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!

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:






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!

Today is the first day

of our new budget system.

We have our expected expenses listed out. We've got the envelopes and spots for our receipts. We are ready to have a greater understanding of where our money is going.

Instead of getting our credit card statements and saying "What?!? How did we spend over $1000 this month?!"

I really, really hope it goes well. This is basically a trial run to see how it works. We can always tweak if needed. We're watching this series from Life Church called "Mind Your Own Business" that's all about financial responsibility. It's helping us stay focused and motivated.

In other news, Hannah is adorable. Seriously, she talks in jargon and it is hilarious! I can't believe how much I am enjoying this young toddler phase. She's so sweet and wants to read books all day long.

I feel like I have been 5 weeks pregnant forever. I don't know how things are dragging so soon into this, but I hope that changes soon.