Fall Fun

We had a good weekend. Didn't have to much on the agenda, so that was nice. We went out to Schusters and did the corn maze, hayride and bonfire thing with our church and had a great time! I just really enjoyed getting out to do something fun!

We met with our window guy on Sunday afternoon and finally settled on our contract for new windows. So scary! I've been stressing out about all of the costly home repairs that have come up lately and yesterdays message at church was so timely. It was all about having faith and trusting God with everything. I know in my heart that everything I have is really not mine, but God's anyway, but still I've been pretty stressed about all of the major expenses that have come up for us in the recent months and weeks.

Steve and I feel a peace about this stupid $4,500.00 window investment, but I just couldn't help but find myself stressing out about this major purchase anyway. It was so good for me to be reminded that regardless of what is in our bank account God is in control and has always provided for our every need. We always pray together about major decisions - especially when it involves money and we feel in our hearts that this home repair is one that needs to be made. As stressful as major purchases are, I felt so good yesterday after we finalized the details with the contractor. I sure was getting sick of having different companies in our home every other day for estimates. I know we did our homework and found the best deal for a quality product, but actually sitting down and signing the contract was still overwhelming. I felt the same way both times that we've purchased homes as well. Once it's all said and done though, I have such a peace when I know we've made the right decision.

I am just so, so grateful for a God that cares about every detail of our lives - big and small. I'm glad I can rest easy at night knowing that no matter what comes our way God is in control - always has been and always will be. Thank God (literally!) for that, because if I had to depend on myself to figure things out, I would be up a creek without a paddle.

Next on the home repair agenda? A new heater. I know that someday we will be so grateful for all of these home repairs once we decide to sell our house - I just gotta keep reminding myself of that.

Babies and Bargains

Here I am on a Saturday morning at 6:30 am. Why can't I ever get this sleeping in thing down? I even stayed up past 1:00 last night (a rarity for me) and still could only sleep an extra half hour this morning.
Hopefully I won't be paying for it later.
The only thing on earth that could make me stay up so late was that we were hanging out with the cutest thing EVER last night.....
I guess her parents are okay to, but she was by far the cutest entertainment of the evening.

Back to my not sleeping in. I woke up at 6:15 and couldn't stop thinking of all the things I needed to do this morning. One of them was updating "the list." If you somehow think I might be a cool person that is completely not a geek when it comes to planning or that I am not psychotically way to over-detailed, stop reading now. I wouldn't want to ruin your perfect image of me as a normal human being.

Back to "the list"....I created this spreadsheet a few weeks ago, back when I was at home sick and miserable for a few days. One column is full of things that we already have for the baby and the other column is filled with things I could think of off the top of my head that we need for the baby. Obviously the "need" side of the spreadsheet is WAY bigger than the "have" side.
So, I've been finding these great bargains lately and have been THRILLED that I can start editing my list by moving items from the "need" to "have" category. All of the above is why I could not allow myself to sleep in this morning, since my list was so out of date and every item was not in the correct column.
Wanna see what I was losing sleep over?
Three - count them, three items! Yes, I am a nerd. I was so excited about my purchases though, that I just couldn't wait to "log" them. Wanna guess how much I spent total on all of this stuff? $15!!! Amazing, eh? The best looking part of these items is the pretty little read clearance tag on the corner!

Of course, you can guess the items were purchased at my favorite place to shop....Target! I have this little routine down - on Tuesday and Fridays I work in my Fitchburg office, which is conveniently located down the street from Super Target, so I always stop in there to check out the deals. Friday is usually my "jackpot" day because I've learned they that they do new mark-downs on their current clearance items on Friday morning. Yep, the geek is truly coming out, because I am SO excited just thinking about this! I just love a good bargain!

So, all in all, I got a crib bumper, sleep positioner and a vibrating chair thing (I really don't know what it's called) for a total of $15. The vibrating chair was the big ticket item, ringing in at a whopping $9.00!

Anyway, now that my list is up to date and my life is no longer coming to an end, maybe I'll relax for a few hours until my lovely husband wakes up.
Hope you're all having a great weekend!

New Find!

I found this great new website that I'm thrilled with! I was reading about it in my Real Simple magazine and I signed up and now I'm hooked. It's called Mint.com.
It's basically a free website that will help you manage your money and budget. All you have to do is sign up and then individually add each of your accounts (checking, savings,credit cards, mutual funds, 401k's, etc.). From there it updates the balances on those account daily.
It also imports all of your info and will show you exactly where your money is going. You can set up a budget and tell the program how much you want to budget for gas that month and it will automatically update your budget and where you money is going as your spending it. You don't have to go through receipts and enter that amounts you spent that day. Obviously if you buy everything with cash that's not going to work for you. For us it's perfect as we put everything on credit card for the rewards we get and then just pay our entire credit card bill off every month.

Steve & I really liked to save money, but I'll be honest I'm just too lazy to budget and enter everything into spreadsheets and such, so this is just perfect! I'm so glad I heard about this site and wanted to share in hopes that it will help someone else as much as I think it's going to help us!