HOME RENOVATION

We have been in our house for almost 4 months now and we are loving every minute of it! We I am obsessed with decorating and DIYing around the house! I am constantly blog stalking and looking at before and after pictures from people who are also fixing up their houses. So I decided it would be fun to do that myself. I think it will be really cool to look back in years to come and see how our house has changed. Since we have moved into our house here are some of the things we have done:

• painted kitchen cabinets
• installed kitchen backsplash
• painted every inch of trim (they had a puke tan color on every piece of trim in that house!!)
•  switched the way the front door swings open
• fixed a crack in the guest bathroom tub (long story how the crack got there in the first place..)
• built our own pantry out of our hall closet
• ripped down mirrors & backsplash in master bathroom and installed new mirrors
• installed window tint on front door windows
• caulked every single crack or hole I could find in the house.... (caulk is my bff)
• washed the walls, sanded the walls, primed the walls & painted the walls for the following rooms:
• kitchen/dining- walls were FIRE TRUCK RED
• living room/entry- the entry walls were BRIGHT orange with like a cheetah print pattern?
• guest bedroom
• hallway (don't even get me started on that!... let's just say we painted the hallway about 8 times...)
• master bathroom
• guest bathroom
• laundry room
• linen closet (don't judge me... I'm OCD and love attention to detail)

There are about a zillion other things we have done but I can't think of them right now. Our to-do list started off at 3 pages long and now we have it to ONE page! Here is what we want to get done pretty soon so that we can finally start decorating.

TO-DO LIST

·         Master Bathroom

o   Frame mirrors

o   Caulk & sand baseboards & window

o   Spackle/sand holes

o   Re-tile around bathtub/vanity

o   Center vanity over mirrors

o   Re-paint bathroom gray

o   Paint baseboards

o   Make roman shades

·         Master Bedroom

o   Prime

o   Paint (inside closet too)

o   Paint baseboards

o   Make a headboard

o   Paint furniture

·         Living Room

o   Tile fireplace

o   Seal crack in fireplace

o   Sand above fireplace/repaint

o   Clean fire place flue

·         2nd Guest Room

o   Paint room & inside closet

o   Sand window/spackle

o   Paint trim

·         Basement

o   Rip up the carpet

o   Paint

o   Replace ceiling tile

o   Prime & paint doors/trim

o   Sheetrock bathroom

·         Front Porch

o   New Mail Box

o   Replace front door

o   Stain front porch

   ·         Guest Bathroom

o   Frame mirror

o   Replace light fixture

·         Hallway/Laundry room/Pantry

o   Build pedestals for washer/dryer

·         Dining room/Kitchen

o   Replace fixtures

o   Make roman shades

o   Paint tables & chairs

·         Entry

o   Paint banister

o   Put hardwood on stairs

·         Guest bedroom

o   Paint trim

o   Paint inside closet

o   Make headboard

·         Outside

o   Stain back porch

Yeah I know it looks like a lot but it's an on-going thing and we aren't in a hurry to get most of it done. We are just having fun and keeping busy doing it. I plan on posting some before and after pictures of the house pretty soon!

Element-ary Learning....

It's been about 3 months since we moved into the new house. It's awesome! We have been super busy adding our touch to the place. I plan on updating the blog with before and after pictures of the house really soon! But for now, I will just leave with you the first of many stories of things that go wrong being a home owner.

It was Thanksgiving morning and I turned the shower water on and waited for it to get hot, just like normal. Except this time it didn't get hot... at all. So, we didn't have much time to trouble shoot since we were suppose to head to Macon for the day. So, we boiled some hot water on the stove and bathed the old fashion way... and it sucked. To make matters worse... and don't ask me how he did this.... but in the process of bathing Hamilton broke our guest bathtub. Put a crack right down the side...

So when we finally get around to fixing the hot water heater we buy 2 new elements and crossed our fingers that the elements were the problem...
 
here is what an element SHOULD look like:

 

annnnnnnd here is what our elements looked like....

 yeah, that's right....  only 1 1/2 elements came out. The other half? Well... it's still in there. Soooo make sure you drink filtered water when you come to my house :)

We are homeowners!!!

.... and I'm still warming up to that fact! I love being in a house but I had no idea the terror that would come with home-ownership! I think that once I get over this "scared" stage that I will be a lot more gung-ho about it. Don't get me wrong, I love having a house but I am not 100% excited, I am like 95% and 5% scared to death. I guess the reason I am scared is b/c we had a huge reality check this weekend when we moved in. That stupid tropical storm came up in our grill and jacked us all up. Well, it could have. We had a huge tree in our back yard that was dead as a doornail. It was spongy and literally looked like it would fall any minute. So,  my awesome lumber jack deddy decided to cut it down.... I kinda regretted asking him too as soon as that chain saw cranked. I took off running down the road to avoid seeing my brand spankin' new house get smashed by a tree. Thankfully, it fell right in the backyard.... and will probably stay there for months since we have a million other things to do that are more important than tree clean-up. Anyways, that was enough to about give me a heart attack. Then it rained non-stop Monday! We live at the bottom of the hill and the inspector said we need to make sure our drainage is working properly to avoid a flooding. It seems to work fine, but it still is really scary when you see water pouring and rushing out over your retaining wall out in front of your garage. So far we have gotten moved into our house and still have a few items left to get out of the apartment. We primed the basement and most of the entry... but the entry is about 30 feet high and it was previously painted bright orange... which is hard to get rid of... especially if you are on a 25 foot ladder stetching your arms just as far as you can to cover it. Hamilton did all that he could after standing on a ladder 3 hours yesterday, but we still have a few orange corners we can't reach. Not sure what we will do.... but we still have like 4 or 5 more rooms to prime and paint. Anybody wanna come over and help?

Our Kitchen

This is our kitchen. It's not a very good picture b/c you can't see the entire thing, but we will work with this for now. This kitchen is really nice, but small. The #1 thing on Hamilton's house wish list was a big kitchen... (my #1 was a basement) but when we found this house we realized that we could not pass it up, even if the kitchen was small. After looking at this picture for the past month we've decided exactly how we want it to look. We are soooo excited about personalizing it! The first thing we are going to do is paint the cabinets. GASP! I know, I know. But we hate oak cabinets. We decided we will paint them a dark brown (bittersweet chocolate). We also are going to change out the knobs with some cool, modern, stainless steel kind. We bought them on eBay and just got them in the mail. This is what they look like:

                   They match the curves of our appliances and the stainless steel matches our applicanes so I thought they would look awesome in our modern kitchen. We also bought the back splash for the kitchen.We got it on sale the other day at Home Depot and are in love with it. That will be a challenge to lay it, but we are just excited to do it!!! Then we are going to paint the walls, b/c the red just ain't working for us. Eventually we will replace the sink & the light fixture and maybe one day if we stumble upon some money then we will replace the counter tops. I can't wait to post before and after pictures of all of our rooms. We plan on painting like all of them (b/c the previous owners were obsessed with orange & red).......

3 more weeks!!!

Just to update everyone on the house... and when I say "everybody" I mean the 3 people that might read this. Ha ha. Currently we are still waiting on the house/loan/underwriting process to get all sorted out. It feels like it's been 3 months since we bid on that house. We are more than ready to leave our apartment. The apartment itself is cute and clean, but we have the weirdest insect problem. We don't have like ants or roaches (well we have seen both before in there) but we have spiders, crickets & silverfish. SILVERFISH?! There was one on Hamilton's pillow last night before we went to sleep. How weird?? Anyways, needless to say we are ready to get into our own place and re-decorate and personalize it. We have finally decided on our kitchen colors and we are very happy! We are going to paint our kitchen cabinets a chocolate brown, add stainless steel hardware, a funky back splash and blue walls. It sounds weird, but trust me I have a vision! Our kitchen was already green and black so we are just adding blue. We got the inspiration from Rachael Ray's funky kitchen with her greens, blues & oranges! We have so many ideas and we can't wait to put them into action! Our house is gonna be da bomb. So as I sit here and wait out the longest 3 weeks of my life I think about what I am the most excited about with this house. The fact that I get to paint the walls? Have a garage? Have a basement!!? No, I am pretty sure I'm the most excited about the beautiful stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. And, about having 2 separate sinks. And having a hallway. And having more than 1 closet. And the fireplace! I am sooooo excited for the fall!! We are going to build a fire with REAL logs in our fire place and grill out and watch some Auburn football. Man, Fall is the best season ever! It needs to hurry up and get here!!!

We found a house!

Man, we are on a roll with this "pre-baby bucket list"! We marked off #2 on this list! We are currently under contract for a house that we found 2 weeks ago. We weren't expecting to find one this soon! I got a call from my realtor 2 weeks ago saying that I had to check this house out. We went to see it the next day and fell in love with it and put a bid on it that night! After one counter-offer we had ourselves a contract! We had the termite inspection & the home inspection and they both turned out great! Couldn't ask for a more perfect house... just small things to fix! The only major problem we have is the dead tree in the backyard. We asked them to cut it down and are hoping they will say yes! So.... just a little glimpse of our house:

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

Pre-Baby Bucket List: UPDATE

Not much look like it has been accomplished on this list, but paying off this little loan was a huge accomplishment for us and we are very excited! We still have about 5 more loans to go... and trust me they are no where nearly as small as this one was... which is very depressing. But I am very excited to cross something off my list! Yay! Now we really need to find a house. In the mean time, we will be saving as much money as possible up for all of the expenses involved with buying a house (like inspection, earnest money, etc...) We have our realtor looking (and we are too) but there are no houses in Bremen right now! NONE! I am hoping someone will get foreclosed on soon... is that bad? Ha ha.

Oh yeah, I have accomplished one more thing. I finally got some wedding pictures into our frames! I was so use to see those models in the picture frame, and it's hard to get use to seeing us in there! Ha ha.

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

My skype date.......

My favorite 1 year old in the entire world is Ava Isabella Steis. She has been my little buddy ever since she was born. Hamilton and I first met her when she was 3 weeks old. We flew out to Wyoming to meet the little monkey. I fell in love INSTANTLY!! I love all of my nieces so much and they are just as adorable and loved by me the same (which is THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) But I wasn't there through most of their babyhood... I kinda feel like I missed Madison & Makinzie growing up. It's kinda sad but at least I have witnessed Ava growing! Here are some pictures from when we visited- my little monkey!

We got to skype with her tonight and she danced for us and sang with us and it was so fun and very sad that she lives 4 days away!! Here are some snapshots:

this one makes me laugh b/c melissa's hands look like a creeper's hands going to snatch ava....

Yearly Savings....

So I have officially been couponing for a year!!! I keep every receipt and put it into a spreadsheet every month to keep up with my savings, and I am very happy with the results!! In one year I have bought around $4,176.40 worth of groceries and only spent $1,263.57 on them!! I saved $2,912.83 which is about 70% savings!! Now tell me that ain't awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a side note, Hamilton made this amazing pizza from scratch and I would like to share it with you. It's a baked potato pizza.

Great week!

Okay so this week at Publix was awesome! I spent $48.18 and saved $125.16!! I got tons of awesome stuff like milk, bacon, asprin, soap, strawberries, potatoes, chinese dinners (AMAZING!!), bandaids, etc...

 check out this receipt!!!!

Pre-Baby Bucket List

I'm not going to lie.... I have a bad case of baby fever. But I also have a bad case of BROKE! So, with that being said... don't get your hopes up because it will still be a while before we plan on having a baby. But I decided to make a list of things I would like to get accomplished before we have a baby...

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....
 

 

Super Savings!!

So the Publix run today wasn't the best in the world, but  my trip to Walmart sure was! At publix I got $70.87 worth of stuff for $23.80... so I saved about $47.07. It doesn't look like I got too much but I got 4 things of Lysol wipes and those things are normally like $5.00 a pop. So I'm pretty excited. Check it:

• Doritos
• Chex Mix
• 3 cream cheese
• 4 Lysol wipes
• 2 Nutri-grain cereal bars
• 1 crystal lite container
• planter peanuts
• 2 frozen meals
• cat food (it was overage.... i dont even have a cat!)
• betty crocker potatoes

Then we went to Walmart and bought $57.86 worth of groceries for $5.86.... which means we saved like $52.00!!! That is my best ever at Walmart. In fact, it was so good that it locked up the register and required a manager to override it! Wahooo!!

• 2 Nivea shave gel
• 8 advils
• 4 dial soap
• 2 KY jelly
• 2 playtex panty liners
• 4 packs of razors
• ajax cleaner
• homestyle bake
• 1 nivea after shave gel
• 3 packs of gum
• benadryl itch stick

Debt Snowball!

I want to shout from a mountain how awesome it feels to be getting out of debt.... but I don't have a mountain, I have a blog.... a blog that maybe 5 people read... but still..... it feels amazing to pay off debt!!

If you know about Dave Ramsey then you know that he calls people "weird" who are getting out of debt or who are debt free. I don't understand how people can think that someone is weird for trying to get out of debt. But I do see how it is normal to have debt. Most people have student loans, car loans, and credit card debt and that is just normal for our society. Well, I guess I am not normal because Hamilton and I have NO credit card debt, NO car payments and we are THROWING money at our student loans to get that stress off of our family! I have already experienced what it is like to have people call me weird and tell me that I should just enjoy life and not worry so much about money. But those people aren't thinking about their future... they are only satisfying their current desire to get what they want. These people don't know how to be content, patient and work hard for what they want. They are like a 3 year old in a store shouting " I WANT IT NOW!!!" and so they get it with DEBT!

When Hamilton and I first got married we took a look at our student loan payments and we about had a heart attack. We called and got them lowered as much as we could in order to just survive, and that still made them a MINIMUM of $400 a month! (Oh but that is "good" debt...right!? STUPID!) So we realized we had to do something or else we would be stuck with $400 student loan payments for 30 years!! So I got into Dave Ramsey and we set aside our $1,000 for our emergency fund and we began our debt snowball!! After that, we really tweaked our budget to perfection. We had every single dollar going somewhere and we controlled our money.... it didn't control us.  Then we got all of our loans organized and we listed them from smallest to largest and just began throwing money at them. Money seemed to come out of nowhere once we really stuck to our budget .Then, we decided to quit our jobs and move to Georgia so we threw all of our money into our savings to prepare for the move. That really set us back in our debt snowball but it was worth it! Once we moved to Georgia we were able to pay off Sallie Mae which was $2,625. It was the best feeling EVER!! I did the math, and we only ended up paying $18.00 in interest. Which saved us $544 in interest over the 5 year loan span.

Our current loan is an Ed Financial loan that was originally $2625 and is now $690.97! We expect that loan to be paid off by the end of July... or maybe even sooner!!! Once that loan is gone, we have another one that WAS $4,500 but the interest has made it $5,277 (that includes our payments every month...crazy!) So those are our goals for the immediate future. We have plenty more loans and they only get higher and higher.... trust me.... very very high.

I made a spreadsheet of the loans and calculated how much interest we would pay on all of our loans if we paid them off on their expected dates: $48,887.99 .... in INTEREST!!! So who the crap said that student loan debt is good debt?? Think about if we invest that money! How much could we have in our retirement? Not only could we save, but we could actually enjoy life a lot better. We could go on debt free vacations (which by the way our cruise was paid in cash) and we could have a peaceful future knowing that we don't owe anyone anything.

In conclusion.... I work for a hospital in the Business Office and I help patients out with financial assistance when they can't afford to pay their bills. It is so sad to see these people come in and make a lot of money every month, but yet they still have no money at the end of the month because their car payment is $600 and their house payment is $1,500 and their credit cards are $900... it's ridiculous! On the flip side, there are old people that come in daily seeking assistance because they were not wise with their money and didn't plan for retirement... and living off of social security is a joke! So.... with that being said.... you might think that you need to finance a car or keep your student loan around, but every single cent that you spend on that debt is taking away from you saving for your future and keeping your family from having financial peace. Even if nobody is inspired by this blog, I at least hope it gets people off my back when it comes to my financial decisions. We may not go out to eat when people ask us to, we may not go to the movies, or go on shopping sprees. But we are so happy with the decision to make our future better and we are happy to be called "penny pinchers"

Article on why student loan debt isnt GOOD DEBT

Waiting...

Hamilton and I have learned to become very patient these last few months. Almost everything in our life right now is just "pending". We are just sitting back and waiting for things to change. At this point, everything is basically out of our control and in God's hands. We are waiting for a house to come along .... and that could take months! We are also waiting on Hamilton to get a better job.....that could also take months!! Also, we are waiting to pay off our loans. We are doing great so far but I hate these times where we are waiting for the end of the month to throw more money at the loans. We are also waiting for the right time to have kids because we need a house and he needs a better job.... So right now all we can do is WAIT and it's killing me!!

Pray that we will be patient and please pray that we will find a house sometime soon and that Hamilton will get a better job!! Because all of our plans basically revolve around that!!

2 movie tickets for only $9.00!!

GO HERE to get 2 movie tickets for only $9.00. I just got 4 tickets and it only cost me $18 as opposed to like $45 if I paid for it normally. For all of you who like Harry Potter, you should totally buy your tickets from this website and save yourself some money!

House Hunting

I don't normally have anything to talk about on here besides couponing. But now I do....Hamilton and I have began house hunting. It's super scary to think that we are going to own a home some day... and that day seems to be closer than we thought. We were going to wait until Jan to begin looking for a house (our lease ends in March) but we realized that the city we are house hunting in is a really competitive market. We are looking for a house in Bremen, GA so that we can send our kids to one of the best schools in the area (in my opinion).  And they will be there with their cousins Madison & Makinzie... well they might be in High School by that time. Ha ha. Not only do we want to live in Bremen, but we HAVE to have a basement... ... I can't compromise on that b/c of how terribly afraid I am of storms. I gotta have my little nook in the basement full of water, flashlights, etc...  Also, we are looking in a very popular price point and everyone is looking to get into the city limits b/c of the schools. So, we decided we'd go ahead and begin looking b/c we know it will be a long process and we'd rather start sooner than later. We are very excited about this and also scared to death! I can't believe we could even own a house. It's a huge responsibility and I am freaking out!! We have already fallen in love with one house and wouldnt you know it, it's now off the market and under contract. We were too slow. This house hunting stuff is really frustrating already!!

Weekend full of savings!

So I started couponing exactly a year ago this month. I can't imagine my life without it now. I use to just buy things when I needed them (and paid full price!) but now I only buy things when they are on sale and I have created a stockpile so I never have to just run out to the store to buy things I'm out of. Sales go on cycles so the sale will always come again. Anyways, I started coupoining in Montgomery where most of the citizens are really really rich or really really poor. So couponing wasn't really a competitive sport there. Well, that's not the case for Carrollton! There is only 1 Publix in this town (5 in Montgomery) and if you don't get there the day the sale starts then you are going to be leaving with a lot of rain checks. So, I decided that I would do a little couponing while in Montgomery this weekend. And man I hit the JACK POT!! Lots of things that give you overage (which means the coupon value is more than the item, so the remaining amount goes towards your purchase) were already out of stock in Carrollton, but not in Montgomery! Check it out! Our first stop was Walmart (which is usually not a good place to coupon b/c they don't double coupons) but anyways, we hit the mother load. We walked in there and literally everything in our buggy was F-R-E-E... we only paid tax (which is 10% in Montgomery... just another reason to hate that city). See picture below:

I got 4 things of floss, 5 boxes of bandaids, 4 packs of nozema bikini razors & 4 fly swatters all for FREE.
Total before coupons: $20.33
Total after coupons: -.68 cents ($1.36 after tax)
Total Saved- $21.00
 Total %- 103%

Our next stop was Target, I had to print off some photos so we stopped by the photo center and I got 41 photos for .11 cents. We also got some groceries:

4 bottles of KC Masterpeice BBQ sauce
2 Zantac medicine

Total before coupons: $22.55
Total after coupons-  $4.55
Total saved- $18.00
% saved-79%


Alright, now this is my favorite thing ever! We had a gift card for Publix in the amount of $20.00 so if someone didnt have the gift card then their total would be + $20.00....

2 boxes of Ritz crackers
2 boxes of combat ant killer
4 boxes of lipton tea
1 morton season salt
2 boxes of cheerios
4 bottles of 150 oz purex detergent

Total Before Coupons: $83.81
Total after coupons and $20 gift card- $1.00
Savings- $82.81
% saved- 98%

**** Warning: My math is HORRIBLE. I caught one of my mistakes that claimed I saved 167% on something that was really like 80% savings. So, please excuse me if you catch any of my mistakes.....*******

Last Week....

I completely forgot to post my couponing deals from last week! I had tons of frozen stuff and hurried and got them in the freezer and didn't take a picture. But I will list my receipt! Here is what I got.......

1 Doritos Chips
1 Frosted Flakes
1 Peroxide
1 Angie Mama Pancake Mix
2 Imitation crab meat
1 Swiffer Wet Jet replacement cleaner
2 Digiorno Pizza
4 cans of tomato sauce
6 boxes of pasta
2 Maybelline mascara
6 tubs of butter
4 boxes of homestyle mac n cheese
1 bacon
4 boxes of perdue chicken


Total before Coupons: $108.86
Total after Coupons: $39.82
Total Savings: $69.04
Percentage Saved: 64%

Publix Trip

Well today wasn't my best publix run because I had to get a lot of things that I didn't have coupons for like milk and meat

 spent $51.00 and saved $118.00

 check out that receipt! 

ok so the shopping trip included some some things like:

4 boxes of brownies- .4 cents each

2 bottles ketchup- 1.00 each

6 kraft macaroni n cheese- .60 each (not that great but i love mac n cheese)

2 big things of toilet paper (24 counts)- 4.94 each

4 sour cream- .50 each

2 fresheta pizzas- 4.00 each

2 all detergent- 1.99 each

1 publix windex- .01 cent each

4 lawrys marinade- .59 each

2 pack of yogurt (4 in each pack) - free

rotel tomatoes, 2 lbs hamburger meat, lays potato chips, milk, velveta block cheese, 2 tubs bryer ice cream, 2 boxes cereal, 3 packs italian ice... i think that's pretty much it!