Taco Tuesday

This past weekend, when we went to go meet up with the owners of The Property, we walked next door to a little taco truck for dinner. It was so good. I mean, really delicious. I'm talking so good that I have been craving tacos ever since. On Sunday morning I fixed a batch of breakfast burritos with egg, ham, and onion, and happily ate them for lunch and dinner. This morning I wanted the last one, but P-Daddy had already eaten it, so I fried a couple eggs and wrapped them in a tortilla. Yum! Messy, but Yum!

Since I'm trying to make meals easier to plan and make, I've been freezer cooking lately. (Money Saving Mom is my inspiration, and she recently posted about her freezer burritos, so I had modified the recipe somewhat and made a batch last week. Tonight, that was dinner. and a snack. It's crazy! Luckily, it's also cheap and easy :-)

Get Moving Monday

I can't speak for anyone else, but stress is never good for my health and weight. When I get busy and stressed, my focus on exercise and eating well is often the first thing to move down to the bottom of the priority list. But I'm trying to get back in shape, lose about 10 pounds, and most importantly, get ready to climb the 90 steps (yes, I said NINETY!) up to the house on The Property. I don't want to embarrass myself (or more importantly, P-Daddy) by having to stop halfway up and rest! So in preparation, I need to get moving! This week, here's my plan:

- walk Pooh to daycare at least 3 days
- work out at the Y at least 3 days

Pooh's daycare is about a mile away from our house, so each of those days will be a 3-mile roundtrip, giving me 6 miles if I do it 3 times. In all honesty, I'd like to do it everyday, but I'm trying to be realistic here. I'm also being realistic about going to the Y. Pooh loves to play in the pool, and as soon as the pool opens we'll be there every day if he has his choice. But this will be our first week at the Y, so I'll hope for more but set my goal at just getting there several times! How about you? How are you getting moving today?

Today I'm thankful for...a creative kiddo

"We make an X, Mommy!" Pooh shouts excitedly as he flings himself down on the ottoman at my parents' house. His cousin happily plops down on top of him, and sure enough, they make an X. I was impressed with my kid's letter recognition, and loving his creativity.

My favorite example of him at his best creative play happened on Adoption Day. A letter tray became his Dinosaur Train car, and he happily wore it on his head throughout the proceedings. He loved that letter tray so much that it appears in almost every adoption picture that we have.

P-Daddy and I - and everyone else in the courtroom - were greatly amused to hear him singing and talking non-stop while the lawyers and judges and witnesses had their say. If you are not familiar with the Dinosaur Train series, you can see the similarity here between the letter tray and the train cars - just think creatively!

I know, you are wondering what this has to do with becoming an expat, but it really does! First, that's my kid, and this is my blog, so it's inherently relevant to me. But second, and more importantly for everyone else, Pooh reminds me of the kids I would see so often in the markets in Guatemala, happily "driving" a box, pretending to honk the horn and careen wildly through the streets. And I'm reminded of one of the main reasons why we think living somewhere other than the US will be a good thing: simplifying life, and possessions, and learning to be more minimalistic and less materialistic in order to give more of ourselves to each other and those around us.


Disclosure: that Amazon link above is my affiliate link, and clicking through and buying at Amazon may give me a kick-back.

How we are saving $1000 with our cell phones

P-Daddy and I have had a wonderful weekend away meeting with friends and discussing The Property (I use a capital P to denote that one specific piece of property that we've been thinking about), and things still look good. Of course, no firm decisions will be made until we actually go and visit The Property in a couple months, and even after a decision is made, our move to The Property will not be immediate. But it feels so good to hope and dream!

As always, realization of this dream relies on having money in the bank here. While we hope that the Property will generate some income for us, we know that we should not rely on it 100%, at least at first, so we are thinking seriously about other money making and money saving options, which I'll be sharing as I think of them and/or try them out. Today, I'm sharing one small step that we've made, which is to make smarter cell phone decisions. But this seemingly small step is saving us about $1000 over the course of a year. I know that may not sound like much, but in Guatemala, that's about what we think it will take our family to live on for one month.

Let me preface this discussion by saying that I'm a Mac girl through and through. Put me in front of a Windows machine and I go a little crazy. I've got multiple MacBooks, a Mac desktop, an iPod, and an iPhone. Which means, until recently, that I had to have ATT as my cell phone provider. That was okay, I thought, my iPhone was worth it. Until it started dropping about half my calls, or not connecting them, or being generally unreliable. It's an old iPhone, I understand, but I could not bring myself to either pay full price for a new iPhone, or to sign a new contract with ATT (or anyone else) and still pay a painful price for my smartphone of choice. So we decided to change, and I'm giving an LG Optimus a try with Virgin Mobile.

Here's how it will save us money this year:

$80 a month for ATT iPhone plan, times 12 months = $960
$35 a month for Virgin Mobile plan, times 12 months = $420
$540 = total amount saved on my cell phone over the course of a year

I know you are thinking that those plans with ATT and Virgin Mobile are not comparable, but they really are. Virgin Mobile offers a pre-paid monthly plan with unlimited texting and data, plus 300 minutes of talk time, for only $35. With ATT, our plan had unlimited texting, plenty of (but not unlimited) data, and 450 minutes of talk time. Since we typically rolled over some minutes at the end of the month, we think that the 300 minutes will be sufficient for me. And if it's not, I can bump that up to 1500 minutes for only $10 more, or use Google Voice, which allows me to talk on the phone through a data connection rather than using my phone minutes. Either way, I'm pretty dedicated to making this work.

In addition to changing my cellphone service, we have also moved P-Daddy to a pre-paid plan. He is not a hardcore cellphone user, and we had been paying Verizon along the lines of $45 a month for him to have a cellphone plan with 450 minutes, when he typically used fewer than 100. With Verizon, there's no rollover, so those extra minutes were simply disappearing each month. So we bought him a cheapo T-Mobile phone, along with a $100 phone card which is good for 12 months or 1000 minutes. This was in January, and as of last week, he still had over 900 minutes left. I'm not sure how it's physically possible to talk on the phone so little, but somehow he accomplishes it! Anyway, assuming that he will use these 1000 minutes over the course of 2012, consider our savings for the year:

$45 a month for Verizon service times 12 months = $540
$100 for the T-Mobile phone card
$440 = total amount saved on P-Daddy's cell phone over the course of a year

Together, that's $980 for the year. It's a small step for us now, but a giant step toward our move!

By the way, since this is a post about money-making and saving, (a) that's my Amazon Affiliate link up there, which may give me a kick-back if you were to purchase through it, and (b)if you check out Virgin Mobile’s phones & plans and buy one of their phones, we can both get free minutes! Just activate it online and enter my Kickbacks Code: zuu4Pt94. We'll each get 60 free minutes once you've topped-up with at least $20. And 60 free minutes is nothing to sneeze at!

A long time ago...

So it's been a really long time since I've posted on here! Lots of things were going on, including getting a new foster child, the semester really getting into full swing, and becoming a primary caregiver to my father several days a week after he was diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately, that meant that blogging got pushed way to the bottom of my priority list. It did not, however, mean that our dream of expatriation changed. As a matter of fact, we are making some progress there...

About 10 years ago, when I was living in Guatemala, I had a friend who bought a hostel there and made it into a private residence. He and his wife have since returned to the US, and, knowing how much I loved visiting their place when they were in Guatemala, they approached us early this year about the possibility of buying it. P-Daddy and I have been discussing, investigating, and mulling it over, and while a decision has not been completely made as of yet, things are looking good!

As a matter of fact, this weekend we are headed out of town to meet up with these friends and discuss the idea in person. Then in August, P-Daddy and I are planning a week in Guatemala to really check it out. P-Daddy has never been to Guatemala, and I really think it's crucial that he visit before we make a firm decision. In addition, I have not spent a lot of time in the particular town where the home/hostel is located, and I want to see what the town is like these days as well.

So, with this development in mind, as well as with the successful ending of the school year, I am attempting to get my blogging shoes back on! Please be patient with me as I re-learn how to navigate this role!

Rain, Rain, Go away...

Not here in Texas. Here, we'd still be happy to have more rain. But in El Salvador, and throughout much of Central America, heavy rains right now are causing flooding and landslides all over. Of course, these bring with them an ever-increasing body count. Right now (well, as of yesterday), The Huffington Post indicates that the total number of Central American deaths is at 66, with 24 of these in El Salvador and another 28 in Guatemala. These two countries, with the bulk of the deaths, seem to bearing the brunt of the storms. Evacuations are in progress, and donations are needed for the many whose homes have been destroyed. Rubi over at Life in the Armpit points out a suggested organization for donations:
Voices on the Border

I remember the flooding and storms while in Guatemala, and I have many friends who have been affected by this over the years and who have had to rebuild from damages. My heart breaks for those who have lost part or all of their possessions and families. And I wonder, if it were me, would I pack it up and move back to the US? Would I be strong enough to re-build? Would I want to? Would I recover? I don't even want to consider the what-if-it-were-my-child question. Just one more thing to think about as we plan to head out: what's our back-up plan if disaster strikes?

To all in El Salvador and Guatemala now, prayers and wishes for health and safety for you and yours!

My new favorite pick-me-up

It's probably been clear from my lack of posts lately that things here have been BUSY! And when things get hectic, I tend to shove everything down on my priority list that's not an absolute must-do. I'm working on making blogging more consistent, really I am!

Anyway, one thing that tends to happen when I get stressed is that many of my good eating habits go out the window. I neglect to prepare lunches for the week, and then don't have anything quick to grab as I head out the door, so I go eat at fast-food central at the university. Not only is this bad for my overall health, it's also not great for my wallet (or our saving-for-el-salvador fund!). So I've really been trying to make sure that I have food ready to go. Since I try to head to the gym in the mornings, in addition to lunch, I need a quick protein pick-me-up for after my workout. I've played around with a few different things, like boiled eggs and string cheese, but I've found that I really need something that I can eat/drink while I walk back across campus to my office, and peeling an egg just doesn't work while I walk. Apples work great, but don't have as much protein as I'd like. So what's a girl to do?

Eat like a man. And by that, I mean take advantage of all the different protein powders and drinks that are out there. I resisted this at first, but recently I've stumbled upon a formula that is tasty, quick, full of protein, and convenient. I take a 32 oz container and fill it with ice, then add one scoop of vanilla protein powder. I then fill the container half full with coffee, and fill it the rest of the way with fat-free milk. Yum! The ice blends the powder well into the rest of the drink, and there's no need to add additional sugar or splenda since the protein powder is pretty sweet already. I stick the whole container into my gym bag (yep, make sure the lid fits well and is leak-proof!), and the ice keeps it cool the whole time I'm working out. Since the coffee and milk are full-strength to start with, the melting ice doesn't water it down too much, and I have a delicious frappe kind of thing to drink as I walk across campus. The best part? This drink holds me easily until lunch and beyond.

I know that there's a better choice than protein powder out there for this, but I feel like it's the protein that is really helping with keeping me satisfied for the rest of the morning, and I just don't think that coffee and milk alone would do that for me. But are there alternatives to expensive protein solutions? I'm on the lookout, and I'll keep you posted.