Our Debt Free Family

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Happy Holidays! Here Are Our New Year’s Resolutions

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New Year's Resolutions

Christmas was extremely successful in our home this year. We managed to keep everything low-cost where presents were concerned. However, many of them haven’t gotten in the mail for our relatives out of town (whoops). Christmas Day we went to the dog park with our baby (Enzo) and made homemade lo mein instead of ordering takeout Chinese. We ended the holiday looking forward to creating a vision board for 2019 and setting some New Year’s resolutions.

Setting Family New Year’s Resolutions

My other half and I have a lot of goals for 2019. This year will be our first year creating a Vision Board together. It will include financial goals, of course, and personal goals for us both. On the personal side of things, we would both like to get married next year. I would also like to train for and run a 5K and lose the last 40 pounds I have to reach my weight goal.

Financially, we both have the same long-term goal: be debt-free. However, to hone in on what we need to do in 2019, we’ve made a list of our debts and plan to snowball it starting January 1. Here’s what we’ve discussed so far…

  1. Pay off “small” debts by March. The other half’s car will be paid off by March. We will also have our credit cards paid off by then and a small medical bill ($242). Having these things paid off in full will leave us room to pay off other debts, including new tax debt.
  2. Focus on tax debt while making minimum payments on other accounts. We owe a little over $9,000 and have established a payment plan with the IRS. With my other half out of work last year, we weren’t able to put taxes aside as we normally do. After we pay down the smaller accounts, we will use all of our extra cash to pay this off. Once it is paid we are also going to begin putting big chunks of cash aside for future tax bills.
  3. After tax debts are paid, we will be making extra payments on remaining accounts. Once the IRS is paid, we will start throwing extra cash at the remaining accounts. We will still have our Conn’s bill (about $2,000 remaining), student loan ($22K), car loan ($20K), and the tool bill ($10K).

Creating a Vision

New Year’s resolutions are overrated for the most part. Many people abandon them by the end of March. For us, creating a Vision Board is more important than resolving to change in the new year. Instead, we are focused on large goals we’d like to reach by the end of the year. Each of the steps above will be part of reaching that vision and creating a life we want to live.

What about you? What are your New Year’s resolutions? Do you create a Vision Board?

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How to Avoid Catastrophic Health Care Costs for Your Parents

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catastrophic health care costs

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), “About a quarter (26 percent) of U.S. adults ages 18-64 say they or someone in their household had problems paying or an inability to pay medical bills in the past 12 months. Now think about these same statistics as people age. With age, health care needs and costs tend to increase. This potentially means more personal indebtedness for those with health care issues.

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How Much Does it Cost to Plant a Tree?

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cost to plant a tree

This Sunday is Earth Day. Many families will be looking for fun ways to celebrate with their children. One of the best ways to celebrate is by planting something. However, it can also be a bit costly.

Cost of Planting a Tree

If you’ve been considering planting a tree with your family this Earth Day, you will be getting around the largest cost: labor (because you’ll be planting the tree yourself).

Those planting a tree themselves will also save money because they won’t likely be able to plant a medium size or large size tree. A small tree can usually be a DIY project though and costs around $78 but can cost up to $200, depending on the type of tree.

Once you plant the tree, you will also need to factor in the cost of maintaining the tree and keeping it alive (up to $100 per year). So, are there any other ways to celebrate (and plant) this Sunday without breaking the bank?

Easy-to-Grow, Cheap Plants to Buy

You don’t have to plant a tree to celebrate Earth Day necessarily. There are plenty of cheap, and easy-to-grow plants that you can introduce to your family’s garden. These 10 plants are practically impossible to kill and come at a low cost.

  1. Sunflowers: A single pack of sunflower seeds costs around $0.75. An acre of sunflowers is estimated to cost about $15.
  2. Marigolds: Marigolds cost about the same as sunflowers to plant. It is slightly less expensive per-acre (around $11).
  3. Pansies: Pansy seeds are slightly more expensive. You won’t find pansy seeds for less than $1.50. These are also easy to find already planted-and-potted (around $4 per plant).
  4. Lettuce: A pack of 100 to 200 seeds costs $0.99. You will want to read up on how to care for lettuce plants, but it is not expensive to maintain and you’ll get practically free food.
  5. Tomatoes: Many people have tomato plants in their home. A single packet of tomato seeds costs between $0.75 and $5, depending on the type of tomato you are looking to plant.
  6. Cucumbers: Cucumbers cost about the same as tomatoes and can cost up to $6, depending on the plant type.
  7. Carrots: Seeds for carrot plants are slightly more expensive at around $3 per packet of seeds.
  8. Herbs: Most herbs can be purchased for less than $1 per packet. You can also purchase entire herb kits (with multiple types of herb seeds). This can save you money on seasonings throughout the year.
  9. Wild Flowers: Wild flowers are some of the cheapest plants to maintain and practically impossible to kill. You can purchase a quarter pound of seeds for less than $10, and the flowers will return each year. Just be sure it is an area you don’t mind a LOT of flowers.
  10. Vines and Ivy: Vines and ivy are resilient as well. You can buy black-eyed Susan vine seeds for less than $3.50 per pack and it can provide a great decoration for your garden area.

Readers, will you celebrate Earth Day by planting something? What will you plant? 

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How to Handle Financial Stress in a Relationship

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Handling financial stress with a loved one, in many ways, is far better than suffering through it alone. However, stressing out about money can have a heavy impact on a relationship, whether it be romantic or platonic. So, how do you go about handling financial stress without adding stress to your relationship? 

There’s no 1-2-3 answer to this really. In many cases, the dynamic of the relationship will determine how financial stress is handled. However, there are some steps you can take to ease the stress on your relationship and place it where it belongs: on fixing your finances.

How to Deal With Financial Stress in a Relationship

My significant other and I have been living together for about a year and a half. Up until recently though, we were pretty strapped financially. It took a lot of discipline and hard work. We paid off debts, saved money, and made things happen quickly. One of the main contributors to our success in doing so was not allowing the financial stress to damage our relationship. Here’s how we did it:

  1. Be open and honest about money. One key step in our success to overcoming our financial stress was communication, and it will be on your journey as well. If you are sharing finances with this person, and plan to do so the rest of your life, you can’t be afraid to talk to them about it. A huge thing for us and many other couples is being able to find a tool that we could use to monitor all of the finances in the house. We did this by sharing a Mint budgeting account. We added all of our accounts and reminded one another of due dates, savings goals, and had a good idea of where we were financially at all times.
  2. Talk about areas you messed up and discuss your losses. Before we got to that great place where we were communicating about our finances well, we messed up. A lot. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’ve messed up, but also work with your partner on ways to prevent it from happening again. Talking about where you messed up and how it happened can prevent financial stress down the road. For instance, we went over budget at Christmas time and, subsequently, had a really tight budget at the beginning of the year. We discussed having additional savings this year for Christmas (because we both love the holiday). Discussing it took the stress out of the relationship and placed it back on the finances like it should be.
  3. Always appreciate the little things. When you are broke or seriously working on your finances, you don’t have money to spend on spoiling your significant other, and that sucks. You can still do a lot of little things that will make a world of difference though. When dealing with financial stress in a relationship, focusing on the little things can make-or-break it. While we were experiencing hard times, my other half brought home $1 coffee mugs (I love coffee), or he would bring home my favorite snack. Although these things didn’t cost much, they meant a lot.

Don’t Be Afraid to Get Help

Whether it is relationship counseling or financial counseling, always remember that reaching out for help is a possibility. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a financial advisor or relationship counselor to help you navigate these tough times. There are many affordable counseling services available.

Dealing with financial stress in a relationship can be tough but as long as you keep communication open, work together, and reach out for help when you need it, you and your partner will be on your way to financial success in no time!

Read about how to maintain your financial momentum. 

Does James Allen Live up to All the Positive Reviews?

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When it’s time to buy a diamond for yourself, your significant other, or as a gift for someone you really care about, you obviously want to buy it from one of the most trusted sources you can find. Otherwise you may end up buying a fake diamond and no one obviously wants to do that, right?

James Allen originally started his website in 1998. In fact, you can look at him as one of the original e-commerce pioneers in the diamond space. He’s one of the first to put a website online to begin selling diamonds to the public all across the world. And his reputation in this industry is amazing, so you should feel confident every time you purchase a diamond from the site.

Why Is James Allen.com Better Than Other Diamond Selling Websites?

This website really stands apart from the competition because they’ve gone above and beyond to use video technology to make it easier than ever to buy diamonds online. With high definition video, magnified photographs, and their 3-D engagement ring setting visualizer, it’s absolutely simple to purchase a diamond online and know that you’re getting a high quality, top level diamond that you can afford from a trusted source.

In fact, there are so many amazing features to this website that we’ll have a hard time covering them all. But we’re going to look at the best features in more detail below right now.

Real Photos and Videos of Actual Diamonds in Their Listings

The main reason we like JamesAllen.com is their authenticity and transparency in all that they do. In fact, so many people are enamored by this website because they have a wide range of diamonds and a number of different settings to offer, which would seem to make it difficult to create so many videos and images, yet they share them for each and every one of the diamonds they have for sale.

They do not use stock images. They are known for photographing every single diamond that they have for sale. They are known for also capturing them in high definition video. So you can examine the diamond that you are actually going to purchase online, through high definition video, without fear of eventually getting shipped a different diamond.

This makes the online diamond buying process easy, exciting, and it lets each customer know exactly what they’re getting. You can’t go wrong with a setup like this.

Customizing Jewelry on JamesAllen.com

Many people appreciate the value of customized jewelry, and rightfully so. You’re in luck because the James Allen jewelry customizer on their website is absolutely amazing.

By using this customizer, you can pick the specific details of the jewelry if you do not like the technical recommendations. Instead of choosing a recommendation by the jeweler – which isn’t all that bad – you can customize your piece specifically for you or the person you care about the most. This is an excellent option that most people truly appreciate.

Conclusion

Clearly, JamesAllen.com understands diamonds, understands their customers, and has put together a website completely beneficial to everyone visiting to purchase a diamond or jewelry.

An Honest Blue Apron Family Plan Review: Is It Worth It?

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If you are active on social media, are a foodie, or just love convenience, you may have heard of Blue Apron.

Blue Apron is classified as a meal delivery service that allows you to make gourmet meals from home. It’s even supposed to be great for families! Well, my family tried Blue Apron for a few meals, and here is our full Blue Apron family plan review.

Blue Apron family plan review

So is it worth it?

First things first, we need to go through the pros and cons. Now, it’s important to remember that this is a Blue Apron family plan review. If you plan on ordering the two-person menu, your view may differ. With that being said, let’s get into it!

Pros:

Convenient

As a mom, I love convenience whenever I can get it. Blue Apron was delivered right to my doorstep, and everything was already measured and ready for me to use it when I was ready. Plus, I didn’t have to worry about my food overheating because it was packed with two ice packs to keep it nice and cool. I loved that I didn’t have to go out to be able to prepare meals for my family. 

Relatively Easy To Cook

If you aren’t much of a cook, my Blue Apron family plan review may not be a big help for you. I love cooking, so the meals from Blue Apron were fairly easy to make for me. However, if you can easily burn water, you may need to order Blue Apron a few times before you get the hang of things.

They do offer recipe cards, but mistakes can still happen, so keep that in mind. Overall, I think Blue Apron does a great job and showing you the process of making the meals they send you.

Options For Meat Eaters

Are you or your family meat eaters? Then you will love Blue Apron.

In our box we received recipes for Chipotle-Glazed Meatloaf with Crispy Potatoes, Moroccan Chicken with Prunes & Brown Rice, and Spicy Shrimp Coconut Curry with Green Cabbage & Rice. All three dishes had different meats, so it was hard to get bored, like you get when you eat chicken three or four days in a row.

Gourmet Food Without Going Out

Grabbing a fancy dinner sounds less appealing when you can get a fancy dinner delivered to your door. This is something my family, especially my husband, enjoyed. Not only did it get us all into the kitchen, but we were able to create what we felt were beautiful masterpieces. So if you are looking to have a special dinner with your family, the Blue Apron family plan could be a good choice. 

Customer Service

My Blue Apron family plan review wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t add this pro. The customer service at Blue Apron is amazing! Our order was late when FedEx couldn’t find our home. Instead of saying “Not our problem.” Blue Apron apologized and guaranteed our food and satisfaction or they would make it up to us!

I didn’t even really mind if the order was a little late, but it was nice to know that Blue Apron cared enough to reach out to me and take responsibility for something that wasn’t their fault.

Cons:

Now that I’ve given you the pros for my Blue Apron family plan review, let’s take a look at the cons:

Too Much Packaging

This may not be a con for some, but I didn’t like how much packaging came with all of the food. Although I understand that Blue Apron has to keep items like eggs safe, it was a disappointment to see so much plastic. I tend to buy almost all of my grocery items using reusable bags and jars, so of course my opinion may differ from yours.

Food Can Be Bland

My family loves spice. We love our food well seasoned, so we choose our meals based on what sounded spicy or super flavorful. To our surprise, two of our three dishes were bland. Even I had to add quite a bit of salt to up the flavor of my dishes, which I normally don’t salt my food at all. For food that looked so tasty, I definitely expected more flavor.

Portions Are Too Small

As with the other pros and cons for my Blue Apron family plan review, your opinion may differ from mine. For my family, I thought the portions were incredibly small for what Blue Apron was charging per meal ($10/person). When I first started unboxing our items, I thought the portions wouldn’t be enough, and I was right. For each dish, I had to add my own ingredients because no one got full the first time.

For example, for our meatloaf, we only received a small potato each. My husband, who is 6 feet tall and a former marine, laughed at the portion sizes. He had to eat two more plates after the first just to feel satisfied. Even I found myself grazing on food from the fridge after eating our dinner.

Expensive

This brings me to my next con for my Blue Apron family plan review. While I love the convenience of delivery, I don’t like that for $10/person I only get a small serving of food that I have to make myself. If your family normally spends an exorbitant amount on groceries every week, Blue Apron may save you money, but for us, it would cost more in the long run.

I am normally able to buy all of our food (for a family of four) for about $80 or less a week. With Blue Apron, I only got a few meals for about the same price. Because I love saving money, and don’t want to spend a small fortune on food, this is one of the biggest cons that I had about Blue Apron. 

No Options For Non-Meat Eaters (Family Plan)

Blue Apron has a lot of catching up to do if they want to appeal to vegetarians or vegans. I typically eat vegan when cooking for myself, and my family is mainly vegetarian. We understood that Blue Apron didn’t offer a family plan for vegetarians, but it was still disappointing.

There are so many people jumping on the vegan and vegetarian bandwagon, and Blue Apron is losing out on potential loyal customers because they don’t offer meatless options. But of course, I understand this may not be an issue for everyone. If you are a meat eater, or don’t mind eating meat, you are good to go. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, you may want to look elsewhere for your meal delivery service (at least for now).

So there you have it, my Blue Apron family plan review. Overall, I don’t think I would use Blue Apron again, but I do think they have quite a few perks that may appeal to others. If you want to invite me over for dinner though, I won’t object!

Try out the Blue Apron family plan for yourself. You can use our link and get $30 off your first order!

More Blue Apron reviews:

Photos courtesy of Kim Studdard.