Storing it up…

I LOVE to decorate! It is one of my absolute favorite hobbies and it brings me so much joy to make my home pretty! Because we are moving in about 6 weeks now, I don’t feel like its a good use of my energy, time, or money to make my current apartment more pretty– as much as I’m wanting to, because we are moving soon! In fact, I already have stacks of boxes here and there. If I wasn’t out of packing tape, I’d do more!

I have the itch to decorate, and I am choosing to store it up for after our move!

In the mean time, I’m LOVING looking at tons of really fun before and after shots of home decorating and craft projects at Kimba’s DIY Party! I’m amazed what spray paint can do! There are so many awesome projects, you should go check it out and get inspired! If you do a project, let me know so I can live vicariously through you!

Attention WinCo Shoppers!

Our local WinCo has a display set up with the Cottenelle Ultra TP with little samples of the TP. The best part is there is a $1 off coupon attached to the sample! Our store has the TP on sale for $5.88 for a 12 pack. Minus the $1, you’re paying $4.88 for high quality TP! Being in the last days of pregnancy and anticipating post partum sensitivities, I’m thinking this TP will be kinda nice to have around! I grabbed four of the samples; I felt sort of greedy, though now I wish I’d grabbed more for the coupon! We stocked up a bit, so we’ll be good to go!

If you have a Winco, you should check to see if they have the display. Our display was set up towards the end of the produce section where they display items in mass quantities. Just thought I’d pass on the savings!

Getting Back On Track…

Thanks everyone who commented on my last post for all the great encouragement! It was so nice to hear that we are not the only couple who has gotten off track in the pregnancy phase of life!

Nathan and I have been reading through the Bible together and are currently reading in Exodus. We spent some time reflecting on the fact that its so easy to get frustrated with those Israelites as they kept getting off track as they wandered through the desert. You just want to shake them and say, “Are you nuts, God just taught you NOT to do the very thing you are doing!” We are so those same Israelites, aren’t we? God has been so clear in teaching us to live simply, live on less, and most importantly, glorify HIM with how we spend.

We had a huge “Ah-ha moment” as my teacher friends would call it as we realized we were those wandering people who so easily neglected the teaching of their good and merciful God. The Lord is so good and has so much grace, and for that, we are so grateful.

We are working on obedience now in our finances and bargain hunted for a new to us phone on Craigslist. We decided that right now with a baby days away, we shouldn’t go without a phone, that’s just silly. We both need to have phones right now. We also knew that we did not want to touch our savings. The answer then? We redid our budget and are making some sacrifices to make it work. The biggest chunk is coming from our food budget. I’ve been having lots of fun finding recipes online that fit what we have. Right now I’m going through that cooking phase in the pregnancy, so its working so far! I’ve got an enchilada casserole in the oven as I type… smells yummy!

I just wanted to say that God is just so good; His grace just abounds! We learned so much from this experience and feel that much more unified as a couple before Christ.

Thanks again for all the encouragement! I praise God that we are not alone in this journey, but are so blessed with many people who love and support us through all the ups and downs! Thank you!

Answer to a great question…

I got a great question in my comments this morning asking us if we’ll be debt free by, well, today! As was our original goal when we set out on our debt free journey in January 2008.

I’ve been updating through out the last year and a half as our goals have changed with the changes in our lives. In thinking back, if we’d both been working full time these past two school years and Nathan hadn’t decided to go back to school, we probably could have swung that original goal! But, things change! We both got half-time jobs, Nate went back to school, and we are having a baby! Now we are preparing to pay for a move across the state and live off of one income as a family of 3!

So, not much of our debt has been paid off in the year 2009, which is a bit sad to me… However, we have not accumulated any MORE debt because we paid for seminary in cash and everything else as well. We are hoping to be able to pay off our smallest student loan soon, but due to the upcoming move, we are stashing money in savings to cover any possible expenses there first. Hopefully, we will still be able to pay it off and pay for the move, but we will see.

Honestly, I think we could be doing a bit better. We haven’t been as “hard core” in the frugal department as being pregnant knocks the wind out of you! We don’t coupon very much, we eat out more than we should, and we have been taking advantage of opportunities to go out with family that live here before we move to make the most of our remaining time here.

I also spend too much on groceries because I want/need to have certain kinds of foods for the pregnancy. I’m low on iron, so we have had to buy more red meat=more than we’d like to spend. I need more fresh produce=expensive. We switched to organics in certain foods to help with the digestive issues I was having=very expensive. Having said that, we still could be doing better, much better, and we actually had a great talk about that today.

Its easy to blame financial laziness on circumstances, and we admit that sometimes, we have been lazy. The Lord gave us a bit of a wake up call today when we spilled red Kool-Aide all over Nate’s white Nike shorts and I told him as I frantically tried to save the carpet to go rinse out his shorts in cold water. Well, he forgot his cell phone was in his pocket. Ooops. Now we have a cell phone to replace.

The good news is that the carpet is okay, and the shorts are going to make it! But really, we both were humbled that we need to step up our stewardship. If we hadn’t spent on this and that and this, we could replace it no problem. But, we did spend on this an that and this, so, we are going to have to make some sacrifices, take from our moving fund, or wait until next month and see…

ANYWAY! What a long winded answer to a short little question! There is so much to say about our debt journey! We really have no idea now how long it’ll take us to pay off our student loans now. We no longer qualify for forgiveness programs as we are no longer teachers, AND our income is being reduced by a career change, AND we have an addition coming any day now!

We will probably have a better idea at the start of the year, 2010 of when we will be able to pay it off. Right now, Nathan says by the time he’s 30, which is a little less than 5 years from now. I’m not sure how realistic that is at this point, but it sounds good! 30 and debt free, I could go for that!

Its in the Lord’s hands and we’ve confessed our laziness to Him. Thank goodness for grace!

Getting crafty while getting ready…

I made this today as I was finishing up our hospital bag! (Like my pink polka dot diaper bag?)

Here’s a close up!

I realized there were somethings that we may forget if I didn’t create some sort of reminder… enter the craft stuff! Our bags are all packed and ready to go! The list of things to accomplish pre-Molly is daily getting smaller!

*As was pointed out in the comments, there is a number on there… no worries! Its just Kaiser!

The Yard Sale Report!

This is the first yard sale we’ve had since living on the other side of WA state. On the Eastern side, yard saling was quite different, and Nathan and I learned a lot today about what yard sales are like over here.

We didn’t have any customers for the first hour. Apparently, no one gets out until after 9 am. Secondly, not as many people yard sale in Western WA. We had tons of signs, an ad up on Craigslist, we were the second house in off a well traveled street– so we were very visible! But, we just didn’t get that many people! All in all, with the people we did get, we sold about 1/3 of the stuff we had out. It took 3 trips to load it all over to my MIL’s house, and only 2 to load the leftovers to GoodWill. We made about $90, which is less than what I thought we could make, seeing as we had so much stuff.

But when we came home and had THAT MUCH less stuff, it felt good. We felt good about how excited people were about bringing home our stuff! They loved their deals, and that made us happy!

After it was all over, Nathan made me promise not to have another yard sale for at least another two years. I promised!

Frugal Friday… using a yard sale to bless others!

We are having a yard sale this coming Saturday! I may be crazy to do this now as I am about 3 1/2 weeks from my due date, but none the less, we are going for it!

My original approach was to get rid of stuff and make some extra cash to help pay for our move at the end of the summer. Then yesterday, as my hubbie and I were praying together over our finances, I requested we pray over our yard sale. What I thought my hubbie would say was something like “bring in the people, help us make money” yada yada! But I was surprised and a bit convicted by what he ended up praying.

He asked that the Lord would bring in people that would be blessed by the stuff we have to offer. That he would lead us to be generous in our pricing and that people would find things that meet their needs at great prices.

Whoa! I was amazed and immediately humbled by my hubbie’s perspective. He was asking God to make this sale a ministry opportunity while I was focusing on running numbers in my head. We had recently been very blessed by others at their yard sales, and my hubbie was praying that we could do the same.

I learned a HUGE lesson in that time of prayer and have been asking the Lord to change my heart when it comes to things like yard sales. I believe that the Lord will provide for us as we move, have a baby, switch to one income, and work to pay off those student loans. I don’t need to worry about running numbers for a yard sale; I just need to focus on loving and blessing others.

Thanks Nate for again pointing me back to Christ! Thanks Lord for continually working on my heart!

Ah… the joys of moving on a budget.

We still have about 9 weeks before we move, but since we are going to be having a baby pretty soon here, we decided to do some research into the moving van costs so we can start budgeting/saving for it.

In the area we are moving, the only company with a local drop off is U-Haul. We have used this company before in the area and are okay with it. The cost to rent a truck has gone up since we moved here two years ago, which is to be expected.

Our problem is that we moved here with less stuff. We have added to our worldly goods a washer and dryer, baby stuff, a bbq, and a desk. At the same time, we are pitching a TON of stuff at our yard sale on Saturday and will also be getting rid of our two giant and heavy storage cupboards we’ve been using to hold our clothes. (We’re gonna try to sell them on Craigslist, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll offer them for free, and if that doesn’t work, we will take them apart and throw them away!)

We figured that we will probably need a bigger U-haul as the 17 footer was just right last time. The thing is that the next size up is for in town moves only! Bummer! Meaning that we would have to rent the giant one! Which would most likely be way too big for our needs and it is also quite expensive! ($589 not including gas!) The 17 footer is only $379, not including gas, that’s a big difference!

Our strategy? GET CREATIVE!

*We will have to be very precise in our packing and use every inch of that 17 footer to the max!

*We also plan on filling the trunks of those who come to visit when Molly is born! My family and possibly some friends will be coming to see Molly once she’s born. If we can pawn off some of our stuff on them, that will make the move a little lighter!

*Consider storing un-needed items at Nathan’s mom’s house until we can come back and get it. She has a garage that could probably fit our Christmas tree and decorations, along with some of my teaching storage items.

*Use the vehicles of those who come to help! So far, we have had some friends offer up their help and they are bringing a vehicle! We will use every inch of that vehicle as well! We are hoping some of my family members will come help as well, but don’t know for sure yet.

As for moving boxes, we are planning on reusing the boxes from our move here. I have been watching the recycling area at our apartments for moving boxes as well. We don’t plan on spending any money in this area as there are many resources for free boxes.

That’s the plan for now! Moving on a budget can be done!

Come nest with me…

26 days to go… woohoo!

I thought I would show you all the progress on the baby stuff for this weeks Itch To Pitch challenge at the Happy Housewife! I’m feeling pretty good about how things are working!

Its a small space, but we have the sleeping area, the changing area, diaper storage, a laundry basket for dirty laundry, there is also a wicker basket you can’t see holding blankies and burp rags. Under the little white table you have a bin for bibs, socks and booties, and a small basket with rattles. On top of the table, you see two little adorable pairs of pink newborn shoes! And a bin for her clothes that is now full of freshly laundered little outfits!

It was fun washing these tiny clothes! Here’s the first load ever of baby laundry waiting to be folded!

The room is not super girlie cute like I hope to make her room once we move, but it will work for the first 4-6 weeks that we are still here. Its hard not to go out and buy tons of cute things to gutsy up this space; we are working on using what we have at this point.

Nathan is so awesome and set up the bed so I can just sit up in our bed to see her and how she is doing. We also put a basket full of breast feeding supplies by my night stand.

In Nate’s office, we are using the changing table we bought to house all the baby storage. I also packed up things we won’t need until later and labeled the boxes, “Molly’s stuff!” Too fun.

Oh, and I can’t forget to tell you about how I meticulously washed down all the molding and base boards in the room before we moved the baby stuff in. Nathan thought I was so funny, he took a picture!

I was pretty grossed out by the dust, as you can see!

Making progress… and an announcement!

The baby stuff is slowly finding places to live! In fact, I have my very first load of baby clothes in the wash right now! Its kind of weird putting all those tiny little items in there for the first time!

We set up our pack n play in the bedroom and stuck diapers and wipes underneath the bed for easy access. I placed a large wicker basket next to the baby bed to hold baby blankets and burp rags and set up the little changing attachment to the pack n play with a tub of wipes, butt paste, diapers, and all those little diapering goodies. We are planning on getting some sort of receptacle for the dirty diapers still. We heard that the bins marketed to hold dirty diapers are a waste of money and just to get a regular can with a lid. We’re looking into that still.  (Any input mommies would be appreciated!)

We are kind of going for function over form at this point. I’m not really setting up the whole nursery at this point. I’ve mentioned before that we are moving at the end of the summer. Some of you already know why… but I figured I’d better announce it to all my blogging friends who haven’t heard yet!

Nathan has been blessed with a full time job at our home church as the associate/youth pastor! We were totally blown away by this as we hadn’t even been pursuing it! Our pastor from back home came and offered us the job only a few days after Nathan’s position at school was eliminated! So praise the Lord! We are pumped and a little nervous at the same time, but I just can’t say enough what a blessing it is! The Lord is so good and His timing is so perfect.

Our plan is to move at the end of August. That way we have some time to get used to being parents and also avoid paying double rent! Our friends and family members are scouting out rentals for us, and some have already graciously offered to help us move! (We’ll need it as we’ll have a newborn and we have a lot of stuff!)

So, all that to say, my baby nursery is just a practical space right now– not the super cute little girlie haven I would like to create. But once we move… I have such plans!!