Ever make a little switch that made a big difference in your life?

When asked this question, I had to think about it for a minute. I wasn’t really sure what switches made that big of a difference in my life. So I started thinking about random things and came up few suggestions for you.

You are probably tired of it but one of our big switches this year was a MONTHLY meal plan. Yes, monthly. We were trying our best to do weekly meal plans last year and while we got it done most weeks we had weeks where nothing happened at all. Now we are on the fourth month of the year but we have had four monthly meal plans made. We have mostly stuck to these meal plans. It is really helping our grocery budget because we plan our meals off what we have in the freezer and pantry. We will have a new challenge in this when our local produce starts producing but we can make it happen. I have gotten a lot of questions about the monthly meal planning. I actually have a post going up tomorrow to answer those questions. I want to let you know now, it is possible and it really doesn’t hurt! I promise that last part!;) If you need some ideas, you should check our April Monthly Meal Plan that went up this week.

So what other little switches have made a difference?

• We don’t buy many new clothes for the kids. Don’t panic. The drawers and closets for my kids are FULL of clothes. Some are over full! I learned early on that kids don’t wear out much of their clothes so it is easy to get them second hand. I shop at a few thrift shops in the area and consignment sales too. I will also buy clothes in bulk from craigslist where folks are selling a whole lot of clothes. This makes them cheaper. Finally, we started swapping kids’ stuff. More on that come tomorrow too!
• We pay most of our bills online. We mail out one to two bills a month. This has been a big savings in the stamp department. The one bill I pay by mail, I could pay online but they charge a fee I refuse to pay as a stamp is cheaper. If you add up your bills and stamps, could have a nice little savings there over the course of a year!
• This one is going to seem lame but we do dishes right after dinner now. We used to wait and do dinner dishes after the kids went to bed. The kids never wanted to sit still long enough for us to do this chore so it just seemed easier. I dreaded the kitchen full of dirty stuff after their bed time though. So we decided even if we have to divide up (one of us with the kids, one doing dishes) that we would do dishes after dinner. It has made our evenings so much more enjoyable. Plus if the dishwasher is full, it gets started then and some nights we even manage to empty it before we head to bed. Like I said, this may seem lame but it made a big difference in our evenings so I had to share!

What little switches have you made that make a difference? Is it in your routines? What you buy? Who you do stuff with? Leave me a comment and let me know!!

NOTE: I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Cottonelle blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate, click here.