2009 in Review: Sweet Success!

I had only one financial resolution in 2009: to pay off my student loans and become non-mortgage debt free. We actually achieved this goal back in April, so I turned my attention to other goals – namely, paying off the mortgage.

My financial goal was really the only tangible goal I had. It's hard to measure my success for goals like being a good wife, mother, daughter and friend, being a kinder person, etc. All I can really say about those goals is that I'm ending the year feeling pretty good about myself.

Overall, though, I'm very happy to say good-bye to 2009. It seems like it was the year for health scares, and I hope neither of my children has to spend another night in the hospital for the rest of their lives. Here's to a very healthy and happy 2010 for all of us!

My First Artisan Loaves

Here's my first update on the bread-making adventure:

Unfortunately, it never occurred to me to take a picture of my first loaf on Sunday, and the rolls last night all got eaten up, so I don't have anything to show you. However . . .

I'm a believer!

The 5-minute method really works. It's super easy to cut off some dough, shape it, let it rise, and bake it. I've just been using a baking pan with parchment and it's worked fine, although I do want to experiment with the different suggestions I've gotten. Thank you for the comments and emails!

The best part, of course, is that the bread is amazing – there's a very crunchy crust, and a soft, chewy crumb (that's what the authors call the interior). I'd been worried that the crust would be too tough for the boys, but they devoured 1 1/2 rolls each last night. The authors say repeatedly that the bread should be allowed to cool completely before cutting but I don't know if that'll ever happen in this house. The warm bread with butter is just so alluring.

I realized on Sunday night, after I'd baked my first loaf, that this bread just might be my savior when the boys are older. I've already mentioned that I can see the day when they're eating machines, and I'm thinking that a fresh loaf of bread (each!) will probably keep their tummies full and content. Homemade bread is pretty cheap to make – I'll have to break down the price sometime, just to see exactly how cheap.

I found a giant plastic food storage container that was part of a set we received as a gift a couple of years ago, and it's serving me well as the perfect dough container in the fridge. It's big enough to hold a full 6-3-3-13 recipe, if we end up eating that much bread. (For the first batch, I followed the master recipe in the book, which calls for half of the 6-3-3-13 amounts.)

Once I've got the master recipe down, I'm going to try some of the other recipes in the book, which call for different types of flour. And I'm sure that I'll eventually pick up the authors' new book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients.I prefer whole grains, and I would prefer that my children eat whole grains too. Especially if they're eating a whole loaf a day!


Disclosure: I'm an Amazon affiliate, so any purchase you make after entering Amazon through a link on Chief Family Officer supports this site at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

How was your Christmas? Mine was all about Artisan Bread

My Christmas yesterday was fabulous, thanks to my wonderful husband who gave me the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.

I'd read about this book in several places, including Growing Up Gabel. The concept was so weird, I couldn't quite wrap my head around it, which is why the authors' web site just wasn't getting it done for me. But now that I've read the book, I understand and I can't wait to try it.

Here's the concept in a nutshell: Mix together one big batch of dough until just combined. Without kneading, let it rise for a couple of hours, then store it in the fridge. When you're ready to bake, cut off a piece of dough, shape it, let it rise, and then bake it.

The master recipe is based on the proportions of 6-3-3-13: 6 cups of water, 3 tablespoons of yeast, 3 tablespoons of salt, and 13 cups of flour. It's supposed to be a very wet dough, and will become a little tangy - like sourdough - the longer it sits in the fridge. The baking instructions involve using a pizza peel, a baking stone, and a pan of water to create steam in the oven.

I like to bake in my temperamental small top oven (to minimize energy usage), so I'm going to have to do some experimenting to see what works. I'm anticipating quite a few misses, but my plan is to eventually have a routine going where I mix up the dough every one or two weeks, and then bake up a small loaf every day or two.

The authors have a newer book out called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients.Once I've mastered techniques in the original book, I'm going to pick this one up because I'd really prefer to be eating whole grains.

I'll keep you updated as I experiment with bread-making. I'm planning to get started this coming week :)

Disclosure: I'm an Amazon affiliate, so any purchase you make after entering Amazon through a link on Chief Family Officer supports this site at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Start Thinking About After-Christmas Sales Now

I love checking out any kind of sale, but after-Christmas sales have a special place in my heart because you can do some serious stocking up. I've found that you can get some amazing deals on wrapping paraphernalia, like paper, ribbons, tissue, and gift bags. I buy some of these items when they get marked down to 90% off at Target, usually during the first week of January. I'll pick up one or two holiday-themed rolls, but I also grab a roll or two of paper that's not obviously for the holidays to use year-round. In fact, after Christmas is the only time of year that I buy wrapping items. It's also a good time to buy holiday-themed decorations for the next year, if there's something you really like that's not marked with the year.

Other items will be more hit and miss, but with a little luck, you can scoop up good deals on toys and gift sets. I like to buy things that will make good birthday gifts throughout the year. I'm curious to see if retailers will be desperate enough to go for steep markdowns, or if they had ordered so little before the holidays that there isn't anything left to mark down after Christmas. (Obviously, I hope not!)

After Christmas is also the time to start looking for clearance sales on clothing. Baby Cheapskate has a list of dates for when children's clothing stores will start their markdowns.

Easy Creamed Spinach

I picked up a box of frozen creamed spinach because it was free after sale and coupons, but my darling husband - who loves creamed spinach - wasn't too thrilled. And since I love to make him happy, I decided to try making creamed spinach from scratch. It's not something I grew up eating, and I've had it at a restaurant maybe once - but I had a pretty good idea of what it should look like, and I know if something tastes good. It turned out to be incredibly easy - but of course, full of fat. I'm going to experiment with a healthier version that we can have more often, but in the meantime, here's the decadent version:

Easy Creamed Spinach
Serves 4

1 pound frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove excess liquid
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon minced garlic
4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream, garlic and butter. Stir often for 10 minutes, or until the cream is hot.

2. Stir in the spinach and reduce heat to low. Add salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, or until spinach is tender. The heat should be low enough that the lid does not rattle - you don't want to burn the spinach or lose too much liquid, because the mixture will be quite thick. If you feel it's too thick, stir in a little bit of milk. Serve hot.

Free Money from Lending Club

I haven't mentioned peer to peer lending in a while, mainly because I haven't been thinking much about investing. As a refresher, peer to peer lending sites allow people like you and me to lend money to other people like you and me. The borrowers sometimes can't get loans through traditional means (like from banks), or sometimes they're just looking for a better rate. Lenders can pick and choose who they want to lend to, taking on the risk that they're comfortable with.

I mentioned Lending Club a while back, when they gave me some money to play with as a lender. I invested conservatively, in borrowers with the highest grades and therefore the lowest risk. So far, they've all paid consistently and my rate of return is over 8% - pretty awesome in this economy.

Now, Lending Club wants to give everyone money. Right now, when you sign up to be a lender, Lending Club will deposit $64.62 into your account for you to invest (because bank profits were $6.462 billion last quarter). Last time I checked, you only needed a minimum of $25 to invest in a loan (investments are pooled until they total the amount requested by the borrower), so you could invest in two loans with the bonus money and find out what peer to peer lending is like for yourself. Some restrictions apply (for instance, residents of certain states cannot become lenders). Offer expires 12/31.

Disclosure: The email I received from Lending Club instructs me to tell you to use this referral link so you can get the bonus, but as far as I can tell, I don't benefit from it.

Medical Bills & Personal Finance

I just re-read an old post from October 2008 about the impact of medical debt on some families. Back then, I didn't have any experience with huge, and most importantly, continuing, medical bills. The biggest medical bill I'd ever paid was for giving birth.

But then we had our family medical crisis earlier this year, which involved multiple emergency visits, a hospitalization, and then numerous follow-up visits and tests. As the bills rolled in and added up, it was overwhelming at first, even for me – and I had money in the bank to pay all of the bills! It was just difficult to accept that we suddenly owed so much money to a handful of medical providers. (Fortunately, the big bills have been paid and it's just the bills from the follow-up visits that are trickling in – and those are for perfectly sane amounts.)

The experience gave me some insight into how scary it must be for people who don't have an emergency fund. The medical bills add up incredibly quickly – I now understand how people who were living within (but not necessarily below) their means can so quickly end up deep in debt. I can now see how, if you don't have much savings or insurance coverage, you can blow through the savings you do have, find yourself having to choose between paying the bills you've always had or the newly arrived medical bills, and eventually end up without a home.

The lesson here, of course, is that your best shot at weathering the storm is preparation. Get health insurance. Do the research to find the most affordable plan with the greatest amount of coverage. And live below your means and build up your savings. Have enough to cover your annual deductible and maximum copay. And most of all, do your best to take care of your health because man, those medical bills are expensive!

Scary Budget Cuts at LAUSD + Choices Deadline Approaching

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board has approved a budget plan that includes cutting 1,400 teacher positions. This is particularly concerning to me, because we've committed to an LAUSD school for next fall, deciding not to apply to any private schools because the ones we can afford aren't significantly better than our local public school. I'm fervently hoping that doesn't change during the next eight years, which is how long it'll be before Tyler moves on to middle school.

For now, I'm cautiously optimistic because we live in a somewhat odd neighborhood, where many people have money, yet many don't. That's perhaps the ideal mix for a public school: More than half of the students at the school qualify for financial assistance with lunch, which translates into a hefty amount of government funding for the school. Yet there is an active PTA that's raised enough money to supplement the government-provided bare minimum with a full-time nurse (most schools only have one that's part-time) and additional classes like art and PE. Needless to say, I'll be doing my part in the PTA to ensure the school's high standards continue.

In the meantime, if you are planning to apply to a magnet school, for a permit with transportation, or the No Child Left Behind - Public School Choice program, don't forget that the application deadline is December 18.

Previously: More about our public vs. private school dilemma

More Transparency and Disclosures Than Ever Here at CFO

I try to be as forthright as possible about affiliate links and so forth. But I haven't felt it necessary to point out that every Amazon link is an affiliate link because I figure people already know. However, after reading Brandchannel's post, it appears that failure to do so may violate the FTC's new blogger guidelines. I think the easiest thing for me to do is create a tag for "Affiliate & Sponsored Links." I will continue to disclose such links in the posts themselves, but this will give me an added safety net where the FTC is concerned in case I forget.

You can read the complete CFO disclosure and disclaimer here. And as always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about what you read here at CFO.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .