One of the hardest things to do as a mom is to get your kids to eat their their food. An even harder thing is to get your kids to eat their vegetables.

There are a few tricks I’ve learned over the years that may help.

1. You have to eat your vegetables. Kids imitate what their parents do and if you are seen to always be eating your vegetables, eventually they will follow suit.

2. Persistence- on average it will probably take about seven times before they will attempt to eat something. So just keep on serving it to them and they will ultimately try it.

3. Choice- allow them to choose. For example, cook peas and carrots and then tell them, you can have which ever one you want, but it has to be one. This gives them a sense of decision and control.

Granted, none of these will work all the time, but they are definitely a step in the right direction.

The worst thing you can do is fight, threaten, or punish your kids because they don’t eat their vegetables. This creates a negative association with food and may lead to eating disorders in the future.

According to Ramsey, there is absolutely no good use of a credit card. No matter what. This is due to the fact that paying cash makes you think about the money that you’re spending, while using a credit card does not. There is no emotional attachment to handing that piece of plastic over the counter.

Some people feel that frequent flier miles and other options and rewards are good reasons to use a credit card. However, when you use a credit card you spend more to make your purchases. Even if you pay your credit cards off and don’t get stuck with the interest, which most people already fail to do, you’ll still have spent more money.

You should pay cash. If you really feel like using plastic, you should get a debit card. That way the money comes straight out of your checking account and you don’t pay any interest on it. This can help you to save a lot more than you otherwise would because you won’t be spending money on things that you don’t need.

There are a lot of common sense tips that can save you more money than you realize. A lot of people don’t use them because they just don’t think of them, or they don’t think that they make much difference. They are important, though, and they are little things that anyone can do.

One of the best tips is to walk or bicycle or take public transportation as much as you can. That doesn’t mean you should sell your car or never use it, but it’s worth leaving it parked occasionally.

You can also brown bag your lunch and save yourself a lot of money instead of going out to eat every day. Most people don’t bother to think about these kinds of things, but they really add up.

Other great ways to save money are to check into all the free things you can do around your town, get out of the house and experience nature, and get your money well-organized so that you have a strong and healthy budget.

I’d like to introduce what I call the Christmas bucket. Every year around this time, many people including myself start to worry about having enough money for Christmas spending. So, to ease this pain I found an old aluminum bucket I had and everyday when I or my husband would have change in our pocket we would dump it in their everyday.

Results: By the end of the year, we took the change to our local grocery store where they had one of those change counting machines. We used two tough cloth bags to carry the money in, as it was very heavy.

The amount after the 8% the store charges (yeah I know its a lot), was $392.

That amount basically covered Christmas for all of my family and relatives. If you come up short, you can always get money for gold from your old jewelry. I mean really does anyone where tons of jewelry these days? That’s so passe.

I actually feel better after unloading all the change from my wallet in the bucket, I also accumulate change in my car which I dump at least once a week.

How do I get so much change you ask? Well I pay for everything in cash. That will be my next budgeting tip! Stay tuned

One the my family’s favorite dish is pork chops made in the crockpot. The recipe is very simple to make and very tasty.

First you’ll need about 5-8 boneless pork chops (depending on how many people will eat)

Next get 1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of barbecue
Mix them together in a bowl

More or less of each of these depending on how much you are making.

Now, smother the bottom of the crockpot with some of the mix. Next, add in the pork chops.

And finally pour in the rest of the mix over your pork chops and close the lid.

Put on high for 4 hours and you are done. Enjoy!

Where mutual funds are concerned putting all your eggs into one basket is a poor choice. There are four types of funds: growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international.

Putting 25% of the money you have available for investment into each type of fund is a great way to balance what you are doing and help ensure that you won’t lose all your money should one of those types of funds experience problems. If you feel you can’t put any money in aggressive growth because of risk, you can create a more balanced type of fund to put most of that 25% into. This will help you get some strong growth but will also help to ensure that you don’t lose too much if your funds experience some difficulties.

You shouldn’t begin investing, though, until you’ve complete a few steps such as paying off your debt – except your house – and having an emergency fund along with three to six months of expenses in savings.

It’s easy for as little as $25 a month you can add to a mutual fund. So get started now.

Over 350 radio stations all across the United States offer a three hour program by Dave Ramsey. He is thought to be one of the best when it comes to giving truthful, straightforward, and practical financial advice to all kinds of people from all walks of life.

You don’t have to already be wealthy or have a great job and a lot of disposable income in order to take Ramsey’s advice. The live show deals with love, life, and relationships, but it shows how these are affected by money. People who want to make sure that they don’t have problems in these areas can learn great financial strategies from Ramsey.

Most people don’t realize how strongly their finances are rolled into the other aspects of their life. Once they become aware of this, their chances for financial success are much higher.

Teaching children to manage money starts as soon as they are old enough to have any kind of understanding of finances – and that’s likely earlier than you think. The earlier you begin to talk to them about saving their money and spending it wisely the better off they’ll be when they get older and must manage their finances on their own.

There are even games online that can teach kids about finances.

Kids must understand that they can only spend their money once. They should also see their parents setting a good example. If you are seriously in debt, it’s difficult to explain to your children why they should not be.

There are emergencies that can cause people to go into debt and these sometimes cannot be avoided – such as hospital bills. However, making sure children have a good understanding of money is one of the best ways to ensure that they will do well on their own when they grow up.

The main tips that Dave Ramsey gives when it comes to getting out of debt revolve around not getting into debt in the first place. He believes that debt is a bad thing and that the Bible was right when it said that borrowers were slaves to lenders.

If you are in debt, though, getting out as soon as possible makes the most sense. If you don’t have that car payment, you can save for retirement. If you don’t have that house payment, you can afford to remodel, pay off other debt you might have, or travel.

Pick the smallest loan and pay it off first. PT Money agrees with us here. Small victories is the name of the game.

Negotiate terms with creditors. There’s a lot you can do when you ask questions and make an effort. When you do that, you too, can live debt-free.

Hi all, after a year of running our cash for gold review site, I decided to add a blog to it so that I can reach out to visitors on a more personal level.

With that, I’d like to tell you a little about myself. My name is Joanne, I’m a stay at home mom of two wonderful kids. In my spare time, (which is not very much), I maintain this site. I also enjoy cooking, catching up on my soaps, and finding unique ways of saving money.

Here I hope to share some of the tips I use at home to make quick simple and cost effective meals, how to save on everyday things, and other tidbits I come across.

Thanks for stopping by!