penny pinching: the envelope system.

We're just finishing up our fourth month on the envelope system so I thought it was about time you guys got an update on how things are going with our penny pinching endeavors.

If you didn't read this post feel free to do so to get a better idea of why we are pinching pennies. If you're not up for reading any more than you have to (heck, you're barely skimming this post) then I have two words for you... grad school.

Yup.

This next exciting phase of our lives is quickly approaching. Come July 25th we will be packing up, heading out, and living off of our savings of the last ~two years. At the beginning-ish of the year I realized that once this time did come we would need to make some serious changes to our money spending habits. K so we're not like huge spenders... but in this situation every penny must be pinched! Our biggest culprit of heavy spending? Groceries. Yeah we budgeted for groceries... but before I pretty much looked up whatever recipes I wanted and made whatever my heart desired and didn't feel bad at all for going over budget. Habits like unto this make for an unnecessary large grocery bill, in case you are wondering. A grocery bill that isn't going to fit into our let's-try-really-hard-not-to-go-into-debt-during-grad-school budget.

I decided that in order to shave down this grocery bill I needed to find ways to be more strict with our grocery budget. I needed a better way to keep track of what I was spending on food each week. And so, to save time, I started by trying out "the most successful" budgeting method perfected by Dave Ramsey... the envelope system. Pretty much the idea is to take out a certain amount of money each month for each category of spending and that's all you have to spend. That's it. No more. Like I said, that's the idea behind the method. How has it been going for us?? I'm glad you asked...

As I mentioned, the "groceries" area of our budget needed the most work and so that's where we started with the envelope system. So far it has been going mostly well. The first couple months were hard... I definitely had to pull out the debit card and spend more than was in the envelope. I soon realized that I needed to work my way down to my desired amount. After about four months of practice I have had leftover cash in the envelope for a couple months now! Woohoo! How did I get to this point, though? Again, thanks for asking! You're so polite, you know. (:
       
After totally botching the first couple of months I learned a few vital things...

1. Sometimes you need to budget for more than just your family. From a different master-budget-er I learned that the average amount of grocery money/month/person is $100. So, if we're having people over, taking meals to families, etc. the dollars add up to a nice extra $40/month. So I tacked on $40 to our budget and decided that $340/month was the most most I would spend. Yes I know some of you are able to make that much cash stretch a lot farther than me but you gotta remember, I'm an amateur.
2. If I wanted to cook the way that I like to cook... I'd only get to do it sparingly on the new budget. I really enjoy cooking. And when I get a meal going I like to have sides, a drink, some yummy dessert, etc. Doing this every night is obviously not money-savvy. So I narrowed it way down to two meals a week. Usually one of those meals we have the missionaries over and the other is a special occasion... like holidays, birthdays, or Sunday dinner even. The rest of the days in the week we either have leftovers or "cheap food" as I like to call it. Things that don't cost a ton to make... like spaghetti, tuna melts, baked potatoes, etc.
3. Using every single ingredient in the recipe is totally unnecessary. Before moving out to Wisconsin and Todd having a full-time job we were both working on campus and bringing in just enough money to keep things going while putting a little in savings each month. We ate a lot of the same food (chopped vegetable pasta bake, so much of it) and we didn't really venture out when it came to cooking. Probably mostly because we were always exhausted and didn't want to make anything. It also didn't help that we never decided what to do for dinner until the night of the actual meal. Bad move. Anyway... since we rarely ventured out with cooking we never had a need for all of those extra special ingredients. Since then I have had a lot more time on my hands to develop some cooking and baking skills and now we have a lot more things in our kitchen that have become "standard." Things like limes, cilantro, Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, 14 different kinds of vinegar, butter (used to just use margarine), any fruit outside of bananas/apples/oranges like grapes and strawberries, heavy whipping cream, quinoa, couscous, and so on and so forth. You get the point. How am I supposed to go back to cooking like a college student?? Well, next to only making two "extensive" meals a week I am going to try to only buy the exact ingredients that I need for that week and only if those ingredients are absolutely necessary. So far this has been working well enough. (:

Here are our last four months of envelopes... March, April, and May's envelopes now just have receipts in them while June's is full of $135.85 as you can tell by my little custom made mini spread sheet friend. At first I printed out a fold-and-glue-yourself envelope that had a spreadsheet right on it but upon filling it with cash I found that the envelope was smaller than the bills. Yeah that wasn't going to work... so I just made my own. (p.s. I am more than willing to send this one to anyone if you want to give this envelope system thing a try) For the first couple of months I just used the envelope that the bank gives you when you make a withdrawal... which I loved because those envelopes have that resealable sticky stuff on them. Unfortunately our bank just opened a new location that doesn't have a drive through! What the heck, right? So yeah, no more cool envelopes... cause heck the point of the drive through was so I wouldn't have to get Peter out of the car. Now that I have to get out of the car I'm only going as far as the ATM next to my car. Anyway, unnecessary rant is now over.

Other things that have helped us save money...

1. Eating out... we don't do it too often. Once, maybe twice a month... definitely more in the summer when we're out and about and on vacation and what-not. But yeah, not doing this a ton clearly saves money. And for the most part it's much much healthier. But that's a post for another day.
2. Meal planning... now this is what I enjoy doing. Like I mentioned in that other post, I love to grocery shop. I'm not a walk-every-isle-and-compulsively-shop-shopper though. I like to pick out the exact recipes that I'm going to use and plan out our meals for the week. I plan out the meals on one side of my note pad and have my grocery list on the other side. It works great! Some weeks the meals/cooking is scarce because Todd is out of town while other weeks we have people over twice, a potluck to go to, and treats to make for a work party... those weeks both the menu side and the grocery list side are more or less packed.

I think it goes without saying that menu planning and making a grocery list saves money. If it's not on the list, I don't buy it. K, that's not entirely true... cause sometimes I forget to put stuff on the list that we're out of but we won't specifically be using that week... like brown sugar or canned fruit (a big hit with the boss-man). Either that or I forget to put something on the list that I get every week no matter what... like yogurt or milk. Anyway... meal planning is a good thing. And it's a good thing that I enjoy doing it. (:

So there you have it... the envelope system is working! I'm interested to see how things change once we move back to Provo though. Prices will be different and we won't have an Aldi (aaaaand my heart just broke a little more). We love Aldi. So much. If you have one near by and you don't shop there... you need to repent and shop there! haha seriously it's a wonderful place. Anyway, 5 weeks from now we'll really be putting this stuff to use... let's hope it keeps working! 

New roles and new beginnings.

We all play multiple roles on and off throughout our lives. Some of these roles are small and seemingly insignificant while others are extra special and are the biggest roles we will ever play.

Today is a big day in our family. Today both my youngest sister and my parents took on new roles. Here's the "cast list," if you will...

Emily Barfuss, playing the part of Empty Nester Orchestrater

Scott and Diane Barfuss, playing the parts of The Empty Nesters

That's right... today my baby sister loaded up her Ford Explo[d]er with all her belongings (minus the hand-me-down dishes from grandma Barfuss, oops) and drove herself to Provo, Utah to begin her college career.

I highly highly doubt those are all of her belongings. She must not have packed her clothes yet. ;)

What my parents are going to do with themselves now? I have no idea. I'm sure they have projects here and there... ya know, replacing the back patio, prepping for the big family reunion, and I'm sure they'll spend a lot of time planning trips to Provo for the next few years. They'll probably even start calling each other "Scott" and "Diane" around the house... weird.

Anyway, back to roles. Not only is Emily now permanently an Empty Nester Orchestrater, she also plays the role of Amazing Example for me. In a way we are going through similar situations, leaving our homes to do grown up scary things and all. Today she left her familiar home where she has lived her entire life. She left the city that she has grown to love (and grown sick of haha come on Pine Ridge Mall, have a growth spurt or something!). She left tons of great friends, young and old. And the biggest blow.. she left her mom and dad. I'm sure my dad had to pry my mom out of Emily's arms and coax her out of Moo's car and inside the house with some Bit-O-Honey's. "You can't live in Moo's apartment, hon'.... yes, I know it sounds fun but... no seriously she'll be fine."

This leads me to the first reason why my baby sister is such an amazing example for me... she is beyond her years. At least she is beyond what I was as an 18 year-old. Her relationship with our parents is a great example of this beyond-ness. This relationship is one that I did not have with my parents until far too long after I left home. 

My "leaving for college" experience was very different from Emily's... on my end at least. After my parent's helped me move my stuff from my temporary place with my cousin and into my Gates Hall apartment (that no longer exists) they drove me over to the freshman orientation BBQ and literally dropped me off in the middle of the road because there wasn't any parking and we'd kinda already said our goodbyes. "Are you kidding??" Nope, and I didn't even mind. I was selfish and so ready to just be gone. I wanted the new friends, roommates, boys, etc. I'm sure my mom's big loving heart strings were reaching out and holding on to me so tightly as they drove away. And I'm sure that my dad reassured her, "She'll be fine." Fortunately I have since developed a wonderful relationship with my parents, one that would have done me a lot of good had it come sooner. Yes, I still am selfish, but I am striving to better fulfill one of my more important roles as "daughter."

In a way, I feel as though I am going through this "leaving home experience" all over again. Except this time, I am most certainly not as eager to leave home. Half of me is very excited, especially since we just found out that some of our closest friends will also be returning to Provo just weeks after us. My excitement is also fed as I continue to pack, get closer to finding an apartment, and make driving-across-the-country travel plans. The other half of me is completely devastated by the fact that we are leaving so many people and things that we love dearly. We have made some incredible friends. We have lived in the most adorable, close-knit, safe village with the most awesome trail for running and adventuring about. We have had a near-perfect experience these last two years and I just can't imagine leaving when things really are so lovely. Second reason why my baby sister is such a great example for me... she is courageous. She just finished high school and here she is, four weeks later, trolling BYU campus, making new friends, and starting the next big phase of her life. In a little over four more weeks we'll be doing the same. My only hope is that I can do it with as much determination and courage as my sister is doing it this very moment.

So thank you, Emily, for your amazing example. Thank you for calming my fears and showing me that everything is going to be okay. Thank you for treading the path and for being the first to show up to Provo so we have someone to welcome us and give us much needed hugs (and cookies, right?). Oh wait, that's my job. (:

You've grown up to be quite the young woman, Emily. I wasn't going to say it... but I really do look up to you. And not just because you are 5'10" and I'm pushing 5'7". (:

 Good luck with this new adventure, we can't wait to join you next month! Until then, we're just a Skype away!

You're off to great places!
Today is your day!
Your [Y] mountain is waiting,
so... get on your way!

xoxoxox

Other new roles worth mentioning: after 18 years of fulfilling her role above-and-beyond, Emily Barfuss will be stepping down as Queen of the Fortress and will pass her crown to the lovely and ever-deserving Diane Barfuss. Scott Barfuss' role as Humble Servant will remain unchanged.

daddy time 2.0

Of all of the things that go on in Mr. Peter's day it is clearer than clear that his favorite time of day is daddy time. Outside of their early mornings together Peter get's pretty excited when 4:45pm rolls around... he can sense daddy's soon arrival and watches out the window for Todd's maroon Jeep to pull into his parking spot, just in time for a round of *ba-ba before dinner. Peter loves his daddy and I don't blame him... I love his daddy too. (: He especially loves his daddy because his daddy is patient, fun, energetic, creative, and willing to rough house. Five things that I don't particularly shine at but am working on... hence why at 4:45pm Peter is ready for some change up to his day.

*ba-ba: a game with a variety of changing rules where Peter stands on the couch and Todd throws a small foam soccer ball onto the couch. As soon as Peter touches the ball Todd is allowed to run over and somehow get it before it touches the ground. Varieties of this game range from Peter pretending to simply give the ball to Todd and then throwing it the other way as well as Peter curling up around the ball on the couch and Todd having to pry it out of him via tickles and/or other bribery.

I have loved watching Todd and Peter's relationship grow these past two years. From daddy and newborn duo to daddy and puffy-haired baby duo to daddy and tornado-toddler duo, they always know how to have a fun time.

Our daddy time series left off last year on Todd's first Father's Day. Peter was ten months old and had just started walking... his hair was also approaching full bloom.

Since then Peter and daddy have had a lot of fun adventures...

taking naps at the temple (very adventurous, I know),

picking strawberries,

finding crustaceans... 

and ginormous starfish, 

eating ice cream cones,

flying super high in the sky,

playing with duplos,

going sledding,

going fishing,

going on endless shoulder rides,

finding Easter eggs,

helping each other with teeth brushing duties,

sharing breakfast (aka Peter stealing daddy's breakfast),

reading, 

making Peter sandwiches out of pillows... om nom nom,

going on walks,

going on hikes,

eating sandwiches at the lake,

adventuring around the lake,

and... lookin' pretty stylin' at the lake.

Doesn't Peter have such a great daddy? I think so. He's loving, extremely handsome, smart, and can do a killer part in both his and Peter's hair...

He really is wonderful. (: Happy Father's Day Todd, we love love love you!

xoxoxox

daddy's hands.

While perusing different fun Father's Day activities for singing time I came across quite a cute activity about all of the things our dad's do for us. Basically you go around and take pictures of all of the dad's hands throughout your ward/branch and the kids have to guess who's hands are whose as you talk about all of the great things our dad's hands do.

Both Todd and I have been blessed to have great fathers and grandfathers who have used their hands to teach, help, and guide us throughout our lives. Here are some examples that I'm hoping to get out of my primary kids today. (:

Daddy's hands...

hold us close to keep us warm,

play music with us (sound quality of music debatable),

entertain us,

and entertain us some more... but with their legs in this case.

Daddy's hands help us build with blocks, 

help us unwrap that stubborn Christmas candy (much to our mother's dismay),

help us stay hydrated... or just wet, 

and they help us stay well fed. Yum ice cream!

And one of the most special of them all, daddy's use the priesthood through their hands to baptize and confirm us members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Many thanks to all of the daddy's and grand-daddy's that have helped our little family get to where we are today. We love you all and can't sufficiently express our gratitude for your examples of selflessness, service, and love.

xoxoxo