Our house was a disaster when we purchased it. We have fixed problems in EVERY SINGLE ROOM. It is never ending. Fortunately, I love a good DIY project. But with so many problems vying for our attention, sometimes a project falls through the cracks. A perfect example of this are the closet doors in our…
Category: Life
Cover up your wood! Fire wood, that is.
Years ago, we had to have a large tree taken down. Two actually. Just not at the same time. When we had the first one cut down, I told the tree service to leave the trunk and all the large branches. I was gonna cut me some fire wood. I ran up to my local…
Leaking Roof: The Worst $5,000 We Ever Spent
Remember a few weeks ago when I was excited to spend the child tax credit money we received? Those were good times. It’s fun to dream, but we aren’t doing any of those projects. Instead, we’re going to be replacing our leaking roof. We replaced our roof about 13 years ago. Unfortunately, we have had numerous…
Child tax credit: How to spend the money?
These are crazy times. The government keeps giving me money! Don’t get me wrong – I am thankful to receive it. But it’s a little weird that large sums of money are regularly being deposited into my checking account. Last week, we received $1,250 from our child tax credit. Technically, we were supposed to get…
Spending ALL our HSA Money
When it rains, it pours. Remember when I told you the story about our son meeting his health insurance deductible a month before it resets? Well, my youngest daughter decided to get in on the action too. Our poor little HSA has been put through the wringer. Last week, John and I were in our…
HSA Woes
Our family has a high deductible health insurance plan. We don’t have any chronic health problems, and we rarely go to the doctor. During a typical year, we save money with the high deductible policy. However, when things don’t go as planned, money starts flying out of our HSA. Last February, our oldest son started…
Sealing a deck and bringing it back to life
I am terrible when it comes to maintenance, which is why it has been about 12 years since I sealed our deck (or even cleaned it). Sealing a deck isn’t hard, I’m just really good at not maintaining things. As our two readers know, I am also not good at documenting home improvements. Luckily, this…
Saving for the future – June
I missed last month, but we are finally back up above $20,000 in our savings. With our federal tax return and the $1,000 of our normal savings we are up to $21,255. We earned $9.82 in interest. Only $18,745 left to get to our $40,000 goal to cover non-emergency emergencies (new car, etc.) In vacation…
Sleep’n Machine
I recently discovered our store, Designs On A Dime, was not active. I believe it was caused by the rebranding of Tee Spring to just Spring. Anyway, it is back up with a new addition (no pun intended). From now until August 31st, use the code SLEEP at check out to get 10% off the…
Working Toward Retirement – May
It’s been a turbulent month since my last retirement post. Last month we were $4,020 ahead and this month we are $1,908 behind. All in all though, we are gaining. We did hit a point where my work 401k dipped down to $98,000, but I’m glad to see that it is back up above $100k….