How Does She Do It? {Self Care}

I am so incredibly grateful that my career as a School Counselor allows me eight weeks every summer to be a full-time mom and recharge my batteries.  I truly believe we can care for others better the better we care for ourselves.  However, this is an area I struggle with.  I know other women can relate, but I have to be intentional about putting myself first and summer is the perfect time for me to practice my self-care.

(Image from www.facebook.com)

Early Mornings

One of the biggest changes I've made in the last year is getting up early in the morning.  Typically, that means I'm up by 5:30 or 6:00 during the summer.  This usually gives me about an hour before anyone else is awake to drink my coffee and have some "me" time.  Having time to center myself before the day begins sets the tone for the rest of the day.  If I could get myself to go to bed earlier, this would probably be even more enjoyable. :) . I blogged all about what my early mornings look like HERE.

Beauty

(Image from www.facebook.com)

Summer is the perfect time for me to catch up on beauty maintenance.  On my list this summer is massage, mainicure, eyebrow shaping and a dermaplaning facial.  When I got my massage this summer, I made an appointment for another massage after the first week of school.  Little proactive moves like making appointments in advance help me stay on track with things that I know are beneficial to my well being.

Exercise

When I was younger, exercise was a part of my daily life.  Even though I know that exercise makes me feel like a better version of myself physically and mentally, I have struggled with being consistent.  This summer, I joined a gym with my family in order to try to find an activity we all enjoy and get some exercise in the process.  I am attempting to make exercise a non-negotiable part of my life.  After two call backs from doctor appointments this year, I am committed to do everything I can to be healthy.  Everything turned out fine, but it was just the wake up call I needed to get back on track with regards to my health.

Eating Well

I tend to be a healthy eater, but summer is a great time to eat even cleaner.  We plant a small garden every year and I love attending farmer's markets for what we do not grow ourselves.  I had a series of allergy tests last month and received my results last week.  I highly recommend everyone do this.  While I knew that some foods bother me, my results were very surprising and I will need to make several changes to my diet.  Even if you are not symptomatic, eating foods that you are allergic to or intolerant to can cause inflammation and annoying symptoms that we often attribute to something else.  I blogged about my two favorite summer salads HERE.

Wellness

I love anything that encourages being proactive with my health.  I recently ordered a starter kit from doTerra Essential Oils and I am loving learning about all of the health benefits oils have!  The consultant I work with is so knowledgable and helpful.  You can find her on Instagram @bella_luna_3. If you are interested in learning about oils with me, send me a message and I can connect you with her.  Or reach out to her on Instagram and tell her I sent you!

Projects/Creativity

I love being creative and having time to let my mind wander.  This blog is just that for me; a creative outlet where I get to connect with so many interesting people and share the things I love.  Having a creative outlet other than work makes me better in all areas of my life.

Reading/Hobbies

I love to read and get lost in a good book.  People often ask how I read so much.  I literally carry a book with me everywhere I go.  That way, when I find myself waiting for one of my kids to get out of practice or sitting in a doctors office, I have my book with me to get a little reading in.  I think it is important to have hobbies that you can get lost in and reading is one that does that for me. You can see all of the books I read in 2016 here:

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October 
November/December

and 2017 so far here:

January
February
March
April
May
June

Those are the top ways I am caring for myself this summer.  What self-care routines do you follow?

How Does She Do It? {Budget}

My name is Deanna and I love to budget.

Weird, right?!  I love to spend so how can I think budgeting is fun?  Because I also happen to love a plan, and sleeping at night...


(image from www.pinterest.com)

As a single mom, I became good at budgeting out of necessity.  I had to make my salary stretch until it begged for mercy.  I had two of the sweetest kids in the world depending on me to keep a roof over their heads, food in their bellies and have some sort of plan for the future.  They became my why.  And now that I am remarried and we are a family of five, I continue to budget every. single. month.

My hope is that this post will encourage you to spend about an hour a month deciding where your money will go.  Don't like the "B" word?  Think of it as a spending plan.  You telling every one of your hard-earned dollars where to go to best serve the needs of you and your family.  I by no means have all the answers or do this perfectly.  Please leave your advice on budgeting in the comments.  I love finding new ways to do things!

For years, I kept my monthly budget in an Excel document.  Last fall, however, I found EveryDollar, and I officially broke up with Excel.


EveryDollar is a budgeting software tool created by the Dave Ramsey team.  There is a free version or you can upgrade to a  Plus version for a few dollars a month.  (It links to your accounts and categorizes your transactions for you).  I use the free version.  I simply downloaded it from the app store and created my account.  I have only visited the web version a handful of times.  You can download the app and sign in on multiple phones, so each person (i.e. you and your spouse) can enter spending transactions.  They do not sponsor me, but I love it so much, they should!

Basically, this app helps you tell each one of your hard-earned dollars where to go.  We enter our income and then our categories are giving, saving, housing, transportation, food, lifestyle, insurance and debt.  There are sub-categories under each major category.  For example, lifestyle includes things like childcare, Netflix, monthly spending cash...anything we spend money on that isn't included in the other areas.  You set an amount for each subcategory and then enter transactions throughout the month as you spend.  It keeps track of everything for you, lets you know how much you have left in each category or when you go over.  The best part is that it carries the categories over from month to month and you only have to update the amounts as necessary.

This app has helped us get control over our finances better than any other tool we have used.  It really helps to see where our money goes and it gives us permission to spend without worrying.

Another budgeting trick we use is a credit card with cash back rewards.  We pay for absolutely everything we can with this card, pay it off at the end of the month and collect cash back.  This is a great tip as long as using a credit card doesn't make you overspend.

Finally, two things that save our family so much money are Amazon Prime and Ebates.  We do a lot of our shopping online.  Amazon Prime saves us hundreds of dollars in shipping and Ebates mails us checks for shopping online just for going through their site first.  I heart Ebates!  Click below if either one of these would help your budget.






I would love to hear your budgeting tips or money saving tricks that work for your family!

**This post contains affiliate links.**

How Does She Do It? {My Morning Routine}

(image from "Single Dad Laughing" via Facebook)

I am a reluctant morning person.  When I was younger, I loved staying up late and sleeping in.  Now I stay up late and get up early.  I'm a mom...I'm tired...it's kind of like having no money when you're in college; everyone expects it and it's acceptable.  ;)

In the past few years, I have developed a love of getting up early.  I don't actually love getting out of bed, but once I do, I love it.  My ideal morning begins with getting out of bed at 5:30 AM...even on weekends.  Crazy talk, I know!!  During the week, I leave for work at 7:00 AM, but truly don't need to get up until 6:00 to make that happen.  The extra half hour has made a drastic change in my overall day.  And on the weekends, it gives me at least an hour and a half before anyone else wakes up.

During that 30 minutes of morning time during the week, I do the things that will set my day on the right track.  I love to drink hot lemon water first thing in the morning and I stretch while I heat that up.  As I drink the hot lemon water, I read a devotional (HERE) and my daily reading in my One Year Bible (HERE).  After I read, I pray for about five to ten minutes or so.  I pray for my husband, my kids, family members, friends, and spend time in gratitude for my blessings.  In the summer, I like to do this part of the morning on my front porch swing.  In the cooler months, I'm curled up on the couch or at the table.  

After this, I brew a cup of coffee in my Keurig and, during the week, begin getting ready for school.  On the weekends, I use the next hour to blog, read, watch Real Housewives or anything else that is just for me.  Pure bliss.

The best part of this new habit is that by the time anyone else wakes up, I am completely at peace and full of joy.  I can greet all my people with a full heart, which is my "why" for getting up early. 

I truly admire people who wake up and exercise.  I've tried it, but I do better exercising in the afternoon and easing into my mornings instead.   

What morning routine do you follow?

How Does She Do It? {Meal Planning}

One of the things I love about the online world is seeing how other women “do life” more efficiently.  Everyone has such great ideas to share and their own spin on how to make life more manageable.  I am constantly curious about other people’s habits, routines, and life hacks.  (Does that make me sound like a stalker?  I promise I am just curious about people. :)

I will be sharing how I manage some of my household routines in this series called, “How Does She Do It?”  First up, meal planning!  Selfishly, I hope you will share your best tips and tricks as well.

Since I live with four males, meals are serious business in our house.  Our grocery bill is literally the size of a mortgage payment and, although everyone has their favorites, I am always looking to mix up our nightly meals.  So my steps for weekly meal planning are:

• Review the sales.
• Look for new recipes.
• Clean and organize fridge and pantry.
• Make a weekly menu. 
• Make a detailed list.
• Plan coupons.
• Shop for food.
• Meal prep.

*Review the Sales*

I do this throughout the week as the flyers come in the mail.  For example, if my local store has chicken on sale that week, I know that we will be eating chicken sometime next week, or stocking up for future meals.

*Look for New Recipes*

I am constantly scouring magazines, cookbooks, blogs and Pinterest for new meals to try.  I usually screenshot recipes on my phone so they are handy when I get to the planning step.  Truth be told, if it goes in a Crock Pot during the week, it is moving to the top of my list.  I have a special place in my heart for my Crock Pot and could not feed this tribe without it!  One of my new favorite cookbooks is from fellow blogger, Shay Shull, Mix and Match Mama Eats.

*Clean and Organize the Fridge and Pantry*

This sounds like a daunting task, but once you get rolling with this plan, it is super simple and only takes about 15 minutes.  I do this step every Thursday because our family eats leftovers on that night.  It's super simple to incorporate these steps as your pulling out the leftovers.  We put everything on the counter and let the kids eat buffet style.  A night off from cooking!  I keep my grocery list close by during this step and make note of any staples that we are out of or running low on (milk, butter, bread, etc.).  I wipe down the inside of the refrigerator and throw out any old food.  In the pantry, I reorganize everything and do a quick inventory as well.

*Make a Weekly Menu*

At this point, I am now ready to make a weekly menu.  The shopping list sheets I use have a space for writing the menu at the bottom of the page and I love that so much!  I bought them from Jack and Ella Paper, which is a company out of Wisconsin run by a fellow "mom boss" that I found on Instagram. (Follow me @deannazehr on Instagram.  I have so much fun on there!) Seriously cute.  My motto is to only buy things that are pretty and make me happy.  So if I have to do something boring like write a grocery list, I want it to be on pretty paper.  It is the little things that make a big difference!

Our pantry door is painted with chalkboard paint and I also write our weekly menu up there as well.  No more, "What's for dinner?!"  Our typical week is Mexican Monday, new or favorite meals on Tuesday and Wednesday, Leftovers on Thursday, and we order pizza on Friday.  We usually go out on Saturday and I cook a big afternoon meal on Sunday that includes something I'm prepping for another meal in the coming week.

*Make a Detailed List*

From my menu, I now write down all ingredients that we need.  I also know what we have on hand because of my prior step.  This step is super fast.

*Plan Coupons*

When I was a single mom, I used coupons like a boss.  So much so, that I was able to feed the three of us for $300 a month.  At this phase in life, I use very few paper coupons other than the one's that the store mails to me.  I do love using Ibotta, however.  I have downloaded the app and look for coupons when I have a spare minute.  This adds up quickly.  I also download electronic coupons when available at my store.

*Shop for Food*

We are one of those families that shop at multiple stores.  For example, we may stop by our local store and grab the sale items we need when we are running a kid to practice.  However, Aldi, Kroger, and Costco are our consistent stores of choice.  I will do a future Aldi post, because I have that place down to a science!  I can't get everything there, so Kroger is where we get everything else.  We may buy household items from Target because, let's face it, it gives me an excuse to go there and see if they have anything else that's cute (and they always do!)  I avoid Wal-Mart as much as possible, but probably find myself there four times a year.  We don't go to these stores every week, they are just on our rotation.

*Meal Prep*

When I get home from the store, I wash all of the produce immediately and recycle packaging as I am putting things away.  That way if someone wants to eat grapes, they are washed and off their little stems.  When you are hungry, washing grapes seems like a super big task and it is easier to grab an Oreo. (Just me?)

I hope you have found some tips that help you plan your weekly meals.  It sounds like a lot when you write it all down, but it is just part of my routine now and saves us a ton of trips through the drive-thru.  Share your meal planning tips below.  I love to find new ways to increase efficiency and save more money.

Happy meal planning!