My Crazy Life Gets Crazier...on Purpose!

You may remember that my grandson came to live with me on  April 1 of this year. My then 19-month-old grandson. To a home of adults who weren't expecting a little child to be in residence 24/7. We were all a little shell shocked to say the least.

Liam hugs our trees every day
during our evening playtime. 

Talk about a major life changing event for that sweet little boy and all of us, which includes my husband and two young adult sons in their early twenties. The dogs also were taken off guard by this tiny human who thinks that they are little horseys for his riding pleasure.

Here we are just about in mid-August and we all have settled in to a routine that includes locking every door in the house, always having company in the bathroom, and hoping for a good nap time.

Not content to leave things static, I have decided to complicate my life further by going back to college.

Yep, this grandmother (Gigi to be exact) is a college freshman (because my previous college was on semesters and the credits weren't acceptable to my new school). I took the assessment tests and passed all but the math with flying colors! Take that assessment tests!

I will be taking English Composition I and Intro to Speech this semester. I will also be working while going to school because we  have this habit of enjoying food, shelter, and clothing. ; )

I am working on a liberal arts degree, mainly because I am too much of a dilettante to buckle down to just one discipline. I will get to study English, history, French, and art and at the end I will be the proud owner of a Bachelor's Degree!

I am also working on moving my blog at some point to a self-hosted site. As I said, my crazy life is getting crazier on purpose.

I am striving to get back on a blog posting schedule but I am not making any promises. You may have to come see me on Facebook (Holly Williams Urbach) or Pinterest (whollyholly) to keep up with me.

Don't Give Up on Your Goals!

We are three weeks into the New Year and people are already getting tired of going to the gym, counting calories, budgeting, sticking to a routine, or any number of resolution related activities.

DON'T GIVE UP!

I get really tired, at times, of being vigilant with my eating and exercise. But then I remind myself of the results I obtained by not giving up. I lost 60 pounds! It didn't happen in one day. It happened as a result of many days of good decisions and efforts and by not beating myself up for a slip here and there.

Are you feeling frustrated with your weight loss/health improvement plan? Do you want to quit because it is too difficult? Perhaps reading the posts, Low-Cost or No-Cost Weight Loss Resources That Worked for Me, New Year, New You?  will encourage you. I have maintained this weight loss for 4 1/2 years now by sticking with my eating and exercising plans.

Just last night I had to remind myself that I wasn't really hungry at 11:00 p.m. so I made myself a cup of herbal tea instead of eating something. I sat down with the tea and an interesting book and relaxed. I got sleepy after about ten minutes and went to sleep. I should actually have gone to bed earlier because staying up too late is a prime cause of overeating. But, if I do stay up too late, I have a strategy to keep me on track.

Having this book as a
resource was like having
a personal coach at my
disposal!

Having a set of plans in place is the most important piece to achieving goals, in my opinion, because when faced with a difficulty, you already have the key to overcoming it. A 20/20 show I watched a few years ago stated that the reason people survive disasters such as plane crashes or fires in large public places is due to the information they acquired prior to the tragic event. In the case of a plane crash, survivors are usually those people who know how many rows they are from an exit and who pay attention to the safety briefing.

In meeting goals, knowing what some of the pitfalls that can happen and how you will deal with them in advance is as useful as knowing how many rows you are from the exit in a plane. This information will help you to survive.

I am currently working on improving the way I manage my income and outgo. It's two steps forward and one step back at times, but I am not giving up. I have already seen improvements because I am not quitting. This month I am going to pay my property tax in the month it is due and in full! I have not been successful at doing that in about eleven years due to a low income and poor management of that income in the past. I set myself some financial goals and I am seeing them come to fruition because I kept going instead of throwing in the towel.

I am planning to add quite a few of these to my bank account
this year! How are your financial goals doing? 

You owe it to yourself to keep going because you are worth it! You are deserving of the time and effort required to reach your goals.

If your family isn't supporting you in your goals, find some like-minded people who are also trying to achieve similar results. We will not change if we do not surround ourselves with positive, uplifting influences.

If you can't find people to be with, look for podcasts, Facebook groups, online classes, books, videos, television shows, Pinterest pages, or Twitter feeds on the area of your goal to inspire and educate you.

No excuses in 2014 is my motto! What is yours? What are your goals for 2014 and how will you achieve them? Let's help each other by continuing this conversation below in the comments section!

New Year, New You?

Unless you have been under a rock, you have noticed that a few moments after 2014 began, the barrage of weight loss commercials for diets, diet aids, gyms, and the like took over the air waves.

We were encouraged to eat tons of treats during the holidays; every women's magazine and every morning news shows rushed to share recipes for all sorts of foods. Then, one minute into 2014, they pull the rug out from under the partiers and start hitting them in the stomach and wallet.

Well, my friends, if you over-indulged during the holiday season or the past 20 years, don't go crazy and do something drastic to fix your problem. Be kind to yourself and formulate a plan.

I suggest that you begin with walking...consistently. When I decided I wanted to lose weight and reclaim myself in February 2009 , I started walking at a gym. At first, I just walked a mile and I walked it kind of slowly. But I did it and I did it three times a week. I didn't change my eating at first. So, I didn't lose weight at first either. But that was okay, because I was working on building a habit.

After a few weeks, I decided that I needed to kick it up a notch, so I tried running. I nearly keeled over after just 30 seconds of running. Seriously. No, really! It was embarrassing to be that out of shape.

The next day, I walked a mile, and ran for 30 seconds of that time. I was still about to keel over but each day when I went to the gym, I made sure to run for a bit of the time I was on the treadmill. I upped my running by 30 second increments and I also began to alternate walking with running (this is called doing intervals and it burns lots of calories). Eventually (it didn't take all that long) I could run a 5K on the treadmill in about 45 minutes. I know that isn't super fast but I am very, very short and I was running as fast as my little legs could do.

Within two months of beginning to work out, I had lost 15 pounds. By late 2009 I had lost 40 pounds using the principles in Bob Greene's book, Total Body Makeover, and doing interval training.

I have lost about 60 pounds altogether since that cold February day when I nervously stepped into a gym with a friend and her mother. I didn't buy a costly program and I didn't have a lot of support at home. I did pray and ask God to help me to change. If I wanted to eat something I knew would not help me in my goals, I would ask God to help me not to eat it. I would tell myself that I could that food the next day if I wanted to eat it.

I am not going to lie to you and say it was easy because it wasn't. It was a lot more emotional than I had expected. I realized that a lot of my over-eating had its roots in not dealing with my feelings and emotions. If I was annoyed with someone, instead of getting the problem resolved, I would just go to the refrigerator.

As I started to realize what I had been doing, I began to change the way I dealt with anger, disappointment, loneliness, and other emotions and emotionally charged situations. During the time I was working on my weight loss and myself, my mother got very sick with terminal cancer, went into hospice, and died. I was very vulnerable at this time to fall backwards on my weight loss journey, but I leaned heavily on God, threw myself into my work, and kept going.

If you want a new you this new year, you can do it! You just need to decide that you are worth all the work you will have to do physically, emotionally, and spiritually to see the change you want. If I did it and at the age of 45, anyone can do it!

Let me hear about you and your plans. I want to help. And you can help me to reach my goal of losing 10 more pounds. Let's succeed together!

Tighten Your Spending, Not Your Living

People who know me and later find out that we live on a very low income are amazed to discover this information. Some think that given our low income, we get some kind of government assistance such as unemployment or food stamps to make it. However, that is not the case for our family. Our philosophy is that we will trust God to provide what we need, and we will do the very best with can with the resources available to us.

Some of the resources we have are ourselves and our abilities. I love to learn new skills and I love to shop for bargains everywhere I go. Recently, our living room furniture's well loved look started to get to me. I decided to go to the thrift store to see if I could find something to use to freshen up the look of the couch and two side chairs. I don't have any funds for replacing the furniture at this time.

I had a coupon in my possession for the thrift store that would allow me to save $5.00 off a purchase of $15.00 or more. I went looking for a large bedspread to use as a couch cover, a nice piece of fabric to use to recover the living room chairs, and a fitted sheet to use to cover the seat cushions on the couch.

My living room is decorated in the colors mauve, forest green, cranberry, and white. I found a large mauve bedspread, a forest green queen-size fitted sheet, and a drapery panel in forest green that has a nice pattern in it. I also found a new Christmas tablecloth at the same time that has mauve colored poinsettias on a cranberry colored background. I spent around $17.00 for these items. Let me show you the before and after on the chairs.

I can't believe I let the chairs
look like this as long as I did!

 We had originally bought these chairs as part of a lot of twenty chairs for $40.00 at an auction. So, the chairs cost $2.00 each and we have had them for around seven years. This is the third time I have recovered these chairs. Each time, I look for inexpensive fabric at a thrift store. The drapery panel I bought cost $2.99, so I recovered each chair for $1.50 plus the cost of the staples in the staple gun, and my time to recover the chairs. I spent around 1 1/2 hours removing the old fabric and putting on the new fabric. I kept the contrasting fabric from the previous recovering job because I liked that look but I still have enough fabric to change it if I decide to do so later.

All freshened up for the new year!

We have to keep a tight grip on our spending so that we have as much of our income available as possible to pay the non-negotiable bills such as the house payment or electric bill. However, tightening up our spending doesn't mean we don't enjoy our lives. We do everything everyone else does; we just do it differently.

Case in point- I have been wanting a pair of warm, snuggly boots for quite a while, but I was unwilling to spend the money that would be required to buy such boots at a retail store. Every time I went into my favorite thrift store I made sure to look at the boots they had in stock. A week ago, I finally found exactly what I wanted in my size. The boots were only $4.00! The only issue with them that I had to resolve was to buy new laces. I bought an inexpensive pair for $1.97 because if I had bought the suede laces, I would have spent as much for them as I did on my boots. I may upgrade to the suede laces but for now I am quite happy with my boots and laces.

I told my husband that these boots have changed my life. I get
very cold in the winter and once my feet are cold, I can't get warm
for a long time. These boots keep my feet nice and toasty. I can
stay outside longer and more comfortably. I am one happy gal! 

Would it have been easier to go to the store and buy a pair of boots when I needed them? Maybe for some people it would have. For me and my family, when we have a need we know we have to be a bit patient to get that need filled. Would it have been easier to get new chairs rather than to find the fabric and make the time to recover the chairs? Again, for some people that answer would be yes. 

In our family, due to our restrictions, we have developed many useful abilities and attitudes. We are generally content with what we have, we have learned to do many things so that we can live within our means (cooking, baking, making simple repairs, doing simple maintenance around the house), we are grateful and appreciative of whatever we receive, and we help each other as much as we can. 

My younger daughter and her boyfriend recently brought us a microwave and coffee maker that they did not need. A roommate had left the microwave and they had gotten a Keurig so they didn't need a full size coffee maker any longer. 

I cleaned the microwave and improvised a foot to replace the two back feet that were missing. We had been without a microwave for nearly a year but I didn't want to spend money on a cheap model microwave and then have to spend again when I finally had the funds to get the over the stove model I really want, so I just did without. My daughter knew we didn't have one and rather than selling her extra one, she blessed us with it. My coffee maker had also died and again, I want a certain model of coffee maker so rather than buy a cheap one I decided to learn to make coffee without a coffee maker until I could get what I want. Here are a couple sites that I found helpful:

http://www.articlesbase.com/coffee-articles/how-to-make-coffee-without-a-coffee-maker-1967702.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ab_paid_12&gclid=CPPr69eR47sCFUho7Aod7lIAEA

http://www.ehow.com/how_4505550_brew-coffee-coffee-maker.html

If it had bothered me to be without these items, I would likely have gone to the thrift store to get them while saving for the nicer ones I ultimately want. I find that the thrift store allows me to have just about anything I need or want and still stay within my budget. 

Letting others know of items you need is also a useful way to tighten your spending but still get what you need. Lots of people have no longer needed items cluttering up their homes and would be happy to pass them on to someone who can make good use of these household goods or clothes. I belong to my local Freecycle (https://www.freecycle.org/) and have gotten lots of needed items for free as well as decluttering my home by passing on no longer needed things to others who need them.

Anyway, I hope you are getting the idea that there are a lot of ways to manage when money is tight and still enjoy your life. There will be more posted on this topic throughout the year and I hope to hear from you so I can learn more!

After Thanksgiving Course Correction

Thanksgiving dinner was so yummy this year. The turkey was moist and tasty. There were lots of vegetables to eat so I was able to make healthy food choices...until I started eating the gluten-free brownies my mother-in-law had made and the gluten-free dairy-free pumpkin pie! Then, fueled by the influence of sugar, I went CRAZY eating too many portions of these treats.

How did you do with your Thanksgiving eating? Did you eat mindfully or did you do what I did?

I have a habit of weighing myself daily so when I go off the skids, I can see pretty quickly the effect it has on my weight and I pull myself back into good behavior within a day or two.

After enjoying the tasty treasures and gaining a couple pounds I upped my activity levels and signed up for a new challenge on LoseIt! This challenge encourages the participants to walk at least 4,000 steps each day this December.

In years past, if I over-indulged and gained some weight, I would beat myself up with recriminations. Then I would feel worse and eat badly. Now if I go on a food bender, I just resume my healthy eating habits, work out a bit more for a week or two, and get back to my "fighting" weight. I don't get too crazed about it.

These little off course events happen less and less often the longer I have been on the healthier path that I began in 2009. I have built up many good habits that keep me out of temptation.

I usually carry appropriate foods with me when I leave the house each day, including at least 16 ounces of water. I have at least an apple with me to help stave off hunger pangs until I can get home to eat something nutritious. I also exercise at least three days a week and usually work out five days a week.

It is hard to get too far off course sticking to good habits consistently.

What do you do if you get off course in your eating or exercising?

More Ways to Earn by Not Spending

Yesterday I posted ten ways to earn money by not spending it. My savvy friend Melody also posted ten ways she earns money by not spending it. She and I are very similar in many ways and are constantly sharing ideas for saving and earning money with each other.

After publishing yesterday's post, some additional things I do to keep money in my budget came to mind so I thought I would share those before I get too busy.

My grandmother used to quote the following saying to me, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." This has been a guiding philosophy for me pretty much my whole life.

7 More Ways to Earn by Not Spending

1. Don't replace anything before it is necessary. Don't be a compulsive up grader. If your computer, couch, shoes, etc. are still in good, usable condition then continue using them. Keeping up with the Joneses is expensive! They are most likely broke and living on credit cards anyway!

2. Give careful consideration to where you decide to live. My husband and I purchased 3/4 of an acre and set up a large mobile home on it outside of the city limits of our small town. Our property taxes are under $1,000.00 per year. Our utilities are much lower than those of my friends who live in the city limits of our town. My home isn't increasing in value but I also don't have the large house payment many folks I know do and I can improve my basic home to be whatever I would like it to be as time goes on.

3. Find a beauty school in your area and use its services. Beauty schools offer hair cuts, colors, permanents, highlights, facials, manicures, and other services for a fraction of regular beauty salons. The students are supervised by qualified instructors. I have been very satisfied by the services I have received at the beauty school nearest to me.

4. Learn to bake and decorate birthday cakes for your family. Many craft supply stores host cake decorating classes for a nominal fee which often includes cake decorating supplies and discounts for the purchase of additional cake decorating supplies. My children loved the theme cakes I made for them when they were young and I loved the savings over bakery purchased cakes.

5. Buy a haircut kit and learn to cut your family's hair. Developing hair cutting skills saved us hundreds of dollars over the years I was raising my five children.

6. Learn to groom your pets. We acquired a darling little Shih Tzu a year ago who requires regular trims. I didn't realize until we got him how expensive having a dog groomed can be so I am learning to groom him myself.

Watson taking a break from being groomed. You may notice his name tag doesn't say Watson. He needs a new name tag because the one he is wearing has his previous name on it. 

7. Get your pets vaccinated at local vaccination drives held by various organizations. Pet vaccines from your vet are much more expensive than those at these vaccine clinics. Our local grocery store hosts a pet vaccine clinic at least every other month.



I hadn't realized that these ideas and the ones I shared in yesterday's post are not commonly done until my youngest son relayed a conversation he had with someone awhile ago. In the conversation, my son shared how we exist on a very low income. The person with whom he was speaking was incredulous at hearing that our family lived on under $25,000/year for quite a while. People have lost the ability to do many things for themselves and don't even realize that they CAN do the things they pay others to do.

People have been conditioned by the media and the government to think that a certain income means a certain lifestyle. While it is true that the problem for some folks is that they have a low income, for many others the problem is that they need to learn to use their income more wisely. I would rather enjoy my life on a lower income than to work all the time to earn more money and not have time to enjoy my life.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and related topics!

Ten Ways to Earn Money by Not Spending

So many times I read an article that tells me how to "save" money by doing this activity or that activity. Unless I actually save that money somewhere, what I did was to earn it back by not spending. When my budget is tight, every dollar I don't spend in one area is freed up for me to spend in another.

Here are my top ten ways to "earn" money to spend elsewhere-

1. Plan meals from what I have on hand instead of going to the store. Most of us have plenty of food in our homes that we can use to create meals but we get too tired or lazy to make an effort to use what is on hand and we run to the store for something easy to feed our families. Need help with meal planning? There are lots of places online where you can put in the ingredients you have and get meal suggestions. I like this one quite a bit from Kraft Foods http://www.kraftrecipes.com/home.aspx.

2. Check out movies from the library instead of renting from Netflix, Blockbuster, or Redbox. I recently terminated my Netflix account that was costing me $12.00 a month. Instead of renting movies for a monthly fee, I take advantage of the large collection of DVDs my library stocks for FREE. I now have $60.00 per year more in my budget to use elsewhere.

3. Trade no longer needed items with a friend. I have a wonderful friend who wears the same size clothing as I do. We often pass on our no longer needed items to each other. I have quite a few articles of clothing in my closet that she gave to me. The money I didn't have to spend on clothes was able to be used in other areas of my budget, like utility bills.

4. Go to sleep earlier. There are many studies that show the later we stay up, the more likely we are to overeat and have a myriad of health problems. Being overweight can lead to expensive doctor visits. Money not spent overeating and/or visiting the doctor is money that can be used more enjoyably and profitably.

5. Learn hobbies that can generate or save money. Some people have hobbies that take money out of the family budget like going for manicures or collecting expensive trinkets. My family cannot afford those kind of hobbies. My husband likes to garden, a hobby that has fed us with healthful, tasty food. This past spring, he got paid to install raised bed gardens for other people so his hobby has now generated money for our family. I enjoy writing and have sold articles to various publications; another example of a hobby that generates money.

6. Learn to launder and iron your clothing. One of the first skills I taught my children (daughters and sons alike!) was how to wash, dry, and iron their clothing. Folks who take their clothes to the dry cleaners just for simple washing and ironing amaze me! I also avoid purchasing or acquiring clothing that requires dry cleaning. I just don't have money in my budget to expend in this way. Most washing machines tell you how to sort clothing and wash it so even if your mom didn't teach you this skill, you have no excuse for not learning.

7. Take proper care of your possessions. Everything we own lasts longer if we take good care of it. Clothes last longer if stains and sweat are not allowed to linger on the fabric. Furniture lasts longer if not misused. Cars last longer if we maintain them regularly. We can often get extra months and years out of our possessions just by being good stewards over them.

8. Terminate your gym membership and work out at home. I found several exercise programs on one of my local PBS stations and began doing them instead of going to the gym. Not only do I save (earn!) money by not having to pay a gym membership, I also save money by not having an additional driving trip. My favorite workouts are Classical Stretch (http://www.classicalstretch.com/) and Wai Lana Yoga (http://www.wailana.com/), and Functional Fitness (http://healthwiseexercise.com/). I have worked out consistently for a year with these shows and I feel great!

9. Use your library regularly. Being a regular library patron has improved my financial life in many ways. My library offers free wi-fi, which gives me all the advantages of going to Starbucks without the expense. Our library even allows us to consume food and drink in the lobby area. There are lots of tables and chairs where we can sit with our laptop computers and work. My library offers many classes for free: fitness classes, computer classes, foreign language classes, and more. The library has a summer reading program for children and adults that allows participants to enter to win prizes for turning in reading logs. One year, my youngest son won a 4 pack of tickets to a local water park! I have already mentioned borrowing DVDs from the library which is a savings, but how about reading the latest books, borrowing music CDs, and getting free downloads?

10. Scrap your magazine subscriptions and read blogs! Especially mine and my friend Melody's blog. Melody's blog is called Quirky Cottage and it is informative, delightful, and inspiring. Check her out at http://myquirkycottage.blogspot.com/.

I hope you find these ideas useful and helpful in making your money stretch in these challenging economic times. What do you do to "earn" money back from your budget?

Stretching Everything!

Was chatting via text with a dear friend who lives far away from me so we have to catch up as we can. She shared that life is really stretching her as she has started several new businesses recently.

I also have been going through the stretching process. I have been working for quite a variety of people doing quite a variety of tasks through TaskRabbit (www.taskrabbit.com). I am never sure how much work I am going to be able to obtain so when jobs are available I take them. One day earlier this month found me working for over 8 hours cleaning two different places. I realized exactly how the phrase "I worked my a** off" originated! My booty felt like it was going to fall off from all that squatting down to scrub things.

I have had to stretch our income because in the summer I have less earnings and in the winter, my husband has less earnings. Hmm, that is two out of four seasons where we are earning less income! You are probably thinking that something should be done about that. I agree, which is why today I was stretching in a new area.

I applied to be an Amazon Associate so that I can earn additional income for me and my family. Now I have to figure out how to get the thing up and running on my blog, which is stretching my limited tech abilities. ; )

I have been doing Classical Stretch most weekday mornings (http://www.classicalstretch.com/) so I am stretching my body and making it stronger. Another division of this exercise is called Essentrics (http://www.essentrics.com/). I am contemplating becoming an instructor. Stay tuned!

So far being fifty is all about expanding and stretching in many areas of my life. What is stretching you these days? I so enjoy reader comments so please take time to share!

Stop Learning, Stop Growing

I am wrapping up a very busy weekend. I took on a new challenge in the midst of an already overbooked life. If I waited until the timing was perfect to add anything to my life, I would never have had my children, or ever tried much of anything.

I LOVE learning new skills and information. I seriously do. When things change-roads, hairstyles, technology, I am usually intrigued by the change instead of bothered.

About four years ago, I was showing a picture of a car driven by a joystick to my youngest daughter, who was about 17 or 18 at the time. She had a very visceral reaction to seeing this photo and was not at all interested in even attempting to think how she could drive a car with a joystick. I, on the other hand, started thinking about how it would be done as soon as I saw the picture.

This is a short post today because I still have to go to the grocery store to get provisions for tomorrow and it is nearly 10 p.m. here.

I just want to encourage you to keep learning, look forward to change, and embrace the possibilities that change brings.