don't you just LOVE winter?

Hello out there, hope this finds you all well.

I am currently taking a break to write this as my 5 year old is home sick. He's been coughing up a storm and has a fever to boot. No fun.

The weatherpeople are calling for a snow storm this afternoon, saying schools will probably let out early so maybe today isn't so bad to be home anywho.

Are there any homeschoolers out there that could throw some advice my way? Unfortunately, my guy is having a very rough time in kindergarten and I hate the idea of him hating school so early.. even I liked kindergarten and I am world famous for my dislike of school at an early age. Ugh.

How is everyone's Christmas shopping going? My one small piece of advice I would give is USE CASH for your holiday spending. So many people I know are still paying off Christmas's from 10 years ago and the gifts have long been broken or outgrown. I know it has been said, many times, many ways, but is really not about how much you spend.. it's how much you care.

Cash is a way of life in my household. I am in charge of the household finances in my kingdom (scary... I know) and earlier this year I actually switched to all cash. We don't use credit cards, debit cards, or even checks anymore. (I got really pissed at checks this summer when the check system a grocery store was using refused our check. It was fun holding up the line while I dug out my debit card. I had to call a phone number to find out the reason and they claimed it was because we "had written too many checks in one day" and to the system it meant fraud and they wouldn't accept anymore checks from our account. (I had written 3 checks that day). I'm sure that system is meant to protect us but I didn't appreciate the embarrassment of the check getting declined.
I also enjoyed how if my my husband used the debit card and forgot to give me the receipt (or if I forgot to enter my own receipt in) the whole budget got screwed up. So I went to all cash.. for everything. I even use money orders for our bills.

Can it be a pain? Sure.. it's much easier to just do everything online or automatic withdrawal, but it is actually a breeze to manage our budget. I set aside a certain amount of cash for everything, groceries, spending, etc. and when it's gone.. it's gone! It has worked really well for us, and we have actually started SAVING money each month. Awesome.

Until next time, keep the home fires burning! (Ideally.. in a contained area)