Friday, December 31, 2010

Year in Review

2010 was definitely an eventful year. Here's a list of some of the big things:

-Enjoyed time with my wonderful husband and adorable daughter
-Bought our first house
-Got pregnant then sadly miscarried
-Began developing a budget and being more mindful of our spending
-Started to cook at least 3 nights/week
-Started a 529 for Hannah and Roth IRAs for both of us

We are hoping that 2011 brings us a new baby to love and the purchase of an investment property.

I also have a New Year's Resolution: To lower our monthly grocery/household expenses

We currently spend at least $650/month on food and household items. My goal will be to drop that to a maximum of $500/month in the next year. That would save us $1800/year. Here are some ways we will be saving:

-Using coupons & shopping the sales
-COOKING (greatly reducing pre-made dinners!)
-Checking what we have regularly and not wasting food

Here's to a great 2011! Happy New Year!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas

Ours was lovely! We spent Christmas Eve with my mother-in-law & family and Christmas with Dave's dad and my family later on in the evening. Here are some pictures:
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Image and video hosting by TinyPic



In other news, we have started cooking more of our meals. We typically would eat processed meals like Digiorno's, Stouffer's Lasagna, Tyson pre-cooked chicken, etc. We would only cook pasta or Kraft Mac & Cheese. We now make MUCH less of that and are cooking things like Chicken & Rice, Baked Smothered Chicken, Pork Chops, Pasta Pizza, and more! We use basic cookbooks and Meijer Mealbox. Overall, we have made some pretty good meals! Once December is over, I will total up our grocery bill to see if we saved any money. I hope so!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

So what have I been doing?

Moving on. Or trying to, at least.

The past month I've been trying harder to find ways to make and invest money. I'm making $20+ a month doing online surveys. Dave and I are starting to talk about investing in real estate. We have some money that would be better put to use in an investment than a bank account. We plan to buy somewhat locally and have a property manager take care of the house. We also know we want to purchase a single family home and not a condo or townhouse. The real estate adventure will probably be in the spring as we want a few more months to save money. Plus we would rather buy a house in warm weather. We are NOT interested in adding another mortgage (incidentally, we are well on our way to paying off our home early!), so we will be putting 100% down.

Hannah is talking more and more and loves her new play kitchen. After Christmas, I'll likely post some pictures from the holidays. We have a busy week planned with trips to my mother-in-law's, father-in-law's, and my grandparents over a two day period.

I still want another baby. The focus on real estate, work, and Hannah are distracting me a bit, but it still feels like an ache in my heart. We are praying that this is our month. Even though the due date would be September 11, 2011. And even though it would mean missing the first two months of the school year. We should know in 2-3 weeks if we expecting a new little one yet.