Since we moved into our fifth wheel, our only income has been my online income. (okay, okay, and a loan or two from the bank of mom. Thanks, mom ) I am trying hard to create a career from home, but as anyone who has created a career online knows, it’s tough going. I’ve been working on this blog for a few years, and it’s just finally to the point where I can make money from it consistently. I have a few other sources of income, and I wanted to share them with you. 

1. MLM. I know that these are often given a bad name, but I am a huge believer in their power to create real at home businesses. I personally am a Beachbody coach, and I love it. It’s one of my most consistent money makers, and it is really fulfilling to help people with their health & fitness goals. If you’re interested in learning more about that, feel free to add me on Facebook or email me at corp8292 at gmail dot com.

2. Appen. This company does crowdsourcing projects for other companies and any other project that needs market input or has small, tedious tasks. Sometimes I get put on projects that have steady hours, sometimes I’m doing “per task” projects that are as needed and don’t pay very well. I often do these when I’m watching a TV show or other things like that. 

3. SAT grading  I work part time for ETS grading SAT essays. This wouldn’t be bad if I were able to get more hours. As of right now, the hours are limited. The pay is decent, and although it’s tedious (reading essays from the same prompt for 4 or 8 hours), it’s good work and I kind of enjoy it. 

4. Personal Assistant. Two different times in the last 4 years I have worked as a digital assistant. Once was for a blogger, and I am currently working for an author. I knew both of these people personally, so I can’t give much advice on how to find these kinds of positions, but they ARE out there!  

5. Affiliate Programs. I am an affiliate for Amazon right now. I used to be an affiliate for a bunch of companies, but currently I am only doing Amazon. It’s kind of cool. If you click this link –> http://amzn.to/2gqctJT –> And order anything in the next 24 hours, I get a small commission for it. <<So go ahead.. click it.. You know you want to>>. This doesn’t add up to much most of the time, but it can be a decent amount during Black Friday sales and things like that. 

6. Mturk. This is similar to Appen, but it’s by Amazon. Sometimes I do transcription, sometimes it’s copying text, things like that. This does NOT pay well. At all. But it’s something if I do if I don’t have any other ways to make money.  

7. Text Broker. I’ll admit, I haven’t done this in a few years. But when I did it, I was able to make a few hundred dollars a month writing articles. 

8. Mystery Shopping. There are a couple different companies that do mystery shopping. This doesn’t usually pay very well, but it’s kind of fun and you get a little spending cash. 

The rest of this list are online jobs that I personally haven’t done, but I know people who have. 

9. Rev.com This is a transcription service. I applied for this but was denied. I’m not sure why. But I do know a few people who have gotten on, and are able to make a few hundred dollars a month from it. 

10. Lion’s Bridge This company is similar to Appen. In fact, I don’t think you can work for both of them, which is why I haven’t applied here. 

11. Fulfilled by Amazon. This one is kind of cool, and I plan on pursing it around tax return time. The way this works is you buy things on clearance, send it to Amazon’s holding centers, and when they sell, you get paid for it. Sort of like selling on eBay, but through Amazon. There are all sorts of books and tools that make this easier, but I don’t know all the details yet. I’ll be doing a few posts about this after I get all set up to do it in the spring!  

Making money online is not easy by any means, but there ARE legitimate ways to do so. I heard once that it’s easier to make $100 ten times online than it is to make $1000 one time. So keep that in mind if you’re trying to make a significant income from home! 

The post Eleven Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

My husband and I were married in 2009. During that first year, we both worked part time. In 2010, we decided to go to school full time, and squeeze work in when we could. That meant about 10 hours a week for my husband and 25 or so for me. After a few months, due to some personal issues, I had to quit my job. My husband’s income was all we had.

When it came time to do our taxes that year we found out that we had only made $11,000 combined! Granted, it was just the two of us that year (I was pregnant with our first), but looking back on it I realize that there are many habits we learned that year that have helped us get through the rest of our college years.

I think needs vs. wants was the most important thing that we learned. This one was also the hardest, since we were in college. All around us we had friends who were spending money they didn’t have on things they didn’t need. We learned early to define what exactly our needs were. We figured out that those “needs” are the same for everybody; food, shelter, water. That’s it. There were periods of time when we went without things that many people would never part with (cell phones, for example). We often got invitations to go out to dinner or to movies or on trips and we had to say no. And before you ask, no, I don’t feel like we missed out on the “college experience” unless you count the part where you graduate with tons of credit card debt. In that case, yes, thankfully we missed out on that.

One of the things that has saved us the most money was our choice of shelter. The town we lived in had many apartment buildings, and we looked into almost all of them. We quickly realized that we would not be able to afford any of them on our income. We briefly looked into subsidized housing, but felt that it wasn’t right for us. So we kept looking. We stayed with friends for a little while until we felt we found the best solution. We bought a trailer in a run-down trailer park. We paid $3,000 for it over the course of a year. Between that payment and our lot rent, we paid $500/month for shelter. It had two small bedrooms and a bathroom that was falling apart. The washing machine was in the bathroom and the dryer was in one of the bedrooms. But, it was cheap. The cheapest one bedroom apartment we could find was $700/month. So in that first year, it saved us over $2000 and the next year it saved us over $8,000 since we had it paid off. And the best part is that we just sold it for $6,000.

We also saved money at the grocery store. Many of our friends were spending over $600 a month on food. We had friends that had kitchen cupboards that were completely bare because they went to the store every time they were hungry. Not only did that waste both gas and time, it is also was very expensive to buy food that way.

In order to save money on food, I did a few simple things:

– I always used a list.

– I bought generic whenever possible

– I shopped by myself (it’s much easier for one person to stick to a list than two)

– I menu planned for a month at a time

– I utilized leftovers (this alone can save you hundreds of dollars a year)

– I also used eMeals.com for a little while. They made shopping really easy and I felt like we could eat better but still save money.

We ate a lot of “poor college food” such as Ramen noodles, mac and cheese, rice and beans, and other simple things like that. We often went to restaurants with friends and didn’t order anything, or just ordered an appetizer and water. But guess what. We survived.

Besides shelter and nourishment we also felt that we needed some sort of transportation, seeing how my husband was a pizza delivery guy. We would have survived without it, but it wouldn’t have been fun. At the time, we had a Jeep Cherokee. It was a gas guzzler. On top of that, it often broke down and needed replacement parts, something that cost us money that we didn’t have. So, we sold it for $4,000. We searched and searched for a car that would suit our needs better. And eventually, we found it. We bought a 1985 Chevy Sprint for $1,500. It was not fancy in anyway, but it was in good shape. It only had 30,000 on the original engine when we bought it. And, the best part: it got amazing gas mileage. We went from spending $150 a month on gas to $40 or so. We not only had the money from the sale of our Jeep, we also saved money every month at the pump.

Another thing that I learned during this time was that credit cards are deadly. Both my husband and I had three cards each at the time and we often used them for little things. But those little things added up. Every time we got any extra money, it went to paying them off. We didn’t want to live that way, so we froze our credit cards in a block of ice. Now they only get used in true emergencies. I was hesitant to do this at first. I was afraid that something horrible would happen and I wouldn’t have my credit card. But guess what? We survived. Nothing has happened where I absolutely needed a credit card. Many people in the world survive just fine without them, and we do too.

Another want that can often be a need is clothing. Eventually clothes wear out or you or the children outgrow them. Here is my secret to saving money on clothes: buy used. We never buy new clothes. We go to thrift stores for all our clothing. This is a habit I know I will keep my whole life, no matter how much money my husband makes. We have found amazing deals on clothes that have barely or have never been worn. There is no reason not to at least check local thrift stores before heading to the mall.

I am so grateful for the chance we have had to be poor. My husband just graduated with a teaching degree, so our life style is not going to change much from this. His first job will likely pay him around $40,000…if we are lucky. We now have two kids and we have decided that no matter what, I am going to stay home with our kids. I am so glad that we had the opportunity to be poor in college. I know now that we can live off of almost nothing and be just fine.

What do YOU do to live below your means??? 

The post How We Lived On Next To Nothing (And Survived) appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

So, we started looking at numbers and doing some math. Right now, my husband makes a little less than $40,0o0, so being able to pay off as much as his yearly income in 2.5 years seems a little hard, right? But guess what. WE ARE GOING TO DO IT.  When my husband started his job in November, we had be struggling to make ends meet while he was in school. We had relied a bit on credit cards. So on his first day of work, we realized that not only did we have student loans, but we also have about $5,000 in credit card debt. Plus, we only had one car. We found a house to rent that was a cheap as we could possibly find and still be able to meet our needs, but it’s kind of out in the sticks, so I wasn’t really okay going without a car for long. When we found the perfect car (we waited three or four months), it was an old suburban and was $2000. So we added that on to our $5000 credit card debt and $40,000 student loans. We started realizing it was a problem around December and decided to buckle down and start taking care of things.  So, we made some changes in our budget and our mindset.

And guess what? In 3 months, we paid off the car and the credit card debt. $7000 in three months. In that same time, my husband was only scheduled to make around $10,000. I was and am determined NOT to work away from the home, so I wasn’t bringing in an income of any kind. So! How did we do it? And how do I plan on doing it during the next 2.5 years to pay off the rest of our debt? I’ll tell you  

1. We wrote down our financial goal, and looked at it often. Out of sight out of mind, right? Before, I would get a credit card bill in the mail, pay the minimum without really looking at the statement, and throw that danged piece of paper away. When we wanted to get serious about paying off our debt, we looked at the numbers. We looked at exactly how much we had been spending on different things and we wrote down specific goals for a bunch of different areas that needed improvement. At least once a week, if not more, we remind each other of our goals. This has helped us to think twice before we purchase unnecessary items.

2. We implemented the “snowball” method. Dave Ramsey talks about this method often. What it means is you take whatever your smallest debt is and pay it off first. Ours was the suburban. We put any extra money we had towards paying off that loan. We just made the minimum payments on all the other debts. When that one was paid off, we started on the next smallest debt, the credit cards. Now that those are paid off, we are working on my student loans, since they are smaller than my husband’s. In fact, we changed my husband’s repayment schedule to be a graduated plan, meaning that the payments start out small and get larger over time. We did this so we would be able to put as much money as possible into paying off my loan first. Then, after mine is paid off, we will be paying much more than the minimum on my husband’s loan to have it paid off in 2.5 years instead of the  25 years that the repayment plan allows us.

  3. We made some smart decisions earlier in our marriage that help us pay down our debt now. Obviously this isn’t something everyone can implement right now, but it is something I strongly encourage new married couples to do. Instead of paying for an apartment for four years of college, my husband and I bought a trailer. It was a pretty nasty piece of work, but it was sufficient for our needs. We paid $3000 for it. We fixed up a couple things in it, including completely remodeling the bathroom (cost us around $700), and we sold it for $6000. We chose to carry a contract on that and we are still getting payments from that. So every month we get around $300 that we put straight to our debts. 

4. We make sacrifices. My kids don’t always have new clothes. When they do, it’s because someone happened to donate some new clothes to the Good Will or there was an AMAZING deal at Old Navy or something like that. I also shopped around a LOT for Christmas and kept to a strict budget of $50/child. I didn’t want to go overboard on the spending and the kids were PLENTY happy with what they got for that $50. Another sacrifice we make is we have a renter in our house. My husband’s brother rents out one of our rooms and pays us $350/month in rent. We get along great with him, but it is still a sacrifice for me and my family to have an extra guest in our house all the time. But, we’re willing to sacrifice now for financial freedom later.

5. We don’t pay for entertainment. We don’t go to movies or anything like that. Once in a great while we’ll take the kids to a children’s museum or something like that. We found free activities around town for the kids to do and take advantage of those. Instead of a movie, we’ll go to a park and have a picnic. The kids like that better anyway. 

6. We don’t go out to eat hardly ever. Once in awhile, we’ll be traveling or errands will run long and we’ll grab something at a fast food restaurant. But, when we do that, we stick with water and skip the french fries for the most part. The few times a year that my husband and I go to a nice restaurant is a SPECIAL occasion and it is that much more fun because it doesn’t happen often. In fact, most of our date nights are at home, after the kids go to bed. 

7. I only go shopping every other week. I buy enough stuff every other week so that I don’t need to run to the store for ANYTHING. Because if I have to go to the store for milk, you know I’ll come out with bread and butter and soap and paper towels and whatever else. But if I just don’t go INTO the store, I can’t come out with anything I didn’t really want. When I do go shopping every other week, I plan out my menu before hand to make sure I only buy the things I need. I take a list and I stick to it. 

8. Along that same note, we utilize left overs. This was a hard habit to get into for me, but it has saved us a lot of money by doing it. 

9. We use cloth diapers. I paid about $150 for the diaper system we have. I don’t have to buy any diapers for my next baby. Yes, it is a little more of an inconvenience, but it saves me SO MUCH MONEY. We also try to use cloth towels instead of paper towels to cut back on having to buy those.

10. We cut back on the services we receive. We already don’t pay for cable, but we decided to cancel our netflix account and hulu plus account. We also looked into a cheaper cell phone plan and realized that we were able to get on the Sprint Framily plan and it saved us about $80/month! We don’t have unlimited data anymore, but we weren’t using that much anyway, so it’s not a huge sacrifice. We also shopped around for cheaper insurance and realized that the insurance my husband’s employer was offering was not our cheapest option. Yes, we had to deal with the marketplace to find new insurance, but for the savings each month, it’s worth the 75 minute hold times each time I have to be on the phone to ask a question about the website that isn’t working. It just is.    

11. I work hard to make a little extra money. Some months I bring in an extra $1000 through my various only jobs and my blog. I’m a Beachbody coach and that brings in some money, I make a couple hundred off my blog, I do some crowdsourcing, I’m a digital assistant for another blogger, just to name a few. I have to prioritize my time well to make sure I’m still spending time with my children, but all that extra money goes straight to debts for now. 

12. Our tax return went right into paying back debts. Easy way to get a good part of it paid off. 

13. When my computer died, instead of buying a new $900 computer, I bought a $200 chromebook. No, it doesn’t do all the super fancy things a normal computer does, and there are a lot of times when I have to struggle a little with it to get it to do what I want, but I saved a lot of money by going this route. You don’t always need the BEST of everything. 

14. Once our credit cards were paid off, we got rid of all but one. The one we kept was our Costco card. We kept it because it gives us rewards for shopping at Costco, plus it allows us to buy gas from them, which is the cheapest place around here to buy gas. BUT! We pay it off every month. 

15. We aren’t going to buy anything on time. If we need another car, we’ll save up for it. We aren’t going to go into debt for toys or anything else. The only other thing we’re planning on buying on credit is a house. And that won’t be for a couple years. 

16. We remind ourselves constantly of our goals. I know I said this in #1, but it’s important. Saying “no” to fun purchases can be so hard, but small sacrifices now will make a big difference later. 

17. We pay our tithing. This should probably be at the top of the list, because I know it’s the reason we are able to have any money at all. The Lord is so great to us and I know that when we give back a tenth of what He has given us, He gives us more blessings than we have room to receive. 

Those are my 17 tips to help pay down debt faster. My number one piece of advice is to write down your goals and constantly be looking at them. At LEAST twice a day. And for sure before you walk into any store. Remind yourself of why you don’t want to buy things that you don’t need, remind yourself of your LONG TERM goals so you don’t trade what you want most for what you want right then. 

The post 17 Ways To Save Money And Pay Off Debts Faster appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

It’s been a little while since I talked about cloth diapers. I did a series on it awhile ago. I know that cloth diapering is really popular right now for many reasons. Some switch to cloth because it’s cute, some because it’s economical, and other because it’s cheap. I personally started because it’s cheaper than using disposable diapers. I was looking for a way to save money. However, like many other people who cloth diaper, I got sucked into all the cute prints and different types of cloth diapers that are available. I wanted to try them all. I wanted all the cute prints! I wanted “nice” diapers. I quickly realized that if I diapered like that, the savings would not be nearly as substantial as it would be if I was a little more careful. 

So I started searching for a way to cloth diaper for less than $100. When I did the calculations about if I save money cloth diapering or not, I figured that I would spend between $1000 – $1500 in disposable diapers from birth to potty training. So, if I could keep my cloth diaper spending to under $100, I would be saving quite a bit of money! 

So, I figured out a couple different ways I could do this. 

The main thing is that prefolds and/or flats and covers are the cheapest option. Period. And, since I moved to a house that does not have a utility sink, I have realized that prefolds are SO much easier to care for than pocket diapers. I have actually sold all of my pocket diapers and am just using prefolds and covers. Here’s a few ways I figured that you could use prefolds and/or flats and covers for less than $100:

– Econobum . This is a Cotton Babies brand. They make high quality diapers. These diapers are a little less high quality than some of their other lines (I personally prefer the brand Flip over the Econobum covers, but the Econobum are cheaper and function just as well.)  Two of these Econobum packs would be enough to cloth diaper your baby from the time he or she is about 12 pounds until potty training. The box comes with a wet bag as well, so two of these boxes would give you all you need. If you want to cloth diaper from birth, I suggest getting the Bummis Newborn Pack. It would add another $43 to your total cloth diapering bill, but if you have a small baby, they should be in these newborn diapers for 2 months or so and the prefolds can be used to double up other prefolds later on. 

– Flour Sack Towels . Another way you can cloth diaper for less than $100 is by using flour sack towels. Flour sack towels are about $2 a piece at Walmart or Amazon. You’d need about 24, so you’re looking at about $50. Then, you need covers. I never pay more than $10 for a diaper cover. You would probably want at least 5, so that would be right around $100 for everything you need besides a wet bag.  

– Chinese Cheapies. (Pocket diapers) While I don’t suggest this as the best option, it is an option. There are a couple different companies that make what is commonly called “chinese cheapies” because they are made in China and they are cheap. Alva Baby is one of them. Sunbaby Diapers is another. Either of these companies would let you cloth diaper for less than $100 if you’re willing to wash every day. I would strongly suggest 24 pocket diapers, you could survive on way less if you wash every day. Most days you would probably be fine with 15 or so. 

Here are a few other tips to help keep your cloth diapering bill down:

– don’t get caught up with patterns. These things are poop catchers, remember?

– buy used. I know it sounds gross, but if you’re a little picky about what you buy, you can buy higher quality diapers for a cheaper price. And it is totally possible to get those diapers super clean after you buy them. 

– sell diapers when you’re done with them. Many diapers will sell for 50% of what you paid for them even after two years of use if you take good care of them. Craigslist and cloth diaper groups on facebook are a good resource for buying and selling. 

Do you have any suggestions for keeping the cloth diaper bill down? I’d love to hear them!

The post Cloth Diapering For Under $100 appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

I had a friend email me about getting a new camera and if I had any ideas on how to get better with her camera and learn some things without spending a lot! The internet is such a wealth of knowledge, and there ARE actually a few places I have learned some photography tips from, and I am excited to share them with you! If you DID happen to get a new camera for Christmas {or recently!} I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU! *hehe*

{Note: I will include links in this post. They are NOT however affiliate related whatsoever. Just places I have used and loved. I haven’t been paid even so much as a penny!

FIRST: I LOVE i heart faces. They have a community forum, where you can talk and ask questions, and a DAILY email you can subscribe to with incredible tutorials for anything and everything photography related. I have learned some amazing editing tricks, posing ideas, and pretty much anything and everything from them. How cool is it to get an email with free photography tutorials? Sign up, it’s worth it! I just made a folder in my email and save the emails in there, and when I have time to do some photography learning, I go back and read the latest! They also have fun contests you can enter, monthly challenges, and really neat monthly ideas to get your creative-ness going! Love them!

SECONDLY: Get a book, a book that knows your specific camera inside and out- that goes into more detail than your manual that came with your camera. When I got my first camera I thought, “Oh! I just need to read the manual and then I will be good to go”. No way! My sister gave me a book by David Busch Canon Rebel T4i. Oh my goodness, LOVE it. I am not saying you have to get HIS book. But I am saying that it is a GREAT idea to get another book that knows your camera inside and out, but also describes things in a more creative way. The people who write the manuals are thinking scientifically right? You kind of need someone to describe things who wants a cute picture of your kiddo, too. These books go into a LOT more depth, and make everything a LOT clearer. I really enjoyed David Busch’s books, but you can check out other authors, too. Another thing that is great, these books cost about $20 bucks! Pretty much everyone can afford that, right? Just make sure to get the right camera model

THIRD: Take a photography class from a nearby community college. Not very expensive, and gets you to HAVE to do assignments and get better! I unfortunately have not been able to do this yet, but a lot of my friends have, and have loved it. Plus, it’s something you could do with friends to get out of the house! I know camera shops also offer photography classes. I am the type of person that sometimes really needs reminders to practice and do better. Taking a class is ideal for that!

FOURTH: Read articles online! There are TONS. I have a whole Pinterest board with great articles, tips and tricks, ideas, poses, etc. Take some time to read things online. There is so much out there that is free! And I love all the different perspectives/creative-ness/personalities that I get to learn from. It’s so nice to have so many wonderful photographers share their knowledge. One of my favorites is Kristen Duke Photography. She has some super fun photography articles {and seriously, check out her work, she rocks!} and some really inexpensive e-books to help you with photography. She also has other fun things on her site, too. But I love reading her photography articles!

FIFTH: Check out the library! I was amazed how many photography books are there! Even if they are older, and not quite as up to date, they will have GREAT information, plus, the books are free to borrow and read, sweet!!

Lastly, just keep learning and trying! Sometimes I get a little bummed because photography seems like a pretty expensive hobby. But really, there is a lot out there that is free, and there are a lot of really nice people willing to share and teach their talents. Yes, the equipment can get expensive, but, you can still get amazing pictures without spending a lot.

Stay tuned for my next post about editing! I have some favorite websites for free {yes FREE} editing tutorials, and free actions! {and also a tutorial coming up about actions, and how to use them!}

Happy Photographing!!

Traci

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