Once Upon A Time

I have a fun game that I love because it inspires creativity.  It is simply called "Once Upon A Time."  I acquired my copy when I worked at The Gamekeeper (before it was bought out by Hasbro games).  The rules are designed for a group of people to tell a story together.  The story can be passed around by interruptions using the cards or if a person starts confusing the story from what has been told or if they get stuck and pass.  Everyone has a goal to use all of the cards in their hand and bring the story to their "Ending" card which makes the telling more fun.  The other rules to know are that each card must be significant to the story's telling and must have their own sentence in order to be added to the story.

Just for fun I will tell a story using the cards I have chosen randomly from the deck:

Once upon a time there was a very strong boy who grew up in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.  He worked on a farm and could heft twice as much as any other boy his age.  Even some of the men could not lift the heavy loads he could.  He parents loved him and wanted to see him do well, but they also needed him to survive.  Their farm was very prosperous because of his great strength and they would have to hire out at least three people to do the work he could by the time he was 18.

One day, George, (the very strong boy) could no longer stand living in anonymity and insisted his father give him money to set out on his journey to make his own way in the world.  His father refused to give his son the money, but pleaded with him to stay one more year so they could bring the harvest in to pay for workers next year.  They argued back and forth and in his anger George struck his father with an awful blow.  His father collapsed from the pain and George cried out in agony at his own stupidity.  He carried his father to the doctor, who treated the wound swiftly but it was more than the father could bear.  He passed away in the night.  George discussed the matter with his mother who was more understanding and forgiving than he could have expected.  She insisted that they sell the farm to their neighbors who could jointly afford it and leave together.  George being her only child felt his duty to take care of his mother and promised that she would live comfortably no matter what job he found.

They set off together on a fine misty morning taking the only road they knew that led to another small town.  In the next town, George was able to purchase a pair of fine horses with the money from their farm and spared some for provisions as they traveled.  He also asked around for jobs that may need a strong hand, but the town was not in need.  One merchant that traded with the travelers said he heard a rumor that the king of the province was looking for a strong man for an odd job but he did not know much more about it.  The merchant shared that the road to the castle was through the forest east of the village and George and his mother, Marda, headed that direction.

The forest was thick and the path was hard to see.  They had no experience with forests having grown up in the plains, but George persisted.  Soon, they lost the path entirely and had to camp for the night.  In the middle of the night the croaking sound awoke George.  He opened his eyes to see a frog right in front of him.  The frog croaked insistently and George followed the frog's gaze to a knotted old oak behind him.  George got up and examined the oak more closely.  He found a rabbit hole beneath and something shining within.  George awakened his mother and she suggested they wait for daylight to see more clearly.  The frog leaped in and croaked loudly again.  George reached in and found coins.  He delightedly pulled a fist full of gold from the hole.  His mother was not delighted.  She feared they had found the hiding place of some stolen treasure and begged her son to replace the money.  George refused.  He dug all the money out and after doing so the frog came out of the hole and leaped upon the horse's saddle.  It was clear the frog intended to see them through the forest to George so he and Marda mounted and the frog led them back to the path they had lost.

The castle had a wall and moat but the bridge was open and George and his mother were permitted to enter to find out more about the job with the King.  George found a nice place for his mother to stay and left the money with her.  She did not want him to because she was still fearful, but George promised he could return to check on her.  The King did have a job for George.  It was not what George had hoped for though.  The king wanted many strong men to help build better roads to all the villages in his province.  George was sure he could find a better job that his strength was suited for.  When he returned to his mother he found her in a fit of tears.  The frog was continuing to croak incessantly at her and she did not want to stay in its presence a moment longer.  George took the money and asked the frog what it wished him to do.  The frog led them back to the horses and back along the road they had come.

The frog ended at the grave of George's father. It hopped maddeningly back and forth from the grave to the farm to George's mother.  Finally, George realized he must buy the farm back for his mother and run it as he had been raised to do, but he refused.  He tossed the coins at his mother and shouted, "Do what you will with them!"  Then he picked up the frog and ran away so she could be bothered no more by its croaking.  As for fame or fortune George's pride could never be satisfied with any work great or small.  He lived the rest of his life as a beggar...which was perfectly just.

Debt! Get out of it and stay out of it!

Despite the fact that I still have not figured out how to make this blog type in the font style or color I like, I will ignore that for now and write a post inspired by my wonderful friend who is trying to get out of debt.  What does it have to do with creativity?  I will tell you.  Not spending money takes a lot of creativity.

What is my level of expertise?  Well I have lived for 30 years and 4 years ago we bought a house and entered the first and, hopefully, only debt we will ever have.  Simultaneously, I quit my job as apartment manager and became part of (what I consider) the elite and endangered position of stay-at-home mom.

My new motto when I stopped earning regular income became:  "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."  The "do without" is often the hardest part, but the "make it do" part can often solve the issue.  For example we currently do without cell phones because it costs more than our budget can currently take.  We do without a second car and my husband makes it do with the transit system.  It is hard, but we save literally thousands of dollars by not spending money maintaining and gassing up a second car.  But we can still make do with many little things.  We could really use more insulation in our house, but we have been making do with using bubble wrap on the windows in the winter and aluminum foil in the summer until we have enough money to buy the fancy double pane windows.

I know a lot of the cliche answers to saving money:  Budget, Budget, Budget.

My budget looks like this:  I check the bank account, I pay the bills automatically and what do I have left?  That is my budget.  Not entirely accurate because we get a nice chunk of tax return each year, and I use it to help pad my budget every month, but how much we have left in December is dependent on how well I avoid spending all the other months.

We have 3 kids and we shop mostly at the grocery store and the thrift store.  My husband and I make really delicious food so we don't feel too sad when we don't have money to eat out.  But I also do shop at the Nordstrom's rack, Craigslist and Target and red tag sales.  When I shop I have a specific list of needs in mind.  I pretty much stick to the list and avoid going outside it.  I also get very picky about purchases.  I try to make sure that when I buy something that I didn't plan to purchase it will be useful and not just clutter.

I also shop for IDEAS on the internet.  Like the bubble wrap idea.  I wanted to insulate our windows so I did research on the internet and learned that you could put bubble wrap on your windows using soapy water to make it stick.  It really works.  You can get a roll of bubble wrap at for $20 bucks at an office supply and insulate all your windows twice over or you can spend about $30-$40 dollars per a window getting the fancy transparent material from your hardware supply or you can spend $500-$1,000 per a window and get the double pane windows.  I know I can afford the bubble wrap without going into debt so I do that.

I earn some money doing internet surveys through Mindfield online.  I also earn money giving voice lessons, but I only have one student right now.  I help my son earn money by selling lemonade and cookies on our very busy street.  Earning money is easy.  Not spending money is difficult.

So here are some creative ideas for the hard times:  
Eat in...  It can be fun to try new recipes or to experiment with your favorite recipes.  I use the internet to find recipes for my favorite restaurant dishes and find that we can make as good or even better to our taste preferences.
Play a game...  We entertain often at our house, and we love playing games--board games, card games, video games, table top games etc.   
Watch a movie you own or from the internet for free...  Obviously we pay to have internet access, but we have saved a lot of money on cable and new movies and even going out to the theater with our Netflix and Hulu account.  We use Hulu for free, but with Netflix instant and get one DVD at a time we have saved our date nights out for movies we really, really want to see in the theater.  We have bought only DVDs that we absolutely LOVED.  If we want to watch a movie that we really liked again we just put it on our queue for the mail in.    
Go to the library...  The library has helped me to not spend money on books.  It also makes a great date night, and a great outing for the kids for free.
Go for a walk on main street or a park or your local farmer's market...  Or any place that looks like it would be fun to just walk around.  When I was a kid I looked forward to walking around Julian near Christmastime every year.  It was just fun to look at all the beautiful crafts and displays and to smell the apple pie and spices in the air.    
Look at events your community sponsors for free and attend those...  Once again use the internet (the library offers free internet access by the way) and find out what events your community plans.  Once you start digging you will find tons.  Some of them will be free.
Trade services...  This one is the biggest lifesaver.  I traded voice lessons for babysitting.  I have a friend that traded haircuts for piano lessons.  I also trade babysitting for babysitting.  Just ask around your friends and find out who needs help with what and ask if they will trade help for help.

Other big money savers:
BUY when it is cheap.  I know my major ingredients in my family's favorite foods and when I see a sale on tomato sauce or noodles I buy extra--sometimes 2 or 3 times what I would have bought.  But then on the next 2 or 3 months I don't have to buy that item so it evens out on my budget as a savings.  For kids' toys and clothes I usually buy second hand if I have to buy at all.  Kids grow up so fast a lot of their clothes don't get the same wear and tear that grown up clothes get.
MAINTAIN your needs.  Most of the time now a car is a need.  If you maintain it in good condition, you won't have to spend extra money on a new car.  We had a used Saturn for 10 years and we put about 80,000 miles on it (because I like walking) and when we had to repair it we were willing to spend $2,000 instead of $20,000.  That extra zero is a huge difference.  This year we NEEDED a van.  With 3 kids squished in the backseat--two in car seats a larger car was pushed from the want to the need list.  So we added up all our repairs in 10 years and divided it by 12.  The total was $100 per a month.  That proves that it is much cheaper to maintain what you have than to replace it.  It also made it easy to sell our old car.
BUDGET for special occasions.  For Christmas, birthdays, and vacations we make a plan for how much spending money we have and we stick to it.  Be creative and you can still enjoy your life without spending a lot of money.
APPRECIATE what you have.  When I start to wish for more... a cell phone, a second car, bigger house, a video camera or new couch, I just have to stop and appreciate what I do have.  It helps to do service for someone who needs help and it reminds me that I have a multitude of luxuries that I just take for granted.

EDIT:  About the van.  We had that van for 3 years and I was recently hit in the driver's side door.  It turned out that repairs for a van can get a lot more expensive because of the labor involved.  I did the math again and found we had spent $8,000 on repairs for the van we paid $2,000 for originally.  It still had more repairs lined up and we decided it would be better to buy a car from a dealer that we knew would be in better condition.  If my husband and I had more time and the knowledge and the tools to do the repairs ourselves then it would have made more sense to keep the damaged van.  Instead we sold the damaged van and hopefully our new purchase will not need so many repairs.  Sometimes life lessons are expensive.