Ryan - Today we decided to buy a new fixture for our shower, because the existing one has been broken since we've owned the home. The reason we decided now was because of the student living with us. So I went to Home Depot and got it for $8. Talking to Lizzy today, we decided to return it and just deal with it. I like that we are back to truly analyzing our spending and distinguishing between want and need.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Days 134-142 (December 28th-January 5th)
Ryan - I know I spoke about keeping up on our blog. Our goal hit a speed bump, which I'll let Lizzy explain. We were tempted to not do our goal anymore and then decided to post only when we deemed important. But with encouragement from family, we will keep entering our adventures daily.
I suppose this is natural to have a set back and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow stronger in areas of our weakness. I'm glad to be back on track. I'd hate to give up now since we've gone so long at a steady (not perfect) pace.
Just to bring our situation up to date. We took on a Korean student in our home, to help out a friend and make some extra money. Her name is So Hui and she doesn't speak much English, but we are getting by. She's really nice and quiet (due to her nature and language barrier). We had to buy some bedding for her. We had to use the paint we were going to use to finish up our hallway, but Jack's bedroom need to be painted since she was going to stay in his room, so we thought it would be a good time for painting it. We did by some tape for painting the room. We borrowed a picture from Lizzy's mother to have something on the walls.
A big struggle with the temperatures dropping so low here in Utah is our windows let in so much of the cold. I'm sure our heating bill is a lot higher because of this. The frames are forming ice inside and then they melt and peal the paint back around the windows. By coincidence, a window company called and asked if they could estimate a cost to replace our windows in your home. I agreed to have them come by. We weren't going to buy, but I was curious about the price. Well it was a lot to say the least. Three window in our living room were going to cost $3000 at their "wholesale" price. Our neighbor across the street is getting 13 windows done for $4600. Of course the sales person said that he'll be replacing them in 3-4 years and they guarantee theirs for the life, because they are much better quality. This may be a good deal, but my mind thought, if we stay in our house for another 10 years and we can't afford the higher priced windows, we might as well stay pat and save our money, because we'll have to buy new windows in 3-4 years and that would equal the cost of the more expensive windows. That being said, when we do have money, I think we should get new ones, you can feel the cold air penetrate inside when you stand next to the windows. I think our utilities savings may justify this as well. We just need to decide if we are going to stay long term in this house. If we are then we should replace the window immediately after we decide to start saving on utilities. One thing I did learn is that we sometimes justify the need for quality to spend more money. Which I'm all for, but you need to decide if you'll be able to recoup the cost over the long term. Another factor to include is to determine if it's a want or a need. Most of the time if it's a want, then the cheaper priced item is the wise choice and conversely, if it's a need, quality generally is the way to go as the extra cost will be justified by savings in the long term.
Yesterday (January 5th), I started the truck in the morning and put on the emergency brake. Lizzy was going out to her car and asked where the truck was (thinking it was stolen). We'll it was worse than that. It rolled across the street and down our hill and ran over our neighbors mailboxes and knocked down the street light. I ran out immediately and moved the truck and called the power company. Later that day, I had to buy new post for the mailboxes and spend my evening installing them. It took just over an hour, but it cost me about $60 in those repairs and who know how much the power company will charge for the damage to the light pole. We may have to let the insurance pay for it once we cover the deductible.
Losses:
Total $3693.60 - "want" spending (TBD by Lizzy)
I suppose this is natural to have a set back and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow stronger in areas of our weakness. I'm glad to be back on track. I'd hate to give up now since we've gone so long at a steady (not perfect) pace.
Just to bring our situation up to date. We took on a Korean student in our home, to help out a friend and make some extra money. Her name is So Hui and she doesn't speak much English, but we are getting by. She's really nice and quiet (due to her nature and language barrier). We had to buy some bedding for her. We had to use the paint we were going to use to finish up our hallway, but Jack's bedroom need to be painted since she was going to stay in his room, so we thought it would be a good time for painting it. We did by some tape for painting the room. We borrowed a picture from Lizzy's mother to have something on the walls.
A big struggle with the temperatures dropping so low here in Utah is our windows let in so much of the cold. I'm sure our heating bill is a lot higher because of this. The frames are forming ice inside and then they melt and peal the paint back around the windows. By coincidence, a window company called and asked if they could estimate a cost to replace our windows in your home. I agreed to have them come by. We weren't going to buy, but I was curious about the price. Well it was a lot to say the least. Three window in our living room were going to cost $3000 at their "wholesale" price. Our neighbor across the street is getting 13 windows done for $4600. Of course the sales person said that he'll be replacing them in 3-4 years and they guarantee theirs for the life, because they are much better quality. This may be a good deal, but my mind thought, if we stay in our house for another 10 years and we can't afford the higher priced windows, we might as well stay pat and save our money, because we'll have to buy new windows in 3-4 years and that would equal the cost of the more expensive windows. That being said, when we do have money, I think we should get new ones, you can feel the cold air penetrate inside when you stand next to the windows. I think our utilities savings may justify this as well. We just need to decide if we are going to stay long term in this house. If we are then we should replace the window immediately after we decide to start saving on utilities. One thing I did learn is that we sometimes justify the need for quality to spend more money. Which I'm all for, but you need to decide if you'll be able to recoup the cost over the long term. Another factor to include is to determine if it's a want or a need. Most of the time if it's a want, then the cheaper priced item is the wise choice and conversely, if it's a need, quality generally is the way to go as the extra cost will be justified by savings in the long term.
Yesterday (January 5th), I started the truck in the morning and put on the emergency brake. Lizzy was going out to her car and asked where the truck was (thinking it was stolen). We'll it was worse than that. It rolled across the street and down our hill and ran over our neighbors mailboxes and knocked down the street light. I ran out immediately and moved the truck and called the power company. Later that day, I had to buy new post for the mailboxes and spend my evening installing them. It took just over an hour, but it cost me about $60 in those repairs and who know how much the power company will charge for the damage to the light pole. We may have to let the insurance pay for it once we cover the deductible.
Losses:
Total $3693.60 - "want" spending (TBD by Lizzy)
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Day 132-133
Monday
Ryan - I have to admit a weakness of mine. When buying things, I prefer the expensive and/or the shinny cool thing over the cheap dull looking thing. For example, On Christmas Eve, I had to buy a new mouse for my work computer, because we had accidentally washed the other one and then I broke it trying to fix the wheel. Anyways, I found the exact model of the one I use to have, and then I saw a cheaper one that pretty much did the same thing as the one I use to have. Well at first I pretended not to notice it (i.e. ignored it) and proceeded to get the one that I thought was cool looking. Then but I knew I was being materialistic and I thought of our goal and said, I can't, so I picked the cheaper one. Of course I felt disappointed, but It was the right choice. These are the things I need to fight. This will be a big savings if I can master this impulse.
Tuesday
Ryan - Well we didn't go shopping over the weekend and so selections were pretty slim. Luckily I made some pasta the night before and so I packed that for lunch. We were out of Oatmeal and had no milk for cereal, so I just guzzled a glass of OJ and took some snacks to tide me over til lunch.
Savings:
$6 (Cheaper mouse) + $6 (Lunch at work)
Total Savings: $3693.60
Ryan - I have to admit a weakness of mine. When buying things, I prefer the expensive and/or the shinny cool thing over the cheap dull looking thing. For example, On Christmas Eve, I had to buy a new mouse for my work computer, because we had accidentally washed the other one and then I broke it trying to fix the wheel. Anyways, I found the exact model of the one I use to have, and then I saw a cheaper one that pretty much did the same thing as the one I use to have. Well at first I pretended not to notice it (i.e. ignored it) and proceeded to get the one that I thought was cool looking. Then but I knew I was being materialistic and I thought of our goal and said, I can't, so I picked the cheaper one. Of course I felt disappointed, but It was the right choice. These are the things I need to fight. This will be a big savings if I can master this impulse.
Tuesday
Ryan - Well we didn't go shopping over the weekend and so selections were pretty slim. Luckily I made some pasta the night before and so I packed that for lunch. We were out of Oatmeal and had no milk for cereal, so I just guzzled a glass of OJ and took some snacks to tide me over til lunch.
Savings:
$6 (Cheaper mouse) + $6 (Lunch at work)
Total Savings: $3693.60
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Day 131
Ryan - Well we survived the hardest part (upto date) of our goal. It will fun to actually get Lizzy and neighbor's some gifts. Being Sunday, the family was still sick, so only I went to church and of course no spending too.
Day 130
Merry Christmas!!!!!!
Ryan - Well even if we wanted to, we couldn't spend money, because nothing is open. Whew.
We had fun Christmas with the Mullen family and Grandma Switzer. Of course it all centered around Gracie and her reactions to the her gifts.
Ryan - Well even if we wanted to, we couldn't spend money, because nothing is open. Whew.
We had fun Christmas with the Mullen family and Grandma Switzer. Of course it all centered around Gracie and her reactions to the her gifts.
Day 129
Ryan - Well, it was nice to have the "day" off. I had to do some side job work, but by 11:00, the Christmas celebration began. We spent the day getting things ready to spend the night at Grandma Mullen's. The party started around 5 pm and it didn't stop until midnight for some, and 4 am for others. Gracie made cookies for Santa. Since I could not buy a gift for Lizzy, I made her a coupon book full of "Honey Do's". We'll see if she likes it.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Day 128 (Wednesday)
Ryan - Lizzy hasn't written on the for quite some time. In all fairness though, our whole family has been really sick and just getting out of bed is a real chore. I've been coming to work this week, because I used all my vacation days. Thank goodness no one else is here, so I don't get them sick. Today, I finally broke down and bought some tissues w/lotion. My nose is raw, and toilet paper feels like sandpaper. I used all my bosses tissues while he's been out of the office, so I had to buy him a new box.
I knew this time of the season would be the hardest part of our goal, but I didn't think it would be for this reason. For the last 5-6 days, we have been getting gifts and treats from all our neighbors and friends. When we lived here last time, we didn't get any, so I was expecting this sort of outpouring of gifts. One of our neighbors got our kids big gifts. I don't know what to do, because we weren't planning on doing anything.
I knew this time of the season would be the hardest part of our goal, but I didn't think it would be for this reason. For the last 5-6 days, we have been getting gifts and treats from all our neighbors and friends. When we lived here last time, we didn't get any, so I was expecting this sort of outpouring of gifts. One of our neighbors got our kids big gifts. I don't know what to do, because we weren't planning on doing anything.
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