Crafty Lil Devil

I am sitting here surrounded by one heck of a mess. Nothing unusual...just the normal state of affairs at my house on any given day. Dishes in the sink, laundry to be done, homework to be done (DUE TONIGHT!), sewing to be done (and covering every flat surface in my kitchen and dining room), toys to be picked up, etc, etc. Ugh! How does my house get like this?! Both babies are in bed and I really should get off this computer, off of my hiney and get busy. I'm still in my pajamas! I'm drinking cold, left-over-from-this-morning coffee. I'm a mess. But I had to stop a minute and write this post before I forget.

You know, before we had Easton, I knew I would stay home once he was born. Financially it just did not make sense for me to go to work when I would basically just be working to pay for daycare while someone else raised my child. I mean I loved my job and all but it really didn't pay enough to make it worth going back to work after he was born. So we freaked out a little and then got busy making cuts. Expensive (but fun) weekly dinners with friends? Gone. Pricey home phone package we never used anyway? Cancelled. 160 something channels on our satellite package when we really only watched a hand full of channels? Cancelled those extras too. Buying whatever groceries I thought sounded good whenever I felt like grocery shopping? Nope. Time to use what you've got. Now I take stock of what we've got on hand and build meals from there. (Hmm...I could probably do a little better job with that but it really does help!) Paying full price for clothes? Never! Especially now that I have kids, I am always looking for bargains, even if that means shopping consignment stores or buying 2 to 3 sizes bigger and saving til they fit the kids. I've bought size 4 and 5 T jeans for each kid for around $2 at Target. Who can say no to $2 jeans?!

But what surprised me and what has really been our biggest secret money saving tip recently? Our bank's saving program. Every time we use our debit or checking account, our bank transfers $1 into our special savings account. At the end of the day, if you've used the account once, one dollar is transferred. If you use it 10 times, it's ten dollars. We've had that account open for 29 days and already we have saved a whopping $56. I can't believe we use our debit/check cards that much!! But it really adds up. $56 a month ends up being a yearly savings of...get ready...$672! And when you add interest and the yearly bonus the bank pays, we're talking about $724 that didn't hurt us one bit to save. NICE! And if we make an extra monthly transfer of just $25 into this account, by the end of the year we could have $1,047 in that account!

We honestly haven't missed those extra few dollars here and there. If your bank has a program like this, you really should look into it.

Now off to get a shower, make a fresh post of coffee and get busy!