INTRODUCING ANOTHER FRUGAL WRITER TO THIS BLOG

I am so delighted to introduce Tracy as an additional author to this blog. I've known Tracy for some time now and have bought from her Itsy's shop.


Tracy is a true woman of God, wife & mother of a wonderful family. Tracy's blog is Unless The Lord and if you are not familiar with her I hope you'll pay her a visit and get to know her. She also has a Recipe Blog called Mama's Fixins . You can learn more about Tracy by clicking on her name on our side bar under Behind the Blog


I look forward to all the frugal idea's that Tracy will be sharing with us here at Hands & Hearts.....for HIM!!

WELCOME TRACY

PAYING OFF DEBT

The quickest way to pay off your home (don't we ALL desire to own a home and property free and clear?) is to pay extra Principal payments.

Take your Amortization Schedule.....if you do not have an amortization schedule contact your mortgage company or bank and request one......

I am going to list just a few lines of an amoritzation for demonstration purposes:

Due Date Principal Interest Balance
04/01/09 $284.52 $106.80 $19,432.49
05/01/09 286.06 105.26 19,146.43
06/01/09 287.61 103.71 18,858.82
07/01/09 289.17 102.15 18,569.65

(Sorry Blogger won't let me line up these figures. Hopefully you can follow the idea.)

When you make the April 1 payment include the next principal amount. This would make your payment $677.38 instead of $391.32 BUT you would save $105.26 in interest. Then on May 1 do the same thing: add $289.17 to the $391.32 - making a payment of $680.49 BUT you would save $102.15 and your accumulated savings on interest is now $207.41 AND you have cut two months off the term of your mortgage.

Granted this is easier to do at the beginning of a mortgage. For instance:

A 30 year loan for $100,000 @ 6% interest would have a payment of $599.56. The first interest would be only $99.56. In fact it would take you to the 222 payment (8 1/2years!! ) before you would be at an equal principal and interest of $299.77 & $299.79.

If you cannot do this each and every month just do it at often as you can. Even if you just make 2 or 3 extra principal payments a year. On a 30 year loan you have cut your mortgage from 30 years to 25 years and saved thousands of dollars of interest.

Another suggestion: if the added principal payments are too much for you to handle just add a set amount to each payment; i.e. $50 extra dollars a month. You will cut both the length of time to pay off the mortgage and the amount of interest you will pay greatly.

This technic can be used on any type of loan which has been written for a set rate, at a set amount of time, such as a car loan.

I have done this on every home we have ever bought. We have owned 7 homes during our 50 years of marriage. We assumed a loan on our current home in Coweta that had 25 years and 8 months left on the loan and would have been paid out on January 1, 2024. If I only pay the monthly payment and no extra going forward it will be paid in full on December 1, 2011. In other words I will have cut 13 years and 1 month off the mortgage and you can imagine the $'s we've saved in interest. Although it is more difficult for us to make extra principal payments now that we are both retired, I am able to do so from time to time and I hope to have it paid for in less time than the 2 years & 8 months remaining!!!!

As to any credit card debt you might have. You absolutely MUST make more than the minimum required amount or you will NEVER clear the debt. Just paying the minimum payment hardly touches the principal at all. That is what the credit card companies want you to do, but please don't fall for that trick.

Just a small idea...

...but one that adds up over time, especially if your family eats a lot of cereal like mine does.

You know how there is always lots of bits and crumbs left in the bottom of the bag ~ here are a couple ideas to use them.

1. Keep them in an airtight jar and add to them each time you finish a box of cereal... you can use the crumbs to replace some of the flour in a muffin or pancake recipe, or use it as a muffin topping.

2. This idea is from a children's cookbook. You can make layered breakfast parfaits, with yogurt, fruit, and leftover crushed cereal. Pretty, yummy, and best of all, healthy!!

Waste not, want not, right??? *smiles*

{Please join Frugal Fridays over at Life As Mom for more excellent, frugal tips & ideas.}

Hot Cereal Muffins

Those of you who frequent my personal blog know about my tendency to be sneaky and underhanded when it comes to dishing out stuff to my family which is good for them. We don't always have to be sneaky about it, but serving up meals which are nutritious is wise in many ways. And believe you me, it does save money--in medicine and doctors! I made this post today and Susan asked if I would post it here too. I'd be glad too!

Sometimes I push a specific ingredient or item, but this time I just thought I'd share what I believe is my favorite muffin. I don't remember where I first got the recipe, so I can't give credit to anyone. I love these, particularly when I make a mixture of cottage cheese and cream cheese, add a little vanilla to the mixture, and spread that on the muffins. Yum-YUM. The rest of my family prefers them with peanut butter. It's not going to be necessary for me to tell you all the reasons why these muffins are nutritious. You'll be able to figure it out yourself. I just wanted to share it, since I had lost the recipe for a while and it wasn't so long ago that I found it. So now I've started making them for breakfast again. Enjoy!

HOT CEREAL MUFFINS

1-1/4 cup uncooked hot cereal (I use oatmeal)
1/2 - 3/4 cup hot apple juice or orange juice (heat until almost boiling)
2 Tablespoons canola or sunflower oil
1/4 - 1/3 cup honey
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup plain yogurt (I use Stonyfield organic)
1-1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1-1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind (best with fresh grated)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cereal and hot juice. Mix until well blended. Mix in the oil, honey, egg, and yogurt.

2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, orange rind and raisins. Mix the dry ingredients into the cereal mixture.

Fill 12 greased baking cups about two-thirds full with batter. (For some reason, I had a lot of batter last time.I put the overflow in a small pan. Usually, though, it's just enough for 12 nice size muffins.) Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

If you make a double batch, you can put some in the freezer for busy (or lazy) mornings. Try them, you may like them. I never got past oatmeal, because that's my favorite hot cereal. You may want to experiment with something else. Hope you and your family find them as tasty as I do.

More Saving Electricity

To piggy back on Joy's excellent post yesterday on the above captioned topic:

I went to the web site of our electric company and couldn't find a thing, even after typing in the search words: peak hours. They did have a way to e-mail them and leave a message, which I did last night, and received an answer this morning. To quote: "Your rate is not different for different hours of the day. Our heaviest load or demand for electricity is from 2:00pm to 7:00 PM Monday through Friday from June to October." They did furnish me with the breakdowns for both summer and winter rates based on usage. In the summer they increase the rate for all usage over 1350 kilowatt hours and in winter they reduce the rade in 3 steps, the first after 475 milowatt hours, then 775 kilowatt hours, and then anything over that even less.

Thanks Joy for making us aware of this so I could check it out. I'll be curious to hear what the rest of you find out.

For some additional ways and things I do to save on electricity:

1. Don't use dishwasher except when I have a large dinner party with a lot of guests.
2. We keep our house thermostat on 79 degrees in the summer & 72 degrees in the winter during the day. At night we turn it up to 82 degrees in the summer and down to 65 degrees in the winter.
3. We have and use ceiling fans in every room of the house. LOVE THEM!!!
4. I never use "Hot" water in the washer - seldom use "warm" - usually use "cold".
5. We have replaced all light bulbs we could with the low energy saving bulbs. They cost more up front but last longer and save in the long run.

*************

By the way: we are getting some much needed rain today.....so I'm not using the clothes line but my dryer. Sure nice to have it as a back-up when needed :o)

Saving Electricity

One of the best ways to save on your electric bill is to unplug things that aren't being used.

I'm sure you have heard of phantom load. I have been experimenting over the last few months unplugging items when we're not using them. (TV's, printers, VCR's, speakers, stereos, clocks, kitchen gadgets ) I have seen the KWH usage go down on my electric bills. Most electric company's list your kilowatt usage for the previous year and the previous month. So you can monitor your use.

Another thing I did starting in January was take advantage of off-peak and peak hours. I went to my energy company's website and did some snooping. I found out that off-peak hours in the winter for our area is 10:00a.m. to 6:00 p.m weekdays. That means they charge less per KWH for electricity than they do at peak hours. I had to do a search on their website of the words "peak hours" and finally found this information. It wasn't listed in an obvious place. fyi


So I adjusted my pool pump to now turn on at 10:00a.m. and run till 6:00 that way it is running mainly during non-peak hours. I'm also trying to run my dishwasher and do laundry during those hours too instead of waiting until nighttime when they charge peak rates.


Keep in mind that summer and winter peak/off-peak hours may be different.


So go to your energy company's website and snoop around and figure out what peak/non-peak hours are for your area and study your energy bill month to month and see if a few changes make a difference on your TOTAL AMOUNT DUE.

A Clothesline

Since Spring is beginning to show its sweet head I thought I'd post about the clothesline that we put up last year.

Using a clothesline has many benefits: it not only cuts down on the electricity bill but it gets you out into the fresh air and your clothes smell wonderful!!

When I first told Mickey I wanted a clothes line he wasn't too thrilled at the idea. After a trip to price timbers for poles and cross bars, etc. it was like most things and was getting more expensive by the minute...oh and the cement to set it in, etc.

After we got home I went out in the back yard, came in and said, "Can't you just string me a little line between those two trees." He wasn't too thrilled about the idea. At first he thought he'd have to move his bird house but I pointed out it was just the two of us and I didn't need anything big or fancy.

He went and bought a clothesline wire that is covered with vynal and......as simple as that ......... I had a clothesline. YEAH!!!

Picture from last August when the line was put up.

So look around your yard and see if there isn't some way to run some clothesline wire and enjoy another frugal step in simplifying our lives and cutting our costs.

Another frugal tip...use an ice cream bucket to hold the clothes pens. I seem to find multiple uses for these ice cream buckets. Clipping it to the line you can just move it along as you are hanging up the items. This way I didn't have to keep bending over and deal with my back. It had been about 39 years since I'd hung clothes on a line!!!

This was my first small wash and it dried in 1 1/2 hours. Mickey teased me that it would have taken 30 minutes in the dryer. Right...but I wonder how much electricity I saved?

Anyway, I am still delighted with my little clothesline. Who knows.....I may even start wearing aprons again but I hope I'll NEVER have to give up the washing machine :o)