WAHM, or Side income for our family

In honor of my three jobs I will be posting once per week in each of these three categories. 1. Home and Family, 2. Pampered Chef, 3. Childcare/Babysitting

Background:
I have had a few jobs over my lifetime, starting when I was 11 and babysitting my little sister after school. Of course, that was not a paid position. But, I did start making money at 13 when I babysat pretty regularly. Then when  was 15 I got a job filing and setting up samples for the Mary Kay guru of Howard County. (If you're curious as to what level a guru is, just think pink car multiple times over and lots of jewelry!) Her inventory would rival the makeup counter at Macy's. Anyway, I have been working ever since. And now, XX years later I find myself in a very content spot. First of all I am a wife and mother (and that's a job, right?!); secondly, a Pampered Chef consultant (which I will go into more detail below); and thirdly, a child care provider.

I get satisfaction from all three areas, but I wanted to tell whoever is reading this a bit more about Pampered Chef. Now, I am not the top sales leader and gone from home all the time with the business. However, I do have some busier months (like this one) and get to party with new friends while making money. I LOVE to cook, and so it's a natural fit for me to share awesome recipes and cool "power tools" for the kitchen. I started my business in September of 2011. Our daughter, Cakes was 4 months old and we didn't have a lot of extra cash. I was working full time, but not satisfied with my job and the amount of time I was away from my family. So, my first goal was to have a debt free Christmas. I met my goal within the first month and have been having fun ever since. :-)


Melanie

Command Center

To go along with my Menu Planning and overall organization of our Living Room/Kitchen space, I came up with a Command Center. It's literally covering the side of the fridge, but it's all color coordinated and lively, because when guests come over the first thing they see of the kitchen is that side of the fridge. The Command Center includes: 1. 4 chore charts (one for each of us-even though Cakes is only 1, she will grow into this and still has her own chores, picking up toys and brushing her teeth) 2. Main Dish box (holds all of the Main Dish cards) 3. Side or Dessert box 4. 7 magnetic clips for each day of the week (I also have a few extra clips for sides/desserts 5. Calendar- completely a wipe board (which is very helpful for our ever changing schedule) 6. One extra clip for coupons and miscellaneous 7. Notepad 8. Magnetic Paper Sorter (not shown-but you can see the tutorial on making one here).

My sister made me the boxes (magnetic of course) and cut paint sample swatches for me to write our fav foods on. She also made the wipe board calendar for us too.

The chore charts were my idea, simple wipe boards were used, small wooden circles, magnets, and a bit of paint too. I painted the chore pics on the circles and my son (age 6) painted the people: Dad, Mom, Bug and Cakes. His are cute, mine are ok: but they are easy for us to see what has been done or not.

Melanie

Menu Board

This is a short tutorial on making your own menu board. The one pictured below is the gift I gave my best friend for her birthday. She has three kids and one on the way, so it was my way of helping her ease the stress of cooking and grocery shopping.

First, I started with a simple calendar wipe board. 

Next, I cut leftover scrapbook paper into small rectangles just wide enough for the magnetic strip and wrote various main dish names on them as well as four with "eat out" and six with "leftovers". 

Then, I took the magnetic strip with one adhesive side and cut it into small magnets. After attaching the paper to the adhesive side, I was ready to plan my menu for the month!

The magnets that weren't used for the month were stackable and I stored them in the extra space above the calendar or could be stored on the fridge.

I was all set to make my own, but my sister surprised me with a different version of a menu board and I have happily used it for four months now.

Melanie

Menu Planning (a.k.a. Saving Money)

Everyone wants to save money on the every day stuff right? Well, I certainly do and I'm always trying to find a way to get something on sale or to cut my costs. Since I am a stay at home wife and mom and am responsible for the grocery shopping (boo) and cooking (yay!) it's up to me to find those deals on the foods we love. By the way, the title "stay at home" really bugs me. I really need to find some different word that encompasses all we do.

Anyway, I digress. So, awhile back (late summer) I stumbled on a few blogs that talked about menu planning. And I was hooked! August started me off with a bang and I only spent $250 on groceries for our family of four. That was about $150 less than we normally spent. With careful planning I tend to spend anywhere from $120-200 per month. I do my planning for the whole month and then tweak it every two weeks when I go shopping. That's right, I only shop for groceries twice a month (!!) with the following exceptions:
1. MILK- we can't seem to keep it in the fridge, and that's something the hubs has to get every so often from CVS or wherever he is close to.
2. Pampered Chef parties- I am a consultant and try to bring at least one recipe with me to each party. If I don't already have the stuff on hand, I'll make a stop.

How do I plan? Well, I'm a visual person, I like to see lists and everything laid out before me. Here's what I came up with to start. I wrote out a grid- calendar style- and wrote what types of food I normally cook, writing in the times we knew we'd be out of town/eating out and days we would eat leftovers. (You know that big pot of chili lasts at least two days!) Then, I made a master list of what ingredients I would need for each meal. That took the longest time, but I saved it on my phone in the Out of Milk app so I could use it over and over.

After eliminating the ingredients I had in the cabinet or fridge already (salt, baking powder, butter, etc.) I had my shopping list. I cut it down based on the next two weeks and was ready to go! For me impulse buying is just second nature. But if I have my list I am way less likely to spend an extra $20 on things we really don't need. Next, I made a very crude menu board. That way it was easy for me to see what I was cooking each day that week.

 

As you can see it was quick and dirty. But, it was effective and so I had that for about three months. Plus, now I didn't cringe or get frustrated when my family asked the dreaded question "What's for dinner?!" Now they could see the menu! My love of Pinterest had me pinning all sorts of ideas for a new and improved menu board and right before my birthday I made one. Starting out I was going to keep it for myself, but after talking with my best friend I realized it would be a great birthday present for her the following month. Click here for complete details on constructing a menu board like this.



 Then, SURPRISE! My sister had seen me pinning away and made a wonderful menu board for me as a birthday present.

 

You can't quite see it in the pictures, but each of the colored papers are paint sample swatches and each one has a food name. My favorite is Lemonade Slush. Yum. Hopefully this helps you out in not only saving $$$, but having an answer for your family on "What's for dinner?".

Melanie