Master your money. Get organized. Take back your time.
There are some things you buy over and over again. And every time you buy them, you’re handing their manufacturer and your retailer a nice profit.
So it stands to reason that you can save a nice wad of cash by skipping the middle men and making those items yourself!
Think you can’t do it? These 8 everyday items are not only inexpensive but easy to make right at home! [Read more…]
On the day of our big move, the very first thing I did was throw up.
Nine weeks pregnant and overcome with morning sickness, I had the keys to our new place and a lease on the old one that told me it was time to get out. On that day, my husband handed me my Saltines and a barf bag, eased me into the car, drove us to our new home, and deposited me on the floor (since the furniture hadn’t yet arrived) of our new home with my trusty crackers.
Undertaking a move is a chore for anyone, but doing it while you’re pregnant is a special kind of challenge. It’s possible however to survive and even conquer the process by following a few rules . . .
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If you’re like most new parents, your first two emotions after a positive pregnancy test are excitement and paralyzing fear. You’re having a baby . . . but you have no idea what you’re doing! You’ve got just nine months to figure out not only how to keep your kid alive but also what gear you need to make that happen.
Before you find yourself in a frenzy buying everything at Babies“R”Us, check out these 7 tips for saving big bucks on your baby. [Read more…]
The mommy blogs are silently judging me.
I feel their condemnation every time I scan through pictures of the cool moms’ color-coordinated lives, perpetually clean children, and hyper-organized homes.
There are some things that are just part of motherhood, according to these blogs, and no one bats an eye to question that. No more! I’m not ashamed to admit that I fail to meet these ten “basic” requirements for life as a mom . . .
Read the rest of my recently-published blog post on Parent Co!
Even if you don’t have a baby, you may want to keep some homemade fruit purées on hand in your freezer. [Read more…]
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
It’s a fact of life that, when you have a little kid, relatives and friends will shower that kid with toys. It doesn’t matter how much you vow to live a minimalistic toy lifestyle. If you buy not a single toy for your child, you will still find yourself living in a toy store. You’ll have the huge toys, the tiny toys, the toys with a million parts, the fuzzy toys, the teething toys, and — my personal favorite — the noisy toys. If you’re not prepared to flee and let the toys run amok in your house, then you need storage solutions that work for you and for your kids. Here are some of my current favorites. [Read more…]
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
Ziploc bags are a godsend when it comes to babies and their stuff. Never much of a bagger pre-kids, I now boast a full assortment of Ziploc bag sizes in my cabinet — with extra boxes of them stored elsewhere in case I run out! These beautiful bags can truly keep you organized and sane when wrangling your baby’s essentials: [Read more…]
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
The new mom is faced with a dizzying array of “must-have” baby products. Before that first little guy or girl makes an appearance, you’ve likely accumulated mountains of baby swag — new stuff gifted to you, random secondhand stuff that everyone you know is happy to throw at you, and the stuff you buy on your own.
Here are seven things that I thought I needed (or that everyone else thought I did) before my son’s birth that are now off to a new life at Goodwill . . . [Read more…]
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
Baby products come with major sticker shock. Of the many hefty baby expenses out there, one that really adds up over time is baby food.
When my son started solid foods at four months of age, I was baffled by the fact that a minuscule jar of mashed bananas — on sale! — cost more than a full-sized banana from the produce department. For standard Gerber fare, my supermarket wanted to charge me, on a good day, $0.50 per portion of Stage 1 foods, $0.60 per portion of Stage 2 foods, and $0.75 per portion of Stage Stage 3 foods. The Beech-Nut foods usually hovered around twice that price!
There was no way I was willing tho shell out that much money for groceries when a simple solution would allow me to have high-quality baby food for so much less — making my own baby food. [Read more…]