Pre-holiday reality check

About two weeks ago, my one remaining freelance writing gig came to an abrupt end. With no warning, my client told all of us writing for him to stop. I was counting on the weekly check from that job to finance Christmas this year. Then a few days ago, we got a rather big bill in the mail that I wasn't expecting. I could feel the anxiety begin to set in. It seemed like the perfect time to read the new e-book Cherie Lowe, aka The Queen of Free, asked if I would review. The book is called Keep the Happy in Your Holidays: 21 Ways to Save Time, Money and Your Sanity this Christmas Season and is available via download for $1.99.

I'll admit that reading books about saving money and budgeting ranks in my mind right above going to the dentist. But, frankly, I was looking for someone to tell me we could have a great Christmas season without spending a lot of money. At 122 pages, the book was a quick read.

Keep the Happy in Your Holidays is broken down into 21 tips, beginning with a pledge to make it a debt-free Christmas. That's not a hard one for us; we operate on a cash-only basis. From advice on what is really a good deal on Black Friday (Tip #4) to creative ideas for gifts that cost $5 or less (Tip #11), the e-book is full of practical ideas for a variety of situations and scenarios related to the holiday season, including gift giving, travel and even wrapping presents.

My favorite tip was Tip #9: Cultivate a Culture of Contentment in Your Kids. I want my kids to have happy memories of Christmastime and I don't believe that money = memories. Cherie offers these suggestions:

1. Begin with a thankful list (instead of a list of wants).
2. Conduct an ongoing discussion about wants and needs.
3. Invest in your child's faith.
4. Serve together. This is on my list of to do's this holiday season.
5. Ask for or give experiences. Maybe Grandma would like to pay for a few months of piano lessons?
6. Set limits. In our house, Santa brings 3 gifts and a stocking and mom & dad give 1 gift for each kid. We've done this since Annie's second Christmas, so our kids are used to it.
7. Reflect what you want to see. Cherie writes "If we are worried, hurried, or frazzled, we shouldn’t be surprised if they [our kids] are too. If we are consumed with our desire for the next big thing or are constantly dissatisfied, then they will be too."

Nowhere in the book does Cherie tell you what to do. She gives suggestions and examples of strategies that worked to help Cherie and her husband pay off $127,000 in debt in just four years. The e-book includes several free printables, including printable gift tags. She also does a nice job gently circling the reader back to the real reason for the Christmas season. 

Readers of Keep the Happy in Your Holidays also get the introduction and first chapter of Cherie's book, Slaying the Debt Dragon, which tells the Lowe's story of battling their mountain of debt and the lessons they learned along the way. That book will be available in bookstores in early January 2015.

How to get the books:

1. You can get both Keep the Happy in Your Holidays and Slaying the Debt Dragon on Amazon. If you use the links in this post to make your purchase, I'll get a few cents from your purchase. 
2. Beginning December 1, if you pre-order Slaying the Debt Dragon (available in paperback and e- book), you'll get a copy of Keep the Happy in Your Holidays for FREE.

To learn more about the books and hear what others have said about them, visit the book website.

Little House in the Suburbs

When I was a little girl, I LOVED the Little House on the Prairie book series. I read every one of those books several times over.

In the past few days, I feel like we've been living in Little House in the Suburbs. As with many families in the U.S. these days, money is not exactly plentiful (anyone need a good graphic/web designer or some freelance writing done?), so we're trying to be a bit more frugal and are roughing it in ways that have me recalling Laura, Mary, Carrie, Ma, Pa and their good old bulldog, Jack.

Instead of calling someone to fix the broken dishwasher, we've been washing and drying dishes by hand. Not exactly fun, but not horrific either. It reminds me of when we used to have to wash dishes by hand at home. We'd argue over who had to wash and who had to dry. Washing was the best job, so the dryer -- out of spite -- would constantly hand back dishes and say "this is still dirty."

When you're trying not to spend a lot of money, you do more home cooking, at least we do. No, I haven't slaughtered a pig to make salt pork, but I have been pretty creative in the kitchen. I tossed together some ground beef, onion, mushroom soup, cream cheese and egg noodles for a do-it-myself stroganoff. It was pretty tasty, even if Charlie looked at it and asked "is this puke?"

I also made homemade chicken burritos in the crockpot. Unfortunately, I forgot to add any liquid, so they chicken breasts were more than dry. Not wanting to waste the meat, I shredded it, added it to a saucepan with diced tomato and some chicken broth and simmered it until it had regained some moisture. I served it with cheese and tortillas. Amazingly, it was quite tasty. Wonder if Ma could have come up with that on the fly?

And last in the Little House entry, we've thrown open the windows and turned off the air conditioning, even though the high temps have climbed back into the 80s. If you know us, you know this is a HUGE sacrifice.

I'm getting so good at this pioneering thing, I think tomorrow I might try to make Robbie some cornhusk Bionicles.