Glean & Tweak
After my hair appointment got cancelled last week for my hair stylist having to quarantine, I asked one of my best friends if she could do it for me. She agreed, and so she brought her kiddos over to my house this week and we did hair and talked about all the things. It’s great to have friends with skills you need in your life! Haha!
I love this friend of mine so much, and I love that we continue to prioritize our little play dates. It’s more for us than the kids, for sure. We can talk stay-at-home-mom stuff, we talk homemaking, decor, organization, grocery shopping, meal planning, homeschooling, finances and budgets, fitness and workouts, health, spiritual things… literally she’s a friend that I can talk about all of the things with because we share so many of the same values and beliefs about all of those areas. It is amazing to have a friend like that, and I think we’ve both taken this for granted at times. We’ve stepped back and given each other space so that we could do our own things we needed to do and take care of our own families, and homes, and homeschools… but let me just tell you - when we get together, we inspire each other! It goes both ways! So it is just so important that we continue to do our little play date / planning sessions!
After she finished my hair, we sat on the couch and went through our grocery receipts. She looked through mine and gave me little ideas of things I could do to save us money on our grocery budget. How many of you can say that you’re THAT open and honest with your friends enough to show them your finances and what you spend your money on?! Well, for real… we did, and she left me so inspired yesterday to make a few changes.
Like here’s a great tip she shared with me:
Rice is an inexpensive thing to buy, but we were buying the 90 second rice packs in bulk from Sam’s Club for convenience of having a quick carb we could easily add to meals when needed… Well, she share with me that we could just cook rice in bulk and freeze the pre-cooked rice in baggies, pull from the freezer, and just microwave the same way as the 90 second packs, and it’s good to go! I really had just never thought about freezing rice before, but I thought that was just SUCH a great little tip! It will definitely save us money instead of buying those packs, purely for the convenience factor they offer.
I could hear myself giving her all the excuses like…
“Well my kids won’t eat foods like that”
”But I really love my salmon… I know it’s pricier, but it’s my favorite!”
I only voiced them because I really did want to problem-solve and get better in this area. It would give us more money to save, invest, or add to our sinking funds.
We spend quite a bit on groceries and household items here, and it’s easy for me just keep going the way that we are and not make any efforts to try to do any better…
“Well, we’re doing the best we can.”
”We have a big family. More mouths to feed so of course we will spend more.”
”I don’t like to cook that much so I’d rather buy things in bulk and cook in batches.”
Yall, I had no idea that this was going to be what we talked about and worked on when she was here. It’s not like we plan out what we’re going to challenge each other in or do or anything like that. We were just talking about all the things like you do with your hairstylist (therapy session, ya know). Since she’s such a close friend I’m open and honest with her more than I would be with a lot of people. At first, I told her - “ya know, we’re good. My house feels good. I’ve been able to make a lot of progress in it this year since I had my little Home Organization Side gig and had some extra money to spend on it. Decor and organization… I feel like I’m at a happy spot there.” My home and my homeschool are two things that I usually prioritize with planning and working to make them all that I envision them to be. They aren’t perfect, but they are just what we need them to be right now. It’s a comfortable, content, and really grateful place we’re in.
And so I didn’t really have anything I wanted help with. I thought our finances and grocery budget were pretty good and “as good as they could get” for now, ya know? But then she shared how much their family is budgeting for groceries and household items, and I was just blown away because it was (hundreds!) quite a bit less than we are budgeting. I already felt like I’m rationing out snacks and limiting treats with my kids so I was doing the best I could… but then when she shared that with me I definitely wanted to know more!
So she’s going to be sharing with me what she’s feeding her family each day for a while and what she buys at the grocery store. And yall - I’m so excited to learn from her! She’s an excellent cook and feeds her family lots of clean, healthy foods and we try to do the same around here. We’ve just been apparently spending way more in order to do it! So I’m looking forward to learning more creative ways to cook and maybe get some new ideas from her as well.
And here’s the thing I wanted to share with you guys —
Glean and Tweak.
What does it mean??
Definitions…
Glean - collect [information] gradually and bit by bit
Tweak - improve [a mechanism or system] by making fine adjustments to it
Okay, so to GLEAN is gather or collect inspiration or ideas from others
(like I do with my bestie in this scenario and every time we’re together and get to talk,
like we do from social media accounts we follow and are inspired by,
like we do from blogs and articles we read, etc.)...
and then, we TWEAK it to make it fit our needs. Not necessarily that we are improving it for “them”, because it’s working well for them already, but for “us and our family” because we have different needs. We’ll need to tweak it to improve it for our use.
It is a great thing to learn and be inspired by others! Seriously, I think that’s why community is so good for us. But I know that a lot of times, we immediately make those excuses of why something won’t work for us, and we don’t even give it a second thought. We dismiss the challenge and the idea to improve in an area, and we ultimately stay stuck there. Instead, we can decide to just “glean and tweak” the ideas we gather to make them work for us instead.
Even just a little tip and trick here and there can go a long way in the long run!
If you’ve read any of this and thought… “Wow! How nice it would be to have a friend like that to discuss all the things with, but I don’t have that…”
Then let me tell you a little something… I want to be that for you!
Seriously, I do. I’ve been praying about this for quite some time.
I want to help women find their purpose in life.
I want to help them live out what they are passionate about.
I want to help people get organized and make plans.
I want to challenge you in all the areas you want to see growth in.
I want to see you successful.
I want to see you truly fulfilled in your life and grateful for where you are.
I’ve been setting this all up for a while now, literally years… since God told me He wanted me to fight through my depression and Win in life again. He wanted me to help ladies find their passion and purpose. He wanted me to share tips and strategies to help them get organized and make a plan to go live it out and Win in Life too!
So here we go. This is it.
There are two ways for you to get it.
First, there’s the online course… where you can learn at your own pace.
Do it all in a weekend, or spread it out over a month or more. It’s up to you and what you need!
And then there’s the One-on-One Strategy Session and ongoing Text Support for the month.
This can be an in-person meeting for coaching with me, or we can do a Zoom Call if you aren’t local to me. This is where we get straight to the point of what areas you want to see growth in the most, and we get right to work on those!
This option is *extremely limited* because it is time that I will be scheduling in, and I want to be able to provide the most benefit to you. It’s a month-to-month option, meaning we can do it for one month, and you can decide when you’re ready to branch out on your own with the help that you get from me. I’m scheduling now for September, and I have only TWO spots available, and once these spots fill up, they won’t be available again until October or until a spot opens up from a client that completes their coaching with me.
Latest Podcast Episode… Ep. 17 - What You and I Should Do Today
There’s a lot going on in the world right now. I don’t know about for you, but for me that brings up a lot of feelings and emotions that I’ve got to process. No matter what you’re feeling today, there’s one thing that you and I can all do. I hope the scripture I share today encourages you if you’re feeling a little unsettled today like me.
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