Seriously, have you noticed that most people only write about their successes on Facebook?  Does that bother you?

I gotta say that it doesn’t bother me one bit.  I don’t feel sorry for myself because I haven’t accomplished the same things.  I don’t feel inadequate.  I’m not envious.

Frankly, I’m inspired when I see my friend Julie post about her almost daily longer-than-I-have-ever-run runs.  I love it when Sally checks in with her “I burned 793 calories doing Zumba” posts.  I get excited when I see a friend starting the C25K challenge and posting about it on Facebook.

Often, I listen to others complain about Facebook because seeing people post about their beautiful lives, wonderful children, adoring husband, lovely dinners and skinny legs depresses them.  Because their lives do not measure up to all that perfection.

But, honestly, does anyone have a perfect life?

I’ve been “accused” of having a perfect life a few times.  To my face. With a sneer.  With the intent to harm.  And, I’ll admit, it does hurt to have someone try to hurt me.

But then, I get a grip and realize that the woman who hates to hear about how much I love my husband wishes that she loved her husband more.  She has no idea how hard we work at our marriage and that by posting about how much I love my husband I’m also reminding myself that I love my husband.  We are in it for the long-haul, and we could use all the encouragement we can get.

When I post about the successes of my children, their love for one another, their silly words or their helpfulness around the house, I’m reminding myself of how much joy they bring to me.  I’m recognizing the gift of them.  I just want to celebrate being their mom with my Facebook friends.  Because, honestly, it’s not all unicorns and rainbows in this house of boys, and I don’t really know what I’m doing.  I’ve never been a mom before, so I’m learning as I go, and I could use all the encouragement I can get.

So, when I post about the awesome run I had this morning, just chuckle.  It doesn’t happen every day.  If you saw me in real life, you’d know that I don’t really make running look very glamorous.  Sometimes (ahem, most of the time) I make it look rather uncomfortable.  My thighs jiggle WAY more than they should for someone who considers herself a runner.  My ears stick out of my hat and my hair flips up on one side.  My belly typically finds its way out of my too-tight shirt, which I constantly yank down.  When I watch my shadow running in front of me at the end of my run I get a picture of what I must have looked like during my entire run.  It’s hilarious.  Embarrassing.  But hey, at least I’m doing it.

And, you know what?

I could use all the encouragement I can get.

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
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Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

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Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
Confession: When I run, you’ll hear about it on Facebook. is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

As we went around the table sharing ideas, our discussion group leader turned to me and said, “I’m anxious to hear what you do with your kids, Kelleigh!”

I had to confess, “Um. I don’t do crafts with my kids.”

I know that came as a HUGE shocker to the ladies around the table, especially since I have a crafty job and I have a room full of crafty supplies and because I’m a former teacher.  But, seriously, I don’t lie awake in bed dreaming about the next educational art opportunity I can present to my children.

The reality is, my kids are massively imaginative and LOVE to cut and glue and draw and color and write books, despite my lack of prompting.  They just do it.  I can’t take any credit for it. I’m no super mom!

A part of me was a little embarrassed by my lack of motivation to provide stimulating, educational art activities, but then the other part of me said, “Be realistic, Kelleigh. It just isn’t gonna happen.”

And I’m okay with that.  My kids are turning out just fine.

Do you do crafts with your kids?  Tell me I’m not alone here!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
Confession: I don’t do crafts with my kids is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

Let’s recap.  I’m writing these posts to demystify the topic, not because I think I know everything or because we are doing it all right.  I’ll be the first to tell you that we made some poor decisions back when we were DINKs (double income, no kids) and we have major regrets that we hope others will learn from.  Perhaps I’ll post about some of those some day (nothing life shattering, but stupid, nonetheless).  Basically, we know that people have a hard time talking about money, which really sucks when you are trying to get a handle on your finances and you have NO idea where to start.  Why does it have to be so secretive?!  I mean, seriously, people?

You could make your life a ton easier and just take a Financial Peace course at a local church like my sister and her hubby did.  I’m so thankful they took that course, because my sister shared her knowledge with me and started us on our debt free journey.  I have not taken that course, but I did read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover book and it was pretty inspiring. (You can probably pick one up at your church library, public library or Goodwill.)

We don’t follow everything Dave recommends, but we do like a lot of what he says, like the parts about getting rid of credit cards, using cash for all of our everyday expenses and planning for expected expenses.

For example, Mitch has a business credit card that he keeps with him, but our personal credit card (just one) is frozen in a cup of ice in the freezer.  We just don’t need it.  Ever. We have debit cards if we ever need to use one for some reason (car rental, online shopping, airplane tickets, etc), but otherwise, we are off the monthly-credit-card-use-hamster-wheel. FREEDOM. Truly.

That is all due to our use of the cash envelope system, which I’ve written about at length.  Go read about that.  I’ll wait.

We use online bill pay to pay for monthly expenses like mortgage, debt payoff, insurance, utilities, tithe and offerings, etc.

We regularly contribute to our retirement accounts (right off the top of Mitch’s paycheck and at tax time) and have a lot of life insurance (term and whole life).

And now for the micro accounts:  This is just what works for us, and hopefully it will spark some ideas for you.

Two years ago, we fully funded our little emergency fund account ($1000). We have never had to dip into it (thank you, Lord!) but if there is ever a true emergency, then it is there.  Needing a new microwave because ours broke is NOT an emergency (although it might have felt like it at the time).  An emergency must be serious business.

Last year, we made it a priority to fully fund our Health Savings account.  Our family health deductible is $2000, so we funded it up to $2000.  We do sometimes have to dip into it to pay doctor’s bills, but we immediately work to build it back up again by depositing $50 a month until it is fully funded.  These two steps took a load of stress off.

After that, we started setting aside money for expected expenses.  These are things that we know are coming, but they used to “sneak up” on us, which is pretty ridiculous, but it is what it is.

For example, we pay our entire homeowner’s insurance payment every February.  It’s a chunk of money that used to STRESS me out, but these days I save $100 a month for homeowners insurance.  Our homeowner’s insurance is much less than that, but last year I undersaved, so this year I popped it up to $100 so that we would have cushion. I like security.

We have a Home Maintenance budget category on my micro account spreadsheet that we contribute $50 a month toward.  We don’t live in a fixer-upper, but there are always things breaking and projects needing to be done, so we budget for it.  I want new bark dust this summer, and I just realized that I have the money saved!  Wahoo! {doing the happy dance!}  You know that microwave emergency? The replacement money came out of the Home Maintenance account.

Next is Vehicle Registration, which I totally over-save for.  I can’t remember how much it is, but I save $15 a month so that when registration comes around I’m ready to go.

Our Car Maintenance fund gets a bit of a workout.  We have two 15+ year old vehicles, and they are falling apart.  My Jeep doesn’t have air conditioning and Mitch’s truck doesn’t have heat.  So, we drive the family around in the truck in the summer and in the Jeep in the winter!  LOL!  They still run, thanks to regular oil changes, and if they ever need tires, I’m ready for that expense.  We save $50 a month for this fund.

We love to get our kids gifts, but birthdays and Christmas used to be so stressful.  We were never big credit card users (when it came to extravagant expenses, just life-sustaining expenses), so we didn’t rack up birthday or Christmas debt, but we didn’t buy our kids much, either.  TRUE, Christmas isn’t all about the gifts, but when you love to give, it’s hard to not be able to do that.  These days, we save $50 a month for Gifts.  Discovering Swag Bucks was HUGE for my family, though.  If saving for gifts isn’t gonna happen for you, consider earning $5 Amazon gift cards, just by switching your search engine to Swag Bucks.  One year, I racked up $475 in Amazon Gift cards using Swag Bucks.  I did use about $200 of those for an “emergency” household expense, but that was totally cool with me! 

Our final category in our Micro Account is Vacation.  Our family vacations are usually weekend camping trips, a night at the drive-in movies, a day at the aquarium, a trip to visit my brother or sister, etc. Sometimes it’s, “We overspent at Thai food. Ah! Vacation budget!”  Don’t judge.  That’s how we work!!  LOL!  Seriously, though, we just went on a one week vacation at a timeshare in Lake Chelan, WA that was donated to us, and it was AWESOME to pull out $500 for gas, food, entertainment, eating out, etc.  I have never been THAT relaxed about money on a vacation before. I highly recommend saving and paying cash rather than using your credit card.  We save $100 a month for vacation.  I realize that if we’re ever going to be able to take our kids to Disneyland, I’ll need to increase that amount, but I guess I’ll have to reevaluate that, now that I’ve paid off my student loans!!  (Had to plug that. It’s just SO amazing to me! Hee, hee!)

Now, logistically, how do we manage these accounts?  I know I’m old school, but I work with a spreadsheet.  There are online savings accounts and various types of software available for micro accounts, but I’m confident in my spreadsheet, and it works for me.

We get paid once a month on the 15th, so when I deposit our check, I take our cash out for our envelopes, then go home and use online banking to transfer a chunk of money from our checking account to our savings account.  Then, I open up our spreadsheet and enter the amounts in each of the categories.  This is a screenshot of our monthly micro account.  Click to enlarge it. (Oh, the transparency! You guys should really be thanking me for putting this out there!  I feel sheepish. This is awkward.)

Notice that along the bottom I have the links to the other savings accounts. We actually have one checking account, and two savings accounts that I can access through online bill pay: one is our emergency fund and the other is this micro account which is a money market account.  We also have our Health Savings Account through State Farm Bank.

You’ll also notice that there is a lot of money in our micro accounts.  A lot for us, anyway.  Most likely, we will not use all of the money in these accounts, so in December I’ll transfer all but the bare minimum over to another category that we’ll call vehicle savings.  This is how we built up our HSA.  It hadn’t been fully funded until we transferred excess from our micro accounts into the HSA last year.

Let me just continue to say that we do not have it all figured out, and we do still have ginormous HELOC debt, but we definitely feel financial freedom because we know where our money is going and we have a plan.  We won’t be overwhelmed by an “unexpected” expense that we didn’t plan for, thanks to our micro accounts.

And, I also feel the need to tell you once again that we are a family of four, and we make a lot of sacrifices to be able to save, spend and give in this way.  Every family is different, and what works for us may not work for you.  You might make significantly more or less than we do.  Our point is to simply show you what is possible and help you to get your thinkers thinking.  We had many years of scraping by (or, not scraping by, but just crying our way through it and trying to breathe in and out), so we can sympathize with those of you who look at our spreadsheet or our cash envelope categories and feel hopeless.  That’s how I felt when my sister shared her spreadsheet with me.  What I learned is that the needs of her family (of eight) were VERY different from my family, and that I could do something to help make up the deficit between what we spent and what my husband brought home in his paycheck by cutting back on our grocery budget and cooking from scratch.  SACRIFICE doesn’t have to be devastating.  It can be empowering.

Yes, it does help that I have been working on building up my businesses (creating new income), and for that I am incredibly grateful to the Lord.  He opened up opportunities for me and gave me ideas that have eventually paid off for our family, allowing me to bring in a wonderful little income that has been instrumental as we continue to pay off debt.  Perhaps another post?  I’ll have to think about that!

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.  I’ll let you know what works for us!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
Our Micro Accounts: How we save for expected expenses is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

Any stay at home mom with a degree will tell you that it majorly sucks to be paying off your student loans when you are not using your degree in any wage-earning capacity.  The guilt heaps on, especially when your family is sacrificing so much trying to keep afloat so you can be home caring for your kids.  It doesn’t help when others are constantly offering you ideas on how to earn a buck so you can contribute financially or asking you when you are going back to work.  Because, you know, SAHMs don’t contribute much.

I’m not here to debate that topic.

I’m just here to scream it from the rooftops!!

My Student Loans are paid off!  Two degrees: BS in Secondary Education: Social Studies and MA in Education: Curriculum and Instruction.   Both from private, Christian schools: George Fox University (where I met and married my handsome man) and Azusa Pacific University (while I was teaching 7th grade full time – before kids).  That means, I owed a LOT of money.  A heaping, guilty pile of money.

BUT.

I’m experiencing FREEDOM!!  I really love freedom.

Maybe I’ll go back to teaching, but probably not.

Maybe I’ll work outside the home, but probably not.

In the meantime, I’m using my very expensive degrees to build up my own businesses in my little template shop at The Digichick, my Cash Envelopes store on Etsy and my new adventure in designing adoption profiles.

At least that is what I tell myself.

And, you know what?  I love working for myself!

I love that all of YOU helped to make this dream a reality!!  Thank you SO much for your encouragement and support!  I couldn’t have done it without you!!

What’s next?  We’re going to start saving for a mattress, since the one we sleep on is over 30 years old.  Then we are going to put away money to replace one of our 15-year-old-falling-apart vehicles while beginning to pay off our massive HELOC (which we used to live off of in the first few years that my husband started his business).  I might attempt to throw a trip to Disneyland in there, but we’ll see.  I can dream about showing my kids Disneyland some day!!  Freedom, and the confidence that I can accomplish such a lofty goal, help keep that dream alive!

I can’t end this post without plugging my cash envelopes, can I?

Going to a cash based budget helped us significantly cut back our expenses and finally get a handle on our finances.  I highly recommend it!  You can check out my little post on cash envelope categories and what works for us, and then purchase a set or make one yourself with my free cash envelope template!

Have any of you recently reached some financial goals?  I’d love to celebrate with you!!  Post in the comments!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
I paid off my student loans! is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

I created this little digital layout using the new collaboration kit called Celebrating Motherhood by Sugarplum Paperie and Kristin Cronin-Barrow, available at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Ahh!  It feels good to scrap!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
My Joys is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

First, the recipe:

Basic Bagel Recipe
Yield: about 1 dozen

Dissolve 1 tsp. yeast in 1 1/4 C. warm milk

Add:
1/4 C. softened butter
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 egg yolk

Mix well.

Stir in 3 3/4 C. flour (I usually use all purpose, but use what you would like!)

Knead dough for about 10 minutes, mixing in your flavors as you knead. I have done this by hand, in a stand mixer, and in a bread machine.  The bread machine is my favorite way to knead and mix in ingredients, but all methods work fine. To use the bread machine, layer wet ingredients, then flour, then yeast and set it on the dough cycle.  Add flavors after the dough has formed a ball and while it is kneading.

I love plain bagels, but my kids like cinnamon, so I usually do one recipe with 1/2 plain and 1/2 cinnamon (add 1tsp. cinnamon as you are kneading, sprinkling as you go).  I LOVE the taste of dried onion and shredded cheddar cheese.  Don’t be stingy on the onion or you won’t taste it.  I just made a batch today with 1 C. shredded cheese, and 1/8 C. fresh minced onion. YUM.  I was inspired to make a second batch with 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1 C. of Raisin Bran. (Actually, I think I added about 1 1/2 to 2 cups, which may have been too much. I’m one of those “toss it in” type of people and I rarely measure.)  Go wild here!  Experiment and see what you like!

Form the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. (If using the bread machine, take it out at this point and put the dough in a bowl. So, you are only using the bread machine as a mixer, not leaving it in for the whole cycle.)

Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

Punch dough down and shape into small balls, about the size of a raquetball (larger or smaller, depending on  your preference).

Poke a hole in the center and stretch, making sure your hole is large (about 1 1/2 to 2″ across).

My original recipe recommends that you flatten the bagels before you boil them, but I never do.  If you find that your bagels are super fat, though, you might want to flatten them a bit.

If you are making several flavors, you will want to dump the water between flavors.  Trust me.  You don’t want your cinnamon bagels to taste like onions.

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
Bagels, Bagels, Bagels!! is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

But, this is what I got:

We kept getting the “too many coupons” error on the screen, I guess.  I even had a super wonderful checker, but there was nothing he could do for me!  Aw, well.  I took back my coupons and had him put back the apples.  Even though I totally should have grabbed the apples since my boys go through a TON of them.  It’s the principle of the thing, though, right?  Hee, hee!  I’m so stinkin’ cheap it hurts sometimes.  {sigh}

I used the $5/5 IP (no longer available)

Free Milk Catalina

$2 off wyb 2 gallons of milk MC from inside the boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats.

Plus, I earned another free milk Catalina for my next trip!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
Today’s Safeway Trip (episode two) is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs

(Click to download in 8×10, 8.5×11, 11×14 and a layered psd file!  For personal use only.  NOT for resale.)

I was completely inspired by Pinterest on this one (a teacher made a bulletin board similar to this), and I was also super anxious to try out a transfer technique I took a self-paced class on.  (I would link you up, but the instructor switched stores, and I can’t find her!)

What I did was print out the verse on two pieces of 8.5×11 paper (which I have included in the download) and transferred the ink to a 11×14 canvas!!  What you see here is ink, NOT paper.  Kinda cool, huh?  I love the distressed look!

Here are the steps I took to transfer ink onto canvas using Mod Podge as my medium.

1. Prime Canvas with white acrylic paint. (Or whatever color you would like to see where the white letters are.  Cream? Pink?)  Let it dry few a couple of hours.

2.  Next, print out the word art onto plain printer paper.  Important: FLIP the word art horizontally before you print.

You might have to trim the white edge off the paper if your printer doesn’t print borderlessly.  Also, if you printed the two sheets like I did, you will have to trim the bottom off of the second sheet.

3. Spread an even coat of Mod Podge (I don’t think it matters weather it is Glossy or Matte, but I used Matte) over the entire canvas.  Don’t glob it on, but don’t be stingy, either.  The next time I do this, I’ll be using more, for sure!  Make sure you don’t forget the corners of the canvas.  I didn’t put any on the edges, but I don’t think that matters.

This is what happens if the red ink bleeds into a glob of Mod Podge, or if you don’t use enough (the distressed looking part on the bottom).

4. Now, carefully lay the paper on the canvas and smooth out the bubbles with your fingers and then with a brayer (if you have one).  This is an important step, so make sure you don’t leave any creases or bubbles!  Also, do your best not to overlap papers.  I did okay, but I wish I had done better!

(See the little bulge under the E?  If I had smoothed better, I might not have had that bleeding issue!)

5.  Let the Mod Podge dry overnight or for a super long time.

6.  This part is messy, but fun!  Spray the paper with lots of water, and then use your fingertips (not fingernails) to roll the paper off of the canvas.  Start in the middle, rather than the edge.  Also, only wet the areas you will be working on.  I wet the whole thing and it made some of the ink bleed a bit.  It’s not the end of the world, though!

7. Keep spraying and rolling (and perhaps brush with a soft cloth) until all of the little fibers are gone.  The ink will lighten up, but don’t worry!  If yours looks like this, you are not done.  Keep spraying and rolling!

8.  When you are done, it will be nice and smooth and a bit more teal than blue!  Like I said, the canvas will be lighter than the print.

You can now Mod Podge the whole canvas, but I just left it as it is!

Enjoy your free printable!  You can frame it, mod podge it, change it up (for you Photoshop girls), or whatever!

Be reminded that GOD loves you more than anyone in the whole wide world!!  So much, that he watched his only son suffer and die a horrible death, and then come back to life, proving that only God has power over death.  He did all of this so that we could have a personal relationship with him and experience eternal life in his presence!!  I’d say, that’s the best Valentine anyone could ever receive!

A sincere thank you to my current sponsors!
International Family Services - Adoption Services

Keeping Life Creative - unique art prints on Etsy

JeniLu Scraps - handmade wristlets, bags & wallets on Etsy

Bluebird Chic - hand sewn camera straps on Etsy

Visit my new Etsy shop to purchase cash envelopes!
John 3:16 Valentine Printable is a post from: Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs