Home Schooling Special Needs Children: A Few Resources We Use

Note:  This post does NOT contain affiliate links.  I'm just putting this post together in hopes of maybe helping someone out during this trying time and maybe point them in a direction they might not have thought of before. 

I have gotten e-mails this last week.  A lot of panicked e-mails, really (and BOY do I understand, trust me).  And I want to thank those who have reached out to me asking for my help.  I am honored and humbled that people would like to ask for my help with anything, let alone on matters of things like cooking with things you might have on hand and having to ration what they have and such.  And then there are the people who suddenly found themselves homeschooling overnight and I have gotten e-mails from people who have found themselves homeschooling their special needs kids and trying to figure out anything to help their kids not lose skills and hopefully help them through this whole crazy time.

I will share my small list of things I'm doing to save money in hopefully the next couple of days, but in the meantime, I wanted to share a few resources and things I've found have really worked for me teaching a non-verbal autistic little man this last school year.

I pray that some of these things might help parents who are just looking for things to try.  I am going to try and keep the items free or at least the price as low as I can get to recommend as I know everyone is panicking with money right now. 

Keep the faith everyone and hang in there.  We are, literally, all in this together, and we will see this through to the other side. 

So, without further ado, here is a list of things that I have found useful and, in some cases, things that I plain can't live without around here!

First up are Apps on the I-Pad.  If you go to the search function and search for these they SHOULD pop up...I hope. 

Apps I Love (I-Pad)

1.  Injini

This was like 35.00 when I purchased it and I can't see what the price is now as it just shows up as purchased on my end, but it is a GREAT package of activities for autistic or special needs children.  There are cause and effect games (shave a sheep, hatch baby chicks, pop colored balloons that then name the color, etc), tracing activities (to practice lines, letters and the like), puzzle activities, matching...it is amazing how much you get with one program.

2.  Write My Name by NC Soft/Injini

I believe this program was free or darn close to it when I got it for the I-pad, but it has been a WONDERFUL resource for tracing words, letters and also name recognition as you can make name tags that your child than uses to trace the names of the people you put into the program.  For instance I have Alvah's name in there so he'll learn to recognize and write his own name, his sister's name (which he hates as it is so long *laugh*), mom and dad.  After we master those I'll move onto grandma and grandpa and cousins and such.  It is an INVALUABLE resource to me and I would not be without it!

3.  Cause and Effect Sensory Bundle/Sensory Light Box/Sensory Sound Box

Guys I can NOT stress how much these little programs have helped with sensory input for my young man and I have had Sensory Light Box for YEARS.  The programs are inexpensive and are worth their weight in gold.  They have different effects that the child can choose from to appear on the screen (which they can control the background of said main screen as well) and each one seems to hit a different sensory need with my little guy.  The sensory sound box, if played at high volume (of which the son only KNOWS high volume on the I-Pad it seems) can drive you a bit loony if you hate hearing things like sirens and things at high volume, but  if anything he loves the sound box more than the light show.

4.  Little Fox Nursery Rhymes

A fun little app that will help you to sing a few nursery rhymes to your kids while letting them manipulate a bunch of fun things on the screen while you do it.  It even has a fun little karaoke room that kids can visit and record their own music in.

5.  Make a Scene 

There are a TON of different types of scene apps you can buy depending on what your child likes.  I own the Under the Sea one as the son loved "Finding Nemo" and still seems to really enjoy the scene.  I also have a Make a Scene farmyard app and the son really likes it.  What I like about them is that the app names the animals and things as the child adds them to the scene so you get a LOT of practice with word association as they play with the app.

6.  First Words Sampler (FW Sampler)

This is a great program to start kids with letter tiles.  It names the letter as you work with said letters to build a word and then repeats the word, complete with a short animation, when the child finishes the words.  My son still loves to play with these games and he started with them a LONG time ago :).

For Kindle:

1.  You can get these on I-Pad as well but the Toca Town series (there are other apps other than Toca Town, but if you type that in it'll pull them up) is really great for kids to basically play pretend in a technology based environment which my son seems more comfortable with. 

2.  Kidlo Beginning Math

I have the "limited" version of the program as it's one of those apps that charge a monthly fee and I do not have the money for that.  But, the addition and subtraction free games are more than enough to help Alvah practice math.  I especially love the Math Wheel game as it makes random math problems so it forces him to learn new math problems as we play it.

Written Materials:

1.  Books!  Lots and lots of books!

A lot of libraries have programs where they will mail you books right now if you take them out online, so there is that option if you have it in your area.  You could get Kindle versions of books if need be and search for free options to not worry about spending too much money.  But, seriously, reading to your child is such a huge benefit to them, and to you.  I know you have heard it all before, but really even if your child sits there and whines the entire time you read, they are getting something out of it.  I have read a ton of books to Alvah this year and he finally found a book he likes for me to read to him, "Clark the Shark" (a great one to read to a kid who tends to have quirks like shrieking at loud volumes, inadvertently wrecking things, eating off of other people's plates and things).  I think Alvah really relates to Clark in the book and it is the first book I've read him he's actively liking me to read.  So, don't give up if they keep acting like they hate what you are reading to them.  It might be a matter of finally finding the right fit :).

2.  Cut and Paste Workbooks

Right at the moment the son and I are working out of, "Cut and Paste Science" (no associate link or anything, I'm just sharing here) and I love working in this method of learning for a lot of different reasons.  One is because it helps Alvah keep the ability to use scissors, which is always a good thing.  Next we have started writing his name at the top of papers when we work with them so he gets name writing in with the lesson as well.  And lastly, and this is a big one, it is helping me to root out what kind of word recognition he actually possesses.  I cut the words out on the horizontal in strips and then I have him cut the vertical lines to cut out all of the words.  I then put them down on the table, read the sentences to him (right now we are doing the plant life cycle) and give him the answer and then ask him where that word is with all of the words cut out on the table.  And he is doing a LOT better than I thought he would, which is great because it is helping me to realize he's further along with reading than I originally thought he was :).

I actually have a math workbook and a few others on order with Amazon and am looking forward to getting them in.

If you don't want to invest in workbooks, there are resources you can use online to buy just a certain worksheet or  you could just try your hand at making your own in a free word processing program like Open Office.  Just a thought :).

3.  Jumbo Coloring Books

I love this Melissa and Doug Coloring Book.  It is huge, so it's easy for the son to work on with markers, the pages are thick so the markers don't bleed through and with it being vehicles the son doesn't mind coloring in the pages.  Get this and a package of markers and you are good to go with some fine motor skills!

4.  United States Coloring Book --  Dover Publishing  We are studying United States geography right now and this coloring book is great for that.  I am throwing the book onto my scanner/copier and making coloring pages to learn from and then going to the state pages to get different facts and coloring pages and things to supplement the lessons.  It's actually rather fun.

Board Games to Play:  

1.  Zingo Games (Original Zingo, Zingo 1,2,3, Zingo Word Builder, Zingo Sight Words)

I got these on recommendation from the son's ABA therapist and I love them!  I have the Original Zingo game and the Zingo 1,2,3 game to help build his math skills and they are awesome!   It is a really simple Bingo based game to play and it is great as multiple members of the family can play with your special needs child and make them feel not excluded (and once they learn to play they get the happy feeling of winning against family members as well).

2.  Learning Resources Mini Motor Math Activity Set

This is a racing game that requires beginning math skills.  I got it because the son loves cars, but I really love it because it makes him do things like roll a dice (which turns out is a hard motor skill to learn) and it motivates him to do basic math skills like number recognition, addition and counting skills.


Other Things You Can Do:

1.  Cook With Your Kids

This one is a hard one for me right now as I am loathe to waste absolutely anything, but I have the kids help where I can.  IF you can find baking mixes that call for like just water to be added or minimal ingredients, those are good ones to work with if you can to get the kids involved in cooking.  The son has been helping me to make banana bread when I find a couple of bananas in the freezer that I want to make sure get used and I let him mix the wet ingredients together and things.  He's been really liking being involved in the process.

2.  Dance with Your Kids

My husband found me Caramelldansen on YouTube and it has been GREAT at getting the kids to move around and exercise via dancing (and yes, we have seen every single language version at this point I think *laugh*).  It's a really simple dance to do and yes, I do it too.  Making a fool out of myself dancing around like an oddball is definitely in the normal right now *laugh*.  We all need a laugh at the moment.

3.  Do what you can to keep active

Play with the kids outside if you can can.  Unfortunately, this doesn't mean with other kids, but just you and your kids.  Do what you can to keep your kids in a good head space and active right now and playing outside is good for that. 

Keeping the kids grounded is important right now (I know I'm singing to the choir here).  For instance, the daughter and I had decided to take this week off for Spring Break versus earlier in the month like the public schools did and even with all of the craziness in the world going on, I kept to that plan as she had earned the time off.  Even though our activities we had planned on doing this week were called off, just having some relaxing time off for the daughter has been priceless for her. 

4.  When all Else Fails:  Get Creative

I've found this is especially important with the son right now.  We spent a good three hours this week one day just watching Leapfrog videos and me counting it as school time.  Watching something educational that your child enjoys watching?  Sometimes that is going to be as good as you can do and that is OK!  Don't beat yourself up and expect your kid to stay focused for six hours or heck to be focused every day period.  Trust me, they don't do that at public school either.  I aim for an hour for the son for actual hard core learning and than we work on little activities (helping mom set the table or helping to clean up a mess, combing our hair, etc) throughout the rest of the day to support our IEP goals and just general life skills types of activities.  It has been working well for us and it really has helped the son focus when we are working on actual school work because he can see the end of it and know that less stressful things are coming down the line. 

Well, there is a list to get you started on this crazy journey all.  If you need a shoulder to lean on, have a question you think I might even conceivably know the answer to or just need someone to talk to, feel free to e-mail me at makedohomemaker (at) gmail (dot) com.

Hang in there all!

Some Favorite Things from 2019

I see lists pop up all the time on Pinterest and things with "My Favorite Things" from this or that and you click on it and it's just a bunch of different things linked to a ton of products with associate links embedded in the post.  Which, hey, there is nothing wrong with that and I don't mind people doing them, but I got kind of inspired this year to do one of my own posts on my favorite things that I discovered this last year.  A quick disclaimer:  There will be no associate links in this post.  If you want to support the blog by ordering through associate links, turn off your internet security software temporarily and there will be a nice little link on the right side of the blog marked "Amazon" and you can order through that link to buy your stuff on Amazon and I'll get a small commission for pushing the sale Amazon's way (and if you do order through that link, thank you, I really do appreciate it!).  Otherwise, though, just read through, click through and enjoy a random list of things I discovered (and really do use and/or buy) that I came across in 2019 :).

Right, so let's start with something near and dear to my heart.  Cooking!  So, here's a few recipes I discovered this year that I really loved!

Recipes/Cooking Things I found in 2019

Budget Bytes Easy Homemade Teriyaki Sauce or Marinade   One of my readers, and thank you whoever it was as I can't remember who suggested it, advised that I check out Budget Bytes and I stumbled across this recipe nearly immediately.  I seriously use this recipe about once every week or two as I found that the daughter loves teriyaki sauce on thin cut steaks and will eat rice and edamame (I prepare it by boiling it in salted water, draining it and then coating the edamame lightly in toasted sesame oil...yummy stuff) to complete the meal.  This stuff beats anything you can buy in the supermarket.  I use 1/8 of a teaspoon of ground ginger instead of the fresh ginger in the recipe and use 1/4 tsp of garlic powder instead of the fresh garlic and it turns out great every time!

Instant Pot Chicken Gyros  Another favorite of the daughters that I love to make as the leftovers are superb!

Instant Pot Hamburgers  I have only made these a couple of times (during the summer when it was HOT out), but they were really good and I have definitely bookmarked the recipe!

Saute Chicken Lyonnaise  Okay so TECHNICALLY this was found in 2018, but I made it at least three times in 2019, so I had to mention it.  So, so good!

Simple One Hour Homemade Bread  This too is an older recipe I use, but I use it TONS and it is a great bread recipe,  I actually have it memorized by now.

Frozen Blueberry Muffins Recipe  This is an invaluable recipe if you need to make blueberry muffins with frozen blueberries.  The best part is by using frozen blueberries your muffins don't turn purple :).

1-Hour Light and Buttery Dinner Rolls  I made these for Thanksgiving because they called for instant yeast and the recipe was definitely a keeper.

Related to recipes that I really fell in love with this year is I have found a real love for my Gourmia Electric Pressure Cooker (seen above).  This electric pressure cooker was WAY cheaper than an Instant Pot when I ordered it (it was around 50.00 on Amazon) and it is a great appliance.  I have found myself using it at least once a week to make bone in pork chops (as they come out so moist in the pressure cooker) or if I need to throw a frozen beef roast into the pressure cooker so we'll have a nice dinner while I'm working late on school work or something with the kids.  I by no means am a "rabid instant pot" guru or anything, but I have found that this great device is a wonderful thing to have in the kitchen to make dinner super easy when you need it to be.

When it comes to baking I am utterly in love with USA Pans and hope that I can one day replace my old pans with these awesome pans.  Every single one I own is a treasured possession.  

And now onto other stuff...

This mug is one of the coolest gifts I've ever received.  I love 18th Century Cooking and religiously follow Townsends on YouTube, including their live streams (well when I can watch them replayed later on as they have them early in the afternoon on Friday here and I'm never online then, it seems) and one of the things they come out with once in a while are special order mugs with their "Nutmeg Tavern" logos on them for their fans.  I have wanted one forever, but never had the money to just blow money on a neat looking mug, but I ended up getting one for my birthday as a gift.  And I LOVE it!!!  This is my new official coffee and tea mug *laugh* and I am very protective of it.  I try not to get attached to things much anymore, but do put up little hopes that my new mug will live for quite a while so I can enjoy it :).  It is hand made and great quality, so hopefully that'll help it live for a long, long time.

Just as an aside, my happy stations on YouTube are definitely the aforementioned 18th Century Cooking/Townsends, The Victorian Way and I have been enjoying watching Northern Heart as well. 

Speaking of Northern Heart one of my blog readers who used to live in Sweden contacted me and told me that I HAD to try Glogg as it was onto a religion in Sweden during the holidays and there was a good reason why.  My sister actually backed up that I had to try Glogg after she tried it herself, so I did end up trying some and oh my GOSH!  I love, love, love this stuff.  Mind you the stuff I got was non-alcoholic so it would ship through the mail (and I love it because it doesn't make me sleepy and stuff) but I keep thinking that I might try my hand at mulling some Glogg with some recipes I found online to drink when I am sick.  I am a hot drink lover, so finding a new hot drink that I love is a big and wonderful new world for me *laugh*.  And of course hot drinks are a big necessity right now as we are in January and are experiencing our yearly cold snap, which is resulting in temperatures well below zero out.

So, onto entertainment other than the above YouTube channels.

This has got to be our favorite new series that we found this year.  Little Witch Academia is a Japanese anime series that is about a young girl who really wants to become a witch and goes to school to study magic but she has absolutely no natural ability to do magic.  Think of it like Harry Potter, but with an all girl's school and some really great lessons to learn on friendship, working together and, most importantly, that anything worth doing is worth working really hard to accomplish.  The series was a great one for the daughter and learning about not giving up and even if you fail the first, second or tenth time at something, if you really want to do it, if you keep working hard at it, you'll eventually get there.  It is great having an example I can bring up to her when she gets discouraged about not catching onto something as fast as she would like and about how Akko (the main character) would get discouraged too, but would never give up.  

I was able to order ours before Christmas with a gift card on Amazon, but it isn't available on there at the moment...still I wanted to mention it anyway :).

Other YouTube Stuff...

• The 1940's House is now available to watch on YouTube.  For a long time it wasn't around, so I wanted to point that out to people :).
•  Voyage Voyage 
• The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet 
• The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond
• De la Rey 
• Drop the Bomb (it's more of a funny video, but I had to link to it).
• Kyushoku: The Making of a Japanese School Lunch  This really makes you wish the US would adopt programs like this.

I am in love with a few series that are available on Amazon Prime, so I wanted to mention them here too...

Sense and Sensibility (BBC).  I watch this series late at night when I have a son who isn't sleeping.  I really enjoy the love stories and how they are portrayed in this version and love all the shots of the coast as well :).

If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie  My son is completely addicted to this special and I do have to say it has rather soothing music in it, so it's not a bad thing to run in the background when you are trying to get something else done and want to keep a child entertained *laugh*.

If You Give a Mouse a Pumpkin  The son loves this special as well.  Oddly enough he doesn't care as much about the regular episodes, but he loves the holiday specials.

And of course, Poldark is a great series.  Until season 5.  I actually invested in Season 5 because Armina and I both loved watching the other four seasons so much together.  And we both agreed that Season 5, with the exception of the last episode, was disappointing and not up to the same level as the other four seasons.  I think part of that was that seasons 1-4 they took their material from the original Winston Graham books, but in Season 5 they branched off into their own material and just kind of tied it into the Poldark universe.  Armina and I were both hoping that for Season 5 they would follow the books and have a 12 year gap and then you'd follow Clowance and Jeremy and all of the kids at the same age that the original Poldark series started out at.  But, they didn't.

The soundtrack to Poldark is also available on Amazon Prime for free if you have a Prime membership and the daughter likes to listen to it while we are doing school work :).

When it comes to trying new food items I might want to keep in the pantry year round, this soup is one of them.  I bought some of this soup when it was cheap on Amazon as an alternative to the Campbell's tomato soup and this stuff is waaaayyyyyy better!  I love how the red pepper in the soup just adds a depth of flavor to the soup that puts tomato soup up to the next level and it is super yummy.  My husband really likes it too and we've found that eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch isn't a last resort anymore :).  I add this stuff to my cart on Amazon and then save it for later and then wait for notifications to let me know that it has dropped in price so I don't pay over 1.00 per container for it.  You can buy the big cartons of the soup on Amazon, but we don't eat that much of the soup at one setting, so I just buy the small containers and we make up a few as needed instead so we don't waste any.

The Apple Pencil

And lastly is just one of those tools that I had to link to as it has been invaluable in helping Alvah with his tripod grip.   He is learning a lot better on technology than on paper as well, so it is a double bonus in that I can use it with him to navigate various apps on the I-pad to help him learn all kinds of things.

Some of our favorite apps to use with this is "Write My Name" as you can create name tags and things with the app and then use the pencil to write them out every day.  It sure helps to cement not only tripod grip and writing but also name recognition and face recognition with whoever you are working with (you take a picture of the person you are making a name tag for to associate the name with the person).

We purchased ours with a portion of our home school allotment and I am SO glad that I took the chance on it.  It's been an awesome addition to our learning arsenal.

So, there you have it.  Some of my favorite things from 2019.  Sure, there are other things I'm sure, but these are ones I noted *laugh*.  Sorry it isn't like nice and segmented into different organized sections, but I have two kids sick with colds right now and concentrating becomes a bit difficult sometimes.

End of August Trip the Portage Wildlife Center (Plus, notes and updates)

Well, Happy September everyone!

I was going to just go ahead and post up a "Frugal Friday" recap post for the last...um...however long it has been, but instead of going through my crazy life at the moment, I thought I'd share something fun we were actually able to do last week.  Since the earthquake I've felt like I've been trying to play catch up on a global scale and at times failing miserably and the last bit more things have been breaking, things I'm going to have to go into debt to replace (yay more debt) and I have really found myself singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.   This part really got caught in my head (with a slight lyric change by me)...

"Is this real life?  Is this just fantasy?
 Caught in a landslide (Note:  I replace "earthquake" for "landslide"), no escape from reality"

Anyway, warped humor aside, it's been crazy around here.  My husband really wanted to take a trip, but where do you go when 90% of the state is on fire (no, seriously, the majority of the state was on fire as of last week...it's been crazy and smokey and scary...we even had a fire down our road one day which made over an acre go up before the firefighters could contain it)?  Well, my daughter really wanted to go to the zoo, smoke or no smoke, but my husband really wanted to go to the Portage Wildlife Preserve.

The day we were going to go, I checked the weather/smoke reports and found that Portage, due to a change in wind direction was going to be relatively smoke free for that day while Anchorage was supposed to be REALLY smokey (which here are some pictures showing the smoke in the Anchorage area...they don't look too bad, but keep in mind these were the only pictures that showed up on my phone with any decent resolution to them).  So the husband and I convinced the daughter to go by saying we were going to the "big zoo" instead of the "small zoo"...it worked fabulously.  But, yeah, it was smokey on the drive until we got past Anchorage.

I even tried to take a snapshot of the inlet where the smoke was thick to make a "smoke on the water" type of joke, but the pictures didn't come out.

Anyway, after a well-enjoyed-by-the-son drive we arrived at the wildlife preserve, bought our passes  and somehow found a parking spot (which was a miracle with how crowded it was).  The son immediately went, found a shady spot at the food court, sat down and didn't want to move.  Not a great way to start a trip.  In his defense the eczema on the bottom of his foot has been awful of late and he was limping from it, so I imagine the idea of walking around all day was NOT what he wanted to do.  The husband took him for a walk to see some of the animals and I guess Alvah maxed out after a few of them and wanted to go and sit in the car and play on his I-pad for a good portion of the rest of the trip.

Meanwhile the daughter and I split up from the son and husband team and went looking at the animals...

We had obviously gotten there at feeding time because the porcupine kept trying to show everyone its empty food bowl.

It was really up close and personal and would give me great photogenic poses...until I would click the picture.  So, I did my best *laugh*.

The poor black bear was panting and just wanted some water.  It was very personable and really wanted someone to feed it or give it a drink.  They were coming up with the equipment to feed it as we were leaving, so I was happy to see it would get relief from its predicament.

I'm honestly amazed that so many of my photos came out.  I was using my phone and it was so bright that I couldn't see ANYTHING when trying to focus my camera when taking photos.  Sometimes it worked out well (like above) and other times I had mixed success...

If you look WAYYYY at the top of the photo you can make out part of two brown bears.  I got a great shot of a tree though *laugh*.

Some animals were nicer than others about getting their picture taken.  The moose refused to pop out of the barn and parked himself against the wall so you couldn't get a picture of him if you tried.  The reindeer stayed in their barn and weren't coming out in the sun and heat for anything.  The guys above were just kind of "meh" about life in general, but were at least out in the open.

The wolves tried their best to remain hidden in the weeds as they slept.  Not the best picture since I had to focus in so far to get them to pop out from the weeds, but hey, I found them!  It was like a grown up game of "Where's Waldo" with a lot of the animals.  The arctic fox alluded me completely even with a nice gentleman trying his best to point out its tail in the rocks to me.

We checked out a few more of the animals and then, finally not able to find the husband or the son anywhere, called to find out where we could meet up with them.

We found them over by a boardwalk that led to a nice walkway overlooking the inlet.  From the information boards I guess you can whale watch from the platform during high tide, but we were definitely there during low tide during a really dry year, so all we really got to see was a bit of water over lots of mud.

This was BY FAR the son's favorite part of the trip.  The wind had picked up a bit and started blowing wild growing grass around (which my son loves things like that) and he loved the play of the water over the mud.  I think we spent about an hour on that stretch of boardwalk with the son running back and forth laughing and having a great time while we chased him to make sure he stayed safe and didn't try to get down to the water or something.

I even got a good shot of the glacier from a different angle up the mountains.  I was totally mean and quizzed my daughter on glacial advancement and what the different parts of the glacier were called as we looked at it.  I was happy that I actually remembered so much of it...my daughter wasn't as thrilled with my memory *laugh*.

The husband the the daughter then took a side trip while I waited in the car with Alvah and warmed myself up (the wind was colder than I thought it would be and I hadn't brought my coat to walk around) to go and see the remains of Earthquake Park.  Earthquake Park is an area where during the 1964 quake an entire town had sank into the ground and had been abandoned.  The remnants of the town have been around ever since and they made "earthquake park" around it.  Unfortunately we checked for the remains of buildings that even I had seen when I first moved up here, but the buildings are pretty much gone, rotted, decayed and fallen in.  All that was left was pictures on the information board for the most part.  The husband was disappointed there wasn't more to see, but was able to explain to my daughter about the severity of the earthquake and things that had happened during it.  He even shared with her stories of his grandparents being in the J.C. Penney building in Anchorage during the 1964 quake (the building lost a side in the earthquake).  She was suitably impressed and we talked a bit about our own earthquake experiences on the way home, which was good for her to work through some of the trauma she's still dealing with on and off by talking through it.

Overall, I think the kids had fun on the trip, the husband probably didn't have as much fun as I would have liked (but did enjoy his buffalo bratwurst he got himself for the ride home) and I had a pretty good time.  I'd like to go back again and hopefully get some better pictures next time :).

Little Ways to Save Money Part 1: Become a Product Tester

So, before I begin, please excuse any wonky text in this post.  My computer is going nuclear on me again and I'm not sure how to fix it.  I keep maxing out my CPU usage at 100% somehow and my physical memory (even though I have nothing on my laptop but a few programs) keeps maxing out as well, so I'm not sure WHAT Windows did to my computer when it reformatted it, but it sure didn't fix it.  Blah!!!!!

I was watching a program on YouTube with my husband when it popped up in the "Recommended" list, mainly for kicks as we like to watch programs like the one that popped up to see if they could give us any new insight into saving money.  "10 Ways to Save Money You Haven't Thought Of" the program proclaimed proudly, so of course we had to click on it and see what it had to offer.

Immediately I was a bit concerned as the woman started talking from her designer couch with about 300.00 worth of Pottery Barn throw pillows stacked behind her and so the program began.  Confession:  We didn't even make it half way through.  I'm sorry but advice like, "Don't buy your dog organic dog treats for 40.00, instead make them at home with organic chicken from the store" didn't seem up my alley of frugality.  I mean my cats don't SEE treats unless you count the free ones they get every once in a while from the store freebies and things.

So, after watching other advice that was just...well not what I would consider advice for the everyday person, I decided to start a series on the blog here with different SMALL ways that I've found I've saved money and hopefully it'll help someone out there come up with inspiration in their own life on saving some pennies to help them through tough times :).

So, let's begin with part 1, which is a small way you can save money, but also will cost you nothing but a bit of time to accomplish (at least if you are careful about your missions).  And that is...

Consider Becoming a Product Tester

First a disclaimer:  I am NOT posting any affiliate links in this post.  I am merely sharing this information in an attempt to help others :).

Becoming a consumer who tests products for companies is becoming easier and easier.  There are more and more online product testing outfits popping up all of the time.  And hey, your opinion on new products is worth something!  So, why not get some free groceries in exchange for you doing a bit of "product push" on social media and sharing your opinions on those products?

I know that some people out there don't want to be a part of social media and avoid it like the plague, and trust me I get it.  But, you might want to consider doing a social media account with not a lot of "friends" just so that you can share product testing things, depending on where you are financially in your life.  For instance, I don't use Twitter.  I hate Twitter.  But, I have a Twitter account just so that I can share my product testing things on Twitter and get points for the share.  I also share product testing posts to my personal Facebook account (sorry friends of mine) and to an old blog page I created on Facebook as well to gain additional share points.  If you have a legitimate Facebook page, or Instagram, or Pinterest...all of those pages can be used to share these product testing opportunities and get you points toward the mission completion. 

You also get points through these outfits for talking to people in person and writing a report on the product testing site about the experience.  I've actually struck up conversations with a cashier and other customers about products I was testing out just because they were a captive audience and I thought that the freebies were cool and wanted to pass along how they could sign up for the product testing site as well.

The product testing opportunities aren't really steady, so much as a nice bonus you get offered every once in a while that you see pop up in your e-mail.  You won't qualify for every mission, and I've been known more than once to out and out turn down missions that required me to spend money up front for a product and get "reimbursed" for said product later, or in some cases where I would be required to drive an hour to go and sit in on a product speel before getting said product to test...those I simply decline as I just don't have time or the money to mess with those things.

I might miss out on some of the "big ticket" missions by doing things the way I do, but I always hit my minimum points for missions (usually no more than that as I just don't have a lot of time to mess with things) and through the years I've tried everything from crescent rolls (a Pillsbury product testing outfit that isn't around anymore, unfortunately), to tea, to razors, to vitamins, to pain killers, to cold medicines, to pet products (including cat litter) to feminine care products...you name it. 

The biggest thing when it comes to the missions on product testing sites is, to me, making sure you stay on top of it.  Before I even get the product, I share my first post on Facebook and Twitter just saying, "Hey, I got free stuff in exchange for this post" which immediately gains me 10 points toward my goal (which is usually somewhere around 40 points...some of the bigger ticket items, like the free razors I got recently, require you to do things like share an online review of said product and take a screen capture...look up instructions on how to do that online and away you go) and once I get the product I try it out as quickly as possible (I admit though, a few times I had to admit on reviews that I didn't get a cold and therefore couldn't review, say a cold medicine, before the mission time was up), share another post on Facebook and Twitter (which I, once again, just state I got free stuff in exchange for the post) and then fill in the actual review on the product testing field on the mission page and whatever else I need to do to get my minimum points for the mission done. 

I know this sounds like a huge time investment, but it really isn't.  The big thing is taking missions you WANT to do (and are willing to do the amount of work involved to get through said mission),  sharing about the mission and getting to your minimum amount of points to complete the mission and get your "badge" (which basically means you fulfilled your part of the product testing mission) which helps you qualify for future missions (and over time qualifies you for better missions as they realize you are dependable to get the missions done you sign up for).  There is a bit of time that you have to invest out of the gate with these outfits to fill out surveys so they can peg your demographics down a bit and make sure the mission they shoot your way is hitting the right demographics for their clients, so try to be truthful on the surveys so that your missions are geared toward what you would want to receive (versus getting offered like free bird food when you don't have a bird or something).

Will you get tons of products to try by signing up for these outfits?  No, probably not (not unless you have a lot of time to invest in getting involved in their online communities and becoming a "featured" mission completer or something), but every little bit helps and I have to say I haven't had a product freebie through these outfits yet that I didn't appreciate getting.  The free cat food I got recently really helped to stretch the dry food I had in the house, the cats and ate and liked it (which I reported on my mission that they did) and I got a 10.00 bag of cat food for free along with some free wet food and some cat treats.  None of these were things I would have bought normally, but getting them for free was appreciated.  Getting the free razors recently helped to extend the life of my regular razor heads that much more, which every little bit helps when it comes to saving money.  Over time, the little things add up!

If you are looking to sign up for a couple of product testing outfits, the ones I can recommend at the current time (since I'm a member of them...heck I've been a member of Smiley 360, from back when it was just "Smiley" and I've been a member for YEARS):

Smiley 360 (all kinds of different products) 

Generation Good (Seventh Generation products and green living topics) 

MyMagazine Sharing Network (Kroger/Fred Meyer product testing outfit)

There are some, like Amazon Vine (I believe the name of it is) that I've SEEN people's reviews mentioning being a member, but I'm not sure how you would go about signing up for them, or if they are even still available.

So, there you are folks.  One little way to save money in your life :).  I hope you found this post the least bit useful.  And hey, if you are a member of a product testing outfit, please let us know and what it's all about so we maybe can check it out.

Why I Shop the Way I Do (or "Please, Child, Eat!")

This is a post I've thought about writing for a while, but kept putting it off because I was worried it would come across as a pity trip (which doesn't sit well with me) or worse.  I've been up for the last two days with a son who managed to come down with the flu or other "mimic" type of virus and had received some e-mails from people who had, I honestly do believe, good intentions on helping me to be a better parent and getting my son to eat in a way that would help his autism.  I thanked them for their advice and just moved on.  I've learned to do that over the years.  Well, mostly.  I'm getting better at it.  No, really I am!

What finally got me to write this post was actually another autistic parent who wrote me.  Her child is much younger than my son is and she was actually writing me in desperation to see if I could give her some insight into getting her son to actually eat.  Not eat "real food", which is my continuing quest with my son anymore, but getting her son to eat any food at all other than powdered rice cereal.  Her son had been diagnosed with autism last week and had been diagnosed with failure to thrive at the same time.  She'd been in to see all the specialists for months and wasn't getting any answers on how to help him to eat anything but the powdered rice cereal.  She was desperate for any advice I could give her.  Literally a hand reaching out to someone who she hoped would understand and just hold that hand in understanding.  I gave her as good as advice as I had, which probably would amount to about two cents, but I hope I at least gave her some ideas on where she could go next to try and help her little man.

I could feel her panic, her sense of failure and utter helplessness through the e-mail.  Not because she was the most eloquent writer I'd ever read or anything (not that she did a bad job, mind you.  She got herself across just fine), but because it brought back so many memories for me.  I'd been there.  And I felt so, so much empathy for her.

So, I thought I would just put this out there and ask that the next time you see a person load up the belt in the grocery store in front of you with junk food and someone kiddingly asks where the party is going to be, only to hear the person reply that there is no party that they have an autistic child, please reserve judgement.  You have no idea what that adult has been through and that they may be very, very grateful that their child is eating food, any food at all.  Calories are calories sometimes and we know it well.

Alvah's struggle with food and his digestion started on day one.  Literally.  Within a few hours of being born he started choking if he was lying down.  The nurses at the hospital assured us that often times newborns would choke on amniotic fluid that was left over in their lungs and things and so long as they were able to clear it they would be fine.  I quickly found with Alvah this was not the case.  I had to literally keep him on my chest with me elevated to stop him from waking up choking on whatever he had eaten before.  A week into his young life, the first day we got him home from the hospital, the projectile vomiting began.  He would choke and vomit to the point breast milk/formula would come out of his tear ducts when you were feeding him.  It was terrifying and all too regular of an occurrence with him.  His dad and I would hold him like we were holding dynamite with a questionable detonator on it, waiting to see what would happen.  I had to feed him a half an ounce at a time and then burp him and pray.  We got him down to where he'd vomit once every couple of days, than a week.

I took him to our pediatrician at the time only to hear that some children "were like that" and he'd "grow out of it".  I actually asked point blank if it was normal for a child to puke like a scene from the Exorcist and she told me yes, yes it was.  I've since talked to occupational therapists and feeding therapists throughout the years who want to hang the woman by her thumbs for making him suffer like that as they knew tricks that might have helped him.  It took him YEARS to grow out of regular vomiting episodes.  Stopping him from vomiting when brushing his teeth became a huge deal, getting him to take any type of medicine was an even greater one.  And he still had to remain elevated or he'd wake up choking.  When he was 18 months old I finally moved from our couch as he was getting so big we were barely fitting and figured out other ways to help him as much as we could to keep food down and grow.

Somehow, despite his body hating to keep food down and being covered in eczema all the time, somehow he grew tall.  Didn't have an ounce of fat on him, but he was always a tall kid.  He finally submitted to me introducing solid foods at 11 months and he would only eat powdered rice cereal with applesauce and formula mixed in for about another 4 months.  Nothing else worked with him.

And then, blessedly a few things happened.  My in-laws let my son sip some soda out of a straw and try a french fry from McDonalds (things I wouldn't have had the guts to try with him as I was terrified of him choking or projectile vomiting).  And he actually loved it!  For the first time my son was actively chewing things and keeping food down.  He then discovered cow's milk in his bottle and had no problem transitioning to that as well.  I started working with him, carefully introducing new foods and I MEAN carefully, and I found that he actually did like some foods.  He loved my home made chili, minestrone, pizza, different flavored rice dishes...I thought we were finally on the way to a real food diet and I could finally get him off of powdered rice cereal and applesauce.

And then his skin kept getting worse.  His behavior, which had always been "not quite right", started getting worse.  He developed fixations on anything that spun, wouldn't answer to his name still, wouldn't point, wouldn't play with toys...the list went on.  He developed an unhealthy obsession with flicking paper and if the paper would tear when he was flicking it he would find the nearest hard object and bash his head into it repeatedly...benchmarks and milestones started passing him by.  At 21 months we got him into infant learning and were introduced to the M-CHAT and got the advice to seek out a developmental pediatrician to find out for sure what was going on.  Finally when he had just turned three, we got the diagnosis of autism.  Six months later, in an attempt to help his eczema and hopefully get him to concentrate better (and thus help him deal with his autism better) I got him into an allergist.

I deeply regret going to an allergist back then.  I know it's stupid to say that because allergies are nothing to mess with, but before we got the food allergies diagnosed, Alvah was happily eating peanut butter, chili and other food items.  We got the allergy results back and found out that he was allergic to peanut (severely, which over the years has turned into a life threatening, nothing to mess with allergy), garlic (this ended up being the big one with him on loss), oats (which threw out his favorite organic toddler greeny puffs), coconut oil and derivatives and others.

This is where my empathy for that mother kicks in, in a big, big way.  We were told garlic was a life threatening allergy and we took it very seriously.  I started making my own chili powder because, it turns out, pretty much everything in the entire universe has garlic in it if you cook with it.  I tried to make flavored rice that wasn't from his favorite packaged brand...he would have none of it.  Where I had him eating tuna fish sandwiches, once I had to make my own Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, he wouldn't touch them.  Chili was turned on so fast when the chili powder didn't have garlic in it.

The list went on.  Fast forward six months to us, in desperation, going to a nutritionist and dietitian to try and get my son to eat something that wasn't cardboard, dirt, tire rubber, or uncooked white rice.  That was literally all he would eat, whether you liked it or not.  It got to the point where I'd try to get him to eat in his bouncy seat because it was the only thing that would keep him somewhat calm at feeding time and I'd turn around and find him digging under the edge of the carpet and eating any dirt he could get his fingers into.

The nutritionist looked him over and told us not to panic because he still had some body weight left.  He had lost nearly 1/3 of his body weight and he didn't have much to spare to begin with, but with his height being so high he didn't fall into the "failure to thrive" category, even though he was in the lowest 20% for weight.  They gave us a feeding schedule to put him on and other things to try, but didn't give us any real advice to help his PICA recede and his want to eat anything resembling food to present itself.

We started him on intensive feeding therapy for years at OT after that to try and get him to eat anything that was safe for him to have.   The foods that probably saved his life, and I wish I was joking here, was "Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips" and McDonalds french fries (once we found out that they just plain didn't make his skin or anything worse and just said to heck with it and started feeding them to him out of desperation).  He would eat the mini chocolate chips, it turned out, by the carload, which was a blessing as well.

My father passed away the year we saw the nutritionist.  That happening and a dream my step mom had about me (a discussion for another time) made me realize that I had to find a new pediatrician who knew my struggles and would be able to offer real advice to help me.  And so, I found our current pediatrician.  When I called her office and spoke to her secretary, I, on the verge of tears, said that I needed someone who GOT what it was like to have an autistic child.  The receptionist calmed me down and then cheerfully informed me that the pediatrician had an autistic son and then asked me to come in and meet with them and talk to them.  I took Alvah in to see them the next day and had a introductory exam done.  The doctor was concerned about his weight, just like I was, and she calmly asked me, "Is there ANYTHING other than cardboard, dirt and uncooked white rice that he'll eat?"  I told her McDonalds french fries and the chocolate chips.  Her reply, "Great!  I always tell parents of kiddos like him to find ONE high calorie thing they'll eat and feed it to them as much as they want it.  Go with the chocolate chips.  It'll keep a bit of weight on him if nothing else."  And so we did.

Finally after a couple of years we lost the garlic allergy and we started introducing back in foods that had previously been happily consumed to Alvah's diet.  And we quickly found out that when autistic kids drop a food?  They have this bad tendency to drop it forever.  It's fun like that.  I've tried for years to get him to eat chili again, or minestrone, or pizza.  I get a thrill when he takes a bite of pizza that I put on the table, but so far it's not a constant.  He did discover he liked Cool Ranch Doritos one day at a family get together and he found Cheetos by stealing them off of my plate one day out of curiosity (one of my guilty pleasures).  Those two items, along with Tilamook cheese (another random thing he grabbed off of a plate and liked) and the ever constant milk (that he drinks out of a bottle at night), have managed to put some weight on him over the last few years with the on again, off again, like of Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies.  It's kind of nice walking into the pediatrician's office, or the dentist, and hearing, "Alvah, you've gotten fat!" in a kidding way and then them gushing about how his face has filled in and he doesn't look skeletal anymore.

To the few people who have suggested different diets to me to try and help Alvah, I appreciate it, I really do.  In the past, in desperation to help his behaviors, PICA and eczema we have tried pretty much everything.  On the list (since these are suggested a lot)...

1.  The gluten free diet (resulted in him reducing to an animal state, basically drooling in a corner for 3 months before I said enough and stopped it).

2.  Saw a naturpath and tried doing a structured gluten reduced diet, along with dairy free, corn free and potato free with various herbal supplements and vitamins to help heal his gut.  Failed.  It was a struggle getting the supplements and vitamins down him, but I did manage it, but we just didn't see any change in his eczema or his autism behaviors.

I'd go into the other things I've kind of forced on the poor kiddo in the past to see if I could help his allergies (honestly, helping his autism through diet lost it's appeal to me after the gluten free massive epic fail as seeing him so withdrawn and miserable...I never want to see him like that again.  Ever), but it would take a couple of large volumes.  I studied herbology to make all his skin products when he was diagnosed allergic to pretty much everything that could go on your skin, made yellow dock root tincture to get iron into him when we found out he was anemic (and it worked so the battle was worth it there).  I read every new study that comes out and think hard before I try something, but I do try.

So, yeah, when people tell me that I don't try hard enough to feed my son healthy meals...I kind of see where they'd get that impression looking at what I buy for groceries.  But you know what?  I will gladly buy that box of s'more pop tarts because I know my son will willingly eat breakfast.  I will continue to buy soda because it is the ONLY thing we've found that he'll drink out of a cup at all, but also the only thing he'll drink other than milk out of a baby bottle and there is no way I will not buy soda and have him lose the skill to drink out of a cup as it was hard earned!   Every hot dog bun top he eats means he's eating bread, not cardboard.  Maybe not the type of bread I'd like him to eat, but we're getting there!  Every food he picks up, whether it be weird (garlic stuffed olives for instance), normal (like the breadsticks I made for dinner last week that I pray he will continue to eat), processed but decent (Bumblebee tuna salad) or even wholly processed junk calories (like Cheetos)...it's a small mark on the "he's eating" list and I know we'll get there eventually.

So, to all you parents with your belts loaded with junk food who mumble embarrassed about your child's diet?  Don't.  You're doing fine.  At least I think so...for whatever the feedback of some random person on the internet might mean to you :).   And to those who wish their child would eat, at all, I feel for you and I wish I could help.  I really do.  I know what it's like to see your child suffer and not know what to do.  It's hard.  And to those who have it worse than we do, and I know there are plenty, I admire you and I really wish I could help all of you and at the same time I can't help but feel grateful that we are where we are and are at a point where we can cope.  I pray to those families who don't have it as good as we do that one day you too can look back and see how far you have come with pride.  Good luck to you and God Bless!

And thanks to those who read this headache fueled ramble as I wait for children to go to sleep and pray I'm not getting sick as my throat starts to hurt.  When it comes down to it, special needs parent or not, parenthood is the most challenging thing you can do, but also it is the most rewarding.  We all do the best we can do.  And really, that is all that matters :).

The Cosmic Yo-Yo Week

Frugal Friday has been interrupted by my week.  I'll get back to the regularly scheduled program here probably tomorrow and do a recap, but this, I felt, deserved it's own post away from saving money and everything that goes with it.

There are weeks that you feel like the world is your oyster, things go great and you feel like the universe is in your corner.  There are weeks that you feel like things couldn't get worse and then they do.  This is like a week where I hit both extremes within the week. 

I took the above picture of Belkar at the vets getting her booster shots.  She started by burying her head in the corner of the carrier into the towel, pretending like things weren't happening and then when she realized things got real, she quickly grabbed the towel with her paw, shot it aside and quickly fluffed and rearranged the towel so she was perfectly hidden under it.  I had to take the picture and send it to my husband as that was a first for me with a cat.

Wanting to hide under a blanket like bad things weren't going to happen is how I was yesterday.

The week started out with the above mentioned vet appointment, which went great, had no surprises and was easy overall.  My husband started feeling bad so he went to the doctor's the same day I took the cat to the vet (turns out he's just has a virus), but it at least turned out alright.

And then we got the call that my husband had gotten the job at the airport!  We're waiting on final okays from Juneau on allocating money for the position but as far as the airport guys are concerned the husband is in!  It's going to be less per hour then my husband is making now, which is a worry in the back of my mind, but I'm determined to make it work as this is the type of job he's always wanted as control work is the part of his job that he enjoys the most.  And hey, benefits!

And then yesterday happened. 

A good friend is dying.  Stage 4 colon cancer.

Not only is she a good friend of mine, she's also Alvah's speech therapist. 

I was, at first, baffled.  Shani has been having problems with her stomach since December.  First they thought she had a bowel blockage, and then they decided on Crohn's disease after a ton of tests and things and they had an appointment at the end of April to get a diseased part of her colon removed to make her more comfortable (and they assured her they were positive it WASN'T cancer) and get her back to "default" basically and she could just start her life with Crohn's.  We went from that to suddenly being in for surgery and then to stage 4 colon cancer with no chance of survival and they don't even know if she'll make it through the summer.

We have no idea how much time she has left.  She's getting a second opinion.  She's going to work as long as she can for not only income but to give people a chance to find another therapist. 

I felt like I'd been hit by a convoy of concrete trucks fully loaded.  I have a decent amount of casual friends, but good friends I can count on one hand and have a few fingers left over.  Shani is one of those friends.

Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day crying and calling on any spiritual network I had to pray for Shani (if anyone has a prayer chain or prayer list please add Shani Dean to it.  Thanks) in the hopes that the second opinion would come back better than the first opinion and maybe the Good Lord had a miracle lying around He could give her.  I have everything from three wards of the LDS Church, to St. Jude's ministry to a order of Buddhist nuns praying for her (my step-mom has connections as she's a minister).  It's the least I can do for Shani after everything she has done for so many people in the world...she is one of those people who would give you the shirt off her back before you even ask her for it, gives her services for free to those who can't afford it and other things.  She deserves the prayers.

I worked yesterday to try and wrestle control from an uncontrollable situation, thus prayer networks and things.  I talked to teachers to get my son into summer school this year so he'll have some type of therapy going, made a call and left a message with our old OT to see if I can get him in once a week there (I don't want him to be without any type of therapy as he could get used to NOT having therapy, which would be detrimental for sure).  I got names of speech therapists people had to give calls and see if I can find openings somewhere, but am not holding out much hope as therapists in the Valley are always booked solid with long wait lists...but maybe God will work to help us with that.  It was a really painful day, to say the least.

Today, I at least woke up with a better outlook, at least I hope I did and am determined to be there for Shani no matter how much time she might have left on this Earth.  A week or a year, it's the quality of the time, not the quantity that matters.  Every day we're gifted 24 hours and if you're lucky you can take advantage of those hours to do something that makes you happy.

Shani wanted to make soap this summer for the first time and was really looking forward to it.  We're doing it next weekend instead so I can be sure she can at least check that off of her "I want to do that" list.  Anything else I can do for her to make her time here better...it's the least I can do.

Shani asked me to take her chickens (she's the friend with the coop) as she wanted her chickens to go to a good home (those are the chickens I chicken sat last year), so this weekend Clark is building a proper coop to house them.  I never even thought about budgets or anything when I said yes and I still don't worry about it.  We'll deal with it.  God will provide.

So, yeah, I didn't want to put this in a "Frugal Friday" post...it just didn't seem right.  I'll go through all of that later once I sit down and tally everything, but I have to say as situational mood swings go...this has been a week.

Hug your friends and family close and seize the day, all.  You just never know.

How to Save Pennies (When Pennies is all You Have)

When I did my recent review post for 2015, I got a lot of wonderful wishes for a prosperous new year (thank you to all who did that and the same to you!), some encouragement (once again, thank you) and in the midst of it a couple of cries for help when some people realized that I'd been paying off bills when we have no money to speak of and asking me how I did it as they are in the same type of situation.

I almost didn't write this as it's kind of involved, but if I can help even a few people out there to save money and lead a better quality of life...heck that's why I started this blog, so really it's worth a shot.

I have a couple of things to start off with, though.  One:  I'm not a financial consultant person or anything like that, so please don't assume I am.  I'm merely sharing what works for me in the "saving money" department.   Also, these are things that work for me in my unique environment.  For instance, I don't have credit cards to use to buy things like groceries...the closest I come is my check card, so this system might not work for you if you do.  Also, this is all separate from things that I do myself around here to save money (make do and mend types of things) as those are kind of self evident, but I'll cover a few things here.

Right, now that we got that out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks.

When you have no extra money in your budget and desperately need to save some money, here's what is working for me.

1.  Take a Page From Embezzlers

Woah!  Before you start thinking I'm telling you to break the law or something, hear me out!  I'm not talking about stealing money...well kind of, but it's stealing money from yourself.  Right, now that I've thoroughly confused you, allow me to explain.

A classic embezzler trick is to take small amounts of money out of transactions at, say banks, and then no one will notice that money is missing until they are walking away with millions of dollars.  That is what I'm proposing you do with your bank account.

First, you're going to want an accurate balance on your checking account, so wait until the month's bills are paid, or you have four or five days where you can sit and wait for things to clear and get a good accurate balance of what you have in the bank (if you have everything reconciled in your check book, all the better here).  Start with that balance on a piece of paper, separate from your actual check register.  This is going to be your "working balance sheet".

Now, every single time you do a transaction, say a trip to the store, and the amount is an odd amount, say 54.30, always estimate that amount UP and put that in your working balance sheet.  In this case you'd subtract 55.00 from your balance.  Do this for every transaction you do throughout the month, big or small.  This includes utilities, credit card bills, whatever.

I go even further and try to estimate up to the nearest hundred if it's a large bill.  Like say your mortgage is 1250.00 a month.  I'll round up an amount like that to the nearest hundred.  I do the same to a lesser degree with utilities by estimating to the nearest ten.  Like my phone bill is 112.00 a month right now (plus or minus a few cents).  I round that up to 120.00 and use that as my monthly phone bill cost on my working balance sheet.

Another trick I do is I started getting 1/2 tank of gas whenever I could get away with it, but I'd put the cost of a full tank of gas into my working balance as that's the amount I always have running in my head on what gas would actually cost me.

At the end of the month, take the accurate reconciled balance from your checkbook and subtract your working balance sheet from that.  Record that amount on another page as your "monthly savings".  You can, if you wish, transfer that amount from your checking to your savings, but I don't bother as the interest rates just aren't high enough to bother with right now.  You might be surprised how much you start saving this way, or you might look at it and say, "That's it?" at the end of the month, but trust me, even small amounts start to add up.  Once I get to 50.00 or more in my "savings" right now I immediately throw that as an extra payment on my husband's tooth bill.

This was the only way I could find to save money that I didn't miss said money on a day to day basis.  And it does work...it's just not as clear cut as taking say 10% of your check and putting it into savings or something.

2.  Consolidate Your Expenses

 This one works if you track your expenses at all and if you don't I definitely suggest that you do. It can hurt when you first start doing it, but it really does give you a better picture of where your money is going.

When I decided that I needed to start saving money STAT and that we had no money to save, I came up with the system described in number one and than I tried to think of ways to cut expenses back as well.  I started to look at our budget and thought hard about how I could make some more cuts somewhere and then decided that, "Household Expenses", "Meals and Entertainment", "Clothing", "Thrift Store and Yard Sale" and "Grocery" could all be put together under just "Grocery"  if I was really creative in my budgeting, and I mean really creative.   I then kept my grocery budget exactly the same, but started to put more strain on it with the other categories, thus saving me about 50.00 a month between  all of the other categories getting erased.  As a result of this my 150.00 a week grocery budget started to encompass a whole lot more stuff and I ended up having to get a lot more creative in my choices to make it stretch.  I've managed pretty well overall.

I've found that when you consolidate expenses this way it does work, but it does require you to get really creative to make it work.  Even if you just consolidate "gas" into with your grocery budget, you'll save yourself money, so look over your budget and see what you can do to make your pennies stretch that much further.

3.  Pinch the Pennies Until The Copper Melts in Your Palm

I know anyone who comes to this blog knows this trick, but here's some of the things I started doing to make sure that my pennies stretched as far as I could make them go on top of what I talk about from day to day on the blog.

One big lesson to learn is that if something is on clearance or reduced that does NOT mean that it's a good deal.  You might be proud of yourself for getting meat 50% off at the store, but if you looked at the price per lb and realize that you just paid 6.00 per lb for those steaks you might feel a bit differently about things.  Especially if you'd looked at the weekly ad and realized that those same steaks were on sale for 4.99 lb if you'd taken the time to look (and yes, this is based on a real live incident with a friend of mine who felt really stupid when I told her about the sale).  So, always pay attention to the little things.  Just wanted to pass that lesson along :).

So here's a few ways I have been pinching pennies this last year:

1.  I only buy meat if it is below 2.00 per lb, OR in the case of more expensive meats I must get it for below 3.00 per lb on reduced price or below 5.00 for a package of meat (preferably the less than 5.00 route as I can get beef ribs and things decently cheap from time to time).  I have to stick to this resolution until further notice, but the cost of pork has gone up significantly the last bit (3.99 to 6.99 lb for pork???  Ouch!!!) so...we will eventually grow feathers around here eventually I'm thinking.

Also, don't discount processed foods.  They do have their place.  I have started to order things like Beef a Roni and tamales (obviously from my shopping goals for this month) because I find that beef is so expensive that once I include the cost of the other items to make said dish, it's just easier to order it in a can form.  Will we be eating these things every day?  Heck no.  But, they are good to have and it gives you a bit of variety in your diet.

2.  I have started to try and do one meatless meal a week, or close to a meatless meal (I'll use bouillon or something to help flavor things so I can't call it "meatless", but close enough).  I have found pasta is an excellent help in stretching the food budget.  It's filling, it's cheap, requires few condiments to make it different and everyone in my family enjoys it.

3.  Try to cook so there aren't any leftovers.  If there are leftovers, either freeze them before they go bad or make sure you pack them for lunches and things so that they get used.  Nothing makes me cry more than wasting food.  Honestly, I'm pretty sure I gave myself mild food poisoning a couple of times this last year eating things in the fridge that were past their prime because I didn't want to waste food.  Now I really try to catch things before they are more than a few days old, just to be safe.

4.  Only do laundry or dishes when there is a full load.  I know that neatness lovers out there are flinching at the thought of dirty dishes being in your sinks right now, but it does help to save money and water consumption on top of that if you just wait and do it when you HAVE to versus when you want to.  This one won't be for everyone, but I do it...it's usually not a problem for me, though, with my family *laugh*.

5.  Simplified the cleaners.  I used to buy whatever dish soap was on sale, but then I discovered that my local bulk store sold gallon sized things of dish soap for commercial restaurants and stuff cheap, so I just bought one of those and am refilling my dish soap bottles as I run low.  It really has saved me a lot of money.

I use vinegar for a lot of different cleaning chores now a days (it works just as well as Windex and is a LOT cheaper to buy if you get it at the bulk stores) and soap and water does wonders as a cleaning solution.  The only cleaners I have bought recently was Resolve carpet cleaning foam for my stairs (stomach flu badness that wasn't coming up without it), Clorox wipes (this just recently to sterilize the bathroom after my son used it for a few weeks to kill the stomach bugs) and some toilet bowl cleaner (because getting rust and calcium deposits off the inside of the toilet sucks without it and I wanted to sterilize the toilet too from...well you get it).  I buy sponges for .69 a piece at my local bulk store (they sell them individually and in bulk packages, but I found the individual ones were actually cheaper, so I go that route) and I'm ready to rock.

6.  I'm using a lot less paper products around here.  The Prudent Homemaker turned me onto POM toilet paper, which luckily my local bulk store carries and I have to admit I was a bit skeptical that it would work as well as toilet paper I was buying from Amazon, but I was wrong and that stuff lasts FOREVER compared to the Cottonelle I was using.  I'm super happy with that as toilet paper isn't cheap!

With paper towels I make a point to keep dish towels handy and if we are using napkins they are cloth.  It has definitely helped to cut down paper consumption around here.  And double bonus when I had to clean up things that I DIDN'T want to clean up with dish towels when my son was sick I had the paper towels to use.  

Now will those things help you to save money?  Well, in a round a bout fashion by cutting your expenses you will have more money to save, which is a good thing.

4.  Evaluate Needs Vs. Wants

This one is tough, really tough.  We, as human beings, tend to have unlimited wants.  No matter how much we get we want more.  And curbing that tendency can be really hard.

To survive you need few things.  Clothes on your back, brand doesn't matter.  Food on your table.  A roof over your head with utilities turned on (preferably) and your family healthy.  A car, or two that run and are legal (in our case we do need two cars).   Past that it's all frosting on the cake.   So, if you go through that list and then look at what's left do you need any of that stuff?  Think about it.

We got rid of cable when my daughter was maybe six months old.  We haven't missed it at all in the near decade since we dropped it.  The majority of our movies come from thrift stores, are .01 movies from Amazon, or pawn shops.  And that keeps us more than a little entertained :).

I have a TracFone, not a smart phone, and I wouldn't have that if I didn't need the schools to be able to get a hold of me during the day in case something happens with the kids (I do love the multiple alarms I can set on it, though, I have to admit).  Don't get me wrong.  Smart phones are cool and all, but I know for a fact that I don't need one at all.

Just look at what you spend money on and think about things is all I'm saying.  You might find that there's a lot more "wants" than "needs" on that list and maybe you can cut some of those things out to help save you some pennies.  I do this constantly in my day to day life anymore and it really has helped me to better evaluate what I'm spending my pennies on.  For instance, I saw a box of reduced Christmas crackers on clearance for like 1.25.  Pasta is on sale cheap this week, so after a bit of thought I passed the crackers by to get two boxes of pasta to feed my family more efficiently. 

So there you are folks.  My "system" if there is such a thing.  I really hope it might help some of you out.  Yes, there are other things I do (coupons, sitting in the dark, blah blah blah), but I am hoping that I might have inspired you a bit to think outside of the budgeting box a bit and hopefully give you some ideas on how you can save a few pennies.  Remember, "A penny saved is a penny earned" or in my case it goes, "a penny saved is a penny saved!".

Good luck in all your money saving endeavors!!!