Better Budget Challenge #1 — Our budgeting experiences Weekly feature

I have decided to join in on, Kacie from sensetosave.com, her better budget 2008 challenge. Click to go to the challenge

Better Budget Challenge #1 — Our budgeting experiences Weekly feature

How have you used a budget in the past? I’ve used an excel-sheet to track my budgeting in the past well no actually several excel-sheets one for recurring expenses like rent/gas/insurances etc and one for groceries/days out/gifts etc I’m not to pleased about the system because it does not really serve our family. I can stick to a budget just fine but in times that I am hospitalized or just to ill to get out of bed I have no control over the budget. I feel like I am playing: “catch up to the budget” for most of the year!

If you’ve never had a budget, how have you made decisions on how to manage your household finances? We established a budget when I was forced to go out of the work field. Before that we had either so little money a budget was not needed there was no money to keep track of every single guilder (now euro) had a destination LOL or we had enough to satisfy every want and need immediately no saving no budgeting no real awareness of money.

How did you put your budget to work? Fist thing I did when our income was deposited was pay all the recurring expenses after that I would set aside the monthly budget for food and what was left was divided amongst misc bills and bill collectors and occasionally a part would go to the saving accounts. Dh leaves the total of finances to me and it is frustrating to say the least! If I wasn’t ill I probably would not mind but because there are long periods of time that I am “out of the running” so to speak this one of the biggest setbacks for our family finance.

In what ways did your budget (or lack of) work for you?
It worked in a sense that there was never an issue of recurring expenses being late or not paid at all wich did put a sense of ease in my mind. There was always enough money to eat and drink wich is especially important when one has children.

In what ways did it fail?
There was never any real savings, misc bills would be left and sometimes forgotten until a bill collector send a letter about it and we would pay the bill and all the extra costs wich would make the bill 2 to sometimes 3 times as high as it was initially.

Think about your past experiences with budgets and your home finances. How do you want to use a budget in your personal finances? Do you want a system that you update every time you make a purchase? Every month? Do you want to have spending guidelines? I think for our family spending guidelines would work best. Tracking every penny that leaves this house just doesn’t work when dh is in charge of the budget, he did promise to look into it this year and to get himself familiar with our spending and I am grateful for that. This is why I want to establish a budget that is oversee able and realistic even when he orders out food from time to time to feed the kids when I am sick or has to pay a sitter in order to get some time to himself. Maybe set up a lil fund for times like this, with money that he can spend freely without having to be accountable for it.

What is your overall purpose in establishing a household budget? What do you hope to gain from it? Do you want to get out of debt? Have money to save or invest? Reduce your expenses? Have a better idea of where your money is going? We would like to be totally debt free we have paid off almost 60% of our total debts in the last years but we would like to set up home outside of the Netherlands and do not want to have any financial obligations left. I have set 2 more years to achieve this. I would also love a system that keeps tracks of the misc bills and their due dates so no more late-fees have to be paid. Another thing that would be wonderful is to lower our spending on groceries.

Anything else you want to mention about your past or future budgets?
The biggest burden on our budget is travelling. It has gotten so bad now that I recent having to travel to my homeland! Now don’t get me wrong I love to see my family but spending over 5000 euros for a few weeks of visiting family is just not worth it to me! The last time I visited was in 2005 and I had to use all my reserves and savings for this trip. This was now 3 yrs ago and my family expects us to visit again this year because they want to see us and especially the grandchildren. I fully understand this but they can’t seem to understand that if I use 5000 euros I will have to play catch up with finances for the next 2 years till it is time for the next forced trip. I have no idea how to overcome this, my grandmother is simply to old and ill to travel and I can fully understand that she wants to see the kids and us but this way we will never reach our financial goals! I wish there was some kind of solution for this one that made all of us happy and still leaves space for financial growth as a family. I know that dh understands that I want to visit my family but his sister lives in China and she has not seen our youngest ever and has not seen her brother and nephew for 4 years! I can imagine that he would love to visit her as well, but there is no budget for that! I really need help with this one! I pray about it and try to ease my soul with the idea that my grandmother needs this but the little voice in my head keeps asking me what about the family needs :-(

Remember my goal?

My goal was to lower my weekly budget to 75 euro's a week instead of the 100 euro's. Now I shamefully have to admit that these last days we kept to no budget! I have no real idea of what was spend because of illness I haven't been able to join dh in grocery shopping. He has done a great job doing the groceries but he never looks at prices or go to the market and aldi to find good deals. If I have to guess we spend about 200 euro's on groceries in 2008 already! Yes I know that is twice my budget and I could get upset about it but I have decided to just feel blessed that my dh has taken over my task when it was impossible for me to do so myself. I already felt bad when I asked him about the budget and he was not able to give me a reasonable answer I get the feeling he felt interogated or maybe even belittled that I asked him (the provider) about where the rest of the money was. I just left it at that caus he wouldn't be able to make it appear again and why fight/cry over spilled milk.

Starting monday I hope to get back on track and from now on I will make specific lists with stores and prices listed so dh and my eldest know exactly where to get the groceries.

I just ran into this beautiful photogallery on time.com about what the world eats. The gallery is full of beautiful pictures of families around the globe with their weekly spendings and food that they eat weekly.

I was shocked to see how much families spend weekly! Another conclusion that can be taken from these pictures is rich country (1st world countries) equals unhealthy eating and drinking habits!

I myself come from a third world country and as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined. I make almost every meal from scratch. No canned veggies, or boxed or frozen foods I do have some canned goods in my pantry but I might use them once every 3 months certainly not every day! I make pizza's and meals and freeze them for days that I am simply to tired or in pain to cook. Well once again I am grateful for my upbringing! Thankful for my heritage!

Japan: The Ukita family of Kodaira City

Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25

Favorite foods: sashimi, fruit, cake, potato chips

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily

Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Favorite foods: fish, pasta with ragu, hot dogs, frozen fish sticks

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

Favorite foods: soup with fresh sheep meat

Kuwait: The Al Haggan family of Kuwait City

Food expenditure for one week: 63.63 dinar or $221.45

Family recipe: Chicken biryani with basmati rice

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina

Food expenditure for one week: $341.98

Favorite foods: spaghetti, potatoes, sesame chicken

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca

Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Favorite foods: pizza, crab, pasta, chicken

China: The Dong family of Beijing
Food expenditure for one week: 1,233.76 Yuan or $155.06
Favorite foods: fried shredded pork with sweet and sour sauce

Click here to see all the pics in the gallery.

Are you just as inspired to spend less when you see the picture of The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp? Wow imagine that having to life on $1.23 dollars a week with the whole family!
I am going to find a program to sponsor one or two of the families in the camps with some of the money that I am saving on groceries.

Love and blessings,

Chayil

Are you on track? I think I am :-)

Everything is going nice and steady eating and movement wise. I have become ill again and can hardly lift up my arms wich is the reason that I have decided not to start with weightlifting and also have put yoga on pause (eventhought it breaks my heart :-( ) But I did go for my weekly walks and have stretched all other bodyparts that don't hurt. I didn't go jogging/running just yet caus I only have free-time or actually childfree time in the evening when the roads are full of glazed frost.

I have to encrease my daily intake, I have been eating way to lil again due to the painkillers and I am scared that if I continue to eat this way I won't loose any weight like last time! My body tends to hold on to every ounce of fat when I eat to little.

I am going to weigh and measure myself on the 15th of this month caus I don't want to obcess about inches and pounds.

Nothing much to report I have stopped the midnight feasts and replaced them with a big mug of herbal tea.

Hope everyone is right on track with their weightloss goals!

Moksie Alesie

I promised my online friend "Reflection" that I would share some vegetable recipes with her. I don't want to overflow her comments with long recipes so I decided to make a recipe corner on the blog.

Moksie alesie (mixed rice) little history this dish is originally a slave dish. Slaves where given left-overs from the main kitchen. By mixing all of these left-overs delicious dishes were created, we (Surinamese) to this day still enjoy our ancestors their recipes. Now don’t be fooled the meals are just as tasty as they are inexpensive and always healthy!

Ingredients (please adapt to left overs in your own fridge! I have made this dish vegan, vegetarian, with all kinds of meat left-overs for my uncles as long as you make sure that a phalanx of fluid is covering the rice feel free to experiment with beans I have used red kidney beans (not a favourite) and butterbeans (extremely yummie!) Lots of people add dried shrimps but we don’t eat shellfish but if you like and have some in the fridge just add some!

• 100 gr of left over fish/red meat or chicken cut in small pieces or pulled apart to shred
• 1 small smoked fish (deboned and skinned)
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 scottisch bonet pepper
• 250 grams of oxheart cabbage (sliced in thin long pieces I slice cabbage in half first then remove the “heart” and cut in length strip with a breadknife works for me lol)
• 500 grams of rice (washed and drained)
• 125 gram black eye peas (preboiled and soffened I preboil a kilo at a time and then devide in ziplocs and freeze)
• 1 veggie cube could be replaced by beef or chicken cube
• 2 large tomatoes
• 250 ml of coconut milk
• 2 tb spoons of tomatoepaste
• Black peper and salt to taste
• Oil

preparation
Add oil to the pot (about 4 tbspoons) fry the onions until glassy then add the garlic, add small cut tomatoes and the stock cube. Simmer for about 5 minutes (add bit of water if needed)

Add smoked fish, left-over meat/fish, tomatopaste, black eye peas taste and add black pepper and salt to taste (this should taste quite strong!)

Add rice and coconutmilk add water until rice is covered with a phalanx of fluid, stir and let come to a boil put lid on and put the pot on the lowest possible gas. Leave to simmer (do not remove lid) for 30 minutes.

Then place cabbage and pepper on top and let simmer again for 15 more minutes. Remove pepper and stir cabbage carefully in the rice using a vork put pepper back and leave covered off heat for 5 more min.

Serve with pickled cucumbers or pickles sliced, the pepper cut in pieces or other hot peppersauce (for grown-ups only I give my kids a teaspoon of ketchup as "hotsauce"), and fried ripe plantain (recipe below).

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe plantain
• oil

preparation
1. Peel plantain by making 2 incisions on opposite sides of the plantain skin and then peel.
2. Slice the plantains into 2 in the middle (width not length - like breaking a banana in 2).
3. Cut up both pieces of plantains into 1/4 inch slices longways.
4. Heat skillet filled with just enough oil to cover the 1/4 inch slices.
5. Fry plantain slices until golden brown on each side.
6. Each slice needs about 45 seconds to a minute to cook.
7. Be careful not to burn.
8. Place cooked plantain in a dish layered with napkins so as to drain/soak up the oil.

Serves 4

Njang switi! (enjoy your meal! in sranang tongo the native language of Surinam)

The dish will have an "orangy" color due to the tomatoes and tomato paste and will have a creamy taste thanks to the coconutmilk.

This weeks menu

Saturday: rice, cabbage and baked tilapia

Sunday:"paksoi stamppot" mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables (veggie milk and cheese are added)

Monday:chow mein with sliced carrots, onions, peas and bean sprouts (vegan)

Tuesday:kindney beans and rice (vegan)

Wednesday*Spaghetti with zucchini(*My eldest will be getting cooking lessons from me every wednesday, the recipes will be easy and healthy)

Thursday: homemade fries with homemade salmonballs and a raw salad

Friday: Heri Heri this is a typical surinam dish, the dish was made by slaves and consists of boiled patatoes, casave, plantain (both green and ripe) 1 boiled egg, 1 leafy vegetable (steamed with salt, pepper, garlic)

Busy busy busy

I am soo tired! I am busy realising a blog for my website, and there is so much work involved when you have no staff to help. Everything is done by me with help of my dh, writing articles, research, hosting the forum, writing recipes, answering emails, designing and advertising.

A few years ago I had cousins, and girlfriends calling me at all hours of the day asking me how to apply for studentloans, student gifts, daycare, how to keep their home and how to raise their babies. I was the first of them to have gone through all of that since I had my first son at 20 years old. After 1 yr recovery period in and out of the hospital after my c-section, I picked up my study and worked 40-60 hours a week in order to be able to pay for my education, dh his education and the lil one his daycare.
I decided to make an msn-group in wich I could post all the tips and tricks for my cousins and girlfriends. This way they could access the information at any time and I could get some sleep LOL After a few months the group had more members than I had friends and cousins, other people had found their way to the group. This was not what it was intended for because now there where other women who wanted advice and started posting questions on how to do things and where to go in their town for help. I decided to make a website and did months and months of research because I did not want to provide anyone wrong information. The website is now 2 yrs old and we have about 6000 visitors a month, the next logical step for me was making a blog in order to inspire women and mothers to talk to each other and learn from each other. The website is neutral there is no religious talk on it, I live in a country that was famous worldwide for it's tolerance. In the 16 years I have lived here I was witness of how this country was influenced by the rest of the world, people becoming more and more intolerent of diversity of our small society. What a beautiful society it was! I hope that this blog will help me unite mothers of all creeds and walks of life to start talking to each other again and to realise once again that we are all the same and we all want the same a healthy, loving, tolerant society that is blind to race and faith to raise our youth.

So yes I am busy and I hope that soon all mothers in the netherlands can benefit from the fruits of my labour. That one thought is the thing that keeps me going well that an coffee ;-)

I know that most women help other women in their circle I encourage you to step out of your circle and reach a hand to a women of different race or creed. How beautiful would the world be if we were all FREE?

Proverbs 6:16-19

"16These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren."

It's the first of january and as I said before I have set a goal for myself to read the kebra negast and the holy bible in the coming 2 years. I am still looking for a good guide to help me read both of them. So if anybody has suggestions/links or scedules please share! Untill I have found a good guide I will just open up both books and allow GOD to guide me through them.

As I was waking up today, stretching and getting ready for prayer a thought about the 7 deadly sins came to mind. A few years ago dh MADE ME LOL watch a movie called the 7 deadly sins with him. Just thinking about it still gives me the creeps. As in most movies, things were majorly exagerated. As I allowed my thoughts to drift away I wondered where those 7 deadly sins came from (ofcourse I knew that it's origin lies in the bible but the exact verse was unknown to me).

I found out that the 7 deadly sins are derived directly from Proverbs 6:16-19. The church later decided to adapt them to teach moral lessons to his followers.

These are the original 7 capital vices:
Luxuria (extravagance, later lust)
Gula (gluttony)
Avaritia (greed)
Acedia (sloth)
Ira (wrath)
Invidia (envy)
Superbia (pride)

I would like you to take a minute well maybe an hour and write down all of those vices wich you have commited. When you are finished writing them read them aloud to yourself. I ask you to open up your heart and allow this knowledge of self to soften your judgemental spirit and focus on your own sins rather than the sins of others!

Now I know that a lot of people actually think they are not committing any vices and live according to the word of the Lord always. That thought alone to me is one of the greatest sins!

Let's take a look at "modern day sinning", hey let's use me as an example.

I will walk through all the vices and admit where I went wrong. Admittence is the first step to recovery, right? So here I go!

Luxuria (extravagance, later lust) Oh how I used to love jewelry, beautiful expensive clothes and everything that sparkles LOL now I say used to caus I have worn jewelry about 6x in the last year and I don't even wear a ring on my finger. I still love beautiful clothes but have made peace with homemade or less expensive clothing. In the last years I have walked away from the idea that my home needs to be redecorated every year and I have even let go of the idea that all things need to be brand spanking new.

Now please do not get me wrong I am not pointing fingers at anyone I am not saying all remove wedding bands caus it is a sign of luxuria ( I stopped wearing jewelry for totally different reasons: Do you have any idea how horrible the feel when nurses are pulling and fighting to get jewelry off of you when you are being prepped for an emergency operation?!) I am simply asking you to check yourself! Do you get a feeling of appreciation when your dh or so slips you diamonds or pearls? Do you get depressed or sad when you cannot afford a new ........ (fill in blanks shoes/purse/dress)?

I used to and I have to admit I sometimes still get a stingy feeling when I set aside money for new shoes and a dentistbill or something is so urgent the money is better spend of that. I am fighting the feeling though.

As for lust well I think eventhough I am raised in a Roman Catholic family, sex and all that comes with it, was never seen as sinfull but as a divine (could it be the indian blood that is running threw our vains?). No one as far as I can remember ever stressed marriage or abstanence to us as teens or young adults. All that was asked of us was to think for oneself never to allow others to missuse us and visa versa, to always simply always treat your body like a temple. I am grateful for the upbringing I have had, I see no sins in making love to the one GOD has chosen for you to spend the rest of your life with. There are a few things I do think of as sinful when it comes to sex the first is adultery and the second is confronting children with sexual images. I live in a country where sex is advertised at all hours of the day! Commercials full of sexual contents like a perfume or deoderant wich makes people lust after one another or burger commercials with someone clearly committing adultery trying to cover a burger instead of the "other woman". I can go on and on and I am sure so can you. I try and protect my young ones their eyes by carefully choosing the channels they are allowed to watch, by simply asking them to zap when a commercial that is not suitable for the eyes of children (or anyone for that matter) comes along and when the eldest wants to watch a countdown or whatever on mtv or any other music channel dh always watches with him if it is innapropriate it will be turned off no excuses!

Gula (gluttony) Euhm what can I say about it! I am fighting this daily! let's take a closer look at gluttony. One might think that gluttony is simply overeating but it is far more complexed than that.

Gluttony can be divided in:
Praepropere - eating too soon
Laute - eating too expensively
Nimis - eating too much
Ardenter - eating too eagerly
Studiose - eating too daintily Avaritia (greed)

Take a closer look at yourself and be honest to thy ownself! Does one or more of these explanations remind you of yourself? I know that they remind me of me and eventhough I fast once a week and vulanteer and the "foodbank" it does not excuse my mistakes.

Acedia (sloth) I can keep it short and simple all women/mothers/homemakers I know have failed in this one. Come on admit it if only to yourself how often do you tend to go behind the computer, crawl on the couch with a book or turn around in the morning for just 15 min more of sleep, instead of tending to the home? When you know that the appereance of your home is far from GODLY? I intend to use my control journal to keep my home in great order this year. Whenever I tend to slack off I will remind myself: "Cleanliness is next to godliness"

Ira (wrath) I have been known to have a tongue to be scared off. I remember when my brother came to introduce his then girlfriend to the family he pulled me aside and said:"be gentle with her!" I am not mean spirited and as far as I can remember and tell I have never ever said anything to anybody out of malice nor have I ever said anything that wasn't the truth. The fact remains that even if it wasn't meant maliscious or that it was the truth does not mean that it wasn't hurtful to the person on the recieving end! Despite my tongue my siblings and cousins still tend to come to me first for advice, and some refer to me jokingly as their priest as they tell me all their mishaps. I am happy to say that I am learning to stop myself by repeating proverbs 31:26 "She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue" in my head before saying anything that could be interpreted as malicious.

Another example of wrath in my life is when mean mommy walks in the door! Read Hadias her blog and letter to mean mommy than you will understand what I mean.

Invidia (envy) I am not by nature an envious person I tend to be just as happy or happier LOL for my loved ones when they make promotions, get pregnant, give birth or any other joyous occasions in their lives. I tend to cry when I see people doing something good for another on tv and I have no need or intention to keep up with the Joneses. Still I am envious in my times of deepest despair. I am ill and from time to time I cry all day thinking about how unfair it is that I am sick and my siblings aren't, that my kids might have to do without me sooner than other kids, that I cannot tend to dh his phisical needs when I am in pain. After an episode of envy comes shame and regret caus I can assure you I am blessed! Blessed with siblings and cousins that take care of my family financially or any other way like it is their own. I have women in my family that are not only willing and able to take care of my sons if anything would happen to me they would see it as a privilage! I have a dh that has never ever in our life together felt deprived of anything.

Superbia (pride) Ah at last pride I come from a tribe of proud women! Women that don't need a man to take care of them. Women that can do all things themselves. Women that don't take no Sh*T from anyone. Hey I can honestly say that I was raised to be proud! LOL Oh how my poor poor dh suffered from my pride! I worked for 60 hours a week when we met and paid for everything myself and refused to even take a gift from him caus as I reminded him I make far more money than you (he was still studying at that time) Sometimes I think that I am ill because I needed to learn a lesson! A lesson in humility! I have no choice but to except others their help and care when I am sick and it has taught me that recieving gracefully is just as important as giving!

John 8:7 "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

Romans 2:1"Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge so that you will not be judged."