Family On A Budget

Now that I back to trying to lose weight, I dusted off my old Weight Watcher logs to see what some of my fav low calorie snacks were. I realized that I was able to get in my five fruits and vegetables with the help of tomato or V8 juice. I love tomato juice.

An inexpensive tip to make homemade tomato juice is to the 1 part tomato paste with 4 parts water, add any of the following seasons salt, seasoning salt, celery salt, black pepper or hot sauce and voila you have cheap tomato juice. I often buy the tomato paste at Aldi’s who seems to have the best price.

Sorry just had to gloat for a few minutes. Our team is going all the way. Time to look up some inexpensive snacks for our Superbowl Party since going to Game is out of the question.

Now this is not an option for many, but it might be an option for you. Mr Budget and I both work at universities and one of the benefits is free tuition for your kids. Tuition reimbursement is a major benefit at most colleges/universities. In our case our daughters can go to hubby’s university for free or receive $6,000 per year for any four year institution. He had to first work at his university for 5 years before this benefit kicks in. Our daughters can go to my university for free but don’t get money at other universities. I had to work for 6 months prior to the benefit kicking in.

My recommendation is to check out the jobs at colleges/universities near you and see if this might be an option. There are always varied positions available for all different types of workers from professional, clerical and academic.

One thing you will notice is that often the pay is slightly less in academic jobs then they are in commercial sectors, but they often have great medical, retirement and tuition benefits.

I am unfortunate enough to live in an area with a small number of grocery stores nearby. GE’s prices are pretty high and make it not worth buying the bulk of my food, but with some coupons and sales matching you can often get good deals.

In looking at the ad for the week here are some good deals. Many of the coupons are in this weekends paper so it might be best to wait till Sunday to shop.

Quaker Oats are on sale for 4 for $6.00. When you purchase buy 4 you will get an additional $2.00 off instantly. In the 1/4 RedPlum coupon inserts there was a $.60 off coupon. If you have 4 coupons your pricing will be – $6.00 – $2.00 instant coupon – $3.60 (.60 off x 4) – 3.60 (double coupon .60 off x 4) = FREE (or a potential money maker depending on how they ring it up). I really prefer steel cut oats, but for free I will make the sacrifice. I plan on bringing in one of the containers to work with a large microwave bowl and some cinnamon to make inexpensive quick breakfasts instead of hitting up the cafeteria.

First off we want to get back on financial track for 2009. We did not do bad in 2008, but I had totally quit blogging. Now I am back.

Our goal and focus for 2009 will SAVING. We have managed to be debt free at this time but I am embarrassed to admit that we have next to nothing in non retirement savings. 2009 is the year to fix that.

Our first goal is emergency savings. I have just purchased an 11 month cd with a 3.75% rate as a first step. I will add to this CD or start a new one if the rates rise. Each month my goal is to put $500 into emergency savings. That will hopefully give us $6,000 by the end of the year. That is not a hefty emergency plan, but a start.

With her last few books I have noticed when Suze Orman publishs a new book she offers it free as a pdf download on Oprah. I received the previous 2 books this way. They are great books by the way. Her new book – 2009 Action Plan is being offer now through January 15, 2009 for free. Download it now.

Free Suze Orman Download