Lisa Zahn

We pulled it off...our Honda is sold, via Craigslist, for a good price. We also found a car we could buy with cash, for $2000. On Tuesday, I put on my dreamy/practical to-do list : find the perfect car . On the vision board I made early this month, pictured below (not my prettiest vision board ever, to be sure, but it's doing the job), I had cut out and pasted a Subaru logo. We used to have a Subaru Forester that was my favorite car ever so I wanted another Subaru. Over the weekend, we had the offer on the Honda CRV and began test-driving, trying several $2000 cars on Sunday and finding nothing we were quite sure about. Monday night George teaches, so we waited until Tuesday to go out again. I asked the potential Honda buyer if we could wait on accepting her offer until later in the week. She said sure. We knew we needed to find another car before we could sell ours. We went to a few places that afternoon. We found a 1997 Subaru Legacy wagon on Craigslist , in a neighboring town. W...

We don't hold family meetings regularly or often, but when we want the kids' attention, we call one to order after dinner. So yesterday, we notified them in advance and called a family meeting. The kids were quite wary beforehand. Turns out, they thought it was all good (except for the announcement of what their summer yard chores would be, ha ha). We told them about our "Mom and Dad Matching Plan": any activity they want to do, they pay half and we pay the other half. So basically, we'll match their money. When I said some people might find us abusive for expecting our kids to cover half their expenses at their age, Rose piped up with, "but mom, no kids I know get a $50 a month allowance!" Woo hoo! We're training them well... We extended our matching program to their future transportation needs and also said they might want to start saving for a car at some point (Eli has only two years before he can possibly get his driver's li...

Go here to enter to win one of five lifetime memberships to Financial Peace University . I don't need to enter because we're already lifetime members, meaning we can take the classes anytime, anywhere forever and our $93 is already paid. But if you haven't joined FPU already, go comment at Simple Mom's post to win! Also, if you look at FPU's webpage under Find A Class , you'll see a list of all the classes near you. Often they're offered at churches, but not always and there's usually several going on in any city. Good luck!

Today I want to share some links with you, things I've come across or am reading that are helpful on the subject of families, lifestyle and money. Here's a good post from a blog I just found, Plain and Joyful Living. The "M" Word One of my missions in life, and in this blog, is to show people they can live on less money than they think. That one income for a family, or even no outside income if you choose to have home-based businesses (farming, crafting, etc.), might just be plenty. In this post from Plain and Joyful Living , Tonya gives specifics on her family's income and how their family of 8, soon to be 9, is able to live on it. I appreciate when the taboo topic of numbers is discussed openly, as you could guess from my own blog! If you look around on her blog, it looks like this is a common subject for her, and I love it. I'm reading the book Better Off: Flipping The Switch on Technology by Eric Brende right now and it has me thinking a lot about lif...