Saturday, June 25, 2011

Running thru life.... Honey Do List

This summer my hubby has started to work the 9/80 work schedule. 
This means you work 80 hours in 9 days instead of 10
(every two weeks you have a day off during the day.) 
I have been doing this for almost three years now at my current job
and having been trying to convince Joe to do it.

He broke down and starting in June he is working the 9/80. 
It is good for him to have down time, relax, sleep in, etc.
It is good for me because I can leave him with a "Honey Do List." 
Before he started the 9/80 I would spend my day off doing nothing but running errands so I would not have to much stuff to do on the weekend.  Now that he has off, we can split things up.

So yesterday my "Honey Do List" consisted of:
- DSW  (He needs new shoes- I had coupons that were about to expire)
- Clemson's food from Petsmart
- Gift for Joe's Sister's Birthday
- Reschedule crawl space door installation

It took him less than 2 hours to complete everything
and now we have even less errands to run this weekend. 

I heart "Honey Do List"....

Friday, June 24, 2011

Running thru life.... Tri Tri

This week my husband emailed me with a link to the DC tri which will be June 17, 2012. 


I have been wanting to do a tri since I started running. 
I grew up swimming and even completed in club in College. 
Now that I am a "runner," all I need to add in is biking. 

The DC Tri Sprint is broken down as follows
.8K swim= 1/2 mile swim
20K bike= 12.5 mile bike
7.5 K run= 4.66 mile run

I am so torn on what to do- fortunantely I have a couple months to decide. 
This is something I would love to do but it would be a investment both in training time
(which I can make time for) and also equipment. 
It would require me renting a wet suit, repairing my bike tires, etc. 

I have already told my husband that I am running the Disney Princess Half Marathon
next year because it is on my bucket list and so is a Sprint Tri and a Full Length Tri. 
This Tri is a sprint but it actually quite lengthy for a sprint - some sprints are only 1/4 mile swim, 
7 mile bike, and 2-3 mile run. 
These are the ones I have found which I just do not feel like it would challege me enough. 
The DC Tri Sprint would be perfect. 
The full tri which I am considering-  is
1.5 k swim=  .93 miles
40 k bile= 24.85 miles
10 K rune= 6.2
So the Big difference is in the bike. 

My plan is to start training in September and see how I do...... maybe it will be the sprint or the full. 
My husband is trying to decide if this is something he is going to do with me. 
Only time will tell.
On to my next quest... the Tri

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Running thru life.... Money challenge Part 2

The food part of our bill/budget is the easiest to help tame back. 
The rest is hard. 
Our major expenses are as follows

Car Maintence/Gas- Can not really do anything different than we are already doing.

Clothes/ Household shopping- Again we do not do alot of this.  Maybe a $150 a month between the two of us. 

So we came up with some ideas

1) Use our gift cards
We found that we still had a couple gift cards left over.
I has one from Sephora, 2 from VISA,  2 from Itunes, 2 from Ann Taylor, and a small Dunkin Donuts one.
Joe has 2 Amazon gift cards and a couple Starbucks.

2)Discuss any purchase over $40 with each other.  Yes I know $40 does not seem like alot but it forces us to talk about what we are spending money on and evaluate if it is something we need. 

3)Major Projects are done for now.  The past two years we have had major work done to our house- the kitchen redone and a patio installed.  The only semi big projects we have left are 1) Our bathroom which I am planning on in the fall 2) Painting which will probably not get done till 2012.  Both of these are considerably smaller compaired to our previous projects. 

4)Clemson- I will be giving him haircuts from now on since I do just as good of job as Petsmart, Barks & Bubbles, etc.  This is almost $80, 4-5 times a year totaling 320-400 dollars we save.

5) Continue to cut Joe's Hair- yeap I cut my husbands hair!!!  Saves us about 15 dollars a month or 180 a year.

6) No more alcohol purchases.  We have been given so many bottles of wine over the last year and also liquor gifts from Christmas.  We need to use what we have instead of buying new.  Also instead of always getting a drink with dinner we can have one when we get home. 

7) Setting limits of gifts.  This is something new I came up with year to start being fare because we have a decent amount of family members and friends with birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, weddings, etc.  We did this year for Christmas- we spent the same amount on each family member and the same amount on the couple gifts we bought for friends.  It worked well especially when my husband shops separately for things, it let us both know what we could spend. 

8) Using some of our Credit Card Points.  We have two credit cards- 1 we use primarily and the other one we save for big expenses.  We have not cashed in any of our points since we got married.  So we cashed in our points on one of our cards and it almost paid for the cost of our Ipad.... not too bad!!!  We plan on saving the rest of the points on our other card for a rainy day.

9) Finding fun things to do this summer that are free like the pool, taking Clemson swimming.

What suggestions can you make???

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Running thru life.... Money challenge Part 1 Food

Now that we have settled down from our trip to Greece and my birthday has passed it is back to reality. 
In the next couple of weeks we will be meeting with a financial planner and while I know we are ahead of most (i.e Putting money in our 401K thru our jobs,  putting money in a  401K we have privately, at least a certain % each month put into savings) I want to save more now while we can. 

Our goal this summer is to start spending less on stupid stuff and saving more and/or investing. 

So my hubby and I sat down and analyzed our spending and found a couple ways to decrease spending:

First Area:  FOOD!

This is the area that we feel we can decrease the most.
So here are ways we found to help us. 

1) Decrease our unnecessary grocery store trips to Wegmans
Yes it might be cheaper to go every week and just get a couple things. 
However, what is happening to us is- we decide we want something and run to the grocery store instead of making due with what we have in the house.  We live right next to a Wegmans which is sometime a curse.   Now if we need something that is different than if we just would like to have something. 

2) Decrease our Costco trips
I looked last year and we went to Costo 12 times (so almost once a month). 
This in my opinion is too often for what we use Costco for.  We use costco for toiletries like toilet paper, laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, meats you can freeze, etc.  Ideally, I would like to space them out to twice a month or every 1 1/2 months. 

3) Decrease our eating out
This is a cutback we made without noticing last semester when Joe was in PhD school.  OMG!! It is amazing how much money we are saving.  Last week we ate out once and it was Friday night when we split a Chipotle Bowl.  Our goal has two parts  1) Decrease eating out to once a week (twice max if it is a special occassion)  2) Make more ecominical decisions regarding eating out.    Of course with special celebration there is always wiggle room here for birthdays, etc. 

4) Use what we have
This weekend I went thru the kitchen and really organized what we have.  I found over 50 + tea bags we accumulated from different events (I attended 3 bridal tea showers over 2 years).  So this summer instead of spending money on Crystal Light or drinks we will be making ice tea. 
Another example is we have left over rolls from a party we had that have been in the freezer.  Joe will now start using those to make his tuna fish sandwitches instead of buying bread. 
Another example- this weekend we having the family over for Father's Day.  We have recieved alot of wine over the year as gifts for various occassions.  So this weekend we picked three bottles to serve instead of buying new wine. 

5) Bring our lunches.
We are actually both really good about this.  Me because I am lucky if I get 20 minutes for lunch and Joe because he has to leave his building to get lunch which cuts into his hours.  Bring lunches can save you a tremedous amount.  If you figure $8 a day for lunch (Cost of Chiptole Burrito + Soda) x 5 days is $35.  Multiple that by 5 - $175 a month.  Multiple it by 12 - $2100 a month!!! On my goodness- Joe went to Greece for the cost of that!!!

6) Planting plants
In our previous summers we have a couple veggies/herbs that we love. 
Basil
Mint
Zuccinne
Squash
Red Onion
Tomotatoes

Well this year for the cost of less than $20 I planted everything.
Our mint is taking over.
Our Basil is out of control.
Our squash and zuccine are flowering
Our tomatoes on  the vine - currently green
Our onions are getting bigger.
Our bell pepper is not doing so well.

Side note- I am still using our dryed rosmary from last summer!!!

7) Stick to the grocery list or Costco list.  I have been a big fan of this but lately have been slacking just because of lack of time.  When I actually make a list I start a week before and go thru what we have and what we need.  So Joe went to Costco a couple weeks ago for me with list in hand and came back with everything on the list and nothing more.  I find this is really important when you go to costco because you can easily rack up a big on stupid little things.  Wednesday night we went to the grocery store, again list in hand, and returned home with everything on the list and nothing more.  Occassionally you think of something else but sticking to a list decreases you buying double items, wasting money, etc

So these are the ways we are looking to save on our food spending. 
Can you think of any more
Up next.... Other areas to save

Monday, June 20, 2011

Running thru life... Pregnancy/Birth and Facebook

Recently the Washington Post had an article about Pregnant woman posting things on facebook/twitter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pregnant-women-and-families-are-sharing-photos-and-more-on-facebook-web-sites/2011/05/03/AG90nNPH_story.html

So of course being that I work with pregnant women all day, people asked me my thoughts.

The image that comes to my head is a husband texting back and forth to family members when he should be supporting his wife, or the woman who was texting seconds after she delivered instead of holding her child. 
This whole concept annoys me!!!

Birth and pregnancy is truely a beautiful thing and a personal thing!!
It is between you, your spouse and your baby. 
Enjoy that moment- because you will never ever get it back!!!

I am blessed to do what I do everyday and getting to bring babies into the world. 
I still occassionally get teary at a birth.
But the births that I remember the most are the intimate ones- the ones with mom and dad working as a team to get this little one into the world.

So when your baby is born- yes it is you instinct to grab that phone and call people or post it on facebook, etc- put your computer/phone down. 
Hold you baby, hug your wife, your husband and enjoy the moment!. 

I have been fortunate to be on the slow train in my life events- i.e getting engaged and then married.  Most of my friends went before us and so they offered alot of advise.  The two good pieces of advice I got were
1) When you get engaged- enjoy the moment.
Joe and I did not call anyone for a couple hours and when we did call someone it was just our parents. 
The next day we called everyone. 
It was nice just having that special time to spend together. 

2) When you get married- have a couple minutes to yourself. 
After we walked back down the isle as a married couple our wedding planner pushed us off into a room where we could just have a couple minutes with each other.  It was so nice to just have this time together!!

So if I do ever have children, my births will be done in a similar fashion. 

Posting during the pregnancy on facebook I have mixed thoughts about- I totally understand posting "I am pregnant"  or "I am due...." but anything beyond that is crazy to me just because I am an extremely private person when it comes to my body and what I am going thru.  Also, I see in no need to post some stuff because the people I would want to know I would call and talk to- I do not want every single friend on facebook knowing my intimate details.   I totally realize that this is a personal decision but just consider what want to post before you post it (remember anyone who is your friend can read it!!)

What are your thoughts....

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Running thru life....Happy Hydrangea

Some women love getting flowers from their man.  
Everyone has a favorite flower just like I have mine....
After 7 years of being together my husband knows my favorites....

I love everything Hydrangeas!!!

So I was plesantly suprised when I came home Friday afternoon to two huge hydrangea plants sitting on our front door step.  One pink and one blue.  

 

We already have three that surround our tree in the front yard but I have been looking for a couple more to completely make a cirlce around the tree however, I am not willing to pay 40-50$ per plant at Home Depot or Meadow Farms.  

Joe picked them up for me at Costco-  20$ each so 40$ totaly.  
I am in love...


Joe helped me plant them yesterday......
So Happy.....
Flowers that keep on giving!

Thanks Joe!!!