Yup, it’s that time of year again – school’s out and the kiddos are home 24/7! Are we having fun yet? Some of you may even be fortunate enough to be planning some time away. But did you know that you can go on vacation AND use the time to provide an educational boost as well? Here are some tips to make sure they don’t “lose their heads” – or at least their brains – while out of school.

• Prepare ahead of time by doing research. Check the internet or write to the Chamber of Commerce and find interesting and educational places to visit at your destination.  See if any of them correlate to your children’s interests, and you’ll be getting off to a great start!

• Use your vacation to study a specific them or topic. One year a friend of ours planned their summer travels around historic and notable places around the state. After their kids had already spent the year learning about these locals in books, they were super excited to get some hands-on and real-life experiences, as these historic sites became real to them!

• Always include a journal or diary assignment of some sort. Even non-writers can dictate a few thoughts for you to write down, and anyone can illustrate or add pictures from flyers or postcards. Starting a collection along the way gives them opportunities to arrange them or prepare a display when they get home. This not only helps to strengthen vacation memories but reinforces the educational aspect of the time away.

• If you need some ideas of how to get started, take a look at what I have used with my own family on more than one occasion –> http://bit.ly/L5lcdG

Need a break but can’t “get out of Dodge”? No worries! “Staycations” are becoming more and more popular in this economy. Here are some ideas to help you make the most of a memorable vacation in your own backyard:

• Take a break from technology – turn off the cell-phones, ipods, computer…and just focus on enjoying each other and your time together
• Be unavailable to others – remember, you’re on vacation, so act like it!
• Resolve to stay out of the kitchen! Eat out (as much as your budget allows), grill out or cook over an open fire (just be aware of any applicable local ordinances)
• Plan activities you wouldn’t normally do, whether they happen in your backyard, your own town, or a nearby city, park or museum.
• Pull out a local map and come up with new places to visit that are within a “doable” distance (take into account spending time getting there and getting back home!)

If you’re like me and enjoy a good book, try out some of these for some more ideas:

Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird-watching, Shore Walking by Jim Arnosky 

The Great American Staycation by Matt Wixon

Backyard Vacations: Outdoor fun in your own neighborhood by Carolyn Haas, et al. 

To paraphrase an oft-used saying: “the family that learns together, stays together”! Whether you travel far and wide this summer or stay home-sweet-home, may you have fun times and many happy family moments…together!

Pat Fenner has been homeschooling her 5 children for 17 years, and writes on education and family topics on her website, Help 4 Your Homeschool. She reviews books as part of the Christian Women Affiliate’s “Review Crew”, writes guest-posts on related blogs and periodically contributes to Econobusters. You can read her piece entitled “From Fear to Flight” in an anthology published by the Gulf Coast Writers’ Association, due out this summer. She can be reached via email at Pat@Help-4-Your-Homeschool.com

This back issue is FULL of handy tips to help you along. Making a Frugal Fresh Start is on sale NOW for only $2.50 (this price will be good until Sunday night 6/23). Have you ever seen inside one of my magazines? Take a SNEAK PEEK HERE to see some of the frugal goodness we packed into this issue!

Here’s a little more of what’s inside:

Don’t you love a good yard sale? Learn to shop yard sales like a pro! The goal of this month’s feature is to suggest ideas to use in three major areas—cleaning, organizing, and food (feeding your family). Start taking incremental steps toward lasting change . . .

Organize without Spending: You could spend a lot of money on organizational stuff—but you don’t have to!

• Don’t throw it away! What can you do with oatmeal containers? Cylinder-shaped chip containers? Cereal boxes? Coffee cans? Caps from aerosol spray cans? An unused photo album? And there’s more . . . organize!
• How are you using those plastic milk jugs?
• Great ways to upcycle those 2-liter plastic soda bottles!
• Kimberly, from Kimberly’s Cup, shows you how she repurposes glass jars for pantry storage. You may never throw out another jar!

Beyond Coupons—Seven Ways to Save Money While Eating Well: You’ll find practical suggestions to re-think ways of getting food on the table and enjoy healthy, creative meals without over-spending.

• Watch your waist, and your waste! Re-think portion control!
• Are you menu planning yet? Get a free E-Book download link that’ll make it so easy to get started!
• Practice recipe substitutions. Get this handy chart to help!
• Plan a cooking party or start a brunch club!
• Consider bartering and gleaning. You’ll want to hear what Molly has to say about it.

Over 35 pages of information & support for an incredibly low price! A small price to pay compared to the great benefits you’ll receive and the money you’ll be saving once you dig into this E-Book! Buy this E-Magazine today for ONLY $2.50!

Molly members already have this magazine in your member page! Simply click the “Molly Members” tab above, log in, and search out April 2009.

If you’re not a Molly member, check out everything you receive and sign up now on our SUBSCRIPTION PAGE!

You most likely already have these two ingredients in your pantry: olive oil and vinegar. If you’re like me, you probably also have some wood furniture (or floors) that have a few scratches of their own. I have an easy DIY fix for those scratches! Simply mix equal parts olive oil and vinegar, shake the mixture up very well and rub some lightly into the wood. You can let the mixture rest there for 12-24 hours and then go back and rub it off. You can repeat this process over and over until the scratch lessens or disappears all together! How easy (and frugal) is that?!?

Check out the following sites for more information:

THIS SITE gives you multiple tips on how to repair/fix worn out wood floors.

THIS SITE shares a bit of info on where this recipe has been used for years.

THIS SITE shares multiple tips on how you can remove stains and repair scratches/dents from hardwood floors.

DIY scratch repair works for me! Do you use DIY cleaners? What is your favorite?

Disclaimer: Please use caution/discretion and test this mixture in an inconspicuous area before applying to a large area of furniture/flooring. Econobusters is not held liable for any discoloration or “harm” that may come from using this mix of ingredients on your personal property.

Molly Green is happy to link to the following blogs and would love for you to take a peek at these sites as well!  WE ARE THAT FAMILY, HIP HOMESCHOOL MOMS,  TIME WARP WIFE, ABOVE RUBIES, ADORNED FROM ABOVE,  VICKI ARNOLD,  RAISING ARROWS, RAISING HOMEMAKERS, HOMEMAKERS CHALLENGE, and ORGANIZED 31!

Thanks to the “new economy”, more of us than ever are having to live simply. Many families are doing things they never thought they’d do – cutting coupons, getting rid of cable television, trading down cars or houses, and even living with relatives. Many of us are used to nicer lifestyles where we could afford a few indulgences or luxuries, so this step down might be a bit of a culture shock. The question is: How can we become content with a simple life?

We’re going through some of these same changes in our own family and we’ve had our own ups and downs with accepting our new economic reality, so I wanted to share some of the tips we’ve found to be helpful as we adjust to a simpler way of living.

Stay busy.

Personally, I do great at following our budget when I’m busy. When I’m bored, I tend to seek out activities that cost money such as shopping or eating out regularly. The more engaged I am with our family, though, the more content I am with a simple family dinner or an afternoon at the park.

Re-establish what’s important.

Refocusing on the things that are most important to us is a big help when we’re trying to cultivate contentment. For our family, these priorities are our worship, our time as a family, and our commitment to homeschooling. When we weigh up any leisure activities or luxuries against these three priorities, it’s pretty easy to know which to choose.

Save, don’t skimp.

This last tip may seem like a bit of a contradiction, but I think there’s a fine line to walk here. Our goal is to save money, not to skimp on necessities or occasional wants. For example, we have four children, so we have to spend a considerable amount of money on groceries. At first, I tried to pare our grocery budget down to the absolute minimum in an attempt to save as much money as possible. Guess what happened? We ended up eating out more than ever because everybody was hungry. Now I know that it’s more important to save money by buying less expensive items than to skimp on the amount of food we actually need to eat.

Choose your associates wisely.

Even if you’re sticking to the above three tips faithfully, they may not be enough to help you cope with another kind of temptation: the temptation to become jealous of the life others are living. If you’re spending time with friends and family members who regularly spend money on activities you can’t afford, it can be difficult not to feel envious of their supposed “freedom.” We try to seek out friends who are living simply as well so that we aren’t invited to do things that are outside of our budget. We also explain our financial goals to others if we know we can’t afford an activity – without feeling embarrassed or frustrated. Rather than dwelling on what others are doing, we try to search out things that we know we can do together, which counteracts any of the resentment we could feel.

Selena is a former tax accountant-turned-homeschooling mom of four. She and her husband, Jay, have committed themselves to homeschooling their children in an effort to give them the very best education possible and to strengthen their bond as a family. Selena shares her family’s homeschooling adventures every weekday at Look! We’re Learning! Readers can keep up with the family by subscribing via email or by following Look! We’re Learning! on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

It’s time for happy hearts, big smiles, and my Making Money from Home magazine! This edition of Molly’s Money-Saving Digest is full of creative ways to provide for your family’s needs while remaining within your budget! In this issue you’ll find lots of fresh inspiration and information, so don’t miss it!

This 2009 back issue is on sale only this week for $2.50. Have you ever seen inside one of my magazines? Take a SNEAK PEEK HERE to see some of the frugal goodness we packed into this issue! Over 35 pages of information & support for an incredibly low price! A small price to pay compared to the great benefits you’ll receive and the money you’ll be saving once you dig into this E-Book! Buy this E-Book today for ONLY $2.50!

Molly members already have this magazine in your member page! Simply click the “Molly Members” tab above, log in, and search out March 2009.

If you’re not a Molly member, check out everything you receive and sign up now on our SUBSCRIPTION PAGE!

Recently we were traveling to a convention out-of-state (many states away from home actually). I had the whole trip mostly planned out ahead of time, I even used the fuel calculator on MapQuest to help estimate how much gas might be. I figured out a “food allowance” for while we would be gone as well as planned/packed food for eating in the car (and for filling up our big cooler). I called months in advance to make a reservation at a hotel nearest the convention center before they were completely booked.

When we left for our trip and began the long journey to the convention, one of our many stops was at a wayside. I like stopping at waysides when I don’t need to purchase gas, it’s a quick way to let everyone stretch their legs, let the kids run around a bit, etc. As I was loading the kids back into the car to continue our journey I noticed some free flyers, one of them was full of hotel coupons. I grabbed one, shoved it in my bag and we continued on our journey.

That night after dinner I began looking through the flyer. I noticed that there were 3 coupons for the major city we were traveling to (where the convention was being held). The price offered on that coupon was almost 1/3 of what I was going to pay for my previous reservation! I called one of the hotels, asked if they had any open rooms and they did! Can you guess what I did? Yep, I switched reservations.

You can bet that in the future when we are traveling somewhere and we need a hotel room, I’ll be doing some research on various sites to find a good rate BEFORE we go!

Hotel coupons work for me!

Do you check rates on hotel rooms to get the best deal before traveling?

Summer is here and with it comes wonderful things like days at the beach or in the pool, summer sports and hopefully a vacation or two. However, all of those things cost money and for most of us finances are especially tight in the summer. We’re not working as much because the kids are home and customers aren’t buying as much because they are busy with their families.

So what’s a mom to do? She’s got to get creative! Here are a few ideas on how you might be able to bring in some extra cash this summer while still maximizing time with your family.

Mom’s Summertime Taxi

Most of us moms are out-and-about with our kids each day anyway, so why not offer a service to friends, neighbors and maybe acquaintances that work full-time or have even busier schedules than you to tote their kids around, too? Calculate how much you’ll need to help cover mileage and gas and then charge a small fee to each family. You’ll earn a small income and they’ll save time and hassle by letting you help.

Organize a Garage Sale

Garage sales are one thing, but let’s think outside the box here. What if you organize a neighborhood or church-wide garage sale? This can be a great way to not only make some extra money (last summer I made enough to make a car payment!) but to get rid of that junk sitting around collecting junk in your basement.

Write an Ebook

If you’ve ever dreamt of writing, there is no better time than the present to bring that dream to reality. Write that short story or novella (or full length novel if you’re up for it) and sell it on Amazon. You can list your book for free, they simply take a small percentage of your sales. Be sure to invest a little in yourself by using a professional editor. Your book will get higher reviews, and therefore better sales, because of it.

Give Lessons

Are you hiding a talent that everyone else would die for? Give piano lessons or cooking classes, teach tweens to sew help seniors learn to use a computer. Whatever your talent is, there is most likely a group of people out there that would love to learn from you. A friend of mine runs a cookie company and she recently branched out and began offering cookie decorating classes. She hosts them in her home, right at her kitchen table, and it’s been a huge hit.

Sell Your Homegrown Stuff

Is your garden overflowing? Consider selling some of those beautiful veggies or herbs from your garden. Put an ad out on www.CraigsList.com or offer them up from a booth at your local farmers market. Or, make it even simpler and spread the word in your neighborhood that you have produce for sale.

There are so many ways to bring in a little extra income this summer. By using your skills and what you have around the house, you can help fund all those trips to the swimming pool or help save up for your family vacation. There’s no end to how creative we can be when we set our minds to it.

Jill Hart is a writer, speaker and coach, showing others how to follow their calling and build successful businesses. She teaches her clients how to overcome the fear of getting started and helps them discover ways to make money from home. Ready to discover how you can work from home? Check out Jill’s short and sweet ebook, 70 Creative Ways to Make Money from Home Quickly (http://bit.ly/70creativeways).

Living frugally doesn’t have to be overwhelming or hard. . . take a sneak peek into my GARDENING BASICS AND NATURAL CLEANERS magazine today! For THIS WEEK ONLY we will be offering this back issue for ONLY $2.50 (price adjustment will be reflected upon checkout)!

Make Do and Do Without

My grandmothers could both tell lots of stories from those days. If you are blessed to have a living grandmother, be sure to spend this precious time with her and ask her about her days as a young wife and mother.

You will learn so much and be so inspired. Both sets of grandparents in my family could vividly recall the Victory Gardens and raising small animals in their backyards. They all lived in the Los Angeles area, so this as accomplished on their suburban lots. My maternal grandmother used to laugh every time she told the story about the day she decided she, herself, was going to kill the chicken for dinner. She had watched my grandfather (who had been raised on a farm in Texas) expertly break the chicken’s neck in one swift movement. She figured, if he could do it, why couldn’t she? Well, she tried and tried to swing that chicken around and snap its neck, just like my grandfather, but the unfortunate hen’s neck never broke! To everyone’s horror it just got longer! They finally had to do the poor creature in with an ax.

I would highly recommend the book We Had Everything but Money, published by Reminisce Books (1992), if you want to be both inspired and humbled at the same time. One man told the story of how his neighbor cut own every tree on his lot to supply firewood for the folks in his neighborhood for the winter. Another woman recalls how her father used his savings to buy flour, spaghetti, and dry beans. He planted hundreds of tomato plants and her mother canned over 100 quarts of tomato sauce. They ate spaghetti every single day for a year! Women made quilts to sell, sold baked goods door to door (one of my daughters made good money doing this one summer), and weren’t too proud to ask others if they could glean from their fruit or nut trees. I have canned all my neighbor’s peaches in exchange for half the fruit. I always have canned peaches on my shelf even though I don’t have a peach tree!

I know our situations are not as desperate as they were back then, but many of us do live on very tight budgets. Our culture does not make it easy for a woman to stay home. Most of us have husbands who work  very hard to bring home a paycheck. Don’t we owe it to them to be as frugal as we possibly can with the money they provide? Maybe we can adapt some of the thrifty sense our grandmothers had to our lives today…

For more of this article on making something new out of something old, CLICK HERE to purchase Gardening Basics and Natural Cleaners as a single issue (this week is HALF PRICE).

Molly members already have this magazine in your member page! Simply click the “Molly Members” tab above, log in, and search out February 2009.

If you’re not a Molly member, check out everything you receive and sign up now on our SUBSCRIPTION PAGE!

© Brad Calkins | Dreamstime.com

As summer approaches, many of us are dreading the upcoming electric bills. Because cooling a house requires so much energy, most of us will most likely experience an increase in our energy costs during the warmer months. Thankfully, there are ways to lower the financial burden by reducing the amount of energy we consume:

Have the HVAC unit inspected and cleaned

Because your air conditioning unit draws more power from the grid than any other single source within your home, it is important to make sure it is operating optimally. Inspections and cleanings usually entail examining ducts for leaks and cleaning the unit itself. In addition to having the unit cleaned, homeowners should also keep the air filters inside the home clean. Most filters require a monthly change. However, some filters last from three to six months.

Switch light bulbs

You should also consider swapping your traditional incandescent bulbs for the newer more energy efficient LED bulbs. These energy Star compliant light bulbs use up to 75 percent less energy and last 15 times longer than incandescent bulbs. In addition, the increase in consumer awareness of energy efficiency has prompted designers to turn to LED lighting a lot more making the switch to light emitting diode bulbs one of the kitchen and bath trends to watch this year.

Install a programmable thermostat

You probably don’t want to have your AC struggling to keep your house a frigid 65 degrees all day if you are going to be at work or out running errands. However, you also don’t want to come home to a furnace either. This is doubly true if you have kids or pets that will be in doors all day.

With programmable thermostats, you can set them to automatically adjust the temperature in your home, up or down, by remote or at predetermined time an interval which consequently, reduces the amount of energy you use to cool your home. In addition, the newer Wi-Fi enabled thermostats allow you to use your smartphone to adjust your home’s heating and cooling when tied to a cloud-based web service like EnergyHub.

Install blinds or roman shades

It is a well-known fact that a large majority of the heat entering our homes comes through the windows. In order to reduce or even eliminate this you may want to install roman shades or mini-blinds. This one simple act can greatly reduce the amount of heat entering a home thus reducing the costs of cooling your home by reducing the length of time your AC needs to be running.

Consider a fixed rate energy plan

Another way to help govern your energy costs during the summer is to consider participating in a fixed rate electricity plan. With a contract electricity plan, you lock in a certain rate per kilowatt for a stretch of time that does not fluctuate from month to month or during seasonal spikes. Some energy suppliers will even send email and text alert to their customers when they are using more power than anticipated.

In many parts of the country, the summer months result in some of the highest energy bills of the year. Many of us in some way dread the summer months for just that reason. I mean let’s be realistic, in today’s economy the choice between paying our electric bill on time and still having enough to put gas in the car for the rest of the pay period can be all too real for too many of us nowadays.

About the author:

Alex Goodwin is a writer, husband, father and aspiring novelist. When he isn’t writing for HomeDaddys or completing chores from his “honey- do” list, he’s most likely spending quality time with his wife and kids or working on his novel.

Getting organized doesn’t have to be overwhelming or hard. . . take a sneak peek into my LET’S GET ORGANIZED FOR FISCAL FITNESS magazine today! For THIS WEEK ONLY we will be offering this back issue for HALF THE NORMAL PRICE (price adjustment will be reflected upon checkout)!

Is your attic or basement cluttered with items that you don’t use, but just can’t quite part with? How about your garage, closets or kitchen cupboards? Maybe you spent a lot of money on something and think you must find a way to use it sometime. Or maybe it came from dear Aunt Mary and you just can’t toss or donate it with a good conscience. We all have them – the dopey looking lamps, random serving bowls, no-longer-the-right-color curtains. . . there’s no end to the variety of “stuff” we hang on to for a rainy day. Well, take heart and get your umbrella out – that rainy day is here. We’re going to take on those oddball objects and see what we can do with them.

As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again” and that includes the “make do” mentality of our grandparents. We call it something different now. The buzzwords of this generation are “repurposing” and “upcycling.” Repurposing means to use an item in a new and different way, maybe changing or adapting it to better suit your purposes. Up cycling refers to using an item that would have been destined for the trash, or maybe was already there, to make a new object that can be used and appreciated.

This exciting trend is taking our culture by storm, and I think it’s fantastic! Once you get used to this kind of thinking you’ll see potential in just about everything. But don’t say we didn’t warn you – it can be addicting! So, how about some inspiration? You may be familiar with www.Etsy.com, the giant online store for handmade items. Try typing “repurposed” or “up cycled” as a search criteria here. You’ll be amazed by the gorgeous variety of results. From vintage spoons to Scrabble tiles, old bedspreads to broken bottles, creative minds and hands are producing treasures!

For more of this article on making something new out of something old, CLICK HERE to purchase Let’s Get Organized for Fiscal fitness as a single issue (this week is HALF PRICE).

Molly members already have this magazine in your member page! Simply click the “Molly Members” tab above, log in, and search out January 2009.

If you’re not a Molly member, check out everything you receive and sign up now on our SUBSCRIPTION PAGE!