My church (Good Shepherd on Thomasville Rd.) is having a Kids Stuff Consignment Sale this weekend that's going to be HUGE!!!!

I have never participated (as a sellor nor shopper) in the sale before, though it is in its 8th year, but I have joined the women's group that is sponsoring the sale, so I have been volunteering to help get it organized and set up. I must say that I was blown away by the volume, and that was last night, only after the first few hours of drop off. Sellers make 60% of the selling price (which you determine) and WINGS (Women in Good Shepherd) uses the 40% to fund our Fall Festival. Needless to say, I have been hunting unused kid stuff around my house with a VENGEANCE. It doesn't help that started rereading one of my favorite books, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston. It IS energizing to get rid of STUFF!!!

So I hope to make a few bucks that will probably go straight to the savings account. Unless of course I spend it all at the Consignment Sale! Actually, as I have been helping set up, sort and inspect items, I have seen lots of super (and cheap) items that would make great Christmas presents for the boys! I'll be excited to be done with some of that!

If you have any gently used kids items that you would like to sell, you'd need to get it ready quickly, as the last times to drop off are tomorrow (thursday the 6th) by 2:30. See this link for instructions on what items are accepted and how to tag them for the sale: http://www.goodshepherdparish.org/events/GSConsignSale2009.pdf

If you would like to shop, we'd love to have you. The hours of the sale are Friday the 7th from 8 am to 2 pm, with a half price clear out on Saturday, the 8th from 8 am to 12 noon. This is a cash only sale, so be sure to stop by the ATM before heading out! See, you can even shop Dave Ramsey style!

ok. For most people Christmas is still a long way off.

However, for my family, it is comming too quickly. Last year I had set up alot of christmas lights that were computer controled and synced to music. The project took all my free time for the whole year plus 2 weeks off of work while i set everything up. This year I am expanding the project a bit with new music and more lights.

Luckily i was able to buy a couple thousand dollars worth of light last year before the contest started. In our new budget there would be no room for that. Howerver, I did have to spend a couple hundred bucks on electronics (I solder and build all my own electronics) I have spent a few evenings this year working on some of the electronics needed to control the lights. Building all my own circuits is a huge cost savings vs buying any commerical made product. It also makes it a much more enjoyable hobby. However, due to a much longer day due to working, making dinner and taking care of the kids, fixing the van, etc.. I have not gotten alot done for this years shows. Hopefully after the van is done Iwill be able to start working on the lights full time.

For more info and videos of last years show, go to www.tallahasseelights.com

I, for one, joined this contest more for the life lessons and personal development than the chance of a $10,000 prize. In my mind, each family is winning by taking forward strides to a better financial life. And Linley is right—we must all view the adjustments we are making as lifelong changes, or we will easily end up back at square one or worse. I, too, am glad the contest is so long—it gives us each the opportunity to make the changes permanent by forcing us to practice them for a long time. And, it gives each of us the chance to screw up a time or two and still have a good chance at the big prize.

We are trying not to make decisions based on what would help us win the contest, but what makes best financial sense for us. The contest is certainly providing a motivating factor—I honestly think we would still be stuck in our original argument without it. I simply want for us to take the most advantage that we can of the resources and support that is provided to us through the weLiveFIT Challenge.

In the end, we will have stopped using credit cards, increased our income, decreased our expenses, paid off lots of (if not all) our consumer debt, increased our savings by a considerable amount, improved our credit score a little, learned how to use online bill paying, established new money saving habits like finding free family activities and coupon shopping, learned how to communicate better, practiced lots of self control, maybe even begun college and retirement savings. We still have work to do—we still need to work on creating a regular habit of looking together at our spending and creating a new written budget every month: these are part of our goals for the remainder of the contest, but will honestly, probably be things that we work on forever.

And with or without the big $10,000 prize, that makes us a LOT, LOT, LOT better off than we were 6 months ago. In any case…we are winners!!!

We’ve got spirit, yes we do!!!

Okay, so I was not so excited at first to see the assignment of “team name, mascot, and war chant in a one minute video.” I’m not a good writer, but I have a friend who is an awesome word smith. In fact, I call her too often asking for a poem or verse for an invitation or whatnot. The girl has helped me write several resumes and cover letters, all of which have gotten me the job! So I almost called her at the mention of a writing assignment…but decided to give it a go on my own this time.

At first I wrote some really cute lyrics* to “The Wheels on the Bus” tune, but it was too long, I couldn’t cut it, and I didn’t think anyone would vote for us after giving them earworms (when a song is stuck in your head) to a cheesy kids song (which I happen to sing all the time, because my kids love it.)

So I got out my Rhyming Dictionary and tried a shorter rap, chant type thing. What I came up with is what is on our video. And I have to say, we did have to resort to bribery to achieve kids wearing sunglasses and dancing on a table, which kind of surprised me. I’ll let you know how long it takes to undo that damage; I have a feeling we are going to be telling kids to get off the coffee table for at least a month!

I must say that after we did the video of our little rap, I was glad it was done, but I started getting a little nervous! This is going to be online, for ANYONE to view. Friends and family I don’t mind. Strangers I don’t mind either, honestly. It’s my acquaintances that most make me nervous—people who know me well enough to imagine me acting goofy while we greet each other or have a brief conversation, but not well enough to bring it up and give me the chance to say, “Yeah, out of all the things we were required to do for the contest, having that on the internet for the world to see had to be the thing I was least comfortable with.” So everyone, in the spirit of completing my “homework,” having good fun with the kids, and acting silly in front of a worldwide audience, please don’t judge me because I danced for money!

I know with hollering children it’s a little hard to hear all the words to our song, so in case you care to know our lyrics, here’s our script:

Hi! We’re Team Green, the Grosh Family, otherwise known as the Lean Green Saving Machine! I’m Diana, I’m Gabriel, I’m Gabriel (said by Jacob, we couldn’t get a better take, but it was cute), and I’m Michael, the cameraman. Ready Boys?

Lean Green up to the task,

Spending is slashed,

Free fun is a blast.

Lean Green is steadfast,

Payin’ with cash,

Visa’s in the trash.

Lean Green will outlast,

Gettin’ outta debt fast,

Puttin’ away a stash.

Lean Green on the warpath,

10K in our forecast,

Financial Fitness at last!

G O G R E E N

We’re the Lean Green Savin’ Machine!

We live fit,

We live fit,

We live fit,

YAY!!!!

*And the lyrics to the original, “Wheels on the Bus song,” just in case you like earworms…

Go Lean Green, we’re

Livin’ fit

Livin’ fit

Livin’ fit

Go Lean Green, we’re

Livin’ fit

Getting’ savvy bit by bit.

Go Lean Green, we’re

Using cash

Using cash

Using cash

Go Lean Green, we’re

Using cash

The Visa’s in the trash.

Go Lean Green, we’re

Budgeting

Budgeting

Budgeting

Go Lean Green, we’re

Budgeting

Havin’ fun on a shoestring.

Go Lean Green, we’ve

Got coupons

Got coupons

Got coupons

Go Lean Green, we’ve

Got coupons

Payin’ full price is long gone.

Go Lean Green, Dad’s a

Handyman

Handyman

Handyman

Go Lean Green, Dad’s a

Handyman

Do you wanna buy our van?

Go Lean Green, puttin’

Money away

Money away

Money away

Go Lean Green, puttin’

Money away

Savin’ for a rainy day.

Go Lean Green, we’re

Livin’ fit

Livin’ fit

Livin’ fit

Go Lean Green, we’re

Livin’ fit

10K we’re gonna get!

With the interior getting slowly put back together I needed to focus this weekend on getting a couple of the mechanical problems fixed. Obviously the AC is a very high priority. The blower fan was destroyed due to the water leak in the interior. I spent some time trying to fix the blower motor that was mostly rusted beyond repair. I finally decided on replacing instead of repairing. However, a new blower motor would have cost around $80 new. I also noticed that the wipers were not working. After fixing a few electrical problems that were preventing the wipers from turning on I found that the wiper motor and gearbox were stripped. Plastic gears just do not last when there is any friction trying to slow it down. This was another item that would not be repairable and a new one would cost more then $50. So a trip to the junkyard was due. Luckily, junkyards have seen many improvements since I was a kid. I am used to junkyards that are not organized and many times the cars were just dumped so close to each other that it is impossible to get to the parts you need. I went to pick-and-pull near the flea market and was impressed at how nice the place was (mind you it is STILL a junkyard). They were able to give me a print-out of eight vehicles that “may” have the parts I was after. The bad news was that junkyards no longer allow anyone under 16 into the yard. So Gabriel had to wait with my dad (grandpa Bob) while my father-in-law (grandpa Jim) and I went to look for the parts. The first 4 vans that had "may" have compatible parts were missing the parts I was looking for. On another van we spent about 10 minutes taking some body covers off in order to get to the wiper motor only to find it was not a match for the one I was replacing. Luckily on the last van we found it had both the wiper motor and blower fan. I was also able to get a replacement drain hose that would replace one that was leaking in the engine (and partially responsible for the leak in the interior). The total cost of the trip was $41.84 which is about a third of the cost of new ones. Gabriel was able to watch some of the junked cars get moved around the yard by some huge forklifts. I guess I will have to wait till he is older to take him to a junkyard again. All in all it was a good weekend for working on the van.

Stripped wiper gears.

New(ish) blower fan from the junkyard

Working under the van.

After all, it’s been a couple months…

What, you say? You haven’t cooked for a couple months? How is that possible? Have you been eating out again? NOPE!!! Because when I get in the kitchen, I don’t just cook, I POWER COOK!!! And it’s not just the saving money factor that makes power cooking awesome for us, there’s the saving time factor, the yum factor, the husband/kids factor, and the flexibility factor…

So what is power cooking? You have probably heard of the commercial kitchens where you can get together with your friends. Everyone puts together their own meals while you all hang out and you each take home some meals for your freezer. Expensive!! Power cooking is similar, but at home in your own kitchen, with your own ingredients. When I power cook, I might spend 1 hour or so to cook, mix, measure, bag and freeze as many as 15 meals at a time! That is some powerful time in the kitchen! Each meal is then ready in 15 minutes or less on the day I want to serve. There are lots of different foods that are very simple and work really well for this kind of system. One is ground beef. There are many different recipes that we like with ground beef as a main ingredient: of course, burgers, tacos or burritos, stroganoff, chili, sloppy joes, Italian hoagies, cheeseburger casserole, cheeseburger salad, taco ring, meatloaf, meatballs, and stuffed peppers. There is a long list of recipes that are great for power cooking using chicken as well: chicken tacos or gorditas, chicken salad, barbeque, parmesan, pot pie, various soups, various rings, fajitas, swiss chicken (or your favorite) casserole, chicken and pasta, and wraps. Basically, I get a large amount of ground beef or chicken breasts when they are on a really good sale. For the beef, I use my huge family skillet and brown 5-6 pounds of ground beef at a time, adding onion and garlic as it cooks. While that cooks, I get out the other ingredients and measuring tools that I’ll need and label the freezer bags. I then split the cooked beef up into freezer bags, and add whatever seasonings, sauces, or vegetables are needed for the recipe that I’m bagging. I smoosh each bag to mix up the ingredients, flatten it out and stick it in the freezer! Follow a similar process for the chicken…

AND, there are many benefits of power cooking:

Saving money factor: It’s really easy to say no to eating out, because let’s be honest the reason that you eat out (or pull through the drive thru) on nights you weren’t planning to is because you don’t have anything at home to cook, or whatever you have at home is either too time consuming, too complicated, creates too many dishes, doesn’t sound appetizing, etc. (We can come up with some good excuses, can’t we?) Would you ever eat out or go through the drive thru if you had a large selection of your family’s favorite meals at home that could be on the table in less than 15 minutes? I think not! Save even more by buying ingredients in bulk when they’re on sale. Also, you will heat up the kitchen one time to make several meals, saving on your utility bill, especially in the summer. If you plan well, you may be able to save even more by using leftovers for lunches.

Saving Time factor: With power cooking meals, there is a very short prep time on the day the meal is served, usually less time to prep, eat, and clean up than it would take to eat out! You will only dirty and clean up lots of dishes once for several meals. You can even probably get away with not necessarily making a specific menu/meal plan for the week, just be sure that you have the side items for several of your freezer meals on hand all the time.

Yum factor: Unlike a fast food joint or restaurant, you choose the quality of the ingredients you use in your homemade power cooked meals. You won’t be using lots of preservatives like prepackaged freezer meals, which are also super expensive. You can make your family’s favorite meals, and make the meals the way your family likes them, leaving out the ingredients you and the kids won’t eat, or adding the things they love!

Husband factor: This might not be the same for everyone, but I’m pretty sure it’s a relatively safe bet that each family has one person who tends to do most of the cooking, and another person who, by preference or habit, tends not to cook as much. In my case, my husband won’t look at raw meat, so asking him to brown some ground beef to make tacos would be kind of like asking someone to perform an autopsy (unless you’re an ME—more power to ya!). Having the meals cooked ahead of time makes it a lot more realistic to ask his help with dinner, which he is doing a lot more of since I’m tutoring in the afternoons. People who tend to be lost in the kitchen can easily follow the directions to get dinner ready without the family chef around. (Think teenagers or even preteens having dinner ready when you get home, mom!)

Flexibility factor: With power cooking it’s really easy to change your mind on what to eat at the last minute. Ever gone out to eat because the meal you had at home just wasn’t appealing after your rough day? Freeze up some of your comfort foods so you can change your mind at the last minute and heat up the potato soup and cornbread instead of the wraps you were planning on. Another great thing about power cooking is that you can bag the number of servings your family needs, or (as I prefer) in halves of that. Let’s say you have a family of 5. If you bag 3 servings in each bag, you will use 2 bags for a regular meal. If the husband is out of town and the teenager is working, just use 1 bag. Everyone home and your kids invited a friend or two? Make 3 bags. Plus you can use leftovers for lunches the next day.

As I said there’s lots of great reasons to power cook, and I’d be happy to answer anyone’s questions if you need more tips…

For The Van - Part 1 click http://www.welivefitchallenge.com/meet_the_families/grosh_family_blog/the_van_part_1

Not only did the van have mold growing all over the inside but it smelled awful from being smoked in often. Diana and I DO NOT smoke and can barely stand it when we get a small whiff. So I decided that on top of cleaning all the mold I was going to have to scrub every surface and replace the padding under the carpet. I removed the carpet and pulled off the old padding. Then I soaked the carpet until the water started to run clean. Then I used a carpet cleaner about 4 times on the whole carpet until I was satisfied that the smell was gone.

On my way home one day I stopped by Carpet One on Capital Circ. and asked about the cost of some carpet padding to replace the old one. They let me have a small piece of remnant padding for free. One evening of work and I was able to glue the new padding to the carpet. I also cleaned the front and back of the trim pieces before reinstalling.

Cutting the new padding to glue to the bottom of the carpet

Trim pieces drying in the sun after cleaning the fronts and backs.

As most of you know Diana and I have had serious talks about selling our 2005 Toyota van. We both know in our hearts it is the right decision. However, we both really have fallen in love with it. It only has 36,000 miles on it. We only use it to drive the kids around, get groceries and on long trips. It was purchased as our family vehicle when Gabriel was born.

Things were kind of on hold because we didn’t want to do anything until we got a used vehicle to replace the van. I think we both were kind of hoping we would never find one. Well…. A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to purchase two vans that were derelict and about to be towed away by the city. Both are in seriously bad shape. Luckily both are 99 Dodge Caravans (one is a Grand Caravan). The bad news is that both have suffered from leaks that caused water to soak the interior and the Florida heat has caused mold to grow all over the interior and corrode many of the electrical contacts. Neither has working air conditioning. The Grand Caravan has over 260,000 miles but will be the better of the two vans if I can get it working.

Hopefully each week I will have a new blog entry to keep you updated on the repairs and eventually selling the Toyota.

The front of the van showing lots of rust from getting wet inside.

Collection of stuff that was found rusing on the floor.

Rusted keys and column. Cannot shift due to something rusted or broken in the ignition.

Mold growing behind the front seats.

More mold

The ceiling is long gone from the humidity.

Corrosion on the light controls.

The interior after I pulled the seats and trim out

It's time to put my money where my mouth is! Since the beginning of the contest, I have been saying that we need to sell our van. It represented two thirds of our debt as of the beginning of the year, and it would feel great to not have this (very high) payment anymore. Not having this payment would allow us to accelerate our saving and meet all of our short term and several of our long term goals much sooner.

Michael has always been very hesitant to consider purchasing a used vehicle. He likes buying new so he can get just what he wants, and he knows he is not buying someone else's problems. As we have been learning more about finances and making big purchases like cars, we now really see how little sense it makes to purchase a new vehicle. Because it depreciates so quickly, it is actually quite a big mistake to buy, especially to finance, a new vehicle. With the whirlwind of financial attitude adjustments we've been having over the last few months, I know that when the time comes again for us to replace a vehicle, we will be able to see that the sensible thing is to buy a 2-3 year old car, with cash.

So, replacing a vehicle--if we are going to sell our van in order to pay off the loan, we will be in the market for a replacement vehicle. Now, at this point in our financial lives, it would not make sense to sell our 4 year old vehicle and replace it with the 2-3 year old model. The point in doing this would be to greatly sacrifice in car status, in order to accelerate our progress toward other, more important financial goals, and then later go back up in car status when we can afford to spend cash on the aforementioned 2 year old car that is just what we want.

This is where I get scared--part of me is just plain stingy! Mistake or not, I really like my heated leather seats, push button automatic doors and tailgate, 6 disc CD player, and radio controls on the steering wheel. Seriously, I hear how shallow that sounds and I can easily do without all those features--for a lifetime if need be. The part that really concerns me is just what concerns Michael. If we replace our 4 year old van (that incidentally only has about 36,000 miles on it) that we know is reliable...with a 10 year old van that has 260,000 miles on the original engine--will it start every morning when we are ready to go to school? Will it break down on the turnpike during our next Disney trip? Will we spend as much as we saved because it needs a new engine within the next year? Will we miss hours of work because the van is in the shop and we need to use one vehicle to get to all the places we need to go for a few days each month? What is a reliable vehicle really worth to us?

There is a bright spot in this whole dilemma, though. As far as our commitment to our financial goals is concerned, we are discovering that when one of us is weak, we are able to be strengthened by the other. (It used to be that when one of us was weak, the other might take advantage of that and throw us further out of whack.) At the beginning of the contest--I was full steam ahead, sell the van! Michael was hesitant. And now that decision time is here, I'm getting a little wimpy, and Michael is taking action to move us toward feeling better about this giant step.

So here is where I tell you about my awesome husband. (A long time getting here I know...) A few weeks ago, Michael was able to procure 2 vehicles that were about to be impounded for next to nothing. They had been sitting idle for quite a while and the interiors of both vehicles were moldy, and smelled awful. Of course neither one has the features that we are accustomed to enjoying, but most of all they each have a ton of miles on them, and we are unsure about the mechanical reliability of either van. So my husband, who has made more than his fair share of changes to help us find success with our new financial goals, has spent all of his free time over the last 2 weeks taking these vans apart! He found and repaired a leak that was pouring water into the vehicle each time it rained. He has literally littered our yard with interior body panels, seats, rugs, vents, headliners-you name it, if it was inside the van, he has removed it, cleaned it, aired it out and reconditioned it. He has been online doing research on how to clean electrical contacts, what products and methods remove mold and mildew most effectively, and how to replace rotten fabric. When we were in high school and junior college, he drove couple beaters and kept them running pretty well, but it has been 10 years since he looked under the hood of a vehicle! He is diving head-first into this project, and his skill and determination blow my mind. (I am NOT mechanically minded at all.) When I asked him how he could remember what to do to fix a car after all this time--he *SMILED* and said, "It's just a puzzle. You take something apart until you see what's wrong, fix it, and put it back together." I feel so blessed to be your wife--you are AWESOME, Sweetie!

I am always looking for fun, free things to do with the kids or for our large monthly family gatherings. A few weeks ago I remembered a fun activity that I had done with my first graders at Sabal Palm Elementary (way back in the day) that would qualify. We had a great time at our last Second Sunday Family Gathering, and we’ve even enjoyed the fun (and flavor!) a few times since then, just on our own. Continue at your own risk…after reading this post you will have a perpetual, everlasting supply of *practically* free homemade ice cream (you can make it anytime!)

This was a first grade science lesson on the states of matter: make homemade ice cream! I googled “homemade ice cream baggie” and found this great recipe, very similar to the one I used with my class. Most of the supplies and ingredients are most likely already in your house and you won’t need to buy any special equipment.

Combine the sugar, milk, and vanilla extract in the pint-size bag and seal it tightly, pressing out the air.
Place the salt and ice in the gallon-size bag, then place the sealed smaller bag inside as well. Seal the larger bag. Now shake the bags until the mixture hardens (about 5 minutes). Feel the small bag to determine when it's done.
Take the smaller bag out of the larger one, rinse briefly under cold water, and eat the ice cream right out of the bag. Easy clean-up! Or, cut one corner off the bag and squeeze it into a bowl. Serves 1-2.

Some tips: Using the thinner sandwich bag may cause leakage—salty water in your ice cream is not so good! Rock salt is CHEAP! A box big enough to make this recipe 12-15 times costs $1.09 at Publix. You can actually use the same big bag/ice mixture several times, or put 2-3 small bags with ingredients into the same big bag to make the salt and ice go farther. Flavors galore!!! Try pouring maraschino cherry syrup into the bag before shaking. Or try chocolate syrup, hot chocolate powder, cappuccino mix, any fruit, orange soda, mint extract—the possibilities are endless! Have fun!