A friend contacted me last week to ask if I would watch her tiny 6 week old kitten for a few days. I thought our kids would get a kick out of it, so I volunteered to help her. She brought her kitten over on Monday afternoon, and we instantly fell in love with the little…
Working Toward Retirement – June
Hooray! We are back in the black this month – up $3,882. Anytime we have positive growth, it’s always a good feeling. One of these days I’ll get around to sharing my financial spreadsheet. More specifically, my compound interest calculator for retirement. Until I get the time to figure out how to record my screen…
The Cost of Remodeling a Kitchen Revisited
In January, Christy broke down some of the costs involved in remodeling our kitchen. There was a lot of work that went into this 4 month project, so I wanted to get a better view of our total cost. I went back through our credit card statements because I wanted to capture every thing from…
Hershey Park: Our First Trip During the Pandemic
We just got back from our first trip in nearly 2 years. I was feeling a little nervous about visiting Hershey Park with five children in tow during a pandemic, but it turned out to be a pretty awesome mini-vacation. For the first time in a long time, I felt like a normal person, living…
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…
You Get What You Pay For
When I was pregnant with our third child, John and I decided to buy new beds for our 2 older children. At the time, we didn’t have much money. After extensive shopping, we selected beds that looked decent, but were very budget friendly. This would have been a good plan, except that we should have…
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…
5 Chores to Prepare Children for Adulthood
Growing up in the 80’s, I received a weekly allowance. Like all of my friends, my allowance was based on cleaning my room. I can tell you now, I never cleaned my room. Despite my laziness, most weeks I still received my $5. I definitely wasn’t learning about the value of work or even how…
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….
Vacation: A low-key summer get away
After a full year of isolation, John and I decided to book a vacation for the summer. I wanted to go somewhere that wouldn’t be overcrowded, but near water – preferably a lake. Also, I didn’t want to travel too far from home (2 year olds aren’t great with long car trips). Since we live…