Making Home with MrsBettyTracy: Covid 19

Making Home with MrsBettyTracy: Covid 19: I know there is a lot going around about this virus right now. And it is kind of weird that there was a serious epidemic in 1818-20, and aga...

Life changes and grows. Some things get bigger and better, some die off to be replaced by new things.

I am a Stylist with Lilla Rose hair accessories. Have been since 2014. They are a quickly growing company and I am in the biggest branch in the company. My uplones have really invested in teaching their people, not just hair stuff, but making your own brand, your own "thing."

Now much of what they have been teaching I have heard from other sources over the last decade, but this time around I am getting the answers for what direction I need to take.

All that to say, I have started a new blog. My heart has always been towards teaching young mothers, so this is the direction I am going with this new blog. It will take a while to really get my feet under me, but it will be worth it.

So, I now proudly introduce:

Making Home with Mrs Betty Tracy

Morning! January 10, 2018

I Have been "doing" Flylady.com lately. It really helps and I recommend everyone who struggles with housework to try it.



Click through the above link and click her "start here" button. Follow her 31 steps, including signing up for her emails. If you don't have time to read the emails some day, delete them and start fresh each day. You are not behind, jump in wherever you are. Don't let perfectionism keep you from getting what you can from the program.



As part of my encouraging myself, I would like to try making a basic "to do" list here most days. No promises. I will not do this perfectly :-)



Please join me by adding your "to do" list in the comments!



Today's Bible reading was:

BeST Bible Commentary: Genesis 6- Preparing for the Flood



I have already:

• Gotten dressed
• Swish and Swiped my main bathroom (cleaned the mirror, counter, sink, faucet, toilet, floor around the toilet. Takes all of 5 minutes)
• Made my bed.
• Straightened my bedroom. 
• Started a load of laundry
• Fixed Hubby's KoolAid for supper tonight
• Fixed my coffee
• Had my devotions
• Programed in some posts in the church's facebook page. 

On my "to do" list today is:

• Swish and Swipe the other bathroom
• Shower (and clean it while I'm in there anyway) 
• Vacuum the kids rooms
• Wash one cupboards doors in the kitchen.
• Dry, fold, put up the load of laundry I've washed.
• Check all my emails, etc
• Work on the plans for school (which starts back up next week)
• Water my plants
• Take my son for his driving test
• Go to Bible study tonight
• Email a brother about a question I have
• Practice the piano for 10 minutes
• Do one lesson in HerbMentor (15 minutes-ish)
• Do one lesson in Learning Worship Keys (5 minutes-ish)
• Do one lesson in the Lilla Rose training videos (15 minutes-ish. I'm not very good at keeping up on this kind of thing when we aren't doing school )
• Vacuum the living room.

Ok, so that is a lot. Let's see what all I can accomplish :-)

7 Pieces of Financial Advice That Forever Changed My Life

"Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with."



 Brilliant Advice!



7 Pieces of Financial Advice That Forever Changed My Life

Before You Buy Your Kids A Bunch of Toys for Christmas, Read This:

Before You Buy Your Kids A Bunch of Toys for Christmas, Read This:

To Auto Pay or Not

The short answer is "No. Not. Niet. Nada. Never."

Yes, I know its fun to play with the settings and neat to watch the computer do our work for us automatically. And supposedly you then don't have to worry about the bills. They will take care of themselves.

But I have seen so many, many people paying fee after fee, month after month because they forgot to have the money in the account or they mis-programmed the auto pay, or their income was delayed. I just don't think it's a good idea.

I don't do the bulk of our family's bills. Hubby takes care of most of them in our division of labor. But I do care for a couple of them (besides groceries, which is in my domain). But I am our Church's Secretary treasurer, so I do have some experience with paying bills! And a church doesn't generally have a regular income. Our donations can vary from month to month by as much as $1000. That's a lot for such a tiny church.

So, here's how I make sure I don't forget any bills for the church:

• I keep the records in Excel, and each month has its own chart. 
• I copy and paste the bills from each old month into the new month, deleting most of the information from the old month and changing the names of months.
• I DON'T delete the names of the bills I pay each month. I leave them in the "transaction" column in the new month.
• On the first of the month when I pay bills, I can simply go down the list and pay each one I paid the month before. 
• I do use our bank's online banking program and Paypal to pay our bills. This is a back up to remember bills, since the online banking lists all the addresses and names of each bill I've ever paid through them. I simply scan down the list and make sure I haven't forgotten any of them. A quick scan of last month's Paypal records does the same thing for the bills I pay through them.

When my mom took care of the church's books, she didn't use computers. So, she made a list in a designated notebook that stayed with the physical church books of each bill that needed paying. She then drew a grid by each bill with a check box for each month of the year. As she paid a bill, she checked the right box for the month for that bill. She could easily tell at a glance what bills had been paid and what ones hadn't.

Now, for our home, I do have one company I buy from monthly that insists we have auto pay. There simply is no other way to buy from them. So, for that household bill I took out a free AkimboCard.com account and designated one of the sub-cards just for this bill. I check every week (I'm paid weekly) to make sure the balance is $20 (this bill is $17 a month). If the balance is less than $20 I add money to it, no matter when the bill is due. Once the money is in that account, it is NOT mine and is NOT available to spend at anytime.

But I really don't like to do this. Though I like regular expenses to be in their own account so I don't spend it, I want to be the one to decide when it is spent.

It just doesn't make sense to me to constantly pay fines and fees or to have to haunt "automatic" accounts to make sure everything is running smoothly. If I have to pay that much attention, I might as well be in complete control.

Mark your calendar!

In addition to the sale, Lilla Rose itself will hold a live Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/lillaroseinc/?ref=br_r

During this event there will be live reveals of new products and specials, like:

So mark your calendar and be sure to tune in!

(Oh, and it will make ordering easier if you go now to LillaRose.biz/BeSTclips and register as a customer. No cost but the few minutes it take to do it.)