Other momma's completing the challenge!!

This is her before picture!!! (Sorry I am still learning how to do this!)

I got my first set of pictures back today, from Jen!

This is what Jen said:

ok i did your challange for the pourch!! i threw out the trash that always accumulates in front of my door, the big box of old shoes i threw out (cause you had me go through stuff lol) cleaned out the ash tray, finished putting up the decorations, swept the floor, then scrubbed it with soap and water, then rinsed it, then put up the new doormat i bought yesterday!!! woohoo you inspire me girl! you need to do more 15 minuet projects, like every day lol casue i still havent started the car one....maybe later??? nah takes too long maybe tomorrow! LOL love ya and thanks so much for atarting this site!!

Jen also sent me one before shot, and then three after shots. Jen you did awesome girl. I think the after pictures make your home look very inviting and isn't that the point?

FPU (Financial Peace University) DAve Ramsey Class

This weekend's challenge.... if you have kids consider a commison for them!

We started taking the Dave Ramsey Course, last week. One thing they are teaching us is about how people relate to money differently. We have never given Kiley an allowance, in the sense that she gets a set amount every week. I think that I pick up around the house w/o getting paid & I feel like she should as well. It's not just MY house and I don't make all the messes. So about a year ago we gave her some "chores" that were her "chores" and she didn't get paid for those, they were just expected of her. However we would give her "odd jobs" like: Picking up dog-poo, mopping ect... and we would time her, she would get paid .10 a minute for those jobs. I didn't make this up, this was on a Suze Orman show. Great idea, but super complicated and we weren't sure how to teach her to save her money & if she saved how much she should save.

Well, on to today, this new Dave Ramsey class were taking suggests that up until they are 12 they use the "Three Envelope System" (Save, Spend, Give,). It also suggest coming up with 5 chores that they must do every single day, and if they do them every single day then they would be $5 a week. Simple set amount. If they don't do the chore/chores they don't get paid again super simple concept! So... we decided this would be the way to go with her.

We started by picking 5 chores: Feeding/Giving Water To Lily (her cat), Cleaning cat's litter, Putting her laundry away, Picking up her room/bathroom, and lastly an "odd job" this one meaning she will come to me or her dad daily & ask us for some kind of an odd job to do, something we could use help doing. We originally had homework on the list but took it off because I think SHE should want good grades & because she already gets money for her report cards from other family members.

We still have about an hour every Saturday morning when we all (whole family) pitches in and cleans up the house (vaccuming, dusting, changing sheets ect) but as far as Kiley goes I think her new chore schedule will work well for her & she will get paid.

So what do they do with the money? He had 3 envelopes for his kids one labeled: Give, One labeled Save, One labeled Spend. He said they would put $1 in giving and then $2 in Saving & Spending.

I think this will again be a very easy technique for her to follow & I am hoping she will learn important lessons from this, and she won't have the problems we have had and so many others have had from money.

People have asked me what we do on Saturday Morning (our house cleaning list) here it is:

Everyone has to empty their hampers into the laundry sorter in the laundry room
New sheets on everyones bed
Vaccuum Living Room & Kitchen & Entryway
Vaccuum all bedrooms
Empty all trash cans
Clean toilest (in & out)
Clean tubs & showers (when you get in the habit of doing this there will be less soap scum)
Clean out fridge
Clean off stove
Clean out microwave
Wash pet's dishes
Clean out PUR pitcher
Vaccum and wipe up bathroom floors
Wash off counters
Vaccum in & around crates

Have a great weekend...

I hear you!

Ok I was told that I need to post pictures, so I will do that. From here on out I will TRY to remember to post a before & after shot!

This is my front porch after, however... the girls frew all over it with chalk SO it had to be sprayed off again. Anywho... you get the point. I disabled the sign in on the comments so please leave me comments there, anything & everything.

If you all want to post before & after pictures email them to me at hanff06@centurytel.net and I will be sure to include them in the blog so others can see how great you are doing to!!

It's a challenge, #2 so get to it!! :)

-Kristen

2nd Challenge~Front Porch

So today we're going to "declutter" our front porch. This should be a fairly quick project, unless you store everything there!!

We finished ours here is what we had to do:

I took everything OFF the porch, which wasn't much & then I swept and rinsed it off. After it dried, which happened fairly quick because of all of this heat we have right now. I cleaned off our "Welcome Mat" and placed it back, I also then took care of our potted flower hanging outside by the porch, and rearranged the "pots" they have nothing in them. However I tend to eventually pot some flowers in them. I also have a wreath (one for every season & holiday) that my momma made me. So we place those up, kind of changes up the look just a bit. You can also wipe the windows & door down and get rid of any spider/cobwebs that make be hanging around.

That pretty much took care of our front porch.
Let me know how you all are doing!

Cleaning out the cruiser

I have an SUV, it is a good thing too because we have lots of "stuff" hopefully after this whole declutter process we will have less "stuff". This morning the kids and I were in a funk, so I told them we were going to clean out the car, and whoever helped would receive a reward. This made the job so much easier. I literally opened each door, the back and the glove compartments and I just went through everything in there. As I pulled stuff out I just told each kid where to put it, to be delt with later.... now, had these things been going in rooms I had already decluttered I would have been more specific (put this in my middle drawer versus lay this on my bed). We had it done in less then 20 minutes and I didn't clean the car, I just took everything out.

Some helpful tips I do:
I keep dum-dums in the center counsel so if my two year old gets fussy, I have a snack right there to hold him over. I keep tissues in the car and wipes may sound odd but you never know when you will have a snotty nose or a blow out diaper and imagine that you forgot the diaper bag. It's happened to us! I also keep a card game in the glove compartment for theose every lasting long drives, it is like a seek and find game. I also keep those Hi-C powders you dump in a bottle of water. You can dump them in a bottle of water, and most kids will drink it with out complaining. We also have a Ziplock bag filled with first aid stuff, and all the important papers for the car are in there too, organized of course. I also keep my insurance card (one copy) there in case I don't have my wallet for some unknown reason, again...it's happened to me! Lastly we have another grove compartment (hard to explain) but in there I keep our maps and also any coupons that would be used while we are out and about (Wendy's, free pretzel, shoes, restraunts, ect...) because before that, it would never fail we would be out and about be at the mall have a coupon for a free pretzel but it was at home of course... and then we would buy one. Wasted money.... :) I keep all of my reusable shopping bags in the tail end of the SUV, they are always there then when I need them.

Do you have any helpful tips for in the car, I think I covered all of mine.
Let me know when you get your car decluttered!!

Who's up for the challenge?

We have decided to have a Garage Sale, so what a perfect way to start by decluttering and getting rid of everything we don't need! We're going to start tomorrow. I will add some ideas I had to "declutter/organize" as we go and I will try to post before & after pictures. I wonder if you all can do that too?? That would be fun! I don't know that we will be able to do a new room/challenge every week but we shall see what happens.

These are the areas of my house I will be doing, pretty much everything BUT the basement because it is still "under construction"...
Car
Porch
Entryway
Living Room
Kitchen
Pantry
Stockpile Pantry
Hall Closet
Coat Closet
Hall Bath (kids)
Hall Closet (linens/medicine)
Evan's Room
Desk
Our Room
Our Bathroom
Our Closet
Kiley's Room
Laundry Room

I think that sums up everything. I may wait on posting pictures till we get the basement done & I can get everything situated nicely. We will see what happens. Who's in with me?

Great Items: Econo-Mommy

So this week alone, I have gotten some wonderful finds off of econo-mommy.
#1: I am part of a box (traveling box) and we each take items out that we can use and replace them with items we can't. I got some amazing things. I didn't make a list, but off the top of my head I got: Crest Spinbrush, Infused homemade wash cloth and chocolate covered spoons! Then I received a "send" this is a random act of kindness basically. This momma (jen) filled it with items I could use for Evan's birthday cake and some clothing we were hoping would fit me... however... it didn't. No worries thou, passing it on to another momma that can.

Then today I had done a trade FRB with another momma from this trade alone I received: 3 boxes of finish tabs, Venus razor & two refills, Satin Care shaving cream, Dove body spray, Johnson 24 hour moisturizer, blister (3 tubes), 2 360 toothbrushes, Reach tooth brush, Johnson 24 hour body lotion (2), cupcake holders (2 pkg.), Dove bar soap, Baby lotion (2 bottles), Razor cover, Wet ones, 2 pkg of Mentos, Soy Apple candle (smells so yummy), colgate wisp (2), sponges (2), Olay body quench lotion, Dove facial clensing cloths, Cocoa butter, asprin, Axe shower gel (2), St. Ives spricot scrub, Juicy fruit, Double mint gum, 2 Colgate travel toothpaste, Arm & Hammer toothpaste

No fee. Anyone can join. Check out the site. http://economommy.proboards.com/index.cgi
We would love to have more members. The more members there is the more people to swap with!

-Kristen