Here’s a good read regarding minimum/available wage versus living wage.

According to this research, a family of four needs to be earning about just under $68,000 in order to have basic economic stability and not rely on government assistance.

The article describes “basic economic stability” as a state of living that takes into account saving for things like retirement, kids’ college educations, a down payment on a home and emergencies.  Side note – we haven’t had an emergency fund (let alone a college fund) since we became a one income family a little over a year ago.

Getting and keeping one “good” job (hourly rate approximately 30% or over minimum wage) barely makes a dent.  An average family will need three.

Most convenience appliences - Avoid buying any pseudo waffle-iron gadgets that have two iron plates you press together to make evenly formed quesadillas, grilled sandwich “triangles”, or perfectly grill-marked paninis.  Even actual waffle irons are a stretch when you can just make pancakes.  These gadgets are an unnecessary expense and a pain to clean.  Use your frying pan.  You don’t have to add tons of butter or oil, just enough to avoid sticking.  You will get over the absence of grill marks.  For better-looking quesadillas, use medium to low heat and place the flat bottom of your clean teapot on top of the quesadilla as it cooks.  The bit of extra weight will help the cheese melt and tortillas brown evenly.

**Note on blenders:  It is my opinion that if you have a blender, you DON’T need the Magic Bullet or any knockoff.  You MIGHT still be able to justify a food processor OR chopping device, especially if you can things in quantity or make your own salsa. (both great way to save $ when ingredients are purchased in season and on sale!)

More Plastic Containers for Food Storage – If you ever buy things in tubs, like butter, cool whip, peanut butter, mayonnaise, etc.  these containers are easily washed and re-used to hold leftovers.  Yes, your containers will be all different sizes and the lids aren’t interchangeable but they are free.  Get over it.

Packaged meat marinades – why overpay when it is so easy to make your own? You really just need three ingredients:  Some sort of acid, like vinegar, wine or citrus juice to tenderize, some combination of spices, and some oil to hold it all together.  I’ve been using Orange Juice, Soy Sauce, Ginger and Olive oil to marinate chicken before I grill and guests keep asking for the recipe.  Another benefit to making your own marinade is how much easier it is to control the amount of salt, sugar or preservatives/coloring going into your food.  You created the deliciousness, so you won’t spend time trying to decipher those mysterious five-syllable mystery ingredients from the paragraph of additives on the marinade label.

Soft drinks – If the empty calories, sugar and caffine weren’t enough to make you give them up, their unnecessary cost should be.  Purchased in a 12-pack, you’ll spend about thirty cents a can.   On another health note, some studies have shown the phosphoric acid in colas harms bone density.  Drink homemade iced tea or water instead.  Flavor them using the same economy-sized bottle of lemon juice you keep on hand for your marinades.

Any produce that isn’t in season – I hinted at this earlier.  We all know a balanced, varied diet is better for our health.  A great way to change things up is to buy what’s in season and ON SALE and find ways to cook with that.  The most immediate four months are below and you can find the complete list at About.com.

• March – pineapples, mangoes, broccoli, lettuce
• April – pineapples, mangoes, zucchini, rhubarb, artichokes, asparagus, spring peas, broccoli, lettuce
• May – cherries, pineapples, apricots, okra, zucchini, rhubarb, artichokes, asparagus, spring peas, broccoli, lettuce
• June – watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, cherries, blueberries, peaches, apricots, corn, lettuce

More Clothes - If you can go to work for two weeks and only have to wash socks, underwear and workout clothes, you’re doing just fine.  All you really need for weekends is a couple pairs of jeans, half a dozen shirts, some sweats and a hoodie.

Tip:  Know when to use the gentle cycle when laundering the nice clothes you do have.  Whenever you can, hang to dry; Europeans rarely use dryers because they wear out the clothing fibers much faster.  Enjoy the money you save as your clothes last twice as long.

Another pair of shoes – Unless one of your current pairs is visibly falling apart, you should think carefully before buying more.  4 pairs: Athletic hoes, Casual (wear with Jeans) shoes, Sandals,  and Dress Shoes is about all most guys need.  Women may need 2-3 more pairs but in general both sexes need to take it easy.  Clean your shoes often and stick with neutral colors for work or casual: black, brown, tan . . . you get the idea.

A Haircut Every 4-6 weeks- Sure, there are people with unruly hair that seems to grow twice as fast as what’s considered normal but here is the savings for the rest of us:  54 weeks in a year can mean 11 haircuts, 1 every 5 weeks or 6 haircuts, one every 8 weeks.  Paying $20 each trip, you’ll save $100; paying $80 each time (middle of the road price for a woman’s cut and color) you’ll save $400.

An Expensive Gym Membership - Take up biking or running and do it in the early morning or at night, when younger, needier kids are asleep.  Play basketball or hike on the weekends.  Find free weights on Craigslist and pay once for a lifetime of use.

Different types of more expensive “soap” - Find a mild bar soap for sensitive skin and wash both your face and body with it.  If your hair is long enough to need shampoo and conditioner, at least TRY a brand that’s less than 5 bucks a bottle before you buy what the person who is making money cutting your hair is telling you to buy.

I always wanted to have a cool room of my own as a kid, but I had to share my closet-like, wardrobe-filled pencilbox of a room with my sister. To be fair, later on my sister and I did have a better room with more space, although we still had to share. What are you gonna do, my parents made sure we had some semblance of a personal space and the Soviet military lifestyle is not exactly conducive to digging in and adding on.

So when we learned about our baby back in 2009, I decided that whether it’s a boy or a girl, the kid is going to have something nice to look at.

Many nights later …

The jungle mural in our baby's room

… there it is! Our baby’s very own jungle, complete with stuffed animals and mural animals to boot.

Our little boy gets so excited every time he looks at the baby monkeys on the walls — his little face lights up and I can’t be happier.  He also has giraffes and tigers in the room, so they all are perfect subjects for practicing where the nose is, where the mouth is, where the ear is in two languages.

How did I do it?

The idea is easy, but the implementation was tricky.  You’ll need:

• Graphite pencils
• Base primer/paint
• Mirrors
• Rope you can cut
• Duct tape (of course)
• Laptop
• Digital Projector
• Image editing/creation software like Photoshop, GIMP, etc
• PATIENCE, and lots of it

Start by googling a bunch of clipart images of your theme.  In my case, I found some monkeys, a giraffe, and some vines.  Don’t worry about the resolution, focus on finding a design you like with big features.  This means less complexity is better — don’t go for the images with lots of intricate details, shadows, 3D relief.

Look at your room and its unique architectural details.  Figure out where your images are going to go — vines above the window?  A rocket next to the door?  A monkey hanging off the tree in the corner?  This is important, so get it once, and get it right.

Prep the walls.  Put on primer/base coat.  Sand down texture if it’s too prominent.  I had high gloss everywhere, but it’s more difficult to draw on it.

Fire up the laptop with the projector and start moving your images in Photoshop according to where you need them on the wall.  I “rented” my projector, i.e. went to the local electronics store and inquired about their return policy, then bought whatever projector they suggested.

After placing the images, trace with graphite pencil.  This is the easiest part of the project.

Fill in the images with acrylic paint.  As they say, rinse, repeat.

It looks professional, even though I can’t draw a stick man to save my life.  Allocate 80-120 hours if you’re going slow … took me months of nightly work to get the whole room done.  Good luck!

Men’s Health recently published a list of “The Healthiest Cheap Food in America” featuring twelve food trade-offs based on the premise that a similar item with equal, almost equal, or better nutritional content (vitamins, minerals, grams of protein, etc.) should be eaten when it saves you money.  I wanted to share the article since I agree with more than half their suggestions.

Here are three I’ve already been doing:

1.  Eating Eggs for breakfast.  Very cheap protein source.  Also try buying whey protein powder in bulk to make smoothies by . . .

2. Using frozen Blueberries and  fresh Bananas.  These are some of the lower priced fruits year round.

3. Choosing chicken legs whenever chicken breasts aren’t priced low enough.  Nutritionally they are almost equal.  Help compensate for the higher fat content by removing the skin before cooking.

Two I’ve just started:

1. I’m using cabbage wherever possible.  (getting back to my Ukrainian roots with this one)  Using the nutritional info presented in this article, I could argue coleslaw is as healthier than a tossed salad. (providing I watch the quantity of sugar and fat in my dressing of course)  Chopped green cabbage, diced yellow onions and shredded carrots; I challenge you to find three cheaper vegetables.

2. I’m learning to like cauliflower.  By now you’ve all heard of using mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes to lower your carb count.  Here’s another even more unique way to enjoy cauliflower, courtesy of my mother-in-law, famous for her 3 ingredient meals:

Break apart a head of cauliflower.  Boil the cauliflower until it starts to soften but is not mushy.  Drain.

Whisk together a couple eggs, add some salt and pepper.

Preheat a skillet on medium, have some olive oil handy.

Soak the cauliflower pieces in the egg mixture (if you’re really fancy you can also roll them in breadcrumbs)

Fry the cauliflower in the olive oil, basting with any leftover egg mixture.

Surprisingly good!

Finally, there’s one item I really don’t agree with: substituting canola oil for olive oil.  Personally I’d rather buy decent (NOT high end, just decent) olive oil when it goes on sale and use it sparingly.  I just don’t think the flavor sacrifice is worth it and I think the jury’s still out on whether vegetable oils are actually any better for you than any other fat sources used to cook with.

All this talk of food is making me hungry; its time for lunch.