Running thru life... A good habit

I follow a couple blogs, one of which is 20 Something Finance. 

They had a very interesting blog a couple weeks ago about helping control your wants. 

http://20somethingfinance.com/control-wants-impulsive-buying/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+20somethingfinancecom+%2820SomethingFinance.com%29

He breaks down what are needs vs wants. 

Most of the things beside food and basic clothing are wants. 

That being said sometimes our wants are crazy.

I am the type of people who wants something but saves up for it. 

However, Joe and I have been cutting back a lot and saving more for the future.

That being said the idea of  controlling our wants is perfect! 

I like how in his blog he showed how he kept a record of his wants. 

He enters his wants into a chart with the date and then reviews the want about 1 month later. 

He goes over the benefit,  best value discussion, and then decides if he approves it.

I totally am in love with this idea and have already started a spreadsheet on my ipad! 



Running thru life.... 2012 house goals

 Each December, I try to force myself to sit down and plan the next year out in my head. 

The things I am planning are trips, and house items that need to be done. 

So this post I am dedicating to our things that we have to do to our house in the upcoming year:

1) Storm Door

This is something we wanted to do for a while. 

However, when I looked into having it done, it was too pricey since our doorway is not a standard size and would need an additional door frame built. 

However, we will be doing this in March/April time period this year!
Money involved- from previous estimates $300-700 dollars
I will have to get new estimates since it has been over 1 year
Time involved- none since we will be paying for someone to do this

2) Paint the house

This is a project I have been putting off until we moved everything in to the house.

This will be a gradual project.
Money involved- varies depending on number of rooms
Time- OMG - I hate painting

3) Move the bushes out front to the side of our house and use that area for flowerbeds.

The bushes have gotten to big to the point that you can not open up your car door so we decided to move these plants to the side of the house.  After doing some research the best time to do this would be March/April time period.
Money involved:  Less than $50 to add flowers
Time:  1 afternoon with the help of hubby

4) Moving furniture into the house

Joe's parents are moving and planning on giving us a couple pieces of furniture. 

One is a piano and a hope chest.  The hope chest will be going in my closet since I have a huge closet and it will fit.  I am planning on storing all our winter belongings in there which will help get rid of some other storage items we have.  This will just force me to re-organize.
So this is a weekend project. 

 The piano we are still trying to figure out- it will either go in the sun room or down in the basement.  
Money: None!
Time:  This depends on needing help to move things in. 

5) The carpet down in the basement level.

It is starting to come up and is probably the orginial carpet that was placed in the house.

This is going to be a FALL project.
Money:  I have absolutely no idea and am just starting to think about getting carpet estimates.
Time: Being done by someone else which hopefully will be a day task

6) Guest room

Now I have ALOT of work to do here that I have been putting off for some time. 

Step 1: Get rid of all the furniture. 

This furniture was given to us by Joe's parents but it is falling apart, it is too big, and it is not our taste. 

It has been great up to this point.

Step 2: Paint

This room is huge so this will probably be a long weekend project
This is a project that I am saving for the winter/holiday time period 2012.

7)  Extra room in basement

Up to this point the extra room in the basement has been empty but I have decided to make it into an extra bedroom.  The furniture we will be using we already have except for an extra night stand which should be easy to pick up. So we just need to paint it and then move the furniture in. 
I will paint hopefully in the fall and have the room done by the next holiday eason.

8)Place floorboards in our stoage area in my closet
In doing this we will gain more storage which we are finding we are needing especially with the fact that Joe's parents are giving us alot of Joe's childhood stuff since they are moving. 
This is Joe's Chrismmas break project for this year.
We got up there last weekend to look at it. 
It would allow us to have so much storage!
Joe completed this task before I could even blog about my list! 
Money:  Less than $100 for floorboards
Time:  5 hours total

All the projects this year are considered minor considering in

2010 we redid the kitchen and in 2011 we did the patio and all the bathrooms.

Running thru life.... Decorating the Outside

I said I would share pictures of the outside of our house.

Sorry for just getting around to this but is has been a busy couple of weeks celebrating with friends and family.  

So here one is...

 To do the lights on the driveway/sidewalk I used path stakes that I found at Home Depot. 

I got 25 of them for 8$- I had 1/2 left just in case I need anymore next year.  

They are re-usable which is awesome.

For the lights around the door and the garage I used Mini Light Adhesive Clips, also found at Home Depot.  I got 25 for less than $2. 

Next year I have every intention of putting more light around the tree but this year I was going for minimal so I decided not to.  

Also next year I am thinking lighted wreaths on the windows- what do you think?  

Running thru life... A Man's Project

Each December Joe and I sit down to plan out our house project for the year 

(future post on this).  

I do this for a number or reasons, the most important is to let Joe know what I planning.  

With him in school now I have found it it really important to let him know what I need help with.  

So while making our list, I decided I wanted to place some floorboards in the attic so we could add more storage to our house.  Joe's parents lately have been giving us more of Joe childhood stuff, some of which we actually want to keep, and also with Christmas around the corner I was looking for a place to store Christmas stuff since we only use it once a year.  

So Joe and I climbed up in to our attic last weekend to have a look.  

It was basically insulation everywhere!

Joe and I set off to the hardware stores yesterday.

Just for the record- I HATE GOING TO HOMEDEPOT WITH MY HUSBAND.

HE REFUSES TO ASK QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ASKED!!!

Why is it that men can not ask questions?  

Anyways after about 30 minutes at HomeDepot we headed home with out items.

He basically had to raise the floor 8 inches in order to cover the recess lighting and insulation.  

Then apply plywood to the new foundation.  

It took him all day to complete (from 11am till 4pm), but now we have tons of storage area which I will be filling up quickly with items.  He added 6 foot by 6 foot storage area.  We can add more if need be but for right now this is plenty!
I stayed out of his way by organizing what I wanted to go up in the attic versus the crawl space. 
Crawl space I decided is for things we may use more often like out suitcases, and attic for for these we rarely use or use once a year like Christmas stuff. 

So far we placed the following up in the attic

1) Joe's Baby Highchair

2) Joe's Wagon

3) Tupperware of  my Baby Blankets

4) Joe's Golf Clubs

5) My childhood table and chairs

6) An extra rug

After Christmas , we will be adding our 2 Christmas Trees,  Christmas Wreath, ornaments, lights, and wrapping paper bin.  

Yeah for more storage!!!
Mad Brownie points for hubby!