About Money Matters
My main goal for this sight is to supplement any speaking engagements that I have. Since my faith, family, and ministry at camp are my priorities, I will only leave new posts on occasion. Feel free to share your own tips, resources, and questions. I look forward to learning and saving with you!
Earn Money Online
Gentle Voice CD
Purchase this CD by clicking on the cover.
Shopping for the Best Credit (or Debit) Card
1/29/2010 | 
Posted by
Christy Taylor
*You can also check with your bank to see if they offer a debit card with similar rewards!
If you are not currently in debt and have no history of trouble with credit cards, it's time to pick one that will start paying you! I Googled a few sites that will help to narrow down some of your choices.
The following is an excerpt from DollarTimes with recommendations on reward cards:
Citi Rewards Cards: I personally have a Citi card that has a very good rewards program. Unfortunately, it's not available any more, but Citi still offers some decent cash back cards.
Other Recommend Cards:- from Jason Skinrood, of PlasticRewards
If you are not currently in debt and have no history of trouble with credit cards, it's time to pick one that will start paying you! I Googled a few sites that will help to narrow down some of your choices.
The following is an excerpt from DollarTimes with recommendations on reward cards:
Citi Rewards Cards: I personally have a Citi card that has a very good rewards program. Unfortunately, it's not available any more, but Citi still offers some decent cash back cards.
Other Recommend Cards:- from Jason Skinrood, of PlasticRewards
- Costco American Express: This card is quickly becoming very popular because of the large 3% gas rebate. Card features excellent customer service but you receive your rebate as a Costco gift card.
- Discover More Cards: The cards feature excellent customer service and earn up to 5% cash back. Rebates are tiered and Discover offers additional promotions throughout the year.
- Citi Forward Visa Card: Earn points that can be redeemed for cash back or other rewards on every purchase. Cardholders can also receive up to 2% APR reduction with responsible use.
- IBERIABANK Visa Gold Card: This card for people with excellent credit earns a straight 1% cash back on all qualifying purchases. No cash back limits or expiration dates.
- For REI Customers: The REI Visa card has also caught my eye. It has 1% cash back, and 5% cash back on REI purchases. But you have to be an REI member to qualify.
- Airline Rewards Cards: I have looked at dozens of offers for credit cards that reward you with airline mileage. None of them are good, mostly because of hefty annual fees. If you find a decent airline miles card, please let us know.
Labels:
Budget Ideas
If you are struggling financially, you must consider budgeting your money. You need to know where your money is going for a number of reasons.
1.Your money is on loan from the Lord and He expects you to be a careful steward of it.
2. You can't fix the leak if you don't know where the hole is!
3. It takes discipline to stay on track financially and this is the best place to start.
4. It is very important for a couple to be like-minded financially. Starting a budget will allow you to sit down and talk about it while you face the reality of your income on paper.
5. Budgeting allows you to plan ahead for things like Christmas, medical bills, car repairs, etc. You save monthly for the bigger bills that hit you at once.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Here are some great resources to get you started. Don't forget to check your local library as well!
Budgeting Ideas:
1.Your money is on loan from the Lord and He expects you to be a careful steward of it.
2. You can't fix the leak if you don't know where the hole is!
3. It takes discipline to stay on track financially and this is the best place to start.
4. It is very important for a couple to be like-minded financially. Starting a budget will allow you to sit down and talk about it while you face the reality of your income on paper.
5. Budgeting allows you to plan ahead for things like Christmas, medical bills, car repairs, etc. You save monthly for the bigger bills that hit you at once.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Here are some great resources to get you started. Don't forget to check your local library as well!
Budgeting Ideas:
- Dave Ramsey Envelope System
- If you use envelopes, you’ll like this idea of “prettifying” them.
- Larry Burkett’s financial books from Amazon
- Google his name and you can find many more
- My favorite Budget Template (in Excel)
- This is the budget system that we use. My dear friends, the Tracys, let me use their template and adjust it to make it user friendly for you. I've included a lot of notes in various cells in order to help you understand how I use it myself. Have fun tweaking this template to fit your income and personal preferences!
- This Completed Budget has four months of spending recorded for you, in order to guide you through some of the questions that might arise as you use it yourself.
- Other free Microsoft Excel Budgets
- Free Excel Training
- Spending Plan Online Calculator
- Budget Planning--free demo and ideas (less than $10 purchase fee)
- Mvelopes--an internet budget that ties into your bank account for a small fee
All Purpose Cleaner
Here is a very simple and inexpensive recipe for an all-purpose household cleaner. Leave a comment to share your own tips or cleaner recipes.
Ingredients
Combine with 2 cups of very hot water and use in a spray bottle. If you want a bucketful, use 1/8 cup each of borax, washing soda, and vinegar and combine with 1 tablespoon liquid soap and 2 gallons of water
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon Borax
- 1/2 tsp washing soda
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tsp. liquid soap (vegetable oil based if possible)
Combine with 2 cups of very hot water and use in a spray bottle. If you want a bucketful, use 1/8 cup each of borax, washing soda, and vinegar and combine with 1 tablespoon liquid soap and 2 gallons of water
My Favorite Coupon Sites
- Coupons.com
- RedPlum.com
- Smart Source.com
- Food4Half.com
- Target.com
- RetailMeNot.com (coupon codes and printable coupons)
- MySavings.com (free samples)
- Walmart.com (free samples)
- CouponAlbum.com
- CouponBug.com
- SlickDeals.net
Recipes for Laundry Detergent
Recipe #1
- 1 bar of soap (whatever kind you like)
- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store. It comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches)
- 1 box of borax (this is not necessary, but I’ve found it really kicks the cleaning up a notch - one box of borax will contain more than enough for tons of batches of this homemade detergent - if you decide to use this, be careful)
- A five gallon bucket with a lid (or a bucket that will hold more than 15 liters - ask around - these aren’t too tough to acquire)
- Three gallons of tap water
- A big spoon to stir the mixture with
- A measuring cup
- A knife
Step One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat on high until it’s almost boiling. While you’re waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you’ll shave the entire bar. Then, stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some very soapy water.
Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket. The easiest way is to fill up three, gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then, mix in the hot soapy water from step one. Stir the mixture for a while. Then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two. Next, add a half cup of borax, if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, and let the mixture sit overnight to cool.
Now you’re done. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that’s a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it’s a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this mixture will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you’ll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you’ll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and wash 288 loads of laundry. The total cost is around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.
Recipe #2
1 bar Ivory soap
1/2 cup washing soda (Not baking soda. I use Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. This can be hard to find - I get it at Farm Fresh grocery store here.)
1/2 cup borax powder (Wal-Mart has it - it's called 20 Mule Team Borax)
Grate soap into a sauce pan, (I use an old Dutch oven type that isn't used for anything else).
Add 6 cups water & heat over medium heat until soap melts. Stir occasionally.
Add washing soda & borax & stir until dissolved. Pour 4 cups of hot water into a bucket (2-3-gal. size). Add soap mixture & stir. Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water & stir. Let soap sit for a while - 1/2 day or overnight & it will gel. Stir to break it up & use 1/2 cup per load. I also put 1/4 cup non-chlorine bleach in light colored loads to keep things from getting dingy. I think this will vary depending on your water.
Laundry tip:
Instead of dryer sheets or fabric softener, I put a little white vinegar into a Downy ball and place it in the washing machine. Then I use blue dryer balls in the dryer. It really doesn't leave any more static than I had w/ dryer sheets. Plus, there is no chemical residue left on the clothes.
Recipe #3
1/3 Bar Fels-Naphtha
1/2 C. Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1 C. Borax
Grate soap into saucepan. Add 6 Cups water. Heat until soap melts. Add washing soda & borax, and stir until dissolved.
Remove from heat.
Pour 4 cups of hot water into bucket.
Add soap mixture and stir well.
Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups water & stir.
Put lid on bucket and let it sit 24 hours.
Use 1/2 cup per load.
After the mixture sits for 24 hours it gets really thick. Simply stir it really well, and it will be fine. It will still have "lumps" in it after you stir it, but that's ok.
- 1 bar of soap (whatever kind you like)
- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store. It comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches)
- 1 box of borax (this is not necessary, but I’ve found it really kicks the cleaning up a notch - one box of borax will contain more than enough for tons of batches of this homemade detergent - if you decide to use this, be careful)
- A five gallon bucket with a lid (or a bucket that will hold more than 15 liters - ask around - these aren’t too tough to acquire)
- Three gallons of tap water
- A big spoon to stir the mixture with
- A measuring cup
- A knife
Step One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat on high until it’s almost boiling. While you’re waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you’ll shave the entire bar. Then, stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some very soapy water.
Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket. The easiest way is to fill up three, gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then, mix in the hot soapy water from step one. Stir the mixture for a while. Then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two. Next, add a half cup of borax, if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, and let the mixture sit overnight to cool.
Now you’re done. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that’s a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it’s a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this mixture will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you’ll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you’ll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and wash 288 loads of laundry. The total cost is around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.
Recipe #2
1 bar Ivory soap
1/2 cup washing soda (Not baking soda. I use Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. This can be hard to find - I get it at Farm Fresh grocery store here.)
1/2 cup borax powder (Wal-Mart has it - it's called 20 Mule Team Borax)
Grate soap into a sauce pan, (I use an old Dutch oven type that isn't used for anything else).
Add 6 cups water & heat over medium heat until soap melts. Stir occasionally.
Add washing soda & borax & stir until dissolved. Pour 4 cups of hot water into a bucket (2-3-gal. size). Add soap mixture & stir. Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water & stir. Let soap sit for a while - 1/2 day or overnight & it will gel. Stir to break it up & use 1/2 cup per load. I also put 1/4 cup non-chlorine bleach in light colored loads to keep things from getting dingy. I think this will vary depending on your water.
Laundry tip:
Instead of dryer sheets or fabric softener, I put a little white vinegar into a Downy ball and place it in the washing machine. Then I use blue dryer balls in the dryer. It really doesn't leave any more static than I had w/ dryer sheets. Plus, there is no chemical residue left on the clothes.
Recipe #3
1/3 Bar Fels-Naphtha
1/2 C. Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1 C. Borax
Grate soap into saucepan. Add 6 Cups water. Heat until soap melts. Add washing soda & borax, and stir until dissolved.
Remove from heat.
Pour 4 cups of hot water into bucket.
Add soap mixture and stir well.
Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups water & stir.
Put lid on bucket and let it sit 24 hours.
Use 1/2 cup per load.
After the mixture sits for 24 hours it gets really thick. Simply stir it really well, and it will be fine. It will still have "lumps" in it after you stir it, but that's ok.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)