good tidings

you don't want these to be the only things you bring this year! if you're still looking for gifts these last few days before christmas, just wanted to share a few ideas. some of these are handmade, so you might not have as much to choose from...but hopefully they will have something in stock that will work for you:

1. the bluebird's feather is an etsy shop belonging to my friend jessica. she makes adorable scarves and headbands and things. you can facebook message her to see what she still has available! thebluebirdsfeather

2. lavender anne's belongs to another of my friends, kelly. she makes all sorts of bath goodies. LavenderAnnes

3. uncommon goods is a website i discovered about 5 minutes ago while doing some searching on my own. it's pretty neat. uncommongoods

hope these help!

exercise...

...your right to vote! today is oh-so-important. and if you live in a swing state, like north carolina, your vote is even more important.

so if you haven't already, give yourself a crash course on who is running, and what their stands are on all the issues. pay close attention to the issues you feel are most important to you, but don't overlook the others. you can do this! the internet is a beautiful thing. but stick to the candidate's or the party's website, to be sure you're getting correct information. this is a powerful right you have.

and as a side note, always remember that we live in the land of the free, because of the brave. (i'll never skip out on an opportunity to thank our service members, including my baby brother.)

love story

since the last several posts have not exactly been the most...fun, i decided to entertain you a little (hopefully). here i'm going to share with you mine and my husband's love story. i'm sure i might forget to include something, so if you happen to have any questions, feel free to comment and i'll gladly answer :)

once upon a time, a long long time ago, jake and i lived a long ways apart and didn't know each other. we both had numerous girlfriends/boyfriends (which, in hindsight, is NOT a good idea - i do not promote dating around. it hurts, and is a waste of time. anyway...). in particular, jake dated a very special girl. she passed away at far too young an age. i was engaged a few years ago. it was not right. we both had those very serious relationships that ended tragically, albeit very differently. fast forward to january 8, 2011. i needed a girl's night, and so went to greensboro with a couple of friends to eat and go dancin'. apparently, when i walked in, a certain someone had his eye on me. long story made a little shorter: jake and his friends ended up chatting with me and my friends. we all went downtown together. jake and i exchanged phone numbers that night, talked for over an hour on the phone every night that week, then he came to take me on a real date.

january 23, 2011: jake asked me to be his girl.

january 14, 2012: my sweet now-husband - man of few words as he is - simply said he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with me.

june 9, 2012: i changed my last name.

pinching pennies: cash

here are some more practical tips on how to save money. this is going to involve the things you use cash for (your envelopes).

• entertainment. we are still working on this, but it's been a fun adventure. some of the couponing blogs i subscribe to will give you codes to get a free redbox movie every now and then, and we never pass that up. we tend to hang out with our friends a lot, just over at someone's house; people are so much more important than things anyway. we also are trying to find fun, free, local entertainment. one example is: this august our library showed a free"hollywood noir" movie every monday night. so what if we were the only ones there? we enjoyed it. get creative with this!
• groceries. coupons!!! our grocery budget is supposed to cover not only food, but cleaning and health and beauty supplies as well. not to mention my mountain man husband eats more than anyone else ever in the universe! we could not afford to NOT use coupons. see the info on blogs i subscribe to for links.
• clothing. for one, we just don't go out and buy clothes. this envelope for us is for true needs. we have a goodwill, and thanks to a friend i have now been introduced to a couple of good consignment stores in our area. there is simply no reason to pay full price, or even retail sale price, for clothes.
• beauty. i paint my own nails now. this is the absolute hardest part for me, hands down. but i'll live. every now and then, if i get a little bonus or if we happen to have a little extra money, i might splurge. but honestly it's not a necessity.
• gas. we both have fuel-efficient cars. and don't make unnecessary trips to the store (because you ran out of toothpaste, for example -- couponing helps you avoid this!).

i hope these have been helpful. i'd love to hear ways some of you have cut back on your expenses!

pinching pennies: bills

as you are implementing your large-scale money makeover, i thought it might be helpful to give you some practical ideas on how to save money in different areas of your budget. here are ways that we are cutting back, even though though some may seem insignificant or - even worse - HARD:

• house payment. we bought a small house, got a great deal, and put a lot down. our house is not quite 1300 square feet, which is perfect for the two of us - but we have a full basement that we could finish should we desire to become duggar-esque (as my husband has hinted at having an interest in).
• electricity. our thermostat is set on 74 during the summer; we keep the curtains drawn and ceiling fans on. thermostat is at 65 during the winter; we keep the curtains open and snuggle. turn off appliances when not in use. use a clothesline.
• water. take showers instead of baths. hand-wash dishes more than using the dishwasher. only shower if you need it (this one sounds gross, i know. but i work part-time, on the weekends, so i really do not do all that much to get dirty during the week; wal-mart doesn't need me freshly bathed to do my grocery shopping. so it's not really a matter of living with being dirty, but rather a matter of logical cut-backs).
• trash. compost! 
• cell phones. go no-contract. for some of you, you feel this is a fate worse than death. it is not. having to go into hiding underground because you can't pay your bills is way worse. i think t-mobile has the iphone so you'll live. you can keep your old phone number. jake doesn't care at all about phones so his is a flip phone. i'll admit i'm a little more vain than that - i actually want to be able to use the internet - so i did recently get an android. we pay a total of $80/month for me to have unlimited talk/text/data and him to have whatever he needs. so worth it!
• cable. to be honest, we haven't really had to cut back in this area at all. where we live, everything is relatively inexpensive. we do have friends who have cancelled their cable and subscribe to netflix and hulu plus, and they have a little box thingy that picks up local channels (when we tried the box, however, we got a very static-y one channel). i think they pay a ridiculously low total of around $15/month.
• car payment. for one, his car is paid off. we both drive extremely reliable, family cars (a toyota corolla and honda accord) that we fully intend to drive into the ground. and my car payment is pretty low.
• car insurance. before we got married, i just walked into a local office for a quote, and cut my car insurance rate in half. after we got married, we combined ours, and our homeowners, and it's all extremely affordable. so just look around!

you can do this! there will be more tips next post, but this one is already long enough. and baby steps are the least painful way to take all of this on, anyway. good luck!

credit & finances 102

first of all, i have to give a shout-out. my sweet husband had a little birthday get-together for me over the weekend. after we ate, he and his brother tried to start a fire in out firepit...unsuccessfully. their 10-year-old cousin, JACE MCKINLEY HAYNES, suggested they try newspaper. after exhausting all other options, they tried newspaper. it worked. so thank you, jace, for making my birthday party a success :) i owe you a big ol' sloppy kiss! (and sorry to report there are still no plans for sports to appear anywhere on this blog)

and now back to the "fun" stuff...

1. if step 2 in the previous post did not apply to you because you have no credit cards (and never have), you may have patted yourself on the back. not so fast. right now i'm telling you to get a credit card. do not get a store card, like a gap card or a target card. go to your bank and sign up for a credit card. you have to have credit to buy a house. so get a credit card, go fill up your car with gas, and immediately go home and pay the bill online. you may do this once a month if you think you can, but ONLY if you immediately pay the bill.

2. make a budget. write down every single thing you pay for monthly, or even yearly (for this, figure out the amount you need to put back monthly). write down your bills first, then the flexible things. make sure the total of what you pay monthly is EQUAL TO what you make. if it's more than what you make, then guess what, cable becomes a "flexible" rather than a "bill" - cut it back to what you can actually afford. be sure to include amounts you're paying toward debt. which leads me to...

3. attack your debt! write out the minimum payments for each. for that smallest debt, see if there is any room in your budget to sacrifice something in order to pay double the minimum. for example, if you can get your hair done every 8 weeks instead of every 6, that gives you a little extra money - which you can put toward the debt. when you get that smallest one paid off, move to the next smallest; add what you were previously paying to the smallest debt (which you have at this point paid off) to the next smallest's minimum. keep snowballing these until everything is paid off. i say this like it'll happen next week. it won't. this will take a really long time. but you feel so great paying things off along the way! (and, if your situation changes, you have a little extra money freed up in your monthly budget to where you could go back to paying just the minimums on your debt, only now there are less to pay that on)

4. apply what you've learned from both credit & finances posts. when you feel comfortable with your new money practices - say, after maybe 6 months or so - go see a financial advisor. you do not have to have tons of money to do this. he will be able to help you see more long-term, and he may have some additional tips that (gasp) i may not even know about. this step in particular will be a very empowering one. you will feel like you really have a grasp on where you are, and where you're going, financially. it may take a while, but it will be so worth it.

and enjoy this! the rest of your peers are likely living a life they can't afford. they will leave their heirs nothing, or worse - debt. live within your means not only for your posterity, but for yourself. you will not have to worry about what you owe who (or whom?), or have to scrape by to pay the minimums on things you truly can't afford. this is such a freeing way to live :)

credit & finances 101

i'm going to give you a step-by-step guide to follow if you are serious about getting your finances in a better place than they are now. a lot of this i learned from dave ramsey, some from suze orman, and a little bit i can't remember where i learned it. this is how my husband and i do things, and our financial advisor was very proud the first time we met with him*! so without further ado...

1. paint your fingernails. seriously. this is not what you'd call a fun process, and at the end of today you might feel a little discouraged (and you might possibly feel like you'll never be able to afford a mani/pedi again. don't worry - you will). you will just feel better if you feel pretty.

2. cut up your credit cards! RIGHT NOW. do NOT close the accounts. just cut up the cards! this is extremely important.

3. anything that you can pay for with cash, make an envelope for. here are the ones we have (in no particular order): medicine/vitamins and supplements; entertainment; clothing; "blow" (fun money); weightlifting (this is not mine. jake is real big into it so he needs supplies...or whatever); home improvement; gifts; gas; beauty (hair, nails, makeup); eating out; groceries. we put the amount we've budgeted for each category into its envelope. if i don't feel like cooking but we don't have money in the eating out envelope, guess what? i cook. or go to my mother-in-law's house :) this way we never go over our budget in any particular category! (there are "envelope" systems you can do online if you don't want to use physical envelopes. i used to keep a spreadsheet of each category, and i kept everything in my checking account. that was a lot harder for me, and jake and i have just decided physical envelopes with actual cash keeps us much more disciplined.)

4. we follow the 10/10/80 plan. we give our first 10% to tithe (if you do not believe in this, i'm not going to force it on you. if you claim to be a christian, you really need to look into this - we are called to do it. however, any sort of charitable giving is important, regardless of your religion. i think you could teach your children the importance of concern for others. you could pick a cause you believe in, or a local food bank, or change it up every time. i just feel this is very important; and for me and jake, this is our first bill, every month, no matter what). the second 10% goes to savings. we pay our savings like a bill, second only to tithe. we have planned it this way from the very beginning and don't even consider our take-home pay to include this first 20%. it is vitally important to us that we never ever let up on these "bills". everything else comes from the remaining 80%.

5. make a list of your debts. since you now won't be accruing any more (thanks to those handy scissors from step 2!), this is a final list. at the top, put consumer debt - credit cards, store cards, line of credit (i.e. an overdraft credit line from your bank, which you have used). then list student loans. then cars, then home. you can kind of tell the order of importance i'm going with here, so if you have debts i didn't mention, just put them in there. within each category of debt, list the debt with the least amount owed first, then the second least amount owed, and so on. this is most likely a very discouraging thing for you to see. BUT you now have it on paper, and later we can make a plan to attack it!

that's all for today - and it's plenty! just do these five steps, and be open to changing your thinking about money. trust me, our household income is a whole lot lower than most people's, and lower than even what our friends think, i'm sure. but we have fun! and we do not have any needs that are un-met. we want to be debt-free (including the house) before our kids go to college, or preferably sooner, and we are on that track. you can be too! it is a lot easier once you actually get in to living a debt-free lifestyle. just trust me on this.

*you may remember i mentioned our financial advisor earlier. he told us about some clients he has who make $175,000/year. they pay $45,000/year in credit card bills. they pay more than we make. that's sad! it's awful! don't get to that point.