28 Days of Living Live with a Purpose Update

WOW! It has been crazy! With just coming back from vacation and getting back to my life it's hard to go from eating out everyday to cooking for myself. This week I am really focusing on eating healthier and cooking for myself.

 I made hard boiled eggs and have been eating Greek yogurt for breakfast as a healthier choice opposed to cereal. All this month I have been really working on my faith and trying to get to a standpoint where I feel confident talking about it. Also, starting tommorow I will put my routine in place of really being more useful with my time. Tonight, I will fill up some water bottles for the next couple of days so I can keep track of that and also meal prep a couple of things for the rest of the week. I will update you on anything that has changed next week! 

I'm Back!!!! And Look what I got...

I am in LOVE with Bath and Body Works!!!

I always have been and always will and before I came to Nebraska I had a collection of BBW Candles but I decided since I was living in the dorms that I would get rid of them all and now that I am back living in a house I went back to my obsession! CANDLES!

Now, this might look a bit obsessive but there was a sale so I couldn't walk past it. Overall I spent $133.48 and saved $127.25 Wanna see what I got? Keep reading because it's exciting!

Plumeria Fragrance Mist

Funny story for this one: I didn't mean to get this scent. There was another pink spray that I wanted but it didn't have a lid so I picked up this one and thought it was the same scent and after I got done taking these pictures I put everything away and saw that this was the scent. I smelt it and fell in LOVE! It's very sweet and floral. 

Pineapple Mango Wallflower and Oceanside Wallflower

I haven't plugged these in yet because I had one more to plug in but the store associate suggested these to me and I smelt the candles and they smell very clean and welcoming and for Wallflowers that is my goal. It has to be able to blend well with candles and be clean.

LETS GET TO THE CANDLES! 

I am going to leave the descriptions short because they all smell so good!

Amazon Falls was one of the first ones I picked out because it smelt so clean and it was burning in the store and smelt up the whole store and right outside of the store so I knew this one would be good!

Island Waters is very crisp. I can't explain what it smells like but it has a muskiness to it that smells different then other "island" smells.

Coastal Sun is beautiful! It does have a fruity background to it but it reminds me of my house back home for some reason so I knew I had to buy it!

Pineapple Palm Grass I bought after I smelt the Wall Flower and I knew I had to have it! 

My Absolutely FAVORITE! Ohh!!!! This one just smells like my heaven in a jar! Its a perfect mix of saltiness and fruitiness and it just is full of SMILES! 

White Sand has a very musky scent to it but it smells like an old candle that I used to love!! 

I bought this one because it is a beautiful candle but it also smells beautiful! 

Pink Apple Punch is the fruitiest one I got. Normally, I wouldn't like this much fruitiness but this candle is the perfect mix of apple and sweet fruit!

Watermelon Lemonade was suggested to me by a friend and as soon as I picked it up and smelt it I knew I was in LOVE! It's very fruity and smells just like it looks... PERFECT!

Evergreen is the PERFECT christmas scent. It just smells like a perfect christmas tree decorated with beautiful ornaments! I bought this, first of all, because it was on sale but REALLY it helps me with homesickness. It's hard being away from family and friends but this candle makes me feel like I am surrounded with the people that I love!

That's everything I got this trip and hopefully that will last me at least until Christmas! See you guys Tommorow!!!!

One of my favorite Holidays: Fourth of July

I must say Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. Everybody seems to be so happy and in my small city it reunites everyone. From Elementary school, to the hottest football players in high school everybody seems to gather around the football stadium.

As we watch the hot air balloons come down from the sky and all of the airplanes race by we laugh with our friends and family remembering the joy this holiday brings us. We shoot loud fireworks that almost blast our eardrums but everybody is happy because it's a tradition. We make everything red, white and blue. From Fruit Pizzas to Apple Pie everything has to be red, white and blue.

While some people lay lazily in there pool to watch the fireworks and others roast smore's everybody is doing the same thing at once. Celebrating Life Living in the United States of America. 

How are you celebrating today?

Megan Benson

28 days of Living Life with a Purpose

It’s finally July! I feel like this is the best month to do things a little different. It’s summer. Everybody’s happy and the sun is out everyday! I thought I would also change things up on my blog. On Abby’s page “Just a girl and her blog” she did 31 days to an intentional life but I am going to change it up since it is July 3^rd already and I don’t have 31 days. Sooo  I am going to do “28 days of living life with a purpose.

Now, in order to do this I definitely need some credibility (here’s where you come in.) I have set a few goals for myself  that I am going to try my hardest to stick to and write about new things:

-      -  Workout daily

-      -  Come up with a routine and stick to IT

-      -  Write in the calendar how well you did and what messed up. Do you need to change the routine at all?

-      -  Grow your faith.

-       - Get ahead on blog writing

-       - Go to sleep feeling accomplished

-      -  Get at least 8 hours of sleep

I will keep you guys fully updated throughout the month and let you know how this goes but I am excited.

How I "surprised " my best friend to a trip to Disneyland!

I must say, giving gifts to people is probably my favorite thing in the world and I decided this year that I would take my best friend, Rosemary, to Disneyland I am so excited!! We will be going Thursday, July 2nd (Today!) and we are both jumping out of our pants. I want to go through the steps that I went through in order to get to this point.

Step 1:

Figure out if she wants to go. (Obviously she does because its DISNEYLAND)

Step 2: 

Figure a date out. You might have to change it 5,000 times but thats okay keep trying until you get it right. Just make sure you don't buy the tickets until the day before.

Step 3:

Figure out a budget and STICK TO IT! I decided that I would buy my ticket and our food and she has a annual pass so her ticket is free:) (SCORE!)

Step 4:

Do not give her any hints! If anything completely lead her off the trail. Rosemary is to smart and thought that Disneyland was the surprise but I kept saying NO but she knows me to well that it was hard but I tried really hard. 

Step 5: 

DO NOT, And I repeat, DO NOT let it slip from your mouth when you are talking about it. I was telling her about how that morning is going to work and it completely slipped. I tried to cover it up but nothing worked. She knew. 

Step 6:

Buy cute Mickey Ears to say "Sorry for ruining everything" like these from etsy:

Step 7:

Go to Disneyland and have FUN!

I am officially in California!!!!

I am officially in California!!!! Woo hoo! I haven’t been out here since Christmas and family is definitely one of the things I value. Last time I came to California I had 2 main focuses.

1.     Eat at every restaurant that wasn’t in Nebraska (which meant to eat fast food every day)

2.     See every single friend that I have ever seen.

These were mistakes. I didn’t get to spend much time with my parents and my mom didn’t get to cook for me so I knew this time that had to change.

So, I didn’t post on Facebook about my vacation and only a few people knew that I was going to be here. I don’t have goals or missions to accomplish I just want to spend time with the people I love most and relax. This is a time where I don’t have work or anything else I have to worry about so… Here are a list of things I am doing while I am in California:

1.     Go to the beach with parents.

2.     Disneyland!

3.     Spa Day with Mom
4. Relaxing with my parents

5. Going on Adventures with Rosemary

6.     SLEEP!

I will keep you guys updated on my vacation as I go. See you later!

Shakology Review

Hey Guys!

So, I had this super sweet lady, named Jacki, contact me about Shakology and I automatically wanted to know more. I had tried this before and I didn't think much of it. I didn't like the texture because it was to chalky but when Jacki told me they reformulated it and made new flavors I was super excited. So, she sent me a pack of Shakology drink, a super sweet note and a meal plan!

BUT she was super sweet and sent me TWO! Yay!!!!!!! So, this afternoon my roommate, DJ and I tried the drinks. DJ tried the strawberry one and I tried the Chocolate.

With the strawberry, all we did was follow the exact directions and did it with water.

 DJ really liked it and gave it about a 8/10 and said she would buy it. The only reason why it didn't get a 10 was because of our blender and it didn't get the consistency she wanted. I tried this one also and it wasn't the flavor of drinks I like to drink but other then that it was still good.

I had the chocolate one and although I totally forgot to take a picture before it was SO GOOD!!  This one we mixed with coconut milk to make it a little thicker and I think it was a great choice.

Overall, these really do fill you up and taste good. If you do decide to try this go ahead and check out Jacki's shop.

Thanks again Jacki!

Megan Benson

Clean out my Car with me!

It's Car Cleaning day!! WOO!! My Car was so gross. I had moved myself and a couple more people, I ate several dinners in my car AND got dressed in there many times SO it was gross! Yes, my car has been worst before but my car needed a good cleaning!

So I always bring two things with me when I go to seriously clean out my car:
            1. A Laundry Basket for stuff that needs to go back into my room
            2. A container for stuff to leave in my car

And I always park next to a dumpster because I would rather do that then fill up 12 trash bags so off to a dumpster we go!

I start throwing stuff into my laundry basket and mostly its all reusable water bottles and clothes and stuff that fell out of my purse 

Then, I pick up any trash and throw it into the dumpster. I make sure to take off the seat covers, and everything gets shaken out. Once I put them back in I'm off to a vaccuum for a quick vaccuum. Then, I am DONE. I normally buy a few things for my car at this time but I already have everything I need so I put my car trash can back up:

Put in a new scent portable from bath and body works then she is ready to go! 

If you liked this and want some more clean with me posts let me know:) It was so fun writing this. Make sure to check out my money series in my last couple of posts http://adventurewithmegan.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-hate-credit-cards-money-series-day-4.html

Bye!!!!!!!!

I hate Credit Cards!!!!! Money Series: Day 4! Last day!!

Disclaimer: This is not saying that you are doing anything wrong with your finances. This is my opinion and my story. 

As you can see in the title, I hate credit cards! I don't know if I started hating them before listening to Dave Ramsey and hearing people's testimonies but I am deathly afraid of them. Now, most college students think it's so cool to have credit cards. That means you can spend all the money you want to right?! HA! No!!! Your literally just asking a company if you can barrow money and the way I see it, if I dont have the money to pay for it then it's not happening. (Other then school, thats a different story) Now, if I had an emergency come up and ALL of my resources were gone and I did not have money for it THEN I would get a credit card and cut all things that are not necessities until it is paid off. I would do everything I possibly could to get that away from me!

I babysat the other day and for some reason the little girl and I were talking about credit cards and before we talked I asked her what it meant and she said that you had all the money in the world and can buy whatever you want with it. WHAT?!! So I clearly explained what it meant and now she told me she only wants a debit card! I was so glad!

Well thats it for this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know down below what you think. Thanks! Make sure to check out yesterday's blog post about Dave Ramsey's program!

How I use Dave Ramsey's Program in my Daily Life: Day 3 of Money Series

Dave Ramsey is an extraordinary person to me! His story is a lifetime of growing and learning and still to this day he has never stopped learning. I love listening to his stories and his amazing testimonies. So here is how I use his tools in my life.

He has a tested system on what you should do with your money called the baby steps:

Now let me break baby steps down for you:

Baby step 1: The first baby step  (bs) is just getting an $1000 emergency fund (ef) into a savings account. This is strictly for emergencies but if you can't put food on your table or can't pay rent do that first before putting this money into savings. That is called your four walls. As soon as you get caught up on that then start putting any extra money into the emergency fund.

This step really got me going because I quit doing anything extra because all I wanted was 4 digits in my account by a certain date. I even sold a couple of things just so I can meet my goal and I am pretty sure I met it with one day to go.

Baby step 2: Just as simple as it sounds this step is to pay debt off. What is the "Debt Snowball"? All it means is pay your debts from smallest to largest so that you have quick wins and you stick to the plan.

I didn't have experience with this step because I have never had debt so onto baby step 3!

Baby step 3: THE HARDEST! Oh this one is not so easy! This is what I am currently on. There are no quick wins. There is no certain number that you have to get to. You have to judge this one on your own!  I am currently one month ahead of myself and I work daily on this. Any penny that I get goes to this and every dollar has a place!

Baby Step 4,5 and 6: Your supposed to do these 3 all at the same time. All of the money that was going to ef and debt gets kicked into these 3 categories. I am so excited to do this and be done with the baby steps!

Baby step 7: This is the one that excites me the most because it means you're done everything that you could possibly do to save money now go out and have fun.



Another term I learned from him is Every Dollar has it's place which means: When I get my paycheck I know where each dollar is going to go. I have a written plan for each thing. If I found a dollar on the floor right now I know exactly which category of money it would go into. This helps with spending when you really don't need to and it helps with saving ways

The last thing that I know I got from his program is his Cash Envelopes: If you have been reading my blogs you know that I keep my money in categories. For example, I have a rent category, a food category and a clothing category. The rent one needs $300 each month, food needs $200, and clothing needs $100. So each month I try to fill up my envelopes as I go and if by the end of the month I have extra money then I can either go shopping or rollover if I am behind. It shows exactly what I can buy and works perfectly.

Thank you so much for reading and staying up with me. Writing this blog has been a major accomplishment and everyday gets better and better.

Why I love Babysitting?: Day 2 of Money Series

So, I babysit for a living at this point in my life and I wouldn't change it for the world. Not only do I babysit for families that want a night out or are going somewhere that they cant take there kids but I also work in a day care that I absolutely love! Yeah, sometimes babysitting can be hard but the wonderful moments are what I live for and make me realize why I love what I do.

My first babysitting job was watching 3 kids and I was 13. I absolutely loved this. I loved when the parents got home that we were playing or reading or doing something interactive. I loved the learning moments I got. I love everything about them but for some reason my schedule got to hectic and the babysitting stopped but I was still around kids all the time.

I would help in the nursery at church, I would do anything to hang out with the children and get close with the parents at the same time. THEN my whole life changed. I got a nanny job! Now, I dont mean to brag but this job was like the DREAM nanny job that I always thought of when I thought of nannies.

When I first started I had met the parents twice and same with the kids and they stole my heart. I remember the first day like it was yesterday. I was scared. I was scared that the parents were gonna come home and the kids would have a broken bone or something so I did everything to make everybody happy. I texted the mom at least every hour because I wanted to make sure she trusted me, I let the little girl eat candy just to keep her happy and BOY did I regret that. They saw me as a push over the next day so I put my guard up as much as I can with there cute faces. We made a routine and stuck through it until my very last day and there brains clicked that I was not scared of them. Everyday I would see something that just made my day. I remember one day the little girl was sick and she had the morning off while the little boy had school so we would always hang out just us girls and either lay around or sometimes go shopping. It was always a special time. She decided that day that she wanted to lay down but not just on the couch. She wanted to lay down on me. So she climbed up and layed her head on my chest and held onto my pony tail and fell asleep but would not let go of my hair. It just melted my heart and I will always remember that. People ask me how I do it and all I want to say is Why would I not do it? 

Money Saving Day 1: Budget Binder

I am going to do 2 posts today because I couldn't get one up yesterday and I am also bringing you a WHOLE NEW SERIES! I decided to do my first, out of many, series. I am going to do 3 days strictly to saving money. Now, saving money is a huge part of my life right now. Obviously, I am in college and I am trying to "live it up" but I know that someday I am going to regret the "living it up" and not saving up. So I decided to do a little bit of both so for the next 4 days I will be doing posts about $$MONEY$$!

First of all the most important tool: My Budget Binder

This is nothing fancy, all of the worksheets were either made personally by me or found on my Budget Planning Pinterest Board.  My binder lives on my desk so I can reference it daily and make sure I am on top of things. The binder is of course from Target and the page protectors and dividers are from Office Max.

The first thing you see when you open up the binder on the left is 2 pockets and I keep my paychecks from any job that I have at the moment (which I took out for the pictures) and my planner and some post its.

The first worksheet is my "Days to Remember" Page. I put any dates in here that I can't forget. They also go in my planner but the more places I put the dates the better I remember!

The next page I want to show you is my Money Plan Worksheet. This is the most used worksheet from the whole binder. You will see this week that I use Dave Ramsey's envelope system and this is how I use it. I have different categories for what I spend for the month. So this is how I keep track of what I have and how many months I am ahead.

The last thing that I have in the back pocket is my Packing list  and my outfit planner. As you know, I am planning for a vacation coming soon so I can have all of my outfits planned out that way as soon as I am ready to start packing I already have exactly what needs to be planned out.

My gift giving sheet is one that I can't show because I have plans for a surprise coming very soon for somebody who I KNOW is reading this so I can't show it but it just explains the gifts I am going to give and how much it will cost. This serves 2 purposes:
1. Its a place I can store ideas for gifts. As soon as somebody says I want this for my birthday, it goes on my sheet that way I have plenty of options come holiday/birthday time.
2. It keeps track of how much money I need to save for the holidays so I am not surprised by the big bill at holiday time.

So that is my budget binder. I am truly OBSESSED with it! It's my way of staying organized with finances and I absolutely love it. Do you have a budget binder? What do you use yours for?

How to save money at Target.

So everybody knows Target is the place to go when your craving a shopping trip. Or when you have nothing else to do. Or when its to hot outside to go anywhere else. Or when you just want to be alone. Okay, Target is the place to go anytime of day. Just go. Right now. WAIT! If your going to shop make sure you're at least smart about it. I had my experience with working at Target and I am crazy about saving money! (Look out for my budget plan in tommorow's post) I knew when the people who really wanted to save money walked through my lane. They had these 4 things in hand with them:


Cartwheel: Cartwheel is a free app on your smart phone that is the easiest tool to save money right away when shopping at Target. All you do is you scan the product that your interested in buying. The phone automatically looks for any "Cartwheel coupons" for that product. If there are any then it pulls it up. If you decide to get the item then you press "Add to barcode". Once you do that to all your items you pull up your personal Cartwheel barcode and all the Cashier has to do is scan that one barcode. How easy is that?!

Coupons- Now you guys all know what coupons are but I have not gotten the hang of it and as soon as I am back from vacation I will get it. I even bought a printer so I can print coupons at home. I will figure out how to be smart with coupons. stay tuned.

Reusable bags- Now reusable bags don't save you much (5 cents per bag) but it takes a lot of stress out of your shopping trip. You don't have to figure out what to do with those pesky plastic bags or have to carry them all in. AND you take off 5 cents. A little adds up and you can save quite a bit of money each year by using reusable bags.

Redcard- This next one is a little controversial so I won't rant to long.

Megan, I thought you were against credit cards: I totally am. 100% against credit. BUT these wonderful, amazing things are NOT a credit card. They can be if thats your deal but you choose one or the other when you apply. They are 2 completely different things. The debit card will come straight out of whatever debit card you want it to. So its the same account just a different card. Your still spending the money from your checking account.

But what about the "Target Scam": When I first got my redcard this is what scared me. I did not want to lose money. BUT coming in July they are putting the chips into the card for extra security. Because of the incident that time now there preventing it even more. They are also starting up Apple Pay in august.

Five percent is not enough for me to get a card: Okay, so your like me and you average $50-60 a week for groceries. That's about $200 a month give or take just on groceries and toiletries. Now you take that 5% off and you get $10 off each month which is $120 off each year. Now, that might not sound like a lot to you (it does to me because I am a college student and thats like half of an entire paycheck) so lets do a little more math. We all know that we go to target at least once a year to do a major shopping spree. Whether its moving into a dorm or organizing your room you have to stock up so you spend $400 that day. So THAT DAY if you sign up for the red card you get $20 off. That could be a couple storage totes for FREE.

In the end, even if you just use one of these tools you will be saving more money then you would if you didn't use it. Let me know if you have any more cool tools to use while shopping at Target because this girl LOVES Target.

GoPicnic Turkey Pepperoni and Cheese

Happy Fathers Day!! Yesterday I went grocery shopping and picked up these Ready to Eat meals! These are so yummy and filling!!! Yesterday, I was babysitting and we decided we would have a "movie night" so we sat and opened this up and the little boy whos picky about everything LOVED everything except the lollipop which I left for his mom to try because I was so full. So lets go piece by piece and let me tell you how amazing these are. 

This is everything that came in the box. There's crackers, a nut and fruit mix, Cheese dip, pepperoni slices, a lollipop and a stick to spread the cheese.

To start off I opened these and tried one of the nut pieces and WOW! These are sweet but a little spicy because it has a habanero taste in it. I have to admit, I was glad that they were spicy because the little boy probably wouldn't eat it. He wanted to try it so I gave him the bag and turned my back to try something else and maybe 2 minutes later here is what I got back: 

Very few nuts because he loved it and I don't think he realized he left these in there. 

The next two things that I opened were delicious together! I spread the asiago cheese on to the cracker and the cracker had a little spice to it so it was perfect. It had the perfect crunch as well as the perfect flavor. 

The cheese and cracker was also supposed to have the pepperoni with it but the little boy I was watching loved pepperoni so I let him have them and he let me try one. These were so good. Tasted just like regular pepperoni with a lot of spice on it! 

That was everything in the box! Thanks for reading!