Well, got everything packed in the POD and took about 8 loads over to moms.

We also put in an emergency trip to the dentist for our 4 year old and the card died and is in the shop. We hope it will be done before tomorrow when we leave.

Other than that we sign the papers today and we will be done.

We should be back on the 6th. Please keep us in your prayers. Now Mike’s grandmother is doing very badly so we hope we don’t have to go back to Minnesota in the middle of moving.

I better run. Just wanted to let everyone know what’s going on.

Thanks for thinking and praying for us!

Tawra

Well, today was a rough day. We had the garage sale again and packed up a couple more pick- up loads to take to moms. We were so sick and I was so sore I had to keep sitting down every few minutes and then force myself to get up and do something else.

We did sell most of the big stuff and a neighbor said he would haul the rest for us to his mom who collects garage sale leftovers and then has her own sales.

We had a funny talk with the mail lady. She was telling us how she was bragging about us to everyone. How we were doing so well because she knew us at our other house and was impressed how we were moving “up”. She said “your first house was 80K, this house was 100K and now your next house is 135K. you guys must be doing so well”. I think she felt like she was a part of it taking so many orders for us! I told her it’s funny because even though we are moving up we our income has stayed around 30-35K the entire time. I thought I was going to have to pick her jaw up off the floor! She said “you’re kidding! you don’t look like you live on that little!” I was so excited. I was able to tell how frugal living can really give you a great standard of living on little income. She was so impressed and couldn’t wait to tell everyone! LOL

We took everyone out to eat to the Texas roadhouse for dinner for helping us move and for an early Father’s Day dinner for Mike and my brother. It was expensive and we hardly ever spend that much on eating out but we all had a good time and it was more than worth it. It’s funny how you appreciate that stuff more when you don’t do it very often.

We stopped by Walmart afterward and found apple trees on clearance for $4 each so I go two. I was so excited to start my own fruit trees finally at the new house.

When we got home I got an email from my cousin saying that my great grandmother had died today. She was 97. I really loved her a lot. We were a lot alike. I got my green thumb from her. She always had the most beautiful plants and gardens! She also was the person I got my “tell it like it is” gene from. She was one of the people who basically settled Southeastern Colorado. She lived through the dust bowl and told me stories about how she would push inches of dust out the door everyday and hang wet diapers to dry on a line in her one room house. She said they didn’t waste time washing them unless there was poop on them.

I haven’t seen her in years but I am going to miss her greatly. She was in a nursing home the last few years and I know she probably didn’t like it real well. She was ready to go to heaven years ago and I’m so glad that she’s there now. Maybe one day we can have huge gardens together in heaven and both our bodies will be free from sickness and pain.

We are going to try and see if we can get everything packed up by Tuesday so we can go the funeral which will probably be Wednesday or Thursday in Springfield (southeastern) Colorado.

We are going to close the office down on Tuesday until July 6 when we can get into the new house.

It’s late and I am going to try and sleep again but I’m having a hard time. It’s one of those times when you need your rest so you can keep going but can’t sleep.

Well, I better run. I will try to post at least one more update before we take the computers down and pack them. Tawra

We shipped 300 orders and had a garage sale today. I’m not going to be standing much longer. Mom is even worse off than me. I hate her coming over to help but she keep insisting on it.

We had the inspection today for the new house and everything is great. No major problems. Mike took pictures and I will try and post them before we leave.

We are going to have the garage sale again tomorrow and try to get rid of the rest of the furniture and then get packed up.

Well I better run before I fall over. Thanks so much for thinking and praying for us! Tawra

Ok, I admit it. I am officially worn out from this moving stuff! Oh man does my poor body hurt so bad! I can hardly move this morning I’m in so much pain. Wow, can I make it through this?

I think it’s from standing on the hard tile floor packing orders and then on the wood and tile packing house stuff. I can’t wait to have carpet again!! We still have some books left but we ran out of envelopes and I don’t have time to order more so we will just move them and sell them at Christmas. I am so thankful. We sold over 500 books and got rid of about half of them. Yeah!!! (don’t worry, if you ordered already we have enough envelopes for the current orders)

Mom isn’t doing much better either. She’s been really sick from lack of sleep because they are doing construction across the street from her house and her blood pressure has been really high and they can’t get it down. She has been fighting that for a year or two and none of the meds will work.

We took the first load of stuff over to moms last night. We are storing all my garden and outside stuff over there because I don’t think the POD will hold all of it. We got a good deal on it. It’s $300 for a month and we are going to be able to keep it here for a week and at the new house a week. That way we can load slower instead of one huge move in one day.

Tomorrow we are having a garage sale to get rid of the big stuff. We are making it easy. We are pricing everything but the big stuff .50 each. We are going to put all the .50 stuff on one side of the yard and the priced stuff on the other side.

I was excited to realize that our house is almost exactly like my aunt and uncles old house in Colorado. The only difference is it’s 4 bedrooms instead of 3 but the master bed, bath and closet is equal to 2 bedrooms in our new house so it’s the same sq. footage.

Anyway, I realized that we got for $135,000 a house that is $400,000-$450,000 in Colorado!! Is it worth it to stay in Kansas? Yes, for that it is. Yes, the weather isn’t that great here but for the cost of living, I can put up with it. I figure that’s why God gave us air conditioners! hehehe

It’s so funny because for years I’ve thought “what I want is a house like A. Mary’s and U. Jack’s. It would be just perfect for what we want and need”. I always had a vision of their house as what I would like to work toward someday.

The other good news is we were able to come up with the entire $28,000 down payment to put 20% down! I can not believe it! We got $12,000 from the sale of this house, $4,000 from our taxes and then the rest from books sales. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! We really appreciate you putting up with the extra emails in the newsletter.

It’s almost unbelievable that we are able to come up with almost the same amount that we earn in a year! God is so good! I just kept repeating Psalm 37:4 and he did it!

It’s funny to watch him work through this whole thing. A week ago we were getting really frustrated and down. We went to look at a house and it would be ok but it was $15,000 too high and just didn’t feel like it would work with a not so great location.

Well, right before we left to look at it Mike had said that he had read in the Bible:

John 14:1-5
““Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.^[a] If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?^[b] 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

It was like God was just telling us to hold on and he has it taken care of! Well, the funny part is the day we read that verse we didn’t know it but that was the same day the house we found was listed on the market!! LOL God certainly has a sense of humor!

Well, I better run. I have a ton to do. I just wanted to share with you everything that’s been going on and ask for prayers of strength for mom and I.

BTW, our house inspection is tomorrow at 4:00p.m. Pray it goes well!

Tawra

From: Julie

Hi Tawra!

I love your site! I have been helped tremendously
with your down-to-earth advice.

I wanted to ask your advice. I have a really hard
time keeping up with laundry and I’m so
embarrassed by the “mounds” that I have in my
laundry room. To be honest, there are a lot of
clothes that my family can no longer wear, and I
need to get rid of them. I was wondering, after
washing them, do you think that I should try to
have a yard sale to earn extra money, or should I
just bag them up and give the ones that look good
to Goodwill? Part of me really thinks that I just
need to get rid of all that clutter by giving the
clothes away and not hang on to piles for a yard
sale. It seems that if I could just get
organized, it would actually start freeing up more
of our income because I would have a better handle
on things. If I have a yard sale, though, it
would give us a little more to work with on our
budget.

I just thought I would ask for your insight.
Thanks so much for your time!

Julie

It depends. If you are having a garage sale with a lot of “big stuff” like furniture, that you need to get rid of too then go ahead and have a sale, but if you are just selling clothes I wouldn’t mess with it. You wouldn’t get that much to make it worth it. There is a “pain in the buttocks” factor that needs to be taken into consideration. If you are going to make $100 and work 2-4 days getting stuff gathered, priced and set, and then spend 2 days sitting with the sale and 1 day cleaning up, is it worth to work for possibly a week for $100? Not in my book! Now, if I were to make $700 then it would be worth it!

One tip that I use, is I keep a box in the laundry room for clothes that are cleaned and ready for the thrift store or garage sale. Then I have a spot in my garage where I store it all when it get full. Then I either donate it or have a sale.
The main thing is GET RID OF IT! CLUTTER CREATES CHAOS! So let it go!!
I hope that helps some. Tawra

****
Don’t Forget!!
In case you missed out, we still have some Not Just Beans left so we left the moving sale up until Friday. If you want some you can get a great deal! This is the lowest price we will ever have so get it today.

Tawra

Michael and Tawra,

We thought you’d appreciate our “free” night last night.

We were headed out the door at 4:45pm to our local museum. We bought a family membership for our family Christmas gift this year. We have REALLY gotten the good out of it with a LOT of free visits and free classes. Anyway, heading up the street we noticed that our neighbors three doors down had their lawn furniture out to the curb. It is 1940’s vintage metal stuff - a glider that seats 3 and a rocking chair. It was the exact same shade of green that we just painted two metal chairs that we got from Larry’s Dad’s estate. So, we pulled up, saw them in their backyard lounging on their brand new lawn furniture. I asked, “Are you really throwing out your old stuff?” “Yep!”. Well, we asked if we could set it back a little further in their yard and pick it up after we were done with an event at the museum. They know us and didn’t care. (Freebie #1)

We arrive at the museum to rub elbows with nearly all the rich people of Peoria. And we find that they have assembled a HUGE buffet of food in the entryway to help celebrate the opening of the new exhibit. We stuffed ourselves with catered food … AND soda. So funny, we never buy soda. So, when my kids get it, they think it is a real treat! (Freebie #2)

Then we got to go into the new exhibit as soon as they opened the exhibit hall. Entitled “Paper, Scissors, Rock”, it had a TON of hands on stuff for the boys. They had a blast! (Freebie #3) - Well, okay the family pass cost us $60. But, we have had it 5 months and used it countless times already.

On the way home, we remember that we got an automated phone call from Hollywood Video last week. It seems that they have “missed us”. Not hard to believe since we only rent videos about once a year. If we go in by Friday we can get a free video. So, we go “rent” Night At the Museum for free! (Freebie #4)

A night just can’t get much better than that!!

Larry and Hope W.

Hi Tawra and Jill,

Thanks for the great recipes! Your newsletter is always full of great ideas but this popsicle one was special.

My own tried-and-true:

1. (Neater variation on Lisa’s) Slice a banana, stick a toothpick into each slice (like a lollipop), freeze. Dip each lolly into yogurt (strawberry is a winner but try any), freeze again. Freeze flat while making them; when frozen you can dump them in a bag or container.

2. Spoon crushed pineapple straight from the can into an ice cube tray. Stick two toothpicks into each. (Makes a better stick than one toothpick.)

2b. Less simple but sweeter: mix equal parts crushed pineapple and orange juice.

All of these are delicious, and easy enough and healthy enough to keep noshing on. The banana one is a real treat.

Rivka K.
Brooklyn, NY

*****
Note From Tawra:
In case you missed out, we still have some Not Just Beans left so we left the moving sale up until Friday. If you want some you can get a great deal! This is the lowest price we will ever have so get it today.

Tawra

Dear Tawra,

i just wanted to share my experience at the bronco fan fare in denver this past weekend with my family, there are four of us, and Bob is a season ticket holder so the fan fare tickets cost $25 for a five pack of tickets versus $50 for a five pack regular price! so that saves us money, plus the fee is for the entire weekend (two days 11am-5pm) so we go, they have lots of free games for the kids to do…inflatables,obsticle courses…added to the fact that a bunch of other kids come so our kids get to play with lots of other kids and then at the end they get to run thru sprinklers. minitatuar golf, arcade games etc etc…and its sooooooo much fun,all of this is included in the $25 that covers both days ( so it amounts to $12.50 a day for all of this fun ) plus we get tons of good exercise in !

At the fair you can bring merchandise to have sighned by foot ball players,coaches and cheerleaders and the bronco store is open with decent sales(at least this time there was) My only problem was the cost of food and drink..The first day we didnt plan ahead,,,we brought no food and drink with us and we had to buy it! we bought two cokes(to share), two small pizzas (for kids) two hot dogs (for adults) and four bottles of water (for each of us to use and refill)…we didnt stop at any of the tables (which was a mistake cause the second day we found out there were free coupons for free snacks at mcdonalds, money saving coupons off of red robins and cold stone ice creamery as well as free ice cream and bronco milk being handed out…)

I feel so stupid being a frugal person not pre planning the first day… for all the food and drinks mentioned we spent a total of $51.00…The second day we intelligently packed a lunch of sandwiches and cookies and water in a jug plus four water bottles to refill and use,that second day lunch and drinks cost a mere $10 on the high side!!!
I just wanted to share how stupid I felt, how forgetting to plan ahead can end up costing you an extra $41.00!!!

Oh my gosh i could just kick myself,But i learned a big lesson,, also i learned to find out the bring in food policy, because in our case, NO REENTRY IS ALLOWED! that means if you leave your lunch in the car, it stays in the car, and you either leave the fair for good at lunch, spend big money on lunch or go without lunch, luckily we were allowed to go get our lunch this one time cause we didnt know, but in the future we know now we have to bring it with us in a back pack or tote bag…

Thanks for letting me share
One of your big fans
Lisa in Colorado

From: Denise Blandford

I love getting all of your quick and easy recipes
and suggestions with everything — I wanted to
pass on a quick and easy recipe that I just got
the other week… and my family can’t get enough
of. And the best part is the healthy part. It
is a fruit dip, 8oz stick of cream cheese, I use
the 1/3 less fat and 8oz marshmellow cream — mix
together and dip any fruit in. It is THE BOMB!
I even used it as a bread spread. Thanks for all
you do… hope you can pass this on.

***
Note From Tawra:
In case you missed out, we still have some Not Just Beans left so we left the moving sale up until Friday. If you want some you can get a great deal! This is the lowest price we will ever have so get it today.

From: Tasha K.
Re: J. Cooper’s practical School Supplies article: No kids at home
now, but I still budget to have $10-$20 dollars stockpiled for the
drugstore and big chain office supply store school supply sales.
For those dollars, I restock my “home office” with envelopes, pens,
pencils, lined notebook paper, bound notebooks, and can stockpile
lots of crayons, colored pencils, sometimes watercolors, erasers,
pencil sharpeners,sometimes kids’ drawing paper, for the
Christmas gift barrel for our small lower income community.
Some of these things, like the pack of 10 (2 hole) pencil sharpeners
for $1, may be even less expensive at a dollar store.