Welcome to Frugal Families

* Does your paycheck seem smaller, thanks to the rising costs of food, gas, heating,  health-care expenses and such?

* Do you dream of becoming a single-income household, in what appears to be a two-income society?

* Have you decided to get debt-free, but now you need to find a way to do it?

* Do you feel alone in your determination to lead a more frugal, simple life?

Whatever the reason you had for seeking out frugality on the web, you have come to the right place!!!

Frugal Families consists of two sections. Our public areas are chock full of helpful information to help you stretch your paycheck. The other area is the paid community or private forums. The forums are an invaluable source of knowledge and frugal support.

* Ask questions, GET answers!

* Take frugality to a whole new level in forums such as Beginning Frugality, Frugal Shopper, Energy Savings and Freebies and Good Deals.

*Learn about crafts, family fun and home schooling on a budget.

*Find support and friendship in our community with forums such as single parents, marriage and faith.

10 Tips For Successful Seed Starting

One of the most rewarding pursuits as a gardener is starting your own plants from seeds. The potential for beauty, fruitfulness and aroma locked up in each tiny seed is awesome. However, growing your plants from seeds is not always a sure thing, or an easy task. Here are some techniques and tips to get your seeds off to a good start.

1. Be a record keeper. Record where you bought your seeds. Record when you plant the seeds, the date they actually germinate, and the success rate. Keep a record of how long it takes for the seedlings to be ready to transplant. Note what went right or wrong with your timing. These observations, when recorded, will make your next year’s tasks much easier.
2. Store seeds properly. If you have stored your seeds properly, they may be viable much longer. To keep them dormant, seeds should be stored in a cool dark place with low humidity. Make sure you label all your seeds, with name, source, and year.
3. Choose wide flat containers. Plastics are preferable, since they retain moisture better than clay or wood. A wide flat container will give you more room to space the seeds so the seedlings won’t be overcrowded. Plants that dislike root disturbance can be planted into small individual containers. No matter what container you use, make sure it is clean, pathogen-free and has good drainage.
4. Tamp down the seeds. Most seeds should be covered with soil to the depth of twice the seed diameter. Some tiny seeds, or ones that need light to germinate should lie directly on the soil surface. Either way, the seeds need firm contact with moist soil to germinate. You can use the bottom of a glass to gently tamp them down.
5. Provide drainage and air flow. The fungus infection known as damping off is usually a result of too much moisture and poor air circulation. Two tips for preventing this: sprinkle a fine grit or dry sphagnum on the surface to keep the emerging shoots dry, and use a small fan on low to circulate air around the seedlings.
6. Keep moisture level constant. The best way to keep the moisture content of the soil constant is to secure plastic wrap or a clear plastic bag over the freshly seeded pot. Check daily for moisture and germination, and when the seeds have germinated, remove the covering. Since top watering can disturb emerging seedlings, hydrate by placing the entire pot in a couple of inches of warm water so the planting medium wicks moisture upwards.
7. Keep your seeds warm. Most seeds need a temperature of around 70F degrees to germinate. Use a space heater or a heating pad beneath the seeded trays. Gardening centers have special heating pads designed for germinating. Keep an eye on moisture levels, to ensure the seed containers don’t dry out.
8. Rotate your seedlings. Once your seeds have germinated, place the containers in a sunny south-facing window and turn the container a quarter turn each day. This prevents the seedlings from reaching towards the light and growing bent and elongated stems. Brush the tops of the seedlings lightly to encourage stronger stem growth.
9. Feed them. Most seed-starting mixtures contain nutrients to help new seedlings develop roots and the first leaves. Once true leaves emerge, begin feeding the seedlings weekly with half strength liquid fertilizer to encourage growth.
10. Acclimate. All seedlings heed to be hardened off to direct sunlight and inconsistent outdoor temperatures. Place them in direct sunlight in the morning only for a day, then increase the time outside over the next few of days. Transplant them when they are vigorous enough.

Practice these ten steps, and your seeds will get off to a healthy start this spring and every spring to come.

Gardening expert Nicki Goff offers a free e-mail starter course all about her main passion… herb gardening.
Visit her website for access, and even more great tips in her new comprehensive e-book on creating, maintaining and enjoying your own home herb garden, along with bonus e-books on specific aspects of herb lore.
She also posts on her general garden blog.

How to Make Your Own Healthy Trail Mix

Trail mix can be an incredibly healthy snack full of antioxidants, good fats, and fiber. Instead of paying an arm and a leg at the grocery store for it, I recommend you make your own. Here’s how:

The Ingredients

There are three basic categories of ingredients that you’ll use: dried fruits, nuts, and sweets.

Dried Fruits

Dried fruits contain many of the nutrients found in fresh fruit, though usually in smaller amounts. They also taste slightly different from their fresh counterparts, so even if you don’t like a certain type of fruit, you may like the dried version.

Get unsweetened dried fruits if possible. You can look at the back and check the ingredients to see if sugar was added, and check the label to see how many grams of sugar it contains. Pick one or two dried fruits from this list:

Pineapple
Raisins
Apricots
Cranberries
Coconut flakes (not dried)
Bananas

Nuts

Nuts are full of healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, fiber, antioxidants, and protein. Look for unsalted and raw (not roasted) nuts to maximize healthiness. Choose one or two varieties of nuts from this list:

Pecans
Pistachios
Walnuts
Almonds
Macadamia nuts
Sunflower seeds
Cashews
Peanuts

Sweets

Adding some sweets makes the mix more satisfying to your sweet tooth. Then when you have a craving for something sweet, you can grab some trail mix instead of some cake, ice cream, or a cookie. Dark chocolate chips are a great choice here since they are packed with antioxidants and contain less sugar. Pick just one from the list below:

Dark chocolate chips
Semi-sweet chocolate chips
White chocolate chips
Butterscotch chips
M&M’s

Put It Together

Here’s a simple recipe:

1 cup nuts
1 cup another kind of nuts
1 cup dried fruit
1 cup another dried fruit
1 cup sweets

If you only use one kind of nuts, then use would use two cups to keep the ratio the same. The formula above gives you a good variety of tastes without having to buy twenty different ingredients.

You can experiment with many different combinations to find what you like best. Every time you go to the grocery store, buy another type of nut or dried fruit and mix it with the other ingredients you already have.

My favorite recipe is:

1 cup pecans
1 cup almonds
1 cup pineapple
1 cup cranberries
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Just remember, even though this is healthy stuff, it’s quite calorie dense thanks to the nuts. You don’t want to eat too much. A half cup is a good serving size and makes a great afternoon snack that will hold you over until dinner.

Mike Ross specializes in fitness for seniors and helps them find simple and effective ways to live healthier. His book, “The Balance Manual,” teaches seniors how to do balancing exercises at home with no equipment.

Should You Prepare Your Own Taxes?

You can’t go anywhere without seeing or hearing advertisements for the easiest, most cost effective and secure way to file your Federal Income Tax return. But how do you make the decision what way is best for you? Should you use a local CPA or tax preparer? Buy that software you are assured will do everything for you including being there when or if an audit rears its ugly head sometime in the future? Or pop into one of those kiosks that can be found at the mall, on your neighborhood main street, or even in your local big box store?

The answer is yes and no to all the above options. If you a filing a very simple 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ form then yes pick up that software. It’s inexpensive, easy to use and will lead you through the entire process. There are many do it yourself tax software programs available all at different prices and offering different features. But they all offer a wizard like interface that walk you through the process, answering general issue questions and performing a quick overview looking for obvious errors and missing information.

However, if you own a business, have sold a business or investment assets, are involved in a trust or any other of the many more complicated tax issues, than buying the software may not be the right solution for you. While the most popular do-it-yourself tax software programs will try to help you with these issues, you might not have the information you need to get the most benefit from the deductions you are allowed. Or even report your income properly. This is where a CPA or professional tax preparer can shine.

So what about those tax preparers who work under the label of a brand name? Like all chain operations, some are excellent, some are good and some are, well not so good. Often the persons preparing your taxes have taken a quick course in the basics of tax preparation and are depending on software and the information you come in with to prepare your return. Don’t expect to get suggestions beyond the obvious and realize you are working with someone that is doing what you could do with an off the shelf tax preparation software in your own home. Of course, you might be lucky enough to run into someone who has been preparing returns for many years. But every year these companies start advertising in the fall for new tax trainees, so just how many are out there with more than a few months training?

And now we come to CPAs and professional tax preparers. These are the people who have studied the tax laws, kept up on all the newest issues and will take the time to deal with your individual issues and needs. A good tax preparer will anticipate the questions and suggest solutions to get you to the point of paying the least amount of taxes you are legally liable for while making sure you have not under reported income or over reported deductions. Do you need a CPA to prepare your taxes? Not always. You do need a CPA to prepare certified financial statements, perform audits and other functions that certify that the financial records you are presenting to an outside entity are correct and complete. There are many excellent non CPA accountants and tax preparers that have the knowledge and experience to prepare your tax return.

And remember, no matter what method you use, in the end, it is you the taxpayer and signer of the return who is responsible for the correctness of the return. If there is an error of any type, it comes back to you. A good tax preparer should stand behind their work, however. They should be willing and able to represent you before the Internal Revenue Service if the need arises. (Where do you think that brand name, trained for a few weeks, and onto another job will be if the IRS comes calling?). A tax preparer may not do this without charging a fee, especially if the audit was called because the information you provided to the tax preparer was incorrect or incomplete, but I would expect them to take responsibility for any error they made due to a mistake in their understanding of the law. Some tax preparers will go as far as reimbursing their clients for any penalties they may incur because of a mistake the preparer had made. Of course this would not include any additional taxes or interest on the unpaid taxes owed by the client.

So to sum it up – if you are just reporting wages, interest, etc and your deductions are simple in nature, than get your self right off to your favorite store and pick up Turbo Tax or to the mall kiosk to sit with a brand name affiliated preparer. If your return involves more complicated issues then do contact your local tax preparer. And remember you get what you pay for, and this is certainly one place where quality and experience can save you a lot of money and grief.

Copyright all rights reserved D. L. MacMillan

Donna MacMillan, Advanced Certified QuickBooks consultant offers a unique set of services covering all aspects of successful business growth and financial health for all business types and sizes. Comprehensive, confidential, and professional services, analyzing, designing or redesigning your current systems to maximize productivity, cash flow and solidify your bottom line.

Take your business to the next level with the training and answers you need when you need them. Private and confidential. Over 30 years experience helping businesses grow through better financial management.

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