You can read parts 1-4 of this series here.

Creativity. What pops into your mind when I mention that creativity was the final piece to our lay-off survival preparation?

If you picture me with my sewing machine, making cute little outfits for my boys, you would be…wrong. (My Mom did sign me up for sewing lessons growing up, but unfortunately, they didn’t take!)

If you picture me dressed in an apron happily humming while I make all of my bread from scratch and eat off the land, unfortunately, you would be wrong as well. (Although we are excited to start our very own garden next year when we have more space. Our little garden on our deck sure was fun!)

In my experience, creativity has meant being resourceful in finding ways to bring extra income into our home. Additionally, the idea of using your home for extra income could also be a possibility to bring in extra money and it doesn’t have to be by doing something creative if this is not your strong point. There are many to start making money from your home. It’s just about finding the best way for you and the family, in the hopes of making a little extra income.

In the future, we may look at doing this. Those considering doing something similar might want to use a calculator to compare rates of available plans.

I like how J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly puts it:

All of personal finance is built around a simple equation:

When considering frugality it’s easy to focus simply on the “What You Spend” part of this equation. However, you can have just as much success when you focus on the other half of personal finance: increasing your income.

Once our first son was born, we made the choice for me to stay home. This is always a financial sacrifice for anyone who chooses this option. We knew that it may mean finding creative ways to bring in extra income, but we were willing to give it a try!

Free Money Opportunities:

At first, creativity was simply finding ways to bring in some ‘free money’. I discovered MyPoints during this time and took great delight in finding ways to score free gift cards through their site. It would be a while before I discovered that there is a world of ‘free money opportunities’ available out there!

Taking the Next Step:

When our son was a bit older, I stumbled upon an opportunity to apply for a part-time position as a speaker for Monster.com’s Making It Count program. Since I had some public speaking experience in my background, I decided to give it a try. I was hired for the position and was able to earn some extra income by simply being out of the house one or two half days a week.

This was a big help when Wes was laid off in 2008. It meant that we had a nice little financial cushion to work with. (Not to mention it gave me a reason to put make-up on a few days a week and gave me some fun opportunities to travel!)

However, it wasn’t long before our second son was born and I gave up this job. I began couponing during this time, so we learned how to better save money, but I was not able to help bring in any extra income. It’s times like that you need to consider your personal finances, which I did, but it became tricky regardless.

Until I started blogging.

Which is a whole new story on its own. I can’t wait to share it with you.

But the bottom line is this. At 2:00 today, Wes and I are going to become homeowners for the first time.

When we looked at our budget, we realized that this would not be possible without the income that Cha-Ching on a Shoestring is bringing in.

Thank you, dear readers, for your part in that!

Maybe you didn’t realize you were helping me in this way, but you are. When you print coupons from my site or click on ads or sign up for certain offers that I post, you are helping me bring in a small, but growing income. YOU are helping us buy a home today!

Creativity. It’s the final piece to the puzzle.

And it’s definitely my favorite!

B-Budget
A-Apartment
S-Saving
I-Investing
C-Creativity

You can read parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series here.

It’s time to share the next letter in our BASIC lay-off survival prep: I is for Investing

B-Budget
A-Apartment
S-Saving
I-Investing
C-

While there are benefits to investing in the stock market or trading Bitcoin, I’m referring to a different kind of investing.

It’s a kind of investing that frankly, I’m not very good at – but if you want to give it a go then take a look at this bitcoin digital review as I have heard it’s the perfect way to get started. You see, I’m the kind of girl that loves The Dollar Store. I get a little giddy knowing that every. single. thing. in the store is only a DOLLAR. I love that you can just grab something from the shelf without the need to compare the unit price with the other rows upon rows of similar products. Aw shucks, I’d probably buy my wardrobe there if I could.

My husband sees things a little differently. While he can appreciate the Dollar Store, he’s more of a “You-Get-What-You-Pay-For” kind of guy. He will spend hours of research before making big purchases to be sure that we are making the best decision. He also is willing to pay a little more upfront for certain products if he thinks they will give us a good return.

Neither one of us tends to be fighters, but it was this difference in views that led to our first fight. It all came to a head when we went to the mall to create our Wedding Registry. I wanted to just take the magic little scanner and swipe it across the UPC codes of every set of silverware, bed sheets, and steak knives that was the cheapest deal. Wes wanted to discuss each and every item in depth before adding it to the list.

It was the toilet seat that did me in. Seriously? Did we really have to consider and discuss the pros and cons and long term benefits of the toilet seat?!

That night was an eye-opener for us. We discovered that we shop a whole lot differently. And thus, we began to shop together a whole lot less often.

It wasn’t long before I began to see the benefits of Wes’s way of thinking, however. His willingness to take the time to plan out our purchases wisely has been a life saver for us on more than one occasion.

There are two areas of investing that have benefited us greatly:

An Investment of Time:

While it took unemployment for us to learn the value of investing time in couponing, Wes has been investing time in making purchases for as long as we’ve been married. This comes in many forms. It might look like searching Craigslist or Freecycle to find items much cheaper than buying them new. It also means actually reading reviews on products before purchasing them to be sure we are making a wise purchase.

Wes also introduced me to yard saling. Getting up early on a Saturday morning was not my idea of a fun way to use my time. Once we were expecting our first son, I realized just how much money a few hours on a Saturday morning was actually saving us. A little less sleep = getting just about everything we needed for the baby at a fraction of the cost!

When I totaled our Jeep a few years into our marriage, it would have been easy to run right out and buy a car since we obviously needed one. But we waited and took our time researching and found an incredible deal on a Toyota Camry. That car is now 15 years old and still going strong. I’m thankful we invested a few hours of our time before making that purchase. I’m sure it has saved us thousands of dollars.

An Investment of Money:

It might seem backwards to think that paying more money upfront=saving money. The Dollar Store Girl in me has slowly come to accept the fact that it’s a good idea to spend more money on certain purchases. This means that I have learned that sometimes it’s okay to pay full price for something {gasp!}.

We’ve also forked some extra money over for items that will help us save money in the long run. The perfect example of this is our chest freezer. A few years ago, I cringed at the thought of paying hundreds of dollars for an appliance that seemed non-essential to me. Little did I know how soon it would come in handy to support my newfound stockpiling ways.

How about you? Have you discovered a way to invest your time or money that has saved you money in the long run?

p.s. What ever happened with the toilet seat you ask? I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we kept the same ugly green seat for about 6 years. {Yes…I said green.} Moral of the story: It’s okay to just pull the trigger sometimes with that magic little scanner.

Coming up next in the series: C is for Creativity

You can read parts 1 and 2 of this series here.

When I was younger, my parents gave me a set of three envelopes and a little notebook.  One envelope was for saving, one for spending, and the other for giving.  The little notebook was meant to be my method of keeping track of my cash flow.  My parents would hand me my allowance in one dollar bills and I would dutifully separate them into each corresponding envelope.

Those three little envelopes were one of the best things that my parents ever did to teach me about finances.  At that point, something was instilled in me that said, “Saving money is good.” I took great delight in finding ways to make that savings envelope grow fatter than the other two.

That isn’t to say that I’ve always made the choice to save.  There were times that saving money wasn’t even an option.  But thanks to Wes’s upbringing and mine, we both realized that there was great value in saving money.

{I’ll admit, we did blow a good chunk of our tax return the first year of our marriage on a TV.  To be fair, our first TV was from the dark ages.  We felt that was good enough reason to take our little spending spree.}

After that first year, however, we hit harder times financially.  We began to realize that it might be wise to set aside any extra income for the future, rather than spend it immediately.

Which leads me to the next letter in this series on BASIC lay-off survival prep:

B-Budget
A-Apartment
S-Saving
I-
C-

The year that Wes was laid off was 2008–the year of the stimulus check.  Wes was laid off in April and we had just received our money from our tax refund and stimulus check.  Little did we know how thankful we would be that we did not run out to spend this nice chunk of money on anything frivolous. It gave us just the cushion that we needed to get through the next lean months.

We also grew very grateful for our budget during this season.  Our car repair fund saved the day as both of our cars decided to break down during Wes’s unemployment.

And now, as we approach purchasing our first home, we are even more grateful that we have steadily been setting aside money through the years.  We recently moved to an area where houses cost about twice as much as what we are used to.  If we hadn’t been slowly and steadily saving money toward our first down payment for the past 7 years, buying a house would not even be an option.

How about you?  Have you learned the value of saving money?  How?  Do you have any tips on how to set aside money even when your budget is tight?

Coming up next in the series: I is for Investing.