Have a Better Life

Once I am going through tough times saving money and stick to a plan is a priority. I want to continue to eat healthy so I have to stick with some rules and don’t waste money on unnecessary food. Here are a few tips that will work for me and for you.

Healthy eating starts with one key activity: healthy shopping. When you decide to go to the grocery store, it is very easy to pick up food that is bad for our bodies and we don’t even notice we are doing it. Shopping in order to have a healthy diet can be difficult if you do not know how to do it, but with these few tips, you for sure will find it easier to do so the next time you go to the grocery store.

• First, make a plan before you leave your house. Use the sales fliers to check out the great and needed products that are on sale and take an inventory of your pantry and refrigerator to see what foods you need to purchase. Make a list (here are some examples of grocery lists) of all of the foods you’ll need and stick to that list. Allow yourself one or two extra buys, but otherwise stay to the ingredients you’ll need to cook healthy meals for yourself and your family for the rest of the week. Before you leave, review your list and take out any unnecessary junk food.
• Another great shopping tip to go along with making a list is to shop for a week at a time, or even longer if you have a large freezer. When you have to run to the grocery store every day, you are more likely to pick up junk food items every time you make a trip, and before you know it, your snack supply will be overflowing. You can shop for a week or two in advance by taking a day to plan meals for the week and packaging fresh product to be frozen.
• When you’re shopping, it is also important to read the label. Try to avoid purchasing brand name items simply because they are brand name or store brand items simply because they are less expensive. Actually look at the product’s nutritional value and try to get the most nutrients for your money. When you eat higher quality foods, you’ll feel more full and, in turn, eat less, so this really is the best way to bargain shop.
• If you are just shopping for yourself, you should also consider picking up a basket at the door instead of getting a shopping cart. The biggest problem with health and grocery shopping is grabbing junk food items that you don’t really need. If you have a small basket, you simply won’t have room for low fat fudge brownies and ice cream with your load of other foods, so you’ll pass them by.
• Lastly, don’t forget to consider drinks into your healthy shopping plan. Most people don’t realize it, but sodas, punches, and beers can have many empty calories and are generally bad drink choices. Instead, look at the labels and choose diet drinks, water and sports drinks, or natural fruit juices, like apple juice.

With these tips, healthy eating—and shopping—should be much easier!

We are again using our payday loan to survive our monthly bills. The reduction of extra hours on my husband’s job is putting us on a bad financial situation again. Our two incomes are not enough for the monthly expenses especially on those months when we have insurance payments, dentist appointments, medical expenses and so on.

March will be a really tough month, we have one car insurance to pay plus a temporary car insurance to pay because my car is going to be stopped for repair and I’ll be using a borrowed car. That borrowed car has no insurance so we have to pay for a temporary one while my car is being repaired.

I use an excel spreadsheet to manage my finances and looking through all the expenses I see that I can only save money on…groceries. We have to pay gas, electricity, water, mortgage, daycare, cable tv, these are fixed expenses I can’t avoid, food is the only expense that vary but how can I save in food without giving up eating? Credit card is already been used and I can’t see how we can deal with our expenses without falling into debt again.

Asking for a personal loan is not an answer because if we get one we will pay our debt but we will have another monthly payment to add to the ones we already have and that’s unthinkable right now because, if we can’t afford the payments we already have how are we going to pay for another one.

Using the credit card again was out of the question since we were able to pay off our credit card debt last year, but due to the present circumstances we have no choice. I know the dangers, I know credit cards are very attractive but I’m using it to survive.

I know that probably next month we will receive the refund of our taxes and it will help a lot with our debt but I hate depending on “to-come-money”. For now I just have to find a way to decrease my monthly bills. Any ideas and tips are welcome!

One of the things I often regret is not having a degree. I finished official school (12 years) and I had to start working right after because my parents had no money to send me to university. I few years later I entered a private university but two breakdowns and lack of money made me quit on the second year. Then came the marriage, the kids and the degree was put aside.

Now that I spend a lot of time online I realize I could spend some of that time taking some sort of degrees or certifications online. It’s easy, I can do it on my free time and I don’t even have to leave home.

Working in an industry where leadership and a wide range of knowledge is needed I think that a Project Management certificate would be great. I checked it online and I found Saint Joseph’s University that has an Online Management Certificate Program. This certificate can be used in several fields like Engineering, construction, computer systems, etc. so it would be perfect for my job and for others I might apply for. With this Project Management certificate give us all the necessary information and skills to make us better professionals.

Enrollment can be done online or by fax and several forms of payment are accepted. For those that have a full time job, a family and house to take care of, taking a degree online is the best choice. I really need to think about this because having no degree really narrows my opportunities.

Here is a very easy snack with lots of vegetables. It can be used also as an appetizer, for a picnic or even for lunch. If you like you can change the ingredients of even add new ones to make it a richer recipe.

Easy Snack Wraps

INGREDIENTS

• 12 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 (6 ounce) package sliced deli-style turkey
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 2 cups minced tomato

DIRECTIONS
1. Spread cream cheese evenly over the tortillas. Top the cream cheese with lettuce leaves. Arrange the turkey slices in even layers on top of the lettuce. Sprinkle the carrots and tomato over the turkey slices. Roll the tortillas into wraps. Cut the wraps diagonally into bite-sized pieces. Secure with toothpicks.

I found this recipe on All Recipes where you can find other delicious recipes and cooking tips.