Blog - Page 6 of 11 - The Osegards

A Clean House in under 20 minutes a day

Alyssa Osegard on November 22, 2018

Keeping the house clean can feel like an impossible task. But what if I told you that you could have a clean house in under 20 minutes a day?

Now I know what you’re thinking, “That’s cute, Osegards. But you have no children and a small house, so shut your face.”

And you’re kind of right. However, with the exception of one task, I’ve tested this out in a house three times the size of ours with four tiny children and a dog. The system works. It might push the 20 minute limit on a bad day with a giant house and a classroom’s worth of tiny humans, but it’s possible (especially if you have an awesome sidekick husband like I do).

Daily Routine (we do this at night)

Straighten up
Load dishwasher
Wipe off counters
One Daily Task

–> More tips for your daily routine and getting out the door in the mornings!

For us, a clean house starts in the kitchen!

Weekly Tasks

Dust
Vacuum
Scrub Bathrooms

Don’t worry, I can hear you already. “I can’t vacuum my whole house and do the rest of that in under 20 minutes”. I know you can’t. That’s why there are three tasks and seven days a week. Vacuum one level. Or clean only one bathroom. Just divide it up so it fits into your seven days!

Cleaning BONUS: Laundry!

I don’t always think of laundry as being a part of a clean house, but I do lump it in with these “chores”. Here’s my hack from the times we’ve spent caring for our friends tiny children (because let’s face it, Cody and I alone don’t make that much laundry). Any time you walk by the laundry room, you MUST do something. Put a load in the washer, move it to the dryer, sort, fold, grab a pile to put away. ANYTHING. In our friends house, any time I went upstairs, I walked by the laundry room. Just woke up? Start a load. Come up to shower? Move the load to the dryer and start another load to wash. Leave the shower? Well, you get the point. It helped us stay on top of laundry by weaving it in throughout the day!

As with almost everything, the key here is definitely consistency. Once these simple tasks become a part of your day, they seem, to just “get done” a little more easily. What are your keys to a clean house? Let us know over on Instagram!

Why come to Minnesota for the holidays?

Cody Osegard on November 7, 2018

As a native Minnesotan, I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with this great state. As so many people say, I love the seasons. Well, three of them at least. Even after 23 years in Minnesota (plus 4 “south of the border” in Iowa), I’m still just not really a fan of the bitter cold or the piles of snow! As a kid, yes, the snow could be fun. Snowmen, forts, snowball fights, skiing, bla bla bla. I get it, snow is cool. But now, I’m an adult and the winters here are just a pain!

This time of year, there are so many things that are “special” about this great state though. So, as we approach the holidays, here are some signs you may be in Minnesota in the winter!

You might be driving in Minnesota if…

You realize that you look like the hunchback of Notre Dame, and you haven’t blinked for at least 30 minutes

Your knuckles hurt from gripping the steering wheel like it’s the last life preserver on the Titanic and you are NOT going down with the ship.

Your car decides that brakes are for decoration. Press ’em all you want, you’re just gonna keep sliding!

There are more cars in the ditch than on the road.

You are getting passed by pedestrians that look like the kid from A Christmas Story. It’s freezing out there, but they’ll probably get there faster than you because traffic just STOPS when it’s icy or snowy!

Signs you’re at a Minnesota holiday gathering

There are at least 2 kinds of jello salad to choose from.

Lefse. (not from around here?)

At the end of the party, there is just slightly less than one serving of each food left. Because nobody wants to take the last of it.

The Minnesota goodbye. When “It’s time to go” means “we may actually leave at some point in the next 4 days, after saying goodbye approx. 14,000 times in 200 different locations.”

But while I wouldn’t wish the winter driving on ANYONE, there is something about the holidays that makes it almost worth the hassle. From the ever-present cookies, candy, and bars, to the friendly people who chat you up at the store about the weather. Minnesota just feels like HOME for the holidays.

For more Minnesota-isms, check out our post on strange things Minnesotans do!

Why following Dave Ramsey DOESN’T mean cutting the fun!

Alyssa Osegard on November 7, 2018

When people hear we got out of debt following Dave Ramsey’s plan, they frequently think we had to cut all fun and enjoyment out of life. It simply isn’t true. What is true is that we didn’t let ourselves have all the luxuries our friends had. However, we simply chose what would take priority, and let our budget reflect that. Here are 3 of our top priorities and 3 of our easy cutbacks!

CUT #1

We rented while we were in debt. Most of the time we were in not-updated apartments. Granite would be nice, sure, but we can live with laminate for a few years! We made sure our home was in a good location for us, and safe of course. Beyond that, we felt that with just two of us, it was fine to rent smaller places rather than buy.

We truly loved our first apartment, and it was very nice. It just was very short on storage!

PRIORITY #1

Tithing was important to us. We try our best to follow what the Bible says about money, not because we think God will help us win the lottery if we follow what He says, but because we believe that everything we have is ultimately HIS and we want our life AND budget to reflect that.

CUT #2

Fancy cars. If you know us, you know that for most of the time we were in debt, we only drove one car. And believe you me, it is not a nice car. My grandma deemed it the munchkin hearse, and it’s as loud as a NASCAR race. That’s right – a whole race, not just one car. However, it was safe enough to get us from point A to point B, so we stuck with our old car instead of spending money on a lease, loan, or new car.

PRIORITY #2

Getting out of debt was a huge priority for us. Not only because we were tired of paying for college, but because we knew if we freed up the money ($1200!) that was going to minimum payments each month, we could use that same $1200 a month for putting towards a house or travel, or supporting the people we want to support!

CUT #3

Going out. We don’t mind packing our own lunches and we drink our coffee black, so it wasn’t too much of a sacrifice to cut back here! It ended up being more fun because we learned to make new recipes like homemade mac and cheese, tikka masala, and falafels!

PRIORITY #3

We love to travel, but travel is expensive. We found ways to cut costs when traveling – flying cheaper airlines, staying with friends or at an Air BnB, and making our own food. Another tip is to combine business trips with extra days of travel and sight-seeing. We budgeted for 1-2 trips a year and were able to go to NYC, Madison, Chicago, Disneyland, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, and the Grand Canyon! By setting aside a small amount of money, and being smart about our travel, we were able to keep doing the thing we love most – seeing the world!

What are some of the things that are an absolute must for you, things that are top priority in your life? What are a few things you could cut out or cut back on, without hardly noticing? Let us know over on our Facebook page!

3 Easy Holiday Treats with 3 ingredients each

Alyssa Osegard on October 31, 2018

This time of year events seem to pop up out of no where! I always feel like we are in need of quick and easy holiday treats for parties and gatherings. Here are some of our go-to recipes. The best part? Each recipe has only three ingredients!

Easy Holiday Treats

Caramel Dip

Ingredients:

8 oz Cream Cheese
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

Steps: Mix together with hand mixer. Serve with apples or other fruit (we also like bananas and strawberries).

Ranch Crackers

Ingredients:

20 oz oyster crackers
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Ranch seasoning packet

Steps: Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Serve alone or with soup.

Roasted Broccoli

Ingredients:

Broccoli
Sea Salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Steps: Cut broccoli into bite sized pieces. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt. Roast in oven at 375 for 15 minutes or until broccoli begins to brown.

Did you try one? Share it with us on Pinterest or Facebook! We’d love to hear what you think! If you’re looking for other Holiday tips, check out our top Christmas Budgeting tips!

Equipment-free workouts from Beachbody

Alyssa Osegard on October 30, 2018

One thing we hear from people all the time is that it’s hard to workout because they travel too much or don’t have any equipment at home! We’ve compiled a list of all of the equipment-free (or yoga-mat-only, because you can make that work) workouts that are offered through a subscription to Beachbody on Demand.

If you want more information about a program (or want to learn how to maximize your results AND get a 25% discount), please fill out this quick form!

These workouts range from 4 minutes to 92 minutes and include yoga, abs, strength, cardio, and more, so there really is something for everyone!

Here is a list of equipment-free workouts from Beachbody:

Brazil Butt Lift Carnivale
Brazil Butt Lift Master Series

A little more obsessed
Body Beast
Ho'Ala Ke Kino
Total Body Solution

Pre Natal Fitness
Diastasis Recti Exercise

With more programs being added throughout the year!

Neither Cody or me LOVE working out, but we DO love being at our best because it makes us better spouses, friends, workers, and just all around happier people! For me, it also helps control my SAD symptoms. With so many equipment-free workouts from Beachbody, we have no excuse but to get a sweat session in!

Faith and Food

Alyssa Osegard on October 24, 2018

Faith and Food have always gone hand in hand. Food is everywhere in faith traditions like Christmas and Easter, not to mention potlucks, funerals, baby showers, bible studies. Everywhere we go in faith it feels as though food is there too.

There is nothing inherently wrong with food, but I found that the way I learned to love food didn’t align with what I knew God was calling me to do. I knew that God wanted me to treat my body better. I was treating it like a dumpster – filling it to the brim with all kinds of junk. Delicious junk, sure, but junk all the same. God kept nudging me to do better with how I fueled my body, but something just wasn’t clicking in me.

Christian Objections

There were a few objections I kept hearing in the Christian community that made me question what I knew God wanted me to do.

God has better ways for us to use our time other than meal planning or exercising. He doesn’t care what we eat!
“Getting healthy” promotes vanity.
God gave us food so we might as well enjoy it!

Still, I kept reading things like:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

And

12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. 13 You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14 And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead. 15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ?
1 Corinthians 6:12-15

So what? It’s just food.

As I watched the my weight climb and my energy levels decrease, I knew that this couldn’t be what God had intended. These verses I had sparked something in me, and I was determined to find what God truly desires for us. Here are 3 of my realizations so far:

Food can become an idol. I needed something that would fuel my body well, but be EASY to follow so that it wouldn’t become all-consuming.
I needed to do this not just for me and my health, but for God’s glory. Nothing we do means anything without Christ.
When I let myself indulge in anything and everything, I’m not actually “enjoying what God gave me.” I’m really giving into the temptation to be lazy or gluttonous.

So I’m tackling this from both angles. I’m learning how to eat healthier in a simple and sustainable way. But I’m not going on a diet. No rules or restrictions. For me, this creates a balance between enjoying God’s gifts, but treating food as fuel and not as an idol.

I also am doing this to better myself for GOD. When I get busy, I tend to eat poorly. My body responds to this by being sluggish and even getting sick. When I’m sick and sluggish, I’m not performing at a level that is allowing me to serve to the best of my ability.

The Plan

I’m NOT doing this to be “better” than anyone else. I want to be better than I was, but I refuse to compare myself to others. I do however want to be an encouragement, because gluttony and food issues tend to be so overlooked in the church.

Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them.
Romans 14:3

I recently found a program that has no rules or restrictions. It simply is a mindset shift that teaches how food is fuel for our bodies to perform at their best. I’m always a little leery of mindset things, because I find that they become very “Me” centered. I found this approach to be really healthy though, and am bolstering that with learning from the spiritual side of things too.

I hope you will join Cody and I as we run our first ever “Faith and Food Bootcamp”. When you sign up you will receive:

A one month nutrition course led by me, a certified mentor
A bible study that aligns with the nutrition course led by Cody and I
Lifetime access to 40+ videos in the nutrition course
1 month of family-friendly recipes, grocery lists, and meal prep tips emailed to you each week
A meal tracker to help you see where you are at and where you can make progress
A water bottle
And MORE!

Sound like a good fit for you? Let us know here!

Overcoming the fear of a big church

Alyssa Osegard on October 17, 2018

When Cody and I got married and moved to Minnesota, we knew that finding a church would be a top priority. We tried many different churches, but only found one we liked.

Our “perfect” church

I have so many mixed feeling on this. On one hand, there is no perfect church. We had our priorities though – they needed to be close enough for us to drive every week, be a place that we could bring friends without them feeling scared off, and we needed to feel encouraged and pushed.

Personally, I had one other key factor in determining our church home. The church had to be small. I grew up in a small church and loved that I knew everyone. In college, I was the choir director at an even smaller church that welcomed me with open arms and showed me such love and hospitality. I wanted to feel connected, and I was certain that feeling wouldn’t happen at a larger church.

Church shopping is hard!

We were feeling defeated. We hadn’t found a church that felt right, and it had been a few months. Some coworkers of mine suggested a church that was meeting at the local high school. At first that sounded great. If they meet at a high school they must be small, right? Turns out, it was one of five campuses for a much larger church. In fact, it’s one of the largest churches in the country.

I laughed. Like, I’m pretty sure I legitimately laughed out loud. There was NO WAY I would go to a church like that. I refused to be at a church where I would be a number instead of a name, but we didn’t have any other ideas to try, so I agreed to go for a week. I had so many different emotions and experiences:

It was overwhelming and confusing being in a school.
We were greeted by dozens of people from the parking lot all the way to our seats.
The music was amazing!
I was so distracted by the message being streamed, instead of live, that I couldn’t focus.
They announced that their permanent location was opening the next weekend!

It didn’t feel like a fair shot to give up after one week right before they opened their own building, so I agreed to go again the next week. Long story short, that was four years ago.

Big yet small

When we went back for the second time, it was so much easier to focus on the message. I realized that the high school just wasn’t equipped for streaming the same way the campus building was. Being at the campus, I forgot within minutes that the teaching pastor wasn’t actually there standing on the stage!

The facility was spotless and huge, and yet felt cozy and friendly at the same time. I couldn’t explain it. Even though we didn’t know ANYONE, we were welcomed with open arms.

After about a month, when we were still there “giving it a try” I realized that I liked it and Cody really liked it. That’s when I told him unless we could actually get to know people I was OUT. No more being a number – even if being a number at Eagle Brook Church really felt more personal than that.

Getting connected

We decided to volunteer. Cody chose tech and I chose to snuggle toddlers. Honestly – we didn’t love it right away! The first month or two was super uncomfortable. Suddenly we had responsibilities at a place we barely knew with people we barely knew. It wasn’t “fun”, but we also knew it’s what God was leading us to do. Not just to help others, but to get ourselves plugged in and connected to this new church we wanted to call home.

That all changed after just a few months. By volunteering consistently, we were working with the same people month after month. I started to look forward to seeing the volunteer team leaders and the kids’ pastors who I was getting to know.

Since then we’ve been in a handful of small groups, switched volunteering roles (Cody is a tech lead and I teach preschool), and have transitioned into leaders in the annual Financial Peace University class! Through these things, we know basically all of the staff at our campus (and beyond), and we have friends. We know others and we feel known.

If you haven’t tried a big church, don’t write it off too quickly. Give it time and get involved. When you allow yourself to get connected in community, you will find that even a big church can have a family feel!

ps. If you are in the Twin Cities area and want to try our church with us, we would LOVE to go with you and show you around!

One simple tool to take back your health, time, and mindset!

Alyssa Osegard on October 10, 2018

It’s time. We’re taking back our health, our mindset, our time, AND we’re getting out of our slump. It’s time to take back the kitchen, and we want to show you how you can do it too!

Taking Back Our Health

I’ve always been one to over-eat. I love carbs and cookies and brownies and wine. Poptarts, pizza, bagels, and cookies were always around growing up. I graduated college with a kitchen-skills resume consisting of baking cookies and microwaving. That’s all I could do, for real. I’ve always eaten mindlessly and emotionally. Really, any emotion – happy, sad, celebratory, angry. It was all a cause to eat.

Last year it really hit me, I don’t want to treat my body like that anymore. It was going to be hard to undo 25 years of poor eating, though. There were plenty of diet options out there that I looked into, but I realized that starving myself wasn’t going to work, and that most diets were not sustainable. I had to learn how to eat in a way that would truly fuel my body, but as I looked over our list of common recipes, I was at a loss.

Taking Back Our Mindsets

As I mentioned before, emotional eating was one of my biggest problems for most of my life. I have all sorts of theories about why eating has been a struggle for me (including the fact that food is often equated with fellowship, friendship, and family), but no matter what the root cause of my food struggles, I knew I needed a mindset shift.

My goal was to think of food as fuel and to have a better opinion of healthy foods! Cody and I also needed to change our mindset on money and food. When we went all in with our budget, we cut WAY back to spending $50 a week for all food, but to do this I would spend 2-3 hours meal planning each week.

Now we are balancing out. We are making sure to eat nutritious options, take care of the bodies God gave us, and still be good stewards with our money. We are spending a bit more than $50 a week, but getting all our nutrition and spending ZERO time meal planning. It’s a balance of eating enough and eating WELL. But we still only spend about $60 a week!

Taking Back Our Time

When we first got married, I was determined to be the world’s best wife when it came to dinner time. I was going to save us a ton of money, make all sorts of new recipes, and never waste any food. It was fun for a while, but it took hours each week to find the good deals, make sure I could use up all of our ingredients, and to find new recipes that we would both like. Usually then it would take another hour or so to grocery shop because our list was organized by recipe, not by type of food. It was a mess!

Getting out of our slump

This system for TRYING to make good choices meant that a lot of times our recipes weren’t as healthy as I wanted them to be (because I couldn’t always find suitable recipes that met all the criteria). It got tiring doing this same routine week after week, so after a while we lost our variety and started eating the same mediocre meals over and over.

Take Back the Kitchen

Enter Take Back the Kitchen, a program that solved all of our meal planning and meal prepping woes. Each week, a registered dietitian sends us a meal plan. These are recipes she has approved, so they meet our standards for health. They are laid out with substitutions we can make, are seasonally appropriate, and take into consideration the “weird” ingredients, so that we can use them up!

There is a dinner recipe for every day of the week, and we get to try so many new things! We LOVE the ease of printing off a list that is divided by where we might find the food in the store. Then, we come home and prep things off a list that tells us exactly what can be prepped ahead of time.

Our nutrition is in check. We have time back each week. We are learning to enjoy healthier foods that fuel our body. Not only that, but every month we have the option to choose from a selection of nutrition products that helps us stay on track with our healthy goals. Even with this , we still only spend $60/week on groceries!

How you can participate

If you are interested in getting this same, amazing program every week, we would love to have you join us! To receive the meal plans, there are a few different products* that qualify you for a full MONTH:

Incredible shakes that have the nutrition of a salad but taste like a milkshake
Delicious protein bars that have way less sugar than their competitors,
A package of pre and post workout drinks,
A nutrition course that will help you fix your mindset around food.

The cost for these varies from $110 to $160 (though if you are interested in a 25% discount, reach out!) . You know that we are strict with our finances, and we believe these products are absolutely worth the cost. The financial savings of having a healthy, easy-to-follow plan in place is worth it. Not only that, but knowing that our bodies are getting the nutrients we need is a huge benefit. Plus, we now spend NO time finding, planning, and organizing our meals for the week. If you want more information on how you can take back the kitchen, fill out this form. The form isn’t a commitment – just a chance for you to decide if this is a good fit for you!

Take Back the Kitchen Information Form: https://goo.gl/forms/lFslv5KilgDm4RNu1

*The consumable products come with a 30 day bottom of the bag money back guarantee! There is NO RISK to trying this out! If it doesn’t work for you, you can simply send the empty bag back!

How to make the most of an NYC trip!

Alyssa Osegard on October 3, 2018

We had just a few short days in NYC in 2015. It looked like it would be impossible to see everything we wanted to see, but we were determined! We packed our bags and hit the road for O’Hare International Airport. Our arrival in New York was late on Saturday night and we had to leave early on Wednesday. Knowing that NYC is not only a big city, but also a big hub for tourism, we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to control our spending. It turns out that NYC can be great, even on a budget!

NYC on a budget!

For starters, we saved a little bit each month in a fund for travel, so that we could do this trip debt free. By doing this, we essentially prepaid for our vacation. The best part about a vacation paid for in cash is that the vacation doesn’t follow you home! It only took us around $450 to enjoy a few days in NYC, so we wanted to share our secrets.

Look for flight deals

This was our biggest way to save money, plain and simple. One trade-off we made was flying out of a different airport. Instead of flying out of our Twin Cities airport, we drove to Chicago (for about $60 in gas), but it saved us $150 in flight costs!

Make friends

One of our dearest friends lived in New York at the time, and she was gracious enough to let us stay in her apartment. This saved us lodging costs AND allowed us to spend precious time with a friend we don’t get nearly enough time with. And maybe it’s just me, but it felt more like the “authentic” experience bunking in a tiny Manhattan apartment!

Look for the Free things to do

There are plenty of things to waste your money on in NYC, but there are a million free and amazing things to see and do as well. Some of our favorites were walking around Central Park, visiting the Macy’s in Herald square, and seeing other popular sites. Highlights were Grand Central Terminal, the Flat Iron building, walking Times Square, viewing the 9/11 memorial, the Staten Island Ferry, walking to the Rockefeller Center, seeing the Empire State building and more.

Another thing that saved us a lot of money was doing thing that were close to each other at the same time. This allowed us to walk instead of paying for public transportation. We actually walked a LOT more than I would recommend on a typical trip, but it saved us a lot of money!

Prioritize!

It would seem that there are approximately 4523452 museums in New York. We asked around and decided that the one we most wanted to see was The 9/11 Memorial Museum. It was a bit pricey – but absolutely worth it. Neither of us are typically museum fans, which made it easy to just pick one, and we picked right. We spent 3 hours learning and exploring and the time flew by. It is a somber place (and I wouldn’t recommend taking kiddos there) but it is incredible.

Eat in or share meals

We tried to eat in at our friend’s apartment for meals when we could. Because our days were filled to the brim with fun activities, it wasn’t always easy to do that, so we purchased snacks from a grocery store that we could bring with us.

We don’t cut eating out when we travel, because we LOVE to try restaurants in new places, but when we eat out we try to split meals to cut the costs (and sometimes allow us a few smaller meals in more restaurants!).

Things we could have done to cut costs more

Maybe you have more than two people going on this trip or $450 is still more than you can swing for a trip. That’s totally fine! We had more ways we could have cut costs!

Theoretically, we COULD have walked everywhere. We probably spent $20-30 on the Subway and bus. We needed to for transport to the airport but we technically could have walked everywhere else. There were a few long walks that we decided weren’t worth it for us.
We could have only eaten in. We chose to eat out a few times, because they were places we really wanted to go. However, had we eaten at our friends or eaten from street vendors and such, we could have saved even more.
We could have skipped the museum. But boy, I’m glad we didn’t.

Though we are strict budgeters, we do try to find a line between trying new things versus not overspending. For us we found a great balance where we could try everything we wanted to do AND not let our vacation follow us home!

Transform your life in nine weeks!

Alyssa Osegard on September 27, 2018

Nine weeks was all it took to change the trajectory of our finances. Our finances were a mess – we were in debt and had no consistency. When the opportunity arose, we made a small investment into a kit and added some accountability. Nine weeks later we had new habits, had paid off $8000 in debt, and were set on a path to financial peace!

The key was diving ALL IN for the nine weeks. We committed to the program’s guidelines and did our absolute best. It wasn’t perfect, but we were committed and consistent.

We haven’t regretted that decision once. In fact, we realized that the same ideas could be applied to our health, so here we go.

FOR NINE WEEKS we are committing to filling our cups even when our plates are full. We know that taking care of ourselves allows us to be better spouses, coworkers, and friends, who are more able to pour into others!

Our nine week all-in guidelines include:

-Four 40 minutes workouts a week that are pre-set and easy to do at home or at the gym
-Prepping meals for each week to keep us on track, using a menu emailed out each week by a Registered Dietitian
-Weekly work-free dates (or outings with friends, if single)
-Creating a schedule each week that sets us up for success, no matter what we have going on
-Checking in with our friends who partner with us for the nine weeks

When it came to our finances, nine weeks was all it took to change the entire trajectory of our future, and we are confident that nine weeks is all it will take for us to change our health and schedule. Life is better in community, though, so we want YOU to partner with us!

Let’s do it. Let’s commit to our OWN health on a daily basis, and focus on the relationships that matter most to us. It won’t be easy, but we know it will be worth it, and we are so excited for others to join us on this 9-week journey! Comment “I’M IN” if you want more information on how to join us for this nine week transformation!