I purchased some curricula this week for $137. It was much needed and non-consumable. Therefore, I'll be able to use it throughout the years with all three of my kids. My favorite gold chain necklace broke a few weeks ago, and to support my new efforts, dh took it to the jewelers to have it repaired and wrapped for my anniversary gift instead of buying something new. He bought the chain for me when our youngest was born, and it has sentimental value, so it was a sweet surprise to have it fixed - and only $30 instead of who knows what he would have spent! I spent $250 at Costco for groceries I needed for the rest of the month. The rest of the food will come from pantry storage. I cleaned the pantry and made a list last weekend - there was so much more than I thought there was, so we'll weed that out. I made it through the month WAY under my allotted grocery budget. We did take the kids out for lunch last week. That came out of our entertainment budget. We made a list of all the free places we can go during the week to keep us busy, instead of our daily book store and café haunts that cost us way more than I want to admit! So we decided on a twice a month family outing, like lunch or a movie, and we'll stick to the free places during the week on days we just feel like getting out. It's going to be so hard when we drive by that French patisserie with Barnes and Noble conveniently next door! I stuck to the YNAB this payperiod. It's already very clear how much extra money there is for savings after cutting out the nonsense. Having a set monthly entertainment budget is going to work great for us in being more practical and cutting out spontaneous spending.

My 7 year old is reading through them right now. She finishes a book in a couple hours. We already had the whole collection from when my oldest read them, so she's going through the box one book per day. We have all of the research guides, so she reads those too, if there is one for the book she just finished.

When we had our house built, we had a LEGO room designed in. My husband built custom tables and cabinets for it. Definitely worth it!

I think I'm off to a good start. I learned about YNAB from the original challenge thread, and won a copy at the end of the webinar - so no money spent there. I've got my budget all set up, as well as my bullet journal to keep myself organized. We have a wonderful non-profit bookstore in town that allows kids to come once per month and pick out 5 used books and one brand new book from their stock for free, and educators are allowed unlimited free books. Instead of our weekly trip to Barnes and Noble, we went to check it out yesterday and came home with some unbelievable finds. I have enough dog food to last the rest of January, and enough gas to last the rest of the pay period. I spent $89 at Sprouts for groceries for the week - I cleaned out the pantry and made a new meal plan system to cut down on food spending.

For those of you that use your phone camera to create digital copies of your journals, I just wanted to mention Genius Scan app - a PDF scanner for your phone. It's such a handy tool to have for scanning documents. I use it almost daily. Its available in the Google Play store as well. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/genius-scan-pdf-scanner/id377672876

Yes, there is a hidden category at the bottom of your budget worksheet. When you are no longer using a subcategory, you simply slide it down to the hidden area. If you only need it for a short while, maybe you can add it into another area, like school or even an entertainment budget - then you could add a little note to explain how that money was used for future reference.

We've had the Tempurpedic Rhapsody now since 2011 - it's been wonderful. We used to have a Europa Pillow top, and I would wake up stiff and in terrible pain every morning - that all stopped for me after a few weeks with the Rhapsody. I can really feel a difference when I sleep on hotel mattresses when we travel. The pain and stiffness come back quickly. We bought the cheap memory foam topper pad from Costco and put the Tempurpedic travel topper over it in our RV. It seems to be a good combination of firmness and softness to keep me comfortable when we travel with the RV. My parents bought the icloud by Serta - they've complained several times that it's very uncomfortable. That's the way of memory foam, however. It seems to really benefit some people, and other people can't stand it. It's a big investment for something that may not work for you. I was scared to buy mine after reading over reviews. I'm so glad I finally did, though.

I registered for the free trial when I read this thread. I got it mostly set up today, and I took the webinar class to get some tips. They give away a free download code at the end of their classes, and I won! Super excited!

Yes, yes, and yes! This is exactly what my organizing skills look like. I'm a middle child. There is no part of my life that is organized in pretty binders... not sure if those two things are related in anyway. I do, however, have a method to my madness that only I understand. Its been working just fine for us - our homeschooling journey has been both successful and enjoyable thus far. :-)

A subscription to a monthly mail club like Little Passports, or Kiwi Crates might be a fun idea for a 5 year old.

We usually go the the scholastic warehouse sale. Our local warehouse is pretty big, so it's easy to find all those great books the kids skip over at the school fair. Most of the books 50% off - many are 80%. Then we get an extra $25 off at the register with the coupon from the website. I think the winter warehouse sales are getting ready to start soon.

Consider working with your local greyhound adoption group - greyhounds are wonderful dogs, and come already trained! Bonus! 😊

Another vote for Moving Beyond the Page 4-5. We're just finishing it up, and we really enjoyed it. It comes with a huge box of materials for projects and everything is sorted out and labeled in a baggie for each lesson. Just grab the book and baggie for the week and go - no more prep needed.

Wow! That was my daughter's favorite show when she was little!

We frequent WDW, and we really like Disneyland - except for the missing Epcot part. It's easy to navigate and just the right size for our kids. We generally stay 4 days when we go. When we go to WDW, we stay for 2 weeks. All the traveling required to get around WDW gets pretty tiring. At Disneyland, it's easy to park hop and the hotel is right there. Not to mention, we love Cars Land all decorated for Christmas. Disneyland is only the Magic Kingdom and California adventures. So, yes, it is only 2 parks and much smaller than the World. The main thing we love about WDW is all the dining options, and we usually revolve our trip around preferred dining and reservations. The Land only has a few exceptional dining options. That said, we do enjoy Legoland probably equally or more. But, we are a big LEGO collecting family. Legoland is small, and can be done in one day. During peak seasons, the lines can be out of control, and it's not uncommon for the park to get shut down. We go in spring when it's quiet and can get the 5 days for the price of one tickets - the kids like to spend most of the time in the water park. We always do Disney parks the first couple weeks of December. The lines are virtually nonexistent and the Christmas decorations are beyond awesome.

Actually, it sounds like 4-5 might be exactly what you're looking for. It does go letter by letter through the books, yes, but the main focus isn't identifying letters. MBtP is writing intensive, and you'll find a lot of writing in 5-7 level. In the 4-5 level, You're able to customize every unit to suit your child's needs - if you want to practice handwriting, it's there. If you want more hands on, the kit includes clay and sand for different types of practice. All materials are included and separated into labeled baggies, so you just grab the book and baggie for the week and go. The box is HUGE! I was shocked when I got it - tons of goodies in there to play with. 4-5 is based on a book per week. There are hands on projects and handwriting practice for each book. For example, unit 11 (Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree) starts out with math using a big printed apple tree and little red pom-poms as apples. The child 'picks apples' to create different types of addition and subtraction problems. You then learn about the change of seasons with a little science project and locating the equator on a map. The second day starts out with another science project where the child observes the weather, and they get to make a big painting of trees in different seasons with tiny pieces of tissue paper and brown pipe cleaners to create the correct looks for the seasons. Some more math games, and a learning a poem for day 3... day 4 they get to make their own apple pie while listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. And on the last day they get to retell the story in their own words so it can be dictated into their own little journal, which they illustrate. There is a great facebook page called Differently Schooled Who Use Moving Beyond the Page. There is a large number of families that use 4-5 and they frequently post photos of the kids doing their projects. It would be a great place to get an idea of what you'd be doing with the different levels - not to mention, hundreds of families that use MBtP that can answer any question you have. Excuse my typos - I'm on my phone 😊

Ray, from Horrible Books, sells BA and always has free shipping. I'm not sure if the books are a discounted price...

I have an inversion table - the decompression therapy has done wonders for me. http://teeter-inversion.com/Why-Inversion/Benefits-of-Inversion/

We saw it in Vegas a few years back. It was a fun show - a lot of techno music and strobe light sort of things. There was a portion of the show where they did silent comedy routines. At the end, they took huge roles of paper and covered the whole audience with them. It was a loud, fast-paced sort of show. They are supposed to come to the performing arts center in our town this year, and we discussed getting tickets because we thought the kids would enjoy it. I think it would be a lot of fun for a teenager.

They've recently come out with these LEGO JR. sets for kids transitioning from DUPLO. http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Juniors-ByTheme They've got less pieces and simpler designs than some of the other collections to get them started.

Maybe this might help you make your shopping list: http://myheartbeets.com/real-food-shopping-guide-costco/ It's a whole food shopping guide for Costco. I understand prices vary by store, and so does selection, but I find most of this at my store - and mine isn't very good. We buy bison beef instead of the Costco brand grass-fed.

This is the BH we bought a couple months ago. http://www.keystonerv.com/laredo/models/320tg-new/model-mobile

We stared out with this one: http://www.forestriverinc.com/PopUpCampers/RockwoodTent/default.aspx?model=rktc&page=floorplandetails&floorplanid=263&RVType=TNT#prettyPhoto We've since upgraded twice and have ended up with a 36ft. Triple slide bunkhouse trailer by Keystone. We travel a lot and use ours, not only to camp, but as a portable hotel room. Using a popup that takes a minimum of 1 hour to assemble and disassemble was just not practical for our needs. That said - we did love it for camping. We lived out in Virginia near Pocahontas State Park, and it was wonderful to take the PUP out for long, relaxing weekends. Our second trailer was a Jayco Swift 184BH - it had enough room to sleep 5 people, and actually weighted less than our PUP. So, there are options out there for box trailer that can be hauled by a minivan if you're looking for something without canvas pop-outs.

Right - it's the Ä“ sound in Italian. People that didn't know her pronounced it Ä«da here in the states.

What about Helen? I didn't see anybody mention that. It was my grandmother's name. My other grandmother was Ida pronounced Ä“da. I'm not sure if that's the common pronunciation, as she was born in Italy.