Ideas for Stretching money in Stepfamily living

Blended family living can be expensive. Especially if you’re the ones paying for child support or picking up the slack for a challenged or broken co-parent. Geoff and I found ourselves tackling some huge financial challenges. We figured for 8 years out of our marriage we were basically carrying 3 mortgages between the house payment, child support on 6 kids and infertility costs due to a vasectomy. It was tough.

So, we became financially savvy. We had too if we were going to survive financially. Here are some financial tips that helped us thrive when money was tight.

1. Track every cent. Truly! This principle has worked wonders for us. When you know exactly how much money you have to work with each month, it’s amazing how you can stretch dollars with good planning and strategies.  We would recommend Dave Ramsey’s Everydollar tracking tool. Everydollar is free, easy to use, and you can create whatever categories you want for your money. You can also set debt reduction and savings goals. This tool changed our life!
2. Shop ahead. This means shopping in the off seasons. For example, I buy my children’s winter boots in February/March for the next winter. You can save about 80% on the price of these purchases. Watch for amazing after Christmas sales and put away toys and clothing for the next year.
3. Buy used!  My children love Legos.  If you shop classifieds or Facebook marketplace you can save a lot of money on brand new, never opened Legos and other toys that people don’t want or received duplicates of. Once again, after Christmas is a great time to watch for hot deals. Also take advantage of stores like kid2kid and Savers.
4. Use creativity for weekend or vacation ideas. One summer we created themes for each week the kids were with us. A great summer doesn’t have to cost an arm or a leg! And our kids loved the theme weeks.
   1. Examples: Water week (water fights, swimming, picnic overlooking a creek, sprinkler fun)

Harry Potter week (make a wand, watch Harry Potter movies, read Harry potter books together, create wizard hats together, wizard dinner)

• Add a side hustle.  There are so many ways to earn money on the side. Here are some examples:
  • Do client work if you have an area of expertise like genealogy, landscaping, sewing, music, or academics.
  • If you’re an animal lover become an animal sitter. People drop off their pet while out of town and you get paid for caring for them. Or you go to their house and feed their animals.
  • Flip in demand items. (Flip rugs, toy kitchens, whatever you can clean or fix up to earn more money)

• Finally, PAY YOUR TITHING IN FULL! This is the most important thing you can do. When you pay the Lord first, he will help you stretch your money in the most amazing ways.  We literally had a neighbor propose trading houses so they could demolish our home to build a new one on our property. They gave us a great deal on their house at a time when we were seriously wondering how we could afford a much-needed new home. (One that wasn’t 100 years and literally sinking into the ground! And one that was bigger.) The Lord blessed us beyond our imagination. I know his blessings were due to our honest tithing payment. Malachi 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Try him! The Lord will not let you down.