Sunday, May 2, 2010

Remember those New Year's Resolutions?

No? Maybe? Well I do. For real.

While we do eat a little better, the getting fit part hasn't been going so well. Once we moved into the new house, all exercising stopped. I'm not really sure why, and I am thinking of a way to remedy this issue. Getting outside is an option now that the weather is warming up. Although we've had a few days of rain lately, so that's no fun. We need it though, the forest fighters have had a very busy season!

Getting financially fit was our other goal. I have to admit, this is the hardest for me. With the new job comes a nice paycheck. And I am a spender. There are no two ways about it, I like to shop. I like to needlessly spend money just because. The first step is admitting I have a problem, right?

Really, the number in our bank account just got to my head for a little bit. After so many months (ok, like a year) of only having $100 or less (usually much less) after the bills, it's nice to have some breathing room. I've been doing a little crazy spending. Not dangerous, get us in trouble spending, just more than I'm used to. We need a spare bed for when company comes over, so off we went to the clearance furniture store. They were having a sale, 25% off non-sale items. At least I learned one thing in my thrifty days: never pay full price for anything. We found a very comfy pillow-top mattress for about $550 after the sales price. Not to exciting, but I could deal with that.

Now, did I mention that I like to shop? Travis should have blindfolded me and led me in and out of the bedding section without having to drool over all the other furniture. Dear hubby and I had just been talking about getting a sectional sofa for the family room. We looked online to get a feel of what we liked, but all the sofas we liked were "backwards" for the way we wanted the couch to set up. And Travis wanted a chaise end - he's a big fan of laying down.

So as we wandered around the showroom, all of a sudden, there it was: the perfect shaped sectional sofa. It was like a beam of light came down and the angels sang! Even better? It was on sale! $999 for the perfect microfiber sectional sofa with a chaise? How could we resist!? You would have thought Travis would have at least given me the "oh honey, we don't have to get it right now" routine. But he put up no resistance. The couch had sucked him in too.

After spending a butt ton of money, we decided to sit down and re-evaluate our budget. We already had one in place that was working quite well for us, but with the new paychecks I wasn't ever sure how much we actually had left over. Or if we even had anything left over given my spending. So some rough math skills and an hour later, we had it all figured out. And we do have money left over at the end of the month! And we can pay off Trav's student loan!

It feels good to get it all out there and be honest about money. It feels even better to be making strides with one of my goals. One month at a time.

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