The thanksGiving Series, part 7

(This is the Savings Jar after the Misto assist brought the savings total up to $137.35)

Today has been super busy. I've been working on my novel all day. The characters have had an astounding time, complete with a prayer vigil, a bona fide miracle, and an unrecognized sick heroine. You will likely not be surprised to find faith and medicine all mixed in with this story. 

Anyway, I read in the Martha Stewart magazine recently that we are all wearing out our clothes with dry cleaning. She suggested that we should start hand washing them and drying them flat on a rack. I just happened to have some Woolite and a drying rack, as well as a stack of four sweaters. I usually dry clean them, but the tag actually suggested hand washing. 

I remember a Woolite commercial about "soak your finest clothes clean in three minutes" (or something similar) so I filled the bathroom sink with water and 1/2 oz of Woolite, soaked my sweater clean for more than three minutes, rinsed it, and laid it flat on the rack. It took a while, but I got all four sweaters washed and looking good. Cost of the Woolite I used: less than 50 cents. Cost of dry cleaning four sweaters: $5.00 apiece (or $20) total savings: $19.50. 

The Savings Jar now holds $156.85. Seven days of savings. That's pretty amazing to me, and makes me think I've been throwing a ton of money away needlessly. That's changing day by day, though. There's a point here, and it is not so we can spend more on ourselves. Begin now to look for the need you should meet and save until you can meet it. 

The thanksGiving Series part 3

(This is the savings jar after day 2. There's a total of $2.49 after using regular popcorn instead of a bag and clearing my drains with vinegar and soda)

Back in the spring, Ryan and I went to the Bahamas to see my cousin Christy and hear her musical group, C-Force, in concert. They are awesome, play Cari-classical music (basically Caribbean music that has been written down), and you should check them out on YouTube. Before I left, I enrolled in international texting. They told me to wait a few weeks after I returned to be sure all the charges had come through. I waited and watched, then forgot about it.

When I started writing about fiscal responsibility, you can well imagine that God had some refining to do. That texting package was right near the top of the list, so I stopped by the ATT Store. It turns out that, a few months later, I have still been paying for international texting. $30 a month. I'm ashamed to tell you that, but this is the evening confession and, more than likely, I am not the only one with an absurd outlay of money for nothing. I cancelled it on the spot. 

The young man helping me said, "Wow! $30 dollars a month is a lot. That ought to make a difference!" The automatic draft notice came yesterday and it is now $30 less than the previous month. That's $30 for the Saving Jar. How about that? 

The Saving Jar is beginning to look a little different, isn't it? The total in that jar after only three days is now $32.49! I've lived well, and not one frugal thing I have done has been hard at all. 

Do you have your Saving Jar yet? When it's time to invest our thanksGiving Savings Jar money in the Kingdom of God, you're going to wish you did. It's not too late, so get going today and have fun spending less!

The ThanksGiving Series, part 2:

(This is the savings jar after the first day with the 39 cents I saved by popping my popcorn in a pot instead of using bag microwave popcorn. I know. It looks kinda bleak! The popcorn was really good, though)

In case you missed the beginning of this thanksGiving series, we are focusing on the giving part of thanksGiving this year.  I've been writing about stewardship, our extravagant lifestyles, and the better uses to which we could put our financial resources recently, and it seems a little more frugality is in order. The premise is that we can cut back, save some money to splurge on giving, and still live well. I'm planning to write about some little frugal thing every day and add the money I save to the saving jar. 

For the last week or so, I've had very slow drains in my shower and in the bathroom sink. As much hair as I have, it is usually due to a hair clog or that greasy scum mess that certainly was never on my body for one second. I don't know where that gross mess comes from, but it's not me! Anyway, the drains were clogged and needed work. 

What I usually use, with good success, is  Instant Power Hair Clog Remover. It is guaranteed to work on the toughest clogs, and costs $6.47 for a bottle that has four treatments. Since I had two clogs, I would have used 1/2 the bottle for the two clogs, at a cost of $3.23.

My mama was a big believer in using baking soda and vinegar, followed by boiling water, for clogged drains. Realistically, I know that baking soda and vinegar will not eat through a hair clog, but, in the interest of the story, I decided to give it a try. I paid 95 cents for a box of name brand baking soda (only because they didn't have a generic) and $1.15 for vinegar. My total outlay was $2.10 for four treatments or 1/2 that for two clogs. At $1.05 for treating both my clogs, I saved $2.18. But how did it work, you may well ask. Hold on a minute, and I'll tell you. 

Here's what I did. I put 1/4 box of baking soda down the drain. As you can imagine, it mostly made a little soda mountain. With the memory of grammar school volcanos to guide me, I stuck my finger in the center to make a pathway for the lava and poured in 1/4 bottle of vinegar. Such marvelous bubbling and spewing ensued that it was worth the $2.10 just to watch it! Once all that had settled down in both drains, I went downstairs, boiled up a kettle of water, and carried it back upstairs to pour 1/2 a kettle of boiling water in each drain. It ran right through. 

Here's what's really crazy. My mama's baking soda/vinegar/boiling water volcano method had my drain open and flowing freely in just a few minutes. My instant power stuff requires an overnight soak. It turns out mama did know best after all! 

I saved another $2.10 today, it worked better than what I usually use, and it was quicker. You can't beat that combo! 

The good news is that there is now $2.49 in the savings jar! I can't wait to see how much I have by thanksGiving! I'm praying already about how to invest that money in the Kingdom of God. You didn't think this was about saving for me, did you? It's not to late to get a jar of your own and join in the fun. I can't wait to hear about how your efforts at frugality for the giving splurge works out! 

Don't forget, there's a lot more blessings in giving than in getting. There's a lot more fun, too!

The thanksGiving Season, part 1

What, you may ask, does a big empty jar have to do with Thanksgiving?  It is an important prop in the new thanksgiving series that starts today.  Last Thanksgiving, the posts centered around the thanks part of Thanksgiving.  This year, the posts will be centered on the giving part of Thanksgiving. I've been writing about stewardship, our extravagant lifestyles, and the better uses to which we could put our financial resources recently. Do not suppose that I am just on a tirade. I'm writing about it because the topics deeply concern me and, with all the emphasis recently on being prepared for survival in times of difficulty, it seems a little more frugality is in order. Even more important, when I look at the ease of our lives in comparison to that of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, I am ashamed that I do not do more to help them.  

With all that said, the posts this Thanksgiving Season will involve my attempts to cut corners, save money, and hang on to that money in order to invest it in the Kingdom of God in some way. If my history is any indication, not all my attempts will be as successful as I would have hoped, some will be unexpected, and some will yield a tremendous savings.  Get ready. I might just surprise you. There might also be a few of my efforts that you'd like to try yourself.

The jar you see is the thanksGiving Jar and will be where I keep the dollars and cents that are saved.  I'll post photos so you can follow along.  

Tonight, I'm making popcorn to go along with movie night. I won't bore you with the details again, but I recently realized that using bulk popcorn instead of the prepackaged microwave bags is considerably cheaper, and have calculated that the price of a single serving of popcorn can be decreased by 39 cents if you avoid the prepackaged bags.  You can read about the Lunch Bag Popcorn and get all the details.  Just so you know, I'm cooking that popcorn in a heavy pot on the stove rather than a bag in the microwave. Yum! The popcorn of my childhood! That's 39 cents for the giving splurge.  

That 39 cents looks awfully small right now, doesn't it? Just wait. Those few coins won't be lonely long, so stay tuned! 

The idea is not to be "cheap".  The idea is to live well but frugally in order to make a habit of generosity and the ability to splurge on giving.  Being intentionally frugal is the best way I know to finance that kind of spending. Since Lines from Leanna is about Faith Lived Out Loud, I've decided to "live out loud" as I do it in an attempt to show the way.  Why not do more than follow along? Why not join me as I begin this journey? It's going to be life-changing. You don't want to miss it.