The Home Front

I'm proud to announce no one has died of sugar overdose and the dogs have been fed. It's been a wild couple days getting used to all the adjustments.

So far savings are looking good. I have only spent cash on paying the electric bill. My focus is to save as much as possible from this deployment. We really want to upgrade to 4bd home with a shed/workshop in the back for Mr. Right to do all of his projects. To do this we'll need at least 20k plus whatever our house sells for. Right now we have no idea of where we would like to move to. I'm really pushing for North because I miss the snow and he is pulling for as South as possible.

We plan on accomplishing this by spending virtually no money minus what bills cost and whatever Mr. Right needs to buy while in country. I'll be doing some reselling to clear out the clutter we have. This will also make moving much easier. We're doing small holidays. Only one gift for Hanukkah and one gift for Christmas.

Since Mr. Right has left I have been burning up with an itch to do some home repairs. His leaving was really unexpected from the time we thought we had needless to say, I am left with a kitchen with all the cabinets off and 7 month old and an almost 3yr old. Yikes!

Some projects I would like to do are
1. The Cabinets (any Mum out there is nodding yes)
2. Tile in the bathroom/laundry room space
3. Quarter round that has been waiting over a year to be put down
4. Touch up painting

I am torn as to what to do with the cabinets. I'm debating doing them all white with bead board accents to match the front of the island or staining all the cabinets a warm mahoghany color. Either way we are going to be putting down a dark speckly top. I'd love to do granite but we can't afford that. I'll be checking out some local Habitat for Humanities before making my ultimate decision.

Squirrels end up with millions because they put the nuts away, not because they make lots of nuts.

I read this quote on a msn money article. I love this quote so much. It rings to true to our life. We have alot of friends that make 50K++++ more than we do and they have deep financial woes while we have little.

Life has become tougher since last year with some personal events that happened to us including my husbands pay being cut in half. Ways we save money are buying NOTHING new. I mean nothing with the exception of groceries. If I ever find a way around that I'll let you know. I go dumpster diving, reselling our things as we no longer need them, learning to cook, and strict budgets.

It is amazing the good trash people throw away. I have come across tons of new with tags clothes. We've been blessed to find tons of toys and clothes (for our kids and for us) that we can use. We've turned some into rags. We try to salvage what we can and make it usable for us. We found a huge kitchen table that we used to host some events outside. Eventually it got caught in the rain so we posted it for free on Craigslist. It was picked up within the hour (love that site).

Clothing has been a huge stress relief. Mr. Right's cousin and Aunt have been so great. They have passed on clothes that have been outgrown for both Baby A & B. I can't even describe how nice it is to find a big box at the door full of clothes for them. Everyone knows how spendy it can get with two kids under 3. They constantly outgrow clothes. I would say this has saved us a good $1000 or more on each little punk. Big thank you's go out to them.

I resell everything we have that we no longer need. My husband and me used to have a bet about things we were going to trash. We'd post it up for $5 on craigslist, 9 times out of 10 it would sell by the end of the week. If not we post it back for $3. After that we'd trash it or post it up for free. We recently changed out our living room furniture because our sofa was in need of repair we couldn't afford. I sold the set for $600 then bought a leather sofa for $100 of craigslist and later a nice Broyhill chair at a yardsale for $10. Doing things like this really ads up. Our living room looks more gorgeous than ever and I saved big time on redecorating.

Learning to cook has been a huge process and very profitable. I received a huge set of cookbooks from my Mother-in Law that I use all the time. My sister gave me a book on Jewish recipes that is my favorite cookbook out of all the ones I own. I used to believe you had to buy peanut brittle and that it could only be made in a factory. I call that one of my blonde moments. Lately I've started counting calories. I hope to lose 50lbs while Mr. Right is deployed and do it the healthy way. My whole family will benefit from this. I haven't told Mr. Right of my plans, I think it'll make for a great welcome home surprise for him :)

We stay on really strict budgets. We make less than 2k a month and have a mortgage of $894. After you had in bills like electricity, water, trash, and Internet, we're left with the rest of pay for groceries, things we need (not want) and to put some into savings. While it is not reccommended to have a house that costs you so much remember we bought this house well before we had the giant pay cut. We have looked at other houses to save but to find one with the same we have space now is more costly. Renting is our of the question because we have two dogs, a basset and a beagle. Any home that allows pets in our area cost more than we pay on our house including bills. So for not we are stuck, we watch our budget really closely so we have some cushion built it otherwise we'll live pay check to pay check.

Frustrations

It seems like lately if it's not one thing, it's another. I thought we were done with the Marine Corps. Now not only are we not done but Mr. Right will be leaving soon and possibly (most likely) re-enlisting.

I sell things only to have the money spent on junk instead of being set aside for our future home down payment. Frustration that I feel is an understatement of how I really feel.

Frustrations selling a gorgeous NWT Bonnie Jean dress on ebay for only 99 cents. My head was literally screaming BOOOOOOOOOOOO with thoughts of I do not want to ship this running through my head. I have not had any luck with Ebay so far.

Feeling lately that I'm just a dreamer with unrealistic dreams. My farmhouse and my wishes for future are to be put aside. Everything is once again on stand still. It's like going across a trapeze wire, making it across to only realize you have a whole other side to go on.

Feeling so down right now. I hate it when Mr. Right leaves.

Bummis Cloth Diapers & Snappi

So my first diaper purchase I feel was a bust. They were pretty cute and basic. I looked to youtube to figure out how to use the snappi. I think those things would be great for a newborn but a mobile baby? Not so much. Baby B would rip hers right off and go peeing around while crawling.

Snappi = No Fun!

I did like the concept of the snappi and it is pretty cool looking. The retail price for things are currently 2.97. Fairly reasonable but I think they would be best suited for a newborn (non-mobile baby). They do a great job of keeping the diaper together once you figure out how to use it the right way. While youtube helped, it was mainly trial and error.

Now the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap diaper & Bummis Super Brite

Differences between the two was actually the lining on the inside. The material and size seemed to be the same. The Whisper wrap has a fabric lining where the Super Brite lining is super shiny and plastic like. There is a thin/mirco leg gusset on the inside of the super brite.

Functionally they seemed to preform the same. I did not notice the leg gusset in the Super Brites to make any difference. These cloth diapers I did not like with my chunky legged baby. Baby B was within the weight limits but her chunky thighs made her need the large size instead of a small or medium. They both used pre-folds. Over all they were a good set of diapers. I didn't care for the fit. They seemed cheap but they were functional.

I ended up reselling these on ebay (thats another story). I didn't make a dime but I got my cash back at least.

Currently we are trying out gdiapers so be on the look out for that review

***Cloth Diapers***

I have officially began to use cloth diapers. I guess I'm an old school mom in a lot of ways. Toys that are made of wood or fabric are my faves. Any toy that truly sparks imagination. I don't care if it's turning an old shoe into a phone. I love seeing my kids be all about it and having fun. Not so much into the video games. Ones for babies and toddlers just baffle me. Do we really need to get infants one step away from playing Call of Duty? Lol that's another tangent, for another day.

Main my point was I NEVER thought I would be using cloth diapers. Not in a million years. But with a huge pay cut that happened to us a few months ago and two kids in diapers. Something needed to be done....

So....I went thrifting today. I found 2 Bummis diaper covers with something called a Snappi for $8. A homemade, brand new cloth diaper for $5. Then at Goodwill I hit a home run I felt. 39 cent diaper/burp cloths. Snatched up everyone one of those sucks I could find. A pack of 6 cost around 12 to 15 dollars at the local stores here. I plan on using those as inserts for the Bummis diapers. Lol I sound like I know all about this things but honestly I don't. I went home and looked up on youtube to learn about the Bummis diapers. I apparently got the Super Whisper which work great according to youtubers.




Baby B is now on her third and hopefully final change out for the night. Baby A, I put in the all in one, homemade diaper. I figured it would help with the potty training process. I guess we're still in that mood since he is taking off his diapers and peeing all over the bed. Ugh. I'm infatuated with the fact that he has not once ripped off this home-made diaper yet. Lets hope this infatuation turns into LOVE.

Oh and I also looked up the snap. I don't know how well it works yet. It looks so weird! Basically the idea is using pre-folds like the gerber ones I picked up today with out any pins or snaps. The Snappi hooks on three different places on the fabric and instant diaper. I don't know how well this is going to work with Baby B since she grabs at everything and Baby A, I know better than to try something like that...

I've also bought some crazy cute Gdiapers off ebay (my first purchase, YAY!). I'll let you know how those go.

Seriously how could I resist those cute ruffled diapers?

Beauty in Laundry

We are home from a wonderful vacation. The weather was so gorgeous down in Myrtle Beach. We did a little antiquing before heading to Myrtle.

This is the beauty I found.


Isn’t she darling?

I love how you can see her words and the wood really is as soft as it looks in the pictures.

We found this HUGE antique store. The nice guy behind the counter mentioned that everything in the basement was 50% off. We were sold. The owner gave Jake a couple old school cars for FREE. It was so great. Those two little cars kept Jake entertained the rest of the ride to Myrtle Beach and even on the way home.

$15 with 50% off made it a much better deal.

She looks so pretty in my little laundry “room” :)

Hurricane Earl

We've been gearing up for Hurricane Earl. Thankfully it has gone from a stage 4 to a stage 3. Hope everyone weathers throw the storm.