Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow
About 6 years ago my wife just had to have a bread machine. We looked around for quite awhile and finally settled on a machine from Costco. The smell of fresh bread baking in the kitchen was quite a treat. Never mind that those first loaves cost us far more than just buying a loaf at the store. I think my wife had the desire
I have been having a terrible time knocking off the 20 pounds I really need to shed. For the last year or so I’ve been creeping up on the scale and all my clothes are getting rather uncomfortable. Every time I drop a few pounds, the clothes start fitting better and I give up, only to put the weight back on quickly. I had been
For the first time in a long time, we spent the weekend at home. We decided about a week ago that we were long overdue for just taking it easy and staying home on a weekend. We had absolutely nothing on the agenda for the entire weekend which was both good and bad. My wife would call it a good thing. She’s much more comfortable
The time has finally come. Our little girl is growing up and is entering kindergarten this Sept. While I am feeling many emotions ranging from fear of the unknown to happiness that my daughter is growing up, I also feel a bit of excitement that we’ll be seeing a very large expense reduced. For the last couple years we have been paying over $800 per
We all know someone that doesn’t save a dime. Maybe that’s you? The reasons people cite for putting off saving are many. There is only one problem with all of these reasons. No matter how good your reason is, your future self won’t accept it. The best reason in the world won’t help you pay your bills when you are older. That really good reason
Over the last year I’ve been involved in a community decision to upgrade a shared water system in our neighborhood out at the lake. I had absolutely no idea what kind of high stakes drama I would be involved with when we made the decision to build our place out there. In the last year I’ve seen grown men and women so angry that you’d
Wow. July is finally upon us. For months now, we’ve been making plans for various exciting events this month. For starters, it’s our daughter’s 5th birthday this month. Instead of spending a ton of money on a huge party, we have decided to take a little bit more reserved approach. We have invited just a couple of our daughter’s friends and their families out to
With the price of everything going up, I’ve been very conscious of our energy use both in our cars, and in our home. I’ve always been one of those people that turns lights off anywhere that they aren’t necessary. We have been very good about only using lights in the rooms that we are in over the years. Having a five year old running around
For the last couple of years I’ve been thinking about when our furnace would finally quit. The way my luck goes, it will die in the middle of winter so I decided to shop for a furnace during the slower months for heating companies. I was able to work with two neighbors to pool our business together. We had a few hvac companies come out
Gas prices suck. For many people, who have built their lives around long distance travel and large vehicles, gas prices really suck. I’ve been reading lots of articles about people who travel 120+ miles round trip to their jobs every day. Ouch. Most of those people aren’t driving hybrids either. I’m sure just about everyone has made their way to the Internet looking for ways
