Finance Gets Personal

Obsessive list-making is a hobby of mine, so I often start the summer with a list of things I want to do over the next three months. Fun things. Summer things.

Eat bomb pops on the lawn. Visit the water park. Take my stepson and one of his friends to play mini golf. Finally take the dog to the leash-free park. Go on a photo-taking road trip. Attend a summer concert. Have friends over on the 4th of July to witness the amazing views of local fireworks displays. Take a picnic to the local Shakespeare festival.

Amazingly, 90% of these things never happen.

I can sense it happening again this summer, as the circulars begin promoting back to school sales and the local Hobby Lobby begins decorating its Christmas trees.

Where are the kids chasing fireflies and parents listening to baseball games on the radio? Where is my green chlorinated hair and dark tan?

Please, fall, it’s too early…

We’ve still got to get our basement finished before college football season starts.

Photo Credit: slip’n’slide by superboma, used under Creative Commons licensing.

for a Garage Sale!

As you might have guessed by the lack of posts this week, I have not worked on the office for Week 5 of The Cure. Instead, I’ve been busy getting ready for our garage sale on Saturday.

Last year we made about $240 in our garage sale, and this time (with the help of my CVS/Walgreens stockpile) I’m hoping to crack $500, which will go toward this home theatre system for the basement.

I cleaned out what was left of my old bedroom at my parents’ house, and also have a bunch of stuff to sell that was moved out of the basement when my husband started finishing it. Now I just need to finish labeling a couple boxes of stuff, make signs, find my banker’s bag, ice up some drinks and set everything up in the garage so it’s ready to go Saturday morning! Oh, and hope that it doesn’t rain…

Note to Self: In the future, it would be much easier to put things in a big “garage sale” bin as you clean the house and price them right then and there.

Since my house is now once again a disaster (I’ve really been trying to keep the rooms I’ve done so far clean, though) I’m eager to get back to the cure after this weekend is over.

A few posts ago, I casually mentioned the savings we have in our basement fund, new computer fund and European vacation fund.

I’m not sure how much I’ve talked about this before, so I thought I’d explain before I start looking like a complete hypocrite (wah, it’s so hard to get out of debt while remodeling your house/buying new computers/taking trips to Rome!).

First, we’ve set up a basement fund, since one of my husband’s goals is to finish the basement himself for $3,000-$4,000. We are directing $150 per paycheck to this goal.

The new computer fund is my husband’s personal account (currently, $750 in a Body Shop tin hidden in the bedroom). He’s saving part of his personal allowance/blow money each paycheck, as well as any money he gets for Christmas and his birthday. Normally, this would be something we would work toward together, but since we got his computer as a wedding present (his parents let us choose what we wanted) and my current computer is older than the one he wants to replace, well…
I only mention this fund because we could use it if he lost his job and we were desperate for cash.

The third “special” fund is the European vacation fund (my personal favorite!). For the past two or three years, my husband has secretly been saving part of his allowance/blow money to take the family to Europe for my 30th birthday next year (well, not too secretly - I knew the account existed, but I only knew that he was saving for some special “surprise”). By the time we take the trip (probably Spring 2010), he’ll have $4,000 saved. Now, I know this doesn’t seem like enough to take three people to Europe, which is why we’ve also started working credit card-frequent flier magic, which should completely pay for our flights (more on this newest hypocrisy in an upcoming post). We’re thinking of visiting parts of England, France and Italy for two weeks.

So, those are the “secret” funds! We’re going to continue to contribute to them as long as they don’t get in the way of regularly scheduled programming. And, you can be sure that I’ll be looking for advice on visiting three of the most expensive cities in the world (London, Paris and Rome) on the cheap!