It's  one month until the tax deadline!  Have you filed?  Feeling overwhelmed?  One  trick to help organize your items is to start at the beginning of the year by  making a "Tax Folder" where you can accumulate as you go through the year all the
papers/items that are pertinent to your taxes.  So make one now for 2013!  If  you need help getting you tax items organized for your accountant or for you to be able to file - contact me :)  My fees are a whole lot less than what your accountant will charge to get it
sorted and organized! Making sure you send things organized to your accountant will help save on the preparation costs as they'll end up spending time to sort through it and if you file yourself - having things sorted and ready to go will be easier and faster for you too! 

As part of my envelope budgeting system and being creative with grocery costs this year - I have also decided to be very savvy and make sure I use up every little bit of things in the freezer and/or plan meals around my current inventory before I go buying more...With that being said...we had a half a bag of fresh cranberries in the freezer left over from Christmas and the following recipe was created over the weekend,  As always, start with a bag liner in your crock and add:
Pork tenderloin (size/lb to suit your family)
Combine in small bowl:  1 small onion diced (or you can use 1/2 c. dried chopped), 1 cup frozen, unthawed, cranberries, 1/4 c. ketchup, 2 T. firmly packed brown sugar, 2 cloves garlic diced/pressed (or squeeze from tube like I do), 1 tsp. curry powder, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, shakes of tabasco to suit, 2 T high quality dijon or other suitable mustard, 2 T cider vinegar.
Pour mixture over pork loin in crock and cook on low for 6-7 hours.

Remove pork loin to platter (tent with foil to keep warm) and then make a cornstarch slurry (2T cornstarch blended with 2T COLD water).  Add slurry to cooking liquid mixture in crock, mix, cover crock, turn temp to high, let cook 10-15 mins to thicken sauce, stir occasionally, once sauce has thickened, pour over sliced loin and serve with sides of choice.  Chopped pecans or walnuts would also be nice to sprinkle on top before serving.

OK so many of you know about my cash budget system for 2013 which I expect will be real challenge at times given raising two growing boys...so for obvious reasons I'm looking for all kinds of way to save at the store.  I tend to shop at Kroger for a variety of reasons but I love the card program since they MAIL the coupons to me and ONLY for the things I already buy as using the card helps track those things.  I've always been a coupon user but who has time to clip the coupons and unless you are disciplined and have a system, many people don't have the coupons on them when needed or they expire before being used up.  WELL NO LONGER!  In my research on ways to save money and stay organized/on track in 2013, I have stumbled upon the DIGITAL COUPON program that Kroger runs.  Many of us HAVE a Kroger Card BUT have you gone onto www.kroger.com and REGISTERED the card/set up and account?  Well I did it last night in about 2 minutes AND then I was off and running.  You can download to your card up to a maximum of 150 eCoupons from various manufactures for ALL types of things.  An easy search feature helps you navigate the items you are looking to find a coupon for and download.  Once downloaded, as soon as you are at store/buy it/scan your card it will automatically be used at checkout!!  There are a couple of restrictions such as you can't stack an eCoupon with another printed coupon and many can not be doubled BUT STILL they are there waiting on you!!  The Kroger Compnay has several stores in this program such as King Soopers and Fry'sso no matter where you live you should be able to find a store if this sounds like a good program for you.  Happy savings with less paper clutter = WIN.

It's not officially 2013 yet but today begins the first of my resolutions...This next year will bring many changes for our family - the main one being the fact I'll be "retiring" from my job at the CPA firm I've been with for 9 years to fully concentrate on building my professional organizing business.  It's exciting and challenging all at the same time.  It will and has forced us to really look at hard at the House of Payne's budget for cashflows.  As we all know, if there is less money coming in then less needs to be going out.  So with that being said, I've decided as part of my organizing business and blog posting I'd challenge myself to the Great Envelope Budgeting System Project of 2013!  As of this morning I've updated all our accounts in Quicken, balanced the checkbook for my "household" account and basically will pull out the majority of the small balance now that bills have been paid and prepare my envelopes to use for groceries, gas and small incidentals over the next few weeks.  I've always been a coupon shopper and look for deals but I'll be going into overdrive while also figuring our where we'll be cutting back.  I'll be updating you all on my progress via the blog and passing on hopefully lots of ideas to help you all in your household budgeting.  I've been helping companies do budgeting and related cost efficiency consulting for years - NOW it's time to bring it home and to my organizing clients for their homes!    I'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions you all use for your own homes!!  Please email, leave comments to blog posts or get in touch on facebook.  Wish me luck :)