Monday, November 17, 2008

I Feel Accomplished

I've gotten a lot accomplished this week. My tendancy is to share with you my downs...not always my ups, and in the effort of overcoming a bit of homesickness, that's the avenue I'm taking today.


On the home front, I've gotten a TON of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away...and in order to "put away" I had to organize my closet and each of the kids closets, which were done Friday & Saturday! Huge! It literally must have been 10 loads to go through on Friday...I continued throughout the weekend, and eventually lost count. I cleaned my bathroom, made my bed, put up shelving in kids rooms and closets....Matt vaccumed and mopped for me and cleaned up the back yard a bit. But over all, the vote is in concerning the "nesting phase" of my pregnancy, its definately arrived.


On the Finance Front read my post on my other blog Debt Free Wannabes if you'd like to follow along. It's a strange feeling of accomplishing something, while at the same time--Not. But I have this new job that starts on Monday 11/23 and an interview tomorrow at 10 am for another position...we'll see how it goes. I think I'm a bit anxious about answering to someone else, on the other hand, interaction with others (outside my home) and the idea of bringing in some much needed Money to the "family purse" is exciting and makes me hopeful, especially with Christmas coming, birthdays, baby etc...it will be a huge blessing.


Another blessing that I found out about this week is a friend of mine is planning a "virtual baby shower" for me. You can imagine that after 3 kids, (and 4 years since my last newborn) my baby stuff is broken, trashed, stained or whatever...I have Nothing! And what's a girl to do when she moves over 1300 miles from everyone she knows...A Virtual Baby Shower! How fun does that sound? I am so excited! What a great friend.


Hope you all are well!


I am thankful for my friends near and (mostly) far.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

This weekend we took our 1st steps toward Financial Freedom...together. I guess these would be the "Pre-Baby Steps".


Here's what we did:


  • Came up with a budget, or at least a work sheet of monthly expenses
  • Anaylized areas we thought we could cut a little...to stay with in the recommended percentages
  • Came up with areas we could both sacrifice
  • Brainstormed ideas for making extra money to get ahead, such as getting back into my Juice Plus Business now that we are getting settled in here...steps I could take to market myself in an area where I know no one. (until recently I was bringin in almost $5000 a year with it, I just got busy with so many other things that it fell to the back burner. I still make a little but I need to bump it back up...) also ebay unused items?
  • Put together easy menus so grocery shopping is planned, and not spontaneous spending
  • This is our first month doing the Angel Food Ministry Program, this should help save some money. If you are not aware check out the website link above.
  • Going to a CASH only System...no debit cards unless absolutely required.

Have you done anything yet? What plan are you using?


Hip Mama


If you don't have a plan yet...We are using Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover"


Baby Step #1: Save $1000 Emergency Fund

Baby Step #2: Debt Snowball