have a single pair of shorts that fit after my twin pregnancy. Although maternity shorts are very, very comfortable, they did not stay up well after I did not have a giant twin belly to hold them up. While it technically broke my clothing spending fast, there was not a pair of shorts in the house that fit me well. The point of the spending fast wasn’t to be perfect, it was to teach me more about being a conscious consumer. 

 

Along the way I learned some money-saving tips due to all the changes that we went through. Saving money was a lot easier than I thought. Instead of just worrying about saving money through cutting back, I also found ways to save money while doing the purchases I had to make to keep our household running. 

 

Money-Saving Tips from This Year

 

Make your own fancy coffee 

 

The first thing I saved money on was coffee. I used to go out to coffee shops several times a week to do work. I work remotely so it was a great way to have some quiet space to get things done. That changed because there were no coffee shops open for a very long time and now I work from home in my office 100% of the time. 

 

However, I realized just the act of not going out for coffee three times a week made a huge impact on our finances in the hundreds of dollars a month range. When I added up a $6 coffee (because I like lattes) over the course of 6-7 hours at the coffee shop it doesn’t seem like much for how long you’re out of the house.  But then sometimes I would get myself another latte and then oftentimes snacks that add up to a lot of money every week. And over the course of a year that really added up. 

 

That alone made a huge difference in our budget. I was saving money by not going out of the house to work. While that was kind of forced on me at the end of the spending fast, it made me realize I was spending a ton on coffee that I didn’t need to. 

 

We ordered ourselves a milk frother, an electric whisk, and a pour over coffee pot that we spent a couple extra dollars on. I think all of the stuff we spent to make coffee at home cost less than $50. It was all on Amazon. We even make our own cold brew now, which maybe it’s not impressive if you’ve always been making cold brew, but I just never attempted it. And even though now coffee shops are open again, I’m still making my own coffee at home. 

 

Rent Bestsellers from the Library for Free

 

The second thing that I didn’t restrict on the first spending fast was books. I didn’t mean to restrict them this time either but with everything shut down I no longer was going to the book store to browse. I used to go to the bookstore to buy magazines and books all of the time. I do not like to put a limit on learning, but this year I wasn’t really shopping for that type of thing casually.

 

I actually started using my local library card online with my Kindle, and I can’t even explain to you how much money I didn’t realize I was spending. I was buying approximately one book a month at about $15. So over the course of the year that adds up. While it’s definitely worthwhile for the education, knowing you can often rent those books for free is awesome.

 

So I started renting more books on my Kindle from the local library, including books that I had on a list to buy from Barnes and Noble. This year alone, I have saved $100, just by swapping digital books for the books that I was purchasing in store. I usually end up with a bookcase full of books I’m not reading that I purge regularly and donate. This time I won’t be able to do that because they were digital but the nice thing was I saved the money, and if there was a book I wanted to reread, I just got on the waiting list at the library within two days, I had it again. 

 

Cut Your Magazine Subscriptions and Audio Subscriptions

 

Other cool things I didn’t realize the library rented out was magazine subscriptions. That was also something I was purchasing on a regular basis. I’m all for educating yourself and investing in your education, but I just didn’t realize how many resources were available online. I thought that most of the books available were probably fiction. But to my surprise there were so many books, magazines, audiobooks, and movies. 

 

Local library cards are free in most areas. There are a plethora of materials, including movies and audiobooks. That was another place I was able to cut back. I began renting audiobooks through the library instead of buying them through Audible. My Audible subscription was $20 a month and I started saving there, as well. 

 

I do still love Audible, and I encourage you to get an Audible subscription if you want to build a library of your own books. Just also know that there are tons of free audiobooks available through the library.

 

On my library card alone I saved a few hundred dollars a year renting books, magazines, and movies from the local library.

 

Use Rakuten for coupons before you buy online

 

I started doing even our essential shopping online this past year. I found three awesome free apps that have saved me a ton of money in the process. One of the reasons that I didn’t shop online was because I always felt they had better in-store deals, especially if you had a rewards card. If I swiped my store reward card all the coupons were just preloaded and applied to my purchase. 

 

I also felt that it was harder to find discounts on online purchases. So I installed the Rakuten Chrome extension. What it does is finds deals on the websites you’re already shopping on. If you know you’re about to do some shopping online, whether it’s for Home Depot, online furniture stores, online clothing stores, online food stores, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, or any place that you can imagine online, Rakuten will look at all the possible coupons that they have, and they find them for you and present them to you while you shop. 

 

So for example, when we moved into our house I had to buy a new door handle for a door where the handle didn’t lock. I looked on Build.com and when I was shopping I just hit the little Chrome extension button up top in my browser, and it actually dropped down a coupon that I was able to use for checkout. 

 

When you turn it on it says, “Redirecting your shopping trip to include coupons,” and then when you get to the checkout it will let you know if there’s 1 or 10 coupons that you can apply. 

 

It will also apply the best ones for the lowest price. And then you can check out using those coupons so you don’t have to go around looking at all the coupon sites, trying to find what coupons are going to work for you. 

 

It’s both a time-saver and a money-saver. With stores like Build.com where I hadn’t bought from in a very long time, I wasn’t on their email list anymore, so I didn’t know what sales they were having. The Rakuten app made it easy for me to round up all the deals that applied to my purchase. 

 

If there are no coupons to be found it will say so and because the app is free, it won’t matter. Most of the time it finds some code or promotion that you can use to save money. I will link the Chrome app so you can check it out and always check before you start shopping for discounts you can use. The app for Rakuten can be found here.

 

Use Fetch for points for gift cards after all your purchases

 

Another great app that gives you points after you shop is Fetch. My aunt told me about it and basically it hooks you up with points from every purchase you make that you can eventually redeem into gift cards of your choice. 

 

You can connect it to your Amazon account as well as to your email for anything you get digital receipts on. You can also just use your app on your phone to take pictures of physical receipts. They all earn you points with this app.

 

Each receipt is worth a minimum number of points and certain brands give you a bonus number of points for specific items in the cart. You can get 1000 points when you do your grocery shopping for qualifying items. When you sign up you can also upload anything from the past two weeks in case you just did a bunch of shopping. 

 

Every couple thousand points is a couple dollars in gift cards and I think you can cash out some gift cards as low as three dollars if you’d like. I think it’s a great way to take advantage of the things that you’re already purchasing. The things that I get the most points on are food purchases, which is what we spend the most money on monthly. So I translate those into gift cards back for things we want.

 

Even if they don’t have any promos running and you don’t get a ton of points, everything gets at least a few points. It adds up over time because you’re going to be buying food, you’re going to be buying stuff in general, why not get the points back? Even after you save the money, you’re getting extra points on the other end. Use Rakuten before you shop, use Fetch after you shop, and build up those savings and points for gift cards. 

 

Use Flipp to find all the best in-store deals

 

Now the stores are back open and people are going back to shopping in-store. I still love my in-store flyers, but I tend to get overwhelmed when they are piling up on my table. There is an app called Flipp, which looks through all of your local flyers and will help you compare deals right on one free app. 

 

This is a nice, clutter-free way to look through all the local flyers in your area. Flipp is free and you can digitally clip the coupons you want, then you can look through all of your saved coupons and determine what stores you want to go to.

 

Grocery Pick-Up 

 

The last thing I’m going to tell you guys about that I am obsessed with, saves me the most money out of all of these new little tricks that I’ve been using. The best shopping switch I made was ordering groceries online for pick up or delivery. 

 

You can shop on the store’s app or website and select shopping for pickup or delivery. You’ll make an account and shop right from the comfort of your own home. Then you’ll enter your payment information, pick a pick-up or delivery time, and submit the order. 

 

Right now, our local grocery store is offering free pickup. Before it was free, it was only $5 for a pickup order and free pickup on orders over $35. More stores are offering it now. Walmart is doing it and so are huge groceries like Kroger that are all over the country. Even Costco has a free Instacart section on their app now. 

 

Ordering groceries online has saved me, on average, $35 to $45 per trip. 

 

Yes, I was getting that many instantaneous purchases, or impulse buys! When you shop online, you’re able to see the total before you get to the checkout counter so there’s no sticker shock, it’s easier to take things in and out of your cart, swap things as you go, search all of the available products without having to run all over the store and put back things you don’t need. It saves me time and saves me money. I did test it against going back to the store where I did spend an extra $35 on that in-store trip! 

 

On average, I took all my receipts from the year before and all the receipts from this year and it was a savings of $35 to $45 on average per week. Even at $5 for grocery pick up, I would say that’s still great savings. I would still pay it to save the $30, on average, that I was spending, if not more.

 

I hope you use these tips to help you save money very simply throughout the year without making humongous sacrifices. Drink your lattes and read your books. Enjoy the stuff you like. But just find cheaper ways to do it. 

 

If possible, use all of the free apps out there that help save money. Save money before you purchase with apps like Rakuten, get points back that you can cash out for gift cards like with apps like Fetch after you purchase, and shop the local flyers to find the best deals for shopping at the store with apps like Flipp. 

 

Also, if you have the luxury of a grocery store with store pick-up, give it a try. When you can see the total before you checkout, sometimes you can make better decisions on your shopping. Check out if your local stores are offering a pick-up or delivery option. If you can do online pick-up, where you just drive to the store and load them in the back of your car, it’s as simple as driving up, going home, and enjoying your savings.