How I saved money and food with carrot muffins

I've been so scattered lately! Today, however, I decided to recommit to my savings plan and to getting debt free.

You see, I was standing in front of the open fridge, about to throw away half a bag of perfectly fine shredded carrots. The only thing wrong with the carrots was that I paid to much by buying them pre-shredded instead of buying loose, bulk carrots and shredding them myself. So, picture me standing there, 1/2 full bag of shredded carrots in hand, when it suddenly occurred to me that I was about to put my hard earned money in the trash. I paid for those carrots, and I was going to throw away half of them? Really? That seemed rather counter to my financial goals. I decided to do something about it.

I had already made a full batch of lemon muffins for my son and had been craving something a little less sweet for myself. I've also been trying to come up with healthier snacks for work than whatever happens to be available at the cafeteria where I work (mostly junk food or really expensive salads). Why not use these shredded carrots to make muffins?

Savings #1: I found a use for perfectly good, leftover food (I don't even remember what I bought them for originally).

My son, however, already had a full batch of lemon muffins to keep his tummy full and satisfied. He also doesn't like carrot muffins. I can't eat a full batch before half go bad. I don't like the texture of frozen then thawed muffins. This led to...

Savings #2: Cut the recipe in half to make a smaller batch that I know I'll eat without any going to waste.

Halving a muffin recipe can be tricky if you aren't really precise and my batter was extremely dry and thick. I added a bit more egg, coconut oil (instead of butter or margarine), coconut milk yogurt (because I'm allergic to regular dairy), and some rice milk until the batter seemed about the right consistency for muffins. However, now I had a problem - leftover wet ingredients and leftover shredded carrots. I only need 1/2 the carrot shreds and since I mixed the wet ingredients separately, I was guestimating and only used 1/3 of what I threw together. This led to...

Savings #3: Use my freezer. I may not like the texture of frozen and thawed muffins, but I don't mind if the ingredients are frozen and thawed. I decided to put the extra carrot shreds and wet ingredients in freezable containers for use another time.

The muffins turned out perfectly! I used this recipe, but as mentioned above, tweaked the ingredients quite a bit since I halved the recipe and had to make adjustments and also due to a dairy allergy. The recipe, after halving it made eight muffins. I've already eaten three! I ate one right away and took another two to work in my lunch which also prompted me to...

Savings #4: Pack my own lunch for work. This should be a no-brainer, but I often forget or choose to get a little extra sleep when I wake up in the morning. Maybe if I make myself more yummy goodies like these muffins I'll be more inclined to take my lunch to work more often!

Seems simple and obvious, but how often do you throw out perfectly good food rather than finding a use for it? I know I do it far too often. My goal this month is to waste as little food as possible and save money along the way!

Extra income with online data entry - one company that is real

After having been broke for far too long, but also having to balance being a single parent with earning an income, I have spent a lot of time coming up with creative income generating ideas. One of these was to investigate at home data entry. There a lot of scams out there — a lot! After reading through numerous work at home mom websites and reviews of various at home data entry companies, I happened upon Key For Cash which has since changed its name to Virtual Bee.

I’ve been doing data entry for Virtual Bee for a few years now, and while I’m not getting rich from it, I do earn enough to pay for most of the gas I use every month. Some months are better than others with Virtual Bee, but I usually earn a minimum of $60 per month. Sometimes, however, particularly from late February through the end of April, I am able to earn $60 per week with Virtual Bee. 

Personalized Money Clip from Bee Baubles Jewelry on Etsy

 The positives of online data entry with Virtual Bee

• You can do it from home — You just need your computer and an internet connection
• You can do it at any time of day, any day of the week — Mornings offer the most opportunities, however. Weekends offer the least.
• You make your own hours — Some work at home jobs require you to keep regular hours. With Virtual Bee, you work whatever hours suit your needs.
• You aren’t penalized if you don’t work — If you need to take a break from Virtual Bee, it’s not a big deal. You won’t be penalized for not being productive. You can log in to work whenever you need to or want to.
• If you’re fast and accurate you’ll earn more — The faster you type and the fewer mistakes you make, the more you’ll earn. One nice thing about Virtual Bee is they don’t care about capital letters — If the snippet to be keyed has capital letters, you don’t have to bother with hitting shift or caps lock. Just key the letter. This saves you some key strokes.
• There are several types of data to work with — If you are great with 10-key data entry, you can focus on those types of snippets. If you prefer only alphabetical entries, focus on those. If you like a mix, choose alphanumeric. I typically focus on numeric, dollars only, dollars and cents, or checkboxes data entry, although I also occasionally do alphanumeric and letters only snippets.

The negatives of online data entry with Virtual Bee

• It isn’t consistent — There are dry spells periodically. Sometimes there will be days and days with very little work. Sometimes there will be an abundance of work one day and nothing the next. There is no pattern.
• You won’t get rich — Online data entry with Virtual Bee pays 30-cents per 1,000 key strokes for most types of work. For some types of work you can earn up to 60-cents per 1,000 key strokes, but these higher paying segments are less frequent or may be more complex. However, over time you will likely naturally get faster and make fewer mistakes. I have definitely increased my speed and accuracy, and thus my earnings.
• Too many mistakes gets you cut off — If you make too many errors, you will be logged out from your snippet, and possibly the system. If you continue to make a significant number of mistakes, you may have your access terminated entirely.
• The pay dates are inconsistent — Payments come in the mail by check. Although they are supposed to come on a schedule (you can log in and see when your payment was processed), they sometimes come late. Most payments come about two weeks after the processing date, but I’ve waited four weeks on occasion. You also won’t receive a payment until you accrue $30 worth of key strokes.
• Communication isn’t great — I have never received a reply when I have emailed with a question. However, when I emailed to ask them to update my address, I never received a reply, but my email must have been received because two payments later, my address was updated.

When I work

With Virtual Bee, I frequently work while I am watching television or movies. It’s down time that is generally dedicated to little else, and I don’t always feel totally engaged with what I’m watching, so why not? I also frequently have two windows open on my computer so that I can watch Hulu or Netflix on the computer while doing data entry.

As I said above, you won’t get rich from Virtual Bee, but you may be able to earn enough money to cover a small or small-ish expense every month. It definitely has made a difference for us. Please note that you do need to take a typing test to qualify, and the test covers a variety of types of snippets. You can take the test as often as you want (or at least you could when I signed up). Even if you score really well on the typing test, you may experience a wait before you are approved. This will coincide with how much work is available and how many others are also testing. It was about two months from the time I tested and when I was accepted into the program.

If you are ready to check out Virtual Bee, click HERE.

***This post will be cross-posted at my personal blog, M and J in a Nutshell.

First spending of 2014

So, I did it. Today, I made my first purchase of 2014. I actually made two purchases, and 1.5 of those two purchases was frivolous. Sigh...not the best way to start a new year financially.

I ran out of dog treats last night and was too lazy to go buy more. Instead, I waited until this morning when it was time to feed our dogs. One of them is the most finicky dog I've ever encountered when it comes to eating, and will only eat certain foods, most notably particular types of dog treats, in the morning. I had noticed that dog treats were on sale at CVS this week, so I popped the dogs in the car this morning and we took a little jaunt over to the local CVS where I picked up two large bags of dog treats and two sodas. The sodas were totally unnecessary both financially and calorically. 

Then, on the way home, I swung by Starbucks and got a grande soy latte. I do allow myself one coffee purchase per week, but I try to make it an entire outing, not just a random drive thru stop. I also try to make that outing to an independent coffee shop, but it doesn't always work out that way. So, now I've had my one coffee out for the week, and wish I had saved it for a more special, indie-coffee shop outing over the weekend. 

Spending today:

• CVS: $10.68 - $3.06 frivolous; $7.62 on dog supplies
• Starbucks: $4.69 - totally frivolous

Total spending for January 2014 so far:

• $15.37 
• $7.75 frivolous spending
• $7.62 necessities

Since I know at least one person will think it, if not ask it, why do I buy coffee out weekly? Why not save that money or put it to better use? Because the so-called "latte factor" tends to backfire. I have tried cutting my coffee dates out entirely and it just blows up in my face every time. Instead of being good and spending that money more wisely or paying a bill, I end up getting all flustered, feeling super broke, and then going totally overboard and losing control. By allowing myself a special treat each week, I keep my spending in check. I get my treat, I'm satisfied, I move on. I also find that I do best if I do my financial planning/analysis while having that special treat.

Here are some articles on the latte factor and why eliminating little splurges like this aren't always as beneficial as they seem to be:

• Why Lattes are NOT Your Problem
• Why Dumping Your Coffee Habit Isn't the Best Savings Plan
• Why the Latte Factor Doesn't Work for Me
• Forget About the Latte Factor
• 3 Reasons Why Keeping Your "Latte Factor" Will Help You Save Money

Small steps towards financial freedom

There are both big and small things that can be done towards achieving financial freedom. This post is about some of the small things.

In the craziness of the past several months, I've gotten away from some of my frugal ways. Here's a reminder that the small things can sometimes add up to big savings.

I resolve to return to these frugal habits:

• Keep to the power company's off-peak hours for things like washing clothes.
• Return to line drying the vast majority of our laundry.
• Continue to hand wash dishes - with only two of us, it's easy and fast to hand wash dishes, and saves electricity, water, and gas (to heat the water).

These may be small changes, but they can have big long-term impact if I am vigilant about practicing them.

Getting started

I've set some lofty goals for myself over the years, but perhaps none is quite as important as this one: gaining control of my finances, including paying down debt and building up savings.

I've been working on the Amazing Business and Life Workbooks created by Leonie Dawson, and as a part of that process, I have really dug in and looked at my financial situation. I spent all of December sorting through my bills, analyzing my spending, and figuring out where I stand financially. I slipped up a bit around Christmas though and need to reign things back in. I didn't spend nearly as much as I typically do on Christmas, but I wasn't exactly paying attention to my financial choices either.

First, I need to get back to tracking every penny - I find that I am most successful if I check in at least twice daily with my bank account and my wallet.

I've created an aggressive savings plan for myself.

Budget pages for every month of the year.