EAT GOOD AND SAVE

My husband is not fond of leftovers and neither do I. There are times when I would eat leftovers but only because I feel bad about wasting food. I hate to see them just go down to the trash. Composting leftover food is good but it is still a waste of money.

To avoid these kind of wastes, I have to plan to cook or buy food that we both like. 

Easy, right? 

Well, in a household that came from different cultures and background, it is not so easy. I am an     Asian. It means, my diet usually composed of rice, fish, cooked vegetables. My husband, who is an Italian/German/American, does not like these type of food. He would tolerate it sometimes, but only because “he loves me”. He prefers bread, pasta, sandwich, salad, pizza, hamburger, everything that I consider not real food.

On top of that, we welcomed Bob into our home. He is a high school student from China. You would think it would be easy for me because he is Asian, too. We may be both from Asia but our food, as I discovered recently, are not really the same. In fact, I am finding out that Filipino food compared to authentic Chinese food is very bland. Theirs have so much flavor and aroma. And yes, it is also different from the food they serve in Chinese fast food here in the United States. Buying those for Bob is not an option.

So, how do we eat together without cooking three different meal and without costing me so much money? It took a couple of months before I started to learn to cater to my household’s meal preference. Here is what I learned.

1. Learn from “hit and miss”. I learned to observe what kind of food that we all like. Every time we sit down and eat together, I make a list of food that everyone seems to enjoy. I learned that we all like potato, egg, beef, chicken. From these basic ingredients, I just need to be creative so I do not feed my household with same meal everyday. Thanks to worldwide web, there are tons of recipes that I could use with one click. I learned to cook several meals that my family enjoyed. 
2. Designate an evening meal that focuses on one of the household member’s most favorite food and just eat it. It is not going to hurt anyone to compromise.
3. Learn the exact amount of food to cook so there will be no leftovers. I also found out that Bob, like us, does not like leftovers either.  It is really important that in every meal, everyone will be satisfied and full but no leftovers. It took me a few weeks before I mastered everything but it works. I pretty much eliminated food waste.

So there! 

How To Have Fun With Grandchildren Without Ruining Your Budget?

Enjoying Her First Pony Ride

          Lately, our 9-year old granddaughter has been spending time with us on weekends. She is the type who wants to be entertained constantly. My husband and I sat down to plan and find ways to let her have fun and at the same time, not break our budget.

         These are the ways we found:

1. Check your local community if there are places or activities for children.

We are blessed to live in a community that do so much for kids specially in the summer. A nearby park has a newly-remodeled swimming pool and water slides. Residents can use the facility for a very small fee. For the three of us, we only pay $9. When we get hungry, we can literally walk home to eat.

There is also another park closed by that offers pony rides for children. For $3, your kids can have a blast!

2. Pay the membership fee instead of just a single day entrance fee to your favorite park. 

My husband and I love Huntington Garden and luckily, our granddaughter likes it, too. There is a children’s area where kids can do so much activities, educational or just for fun. If we pay a single day entrance, it would cost us at least $60 just for the day. By paying for annual membership, it only cost us $90 for one year and we can bring our grandchildren for free. Not only that, every time we renew our membership, we get 2 guest passes that we can share with adult friends and families.

We always bring our food and drinks so it would not cost us extra. There is a designated area where you can eat your own food.

3. Ask around for free passes.

Our church have this ministry group where people can offer unwanted things for other people in the group to use. In the same group, you can also ask for something you need and in most cases, people respond and offer what they have. I see so many people who ask for passes for places like Disneyland, Legoland or Zoo. Believe it or not, there are people in the group who have those kinds of passes sitting in their drawers. They are always willing to put them into good use.

You may not have a group like this but I am sure you can ask friends and relatives who might know somebody who have those resources.

4. Do something productive around the house.

  I love gardening and although our granddaughter is scared of bees, she loves to help me tending my vegetables. I let her plant some seeds or pull weeds. She is into bugs so she spends so much time looking for them under the bushes. 

I also loves to sew so the next time she spend weekend with us, we are planning to make a new dress for her. She is looking forward to it!

Don't Waste Your Left Over Brewed Coffee

Every Friday morning, it is my routine to clean up the coffee pots that I used for the Bible Study that is held in my house on Thursday nights. I usually get 10 to 15 women so I make sure that there is enough coffee for everybody. It is better to have more than less.

While I was pouring the left over coffee last week, it occurred to me that maybe I could use it to fertilize my plants instead of wasting it. I have been using used ground coffee for years, so why not the left over brewed coffee? I stopped what I was doing and started searching the internet. Voila! I found three helpful articles about it.

No more wasted leftover coffee from now on. I only need to dilute it then sprinkle my vegetable garden and flower garden with it. You can find the information on this link.

BIG HOUSE, Small House

I always enjoy talking with my neighbors, who are mostly retired, and listen to their stories growing up. Some of them grew up in our neighborhood and knew each other since they were little. One of them used to swim in our swimming pool (now covered with a redwood deck) in the summer when he was about seven or eight.

Back then people would buy a house and they would stay in it until it is paid off. Neighbors had time to know or befriend each other. Their children grew up or grew old together. Retirement was easier then because there were no mortgages to worry about.

It is very common these days that after building up a little equity, people would sell their house to acquire a bigger and fancier one. There is nothing wrong with doing that, IF you can afford it. If it will put your finances in jeopardy, DO NOT DO IT. 

There are so many things to consider before deciding whether buying a bigger house is the right thing to do. You have to ask yourself the following questions:  

1. Do you have enough time and money to pay your mortgage off before you retire? 
2. Can you afford to pay higher monthly mortgage?
3. Are you prepared to pay higher property tax and home insurance?
4. Can you afford the upkeep of a bigger house?

By staying in the same house they bought long time ago, my neighbors are still paying the property tax based on the original price of the house. The value of their house is also way up compare to the original price they paid. 

The same thing helped us kept upfloat after losing some of our investment income. Having no mortgage to worry about and having a very low property tax made it easier for us to adjust to our new budget. We would really be in trouble right now if we had a mortgage to pay.

If you ask my neighbors for tips on how to retire comfortably, they only have one thing to say; plan on paying off everything while you are still working. When you retire, the only bills you should have are the utility bills. 

Are You Prepared?

The past few weeks, some areas in California were shaken by small earthquakes. They were not strong enough to create significant damage, but enough to touch our nerves. 

If a devastating earthquake hit your area today, are you prepared?

When preparing, the usual things that comes to mind are food, water, blanket, flashlight, photo albums, and first aid kit.

There are other things that we need to keep handy should we need them. Important documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, passport, home insurance, earthquake insurance, mortgage information, Social Security Card or even tax returns needs to be in a safe and accessible place. We may need some of these if we have to file damage claims or ask for assistance. 

I am aware that almost every document now can be accessed online, but remember, if we get hit so bad, we may lose electricity. Internet access will be impossible. Not having hard copies in hand will delay everything. 

This Red Cross list provides helpful information on what we need to prepare in case of emegency.  

Avoid Surprises

During tax season, we always wish that we could claim our dog as our dependent. We could not so we have to pay our dues.

To make it easy for us, we set aside “tax money” in the beginning of the year. We put it in the savings account and pretend that the money does not exist. I always cringe everytime I see how much money we have to give to the government, but it is what it is. 

We do the same thing with other bigger expenses such as car, house and earthquake insurance. Every month, we set aside certain amount. When the bill comes, we have saved enough to pay it off.

My husband and I work well together on this area. He is the bookeeper and I am the moneykeeper. He schedules the payment and I do the paying. In that way, we both have full knowledge of our financial status. There is no surprises. 

How about you? What kind of system do you use? 

My Water Friendly Backyard

To save on water, we converted most of our backyard into a rock garden. It was a back-breaking project but we did it and survived.

Then on the farthest back, there was an old swimming pool that was too damaged and would cost too much money to repair. It was an eyesore for a long time, not to mention dangerous. To make it useful, we put a wood deck on top of it and converted it into our "mini resort".

On the side, we planted drought tolerant plants. It only needed to be watered occasionally.

The only part that needs regular watering is the narrow strip where I grow my vegetables.

After doing all these, our water bill dropped significantly.