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Good Housekeeping is Genetic

Well, I must admit we are totally worn out from the Mother's Day sale. It's just too much for me to do so I think we need to hire someone for these types of sales next time.

As I'm sitting here numb, looking at a dusty house that needs cleaning I have determined that a good housekeeper is something that genetic. :-)

My mom is the ultimate in good organizing and housekeeping. Her house is always picked up and whenever someone comes over she gets us and gets you a drink and a small snack or will fix you a cup of tea.

Me- the thought of organzing starts sending me into an anxiety attack and that's not an exageration. I have been working on my garage for 3 weeks now and it's no where close to being doing. Now that I've been working on it so long I don't even want to keep trying. (Yes, I tried the 15 minutes a day thing)
When people come over, I say "if you want something to drink you know where the cups are." :-)

Well, the the other day my daughter decided to clean her room and boy did she clean it! She dumped about 99% of the stuff she had. Then on weekends or when the kids are out of school I always try to have a bowl of snacks for them out for the day so they know what they can have.
Well, when they were home I was in getting ready and Elly came in and said "mom, I hope you don't mind but I used a lot of baggies to get our snack bowl together". Did I mind? No way!

So I think she gets it from mom because she sure doesn't get it from me! LOL I KNOW it's genetic.

To my defense, I don't really mind cleaning when I'm feeling well. I think most of my problem is just not feeling good so I get overwhelmed.

Tawra

P.S. Just as I was getting ready to post this the local TV station wants to come over and do an piece on us in 2 hours! Augh! I guess that's motivation right there. LOL

Saving on Weddings

Today's newsletter was on weddings. You can read the article here.
I also had some great reader comments and thought I would share them here also.
Hope this gives you some frugal ideas on weddings! Tawra


From Gerri:
Wedding Savings for 200 people.

Not everyone is going to approve of this one...

Decorations- Free!My brother in law worked at a
funeral parlor. I ended up with many large
bouquets of flowers for my wedding which we broke
down into smaller bouquets and table toppers. I
also got all my pew markers and misc too.

Alcohol- Free! My uncle provided homemade white &
red wine as his gift to us.

Bartender- $100.00 Nobody wanted to be
responsible for this. We paid a bartender
$100.00 to provide the service with a reasonable
drink prize. Whatever profit he made was his and
we didn't have to worry about the bill. This
worked out great.

Invitations- Free. My husband exchanged some
work with the owner.

Wedding Cake- Free. I borrowed a wedding display
cake and made a real cake to replace the top
layer for cutting.

Cupcakes- Cheap enough. We served platters of
chocolate cupcakes with "icing dip," and various
sprinkles (cookie crumbs, coloured sugar) in the
center so you could create your own wedding
cupcake. (My way of not having to ice anything).
People LOVED this!!!! How many weddings did you
to play with your food at????

Church- $100.00 donation
Hall- $50.00 My in laws have been members of the
masonic hall.

Food- $500.00 Again the Eastern Star ladies
provided the family style meal. I wanted to
stick with the basics. So the meal consisted of
roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, scalloped
potatoes, reg salad, Caesar salad, corn, carrots,
white & whole wheat buns, plenty of butter &
gravy. This fed 200 people plus take home
packages for the families housing wedding guests.

To this day I still have people tell me that our
wedding was so relaxed, fun and I'm amazed myself
how many people thought that we had the best meal
ever!!!

Always ask & brainstorm for ideas. There is
always something new or unique out there.

P.S If you do decide to go the funeral route
keep it to yourself. Some things are best kept
to yourself!


From April:
I am planning my wedding at the end of May and we saved big time on invitations! As a web & graphic designer I was able to custom design my own email invitations that matched some blank printable invitations that were bought at Hobby Lobby. I took it a step further and used my E-Market, email newsletter software to send the invitations. For just $30, plus 3 cents per email, I was able to send the email invitations and monitor who opens them and when. This way I can follow-up with a phone call or by mail. I took it one step further and incorporated an online rsvp system. I created a database to store everyone’s rsvp information and sort yes, no and calculate the number of attendants. No sort or counting needed. So many invites loved this idea that I have decided I am going to market it to other brides. You can find out more information by visiting http://www.designsbyalm.com/weddings

Tawra,
I very much enjoy your web
I agree w/ your wedding tips We were married
19 years ago . My father gave me some Money
but i spent about 6,000. and I had a very large
wedding In today's times That would be 25,000 to
30,000.Value I do not understand why people
getting married spend so much . When my own folks
were
married they only served cake and wine .
A wedding is w/ two people making a commitment
to live their life together
and having a wedding can be very simple
and it should stay that way
and i enjoyed what you shared
Tracy


From: Debbie T.
Saw this on the news the other night and thought
it might be good info to put on your wedding
discount site!!
http://www.filenesbasement.com/bridal.jsp

I could spend from $249. to $699. and get a
designer gown worth up to $10,000 or more. Great
deal for those who want that look!!

Blessings, Debbie

Note from Tawra:Ok, I admit stampeding for a dress is just way over the top for me. This just seems like the ultimate in our selfish society but hey if you really want that dress I guess it's a away to save.

Newsletter 4-24

I have a huge favor to ask. We are working on changes to our site and would like your input. If you would take this short survey (less than 5 minutes) and let us know what you think, it will help us to know what areas you are looking for help in. Take the survey here.

Don't miss out on the Mother's Day Sale. It ends tomorrow! We only offer this sale twice a year and shipping rates are going up next month, so get it now! (Don't forget that Dining On A Dime makes a great gift for mom, the new bride or the graduate in your life!) Learn more here...

Have a great rest of the week!

Tawra




Today's Tips:

When you are buying containers to store anything in the freezer, fridge or cabinets, always remember that square ones stack better than round ones.

Screw a cup hook close to your sink to hang your rings and watch. Make such it isn't in a spot where it could accidentally be knocked down the drain!


Today's Menu:

Mexican Cheese Casserole*
Rice
Green Beans
Fried, sugared tortilla shells*

******
"I just wanted to let you know how much I'm enjoying my new copy of "Dining on a Dime!" I put off ordering it for a long time because I thought it would just be a thin book that re-hashed what was on your site, but I was certainly wrong!

It is a very thick book with lots of wonderful information, tips, recipes and quotes! It will go a long way towards helping us curb our grocery spending which, next to our mortgage, is our greatest expense!"

"Thank you so much for all that you do!"

-Dawn S.

You can cut your grocery budget, too! Check out Dining on a Dime at the Mother's Day Sale, where you'll receive a great discount, discounted or free shipping and $119 in free downloads! But it all ends tomorrow, so don't delay!
Go get it now!

******

Mexican Cheese Casserole

1/2 to 1 lb. of hamburger*
Cream of chicken soup
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 small can of green chilies, chopped
8 to 16 oz. of cheese, grated*
12 corn tortillas

Fry hamburger in pan and drain. Add soup, tomato sauce and chilies.

In a casserole dish or baking pan layer tortillas shells, meat mixture and cheese. Bake at 300° for 30-45 minutes.

*This recipe is very flexible. You can adjust the hamburger and cheese to pretty much to what you have on hand. I use cheddar cheese but you can use Monterey Jack, Mexican mix or any combination you want.



Fried, Sugar Tortilla Shells

Flour tortillas
Cinnamon and sugar, (1 tsp. cinnamon to 1/2 cup sugar)

In a frying pan add about 1/2 inch of oil. When oil is hot, fry tortillas (I either cut or tear them in to halves or quarters).

When golden brown, remove from pan and lay on paper towels. Immediately sprinkle with cinnamon mixture on both sides.

I'm going to stop cooking for the week. :-)

I am the only person I know who would burn tea! Augh! I may have just ruined another pan. (no comments from the family :-)

Since the microwave is dead I had to warm up my tea on the stove. I put it in the pan and just left it. There are days that I'm sure my CFS brain is going burn the house down! :-)

Maybe it should be pizza tonight. I think I might have Mike pick up a $5 one from the store on his way home. :-)

Tawra

Air Drying Reminder.

Hi Tawra,
I have a tip that I came up with. I have ruined
more than one article of clothing in the wash, I
should say dryer. I put my clothes in the wash,
but occasionally I have something that needs to
air dry. When it is time to put the clothes in
the dryer I have forgotten and throw the entire
load in and then ruin something nice. I came up
with using velcro and a red ribbon attached to
the dryer. I have one sticky side of the velcro
stuck to the dryer and the other side of the
velcro stuck to the red ribbon. When I put
something that needs to drip dry into the wash I
stick my velcroed red ribbon onto my dryer
telling me to use caution and take that specific
item out before throwing the entire load in the
dryer. It has saved me from ruining sweaters and
special items. Nancy J. Rio Rancho, NM

I killed the microwave

The thing is less than a year old too! Augh!

I had a long interview yesterday afternoon and after it I went to cook dinner. I wasn't feeling well and not quite with it. I "put" the veggies in the microwave to cook them.

After 2 or 3 minutes I heard a weird clicking noise. I went and opened the microwave and there was nothing in it!

We tried using it a little later again and now it won't work. Oh well, at least I know what kind works best for us and I can just go buy it this time instead of shopping at 5 different stores. :-)

Tawra

Bed Wetting.

I have a money saving tip that I discovered.
Perhaps it could be helpful to someone else.

My son is 6 and has a problem with bedwetting
(family history on both sides of slow-to-develop
bladders and he is a very deep sleeper). He is
big for his age and the only thing available for
him was the largest size of Goodnights pull-ups.
I was spending almost $30/month on these.
Recently, the price went up almost $2 per bag- so
I knew I had to do something different. We tried
just putting a plastic sheet on the bed, and a
folded cloth diaper in his underpants. It did
not work well to say the least and he was so
embarrassed, cried and cried.

I saw the adult bladder control pads at the store
one day and decided to give that a try. They
make a type for men (more padding in front) that
you place in the underwear (kind of like a
feminine pad). The store brand was a bag of 52
for $11.50. They work beautifully and my son is
fine with them. I now spend $7.50/month for
these.

Hope this is helpful (and not too "icky"!!)

Peggy

From Tawra: This is a great idea. I have to say after having one who wet the bed every night for years, I finally went to the doctor and asked for the bed wetting medication. My best friend had the same problem with her son. That stuff changed my life! It worked like a charm instantly! I was one happy mama.

He did have to take it about 2 years and now has finally grown out of it, mostly. Now it only happens if he drinks milk before bed or is getting sick. If nothing works and they are still bed wetting after age 7 go to the doc and ask for the medication.

Food prices

I had a couple of questions about spending $300 on food a month.

Does that price include non-food items?
Yes, that is only food. I don't buy shampoo, cleaners or diapers from the grocery store. The dollar stores or Walmart or much cheaper.

I live in CA and they don't mark milk down here.
In same places they won't mark down items. If that's the case just find the cheapest you can. All these tips aren't going to work everywhere. Some people can get beef cheaper by going to a farmer, I can't. Some will find great clearance items and others will have cheaper in season fruits and veggies. Just do the best with what you have available.


You use fruits and vegetables for your meals. How do you purchase those and keep within your $300.00 budget? I buy them either at Aldi's or on sale. When we don't have fresh veggies and fruits in the house we then use frozen or canned.



What about this rice shortage?

What about it? People are panicking in fear and causing it to be a problem where there isn't one.

"USA Rice Federation spokesman David Coia said there is no rice shortage in the United States."

"What adds to the price spike — and the run on specialty products like basmati — is that rice consumers tend to be very loyal. The market is highly segmented by type of rice and quality, and buyers will generally not take a substitute, Childs said."

If some rice is having a shortage like basmati and you don't want to change the kind of rice you eat that's your problem. So there isn't a problem for us in the US but we seem to find the need to cause a problem for ourselves.

Stop watching the news! Good grief, I watched the the news for 10 minutes this morning just to see what all the hoo-rah was about and I just about had an anxiety attack! Most of the "money problems in the news" aren't because there is an actual problem it's because someone thinks there might be a problem in the future so they feel the need to tell everyone about a problem that isn't happening, then people get scared and prices go up!

There might be a shortage of rice so prices go up.
There might be a war so gas goes up.
There might be a shortage on oil so prices go up.
Ethanol might be better for the environment so prices go up.

Yes, prices are going up. That's life. Deal with it. I find it interesting that people have such a hard time paying $3.50 for a GALLON of gas but don't think twice about paying $5.00 for 12 OUNCES of coffee! They holler about paying $40 to put gas in their tank but don't think twice about paying that much for dinner 3-4 times a week!

You will have to give some things up to pay for these prices jumps but it's not like we are starving here. Most Americans, myself included, could stand to loose a few pounds anyway.

Now, I know that there are people on fixed incomes like mom who will notice a huge crunch and I am not talking about you. I am talking about the people who are trying to keep up their "standard of living" with prices going up.

This isn't the Great Depression so take a deep breath and find out where you can cut in your budget to pay the extra $100-$200 a month for gas and $50 for food. Just cutting out sodas alone would give you the money for the increase in food prices and for some families would pay for the hike in gas.

I have faith you can do it so stop being afraid!

Tawra

It Takes Time to Establish A Home Craft Business

But I Want it NOW:
It Takes Time to Establish
A Home Craft Business
by
Patrice Lewis
plewis@rezmail.com
www.donlewisdesigns.com

Imagine, if you will, that I’ve adopted a nasty whiny voice, something like a three-year-old might utilize in some of her more annoying moments. “But I waaaant it noooowwww!”

Want what? A toy, a play date, a cookie?

Nah, nothing that simple. What I’m whining for is Instant Business Success.

We are a nation of instant gratification, and the old platitude that good things are worth waiting for is never truer than in a home craft business. However, this is easier said than done. We all want success now, at once, this instant, immediately, right away. Sometimes the “right away” can include an irrational desire for something to be given to us without having worked for it beforehand.

We run a home craft business. It’s our sole source of income. We work at home. We don’t have to commute. We get to see our kids all the time. We’re living the American dream, everyone’s fantasy lifestyle. (Right.)

Gosh darn, aren’t we lucky.

NOT.

The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get
I’ll admit, I get a little bit offended when people attribute our current circumstances to luck. Luck implies that we haven’t done anything to get to where we are. In other words, luck implies that our present situation had nothing to do with our past sacrifices. And boy, did we sacrifice. Still do.

We spent ten years sacrificing before we “succeeded” well enough that I could stop working outside the home and join my husband in our home business. Ten years of staggering financial insecurity, of really, really long hours, of poor decisions that impacted us in both the short term and the long term. Ten years.

No, we’re not lucky. We’re stubborn, we’re determined, we’re (sometimes) desperate, but we’re not lucky. Through hard lessons we’ve finally acquired a modicum of business sense and made some sound decisions, but that business sense and those sound decisions were only obtained after a lot of stupid errors, poor business practices, and other embarrassing relics of that decade from hell.

Rarely does a craft item hit the market and become an overnight, long-term, national success. It takes time to build a market for your product. You must find customers, you must advertise, you must develop a reputation for excellence. This is where frugality comes in: live cheap while you build your business.

High Expectations
Of course, you’re going into business because you have high expectations of success. There’s nothing wrong with that. (What would be the opposite – that you went into business with the expectation of failing…?)

However, temper your expectations with a huge dose of reality. Did you expect that you would do a single craft fair, or open up your webpage, or do some other promotional event, and that your product would be instantly lauded to the skies? That customers would be so dazzled and impressed that they would pass the word to their friends, and that within a month orders would come pouring in?

Possible, but not likely. Your product is in competition with every other booth at the craft fair, with every other web page on the internet, with every other business out there who is vying for the dollar in the customer’s pocket. It’s up to you to garner the patience to keep improving your product, your pricing, your exposure, your market, your wholesalers, or whatever other means you utilize to increase business. And this all takes Time.

Patience and Foresight
It’s all too easy to look at a successful home craft business and assume that somehow it came effortlessly. When we see a thriving production, all we see is the “snapshot” of the here-and-now, and we grow envious that those people are living the, ahem, good life. What isn’t seen is the blood, sweat, tears, financial uncertainty, gnawing anxiety, and other unpleasant side effects of starting a home craft business. A thriving home business has gone through all those stages, and it’s unfair to envy them their success just because your business is at the beginning of its growth pains.

We know a woman (I’ll call her Amy) who runs a successful business making items out of beeswax. Beyond candles and other wax items, she markets a series of beauty products as well – lip balm, skin ointment, that kind of thing. Her items are classy, smell terrific, and she does very well indeed.

But it wasn’t always that way. When Amy started her business, things got going quickly. Almost with a bang, you might say. Then her child came down with a devastating illness. She needed to go back to work in order to obtain health insurance, and had to put her dream of business away for five years until her child recovered. Five long years.

Then she dusted off her dream and started again. This time things didn’t start off with a bang. However she persisted, and over the years Amy built the business slowly and surely. Today, with her husband retired, she supplies the primary income for the household. Amy overcame difficult hurdles and succeeded in her business.

Naturally we hope these horrific circumstances don’t ever happen to you. But even simple and common disasters can delay your dream of a home business (your car stops running, your kid needs braces, the barn needs a new roof). Be patient. As my mother is fond of saying, “This too shall pass.”

Oh, and by the way, even present “success” doesn’t mean that the business owner still isn’t experiencing blood, sweat, tears, financial uncertainty, and gnawing anxiety. Take it from me, it never ends.

So, among all the other factors you need to consider when starting your home business, patience is something to add to your list. Patience and foresight.

The patience is obvious, but where does the foresight come in?

You need foresight to be able to project ahead, sometimes far ahead. This is a highly unappreciated skill, and one you should practice regularly. Nearly any business decision you make will have an impact on your future.

If you annoy the craft coordinator for a local craft show, you may not realize that he probably knows and might mention you to the craft coordinator at a larger show, who will then mention you to yet another craft coordinator, and so on up the chain. You could find yourself blacklisted.

Alternately, if you prove to be an ideal vendor at a local craft show (non-complaining, helpful, complimentary, prompt, self-sufficient, that kind of thing), then not only will you be invited back the following year, but your reputation may spread to larger events. Everything is a chain reaction.

Or let’s say you need a new table saw because your old one is on its last gasp. Do you splurge on the finest table saw money can buy, putting it on your credit card and tossing the dying saw in the scrap heap? Or do you nurse your old saw along for another month or two while you save up the money and pay cash for the best saw you can afford? If something glitches in the economy and your business slows down, which route will give you greater peace of mind?

So think about the future impacts of your current decisions. Ask yourself, “Will this improve my business next week, next month, next year, next decade?”

Be Practical…and Frugal
Occasionally, when hearing about our “success” with a home woodworking business, people express an interest in seeing our workshop. God only knows what they expect to find…maybe a masculine dream of Geppetto’s workshop, full of wonderful tools and clever crafts lying about in pristine condition.

They are inevitably disappointed because, as my husband Don points out, they might as well go to Sears where they can see most of our tools in a much cleaner environment.

Our shop is a place of business, designed to do one thing: make tankards (and occasional Christmas gifts). There are a lot of major woodworking tools that are “missing” because, though we might want them, we don’t need or wouldn’t use them. We don’t do woodworking for fun (mostly), we do it for business.

Keep your “workshop” – whatever form that takes – practical and frugal. Don’t buy what you don’t need. If you run a home bookkeeping business, why have a laser engraver? Sure it might be fun, but it’s expensive and you don’t “need” it to conduct your business.

Work Hard
Long hours are another unappreciated factor in the success of a business. “It takes time” is a statement that not only applies to the number of years it takes a business to get off the ground, but also the number of hours in a day you put into working to make that business succeed.

Consider that when you’re off having a good time on weekends and holidays, we’re usually working. Last New Year’s Eve, for example, my father called around 9 p.m. to wish us a happy New Year, and asked what we were doing.

“Making tankards,” I replied, and it was true. My husband and I had put the children to bed and were sitting at the kitchen table, gluing up tankards while most of the rest of the western world was off partying.

That’s what you have to do to succeed. You need to work hard, work consistently, work even when you don’t feel like working.

Build Your Reputation
We have a booth at the Kansas City Renaissance Faire. The event runs every weekend from about the beginning of September through mid-October.

It is, without question, our single biggest money-maker of the year. We have a husband/wife team who manage the booth for us, and these two people are among the finest sales people you’ll ever meet on the planet. For a giddy period of six or seven weeks, we make money hand over fist.

Yes, we sell well at KC. But once again, what you’re seeing is the “snapshot” of our current success.

The reason we sell so well is that we’ve been there so many years and because our booth managers work their butts off. The behind-the-scenes picture you’re not seeing is how long it took us to find our wonderful booth managers; how high the booth fee is; the taxes we have to pay to the State of Kansas; the hideously long hours we work during our busy season, supplying them with enough stock to keep the shelves full; and on and on and on. This doesn’t count the elusive things we work hard to maintain, such as high standards of quality, a nice-looking booth, and our reputation as solid, dependable craftspeople. Whew.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget that we have to salt away the money we make at KC to get us through much of the rest of the year. So please don’t gripe that we’re successful because you’re seeing the “snapshot” of the successful side we’re showing to the world. We’ve earned it.

To Gamble or Not to Gamble
We prefer not to do first-year events (shows that are in their start-up year) because we want to see a tract record of how the event does. If it’s a flop, we haven’t lost anything. If it’s a success, we might apply as a vendor the following year.

The same reluctance to take a gamble may apply to your product. People like to see a tract record for a business. They want to see if you have longevity. The “sheeple” concept says that many folks don’t want to buy something new/weird/different/strange until enough other people buy it first (then it becomes “trendy” rather than “weird,” right?).

Of course, this implies an unfair “Catch-22” situation. How can your product succeed if people won’t buy it until you’ve succeeded? There’s no solution here except to live frugally, keep your day job (if possible), and hang on until you’ve developed the tract record people like to see.

Sales are often an exponential thing. You start off slowly, and then as you sell more and more, the word catches on and you sell yet more.

Sometimes this growth process can be hurried, as with good advertising…if you can afford it, that is. Advertising is expensive, and it’s expensive for a reason - it works. You need to decide if the cost associated with advertising is worth the price you pay.

For instance, we know a fellow who had a start-up web page selling a nifty product (we’ll call them lavender-velvet frammerjammits). His web page wasn’t getting much attention or sales, so he decided to advertise. He took out glossy print ads in various sizes in three different magazines. He researched the magazines carefully, looking at their circulation, demographics, and the ad costs. Then he bit the bullet and placed the ads. Altogether the ads cost him around $4000.

Was it worth it? Yes and no. The ads gave him greater exposure to his website, and he certainly sold about $4000 worth of the frammerjammits as a result. Trouble is, as soon as the ads ran out, his sales dropped off. While he “paid” for the ads, he really didn’t do much more than that – pay for the ads.

Here is a rough (rough!) rule of thumb for advertising costs: the cost of advertising should be approximately 10% of the return on your advertising investment. If you spend more than 10%, then you should reconsider that advertising venue and look into something else instead.

It Takes Time
I like to think our “success” as a home business is measured in longevity and the fulfillment of a dream of working at home, rather than in strictly financial terms. Yes, this business supports our household, but it does not support us in what is commonly considered luxury. Still, that’s not what we’re seeking in life, so that’s okay with us.

This is a rather depressing article, and I hope it doesn’t discourage you from striving to achieve your dream of working at home. Yes, there is a lot of struggle and sacrifice in starting a home craft business, but I can assure you that it is well worth it.

So don’t let me scare you away. Instead, let me hold out a hand and invite you to join us in the ranks of the self-employed. That way you too can listen to the traffic reports on the morning talk show…while you’re milking the cows. You can spend a lot more time with your family. You can work your own hours. You can do all the other clichés that people talk about when it comes to be self-employed.

Remember: good things come to those who wait. Oh, and who works their butts off in the meantime.


Patrice Lewis is co-founder of Don Lewis Designs (www.donlewisdesigns.com).
She and her husband have been in business for fourteen years.
The Lewis’s live on forty acres in north Idaho with their two homeschooled children,
assorted livestock, and a shop which overflows into the house with depressing regularity.

Feeding a Family for $300 a month? Newsletter 4-22

Good Morning!

Many of you have already checked out the great deals at the Mother's Day Sale, but if you haven't, you'll want to do it today! If you have wanted to order any of our print books, now is the time to do it! Everything is 25% off PLUS $2 shipping PLUS $119 in FREE e-books! This is one of our best deals ever. Check it out before the postage rates go up! Learn more here...

Today I'm sharing my tips on how I spend $300 a month on groceries for our family of 5. That price may be going up another $50 in the next few months just because staples like eggs and lettuce are going up, but that's still not bad for 5 of us.

Saving on your grocery bill doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't even have to take a lot of time. Not all these tips will work in all parts of the country, but use what you can to make the most of what you have in your area. By the way all these tips and recipes, over 1200 in all, are in Dining On A Dime.

Have a great day and don't forget to check out the blog.

Tawra




Feeding a Family for $300 a month?
By Tawra Kellam
www.LivingOnADime.com

I do something that most people think they can't do today. I feed my family of 5 for $300 a month. Most people say that's an impossible feat, but what boggles minds even more is that I do it without using coupons.

How do I do it? First, I use what I have. If I don't have milk in the house, I don't make a special trip to the store for it. The kids won't die from malnutrition if they miss drinking milk for a day or two. If I'm out of bread, I'll make some cornbread or muffins. If I'm out of fresh veggies, I will use canned or frozen instead. Stop going to the store for one or two things. I shop for food 2-3 times a month and that's it. You'd be amazed how much this saves on the cost of gas.

Shopping the clearance sections, I regularly find milk on clearance for $1.20 a gallon. My store marks the milk down a few days before the "sell by" date. The great part is that milk stays fresh for 1 week after it's opened. I generally only buy the milk when it's marked down and I buy enough to last until the next time I find a great deal on it. I throw several in the freezer and then I don't have to make a special trip for milk (or pay the premium price). Just thaw, shake and serve.

Purchase meat only on sale or on clearance. Again, butchers mark down their meat a day or two before the "sell by" date. Generally, meat is good for 3-4 days after the "sell by" date in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer.

I never buy meat unless it's on sale for $1.99 or less a pound. If it's not on sale, we don't eat it. (Even so, we never have a shortage of meat in our house.) You can get some great unadvertised deals just by watching the meat counter's clearance items. I found 5 lb. rolls of hamburger for $2.95 each just the other day. Of course, I stocked up and will have enough hamburger to last the next 6 months.

I can get "soup bones" with enough meat on them to make a great vegetable stew for under $2.00 for the entire family! Add some rolls and you have a complete meal for 5 for less than $3.00. When chicken is on sale for $1.66 per pound, I stock up. I do this with all my meats. This way we can always have a variety of meats."

***

Editor's note: You can get lots more recipes and tips that can really help you cut your spending in the Dining On A Dime cookbook. Check out the Living On A Dime Mother's Day Sale, where you can get all kinds of resources like these to help you save on your grocery bill and other home expenses! Read about it here!

***

Another important tip: Ask. Most people are intimidated by asking, but I regularly ask when things will go on sale or be marked down. By asking, I've found out that bananas, milk and meat are marked down each morning. I try to shop in the mornings to get the best deals. When we lived in Texas, the stores marked things down in the evening, so we made it a point to go shopping in the evening. Adjust your shopping times to find the best deals.

Serve your family proper portions of food. Most parents give their kids way too much milk, juice and soda. My kids get soda on special occasions only. They eat milk with their cereal. For snacks, they eat a piece of string cheese, fruit or one or two cookies. The kids don't sip on milk or juice all day long. They drink water and are just fine with it.

As a general rule, I try to give them one vegetable and one fruit for lunch and dinner and then a piece of fruit with cookies or cheese as a snack. This way, they get their "five a day" in very easily. Stop letting kids just "graze" on chips and other snack food all day. My kids get one small "bowl" of chips (1/2 cup to 1 cup depending on the size of the chips) a day and that's it.

So what do we eat? Here are some of our menus:

Slow cooked roast, brown gravy, onions, carrots, potatoes, buttermilk muffins and a fruit plate

(The next day, the leftovers from the roast are used as barbecue beef along with potato salad, green beans and strawberries or grapes.)

Pizza (homemade), tossed salad and fruit

Maple glazed chicken, scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, applesauce and dinner rolls

Sloppy Joes, cucumbers and tomatoes

Tacos, refried beans, green beans, sliced apples and tortilla chips w/ honey

With savvy shopping, you to can cut your grocery bill even when prices are going up!

A visit to the ER

Well, last night I got to spend 2 hours in the ER with Elly.

About 9:00p.m she came in and said "mom my nose is bleeding". She sat and pinched it for 30 minutes and it still wouldn't stop gushing. It then started to come out her eyes! Let me tell you, if you've never seen that before it is FREAKY!

So I ran her to the ER and 1 1/2 hours later it finally stopped. Apparently it's normal for it to come out of your eyes if it's bleeding really bad so she was fine just a little freaked out and scared but did really well.

The ER doc said that she should probably go to the ear nose and throat doc and have that vessel cauterized. She hasn't had one this bad before but she has had a couple of small ones so it might be a good idea.

She lost a tooth she's been working on getting out and then lost it at school so she was upset over that. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining what happened and the tooth fairy gave her an extra dollar for being so brave. :-) That's a good thing because usually we stop by and get a donut or some treat after a trip to the ER but since it was so late we couldn't stop last night and she was disappointed.
So, that was our adventure for the week! I'm off to pack more books for the sale.
Tawra

Plastic Scraper

I save a few of the plastic lids from coffee cans
(If you don't drink coffee, I'm sure if you
asked, a friend or neighbor will save a few for
you). Then I cut the edge off so I have a smooth
surface. These I use as "rubber spatulas". They
are more efficient than even the big spatulas.
Of course I still have one "store bought" spatula
for getting into jars, but for getting the last
big out of a bowl, or for cleaning plates, they
can't be beat. I use the plastic circles as they
are, without a handle.

Regards, Peg


Don't forget to check our Mother's Day sale! Over $150 in Bonus Items if you order today!! Tawra

Saving on Drinks

Hi, just a couple hints.

Today when I was grocery shopping, I started to
go down an aisle that I didn't need anything
from. I was able to catch myself and go back.
I'm sure that just browsing down that aisle, I
would have put something in my shopping cart that
I really didn't need. My resolve now is to stay
out of aisles that I don't need anything from.

I am almost weaned from coffee. Hurrah!! I
started with my usual cup full from the pot and
removed 1 teaspoon of the coffee from my cup and
added 1 teaspoon of hot water to my cup. The
coffee I removed, I let cool and pour it into the
garden. (Waste??? No! Much more an
investment.) I didn't taste any difference.
Then the next day it was 2 teaspoons, then 3,
etc. When I was able to taste that the coffee
was getting weak, I would go back to the last
amount taken that I was comfortable with, and
take out only 1/8 teaspoon more and replace the
total I had taken out with hot water. I continued
to the point of where I am now. I am now
drinking 1/3 cup coffee with 2/3 cup of hot water
and not minding it a bit. The best of this was
that I've had no caffein withdrawal headaches.
I've had a few times that just drinking hot,
unflavored water was acceptable to me when I was
cold (winter time) and thirsty. During the
summer, I have no problems drinking ice water--
unflavored. We just don't need flavored water,
whether it is in the form of coffee, tea, fruit
ade drinks, etc.

Regards, Peg

Newsletter 4-17

Dear Readers,

I hope you are having a great week! Today is the 14th anniversary of the day Mike and I had our first date! For our first date, we spent 14 hours together in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

We celebrated yesterday by going to a movie on the anniversary of the day we met! Of course we both forgot about it until we were almost asleep. hehehe We went and saw National Tresure 2 at the $2 theater. It was GREAT. If you haven't seen it go now because it's worth it.

Our HUGE annual Mother's Day sale is next week! There will be a ton of great bonus items and, of course, all our print books will be on sale. Because we want to make sure you get your order in time for mom, we will be offering some extra incentives for everyone who purchases on Monday!

Tomorrow is the last chance to get Crystal's comprehensive Supermarket Savings 101 e-course at the 50% discount she's offering to our readers. Learn more about it here!

Do you have any good tips for saving money with kids? If so, send them our way and if we use them in our new saving with kids e-book, we'll give you a free copy when it's done.

Have a great weekend!

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com



Today's Tips:

Don't forget to keep a few bottles of water in the fridge now that we are heading into summer. When you are ready to run out the door grab one. These are also great for picnics or for on a trip. Place them in with your food cooler to help keep it cool.

I really love the small bottles that chocolate milk comes in at Burger King for kids' drinks. They are smaller and narrower which makes them easier for small hands to hold on to. This especially helps reduce spills in the car. We don't get these bottles often but when we do I just take them home, peel off the labels and wash them. I then freeze them with water or fill with lemonade.

Today's Menu

Mrs. B's Chicken*
New red potatoes, boiled
Fruit Salad
Corn
Dinner rolls
Cherry Delight*


*****
Is the thought of reducing your grocery budget overwhelming you? Do you wish you had a step by step plan to show you what to do?

Crystal Paine, author of Secrets to Supermarket Savings, has developed an entire step by step course to teach you how to do it, including audio lessons, hands on assignments and 6 bonus e-books.

When I looked at the description of this e-course, I just couldn't believe how much stuff is included! The best part is that Crystal has offered it to our readers for only $8.97. After reading about it, I had to look again to make sure I saw that right! It's only good until Friday, so if you need some supermarket 911, check it out here!

******

Mrs. B's Chicken

6-8 pieces chicken, floured and placed in 9x13 pan
2 cups hot water
1 tsp. (or 2 cubes) chicken bouillon
1 bay leaf
Onion salt to taste
Mushrooms (just basic everyday mushrooms)
1/4 tsp. thyme
3/4 cup heavy cream

Dissolve bouillon in water and add the bay leaf, onion salt and mushrooms. Pour over chicken. Cover and bake at 350° for 2 hours.

Fifteen minutes before it is done, add thyme and cream and finish baking uncovered.


Cherry Delight

1 can dark sweet pitted cherries
1 can (about 16 oz.) crushed pineapple
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 pkg. marshmallows
1 small container of whipped topping
Chopped pecans (optional)

Drain cherry and pineapple juices into a medium sauce pan. Dissolve cream cheese in juices over low heat. Add marshmallows and dissolve. Cool completely and fold in cherries, pineapple and whipped topping. Pour into serving dish or bowl and chill for a few hours to set.

Kids and Chores

People often ask how to get kids to help out. One thing we do is expect them to start helping when they are around 3. I never have a problem with kids hollering about doing chores (yes, I'm knocking on wood as I speak LOL) but they know that it's expected of them.

Also, I ask nicely and say please and thank-you. I think tone of voice is what kills a lot of people when it comes to getting their kids to do chores.

A list is most helpful. Kids like to see what needs to be done and they want to get it all done fast so they can go on to other things.

Let them help! It won't be perfect but they can start learning. Here's David dragging their laundry to the laundry room. He is always so proud of himself! LOL

Tawra

Rainwater

From: samantha

another good frugal idea for gardening is to save
rain water to use on your garden. I was in the
market for a rain barrel so I called the local
recycling center and they gave me two! then all I
did was use some lengths of old water hose
attached to the bottom rim of the barrel to drain
the water out when I need it, and since I used
regular water hose, I can attach enough of my
other hoses to reach any point in my yard. I
recently found a few discarded cinder blocks and
set my water barrel on them to let gravity help
with draining the barrel. I have a 20 foot by 15
foot garden in hot, dry, west Texas, and my water
bill has stayed the same every season by using my
water reclamation system.

I was joking

Ok, just for the record. When I said "today was a day of mourning" for us because we had a huge tax bill I was just kidding.

Yes, it was a huge shock to have to pay $6300 for taxes this year but the good news is that means we actually made a middle class income last year!

I have no problem paying for taxes and am happy that we can do it without going into debt because we live frugally.

I'm happy to pay it too because that means I live in a free country and I am willing to pay for that protection. I'm willing to pay for the roads I drive on and happy to be able to send my kids to public school. Not every country has that.

So, just so you know I was only joking!

Tawra

Recycling in the Garden Newsletter 4-15

Good Morning!

This week, we've stumbled upon a great offer for our readers! Crystal Paine, author of Secrets to Supermarket Savings, has offered our readers 50% off her comprehensive Supermarket Savings 101 e-course through this Friday. Learn here how Crystal Spends $35 a week on groceries for her family!

I hope you are having a great Tax Day. Today is a day of mourning for us. We got hit with a HUGE tax bill this year. We didn't even pay this much for our car. :-O

We will be having a huge Mother's Day sale next week on all of our print books, so start planning now if you need some gifts or if you've just been waiting for the right opportunity! It's shaping up to be one of our best sales ever!

Have a terrific Tax Day!

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com



Recycling in the Garden
by Michael Kellam

When people talk about recycling, it seems that they most often think of taking aluminum cans or plastic bags to a recycling center so they can be sent back to a factory and re-molded into some new product. Even though we sometimes see logos that say "Reduce Reuse Recycle", most people don't think so much about the reduce and reuse parts of the slogan.

With all the choices at stores these days, it is easy to spend a fortune on any hobby, but it is not necessary to spend a lot to have a great garden.

When we lived in Idaho, I drove across the state line to Washington every day to go to my job. One day, I saw a large pile of wood chips sitting unattended in a pullout at the side of the road. We needed a lot of mulch for our garden at the time and were not able to afford the cost of mulch at the store.

After a few days, my curiosity got the better of me. I stopped my car in the pullout and walked to the nearest farm house to ask them if they owned the wood chips. The lady who answered the door said that the truckers who hauled wood chips stopped to clean out their trucks there before being weighed at the weigh station. She said that every now and then her husband would plow them into the nearest field just to get rid if them and I was welcome to help myself to as much as I wanted.

The next day, I drove my pickup to work and brought a load of wood chips home when I returned. They worked out so well that I lined the trunk of my car with plastic tarps and brought home a full trunk of mulch every day until we had more than we needed.

Outside of the town where we lived, the county maintained dumpsters for people to dump their trash. One day when I was throwing some trash away, I saw a large unopened bag of peat moss. I remembered that Tawra said she needed peat moss, so I fished out the bag and brought it home. She was elated and it saved us money we could not afford to spend at the time.

After the peat moss discovery, we made a habit of checking the dumpsters whenever we had occasion to go there. When Tawra was pregnant, we found a glider rocker in pristine condition except that it was missing a couple of the screws. We found several antique chairs, an unbroken antique oil lamp and many other useful or valuable things. Whatever we did not need, we saved and later sold at garage sales. It was amusing that people who would not take the items out of a dumpster themselves were more than happy to pay cash to buy the same items from us.

We had one circular area in our yard where nothing but weeds would grow. After trying several things unsuccessfully to get grass to grow there, we finally determined that if weeds grew there so well, God must have meant for that particular piece of ground to be a garden! I carefully thought of what I wanted the garden to look like while Tawra made plans for the plants that we would put there.

One day when we drove past the dumpsters, we saw that someone had demolished a house and dumped all of the bricks next to the dumpsters. They were old, well worn bricks and were the perfect thing to give our garden that quaint old "English garden" look. If we had to buy bricks, they would have been very expensive, but because we were keeping on the lookout, we managed to get them for free. It also turned out to benefit the county, because the trash hauler would not haul bricks, making it very expensive for the county to get rid of them.


********
Is the thought of reducing your grocery budget overwhelming you? Do you wish you had a step by step plan to show you what to do?

Well, I have some great news! Crystal Paine, author of Secrets to Supermarket Savings, has developed an entire step by step course to teach you how to do it, including audio lessons, hands on assignments and 6 bonus e-books. When I looked at the description of this e-course, I just couldn't believe how much stuff is included! The best part is that Crystal has offered it to our readers for only $8.97. After reading about it, I had to look again to make sure I saw that right! It's only good until Friday, so if you need some supermarket 911, check it out here!


********

For plants, we found free starts rather than buying them most of the time. We heard that a man in town was doing his best to thin out his rhubarb plants because he had a lot more than he wanted. We went to his house and offered to help him thin them. We split each of the plants in half and planted the extra halves in our garden.

I discovered that we had an asparagus plant in the yard that a previous homeowner planted. Because asparagus is a temperamental plant that will not grow well for several years after it is transplanted, we arranged the adjoining garden so that we did not need to move the asparagus and it produced fresh asparagus all summer.

At the back of our yard, we had an old tree stump that we wanted to remove. One day, I went to test the strength of the stump and hit it with a 5 pound maul. Right away, the top popped off and I discovered the greatest little section of compost where the tree roots had completely rotted.

Later, I was considering what to do about a sickly raspberry plant that had had not grown at all in the two years that we lived there. It had only two pitiful shoots and never put out any edible berries, even though raspberries are normally wildly prolific plants. On a whim, I decided to dig it up and plant it where the stump had been. The soil where the stump had been was so good that the raspberry quickly became a three by eight foot raspberry patch. This was great not only because of the delicious raspberries, but it was also wonderfully entertaining for our two year old son who hung a raspberry bucket on his arm and somehow picked raspberries every day in his diaper and bare feet without once getting poked by the thorns.

We got some starts from a strawberry plant from Jill's friend and soon had a 4x8 foot strawberry patch. (Strawberries, raspberries and mint are plants that like to spread and take over everything, so make sure to consider how to contain them before planting them!)

We had a large greenhouse and needed 5 gallon buckets for some of the larger plants. We found that we could buy them for $5.00 each, but we didn't have enough money at the time to buy what we needed. We checked with the nearest recycling center and they gave us as many buckets as we needed for free.

Not far from our house, there was an area that our town had designated as a place to dispose of wood. Every so often, the town burned the pile to save on the cost of transporting it. Since we heated our house exclusively with wood, we visited the pile occasionally and brought home large pieces of logs to cut for our wood stove.

We also discovered that someone regularly disposed of pallets there. We needed to create an enclosure for our compost pile, so we screwed together several pallets standing on their ends and put the compost inside it. It was useful not only to contain the compost pile, but also because the holes between the slats allowed the pile to get plenty of air, accelerating the composting process.

We had a small dog that we wanted to let outside, but we had not yet saved enough money for a fence. Because the pallets were all a standard size, we build a fence out of some of the best looking pallets.

Tawra has an antique Nativity scene made of 4 foot tall wooden figures that we put out at Christmas. One year, there was a storm that damaged a lot of the trees in the area. We build a wood frame and used evergreen branches from the burn pile to create the walls of a stall for the nativity scene. It was very nice and especially pretty after a snowfall left a beautiful blanket of snow on it. The town liked it so much that we won a town contest for the best Christmas display.

These are just a few examples illustrating how easy it is to recycle to make your budget go further. With a little creativity, it is easy to find any number of ways to reuse things in the garden. Not only is this a good way to save money, but it also helps you get that old fashioned garden look that many people pay thousands of dollars to get.

Gardening

We have been working on the gardens each weekend and it has been some hard work!
We are first working on the septic tank mess.

Here is the before where we started outlining the garden with the free bricks we got. You can see all the dirt is where they dug for the septic and it's just a mud pit! My motto is, where's there's mud there's a potential garden! :-)



Here is over the drain field for the septic tank. I'm going to try and put in a huge drought tolerant perennial bed. I was going to try and do it all this year but I think my dreams are bigger than my or Mike's energy. You can see he started rototilling in the front and then the tiller broke. We are going to have to wait until we can fix it to get the rest done. It's just too hard to hand dig. BJ is going to put his Giant Pumpkins in the back.

This is after we got the compost filled in. We just decided to do everything as raised beds because the ground is such hard clay it's not worth digging unless we dig it out. We are going to cut down the septic tank vents so they don't stick out so much. All that is right on top of the septic tank where they put in the new one.
This is our raised beds for our veggies. We are going to do 4 this year and then if we need more later we will add them. I am doing my favorite method of gardening, Square Foot Gardening. It is SOOO much less work than traditional gardening!

Of course my wonderful husband did all the digging to get the bed straight and hauling and filling in with compost. He has worked hard but once it's in then it's easy!

For all the paths we are putting down newspaper or card board and then mulching with free wood chips.


That's our start for this year!
Tawra

Sensible Ideas for Selling Your Home Craft Product

No-Magic Marketing:
Sensible Ideas for
Selling Your Home Craft Product

Patrice Lewis
www.donlewisdesigns.com


No matter how wonderful your home craft product is, it won’t make you a dime unless you can sell it.

Well, duh. This is nothing new. However, where do you sell it? Ah, there’s the rub.

How to sell your product – and where – depend on a number of factors. How widespread is its appeal? Does it appeal to men? Women? Children? Teenagers? Seniors? Blue-collar workers? White collar workers? The wealthy? The low-income? City dwellers? Farm folks? The sophisticated? The earthy?

As you might guess, there are dozens and dozens of factors that can influence where to sell your product. Obviously I can’t target everyone’s specific product and offer advice as to a potential market. This article will examine some ideas and offer some suggestions for how to market your home craft product.

Research Your Market
You need to find a niche and fill it with something people want. Yes, you’ve heard it before, but it’s true. To go into business competing with hundreds or thousands of people who are making similar or identical products is asking to fail.

For instance, a few years ago when the cigar craze swept the country, my husband seriously thought about getting into the humidor business. A quick search on the internet revealed that there were hundreds of humidor manufacturers. He dropped the idea immediately. Why compete with folks who were already experts in their craft? In this instance, there wasn’t a niche to fill – it had already been filled. He would have been foolish to try to elbow in on something so well-established.

On the other hand, at every Renaissance Faire or Medieval living history event we attended (and we attended lots!), we noticed that nearly everyone carried two things with them: a knife, and something to drink from. We weren’t metalworkers, so making knives was out of the question. However, almost all the drinking vessels that were available for purchase were either cheap imports from overseas, or ceramic mugs that were easily broken. Not many people were selling anything authentic and historic. We’d found our niche.

How Thin is your Market?
The more common your craft, the thinner the market. Country crafts and jewelry, for instance, are popular items, but there are many people already making them. Your product must be unique enough, cheap enough, or high-quality enough to compete.

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of people who enjoy country crafts and jewelry, so your market is broader to begin with. This gives you an advantage.

Target your market according to how pricey your craft is. If you make one-of-a-kind elegant jewelry pieces that sell upwards of $100 or more, you are unlikely to do well if you try selling at small craft fairs. If your jewelry is produced quickly and sells in the $5 to $50 range, you’ll do much better.

Marketing Options
You have only two real options for selling your product: (1) sell the items yourself; or (2) have someone else sell them for you.

In this article, we’ll concentrate on discussing some of the ways you can market the item yourself. The second option, having someone else sell them for you, will be discussed in a future article about wholesaling.

What About Craft Fairs?
Craft fairs, incidentally, are what most people think first when they decide to try marketing their craft product. Makes sense, doesn’t it, to sell a craft product at a craft fair? Well, yes and no.

Recognize the demographics of who attends crafts fairs: mostly women, mostly lower to middle-class, and mostly married with children. If you sell something that has no appeal to this demographic, you won’t do well.

I speak from experience. Traditional craft shows are financial flops for us. We make wooden tankards – like beer steins, made of wood – that have a strongly masculine appeal. They are usually priced higher than most of the other products at craft shows. The result? If we sell four or five pieces over a weekend, we’re lucky. In other words, we don’t make enough money to make doing traditional craft shows worth our while.

(Keep in mind that we make tankards for a living – it’s our primary source of income. Therefore something that doesn’t “pay” well isn’t worth our time to do. It’s a different story if we decide to do a local craft fair just for fun, as we sometimes do.)

Time Away from Home
Another thing to consider is how much time away from home your marketing efforts require. If you do craft fairs, you need time on the road (to and from) and the time at the show itself (usually a Saturday and Sunday). Unless your craft is something you can do anywhere (i.e. knitting or crocheting sweaters), then the time spent going to shows is time away from the manufacturing process. Last time I checked, most craft fairs frowned on bringing a table saw and belt sander onto the premises.

When we first got into this business and were desperately trying to do enough craft shows to survive (a foolish marketing choice, we later learned), we found ourselves away from home four days a week. We lived in a semi-rural area, and the large shows we needed to do were far away. We would travel on Friday, sell on Saturday and Sunday, and travel again on Monday. This meant that we only had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to make more product.

It was a hellish schedule that meant we had to put off having children, getting livestock, or any other goal we had in mind for our future. It was also unsustainable, especially since the shows yielded so little income that we needed to do a lot of them in order to make enough money to survive. It also meant that we didn’t have any down time, any time off.

We learned that if we did fewer events that were better targeted (even if they were far away), we had a higher volume of sales and made enough money that the event was financially worthwhile. For us, this meant Oktoberfests, Renaissance Faires, and other themed shows where wooden beer steins had a broader appeal.

Match the Product
If you do events, it makes sense to match your product to the type of show. How well would lace doilies sell at a motorcycle rally? How well would leather whips and chains sell at a family event? How well would NRA bumperstickers sell at a hippie festival?

This type of marketing – matching your product to the potential customer – applies to any sort of advertising or promotion. It staggers me how many people mis-match their marketing attempts. In my last article, I mentioned two vendors who were making very poor sales for their products: pastel ceramic dragons at an event that had few children, and black wax skull candles (and other weird, even offensive, wax items) at an event with lots of kids. Had these vendors swapped events, each might have done better.

So look at how well your product fits the target market. Don’t attempt to sell cute country crafts to a sophisticated, Architectural Digest-reading audience. Don’t try to sell heavy metallica stuff at a wine-tasting. Don’t try to sell sleek modernistic products to farmers or ranchers. It’s not a fit.

For Example…..
I received an email from a nice fellow in response to my last article on “What To Do When Nobody Wants Your Product.” He had a question as to why his wife’s products weren’t selling. She makes high-quality, hand-crocheted custom dog sweaters and dog beds. His email to me read as follows: “She has had samples at several pet stores and at our neighbor’s dog grooming studio. She has done craft fairs. She has had very limited success in selling them because customers can buy a dog sweater or bed at Wal-Mart for one-third the price. We have looked at the product at Wal-Mart and they are made in China and of very poor quality, but they are around $10 each where she sells her product for about $30. So our question is, how do you compete with Wal-Mart? Or should she just give it up and go back to making baby blankets for people we know who are having babies?”

Can you sense the frustration? Here is a skilled craftswoman making a high-quality, custom, hand-crafted product, and she can’t get anyone to buy it. The temptation is to think that there’s something wrong with the product, but that’s not true. Rather, there was a mis-match in their marketing.

I replied that they can’t compete with Wal-Mart – that’s not the proper market for them. Budget-minded people aren’t interested in spending large amounts of money on dog sweaters.

Rather, I suggested that they print up some glossy, handsome (not frou-frou) brochures that highlighted the unique advantages of their products, and target the rich and famous. The wealthy are known for spending large sums of money to pamper their pets. I suggested that this woman jack up her prices (I mean that, too!), use the highest-quality wool yarn (or whatever she deems is the best yarn to use), and she should target people to whom money is no object for their pets.

This might be accomplished by doing some internet research and pulling up pet boutiques in chi-chi parts of the country (Rodeo Drive in L.A. comes to mind, for instance). I recommended avoiding the chain pet stores such as PetSmart because buying decisions are usually too big for a small supplier like this woman.

The Paris Hiltons and Martha Stewarts of the world want only the best for their pets, and are perfectly willing and able to spend $150 or up on The Best dog sweater. These types of people do not want whatever anyone else can get at Wal-Mart, nor do these types of folks go to crafts fairs looking for high-end products. Rather, they want something they can brag was hand-made just for them, that was custom fitted to their particular pet. These people are out there - and it's the crafter’s job to find them.

In this case, it isn’t that nobody wanted this woman’s product. Rather, her marketing efforts have been mis-directed. If she targeted her advertising toward the people who can afford the type of high-quality product she makes, her sales may increase.

Try Some Synergy
If you have a product that you just can’t move yourself, see if you can’t find a way to sell it in combination with something else. This can either be something else you make, or something that someone else makes.

If you make wooden jewelry that you just can’t sell, try joining forces with someone who makes hand-forged cutlery and see if you can make elegant handles. If you can’t sell enough of your hand-thrown ceramic goblets, try joining up with someone who makes custom picnic baskets.

One of our oldest wholesale partnerships for our business is a fellow who makes exquisite hand-turned wooden goblets. His pieces are one-of-a-kind and very expensive, so he sells our tankards (which are more earthy and less expensive) at his shows to round out his sales. Both of us do very well as a result.

This is an example of a synergistic relationship. “Synergy” is when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Our part (the tankards) and our friend’s part (the goblets) each achieved a certain level of sales. Combined, however, the sales were higher than if we each sold the items separately.

Remember the Fanaticism Rule
Remember this: people are fanatics about their hobbies and are willing to spend money on them. That’s why you’re making the craft item you’re passionate about, because you’re a fanatic, right? This is a good thing.

Sometimes being able to change a small feature about your product can turn mediocre sales into great sales. For instance, if you were to laser-engrave or silkscreen a generic motorcycle onto the side of your hand-crafted mailboxes or lavender-velvet frammerjammits, you will probably sell them like gangbusters at a motorcycle rally.

By making a product that can be modified to fit an appropriate market, you gain a lot of flexibility. You also gain the ability to cross-market (or cross-target) your product.

There are literally thousands of groups of fanatics out there. That’s what people like to spend their money on. If you can modify your product to cater to peoples’ hobbies, your business will increase.

If you take your selection of hand-crafted candles to a candle show, for instance, then you’re surrounded by nothing but other candle-makers. However, if you take your specialty Elvis/tractor/airplane/cat/speedboat/whatever candles to events that cater to Elvis-lovers, tractor-lovers, airplane-lovers, cat-lovers, speedboat-lovers, or whatever-lovers, people will buy them.

Hate Elvis or tractors or airplanes or cats or speedboats? It doesn’t matter. Remember, if you can’t tap into your own passions, tap into someone else’s. That’s how to succeed in a home craft business, by tapping into what people like to spend money on.

Internet Sales
What about the Internet?

It’s too large a subject for this article. I will address internet selling in a future article.

Scratching the Surface
This article barely scratches the surface of marketing your product, but I hope it gives you some ideas of how to approach the subject. It goes without saying that successful marketing of your home craft product is the lynchpin to making your business succeed. And there are always new things to learn, new markets to explore, and new techniques to try.

Even now, after fourteen years in business, my husband and I are learning. For instance, we’ve recently decided to try marketing our wooden tankards to movie prop companies. Well, why not? Our tankards have appeared in the movie Master and Commander as props (they were bought indirectly through a catalog we supply, so we’re always the last to know if they are used in a movie). We thought, why not try marketing directly to the prop companies? We just had some brochures printed up, I obtained a copy of the Hollywood Blu-Book (a directory for the entertainment industry), and we’ll see what happens.

In the End…
Don’t surrender a product just because your early sales are poor. First, it takes time to build up a market; second, it takes time to research the proper markets to target.

So never give up. Never surrender. You can sell your products; your job is to find out where.

Patrice Lewis is co-founder of Don Lewis Designs (www.donlewisdesigns.com).
She and her husband have been in business for fourteen years.
The Lewis’s live on forty acres in north Idaho with their two homeschooled children,
assorted livestock, and a shop which overflows into the house with depressing regularity.

Sweet n Spicy Kielbasa

Hi, Tawra,
I just wanted to share a quick and easy (and inexpensive) sauce recipe that is good with chicken or polish sausage served over rice.
Sweet n Spicy Kielbasa (polish sausage)
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. spicy mustard
Mix both items well, add a little water if you want to. Pour over sliced kielbasa (1 package) in crock pot, cook on low about 4 hours or until heated through. Serve sausage and sauce over white rice

Providing the meat is on sale, this feed my family of 3 dinner plus lunch leftovers for a little over $2 total.

*Note: if using chicken, chop and cook before adding sauce.

Thanks so much for all you do.


Amanda

Newsletter 4-10

Hi everyone!

I hope you are having a great week! Today we get back to basics and are giving you a delicious chicken recipe along with a recipe on how to cook rice. I was one of those people who always made awful rice... until I read the directions! What a concept. So if you're like me and have never made good rice, you'll find it in today's newsletter!

We will be having a huge Mother's Day sale in a couple of weeks, so start planning now if you need some gifts. It's shaping up to be one of our best sales ever!

As usual, don't forget to check the blog for more tips and ideas and some funny pictures that are sure to give you a good laugh!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Tawra
MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "clicks.aweber.com" claiming to be www.LivingOnADime.com



Today's Tips:

Having trouble getting your children to eat their food at dinner time? Try serving just water for a beverage. A lot of times children fill up on juice, milk or pop before they even get their food on their plate. They are not as likely to tank up on liquid if that liquid is water.

If you need to cut boneless, skinless chicken, it cuts easier if it is slightly frozen.

Don't be guilty of information overload. Remember knowledge is worth nothing if it is not being used.

Sitting still and wishing
Makes no person great:
The good Lord sends the fishing,
But you must dig the bait!

(from The Art of Homemaking by Daryl Hoole)

*****
"Generally, I'm an AWFUL cook - the only thing I've ever been able to master is chocolate cake. Nothing else ever turns out. But your cookbook has changed that!"

"Every recipe I've tried has been delicious, even the one that didn't sound good so I fixed it on purpose when I was mad at my husband. LOL I guess it served me right for being an evil wife because that recipe turned out great too. :) I also can't believe how much money I've been saving on groceries. I really don't understand why I've been saving so much other than the fact that your recipes call for things that I normally keep on hand. Most other cookbooks call for lots of ingredients I've never even heard of. By the time I get around to buying them, I've forgotten what recipe I'd planned to use them with. Not so with your cook book though."



"Thanks again for publishing Dining on a Dime. I can't believe how much I'm enjoying cooking and my family is no longer afraid to come to the table. :)"

-Jeannie

Try Dining on a Dime and start saving today!
*********



Today's menu:

Saucy Chicken*
Steamed Rice*
Tossed salad
Mixed veggies
Canned Biscuits, rolled in melted margarine then baked


*Saucy Chicken

4-6 pieces of chicken
1 can of cream of chicken soup

Place chicken in pan that is lined with foil or greased well. Spread with soup and cover. Bake at 250° for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or 350° for 1 hour.

Serve chicken and sauce that the soup made on top of rice.



*Steamed Rice

Servings 1 Cup 4 Cups 6 Cups
Water 1 Cup 3 Cups 4 Cups
Salt 1/4 tsp. 1 tsp. 1 tsp.
Rice 1/3 Cup 1 1/3 Cup 2 Cups

Use given amounts of water, salt and rice to make the needed servings. To retain vitamins and minerals, do not rinse rice. Heat water and salt to boiling. Stir in rice. Cover tightly and cook slowly about 25 minutes until rice is tender. Add a little water during cooking if rice becomes dry. Gently stir only if needed.

From Lora
I love your newsletters! I struggled with rice too, and I can never do it right on the stove. For me, it's the microwave method that works:

Add 2 cups water to one cup rice and a dash of salt in a microwavable container. Microwave on high 5 minutes until the water boils. Cover lightly and cook 15 minutes at 50% power. No fuss and perfect every time!