How to Lower Your Monthly Bills

Chances are you pay bills every month, whether you like it or not. Bills are a part of life, and probably the main reason people go to work every day. They can pile up quickly and be quite overwhelming at times. Fortunately there are some things you can do to help lower the amount of money you pay for your monthly bills. These things are definitely worth looking into when you have a minute. 

Heating/Cooling 
There are quite a few ways you can save money on your heating and cooling costs. One thing you can do is make sure your home is well sealed, that way air cannot escape through gaps and cracks. This will keep your home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and also reduce your heating and cooling bills by up to 20 percent. Maintaining your furnace and water heater can also help to reduce your monthly heating and cooling bills. If either are not functioning properly you can end up paying way more than you should on your bills. You can also install a hot water heater blanket and lower the temperature on your water heater. Lowering the temperature will reduce heating costs, and a water heater blanket will help to keep the water warmer longer. Using a programmable thermostat can also help you lower your monthly heating and cooling bills, because your furnace or air conditioner will not be running at unnecessary times. 

Electricity 
You can lower the amount of money you pay for electricity each month by doing some simple things. First, you should install compact-fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs. Switching to CFLs will save you significant money on your electric bill, as they use up to 90 percent less electricity than normal incandescent bulbs. They also have a much longer lifespan than incandescent bulbs, meaning fewer replacements each year. Another thing you can do to reduce electricity costs is unplug all appliances and electronics that are not in use. Even if they are not running, a small amount of electricity is still being used. Although this amount of electricity is small, it still costs you money. 

Cable/Internet Service 
If you subscribe to cable and/or internet service, you know it can cost you quite a bit of money each month. Luckily there are a few things you can do to help lower your monthly cable and internet bills. One thing you can do is talk to your service provider to see if they offer any package deals. Packages are great because you pay one price for both services. Another thing you can do is consider the channels you subscribe to. Are you paying for channels you never watch? If so, think about eliminating those channels. Cutting channels will reduce the amount you pay on your bill each month. Also, there are many websites that let you compare rates from different cable and internet companies in your area. This allows you to consider your options before deciding on and purchasing service. 

Groceries 
Groceries are a very large, but necessary expense each month. You and your family need food, so groceries are a must. The best thing to do it to avoid eating out. To help lower the amount you pay for your grocery bill each month, you can do some simple things. First of all, consider clipping coupons. Coupons can save you a great deal of money each month on things you would normally purchase. Plus, if you watch different supermarket advertisements, and match the sale items with the coupons you have, you can save even more. There are also many websites that provide coupons. You can print out coupons just as would clip them. Some of these websites also offer money-saving tips you can use at the supermarket. Another way to lower your monthly grocery bill is to grow a garden. Not only will you be saving money, but you will have delicious, fresh fruits and vegetables to show for it. Shopping at warehouse-type clubs and buying food in bulk are also great ways to save money on groceries each month.


Insurance
The best thing you can do to save money here is to shop around! Auto and home insurers are not all equal, so my suggestion is to ask a bunch of car insurance companies and home insurance companies awhat their rate is for you and go with the cheapest one! Sure, you'll get a discount from your current company by sticking around longer, but why stick around if someone else is offering a cheaper rate?

Even though bills are a major part of life, it is nice to know there are certain ways to lower the amount of money you pay for them. When you begin to see the savings on your bills, you will be glad you took the time to look into these things.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer. Karen writes about internet service for Internetserviceproviders.org.

Naturally Knocked Up eCourse

Make it Yourself Monday will be back next week. I've been too busy to write this important post up so I'm taking my MIYM time instead.

Those of you who know me IRL (in real life) know that one of my biggest passions (I'd say in the top 3 - right up there with God and food) is family. My own family is immeasurably important of course, but I hope we can all say that. When I say family, I mean specifically the creation of families. I feel passionately, heart-stoppingly, sometimes ridiculously captivated by the events that bring people together as family.

I love engagements, I cry at every wedding, adoption stories - forgettaboutitimallmush, positive pregnancy tests make me literally jump for joy, the birth of new babies has to be the single most beautiful thing next to God's mercy that we can experience on this planet.

My soul aches for families that long for the joy of children and suffer the disappointed of being unable to conceive or the heartbreak of losing a child. I can only imagine the kind of pain these families go through. Standing alongside friends who have miscarried and dealt with infertility makes me even more passionate about the beauty and blessing of family.

The Naturally Knocked Up eCourse is a new resource for couples (and even singles!) who want to prepare themselves for bringing healthy children into the world, overcome infertility, deal with hormonal issues, or just educate themselves about the way food and our environment affects conception and pregnancy.

Donielle from Naturally Knocked Up experienced irregular cycles for years and was finally diagnosed with PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome). After lots of research and lifestyle changes, she's now a mommy of 2 and an inspiring blogger. Her always educated and encouraging posts are a wealth of information in and of themselves. This eCourse is all of her hard work in a concentrated format.

Here are a few things she has to say about the course, you can read the full description here.

"Over the last century or so, our health has radically changed. We’re suffering from chronic and degenerative diseases and becoming infertile at alarming rates. Our modern world is making us sick and most us us just don’t know what to do about it. So much of our traditional thinking of conception has changed. The world we live in is flooded with toxins from both the food we eat and the homes we live in. We no longer know what “real food” looks like. Infertility automatically means medicalizing conception.

It’s time to become empowered and reclaim your natural fertility and

have truly healthy babies.

This one-of-a-kind 12 week multi media course will be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise depressing world of unfortunate statistics. With these classes you will learn:

• How to cleanse your body of toxins
• Why common products you use may be contributing to your infertility
• What exercises can help you prepare your body for conception and pregnancy
• How to pin point ovulation
• What to eat…..and what not to eat
• Alternative treatments for infertility

But most importantly you will learn how to conceive and go on to have a healthy pregnancy and a truly healthy baby!

Not only will you receive 12 weeks of educational materials (workbook style lessons, videos, and more!) during this class, you'll have access to Donielle and your "classmates" through a members only forum that already has a growing community! The forum is a big part of the reason Donielle is offering an eCourse instead of writing a book at this time - you'll be able to go beyond even what is written because of your ability to interact.

In exchange for being an affiliate (I'll earn a commission from any purchase made through my affiliate links), I gained access to the first week of the course. I consider myself "well-researched" in this area, and I learned quite a few new things from just 1 week of materials! You will get lifetime access to these materials with your purchase so that you can take your time if this is all new to you.

Classes officially begin today but enrollment is open until this Friday, the 16th.

I hope you will take the time to read more about this eCourse and consider signing up or purchasing the course for a loved one.

I have a list of other E-courses, e-books, and great web resources for making the switch to real food here.

Be Prepared

I am thankful that in this country (especially the part that I live in) the likelihood of a devastating drought, epidemic, or other natural disaster is minimal. Still, we can't know what tomorrow brings (job loss is certainly a current reality!) and we have two little ones to protect.

While our food storage is nothing compared to many others, we've made a point of investing in goods that can be stored without refrigeration and prepared without electricity. We also have the means to purify water if need be.

I reviewed the Preparedness Pantry site and food storage analyzer a while back and this week snapped a shot of our recent order so that you can see that we do in fact use them. Their customer service is great. The order pictured below was of 3 cans of freeze dried spinach, 1lb of yeast, and a portable washer (for clothes - stinkin' cool!).

I thought I'd take a minute to type up a list of the food we have on hand specifically for an emergency. There are a few other dry goods that have been opened here and there (like 1/2 a box of spaghetti noodles, beef bouillon, various flours), but I'm not counting them.

Grains/Nuts
10lbs whole wheat flour
5lbs rolled oats
5lbs brown rice
5lbs pinto beans
5lbs black beans
3lbs garbanzo beans
5lbs raw almonds

Fruits/Veggies
3 cans freeze-dried spinach
3lbs dried cranberries

Other
54ozs coconut oil
1lb yeast
1lb salt
1 quart honey
1 (40oz) can blueberry granola from Mountain House
22 servings of freeze dried entrees from Mountain House

There are 4 of us in our family, but our littlest will still be exclusively breastfed for a while, so I'd guess these supplies would last us about 3 weeks if we used them moderately, a month if we used them sparingly.

Over the next few months I plan to re-stock our supply of ghee as well as purchase more beans/nuts/seeds. I'm also excited to be learning/teaching myself how to preserve foods through lacto-fermentation and hope to put some fresh produce away.

Do you have food storage? Have you been thinking about stocking up?

The LDS church is a great resource because their leaders encourage them to be self-reliant and prepared for adversity. Here's a list of LDS sites that discuss emergency preparedness.

Here are a few other resources to check out:
Healthy Harvest
All About Food Storage

Are Canned Foods Necessary For Emergencies?

Long Term REAL Food Storage

Real Food Resources

What do I mean by "real" food? Food that has not been altered much, if at all, from its natural state. Food that hasn't undergone extensive processing. "Traditional" foods from around the world. Basically, not Hambuger Helper from a box, Fruit Loops, or frozen fish sticks.

When the latter is what you've been raised on (the majority of us have!), it's difficult to know where to start when yo want to make a change. I've been moving toward more healthful foods for 6 years and I am still light years behind many others.

These are the things that have helped me. I hope they encourage and educate you as well.

Books and Movies:

Eat From Your Pantry's Amazon Store

e-books*:

Best of Nourished Kitchen

Get Cultured (Free!)

Healthy Homemaking: One Step at a Time

Healthy Snacks to Go - Kitchen Stewardship

Real Food Ingredient Guide

Real Food Nutrition and Health

Real Food on a Real Budget

Blogs:

Cheese Slave

Food Renegade

GNOWFGLINS

Heath, Home, and Happiness

Keeper of the Home

Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Kitchen Stewardship

Naturally Knocked Up

Nourished Kitchen

The Nourishing Gourmet

e-courses:

GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals e-course

How to Cook Real Food - Nourished Kitchen

A Peasants Feast: Nourishing Food on a Budget - The Nourishing Gourmet

Kelly the Kitchen Kop will start hers at the end of this Summer

Naturally Knocked Up

Individual articles/posts/pages I've found helpful:

Where to Start on a Real Food Journey - Naturally Knocked Up

Budget Tips - Nourished Kitchen

Resources for Sustainable Eating

Posts on this blog:

Think Outside the Grocer: 8 Alternative Food Sources

Simple Swaps for a Healthier Pantry

My Husband Won't Eat Leftovers!

When Organic Matters

Make it Yourself Mondays

This post is linked to Real Food Wednesdays.

*Some of these links are affiliate links and I will earn commission if you make a purchase.

Pantry Resource: Still Tasty

Want to know when your stored food will go bad? There's an app for that. :)

There's a website, too! Still Tasty offers both, actually!

Thought I'd pass along this useful resource. It is the self-proclaimed "Ultimate Shelf-life Guide" and includes information on hundreds of different foods. You may have a hard time getting info on foods the average American won't have on hand (no ghee or coconut oil!), but the information they do have is very organized and easy to sort through.

Still Tasty gathers its information from food manufacturers, as well as the USDA, FDA, and CDC. Nice to see a site that compiles them all! You can search by food or browse by category, and there is a section for getting your individual questions answered, as well as a few good articles to check out.

Also, I was serious about the app! They now have an iPhone app that will even alert you when your food expires!

You can find more Pantry Resources any time over in the Navigation section of the left sidebar.

Think Outside the Grocer: 8 Alternative Food Sources

I do most of my shopping at a single grocery store. I know ladies who deal hop and utilize every coupon match-up in their area, but my time is more valuable than those deals right now. I *do* take advantage of several other means of acquiring food for our family however. Here are some ideas for you:

1. Farmers Markets - Just about every large city, and most big suburbs, have a farmer's market during the summer months. Some are open year round! Not only is this a great way to support local agriculture and eat fresh seasonal foods, you can often find great deals. This is especially true if you form relationships with the vendors at your market and arrange to purchase items in bulk. Find farmers markets in your area at Local Harvest.

2. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farms - CSA's are a way for consumers to be more connected with where their food comes from, and for farmers to offset some of the risk of running a small-scale farm by selling "shares" of produce and sometimes meat and dairy upfront at the beginning of the growing season. Requirement vary from farm to farm. Some would like for their share-holders to come out and help harvest one weekend a month or once in a season. Others have no requirements other than the cost of the subscription. Some farms deliver their goods, others have you come out and pick your food up once a week or month, and quite a few coordinate with your local farmers market to let you pick your share up there. We ordered from a CSA this last season and very much enjoyed the experience! Buying partial shares is often an option for a smaller family or a family that is on a tight budget. Local Harvest can help you locate a CSA as well, and if you are in the Kansas City area, check out The Kansas City CSA Coalition.

3. Co-ops and Food Buying Clubs - These can be as informal as a group of friends getting together to buy certain items in bulk to get a discount, or they can be huge organized buying clubs with long waiting lists to join. We've just recently had our first experience with a food co-op through a friend who let us go in on an order with her. The particular co-op she is in is one with a waiting list. Co-ops do not generally make a profit for themselves and are usually member-owned. Some cities have co-op grocery stores and others just have drop-off/pick up locations. To find out more about co-ops, visit The Co-op Directory, Local Harvest, or Green People. You may also want to try this buying club resource.

4. Grow or raise your own - Start a garden in your backyard, on your deck, in pots in a sunny kitchen, etc. If you are an organized, social person, consider starting a community garden! Also, many cities allow chicken coops even in urban neighborhoods, check out the specific laws for your area at The City Chicken.

5. Make friends with neighbors - If you notice that there are tomato plants sagging over with the weight of their fruit in the back yard next to you - offer to buy some off of them. Most people are happy to have someone to share with. Making friends with the people nearest you is a good idea for many many reasons, but food sharing is a huge benefit. You may even meet someone who is willing to switch off cooking nights with you and your family!

6. Membership Warehouses - Stores like SAMS and Costco can save large families quite a bit of money. We have visited a SAMS with friends and found that we don't use much of what they regularly offer. Another friend has recently told me that Costco offers big bags of organic produce (specifically carrots and green beans) for a great price. If there are just a few items that you think you'd purchase, ask around to see if any friends would mind picking them up for you once in a while. Think about a service you can offer them (watching their kids while they shop) to help offset the cost of membership.

7. Angel Food - I've blogged about Angel Food Ministries in detail before. They are worth checking out if you are in a bind for food money or know someone who is that you can bless. Angel Food is a non-profit organization that offers boxes of food monthly at a discounted price. A signature box is $30 and comes with a balanced variety of items like the ones shown below:

Find a host site near you and consider setting up a host site if there isn't already one in place!

8. The internet - There are many legitimate ways to buy (and save on) food online. Amazon.com is a popular site for buying just about anything you can think of, and they often have specialty items that are hard to find elsewhere. Nourished Kitchen has a great list of places to purchase real food.

Misc: Check out the Eat Well Guide for restaurants, stores, and other sources of good food near you, and visit Eat Wild to find free-range/pastured/grass-fed meat and poultry in your area

Living With Less

Other bloggers have hit on this subject a lot recently and I thought I'd pass along some of the great info out there. I hope that you find encouragement from these if you have found yourself wanting (or needing) to be serious about being a good steward of what you have and living without what you don't.

Blog Posts:

How Buying Less Can Set You Free - Money Saving Mom

Eat From the Pantry Every Day for the Rest of Your Life! - Life As Mom

Superman Syndrome: Money and Self Esteem - The Simple Dollar

Free E-Book:

Thriving On Less

Books*:

More With Less Cookbook

America's Cheapest Family

Miserly Moms

$5 Dinners

1/2 Price Living

The Frugal Foodie Cookbook

*These are Amazon Affiliate links.

Other:

Bible Verses About Money - Christian Personal Finance

Pantry Resource: Food Storage Analyzer

In my recent post, What Does "Pantry" Mean to You? I mentioned that some people choose to emphasize emergency preparedness when stocking their pantry. Lots of people make an emergency fund a non-negotiable goal for their family and some see emergency food storage as a natural extension of that. I read an article recently that described emergency food as the investment you can eat.

As we are coming off of the Eat From the Pantry Challenge and starting to stock up again, our family is thinking about ways to be a bit more systematic about the non-perishable food we choose to store. For us, having items on hand to improvise with is super important, but with the economy still a little shaky, we realize that it's not a bad idea to have a store of ingredients that will make complete meals if we should find ourselves in need. It is also very important to us that we are able to bless others with what we have if *they* should need it. Read what Preparedness Pantry has to say about the Wisdom of Food Storage.

There's an abundance of great material online about emergency preparedness, so I won't take the time to try and lay out the various ways to go about storing emergency food (and really, we're still hashing that out for our family - we've recently purchased a few Mountain House meals and some bulk grains, beans, rice, and coconut oil), but I would like to share a neat tool that might help get you started. The Food Storage Analyzer from Preparedness Pantry.

From the website:

"The Analyzer allows you to calculate the estimated length of time your food storage will last based on age, gender and number of people (according to USRDA guidelines). It also includes current nutrition levels in your food supply, as well as helps you understand how to balance the nutrition with future additions."

Register to add custom details like number and ages of people in the household, or hit the button that says "Try it Out" to avoid giving any personal information and calculate your food storage for one person. Your settings and information will not be saved unless you register and login.

Here are the Food Storage Analyzer instructions if you'd like to review them and see examples before you try the calculator out yourself.

This analyzer works best when you purchase emergency food from Preparedness Pantry and others that sell dehydrated, freeze-dried, and just-add-water meals. All nutritional information is auto-filled when the item is recognized by the calculator. It is completely customizable though and you can add in any type of food you wish as long as you are willing to enter in the details yourself. The calculations are easy to print for your records.

Not only is this a great tool for inventorying your pantry, it allows you to search for foods with specific nutrients that you may realize you are missing as you record what you have. If you would like to purchase that extra food from Preparedness Pantry, the process is streamlined and easy! There is a column that says "Intended to Purchase from Preparedness Pantry" to fill in with a quantity, when you are finished with your calculations, it's easy to click the red button at the bottom that says "Purchase," and wait for the food to arrive on your door step!

Good news is, if you would like to try some of Preparedness Pantry's food, there are currently several promotions listed in the left sidebar that will earn you free gift cards! I am earning a $10 gift card for writing this review.

The Frugal Map

I'm excited about this new and useful tool from Bargain Briana! The Frugal Map lets you search for frugal blogs by location, category, or store (for coupon match ups and deals for instance). I can imagine this would be awesome to be able to use if you knew you would be spending a significant amount of time in a particular city on vacation and wanted to be able to take advantage of free things happening in that area, or if a new store opens near you and you want to become familiar with its deals and promotions. And of course you can never have too many frugal blogs in your RSS feeds, right? ;)

From The Frugal Map website:

The Frugal Map has some unique features:

• Frugal Map Function: Allows users to find a blogger near their location in an interactive map format.
• Search Function: Allows users to search multiple blogs across the Frugal Map Network.
• Hottest Deal RSS Feed: Gives users the most recent hot deals from the bloggers in the Frugal Map Network.
• Specific Store Landing Pages: Allows users a one stop resource for for store deals including blogger store deal links, resources, and FAQ for the particular store.
• Specific Blogger Landing Pages: Allows users to read more about their favorite blogs and connect with them via Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and specific store deal links.
• Embeddable iFrame: Embed The Frugal Map on your blog as a resource for your readers.
  

Try it out! And click over to the site to read more about the grand opening and a great giveaway!

The Frugal Map | ©BargainBriana.com | Designed by 4unate Design | Submit Your Blog

Coupon Resources

An essential part of making the most of shopping to stock our pantry is using coupons. There are numerous blogs dedicated to helping you utilize paper coupons and save at specific stores. I don't get a newspaper so I use online coupons almost exclusively. Thought I'd take time today to pass along some of my favorite resources:

Couponing 101

Shopping With Coupons: A Beginners Guide to Saving - from Mommy Snacks

Basic Couponing 101 - from Family, Stamping and Food

Coupons:

Coupons.com

Cool Savings

Red Plum

Upromise Coupons

Printable Coupon Database (thanks Allison!)

Organic/Natural:

Organic Grocery Deals Forum

Mambosprouts

Health e Savers

Whole Foods

Blogs:

MommiesWithCents

Freebies4Mom

MoneySavingMom

Coupon Geek
Organic Deals and Coupons

And be sure to check the websites of your favorite companies/brands for their coupons and other promotions.

What Does "Pantry" Mean To You?

Here is the pantry here at Hillcrest (if you are new, read more about the organization I work for in this post or by clicking the Hillcrest label over to the left):

So sometimes when I think about pantry food, I think about less than healthy, but very shelf-stable food.

And then there's the pantry of the family we got our CSA produce from this last summer:

A whole different monster!!!

As for us, we don't really have a space set aside for our pantry. You may not either. I've generally blogged about food that can be made with non-perishable or semi-perishable foods and I think that is a good place to start. I love this list of Food Essentials from one of my favorite bloggers, the Leftover Queen.

However, frozen food is also practically non-perishable, so your pantry may extend to your freezer. Or do you have a cellar? Everyone's pantry looks different. I hope for all of you this year that the common theme between all of our pantries is that they are well stocked. :) Here are a few more resources for you as you look to maintain your pantry and provide for your family from what you have on hand.

Kitchen Stewardship (specifically her very timely post on storing fresh food)

Sustainable Pantry Blog (She's where I'd like to be someday)

Once a Month Mom (learn about cooking once a month to save time and money)

Living on a Dime (awesome website from the author of one of my most-frequently used cookbooks)

Preparedness Pantry (yet another kind of pantry - emergency preparedness)

$5 Dinners

And to navigate around the posts on this blog for resources, click the links to the left under "Quick Navigation" or browse through the labels further down.

Cookbooks:

The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook

More-With-Less Cookbook

Dining on a Dime

From Pantry to Table

***Right now the Dining on a Dime e-book is on sale for 70% off PLUS 5 bonuses:

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