Sunday, September 28, 2008

COME PLAY GRANDMA’S ECONOMY GAME


My grandmother and mother both lived through the ‘great depression’ and learned some very hard fiscal lessons. Money was scarce but taxes still had to be paid on land or the family homestead would be forfeited and sold to pay the taxes, jobs were non-existent or paid very little if you could find one, often workers were paid in local script and that ‘money’ didn’t pay the federal tax bills. Hopefully we won’t experience these dire circumstances again but we can all use some of the lessons to increase our financial well-being.

They lived by some of the sayings that we now call clichés and ignore because we’ve heard them so often. In this series I’m going to examine some of these sayings and see if they are still beneficial today.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

I know that we’ve all heard this saying so let’s start by analyzing it. In today’s world a penny isn’t even worth picking up – or is it? If we find a penny on the ground and pick it up we’ve gained a little much needed exercise but we’ve also gained a penny that the government isn’t going to tax us for earning. So that penny is automatically worth more than a penny because we haven’t paid income taxes on it or social security (FICA) taxes on it. That probably makes this penny worth at least 1.15 cents or more. Now if we save this penny and put it into our savings account it will start to earn compound interest and be working for us immediately. Just imagine, if we find a lot of pennies, we have increased our wealth by just bending over and picking them up and saving them.

Now if we apply this saying to our spending habits by thinking before we spend our hard earned money, we can increase our wealth by putting the pennies we’ve saved into a savings account and again use the power of compound interest.

About now I can see you jumping up and down and saying, “But I have too much month for my money right now. I can’t save anything because I need every penny for current expenses!”

I won’t question that this is the case but we are on a mission to fix that problem. I hope that some of what I’m writing about will help you accomplish financial freedom from overwhelming bills and money worries.

How do we determine if we are saving money or overspending our income? One of the easiest ways is to write down every purchase for at least a month and then look at where your money is going. Am I spending it on espresso coffee? Cigarettes? Movies? Eating out? Beer? Snack foods? Rent? Gas? Car payments? Or….?

Once I have this information then I can see where my budget is leaking or hemorrhaging money. As a famous TV psychologist is fond of saying, “You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge”. Information about my spending habits is the first step to fixing the problem. After analyzing my monthly expenses here is the next step.

If you are married and/or have children, it is important to involve the whole family in the debt reduction process. Children need to learn about money matters and how to handle their finances and if you work as a family then everyone has a sense of accomplishment as the piggy bank fills.

NOTE: If you have very small children set aside a small percentage of the savings for a reward the whole family can enjoy so that they see an immediate result of saving.

THE PIGGY BANK GAME

Now you are ready to start playing the Piggy Bank Game. Start playing by picking at least one thing that you are going to reduce or stop buying for at least one month. See how many things you can find that you should or could reduce. If you have an espresso coffee every morning ask yourself if you could make it at home for less money and be just as satisfied. If you smoke, could you cut down one or two cigarettes a day? If you rent movies a lot, could you use the public library and check them out instead. That is free!!!

Once you have determined what you are saving on this month, set up a piggy bank to put your savings into each day. Your piggy bank doesn’t need to be an actual piggy even though that would be fun – use a can with a lid, a jar or whatever you have on hand. You DON’T need to go buy a piggy bank – remember this is about saving money, not spending it!

Paying into the piggy bank is your visible reward for reaching your daily goal. If you drink one less espresso a week, put that amount of money into the piggy bank the day you skipped your espresso. If you smoked two less cigarettes, put the cost of those cigarettes into the piggy bank.

There are three rules to this game:
1. Pay yourself every time you save on what you have determined is your item you are reducing or stopping for the month.
2. Put the money in the piggy bank daily.
3. DO NOT remove any money from the piggy bank until the end of the month.

Once you have done this exercise for a month, count the money in the piggy bank and then take it directly to the bank and put it into your savings account. This is your first step towards economic freedom. Pat yourself on the back and get ready for next month and see if you can save even more.

It is important to continue keeping a spending record of what you are spending each day so you can analyze how you are doing at the end of each month.

Since I like to put a picture into every article and I didn't have a bowl or piggy bank in my shop, I used this beautiful blue felted bowl that is for sale in TanisAlexis shop on Etsy as an illustration of something you could use as a piggy bank. Here is the link to this bowl and other awesome items. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_list_13&listing_id=10715266 She is a member of my awesome EcoEtsy Street Team.

Watch for my next article and please leave a comment if you have found this helpful or not.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

How I stopped coughing!

I've been battling bronchitis for about 2 months and a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I had ever rubbed eucalyptus oil on the ball of my foot to stop coughing? I'm sure I looked at her as if she were loosing it but I was desperate enough to try anything so I said no and where do you get this oil. Long story short, she had some and gave it to me to try. I was coughing most of the night and not sleeping so I had very little to lose except maybe to have oil on my sheets and smell like a medicine bottle so I put a couple of drops on my finger and rubbed into the ball of each foot and then waited to see what would happen. Now up to this point I had been coughing constantly when up or down, so I went bed and tried to go to sleep - just certain that I would start to cough the minute my head hit my pillow. Boy was I wrong! Instead of coughing, I went to sleep and slept through the night without coughing. Next morning I started coughing again so I rubbed some eucalyptus oil on the ball of my foot and magically the cough went away.


So far, both my husband and I have used this treatment with great success and the oil absorbs into your skin very rapidly so it doesn't stain the sheets or leave a lingering odor after a couple of minutes. My friend said she got the oil at the local health food store.


Now I always like to put a picture into my posts and the only thing I could think of that was connected to eucalyptus was that Koala Bears eat eucalyptus leaves so I decided to link to this ecoetsy team member's shop and her pins that feature Koala Bears. Swirlyarts has these really cute button pins http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_list_1&listing_id=15541764


I hope you will visit her store and purchase a pin to remind you to use the handy eucalyptus oil the next time you are pestered by a cough - and may that be a long time before you need to test out this tip.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Added a Follow This Blog Link

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to Lyndel of BearHollowCreations wonderful instructions I was able to add a follow this blog button on the right hand side of this blog and hope that you will do so. If you follow my blog, I'll link to yours.

Fall has officially arrived and with it many activies on my various street teams. The Trashion Street Team has a couple of biggies planned. Watch this space for updates on the Trashion Monster Mash, a Virtual Trunk Show and Save the World Sale.

The VAST (Visual Artists Street Team) has a fall colors challenge so many new items will be posted and I'm sure a lot of lovely treasuries will feature these items.

My OCEAN (Oregon Coast Etsy Artists Network) just finished a local art festival very successfully and now are working on various local events and a rack card to promote our items.

EcoEtsy rocks as a street team and many treasuries are created weekly as well as updates to our web page and the Etsy Mini photos that display our work.

Last but not least, Acetsy and Aceo Bounty Challenge keep creating wonderful ACEO's for all of us to collect and give as gifts.

If you haven't already done so, attend one of the Virtual Trunk Shows in the Etsy Virtual Labs. They are a lot of fun and you get to see wonderful items and learn more about the artists who create these items.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Etsian Injured in Plane Crash

I just came across this article in the Storque and wanted to help spread the word. A lovely young couple were critically injured in a plane crash in Arizona and the Etsy Community is rallying around with prayers, funds and blogging.

http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/craftivism/article/etsian-and-blogger-critically-injured-in-plane-crash-nienie-/2562/

Stephanie Nielson was an active blogger nieniedialogues.blogspot.com and her sister is keeping up with some of the blogging on her own blog with updates on Stephanie and Christian's condition http://blog.cjanerun.com/

This is written with my prayers for a speedy recovery so you may both be with your 4 small children soon.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

SALE Section added to my Etsy Store

I've just added a SALE section to my Etsy store. Click on any of the pictures above and they will take you directly to my store. This week I'm featuring great buys on three items of reconstructed clothing. I hope you will check it out.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Handy Cleaning Tip

A fall feeling is in the air and makes me think of a crackling fire in the fireplace with me all snuggled up with a cup of coffee (cider, tea, hot chocolate or whatever you want) and some soft music playing in the background. Now this is a lovely picture but how about tomorrow when you need to clean the soot off of that beautiful glass fireplace screen. The picture turns not so pretty unless you use this tip.


First, make sure all the ashes are cold before you try this.


Take a damp paper towel or rag and dip it into the cold ashes. Now smear those damp ashes all over the sooty glass and interior frame (wherever you want to clean off the soot). Let is stand for a couple of minutes and then take a wet rag and clean off the ash mixture. Most or all of the soot should be gone but if any remains, repeat the damp ash treatment. Once all of the soot is gone, either clean with your glass cleaner or just polish with crumpled newspaper. Your fireplace glass screen should be shiny and ready for another good book and crackling fire.


Now if you want to keep your tea warm while you are either cleaning or reading, how about this tea cozy I have listed in my shop?