John and I got caught in the crappy house market crash when we relocated for his company. We bought our house in January 2007, for what we thought was an amazing deal. We put in a lot of money and made it "ours" with no real plans on leaving it. Then we were relocated, and then relocated again, and now are in a permanent relocation. We had to list the house. After talking to experts, learning options, and MUCH discussion, we have realized that we will be renting for a few years (even after our house eventually -shoot me now- sells). It's hard to go from owning to renting. I'm slowing becoming more okay with it, but I'm hoping to speak to our owners about painting rooms and such to make it feel like "ours." I think I have finally swallowed that pill (of not looking at houses to buy for the time being).
John and I are hoping to be debt-free this year. That is our goal. We will have student loans to pay off forever, and may double payments up once we break even with everything else. We keep a spreadsheet every month of our finances and still seem to overspend. It is hard though because we do not "shop" and are not spending money on a lot of extreme "wants." Seriously, no eating out, no babysitters, no movies out, no clothes shopping unless the kids grow (and even then we hope grandma's will help out!), etc. (Although, for John's 30th birthday we used his bonus for a guy's snowboarding trip - on the cheap.) We are overspending on gas and groceries. We eat as natural and organic as possible and plan our meals out carefully. I cut coupons and look for deals. We budget $400 a month, but typically spend $500 on food. Food is expensive. We try to buy larger pieces of meat, cook them on Sunday and turn them into meals for the week. That's hard for me because I LOVE to cook. I love to cook from scratch. I love to cook different meals every day. I have had to learn that rice and beans are okay enough to eat, but great for the budget on occasion. Giving up wine, beer, and dessert during the week will hopefully help with the budget. It's just so hard to turn down something sweet - we CRAAAAAAAVE dessert.
So we are going to tighten the belt strap even tighter to get to where we want to be.
Today's Resolution was to bring dinner to a neighbor. We have a few elderly neighbors so I'm going to add this one back into the bucket so it can appear again in the future! I'm glad that I made a large pot of the brunswick stew!! Allen, our widowed neighbor (in his late 70's) was so thankful for a big tupperware full of stew. I'm pretty sure Scarlett enjoyed visiting him and bringing dinner over!
Tomorrow's resolution: Recycle Something
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