by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 26, 2017 | Parenting Tips
Choose one of these Mom approved most durable backpacks for your student. Buy once and save year after year!
When my oldest was going into kindergarten, I took him to the store to choose a brand new backpack.
He was so excited to find one with his favorite super hero! And off to school he proudly went.
But by Christmas break, that backpack was ripped and ruined. The cheap material wouldn’t stitch back together. (Not that I’m much in the seamstress department to begin with.)
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 23, 2017 | Ways We Saved This Week
After a hectic May and early June, I’ve been on a mission to reclaim my home. It’s hard to keep up with the daily mess when you’re so busy!
Every time I try to clean and organize, I start to feel frustrated by my house. It’s a 1950s built home, and let’s just say that closet space wasn’t a priority for people in those days. My vacuum cleaner doesn’t really have an “in its place” place. Same for several other essential things.
Yeah, I let myself have a minor pity party about that for a while. Then I decided to take action. For starters, I went into my disastrous attic and emptied the entire thing. Then I sorted through everything and put things back in an orderly fashion. That gave me a bit of attic space to use as a closet.
I also took 7 trash bags of stuff (as well as several big items) to the Goodwill. I sent another 7 bags to the trash. I got rid of several baby items. (Which is kinda sad, but even if we do have another baby I won’t be using that pack and play anymore. It’s worn out!)
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 21, 2017 | Parenting Tips
Inside: Are your kids always bored? Let’s talk about kids these days…and it isn’t about screen time. Here’s an idea you might not have considered.
Summer is here, and the battle with boredom has already begun. Life these days is hectic as we try to keep up with busy schedules and bucket lists. So when there is down time, kids aren’t sure how to handle it.
If you’re like me, you love the idea of having a slow summer. And you regularly tell your kids that it’s ok to be bored. But in reality, when the kids get bored, they spend more time bickering with one another.
I think there’s a solution that’s easy to overlook in today’s times. I’m so thankful to The Humbled Homemaker for letting me share my thoughts on this subject today! Be sure to click here to read Why Your Kids Are Bored At Home (And It’s Not What You Think).
Welcome to Medium Sized Family!
Are you new to the Medium Sized Family blog? I’m so happy to have you here! I’m Jamie, wife of one and mother to 5 kids. We’re digging out of debt and have implemented a #yearofno that helped us pay off thousands so far.
Here you’ll find money saving tips (including a popular series every Friday called The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week).
Some posts you might like to start with:
I’d love to learn more about you! You can leave a comment here or join us on our Facebook page (where we’re ALWAYS chatting about something!)
by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 19, 2017 | Large Family Life, Saving Money
Inside: Considering renting a car from Hertz? Read this Hertz review to learn everything you need to know, from payment to pick up.
While I was not compensated for this post, the links here are affiliate links. Thanks for helping us get debt free!
One way we save a ton of money is by renting cars for long trips. Does that sound strange? We drive an 11 year old minivan. It’s getting up there in mileage, but I love the monthly payment ($0).
In the past, I might have looked for a reason to upgrade to a newer van. Taking a trip would be the perfect justification!
But the math doesn’t add up. New cars always cost more than you think they will. Then you have to add on extra insurance and tax costs. In the end, you spend thousands trying to avoid a bill of hundreds. That’s what Robert Burton called “Penny wise and pound foolish.”
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 16, 2017 | Ways We Saved This Week
We’re back from one of the more relaxing family vacations we’ve taken, and I’m so happy to be sharing another 5 Ways post with my favorite readers!
I spent the entire vacation reminding my family (and, let’s be honest, myself!) that this was a #yearofno style vacation. We’d already paid for the rental van and the vacation house (which we split with two other families to make it one of the most affordable stays possible for a family of 7). That left us with travel, hotel stays both ways (an 11 hour drive with 5 kids is too much for one day for us!), food, and fun to cover. I had cash ready to cover those expenses, and when it was gone, it was gone.
You might expect that to be stressful, but it was actually quite the opposite! We were more content this time, with less pressure to fit everything in to a one week trip. We ate out less, and that meant less guilt and more appreciation for the fresh seafood we were able to get.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 14, 2017 | Debt
Inside: No one wants to have a life of regrets. So should you take a vacation if you’re in debt? Take this quiz to help you find the right balance.
When my family proposed that we take a vacation this year, I was immediately against it. A vacation right after such a successful #yearofno? We’d corrected our bad spending and were doing so well paying off debt. It didn’t make sense to postpone our debt free date so we could have a family vacation.
Then again, I’m a pretty boring person. I’ve always been the type to set goals and bend over backwards to reach them. And while my more playful husband aggravates me sometimes, his viewpoint is an important counterbalance to my own. It keeps me from missing out on the fun things in life, and I usually end up appreciating it in the long run.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 12, 2017 | Large Family Life, Parenting Tips
This list of fun things to do with the family is a must have. Keep it on hand and draw ideas from it all year long.
As you scan the latest school newsletter, one certain date catches your eye.
Because next to that date are two little words that demolish your usual schedule.
“No school.”
Why the kids have a random day off of school in October is neither here nor there.
Either way, you need to figure out what that day is going to look like.
Hey, I’m all for having a lazy day where we sit around in pajamas and do nothing. (For once.)
And letting the kids learn to be bored can pay off big time.
But if you want to go just.one.day without the kids at each other’s throats (because he said no girls are allowed upstairs…and she hit me first)…then what you need is a plan.
And after you print off this list of fun things to do as a family, they’ll be too busy having fun to fight.
Well, fingers crossed anyway.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 9, 2017 | Ways We Saved This Week
We’ve been spending our nights in Rodanthe this week, and it’s been wonderfully relaxing! So today’s post will be short and sweet. When we return home I’ll write up all of the ways we made vacation for our young family work, even in the midst of serious debt repayment.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 5, 2017 | Saving Money
The following is a special guest post from The Dollar Stretcher.
“I don’t really have a debt problem. Right?”
We all know the story about the frog and boiling water, right?
You can put a frog into a pot of water. Not boiling water…he’d know the danger and jump right out.
BUT…
if you turn up the heat gradually the frog won’t even notice. He’ll be boiled before he knows it.
That’s what your debt is doing to you.
You’d never borrow $10,000 with nothing to show for it, right?
But adding $100 or so to your credit card balance each month doesn’t seem like a problem. Until the water starts to boil…
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by Jamie Jeffers | Jun 2, 2017 | Ways We Saved This Week
Over the weekend we attended a birthday party with a few family friends. It was such a good time! The kids spent hours in the pool not fighting while the grown ups enjoyed good food, a few drinks, and fun conversation (at each other’s expense). Inside jokes are the best, because it means you’ve got good people in your life. 😉
No one spent a fortune on the gifts or the food. And while our host and hostess have a beautiful house and backyard, it made me think again about scruffy hospitality. It really is more about spending time together than making sure everything is perfect before you’re willing to host others.
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I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
