• Save Money, Get Organized = Use YNAB!

    This post is a little off topic for Renaissance Mama, but I want to share because it’s made a HUGE difference for us! Finances can be such a difficult thing to get control over. I am not naturally gifted with finances, and I spent a lot of my adult life worrying about whether there was enough money in the bank to pay our next bill. Can you relate? I experimented with a few different programs to help track our money, and nothing seemed to be worth the time I put into organizing everything. Then, I met YNAB, otherwise known as You Need A Budget. YNAB offered both a transactions register…

  • A Simple Change = Saved $$! (Frugal Friday)

    Are you interested in a simple change that will help you save your $$, and produce less paper waste? Use washrags and small towels instead of paper towels. I promised it was simple. After you use them, toss the rags into your normal laundry load. Your rags don’t have to be fancy – I use prefold cloth diapers (that weren’t used on the baby) and those have worked wonderfully! You could use cut-up old t-shirts or even scraps from old bath towels. I’m thrilled to be able to save a little more of my grocery/household budget money just by skipping the paper towels. At around $6/pack, I buy about a…

  • Frugal Fridays – Eating Organic & Saving Money by Keeping it Simple!

    Can I tell you a secret?  Our grocery bill has actually gone down by around $400 since we stopped eating processed foods.   We even added a family member during that time. I know it can be really difficult to make ends meet sometimes so I want to encourage you that you don’t have to give up (or stay away from!) natural and even organic foods because of the price tag. What’s the key? Simplicity For us, it’s been simplicity.  I no longer load up my grocery cart with packaged chips, cookies, poptarts, and pre-prepared dinners that don’t really nourish us anyway. I instead buy food as fresh as possible…