Money Map

Exercise: Make Your Moola Map
"Begin getting a handle on your financial picture by identifying your income and expenses... [L]et's get a visual inventory of where your money comes in (income/sales) and goes out (expenses/costs) by making your Moola Map." - Right-Brain Business Plan, page 106

It is very fitting that this exercise landed when it did. Every year around this time Jarrod & I review our personal budget & this year is no different. Before I post the Jessie Marie Studio Money Map I want to tell you a little story about our personal finances.

We found out that we are not living within our means. Those pesky once a year bills, like car insurance, have come due. For a second year in a row we've had to dip into our savings. This would be fine if we have been saving money throughout the year. We haven't. Our savings was created during the glory days of two incomes & no kids. Over four years ago now. It really is amazing how long the money has lasted. But since the money won't last forever we sat down & created a zero-based budget to start 2013 off with. A budget that accounts for those one time payments & even replenishes our savings a little bit each month. It's going to be really tight. All the more reason to look at how we can increase our income by making Jessie Marie Studio successful.

And with that I bring to you the Money Map for Jessie Marie Studio. I've removed the numbers to keep things confidential. Next up filling out a spreadsheet. Fun times!

Whole Food, Not Whole Paycheck

What I learned in one hour at the Champaign Public Library from the general manager, Jacqueline Hannah, of the Common Ground Food CO-OP in Urbana, IL:

ONE

Processed foods are not your friend.

Bulk bins, your new best friend.

Many people will complain that eating organic is too expensive to do. Jacqueline addressed this & said when shopping at a natural foods store you need to veer towards the bulk bins instead of buying the organic processed foods. Her two examples were:

Can of Organic Black Beans: $2.67

Same Amount of Bulk Black Beans: $0.28

Switch your carbs from Bread to Rice:

2 slices of organic bread: $0.73

1 c. organic rice: $0.45 (+ 1/2 the calories & no sugar)

TWO

Cook It Yourself

Example: Two Servings of Lentil Soup

Campbell's Lentil Soup: $1.69 (on sale!)

Large Cup of Lentil Soup from Deli: $3.49

Homemade & Organic from your kitchen: $0.79

Jacqueline addressed the fact that not everyone is comfortable in the kitchen. If you live in the CU area you can check out the full version of Healthy Eating on a Budget for FREE on either Wednesday, February 23rd from 10AM-1130AM or Saturday, March 26th from 1030AM-Noon. Call 217.352.3347 to register.

THREE

Cook in Bulk

 • Learn the restaurant rule 

when you triple a recipe or more you save time making it... especially soups

• Package easy to use portions

• Label everything well

• Keep track of what you have on the outside of your freezer

FOUR

"Like a Condiment"

• Use less of the expensive favorable  organic ingredients: ie cheese, meat & nuts

• Cut the amount of cheese a recipe calls for in half (WHAT?!)

• Buy Triple S farms meat & only use 1/2 in stews & soups. You won't even miss it since the flavor is so much better than store bought meat.

• And finally with nuts, add or eat 1/2 as much as you normally would & your expensive snack will last longer.

FIVE

Beans & Whole Grains

Add them to your diet. They are cheap & good for you.

And finally, I picked about five Food For All recipes to try out in the next two weeks to put some of these things I learned into practice. Here is the one I'm the most excited about. I will be making the black bean burgers, but not the millet. I'll write out the whole recipe in case anyone wants to try it. And if you do, please let me know!

Black Bean Burgers & Southwest Millet

These black bean burgers are so delicious and they freeze well, so think about doubling or tripling the batch. They're perfect with flavorful Southwest Millet, a healthful & economical alternative to wheat buns. About $1.15 per serving.

Ingredients:

Southwest Millet

2 tsp veggie "Better than Bouillon"

3 tbsp tomato paste

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

2 tbsp canola oil

1/2 yellow onion, diced fine

1 c. millet

2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro

Black Bean Burger

2 1/4 c. cooked black beans

3/4 c. quick oats, bulk

1 medium yellow onion, minced

1 tbsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste

2 cloves garlic

1/2 bunch cilantro

2 tbsp Woodstock Farms applesauce

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp cornmeal

1/2 tsp salt

For cooking

4 tbsp cornmeal

Canola oil

Preparation

Millet

Mix the broth concentrate with 2 cups boiling water. Stir in the tomato paste, spices, and salt.

In a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan, warm the oil over medium heat. Add onion. Saute, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft & translucent, about 6-8 minutes. Add millet & garlic, stir to coat, and saute for about 4-6 minutes longer.

Pour the liquid over the millet and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover & cook for 20-25 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and allow it to sit, covered, for about 10 minutes longer. Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro and fluff with a fork.

Burgers

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or with a potato masher until well mixed, but not a paste. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Spread a little cornmeal on your hands and try shaping a small handful of the burger mix into a ball. If it's not holding together well, process or mash just a bit more. Form into four large, flat patties, or eight smaller ones (smaller are easier to handle when cooking).

Spread cornmeal on a small plate and dredge the burgers. Oil a frying pan as lightly as possible with canola oil and heat over medium-high temperature. Once hot, place your burgers in the pan. Fry until browned on both sides, turning gently with a thing metal spatula.

Serving

Pile each plate with a quarter of the millet & center the burgers on top.

Delicious Additions:

1 avocado, diced

Mildly Sassy salsa

It's Budget Time!

Each year during the month of December or January Jarrod will sit down & review our finances from the year before. One part of this exercise is to see how "on budget" we were the year before.

In January 2010 the numbers told us otherwise. We were depleting our savings rapidly. The fact was Cadence was born, Jarrod had gone back to school, we moved into a more expensive rental & we hadn't changed our spending habits from our Glory Days in Oshkosh. While in Oshkosh we each had well paying jobs, a super cheap apartment & no kid. Luckily we had saved a lot of money during those Glory Days. The damage had affected our savings account - not our credit cards. Others have always come to us for advice - and now we were failing ourselves.

We came up with a plan (more communication between the two of us), a new budget (putting limits on travel & extras) & went to work.

This year when Jarrod came to me, the numbers were much easier to swallow. We had made it. On average we had spent what we made on monthly expenses. We did gather some extra & dipped into savings to donate more, travel out to Wyoming again & go to many concerts (um, embarrassingly our concert spending was up over $800! Guess we should watch that).

However, after looking at this year's numbers we thought to ourselves "We can do better." We have now started to implement some of Dave Ramsey's tips & tricks that we've heard on his podcast. And we purchased iBank 4 for Jarrod's mac so we can pay closer attention to our spending habits.

{Day 12: 

Jessie: "It's Girl Scout Cookie time!" 

Jarrod: "It's Budget time!"

Jessie: "Come on Girl Scout Cookie's only come around once a year."

Jarrod: "Girl Scout Cookies have meat in them."}