Mother’s Day is right around the corner! You forgot didn’t you? Well have no fear! In today’s post I’ll share some money saving ideas for inexpensive Mother’s Day gifts so you don’t show up empty-handed.

1. Flowers. What mom wouldn’t love a beautiful bouquet of flowers? You don’t have to spend a fortune either. You can order flowers online and have them shipped right to your mom’s front door for as little as $30 to $50.

2.  A Family Portrait. Get the whole family together and have a professional portrait taken.  It won’t cost much if you split the cost.  Another option is to gather a bunch of old pictures and make them into a personalized photo album.

3.  Home Movies on DVD.  If your mom has old home movies laying around on VHS or 8mm tape you can have them transferred to dvd so she can enjoy watching old memories whenever she wants.

4.  Have her grandchildren make her something. It could be as simple as a card made with construction paper, crayons, glitter, and glue.   Or it could be a do it yourself project like the ones offered at Home Depot.  I take my kids to Home Depot on the first Saturday of each month for the Kids Workshop.  This month they made little planters with pretty flowers for their mom.

5.  Burn a CD of her favorite tunes.  You can download free legal MP3 songs and then burn them onto a CD so your mom can listen to them at home or on the road.

6.  Make her dinner at home.   How many thousands of meals did your mom cook for you while you were growing up?  Well guess what…now it’s your turn!   Grab a cookbook and some groceries and prepare a homemade meal for your mom.  She deserves it!

Do you have any more suggestions for inexpensive Mother’s Day gifts?

Years ago, when parents decided to stay home to raise their child, they had very few options to make extra money.  Usually, the best option was to care for other children during the day.  Now, thanks to the Internet, stay at home parents have plenty of options to generate extra income.  I have stayed home with my kids for the past two years, and now I make as much money working from home as my husband does in his 9 to 5 job.

While there are plenty of ways to make extra money from home, these four suggestions will be possible for many:

1.  Blog or run a niche website.  Admittedly, building an income stream this way takes both time and money.  You won’t get rich quickly with blogging.  However, with serious effort, you can begin to generate an income stream.  Part of my monthly income comes from blogging, though that is only one small part of my monthly income.  Mostly I blog because I love to write.  If you try to blog just to make money, you will probably have a difficult time because it often takes several months before you make any money.
2. Teach others your specialty. Did you formerly work as a teacher?  If so, consider working as a tutor.  If you don’t have the flexibility to leave home to meet students, consider tutoring online. A site like tutor.com can help you become an online tutor.  You just have to be able to dedicate a certain number of hours per week to the job.  Likewise, if you are an accomplished musician or singer, consider giving lessons to those who want to learn.
3. Become a virtual assistant.  Thanks to the growth of blogs and the online industry in general, many people need help with administrative work.  If you are able to work independently, get work done within a designated time frame, have administrative skills, like to work with others, and have good communication skills, you may be well-suited to work as a virtual assistant.  You can find jobs as a virtual assistant at sites like odesk.com, but the pay is generally low.  Instead, you may want to consult sites like workathomemomrevolution.com or theworkathomewife.com, which regularly share virtual assistant job openings.
4. Join focus groups.  Marketing firms are regularly looking for people to share their thoughts and impressions about certain products.  To be picked for a focus group, you must apply by answering a series of questions.  Then, if you are chosen, you will often earn $100 or more for two hours of your time.  A good place to look for focus group openings is on Craigslist.org, especially if you live near a large city.

If you are a stay at home parent, there are plenty of ways you can find to supplement your family’s income.  Most of these jobs have flexible hours, allowing you to work when the kids are napping or asleep for the night or when they are at school.  With diligence, you may find yourself making a nice supplemental income while caring for your children at home.

If you are a stay at home parent, what are your favorite ways to earn extra money?

Mike recently announced that his house is on the market.  No doubt preparing to put your house on the market is a difficult endeavor.  You have to spend a great deal of time decluttering and making cosmetic changes to your home.  This includes removing your personal items so the buyers can imagine themselves in your house.  Rather than putting these items in temporary storage, take advantage of the need to declutter your house to earn extra money and save on moving costs.

1. Have a garage sale.  If you have enough time before you put your house on the market (ideally at least a few months), take the time to gather your excess belongings and have a garage sale.  Generally, a garage sale is great for adult clothing, basic kids’ clothing, toys, and household goods.  Your kids may not want to part with some of the toys they have outgrown.  You could slyly pack up the outgrown toys while your kids are sleeping, or you could enlist their help.  Perhaps offer them a percentage of the sale of their toys as money to keep.  When rewarded with monetary gain, most kids can more easily let go of possessions they no longer use.
2. Sell more expensive items on Craigslist.  Do you have a piece of exercise equipment you will no longer need?  A no longer used toy box or child’s play table?  These larger items often garner more money on Craigslist rather than at a garage sale.  The trick is to price the items competitively so that people will want to buy the item, but also high enough so you still have room to negotiate because Craigslist buyers love to negotiate.
3. Sell finer goods on eBay.  I bought a necklace in Ireland for a friend, but shortly after I returned our friendship ended.  Rather than give her the necklace, I sold it on eBay for $50, which was more than I paid for it.  If you have finer items like jewelry or a collection of some item, you will do better selling on eBay. Kids’ designer clothing in good condition, including brands such as Gymboree and Gap, also do well on eBay.
4. Sell any furniture you may want to upgrade or do not need.  By selling furniture, you reduce the number of items you must move, which will reduce your moving expenses.  Depending on how far you are moving and how much you can cull the items you must move, you could save yourself several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars on moving costs.  Once settled in your new home, you could always use Craigslist yourself to buy new furniture for your home.

Moving can be an expensive endeavor.  Use the time before you move to simplify and minimize.  Not only will you likely sell your house more easily when it is clutter free, you will also save substantially on moving costs.  In addition, you can easily make a few hundred dollars or more from the items you sell when decluttering.  Overall, decluttering and selling your items can help lower the cost of your move.

Lately I’ve been having a really hard time trying to keep up with all the responsibilities of being a blogger.  Part of the reason is that I’ve taken on new responsibilities at my day job and so I’ve had less time to read other blogs  or brainstorm and research article ideas.  But the bigger reason is that we are planning on moving and we just put our house on the market.

For the last couple months, my evenings and weekends have been filled with painting, cleaning and decluttering our current house so it looks nice when people come to take a look.  It’s amazing how much STUFF you accumulate over time…our trash collectors have found that out first hand as I load up the curb for every garbage day!

Anyway, I’m pretty excited about the move since we’re just about ready to burst out of our current home.  Plus I can’t wait to live on a quiet side street instead of the busy road where we are now.  My car got totaled while parked right in front of my house last year and there have been several accidents since then.

The frustrating part is the waiting game.  People have to come and look at our house and evaluate it and then hopefully make us an offer for way more than our asking price (ok, I’m not really exciting that to happen, but I can dream).  We have to keep reminding ourselves to be patient but I just want something to happen quickly!

I’ll post more about our experiences as we go through the process and hopefully I can offer some tips for the next time you buy a new home.

Debt is a major problem in today’s world. It’s easy to get so far into debt that it seems like your every move is blocked by an insurmountable wall. But with the right plan, the right mindset, and a little bit of work you’ll be able to break that wall into smaller chunks and before you know it you’ll be on the other side…debt free!

The first thing you should do is sit down and size up your situation so you can figure out exactly how much debt you’re in and where all of your money is going. This is a vital step that you can’t afford to skip.

People who skip this step are missing the point…no matter how good their intentions are they will just never break the cycle of debt. You see your debt is about more than just dollar signs and interest rates. Your debt is about you. Your desires, your temptations, your weaknesses. In order to truly understand your debt you must first understand yourself.

There’s an old episode of The Honeymooners where lovable loser Ralph Kramden vows to transform himself into a success. He understands that there are certain qualities all successful people have in common, so he sits down to size himself up and he makes a list of all his strengths and weaknesses.

You’re going to do the same thing except instead of strengths and weaknesses you’re going to list all of your income and expenses. Just grab two pieces of paper and get started. On the first piece list your monthly salary and any other income you receive from interest, divorce settlements, part-time jobs, and anything else that generates income.

On the second sheet write down all of your expenses. Include your mortgage, rent, car payments, insurance, student loans, credit cards, utilities, and any other payments you must make each month.

What we’re trying to do is figure out exactly where your money is going. You need to total up all of your income and all of your expenses. Then subtract your total expenses from your total income. Hopefully you’ll have a nice amount of money left over which we can then use to form a debt reduction plan to start paying down your debt.

If your expenses are higher than your income it means you’re actually spending more than you are bringing in. This is a dangerous situation and if you don’t resolve it quickly you’ll only dig yourself deeper and deeper into debt. You need to take a close look at your expenses to see where you can cut back, and it wouldn’t hurt to pad your income a little with a part-time job until you get out of the red.

So there’s your assignment for tonight. Draw up a nice list of your income and expenses and jot down some ideas for cutting down your expenses a bit. You may be shocked when you see where all of your money is going.

Ok, I’ve had 3 people send me a message that they receive a 404 error when they try to leave a comment on one of my posts, which means there are probably a lot more out there having the same problem. 

Some comments are going through (and I tested it myself and was able to leave them ok) so I’m not sure where the problem is.  I’m looking into it now, but if anyone has a suggestion or solution please use my Contact Page to let me know.

thanks!

Mike

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