money saving tips

We're newlyweds. So we haven't been doing this for twenty years or anything... but we are both cheap. Here's what we've done in these first seven months to save a little cash.

1. I cut Matthew's hair.
So every six weeks we save $15. That's $120 bucks a year. Fabulous. I used to just trim it, but then we got clippers for Christmas so now I can even clean up those adorable blonde hairs on the back of his neck.

2. I cut my own hair.
Every once and awhile I need layers or something, but since our marriage I've been in charge of how short {or long} my hair and bangs get. I'm not sure how much that saves us...

3. We only get free furniture.
Maybe we will buy some once we have kids {or when we are filthy rich}, but for now we're into craigslist, and hand-me-downs. We did buy our China Cabinet, but that is the only exception. Couch, chairs, bed, dressers, bookshelves, tables... Free. That's how we roll.

4. We spend $50 every two weeks on food.
I don't coupon {but I'm open to it in the future}. We eat alot of fish and alot of chicken which we buy frozen in bulk and then I fix it different ways {pasta, breaded, grilled, baked, sandwiches, basil, lemon, parsley, bar-b-q... etc.}. We eat canned veggies alot {.55 at Aldis}. Sometimes we need paper towels or something and we go a little over. It's ok.

5. We eat at home.
No Starbucks, no Mcdonalds, and no Olive Garden. We have gone out... seven times? As a couple to eat. That's less than once a month. {this doesn't include when people come into town and we go out with them}

6. We get movies at the library.
It's a good excuse to watch all the movies I loved as a child and haven't seen in ten years, plus it's free. Oh, and it's a three miles walk {with plenty of hills} so it's even better when we don't drive.

7. We buy clothes at thrift stores.
Not like we go clothes shopping often. I promise I have enough clothes to last until pregnancy, but for those rare moments when you "need" one more shirt... thrift store.

geometric thrift store shirt i "needed" in October.

8. I sell my clothes on consignment.
We still donate all of our stuff to thrift stores, but the brand name clothes I sell on consignment. I found this fabulous little boutique and I've made over $70 on clothes I didn't fit/want/need.

9. We shower together.
I don't even know if that saves water {we don't pay the water bill, it came with the apartment}, but it seemed worthy of a mention.

10. We freeze as much as possible.
By this I mean ourselves. Bodily. As in, we've run the heat less than a full week so far. I like being cold {because I like to snuggle in a warm blanket with a warm husband}. In the summer our energy bills are way higher, but no one likes unnecessary sweating.

11. We split the internet bill with our neighbor.
Our apartments our side by side, and it just makes sense. Hopefully the next neighbor wants to share when we get a new one in February.

12. We paid for our cars with cash.
If you can't afford a car, don't buy it. We're supposed to be wise with the money God has given us, and debt=not wise. We have a 1996 BMW 3.18i and a 2002 Honda Civic and no payments.

13. We don't have a credit card.
I don't think this one needs an explanation, but a credit card is money you don't have.... why would I want to spend money I don't have, only to accumulate fees for spending said money, so in the end I have to pay more money, even though I already didn't have the money to begin with. Yeah, no.

14. No cable.
I've mentioned it before, but my husband and I don't even have a t.v. We have a projector so we can watch movies {and a clearplay to clean them up}, but no tv. No tv= No cable. Money in the bank.




I love that I married someone who likes to go Thrift Store shopping and will let me cut his hair. Oh yeah, that's because I was created for him.

Obviously we'll have different tips once we reach different stages of life {like using a clothes line, or cloth diapers}, but we'd love to hear the money saving tips that you find the most useful.

160.3 pounds

I can't believe it has been almost a month since I started this weight loss thing. I also can't believe I have barely lost 10 pounds. In my defense, we did have Christmas thrown in there, but still I hope this next month goes better. 

I've noticed that when I "work out" (10 down, but with 110 sit ups + 400 jumping jacks) I lose .2  in a couple of days. Slow, slow, and more slow. But when I go on a three mile walk, the scale rewards me with the loss of a pound. 

My conclusion, more walking and less jumping. I can think of 1,000 reasons to not go walking, and only 32 reasons to throw those reasons away. 32 pounds still to lose. Then I think of all the clothes that don't fit me right, and how good I feel when I'm being healthy. Everything starts to even out.

 As far as healthy life style changes for the past month, here they go:

• Working out at least every weekday 

• Making no exception to snacking 

• Never getting seconds 

• Eating smaller portions  

•  Drinking lots of water

This weight loss blog thing is funny. It does keep me accountable (which is why I started it), but it also has drawn the most attention of any blog post I have written. The first day I had a couple hundred hits. Here's a tip to the blogging world. If you want people to read what you write, start your post with an abnormally large weight. It works. ;) 

Back to real life though. I still weigh 160 pounds. Hopefully by my birthday {at the end of February} I'll be so close to my goal weight I'll be able to wear some long forgotten clothes.

160

170

Here's to getting smaller and smaller.

little wooden family members

Have you been to etsy?

You have my permission to go there and buy me everything you find. Just kidding {sorta}. But today I got a package that I've been looking forward to since I decided that I would buy it for myself if I didn't get it for Christmas. I'd like to introduce you to my 60 wooden peg people.

{yes, my license plates used to say "no charge" and you may watch the introduction to Kung Fu Panda

 to find out why}

Gah! Look at them! All cute and little and unpainted. Don't they just beg you to create something awesome with them? No? Just me? Ok. 

I want to make them princesses, knights, superheroes, and normal people. I'm seriously so excited to give each one a different personality and imagine which ones my kids will fight over the most. No, this is not a 60 different characters reveal. I just got the package today. However, I have tackled one major tiny step toward making them all different people... I have painted their heads the perfect mixture of white, brown, and red.

Am I the only one who is massively excited about the potential that these people hold? Think with me. I'm seeing a tropical hawaiian wrap on that chick, and a pearl necklace on that woman. That little boy will wear a soccer uniform, while that one sports a tiny tuxedo. There will definitely be a couple modeled after Matthew and I. Not gonna lie, I kinda wish they had come before the week that classes start, but that didn't take any of the excitement away. It's like Christmas all over again!

K, now be honest... who would you make?

diy side table

We were galavanting through Homegoods the other day and on one of the cooking aisles a large $20 cutting board caught my attention. It was the kind that was made from real wood. Like someone had chopped a portion of a tree out and made a cutting board, knots and all. I love that organic wood feel, especially when mixed with something else. Preferably something industrial, to make it look less like a log cabin and more like an eclectic space. 

We looked all over for a metal stool to be the "legs" for our cutting board side table. No such luck. Eventually we wandered into Lowes. I found myself actually liking some of the wooden legs they had {to be spray painted of course}, and there was even a rounded wooden leg that got smaller at the base and faded into a small metal foot. I was sold. We purchased three {can I convince you that it was for aesthetics and not because we are cheap?}.

This is the part where I should have pictures of the untouched wooden dowels and the cutting board. Yeah, I didn't take that picture.

Matt, however, did capture me spray painting them yellow in our makeshift spray painting station {a.k.a. a very covered kitchen}.

 And then we {meaning Matt} screwed them into the cutting board with the hardware we had picked up. We went for angled plates so our table would have the "I am resemblant to a tripod on purpose" look, rather than "I lost one of my legs to termites". 

We've been using a drum that Matt's brother-in-law brought him back from Haiti as our makeshift side table, and even though I enjoy its back story, it isn't level. I think it's fair that we have a "real" {cutting board and wooden dowels} side table and leave the drum available for the occasional festive dances we throw. 

It's doing a fabulous job at holding that lamp and looking spiffy. Don't ya think? When I came home from work today, Matt surprised me with those two brass swans that he found at the thrift store across the street. How cute is he{Matt, not the swans. ok, both}? I still need to show you my other brass buddies... They will be in the "what we got for christmas" post that I haven't written yet. Just a little project that I'm glad we finished before school starts up for me next week. Christmas Break, I love you. Stay with me.

diy heart art

Have you guys heard of Pinterest? Yeah, me too. Along with the blogs that I try to read daily, I always make pinterest and facebook stops. 

For anyone who doesn't know, pinterest is simply a collection of pictures of things you want to do, places you want to go, and everything else you can think of. I like it for design inspiration. One of things I've seen repeatedly was "heart art". Basically, white paper hearts on a solid canvas. 

I'm always on the lookout for {non-tacky} ideas that I can do with things I already have. {a.k.a. free projects} 

I have a canvas. I have a heart punch {from my scrapbooking days}. I have paint. I have white paper. 

Let's get to work.

Matthew punched out the hearts, and I painted the canvas. 

We chose the same color as our living room's shaggy green ikea carpet. Then I took the 100 hearts and rubber cemented them to the canvas. Part of my father's OCD personality started to creep in as I was making the rows. That didn't last long. 

It ended up perfect. And by perfect, I mean flawed in a good way. 

Some of them are unfolded into full hearts and some of them are still folded as half hearts. They can be changed at whim back and forth, which I love. 

Here's our current living room. I like the idea of "this is exactly what our apartment looks like right this second"{except that I'm sitting on that corner of the couch. insert me staring at my screen}. I hope that at some point my little projects will inspire you to do something you've admired but never tried. 

chip off the ol' block

As I reread the title, it occurred to me that this might {again} look like a pregnancy announcement. It's not. I stink at secret keeping and I promise when we are pregnant, you will know.

This post is related to that beautiful holiday that we just finished {and yes, I do resent Food City for having Valentine's Day decorations out the same week as Christmas}. 

We've started another tradition! Christmas tree stump ornaments. Since we climbed a mountain to get our tree, it didn't need a "fresh cut" before we took it home. However, once we took down the tree {sniff sniff}, I had Matthew saw off the tip of the trunk. He then drilled a teeny hole, and I grabbed my {every color imaginable} assortment of fine point sharpies to make our personalized chip off the ol' block.

Aw. It's the most adorable, tiny little ornament in the whole world. It's a little over an inch in diameter, and even though I plan on doing this every single year forever, I already know it'll be my favorite. After all, it is our first Christmas.

The hardest part {by far} of the project was getting the yarn through the smallest hole ever drilled. What can I say? I'm super woman. I kept it simple with this one. That's one of my goals this year; I want to keep things classy and simple.

 Have I mentioned that I love traditions? 

wooden whale toy makeover

I've mentioned it before, but we live across the street from a thrift store. It tends to be entirely hit or miss, but whenever we're looking for something, we start there. The other day we were on the hunt for an industrial stool {no luck yet}, so we took the crosswalk hand in hand. While I was rummaging somewhere between a walker and a fuzzy pink folding chair, Matthew was having much better finds. 

Presenting the wooden whale. Affectionately called Fredrick. 

A couple of things before we get into it. His name is courtesy of a little Andrew Pearson randomness. In the midst of one of the Nowak Family Productions, Andrew picked up the whale pillow on the couch and called it Fredrick, as though that had always been its name. Every whale since has shared the name. Also, when we were in line to buy Fredrick, a woman asked if there were any able bodied men willing to help carry a t.v. to a truck. Matthew's random act of kindness prompted the thrift store to let us take Fredrick home for free. You shouldn't need incentive to do something kind, but hey, sometimes people give you free wooden whales! Ok, moving on.

I love him. He's all wood and adorable whether you think he's a child's toy or a back massager. He was just so... scratched up. His {once googily} eyes were nothing but sticky ovals. He needed a hug... from sandpaper and a paintbrush. Enter me.

He's all finished. Waiting to be rolled around by a couple dozen little Nowak babies {not a pregnancy announcement}. We were perfectly content to leave the wheels alone, mostly because they were already perfect. I love giving new life to something old.