Taking the Plunge

I did it! I ordered my new HP Laptop. I have such mixed emotions right now. On one hand, I am excited beyond belief! My computer was so old. It was so slow and so often it would just stop working. It was so aggravating. Now I will have a nice new computer....and it's a laptop! It should be fast and it's going to be so awesome!

On the flip side...it is the second huge thing I've had to charge in the past couple of weeks and neither was planned. If you read my blog regularly, you know that we are on a "Pay down your debt budget". Charge cards are taboo! My plan never had TREADMILL written anywhere in it. I always looked at a treadmill as a luxury I could not afford and I was okay with that. Being diagnosed with Osteopenia three weeks ago changed my plan. In an effort to save my bones and keep my off medication....we charged a treadmill.

The second part of my plan was to work hard and pay off the treadmill, while starting to save for a new computer. I wanted to pay cash for the computer. That was before my old Dell died last week. So now we charged a computer. Yes, I could have gone out and bought an inexpensive desktop for now, but I just couldn't see spending hundreds of dollars on something that didn't meet my needs. I spend a lot of time on my computer.

I had already spent a lot of time researching, reading and talking to people about their computers and I learned a lot. Eventually I figured out what I needed and what I wanted. My new HP will have a 17 inch screen, a great processor and plenty of memory. It will also have Microsoft Word.

Even though it was a tough decision....I know it was the right one and I can't wait for it to get here. A friend on Facebook said, "Now you can be as unproductive as the rest of us with laptops." I can easily see how that happens, but for me, it's going to do just the opposite. Right now when I get home from work...where I sit at a computer for eight hours a day....I check e-mails, check my shop FourDogDay, write my blog for the next day, respond to comments on my blog and try to read all of my favorite blogs. Somewhere in there I have dinner and try to make awesome things for my shop. I get so tired sitting up right that most evenings I'm curled up in bed by 8:00 with a book. I'm not sleepy, but I need some time to relax.

When I get my laptop, I will do just the opposite. When I get home I will check my e-mails and my shop, but then I will start creating things for FourDogDay. I will have dinner, work a little more and then head to bed WITH my laptop. There I will be able to respond to blog comments, write my blog for the next day, read my favorite blogs and maybe even multi-task and play on Facebook a bit.

I think this is going to be just perfect! Chee Hoo! Now if you will excuse me, I need to go make some things to sell in my shop so I can pay for my fantastic new computer! :)

Mish Mosh

I made a trip to the chiro yesterday and did not work out. :( It's the first day I've missed. Maggie and Wrigley road with us. Sparky doesn't like the car.

I have a real messed up spine and one of my shoulder blades sticks out more than the other. When I do arm and shoulder exercises it starts to get very uncomfortable as it did on Friday. On top of that, I took one of those quick little "oops" slips on some ice Friday. I didn't fall, but it was just enough to cause my muscles to all tighten up on me. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up where I left off some time today. I am tweaking the yoga and pilates exercise plan to include some leg exercises. I am really enjoying the workouts right now.

My healthy eating is going pretty well also. I'm just watching what I eat and trying to make better choices where my snacks are concerned. I'm also making sure that one dinner a week is a nice big salad like this one I had last week so I'm getting some greens. Yes, that whole thing was for me and I ate every last bit of it!

I have my shopping list and coupons ready and we are about to head to the store. Hopefully we will come back with a few dollars left so we can get our favorite Friday night carry out!

I snapped this shot of our icicles right before Irv went out to knock them all down. If you leave them they can actually cause your roof to leak. I think they are so pretty though.

One last thing.....do you have cable TV or dish? We pay a ton for our basic cable and are considering taking one of the special offers for Dish Network to save some money. We have always had cable. Your thoughts?

Week One of the Makeover

Happy Monday everyone! I just wanted to give you an update today on how my working out and our grocery shopping on a budget went. It went REALLY, REALLY WELL!!!! Chee Hoo!

I did make a change in my workout schedule and decided to make Friday my day off. Friday is my eat whatever I want day....so if I'm eating high calorie, high fat foods....why work out? It's easier to find the time on the weekend anyway, so I think that will be better.

So including Sunday I did Pilates three times, Yoga three times, walked four times, stretched twice and worked my arms twice! I have passed on the walking for three days because the wind chill has been brutal. It's suppose to warm up this week, so hopefully I will get lots of walking in. Yesterday it was 4 degrees with a -15 below wind chill. I won't walk in that. It hurts. :(

I have a couple of other little changes I plan to make to my program because I want to do some specific leg work, so I'll need to figure that out as well. If I'm consistent with the yoga, I won't need the extra stretching either.

I ate pretty good all week and really didn't have much junk and that is a positive for me as well. I am also trying to increase my iron since it was too low to donate blood again, and that really bothers me. Irv and I donate regularly and it's important to me to be able to do that.

Ah....the grocery store. I spent time during the week planning my meals and then I made my shopping list. Next, I went online and found some coupons I could use for a few things. I'm going to spend a little more time on that this week to see if I can find more. With our $3.50 in coupons we ended up spending $116.96 for the week! I paid very close attention to the prices of things to see if I could find cheaper items than what I usually buy...sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. It was kind of a pain, but the end result was worth it. Now we have money left for our carry out on Friday night.

We have a couple of things to tweak in our budget....like why do I have to use my spending money on Starbucks if I want it, and Irv used grocery money on a 6 pack of O'Doules? That doesn't seem quite fair to me. I think we are going to have to work on that one! Isn't that right Irvie? ;-}

I gave Irv all of his money for the week and I have mine. We will see how we do. No using the debit card at all! I really am psyched about this. Hope we see a difference in our bank account and can use the extra money to start really paying down our debt.

I hope your Monday is just as awesome as it can possibly be! Don't forget to do something really nice for yourself today.

Stupendous Saturday!

I started out the day Saturday with another trip over to the blood center. I couldn't donate last week because my iron level was too low. That's the second time that's happened. Well, it was lower this week! Trying to find more iron rich foods to consume!

Next, we headed over to the bank to take out the cash we needed for our new envelope budget system. I am excited and ready to go. We did have a couple of little glitches though. Irv mentioned that we needed salt for the softener......he wanted to rent a movie for tonight....and he needed to get our Lotto tickets. Hmmmmm...I hadn't figured those things in. I made more envelopes and next time we will take out money for entertainment and salt and Lotto. Irv said we could give up on the Lotto, but we have been playing the same stupid numbers since it started and wouldn't that just suck that the first time we don't buy them....our numbers are picked? I know it wouldn't happen, but just in case....I'm still buying!

I managed to list my first Itsy Bitsy Tote Bag in my shop, FourDogDay. The tote is perfect if you don't like to drag a huge bag with you when you go shopping. If you don't read Lanyard Lady's blog...check out this post of hers. Lanyard has a bad shoulder because of what she was carrying in her purse. Too funny....not the bad shoulder, but the stuff that was in her purse!

This blue bird fabric was left over when I made Angela of Pickles on Pizza a vendor apron. It's so darn cute I decided to make a little desk clock out of it. I just love it!

Then I went all out and made two other big clocks. One of these will get listed today and one tomorrow. The first one is leaves on a light gray background. Very outdoorsy.

The second one is my absolute favorites! It's birds in black and white with a little tan thrown in. I think I am going to have to make myself one of these to hang somewhere in my house. It's so ME!

After that it was time to see if I could find some coupons for grocery shopping today. We will be heading out soon and I was hoping to save a little money using coupons. I didn't find too many, but I did get a couple of good ones. We eat very specific foods and brands and are not very flexible, so coupons might be a difficult thing for us.

I have my Week #1 Food Envelope and I put my coupons right in it. I will let you know how we do and if we are able to stay well under the $150 limit so we can get carry out next weekend. Wish us luck!

After that, I still had to hit the floor and do my Pilates. I opted not to walk because the wind chill made it painful to even be outside.

Then I collapsed! Not really. It was an awesome day. Hope you have a good one today. Don't forget to do something nice for yourself today.

A Small Success

Irv and I did our grocery shopping yesterday morning. If you recall, when our new budget starts on Friday, we are going to attempt to only spend $150 a week on food and household items. That includes any carry out food we happen to buy.

Well, I am happy to report that we only spent $100 at the store yesterday. Now before you start jumping up and down celebrating our success, let me add that we didn't need any laundry soap or softener or coffee or any "big ticket" items.....so this was strictly food for the week. I'm not sure what will happen when we need those things.

We shopped carefully, and I had looked in the cabinets and freezer to see what we already had so we weren't buying things we really didn't need. I didn't add things up as we went because I really wanted to see if we could do it and still buy what we wanted. We have plenty of food for the entire week and if we were on our budget, we would have $50 to spend on carry out if we wanted to.

Today I start working out and walking too, and I'm not sure how that is going to go. It's a lot to try to fit into an already busy schedule....but my plan is to put me first and that is what I am going to try to do. With that said...it's time to get going. I have to work today!

Make it an awesome day for yourself.

Organizing

I am pretty darn pleased with myself right now. A few of the things that I really wanted to get done, are done. Now, all I have to do is follow through with my plan and all will be well in my world!

Here is my little work out calendar. Notice how I only wrote down one week worth of exercise? That is just in case I am being a bit over-zealous and my plan needs tweaking after week one. I am really worried about finding this much time for working out and walking, but we shall see.

Next, I took a planner that we got in the mail with something and I turned it into my meal planner. I recorded what I plan to have for dinner next week. It's all written in pencil because I know that one of those nights Irv will make a yummy frozen pizza and then I will have to move things around. The neat thing with this is that I can write things in ahead of time if I think of something I want to make for the following week and then I can use that to help me make my shopping list for that week. I can also jot other things we need in the little note section.

Last is the shoe box with my envelopes for our new budget....they are just waiting for payday on Friday and then we will get started. We get paid every other week, so I have envelopes for week one and for week two....for things like food, gas, dog food and spending...the things that we normally use a debit card for, but won't be anymore, therefore keeping us from overspending. At least that is the plan!

It feels good to have some plans in place. I am anxious to get started. The first test will be when we go grocery shopping this morning. This will be our dress rehearsal. I am anxious to see how we do. My goal is to only spend about $120 today, so we have money left for carry out on the weekend. :)

Subject change....I listed my cute new little Sun, Moon and Stars tote bag yesterday and popped it on Facebook. My sister in SC saw it and immediately bought it! I finished this one yesterday and I will get it listed some time today. I hope it sells as fast! I love the little plastic "buckle" thingy. I thought it was such a fun thing to use to keep the top of the tote closed.

Well, we are off to the store. I'll let you know how we do. Make it an awesome day for yourself!