Making Cents Of It All

We have had a busy week. The laundry area is coming along nicely. Everything is painted and shelves went up. The dryer is hooked up and working. The washing machine is not hooked up because we are waiting for the the new hoses to arrive. I love that my vacuum fits in there now. It never has before. It always sat in the office because I didn't have any where to store it. I am love with the light. It just makes it look so much better.  I cooked another pumpkin. I still have one more in the basement to cook still.  I cleaned out the coat closet. We had so many gloves, scarves and hats. I donated a bag of each to my church outreach program. We also got rid a few coats, bags and board games. They were happy to have it all.  We ate really well this week. I grilled a bunch of chicken cutlets.We ate them with baked white and sweet potatoes and broccoli. The next night I made a big salad. We had pasta with veggies, and flank steak in the crock pot 2 other ...

Thank goodness for the HANDY HUBBY! I don't know what I would do without him. Youngest daughter did her sheets the other day while I was at work. She texted me saying something was wrong with the washing machine. She said everything came out dripping wet. I asked her did she accidentally shut it off mid cycle. It is in our kitchen and it has happened before. She said that she didn't but maybe my son or hubby did. She hung everything up to dry.  I went to do laundry 2 days later and low and behold, during the spin cycle the washer starts beeping with an error code. Hubby was home and looked it up online. It said clogged pump. So out came all of the soaking wet clothes that YD and I hung up. There was a puddle of water at the bottom of the washer so I bailed most of it out. Then hubby took apart my washing machine. There is a little filter in the pump to collect things that somehow make it down there. It was packed. $1.72 in coins, bobby pins, a button, a sock and lots o...

It was youngest daughter's 17th birthday this week. I don't know how that happened but she is growing up so fast. She is going to be a senior in high school this September. We have been narrowing down her college choices and she has been applying for lots of scholarships. She is also preparing for her road test. She has been driving me around to stores and when she needs to go somewhere.  All of YD presents were wrapped in gift bags or boxes that I already had. They are all put back in the tub for the next birthday. No garbage from unwrapping presents. Her cards were homemade.  Last weekend we went to see OD in Baltimore. We had a great time. While we were down there we checked out Towson College. It was beautiful. It is still on YD's list. While we were driving home on Tuesday we went to Rutgers University in NJ. She found it to be way to big for her. It was a nice school but it is HUGE. So it is now off of the list. We have 3 more schools to look at and then ...

Hubby took YD for 2 nights, 3 days to look at 3 colleges that she was interested in.They stayed at a hotel that was very reasonably priced and included breakfast. The hotel also had a coffee / hot chocolate bar and fruit available throughout the day. They enjoyed all of the above and even brought me home some other goodies since I wasn't able to go with them like originally planned.  They went to a Ghirardelli store where YD was treated to a milk shake by Hubby. They always are giving out free samples so Hubby took some for me since he can't have them. YD took some but ate hers. YD was also given  2 college t-shirts and 2 cinch sacks from the colleges for free. They had Chipotle one night and Hubby used a gift card he got for Christmas. I made them sandwiches for the car ride there for lunch and packed the extra cold cuts so they could make sandwiches another day for lunch. We still have several more colleges to visit but we now eliminated 2 of these 3.  The best ...

Dave Ramsey ! I listen to his podcast every day while I cook. I wish I had found out about him and his plan when I was in my 20's. He has really changed Hubby and my future. My son gave me a book of his for Mother's Day. I am loving it. Thanks Dave! Homemade mac n cheese! Quick and easy to make and so yummy. After work and then running around with YD I needed something easy so I made some for dinner. The great thing about it was I kept some pasta on the side for Hubby and put his non dairy cheese on his so he was happy too. Comfort food, you are wonderful. Star Wars! The new Solo movie is coming out tomorrow and I can't wait (Yes I'm a geek). Work is going to be crazy busy because of it but I don't care. Star Wars is worth it.  My son! He emptied the dishwasher and washed all the dishes. He is such a good person. He didn't have work today so he cleaned up around the house for me since I am working 6 days straight. I love the man he is bec...

My youngest daughter is getting her braces off today. She is very excited. Hubby and I are too, but for different reasons. Her getting braces was our first real test to pay cash instead of going into debt. We almost failed.  She had braces put on in January of 2016. We had gone to the dentist in September of 2015 and they said it was time for braces. She is my 3rd child and now she would be my 3rd to have gotten braces. I had done this before.  So I called our Orthodontist to set up a consult. Mid  October we were going to go in. The night before her appointment I had a realization. We were following Dave Ramsey's plan . We were getting out of debt and not taking on more. How were we going to pay for the braces? We had a $1,000 emergency fund but this wasn't a true emergency. How were we going to do this? My heart started racing and I started to get nauseous.  I hadn't thought about how we were going to pay for them. Our insurance covers nothing on b...

Retirement! What all working people dream about. The day that we can stop working and start doing whatever the heck we want. I want to travel. I want to spend time with my kids and (hopefully) grandkids. Hubby wants to work on cars. He likes to work on them now, so I could see him restoring a car. He also says he wants to relax. Maybe get someone to do our yard work. Dreams. They are good to have.  But a plan is even better. Hubby and I both work. He works full time and I work part time. It works for us now. It may change over the years. I may work full time once the kids are all gone. Hubby's job offers a Roth 401K with a match. My job offers a 401K with a match. We are currently putting about 15% into both of those plus the matches. We talk with our financial adviser as well. We want our money to work hard for us.   Could we be putting more into our retirement? Probably. We have a long term plan and we are sticking with it. We follow Dave Ramsey's  Baby ...