Ramblings-n-Writings

It’s Friday again and a new week of Know & Tell hosted by To Know Him. Here’s this week’s questions…

Question 1: I have been blogging for a year this month, so my question is what made you start your blog? I originally started blogging because I have friends in various states who were interested in pictures and tidbits from our lives. Then I discovered my niche and began focusing on conglomerate of writing, frugality and organic living.

Question 2: Do you speak another language? If so, why or how did you learn it? In elementary school, a teacher offered after-school German classes and in college I took four semesters of German; however, I know I couldn’t carry a conversation now! I wish I would have kept it up because I would love to try translation work. I chose German because I liked the language better than Spanish. I thought Spanish was too easy to learn.

Question 3: Morning person, or night owl (or somewhere in between)? Definitely night owl with a strong distaste of mornings

Question 4: Do you exercise on a regular basis? Not really, especially in winter. But in summer, we take occasional walks and I spend a lot of time gardening.

Bonus Questions
Question 5: If money were not an object what is one thing you would like to do for another person? If money were no object, I would love to give someone who is struggling to make ends meet a large sum of money to help him/her through the rough times.

Question 6: What is one of your favorite attributes of our Lord God? His endless care for us

Question 7: Have you ever thought about adoption or foster care? I don’t think I could handle foster care. The thought of caring for a child and then potentially having to give the child up is too distressing. Adoption – I have two nieces and two nephews that are adopted, so yes, adoption has been thought about.

Today starts the week-long Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom!!!!!! I’d like to give a special shout-out to all my new visitors! In honor of the party, I’m going to tell you a little about me and my blog!

10 Things about Ramblings-n-Writings and its owner…

1. I started blogging in September after coming across some very intriguing blogs and realizing I could do this too! I didn’t seriously start blogging until late January and am now anticipating my 100th post this month!!! (This is post 82, I think.)
2. The name of my blog explains what you will find on a regular basis – random writings on random topics.
3. However, in light of #2, the actual focus of my blog is on the ‘writing’ part. I want to encourage writers out there and provide tools and resources that help them. But don’t worry, even if you aren’t a writer, you will enjoy the book reviews, blog suggestions, and money saving ideas.
4. I try to write three focused posts a week: Monday Musings, Writing Wednesday, and Friday Featurettes. Monday Musings is a random collection of thoughts, Writing Wednesday focuses on my writing bloggy friends and things that may help them, and Friday Featurettes may be about beneficial blog additions, books or just about anything that can be featured.
5. I frequently participate in memes, especially ones hosted over at Money Saving Mom, but haven’t started my own yet. I am contemplating a Writing Wednesday meme so if you have suggestions…
6. My DH and I live in a very rural area (closest town is 25 miles away) on a working farm with cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, and ducks. I enjoy posting occasional photos of farm animals for all of the city dwellers to enjoy. I also ramble about organic and frugal living sometimes.
7. When I’m not blogging, I work as an online English tutor as well as a freelance editor and graphic designer. English, publishing and editing are three of my favorite passions in life!!!
8. Our lives are filled with cats, dogs and fish. Yes, the cats enjoy the fish tank and occasionally try to dip a paw when no one is looking.
9. My DH and I are Christians, attend church as often as possible, and seek ways to help others. DH suffers with a rare pain disease, RSD (or CRPS), in his knee. Because of his disability and both of us being at home, we are able to spend the majority of our time together.
10. My blog is an affiliate of Christian Book Distributors so if you are looking for some awesome deals on books, Bibles, CDs, DVDs and small gift items, click on the CBD link to the right!!!

Again, welcome to my blog! I love comments so let me know you were here and add suggestions for things you might like to read about! To go to the Ultimate Blog Party, click the UBP 2008 button on the right – it’s the hot pink one so you can’t miss it.

This post is in response to A Life At Home’s question about living off of one income. I found my response was a little too long to include in her comments so I thought I would share our experience here. (Update 12/08 – I wrote a series containing practical steps for survival on one (low) income. If you are struggling with surviving on one income, please read this post.)

Living off one income and a low one at that is very possible and actually far less stressful than two incomes and the frivolous spending that goes with it. Plus there is the benefit of staying at home and caring for the home. My DH was injured at work 4 years ago and for the first two years he received compensation, then we went to one income. At the time, I was making about $1100 before taxes. Due to various circumstances and health concerns, I left my job about a year ago to work from home and averaged about $700 / month before taxes. Because of the rural area we live in, prior to working at home, my job was 25 miles away one way so we were paying in excess of $300 in gas keeping two vehicles on the road for one month. Now that I am at home, we consolidate our trips to town and use the better gas mileage vehicle most driving. Even with rising gas costs, we’ve had significant gas savings not driving to work each day.

Some comments on A Life At Home’s article were to eliminate cable, cell phones, etc. My opinion is that you can have these things if you regulate your budget and have all areas under control. We do have satellite TV simply because we have no tV channels at all otherwise. We also have the excess expense of satellite internet for my work, but again that was our only option for high speed internet. However, we don’t have cell phones – don’t find them necessary and unlimited long distance through the local phone company including all of the features (call ID, voicemail etc) is the equivalent or cheaper than cell phone service.

We buy name brand products at the grocery store and very rarely buy store brand or generic – we do this by using coupons and buying what is on sale only. We also shop at CVS for all toiletries and household products, again all brand name products. I clean with bleach and vinegar unless I can buy cleaning products for free at CVS.

We shop at thrift stores as well as clearance sales – large department stores like JCPenney, Sears, Macy’s, all of have end of season sales where you can purchase new clothes for less than or equivalent to thrift store prices. My personal favorite is the JCPenney $1.75 racks.

One way that we have saved tons of money is by planting a garden. So many people talk about buying organic vegetables, but you are paying more for what may not necessarily be organic like you think organic should be. If you have some yard space, plant a garden – it will save a lot of money in your grocery budget. You don’t have to start out complicated or use a lot of yard space. A small 10×5 or 5×5 area will allow you plenty of room to plant a couple of plants of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Plus the excess harvest can be canned or frozen for use during winter or sold to neighbors and friends. Selling excess produce will allow you to recoup the initial cost of the plants – essentially you would have free organic vegetables! We plant all of our vegetables – tomatoes, peppers, corn, broccoli, onions, cucumbers, leeks, garlic, lettuce, squash, watermelon, pumpkin etc. but we have the room living on a farm.

If you eat meat, talk to local farmers about purchasing your beef and pork directly from the farm. Two costs will be involved – the actual price for the animal and the butchering costs. However, many times these arrangements are more profitable to the farmer compared to auctioning his animals making it more likely that you will get a good deal. (When a farmer auctions his animals, he has hauling fees, auction commission costs etc. It’s better for him to sell you a cow at $1.25/lb than to auction for the same price.) The taste of the meat is noticeably better than store-bought meat as well.

Staying at home doesn’t mean that one can’t have an income. If you enjoy writing and blogging, there are numerous paid writing sites out there (I’ve talked about a few here, here and here). If you are knowledgeable in areas like history, math or English, consider tutoring online. Other possibilities are medical record transcribing and virtual assistants.

Living on one income can be done and can be very beneficial to the whole family.

New series posts on surviving on one income: Introduction, Step One: Evaluation, Step Two: Creative Adding, Step Three: Creative Stretching, Step Four: Shopping Strategies