Category: Tips & Tricks

If you are like me and have a family, you probably spend a lot of time in your vehicle driving kids to and from school, sports events, church activities, errands, etc. When we started our family, we purchased a brand new car. We didn’t think ahead too far into the future, but our family grew by three kids. Eventually, we grew out of our first family vehicle and needed to buy another car. We ended up purchasing a used car that would fit all five of us comfortably.

When looking for our new car, there were a few tips that we kept in mind.

What to Consider When Buying a Family Car

Safety

Safety was a huge priority when looking for our new car. We looked for features like air bags, child safety locks, a great crash test rating, and wearing of the tires. Shortly after purchasing our used car, we did replace the tires for extra safety because the other tires were a bit worn.

Room

We have three children. Two are still in booster seats and one is in a baby car seat. We needed to find a car with enough room to fit all of our children and their car seats. We also travel a lot and needed to have plenty of room in the car for our luggage, outdoor gear, school items, etc.

Affordability

We follow a budget and needed to find a great deal on a car. We were able to find what we needed at a great price with money left over to help cover the tire purchase we made.

We’ve had our car now for a little over a year and have been very pleased with our purchase. We recently drove it across the country during a long move and we were all very comfortable and pleased with the room and safety features during our long trip.

What features are important to you when looking for a new or used car? 

Not sure what to do with your tax refund? Consider purchasing or upgrading your smart phone! Here’s how to use your tax refund towards a smart phone.

As a busy mom, I rely on my smartphone to help keep myself organized, informed, and updated. I use my smartphone on a daily basis for personal and business reasons. Because I use my phone regularly every day, it’s important for me to have a fast and reliable phone and service plan.

The tax season is here and my husband and I were thankful to get a tax refund this year. We used part of our tax refund to upgrade our smartphones and cell phone service. We were paying way too much for our previous plan.

Now that we are saving about $50 per month after switching our plan, we will be putting more money away towards our retirement accounts and our kid’s college accounts each month. The additional money left over on our tax refund went towards our personal savings, too.

As a busy mom and small business owner, I use my smartphone features often. Below are twelve ways I use my smartphone as a mom and how you can use them, too!

11 “Smart” Ways I Use My Smartphone

1. Photos and Videos:

I have three children. I take photos and videos on a daily basis so that I can share them with my family that lives hundreds of miles away. We have an eight month old baby and these photos and videos allow my family to watch my baby boy grow up, even though they are far away.

2. Calendar and Alarm Clock:

I use my calendar on a regular basis to schedule events and activities. I love being able to add important dates into the calendar and receive notifications. I also use the alarm clock feature during the week when I need to wake up my oldest daughter to get ready for school!

3. Music:

Going to the gym is a regular part of my routine. I try to workout at least 3-5 days a week. When I workout, I use my phone to stream music so that I stay motivated during my toughest workouts!

4. Weather App:

It’s the middle of March on the East Coast and it’s snowing today! I would have never known that it was going to snow without my weather app! We were able to prepare for a day of snow today and get outside to make a few snowballs. I use the weather app to see how we should dress the family most days.

5. Calling and Texting:

Keeping in touch with my family is important to me. My family lives several states way. I try to keep in touch on a regular basis either by calling or texting them. I text my mom and sister often!

6. Email:

I check my email several times a day on my smartphone. I have two email accounts, a personal account and a business account. I’m able to stay on top of my emails when I’m out and about.

7. Kids Apps:

When I’m out and about and need to keep the kids entertained, I allow my children to play educational kids apps on my smartphone.

8. Internet:

The internet is at my fingertips anytime I need to search for something online, read articles, or visit my favorite websites. I’m able to use the internet for business purposes, too.

9. Social Media:

I have all major forms of social media downloaded onto my phone including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. I can keep up with family and friends via social media or schedule out important social media posts for the brands I work with during the day.

10. Banking:

I’m able to check in our bank accounts through my smartphone as well as deposit checks, transfer money, and keep up with daily transactions.

11. Shopping:

Anytime I need to shop, I can get on my smartphone, browse my favorite retailers, and checkout easily.

As you can see, I use my smartphone for a variety of reasons on a daily basis. I need the extra data for this reason! I would highly recommend using part of your tax refund to upgrade your phone!

What do you plan to do with your tax refund this year?

Another Christmas holiday has come and gone. As I think about a brand new year, I’m able to reflect on our December 2016 holiday budget. My husband and I went into December with a plan for every dollar. Our goal was to spend our money on practical gifts for our kids all while paring down the amount of gifts that we would purchase. Now that January is here, I can say that we did a good job of sticking to our budget, but there were a few areas that have room for improvement.

In the middle of December, I wrote a post on How to Simplify Gift Giving. In this post, I discussed a plan for keeping the holidays simple and keeping holiday gifts limited to a certain amount.

While I still feel this is an excellent plan, I must honestly confess that I had a hard time sticking to the plan. One of the reasons I had a hard time sticking to the plan was because of past mistakes we made during the holidays with overspending and overbuying. I guess I could say that I was a bit nervous paring down gifts to only four this year after buying way too many gifts for my girls in the past. Maybe I think my simplified gift giving would hurt my girls’ feelings if they didn’t receive a lot on Christmas morning. Maybe I’m afraid they will think Santa thought they weren’t good children this year. I do still like to see my children rip open a variety of gifts on Christmas morning because I love seeing the excitement on their faces. More gifts means more time spent enjoying the morning, right?!

Even though we didn’t stick to the plan completely, I do feel that I was smarter about the gifts we did choose to buy this year. Instead of just four gifts in each category (want, need, wear, read) we bought a few gifts for each child in each category, including an added “eat” category. When shopping for gifts, I tried to find and buy gifts that I felt my children needed but gifts that were still considered “cool” to receive in their eyes – things like Trolls movie socks, Shopkins underwear, winter gear that could be used in our new location that we will be moving to in April and even a new pair of shoes for my youngest daughter.

I do feel that if I would have started out every Christmas in the past this way of keeping gifts to a minimum, it would be easy to stick to the plan, but after 8 Christmas’ where I’ve gone a little overboard, it’s hard to go from many gifts to just a few. I want to simplify gifts eventually and save more money during future holidays, but it will take some time and self-discipline. I’d love to get back to the true meaning of Christmas and eventually give more to others than to ourselves. There’s always next year!

If you are sitting here in the new year thinking about how you may have gone overboard this Christmas, be kind to yourself. It’s a brand new year and it’s time to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start going for those goals you’ve set for yourself and your personal finances this year. The past is the past and let’s look forward to making improvements, knocking down debt, saving for our future, and giving more to others this year.

Money Saving Goals for the New Year

This year, we have plenty of savings goals that we plan to stick to. A few of our family goals include the following:

• Completing a No Spend Challenge in January
• Sticking to our monthly budget
• Continue to cut back on eating out at restaurants
• Continue listening to helpful money saving podcasts and read books about saving money

These goals will be able to help us stay on track financially this year so that we can aggressively pay off our only debt – our rental home. We also want to save for our retirement and put more money away in our children’s college accounts. We want to give more to our church and to others in need. It’s a new year and I’m already excited about our money saving goals this year.

Do you struggle to get your kids to brush their teeth? Here are tips for how to make brushing teeth fun for kids!

As a mom, it can be frustrating at times to get our kids to brush their teeth every day. I find myself asking my girls to head upstairs to brush their teeth only to hear moans and groans and disappointment.

How to Get Toddlers To Brush Their Teeth

However, I recently updated their toothbrushes and it has made a big difference in this process for us. It only took one simple swap for my girls to change their attitudes about brushing their teeth.

We made the switch to Firefly products simply for the reason that they are designed to help turn brush time into playtime! I don’t mind my kids having a little fun while brushing their teeth if it helps get the job done!

Firefly Spiderman Fluoride Rinse

We also added Firefly Spiderman Fluoride Rinse from Walmart to use during their tooth brushing routine. My girls quickly fell in love with the “Amazing Melon” flavor of the rinse. They can be very picky about flavors, but this fluoride rinse was perfect for them. They love the little cup that goes with the mouthwash as it helps them to use the correct amount each time.

It’s a good idea as a parent to teach your kids when using this rinse how to use it appropriately and to make sure they are only using it once or twice a day during their brushing routine! My youngest wanted to use it often during the day and I had to remind her that it was meant just for tooth brushing time! Adding the Firefly Spiderman Fluoride Rinse to my girl’s brushing routine has become something my girls look forward to daily.

Did you know that it’s a good idea to replace toothbrushes once every three months?

Kids don’t get to have all the fun for themselves! My husband and I updated our toothbrushes, too. It was time to make the switch to quality toothbrushes because we had our old toothbrushes for a little over 3 months. We’ve trusted the REACH brand for quite some time and love our new toothbrushes. We chose the REACH Advanced Design Toothbrush at Walgreens and the REACH Ultra Clean Toothbrush at Target.

The REACH UltraClean toothbrush provides a complete clean feeling with floss-like bristles and a tongue cleaner. This toothbrush is perfect to have handy for guests staying the night or in every bag so you’ll always have a toothbrush on the go. The REACH Advanced Design Toothbrush has longer outer bristles and shorter inner bristles to perfectly clean along the gum line and the plaque from every tooth.

Choosing quality toothbrushes for the entire family is important to me. I take tooth brushing seriously in our family and only want the best products for us. When three months goes by, we will continue to replace our toothbrushes with Firefly and REACH products!

How do you make brushing teeth fun for kids?