What Have We Been Up To Lately?

We....

*celebrated Brandon's 25th birthday last weekend. I took him out to eat and told him to order whatever he wanted, I got the check ;-) He got a filet mignon and I got some delicious crab cakes with huge chunks of crab in them. That was our 'blow the budget' meal for the summer, we'll have to wait a while before having another one of those. Afterward, we went to Starbucks and played cribbage and walked around Old Town a little bit. It was a great date night!

*both went to the dentist this week and have zero cavities! Yippee! We're getting rid of our dental insurance (which only covers preventive care anyways) so we're very glad to not have to pay for any fillings or dental work.

*have otherwise just been plugging along. Brandon is still enjoying his classes although I don't enjoy having him gone every night, at least he's home in the afternoons. I've been trying to keep up with the housework which gets so much harder after you've been gone. I was only gone a week but I think it will take me 3 weeks before I've finished unpacking, cleaning, paying the bills and re-organizing.

*are super excited because it's Triple Coupon Week!!! My grocery store runs this about once a season and I look forward to it for a long time. I've got my lists and coupons all ready and should get about 20 free things if everything works out according to plan! Plus I'll get a whole bunch of other stuff for next to nothing! I remember I used to get embarrassed when I was little because my mom always had like 50 coupons and held up the line. But now, I've really been getting into 'couponing' lately- I look at it like a game to see how much I can get for free/dirt cheap. I don't use the Grocery Game or any particular method because I found that I didn't have nearly enough storage space to stock up and store everything for months. So instead, I try to cut and use coupons for only what I know I'll actually use and I always wait until those things are on sale before using my coupons. I also look at the Coupon Mom's website and a few other blogs where they do a lot of the work for you and tell you what you can get for free that week. Last week I saved so much the checker had to call the manager over to approve my savings! The bagger said "Way to go miss, you're a pro!" I left with the biggest smile on my face! I sure am my mother's daughter!

*I read Total Money Makeover the other morning and now I'm on a big kick to get our finances in order. (If you'd ask my husband, he'd say this is nothing short of a miracle and he's praising the Lord for my change of heart towards budgeting) We had some money sitting around in savings (presumably for a down payment one day) but we realized we were paying more interest on my student loans than we were making on the money we had saved. We're also hoping that as a result of going to law school, Brandon will land a good job afterwards and that without much other debt we'll be able to save up another down payment quickly. So we decided to use some of that money to pay off a big chunk of my student loans and we kept the rest as our 3-6 month emergency fund. We've now paid off about 80% of my loans, we're so close! Brandon is accumulating some student loans of course since he can only work part-time but most of those are interest free until he graduates and because it's a state school his tuition is fairly inexpensive. With determination and strict budgeting we just might be able to get through these 3 years living on his part-time salary and only taking out loans to cover the cost of his in-state tuition. Plus after reading the book, I was motivated to find some way to earn money for this family so I advertised myself on Craigslist as a dog-walker and housecleaner (go ahead, laugh if you want girls). Now that Brandon's home in the afternoons, he can stay with the boys and study while I spend a few hours working. So far I haven't gotten any responses but I'll keep re-posting myself until I do. Cross your fingers that I can get a few jobs a week and bring in the grocery/gas money!

*I have also set the goal of doing a 'No Spend Month' in October. Just the basics! That means no eating out, no clothes shopping (for me and Brandon, we'll still buy the boys some clothes if they need them), no random $100 Target trips with nothing really to show for it, no movies, etc. We do have a wedding and two baby showers to attend, but I'm hoping to get those gifts before October starts. I'm posting this here so I have some reason to stay accountable when I'm in Target doing some grocery shopping and I stray over to the Home Goods section. Brandon refers to my Target runs as "wandering around aimlessly, brainstorming for ways to spend money on things we don't need." He's very happy (although pretty skeptical) about No Spend Month. We'll see how it goes- Wish me luck!

Ok, enough time wasted. My goal today was to get my bedroom tidied up. Brandon says he can't concentrate on studying with my clothes flung all over the place and papers/baby toys littering the floor. He'll be home from work in 3 hours, I better get working!