Books & Budgeting
Head, Hands, Heart July 2022
Head
The days of sitting in the sun with a book for hours on end doesn’t happen anymore but I have been trying to read on a more consistent basis. Here are some steps I’m taking to improve my head space:
Always having a book in my bag and one in my car.
Reading my bible during my daughter’s meal times (I leave it on my table)
Learning how to focus on things longer than ten minutes!
Does anyone feel like motherhood has taken our ability to focus and depleted it severely? One of the best things about Motherhood Minute is that even longer articles are six minutes or less to read.
But one of the challenges I’m trying to address personally is replacing the “fast food” content of social media with longer and more thoughtful reading. The Substack app has been a great middle ground! It shows me exactly how long a read might be for a newsletter but it also keeps me reading stuff from amazing writers.
By no means am I getting sponsored to share that app but it truly does make reading these posts easier and it feels a lot more tidy than email inboxes can feel.
Books!
“Built to Last” by Jim Collins & Jerry I. Porras
For those of you who own a business or nonprofit, I highly recommend you get this research-backed book that explores the difference between great companies and visionary companies. To make it simple, Collins & Porras have taken a decade of research and compared 18 companies with their competitors in the past 100 years to figure out what myths could be busted and what makes companies truly great.
Highlights I found in here:
Visionary companies don’t require larger-than-life leaders
Visionary companies don’t require a great product/service to start
Visionary companies build for the long-term
In short: if you’re the type of person who is building something or continuing on an organization, look here about foundations you need to succeed.
“Essential Labor” by Angela Garbes
I already feel like any attempt to review this book is going to come off terribly but it’s mostly because I wasn’t anticipating to be so deeply moved when I began reading Garbes’ second book on motherhood.
For Garbes, mothering isn’t strictly focused on the act of birth but the example of nurturing and caregiving that society depends on in every way. She examines her research through the lens of two worlds; the first being her Filipino-immigrant parents, who care for people in the medical field, and the second being her role as a toddler mother during the pandemic years.
Please do yourself a favor and invest your time in reading this beautiful work!
Hands
My time to cook dinner is pretty limited after a 9 hour work day and a child that is very demanding for my attention. That being said, there are a few things I’ve recently been able to cook that are helping us live a little sweeter and easier.
This is not the original recipe for Strawberry Pretzel Tart I have from Half Baked Harvest (photo above) BUT you’ll get the idea. If you can, check out her website full of amazing recipes or order her cookbook “Super Simple” which is what I’m exploring every week with great joy.
For my 4th of July version I made some modifications and used a dairy-free cream cheese with lemon juice and powdered sugar for the filling. And we added blueberries, of course.
For easier dinners, I’ve been trying to cook with the idea of “the never ending meal,” which is basically the idea that you continue to cook with leftovers. For example, you eat chicken and potatoes one night. The next you make chicken tacos and use leftover potatoes for breakfast. You might use the chicken broth as a soup base and freeze it for the future. You take the leftover garden vegetables and add them to a baked egg dish….
You probably get the idea. I don’t do it every day but having this mindset is very helpful lately with expensive groceries on the rise.
Heart
Why is budgeting in this section? Because my heart is feeling heavy lately with the weight of being a business owner and I want to talk about.
This is the time of year where detailing is the busiest, when our calendar is full and calls come in everyday. So what is different this year?
The more money we bring in, the more we pay in taxes. The more we try to hire help to bring in more work, the less we have to pay ourselves. I’m sure it won’t always be this way but this week has been especially hard on our family
.
Quick things that help:
Setting up multiple savings account for different things
Getting a side gig (I’ve been cleaning Airbnbs, which is hard to admit as a business owner but bills must be paid over my pride)
Replacing coffee and takeout with K-cups and sandwich supplies at the office (this is also helpful on the busy days we forget to pack food)
Carpooling to and from the shop when we can
Using the Safeway app to collect as many points for gas and grocery rewards as possible and shopping more but spending less (saves food waste too)
Reexamining our insurance costs (I recently switched my insurance and ended up saving $30 a month in auto with more coverage than before).
Also budgeting my money to support farmer markets and artists instead of randomly buying from them makes me feel wiser
Little things matter but big things do too. I’m making steps to meet with a financial advisor for free education this summer to talk about our unique needs.
Anything standing out with you this month? Tell me about it! I’d love to hear from you at hello@chanelriggle.com