Here’s a peek at what’s going on with me, my family, and our life.
Date night!
My husband and I had a planned date WEEK recently. Our kids spent their first week of summer vacation at the beach with their Girl Scouts troop. We sent them off on Monday morning and they came home Saturday afternoon.
One thing that I didn’t want to do much of on our date week was COOK, but I didn’t want blow our budget. We used gift cards on 3 nights, ate leftovers on 1 night, and grilled burgers on the last night. One of the gift cards was given to us TWO years ago for Christmas. The restaurant isn’t exactly kid-friendly and we were waiting for the right time to use.
We also took the dog on long walks together every night, something that we both enjoy doing together and don’t get a chance to do during the week very often.
Our home was very quiet and we missed our girls terribly, but we had a wonderful week too. It was a week spent together without having to worry about getting our kids from one activity to the other. In fact, my husband said to me on Saturday morning as we headed out the door for a morning of yard saling, “I had a really good week!”
But by Saturday afternoon, we were also really happy to see our girls and hear all about their awesome week at the beach.
A yard salin’ we will go!
On Saturday morning before the kids got home, we hit 3 neighborhood yard sales, another activity that we love to do together, but don’t get a chance to do very often.
I love yard sales, but need to be mindful that I don’t bring a bunch of other people’s junk into our home.
Some of my finds:
- Red ladies’ size 9 red Converse for $2.50 – These retail for about $40 and this pair was hardly worn and will fit my oldest daughter.
- 2 Vera Bradley wristlets ($2 each) for my girls – VB is extremely popular with the tween/teen set right now, especially wristlets on laynards. These wristlets were never used. My girls were very excited about this find.
- A really cute ‘Talavera’ like plate ($1) for a plate wall that I’m planning for my dining room.
- A set of stainless measuring cups and 2 Tupperware containers sold as a bundle for $1!
My Downsized Garden
Last summer, I made the decision to drastically reduce the size of my vegetable garden. For many years on the blog, I wrote extensively about my garden. I followed the Square Foot Gardening technique and it served me well for many years. I also had a large vertical trellis for growing squash, cantaloupe, and watermelons. The garden was my hobby for many years, but in the end, the weeds took over so much that I stopped enjoying my hobby and it became a dreadful chore.
Last summer, I hired someone to completely dismantle and remove my largest box garden and ground garden, and plant grass seed for me at a very reasonable price, especially since it took him just a few hours and it would have taken me an entire weekend. I kept my small box garden which is large enough for just 2 tomato plants and a few herbs.
I knew that once the gardens were removed, I would either cry or be at peace, but the truth is, I don’t miss it at all. In fact, I realize it was a good decision for me.
This month’s challenge: Create a Financial Vision Board
Over on my private Facebook group, Family Budgeters Unite!, we’re working on our Financial Vision Board in the month of June. The topic came to me when I realized that my husband and I haven’t really talked about our future financial goals in awhile. We talked about our 2018 financial goals back in late December, but we didn’t look past the current year. I’m gathering images and magazine pages to put on a bulletin board, but another way to create a vision board is making a collage on PicMonkey and post as your desktop wallpaper.
I created this collage back in 2015 for a sponsored post and it is mostly still accurate. We want to be debt free. We want to travel to Disney and Hawaii. We want to help pay for our daughters’ college. We want to travel in an RV when we retire. And personally, I want to run a full marathon and write a book.
You’re welcome to join us, just click the Facebook link above.
