Time for a Check-In

Its been a while since I posted last.
Honestly, sometimes life just gets in the way!

We have been busy since we moved to New Hampshire, mom and I have been planting gardens, and tending the yard harder than I thought possible. Between getting the vegetable garden going, and putting in two new gardens (one for pumpkins and one for flowers).  And I have been enjoying every minute of it.


Now, getting down to the "Personal" finance aspects of things.

I am up to 32 hours a week at work! FULL TIME BABY. It happened much, much quicker than I had anticipated. In two and a half more months I will be eligible for company health, dental, and vision insurance, and I have to be honest, I could not be happier about it. As of right now, I am accruing my PTO. I also get PAID holidays. Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that I would be receiving Money, to sit at home and enjoy the fireworks on the fourth of July. On top of it all I Love My Job. 
Not that it's not tough. I work with disabled adults, so it has its challenges, but at the end of the day, I feel like I have accomplished something really meaningful.

I also have Money in Savings!... Not much, and most of it will be depleted shortly, when Auston goes back to Florida to get his car. But still, we steadily add to it each week. And that is something I have never been able to do before. So I am proud.

We are also sound enough to take $50 out of each paycheck (every two weeks) and put it towards a date night. So we get to go out and do something small every weekend, which is lovely.
I got the idea after seeing my grandmother go out every Friday night with Grampy.

We take $100 every two weeks and go grocery shopping, so the food has been good! In Florida we went maybe once a month, and food in the house was scarce to say the least. And we definitely didn't have Snacks. So that has me stoked too, we hardly actually spend the $100, so leftovers gets put aside for later.

All in all, things are looking up. Its still tight for us, and we are about to enter into some more bills as we take over the house this month, but we are making it. We have room to move too, I can cut back on things if I have to, like date night, so I'm not to panicked.

Now, A briefing on my up and coming wedding! AHHHH.
We set the date for June 23rd, 2013.

A few weeks ago I bought my dress. And my Veil. And a beautiful necklace made with crystals and pearls. And my Sexy Undergarments. All for $1,085. Can you Say heck yea?!
The dress is truly beautiful, and I couldn't be happier with it.
The best part is that they are letting us make payments. We put $100 down and my mom and I are splitting the cost, so I pay $60 a month, it will be paid off by January. Which is awesome.

We are going simple for the wedding, we are having in the yard. And paying for things as we go throughout the year. That way the financial toll won't be too bad.

And there you have it! I will try and update more often. Shame on me :)

Old school, but still awesome

So the other day mom and I were talking about the new bills we were going to have to pay once her boyfried moves out and the house becomes ours. There were so many things that I just couldn't keep my head straight and I was trying to tally it up and come up with a rough estimate of what our monthly bill total will be and I just couldn't. Mainly because we still aren't sure about a few things. Like whether or not we would have cable or Netflix, or whos name would go under certain bills.

I was getting a bit anxious. I've been waiting tables or bartending for over two years now and the thought of living on a paycheck instead of tips is a bit strange. So I was thinking and thinking about how to keep the bills straight, so I wouldn't overspend and be caught off guard.

This is what I came up with -

I went to the store and bought a big sheet of bright colored poster paper. On the top of it I wrote Month, followed by Bill #1, #2-10, EF contribution, Car Savings and finally the total of it all for each month. Then I made lines for each column, wrote the months going along the left hand side and proceeded to fill it in.

I am really happy with it because now I have a way to keep the bills straight, and I made sure to include enough columns so if a random bill we don't typically have like gifts, or a trip to the vet comes up we can factor that in for the month as well.

I'm going to post it up in my kitchen, where I can be sure to see it everyday.

I know this idea isn't new by any means, but for me it seemed to be the easiest way to keep up with it all.

The board isn't beautiful. I'll probably make a new one and lamanate it and make it SUPER awesome later on, but for now this works.

What about you? How do you keep the bills straight?

Its Official.

I recieved my tax return yesterday!Which means that I am officially ready to move.

Of course, all the money I have saved up only covers "the moving" part of this new endevor, but I should be recieving plenty in the next couple of weeks to help with the transitional phase as well.

I also recieved another W2 that I wasn't expecting, so now I have to go file some ammended taxes. All that really means is a little more money for me though! Seriously, who's going to be upset about that? Not this girl.

My car insurance is getting paid tomorrow, and that is our last official bill, so my last two paychecks should be going towards fixing up my 1994 civic for the long haul. Poor Baby - she's going to hate me. I'll have to buy her a new bumper sticker.

Not a whole lot has been going on here, just a lot of working. And Planning.

We have been eating out a ton! because we aren't in our own place anymore. I didn't think this would upset me as much as it does, but I am really not happy. I will have to make more of an effort to buy easy meals to cook here. I can't wait to get back into my own place, with my own kitchen.

I also plan on participating in Carla's mini challenge this week. I just have to figure out who to send something special to.