Layout:
Home > ...and away we go!

...and away we go!

August 6th, 2005 at 06:04 pm

Well here it is - my first journal entry! I've been reading some of the other blogs and those have inspired me to start one of my own. I'm off and running =)

Some recent ideas, inspirations and victories:

Last week I decided to catch up on all of the pictures I've been meaning to print, archive and place in photo albums. The inspiration came for this because I really wanted to get the photos from the Hawaii trip printed (they were all digital) and placed in an album before I went back to work on August 2nd. As much as I love digital photography, my one gripe is that we rarely, if ever!, have the pictures printed. I decided to make it my mission to get together all of the photos I wanted printed, find the best price I could, and get the pictures DONE! Once I dropped off the disc to be printed, I stopped by Michael's to pick up a photo album to place the pictures in when they returned. I was on my way to the check-out counter when it dawned on me: I have at least 5 or 6 photo albums at home already - just begging to have photos placed in them! Why on earth would I spend more money on photo albums? I know it was just a small thing, but it felt like such a victory! I saved myself about $15.00 - and it felt great =) The next day I picked up the photos, wrote descriptions on the back of each, and placed them in their album. Perfect! ...now I only have a few more years to catch up on and I'll be finished. lol Oh well, baby steps! I have all of the pictures being printed as I type; I'll pick them up on Monday and begin the long, but loving process of placing them in albums. My goal is to have them all finished by the holidays. I know I can do it! Deb and I have decided to dedicate at least one girls day to getting our photos organized. Who knows, if it goes well, we might dedicate a second girls day to the same goal and be finished in no time!

Last Saturday Kevin and I took our recycling in. With the small collection we had, we still received just over $12.00. I know it doesn't sound like much, but we figure it's virtually free money. The items that we recycle are either collected on our daily walks, donated by mom and dad or items we bought, consumed, and saved for recycling. Now that I'm back at work, I'm going to make a concentrated effort to go to the faculty lounge every Friday and pickup the recycle bag that's in there before it gets dumped for the weekend. By my calculations we added about $150.00 to our savings last year just by being vigilant about recycling. While it's not a TON of money, it's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Today we're taking a trip to Ikea. A few months ago I had been thinking about purchasing a milk frother. I love lattes, but there's no way I'm going to stop and buy one every day! Also I've had those coffee pots where you can make your own lattes, but sooner or later they get hopelessly clogged and don't work any longer. I thought the best solution was to buy a milk frother - pretty easy to do - and much cheaper than the daily Starbuck's habit (which I've never had anyway). At any rate, the least expensive frother I could find was still about $15.00. Not a horrible price, but since it really isn't a 'necessity', I decided to hold off on purchasing it. Last Sunday we received a new Ikea catalog with the newspaper. I was scanning through the pages when, lo and behold, I came across a milk frother! The price for this battery operated little wonder? A whopping $1.99!! That's right, for less than $2.00, I will be able to enjoy a delicious lowfat latte every morning. YAHOO!! I told Kevin that since they were so inexpensive, I'm going to pick up several. One of the house, one for work and a few to have as spares. Who knows, I might even give one or two away as gifts =)

I've been thinking about our upcoming health and benefits fair at work and trying to decide if we want to make any changes this year. Last year during the open enrollment time I added $250,000.00 worth of life insurance and updated my disability insurance to reflect my current salary. I'm sooo glad I did! When I had surgery in May, that was the first time I've used my disability insurance since I first started buying it 4 years ago. It was wonderful to have that money come in while I was off and not able to work! While I still received some of my pay from work, the extra from the insurance really did help out =) This year I was thinking of adding to my TSA. I've been contributing $150.00 per month. That's not very much, but in the few years that I've had it, it's grown to almost $7,000.00! And I haven't missed the money from my paycheck one bit. I don't even think about it. I was thinking that I might increase the amount to $200.00 a month. That way I've upped the contribution, but not so much that we'll feel pinched. Additionally, if we receive a pay increase this year, I'm going to take whatever amount it is and add it to our credit union contribution. Since we're doing just fine on what we're bringing home right now, we'll never miss that extra amount. My goal is to have the credit union contribution up to $1,000.00 per month. We're currently at $850.00, so the goal isn't too much of a stretch. We should find out about increases by November, so we'll wait and see how it goes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Even if we don't receive an increase, I still think I'm going to increase the amount - even if it's only an extra $25.00.

Well I guess that's it for today - the very first edition of Ran's Ramblings. I'm looking forward to writing again tomorrow!

0 Responses to “...and away we go!”

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]