Day 203: Breakfast in Bed

We have now survived more than 2 weeks without a microwave!  (The house hasn't been clean enough to call the apartment manager to ask about getting it fixed, haha!)  Eric works today at noon and I woke up first, so I decided to make us breakfast in bed.  I had to boil the hot water for the oatmeal and use a stove burner to help get the butter soft for the cinnamon sugar toast.  I keep telling him that I would make a great stay at home wife...

Maple & brown sugar oatmeal, cinnamon sugar toast, and ice cold milk.  Delicious!

Day 202: Time For Some Change!

It is a sort of tradition that my side of the family meets up early in January for the Nicholson Family Christmas. This lets everyone juggle their own families through the holidays, and not be pressured to add one more stop onto the list.  This generally involved food, stockings, book bags, gifts for the young kids, and a white elephant gift exchange.  With our new lifestyle involving budgeting for Christmas, we had out white elephant gifts bought back on Black Friday.  So when we learned everyone had kind of given up on Nicholson Christmas and decided to postpone until Easter when everyone would be together again...I started wondering what to do with those gifts!

I had bought a change counting jar, and decided it was now mine!  So I set to work today to count all of our change!  We like to think that we're saving for something specific, and know that we could be getting a few cents of interest on it if it was stored in our savings account, but this is more fun!  It took about 20 minutes to run it all through the electronic counting lid...and in the past six months we have saved...

...$90.24 cents!

I spent the rest of the evening in bed with Addy and Mad Eye Moony, who is really friendly these days.

And later in the night Eric went to sleep with Mystic, happily tucked under the heating blanket.

Moony taking a break from all that string!

Day 201: Lazy Days of Winter

Eric was planning on writing this post, but he didn't get to it fast enough!  Look for a post by him next week :)

These pictures totally summarize what the past week has been like for us - hunkering down and doing as little as possible!  Eric is enjoying his new PS3 controller that Ashley got him for Christmas, Mystic is enjoying the warm (and still) lap to sit on, and I am enjoying reading some new books with my KU Snuggie!

I should also point out that I am reading some interesting new books!  Dave Ramsey has said that the average millionaire reads 1 nonfiction book each month, and I am breaking the ice into that scary new territory with a "stunt memoir".  I'm starting with "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace, who decided to say "yes!" to EVERYTHING for a solid six months, and how it changed his life.  It's an interesting read, and I'm interested to watch the movie again after reading the book.

Must. Remain. Focused. 

Look!  I can read and be covered by a blanket with no hassle!

Day 200: We've Been Married 200 Days? Wow!

200 days...it has been six and a half months of marriage, and we're getting into the groove of things just fine!  Our drive to get out of debt has been the biggest focus of this past year for us.  We are really looking forward to owning my car next month, I don't even remember what it feels like to not make car payments...but I can't wait to cut that line out of our budget!

I signed up for Dave Ramsey's emails that focus on starting out 2011 right.  Today's email proposed a $100 challenge, asking you to look at your TV cable, home & auto insurance, cell phones, unused items around the house, you hobbies, your "toys", and fast food habits, and find a way to give yourself a $100 raise this week. 

1) Our TV cable is already at the bare minimum, go us!  We're never going to give up our internet, but we already don't have cable TV.  Maybe in the summer, when we're more active, we could give up netflix and save $10...but it isn't likely.
2) I've been meaning to call around about insurance, and today was the day!  Geico is affiliated with our renters insurance, and I chatted with an incredibly enthusiastic agent today.  They can save us $250 on our car insurance - hooray!  That's only about $40/month, but every bit helps! 
3) Our cell phones are also the most basic plan + texting, and no...we aren't giving up texting! 
4) We're actually got a few things to return... $30 sunglasses that don't fit Eric, a $15 shirt, a bowl from the wedding that has a defect... that's an extra $70 in our pockets straight away! 
5) My hobby is playing on the internet, and that doesn't cost anything extra.  Eric's hobby is video games, and he buys any games for 1/4 of the price on Half.com (and it's rare that he actually folds and buys something new). 
6) We have been a little bit bad about buying "toys" in the past month, but it was only with Christmas money and we don't feel bad about it.  The only extra that we spend each month comes out of our blow money allowances of $50 for him and $60 for me.  Though I've stopped getting sodas at the gas station as frequently...so I'll give up my extra $10 of blow.  Another $10 found!
7) Hmmm...lately we've been so far under budget on food that we have been more flexible with fast food spending.  So maybe we'll plan on cutting out fast food for the rest of January and saving $20 (or more) there.  Then we can just pay ourselves the food money that is left over, instead of spending it because it's there.

There you have it, I just earned us a $350 raise this month!!!  It's cool what you can accomplish when you take some time to deal with these things!

A long way to go...but we've had a great start.

A look at the entirety of our Baby Step 2 journey; past, present, and future.

Our short term goal is to get through the 2 car loans and 2 credit card debts.  An experienced Dave fan might point out that I've got them in the wrong order because the one we're paying on right now is obviously larger than the one above it - but we received an insurance payment of nearly $2,100 that we applied to the loan, which made it the next smallest debt in line!

Here is a look at my student loans, the majority of the lion on our backs :(  That is 3 companies broken into the semester-by-semester loans.  Basically, a huge mess that we can't wait to get rid of!

Day 199: Can You Hear Me Now?

Huzzah!  We finally got a surround sound system for our 46" LCD TV!  It seems like we have been extremely money conscious this past year - but we have been able to pay off debt and get some cool things for ourselves.  I wouldn't say that we are going at this quite as hard as Dave Ramsey might recommend if we keep getting new "toys", but we have a good defense!  We didn't feel right spending wedding and Christmas gift money all on debt.  That isn't to say that we didn't finish paying off my credit card with wedding money and that we didn't make a bonus payment toward my car with Christmas money, but we have allowed for ourselves to actually get some gifts!

We spent a week or so researching various speaker systems and decided on a Sony 5.1 Surround Sound System without a DVD or Blu Ray Player.  We didn't want to spend extra money on the DVD player because we've already got the PS3.  It took us about an hour to set it up last night, because I had to run wires around the room for the two rear speakers.  In the end, we knew that we were short and HDMI cable (which we ordered online for $6) and could only listen to the radio or PS 3 through the front two speakers.  But it was really nice to hear how much better these are than the TV speakers, and to hear the subwoofer boom!

A nice picture of how I had to route the wiring, and of our KU layout.

Day 198: Back to School

Our new night stands sort of helped me wake up for work on time!  I went to bed before midnight with my phone alarm and alarm clock set.  I let it snooze for 5-10 minutes and was up and running, including bringing my lunch to school!  I fell back into the routine of things quickly, but I can't say that I wouldn't mind being a stay at home wife and getting to sleep, play, clean, cook, etc. on my own schedule!

Today was also a breakthrough with Moonshine!  We are both able to pet her now and she'll come out from under the bed when we call her!  Even better, Papa has returned from Michigan and Frisco goes home tomorrow!

Moony has taken to cuddling with me while we play video games. 

Mystic is enjoying the boxes we've yet to clear out of the living room 

Addy keeps a close eye, from above, on Moonshine when she wanders around the house. 

I can pick up Moonshine!

Day 197: A Day with Mom

I was really early picking Andrew up for church this morning, and he was out of baby food, so we went shopping and got a banana and an orange.  He is doing a really great job feeding himself while sitting in the booster seat!  He threw quite a few tantrums in the car today - obviously not happy about being buckled in, and one at church that the nursery lady just didn't know what started it.

After church, we picked up Mom and went off to run some errands.  First to K-Mart for some things Mom needed and then to Borders, where I used a gift card to get my first Bible.  I look forward to learning more about it!  We dropped Andrew off with Ashley for his nap, and then headed out for the BIG TRIP.

We went to Price Chopper and spent the next two hours sifting through coupons and shopping for the very best deals.  Mom ended up getting nearly two weeks of groceries and saving just short of $75 with her coupons and smart use of store sales!  I got a lightbulb for my new lamp, and a Dr. Pepper! :)

After all that, I hung around the house and played with Andrew until Sarah picked him up.  Then I was able to pick up my phone from Paul and Deb, who had gotten it from Steven and Leslie that afternoon while watching the Raiders trample the Chiefs.

After Eric got home, we got him enrolled in his spring classes - 2011 tax preparation and another credit hour of the gym course.  We'll have to order his textbook soon, but he wants to wait and see if a better price pops up because it is $150, used!  I might not take any extra classes this spring - I've still got to finish my independent study class.  I'll meet with my advisor next week to figure all that out.

Andrew fell asleep in the car, I like the lighting in this one!

He learned to sneak chips from the bag! 

Then had a seat and enjoyed to fruits of his labor! 

In case you were curious...this end up ^ 

Trying really hard to put on his daddy's hat, with little success!  He did get it on once, but I missed the picture!