Author Archives: Ms. Practicality

Impatient Purchasing: Five Rules to Help Avoid It

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

Patience is supposed to be a virtue but, boy, can it be difficult to have. I find myself challenged,  more often than I like, with having patience. I recently had a run in with what I call Impatient Purchasing. It gave me the opportunity to devise five helpful rules for myself to guard against making these Impatient Purchases.

What is an Impatient Purchase? It’s not the good old-fashioned spontaneous impulse buy-where you run across something that sings to you, you know is a good deal and you can likely find it in your budget-so you go for it. An Impatient Purchase is when you buy something that doesn’t necessarily meet your needs just because you are overly motivated to meet the need more quickly than is necessary. I came close not once, but twice, this past week to succumbing to Impatient Purchasing.

The first incident occurred when I was determined to find a way to make my Fly Lady Control Journal look nice so that I would use it cheerfully and consistently (I’ve since started calling this Control Journal my Family Notebook so that I don’t feel too Type A about it). Is making this notebook pretty a necessary thing in the grand scheme of living frugally? Heck no. It’s a bit of an indulgence, I know. I have learned enough about myself to know that if it’s pretty and fun I will use it rather than shove it to the back of a dark, dusty closet only to come across the next time I do some serious cleaning or purging. I was shopping last week and found myself  in in the office supply aisle of a store we’d stopped into. I wasn’t seeing anything that sang to me. But out of misplaced determination, I started putting things in my basket telling myself I could make it work. After 15 minutes I hit my personal pause button and looked down. The first thing I noticed was there was a lot of stuff in the basket. The second thing was that, frankly, it was ugly stuff. I knew it would get me by for a while. But really, I’d likely want to change it soon because it wasn’t really my style and it wasn’t really very pretty. So I did some mental calculating of what I’d haphazardly tossed into the shopping cart. When my mental tally started edging over $20 I started putting things back on the shelves. I may have wasted 15 minutes of my life doing this, but I wasn’t going to further the “stupid tax” (yep, another Dave Ramsey term!) by blowing $20 or more on stuff to make my organizing project pretty. Especially if it wasn’t really fitting the bill. My husband and kids wandered back from window shopping at the appointed time and were surprised to find the shopping cart in the process of being unloaded back onto the shelves . I proudly said I’d rather wait till I find the right thing. We left empty handed. While I was disappointed, I still had my principles and pocketbook in tact.

The next incidence came only a few days later. I blogged last week about my missing camera. It was my birthday and I was really unhappy about losing my camera but looking forward to heading off to the city to get much needed new one. I’d decided the upside of my loss was that it was a good time to make serious upgrade to a shiny new DSLR. I’ve always wanted to take better pictures. Due to things that popped up throughout the day we never managed to get on the road to the city to buy my new camera. I was frustrated but figured we’d get down to the city in the next few days to make a purchase. That evening, I went looking for my cell phone.  I’d left it in my car. While I was out there I figured I’d search the car again myself, that maybe my husband missed finding the camera when he’d come out to look while I was searching the house earlier. Sure enough, there it was. It must have fallen out of my bag and was under a car seat. Not a good place for a camera, to be sure. Especially in 106 degree heat. But I found it. I was actually somewhat disappointed. How could I possibly justify the upgrade to that DSLR to myself now? But when I turned the camera on I noticed the LCD screen is starting to go. I thought about how long I’ve had it. It was and still is a decent camera. But it’s over four years old now. By technology standards, four years is geezer age. I decided that I would still get my DSLR. Eventually. But what I was going to do NOW was really learn how to use this camera better. I’m going to learn more about photography using what I have. This will give me time to know what my needs really are so I can find a camera that is the best fit for me.  It will give me time to save up so it won’t hurt the budget. I realized, while disappointed, I had just dodged another Impatient Purchase bullet. And this one would have been a LOT more than $20. Phew!

In the days since, I’ve had the opportunity to re-remind myself of the pitfalls of Impatient Purchasing. I’ve managed to cull out some new rules to live by and though I’d share them:

  1. Does this TRULY fit my need?
  2. Will I end up replacing this item shortly because it’s not really going to cut it?
  3. Will waiting be more beneficial even thought it’s not fun right now?
  4. How much stupid tax is this going to cost me if this is an emotional purchase instead of an intelligent one?
  5. Count to 20. Review steps 1-4. If I still feel ok about it, and it’s reasonably in the budget, proceed to checkout.

I’m grateful I took the opportunity to re-consider what I was doing. I have found that waiting has already paid off. With a little more closet searching I found a nicer binder for my Family Notebook that I already had (free upgrade already!). And while picking up some homeschool supplies we needed recently, I found a small and very reasonably priced little kit of scrapbooking paper and stickers that caught my fancy. While I’ve never scrapbooked before, I thought it might fit the bill for making my Family Notebook pretty and fun. And it was all of $5. It turned out well! I’m happy with it and already using our Family Notebook cheerfully. Heck, even my five year old said, “Hey Mom-that’s pretty!” Yay for patience!

So for fun, here are pictures of how my Family Notebook turned out. Further down are some fun pictures I’ve taken in an effort to learn enough to merit buying my DSLR camera. Eventually. It’ll take a little time. But I’m hoping I’m on the right path:

Family Notebook Cover. I like flowers.

I even did the back of our notebook.

The Audience.

This is MOM'S Notebook Pencil!

Oh Coffee.

My morning.

Comment worthy:

So, have you found yourself regretting making an Impatient Purchase? How did you handle it? Do you have a tip or rule I can add to my list?

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Inspiration Thursdays: Even Warren Buffett Looks for the Simple Way

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

Because Thursday’s Child has far to go…

I like to look for simple inspirational quotes sometimes. I don’t feel the need to make a long list of them. Just to sit and consider a really good one. Today’s is this:

“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”

~Warren Buffett, American investor, industrialist and philanthropist

What I like best about this quote is that it reminds us that we don’t have to look for difficult things in our lives to make positive changes or achieve results. We can keep it simple and achievable. We can look for easy and do-able things to make inroads to success. Thank you Mr. Buffett. I think I’ll take this inspiring advice today!

What 1 foot bars can you step over to help you achieve a simpler or more frugal life today? Inspire others in the Comments-everyone needs inspiration on occasion.

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Curve Balls of Life: An Opportunity to Roll With It

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

“Sometimes you’re the Louisville Slugger, sometimes you’re the ball”-Mary Chapin Carpenter

Sometimes life lobs curve balls at us. This is a truism for everyone, whether we are baseball fans or not. Sometimes the ball even manages to smack you and, while you get to take your base, there’s a part of you that’s a little sore from it. This morning is not the best morning for a curveball, but a minor one happened to come along. My camera is gone. We’ve turned the house and car and all our bags upside down and it’s just plain old gone. I recall where I last saw it but it’s simply not there. Where did it go? I haven’t the slightest idea. We’d planned to spend today lighting birthday candles, maybe taking a bike ride, doing some low key fun birthday type things. I’m getting to turn 37 today (how cool is that?). But my camera is gone. Dang it. I live in a pretty rural town (think Napoleon Dynamite meets Smoke Signals) where shopping is scarce and technology can only be had at the local Walmart or a half empty Radio Shack. So it looks like a bit of a road trip to the city is in order. I just don’t like not having a camera. You can’t have your birthday without a camera to commemorate. Even a not-so big one like 37.

But here’s the funny thing. I’ve been noticing lately that my camera is starting to get old and wasn’t working so well anymore. I’ve wanted to learn how to take better pictures for a long time anyway. I’ve decided this is a great opportunity to take some lemons and make some lemonade. It’s not what we planned for this day but we’re going to roll with it. That’s part of what life is, sometimes just rolling with it is the thing to do. It might even lead to some fantastic game changing results. Who knows? Sometimes you hit home runs or a good line drive. Sometimes you hit a pop fly that you watch sail up and then down again to plop squarely into the center fielder’s mitt. And sometimes you get lobbed a curveball or just get beaned. It doesn’t mean you don’t still love the game and I do.

So today, I’m rolling with it. Here’s to baseball. Here’s to life tossing me the opportunity to take on the challenge that has been brewing in the back of my mind anyway. And here’s to a great year ahead.

You’ll have to excuse me for now. Because I’m a Rice and Beans girl I need to go quickly review the budget and find out how much I can manage to wiggle out of it. Maybe today will bring me a great new camera. And if I’m really lucky-maybe I’ll run across a great baseball game too.

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Not Letting Busy Get the Best of Us: Finding My Solution to Stay on Track

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

Life in our household has recently become busy. Busier than we’d anticipated for summer being upon us. When I had thought of this summer during the history making freeze that hit us here in the desert last winter, I had envisioned lazy slow days and getting used to dry heat again (having spent the last many summers in the humid Southeast). I had envisioned field trips to find petroglyphs as a family and camping trips-maybe even to the Grand Canyon this year (we haven’t had much in the way of summer vacations in the last several years)! But at the end of May we were presented with the opportunity for my husband to work a lot of overtime through the summer. We looked at our financial goals and realized it could fast track us to the finish line of our debt free life. We just had to be willing to “live like no one else so that we could live like no one else” (yes, I listen to a lot of Dave Ramsey. It keeps me real with myself financially and it inspires me to stay on track). So. With a little bit of sadness to let go the lazy days of summer we decided to go for it and be done with debt once and for all by Fall. This meant maybe two or three days (not weekends-but only days) off a month if we are lucky for the next four months. We decided that, having survived two military war-zone deployments, at least he is in the same town and will, mostly, come home once a day to see us. We could do this. We prepared to put our heads down, square our shoulders and put our backs into it as we invited the stronger winds upon us. We embraced the blessing of opportunity. This was still the beginning of May.

By mid June I was already beat. Our routines had been tossed by those winds of hard work and a family visit managed to throw us off track all the more. I was struggling and not happy about it. After a bit of a tirade one evening to my ever-patient husband to let off some steam, I decided there is always an answer. I just needed to do what I’ve become so adept at doing. I reached down and yanked myself up by my bootstraps. I took a hard look at how I was contributing to my  failure to adapt to our new schedule. I quickly realized my attitude was in need of adjustment. I prayed for strength (I do that a lot too.). I went to bed early for good measure in order to get up the next morning determined to find the answers and be cheerful about it too.

The next day, up I got. I poured some coffee, got the kids dressed and took them outside to play while I began my quest to organize our lives so that we could get things done everyday as painlessly as possible and still manage to have fun. I needed a way to smooth out the bumps. I started out by looking for some meal planning instruction because mealtimes were not going so well. I kept finding myself trying to toss a meal together at the last minute and dinnertime kept having it’s way with me by sneaking up and shouting “boogity boogity!” each and every night (which is really ridiculous considering dinner is something that comes daily and I know this). I quickly stumbled upon a very lovely menu planning printout that was free and I said to myself-THAT’S RIGHT! Not only do I need this to be organized and practical but I need it to meet my particular and peculiar need to look lovely so I’ll actually use it. I have a great habit of re-using and re-purposing in this house, but I still find that most things need to meet a certain aesthetic criteria for me to use it consistently and cheerfully. So after some further poking around online I found the FlyLady’s Control Journal-which is basically a daily roadmap for family life-much like a homemade version of the organizer I used to depend upon back when I worked outside the home. I’d heard of the FlyLady before and I’m pretty sure I had even a vague memory of this Control Journal in the recesses of my mind. I quickly discovered that this was, indeed, the answer I’d been after. Hallelujah!

So I am now in the process of putting together our Control Journal. It’s slow going (as the FlyLady recommends) but I’ve prioritized the sections that I need to add in first to at least get us some smoother sailing so we can move forward a bit at a time. For now, it’s contents are in an ugly black binder that I had on hand, but I’ve found some prettier planning printouts to put inside of it. I’m sure in the next few days I’ll manage to find or create something more charming-more like my homegrown recipe collection book that houses all my recipes for wonderful concoctions from apple cake to homemade all purpose cleaner to laundry soap. And while I haven’t gotten to make my “summer board” that I’d mentioned in my previous post, I now have a centralized list, a place to put my plan for that board, and a way to get things back on track and moving smoothly so we can, indeed, look back on this summer and see it as one full of wonderful memories in spite of the hard work and “busy” that is upon us. It’s been only a matter of days, but I have to say this is already working and I can see how it’s going to be a great solution for our family. I’ll keep you posted about my progress with it.

So, dear readers, I’d love your help on this one: What things do you do to keep your busy family life from running you down like a Mack truck? Post your comments here on my blog if you’d be so kind. I could use all the help I can get!

My recipe book-I want my control manual to be a little more like this

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Are You Living Your Financial Life on Autopilot?

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

Are you living on autopilot?

I read a quote recently that really got my attention:

“Part of me wonders if our stories aren’t being stolen by the easy life.” – Donald Miller

It got me thinking. I’m a girl who uses technology when it’s truly making my life better-not necessarily just easier. I’ve come to the conclusion that easier can sometimes be overrated. Sometimes easier can draw down our base of knowledge and ability. It can even lull our sense of personal accountability. Sometimes easier-or convenience-takes away our need to think and that’s not always a good thing.

When you stop thinking about something, especially an important thing like your personal finances, it can lead to some not so great results. I ran out of check registers a while back (you know-those little ledgers that you use to balance a checkbook) and dropped by my credit union to ask for some extras. The teller looked at me and nearly laughed. She said “Sure!!! Have as many as you need! It’s too bad more people don’t use ’em!” I told her I was a bit of a nerd with our finances (as in Nerd vs Free Spirit ala Dave Ramsey) and that I felt the need to know where every penny was. She went on to tell me that she was pretty sure that most people didn’t bother to do that anymore, shaking her head sadly. I remember being surprised by this. I later mentioned the conversation to a friend who uses tech pretty heavily for bills and finances and she said-I don’t balance to the penny either. I said you don’t know how much is actually in your balance? She said “nope.” I said “Huh.”

In the last couple of years we’ve seen so many struggle in our current economy. I’ve read article after article and seen newscast after newscast about how to cut the household budget and which particular items to stop spending on. I’ve read about all the “things” to fix or cut out. I have not seen enough about the what else might be causing some of these problems in the first place. So I have some advice to consider:

Un-automate your life and stop living on autopilot.

I’m not saying to stop using technology if it’s working for you to make life easier and better. But if it’s just making life more convenient in a way that keeps you from thinking about your finances, your expenditures, what you are using, buying or doing right now and about whether it’s a good fit for your life-then it’s time to consider getting off of autopilot. Living on autopilot can leave you moving comfortably along assuming things are just fine and that the coast is clear when sometimes it’s not. It can cause you to fall asleep at the wheel of your financial life. It can rob you of your sense of how to solve challenges as they pop up. It can cause you to notice problems only when alarm bells and red warning lights are going off in the cockpit of your financial life which means something is dramatically wrong. Right NOW. Autopilot behavior and over-automating finances can cause important missed opportunities to make sure you are staying on track and avoid the alarm bells and red flashing warning lights that can cause panic and emergency mode. Living on autopilot is a lot like making the choice to not continue to make important choices as they come up. It’s making the choice to coast along. Whether we like it or not, life moves and changes, often at a more rapid pace than can be comfortable. It’s easy to want convenience. But when life is on autopilot we might just be missing the chance to make the effective changes to correct our course when it needs correcting. So if you’ve been living on autopilot and have an overly automated financial life, maybe it’s time to review whether it’s actually easier and better. If it’s not, consider un-automating some of your life and turning off the autopilot.

Are you on autopilot? Do you feel it’s an easier and better thing for your life? Has convenience caused you to not see where changes need to made? I’d love to see your comments on whether your easier is also your better!

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On Father’s Day: Simple is Good-Even with Love

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

I don’t usually write on Sundays. For me it’s a day with my family and a day for spiritual reflection. But today I am far away from my dad and I miss him. We live too far apart, he and I. Because my husband and I spent many years in the military life and, after the fact, found a job closer to, yet still two states away from our family, we’ve been far away “home” for almost ten years now. So today, being Father’s Day, I am, understandably thinking about my Dad.

You see, I’m particularly lucky. My Dad chose me to be his daughter and my twin brothers to be his sons when I was not quite six and they were only four. He was nearly thirty years old at the time and traded in bachelorhood for an insta-family that came with one headstrong little girl. I cannot say I made it easy on him. But he loved me anyway. He still does. And my memories of him are simple and meaningful ones. I remember watching him color in giant coloring books with my brothers on a coffee table in the house we lived in with my mother before they were married. And I remember him teaching me how to shoot a .22 rifle at a target-being amazed that a right handed girl was a left handed shot and pretty darn good at it. He called me Annie Oakley. I remember him working long hard hours on a ranch and being a volunteer firefighter. And how he knew everyone in town, it seemed. It was a rare thing to meet someone who didn’t know my dad or who didn’t like him. When I describe my dad to people who have never met him I often say…well…he’s kind of like the Andy Taylor (from the Andy Griffith Show) of our small town. But there are two memories that stand out for me in vivid brilliant technicolor in my mind. They are brief and telling about my Dad and his love for me.

The first is when I was in junior high school. I was a pudgy kid and only started to grow out of it somewhere around the seventh or eighth grade. I never felt particularly pretty. I was most certainly one of the nerds or dorks-you know-good grades, very shy, not very coordinated and definitely not popular. But I was a nice kid. A good kid. I had a good heart. One day, and I cannot recall at all the reason why, my Dad picked me up from school when I usually walked home. It was uncharacteristic of me to confide in my Dad about such things but I mentioned to him how I wished I could wear makeup like some of the other girls. It was the 80’s and blue eyeliner was very popular at the time. And pink lipstick. My Dad looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. I remember him turning his eyes back to the road as he pulled away from the curb. I half expected him to tell me I was silly or remind me I wasn’t old enough yet in our house to wear make up. But he did neither. He said, “You know. The thing is-it’s girls who like all that color, which is fine. But boys don’t like that clown makeup. Boys like girls who look natural and like themselves.” And he just kept driving. That was all he said. But it was powerful stuff to an adolescent girl who was starting to like boys and starting to try and figure out her place in the world. It stuck with me and became a powerful part of who I am and what I still see in the mirror.

Many years later I was married. I did not marry young. I was past thirty when I had my first child. My parents had taken time off to come and be with me near my due date for my first child because my husband was deployed to Iraq for a full year. My son was born very near to Christmas-time and while I am a strong, strong woman, I was standing in my kitchen holding a days-old infant when a song came on the radio that suddenly became the final emotional straw for me. I broke. I stood there at the kitchen sink quietly crying as I missed my husband and grieved that he was not with us for our first child’s birth or for this baby’s first Christmas. I did not want anyone to feel sorry for me so I cried quietly. My Dad had come into the small kitchen and he saw me there crying. He said nothing to me. He stood a moment and then, saying nothing at all, my mostly undemonstrative Dad put his arms around me and my baby and hugged us to him in a way that said all that needed saying. When I stopped crying my dad kissed the top of my head and walked away. We never talked about it. It was just something that simply…was.

And that is my Dad. His love is simple and genuine. Sometimes he does things that can drive me bananas. As I’m sure I do for him. But I have no doubt that my Dad loves me. He may not say it often, but he shows it in simple, emotionally economical ways that leave no question. So while there are Dads out there that are fancier and more eloquent than my Dad, I learned what simple and honest love is from him. I’m lucky. My Dad chose me when I was nearly six. And it made all the difference in my world.

Thank you Dad. I love you.

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Inspiration Thursdays: What Do You Call a Goal Without a Plan?

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Ms. Practicality

Because Thursday’s child has far to go…

When I lived in Tennessee there were more churches in my town, it seemed, than in any other place I’d ever lived. And nearly every church had a sign outside-the kind where they change the letters on it every week to let you know what’s going on or to give people driving by something to think about. A few years ago, driving down the road in the rain after having taken my kiddo to a Kindermusik class I saw a sign that said this:

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

It struck a chord with me. It’s been more than two years since I saw that sign and I still remember what it said. I don’t recall what church the sign was for or what day it was, only the general route I was driving, the rain…and this message. I remember laughing to myself about it at the time. It was so obvious! Wasn’t it? It was so on the mark! Right?

I read a blog post yesterday over on Simple Mom about living with intention and about having an intentional summer. I realized there were a lot of things I wanted to do to create wonderful summer memories for our family. But sure enough we are halfway through June and summer is slipping by. I have yet to accomplish any of the things I really would like to do for summer. Even the simple things. Again. It occurred to me that one more summer is just slipping by me with ideas just floating around in my brain. It became clear, reading that blog post that I have all these great intentions that are going nowhere! I sat back in my chair a minute and really thought about it. And that’s when I remembered the message on that sign outside the church. What I had on my hands was just a wish. I had no plan. And a goal without a plan really is just…a wish. For a minute I felt like I was failing my kids but the reality was, I was failing myself.

I decided, in that moment, to rectify the matter. I grabbed the closest pencil and a scrap of paper within reach and called my oldest over to me because my youngest can still only say things like “ddoowwwwww” which I’m not entirely sure means “dad” or “down” or “dog.” So while the littlest sat at our feet, I asked my oldest what he wanted to do everyday to make summer fun. You know what he said? He wants to walk the dog early in the morning when there are more birds out. He wants to paint the rock he found up in a mountain town near our home. He wants to do more art. He wants to swim and run in the sprinklers. And ride bikes to the library. These are such wonderful simple things. And they are now all on our list. We’re going to make a “summer board” to put up in the kitchen to keep us inspired this summer and keep making plans for these wishes so they become goals-attainable goals. And we’re going to have ourselves a wonderful memorable summer.

What wishes do you have, for summer or life in general, that need a plan?

Jumping into summer

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