Grosh Family Blog

Win or Lose we acheived one of our goals.

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:30:37 GMT

I remember during our first video session with our coaches, we were asked what we wanted to acheive at the end of this contest. Diana had said "to get completely out of debt." At the time I really thought that was an unrealistically high goal. Remember, that at that point we were having to spend our savings just to pay the bills, and we could not make ends meet. Even at the halfway point I thought we were finally making some headway, but I still could not see the point at which we would be completely out of debt. Last week we received this in the mail.

We finally paid off our last debt. We both look forward to being able to apply all that money that went to credit cards, car payments, etc.. towards something else. This last year has been alot better then I could have ever expected.

So, with or without the $10,000, we won this challenge!!! We are so much better off than we were 10 months ago, and so much better than we would have been now without the knowledge, motivation, and support that we have gained through this experience. Thank you, Florida Commerce and Tallahassee!

An expensive week but at least my christmas lights are up.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:23:51 GMT

This last week was probably one of our worst in reguards to saving money. First we had to repair a water leak that only cost us $200 thanks to whites plumbing. We ended up having to replace the whole shower valve. They had to break through the tile on the front to fix the valve. In order to save money I had them leave the tile unrepaired so that I could fix it myself after christmas. The same day that we were having the leak fixed we lost our power due to a damaged main line out to the street. Luckly there is a conduit to our meter from the street so they did not have to dig up the yard to pull a new line. However, this still cost us more then $500 to fix. I also ended up spending about $300 on hardware supplies to finish up the light show this year. The good news is that its finally done and running. We had two photos of our lights in the Tallahassee Democrats "Tour of Lights". For the past few weeks the traffic in front of our house has steadly gotten heavier. Most nights we come home to 10 or more cars waiting to watch the lights. Sometimes we will see more then 20 cars up and down the street waiting to watch our lights. Gabriel and Jacob still beg us most night to go outside and watch for a while. If you want more information about the lights go to www.tallahasseelights.com

When it rains it pours...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:40:19 GMT

We called a plumber to fix a problem in our master bath. The hot water in the shower is leaking baddly. Not only is this using alot of water but since it is hot water our electric bill will be higher also. On top of that were getting mildew on the walls of all three bedrooms from the steam. So we closed off the master bathroom and turned on the vent fan to help with the problem while we wait for a plumber.

A seperate issue is our electric. for the past couple weeks our electric has been browning out. We thought this was due to the neighboorhood wide upgrades to the underground electric cables. They had to dig up a good portion of our yard to install the new cables. Then last night around 8 o'clock all our electric started to act weird. lights were only on at half brightness... ceiling fans were spinning much slower... the washer would not work at all and when you tried to turn it on were would lose all electricty in about half the house. We called City of Tallahassee electric and they came out and said that we only had 60 volts on one phase of the leg to the street (the underground cable that connects the street to the power meter). I asked if this was damaged by the neighborhood upgrades.. and was told that they could put in a request to research it but we would not have power untill they decided if it was the citys fault. Otherwise, if we wanted power this week, we would have to call (and PAY) and electriction to fix the very expensive problem.

It is nice having an emergency fund, but it is still painfull to have to give it up.

Hobbies on a budget

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:57 GMT

I am a hobbie type of guy. One of the big things we have cut this year is my hobbies. I like to get involved in any cool or unique hobbie. However, it always puts a dent in my wallet. Juggling requires lots of juggling equipment. Wood working, lots of tools. Puzzles, rubix cubes, stunt kite flying, COMPUTER CONTROLLED CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, etc...

A friend of mine got involved with building fireworks a few years ago and it was something that always interested me. Howerever, it too is kinda expensive. This year he invited me to their BIG event. The event is 5 days long filled with building and launching all types of fireworks. Tt was something I really wanted to do. However I really didn't even have $50 to spend on the entry fee. He said that i could make most of that back by helping setup on the first two days. Well, that solved the money issue for me. I am very glad he invited me and i was able to go. It was truly one of the coolest things I have done all year. I got to help setup and see the inner working of a fireworks display. I also got a chance to build a real 3" canister shell. Probably the coolest thing was helping load some Maltese shells that were as big as i am.

Thankfulness

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:09:15 GMT

is the word of the Day!

The top 5 things I’m thankful for:

A healthy family, and that if anyone gets sick or hurt, we have health insurance and a great emergency fund to pay for co-pays.

A healthy baby girl on the way, and that we are taking important steps to be financially ready for her arrival.

Both of us are employed at the level that is right for our family, and that Michael’s job is flexible enough that we can take care of our children ourselves. And that I have found such a perfect job situation for my family’s needs, where I can feel fulfilled by doing important work and still keep my family as my number one priority.

My awesome support system that helps me get through rough times, including my immediate and extended families, prayer support from the boys’ school, friends from work, and especially my new CRHP sisters.

The security that we’ve found by facing our finances and beginning to live right with our money.

Michael’s top 5:

Finally being able to discuss and agree with my wife on finances,

Not being afraid of emergencies because we have money set aside for them if they happen,

My 2 boys and my daughter on the way,

My older sister is visiting for Thanksgiving,

A good and interesting job with a great boss.

Gabriel’s top 5:

My mom, dad, brother, and our new baby,

Toys,

Food to eat,

Paper to draw on,

Friends at school.

Even though Jacob didn’t get to answer this question, we think his top 5 would be:

Milk,

Oatmeal,

Mommy bath,

Two books at bedtime,

Ketchup on everything (including fingers).

Must…buy…something…PINK!!!

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:41:09 GMT

Okay, so here are all the hints in case you’ve missed them:

From my “Back to school means—Football!” Blog on 9/7/09

“Though I have a very strong reason to believe that I will not be attending any football next year either—maybe I can come back in 2011, Doak, but until then…

I hope we win, but it is WAAAAY past my new early bedtime, so I'll just have to find out tomorrow...”

From my “Exhaustion sets in” Blog on 9/16/09

"Just hoping that this extreme fatigue goes away in a few weeks like it’s supposed to, and I can get back to feeling fairly normal, for a little while anyway. All the sick and tired feelings can’t get me down, though; because today, Charmin Ultra was on sale, and I had a coupon…I’ve been missing two-ply!"

And from my “Changes, Changes, and More Changes” Blog on 11/9/09

"This is necessary for us right now, or at least very beneficial and wise since we have the opportunity, because we are preparing for a 4 month period next spring/summer where I will have no income at all, which will be followed by another 2-4 month period where I will have less of an income than what we have become accustomed to in the last 8 months."

So…any ideas what we’ve been hinting at? Well, we have spent the past year getting financially fit, which includes decreasing our debt, increasing our savings, and increasing our credit score. And there is one more thing that will be increasing soon—our family! YAY! We are expecting!

No, this was not necessarily planned. Michael and I, of course, wanted more children, but we are more of an “if it happens, we’re open to it” kind of couple, rather than a “we’re trying, or trying not to” kind of couple. The details are this: our new baby is due in late April. We found out today that she is a GIRL!!! I have been positive thinking about this baby being a girl since the day we found out about her. I have been fighting the urge to buy pink things, you know just to prove how confident I was that she was a girl. But now that I KNOW she’s a girl--MUST…BUY…SOMETHING…PINK!!!

Changes, Changes, and More Changes

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:25:52 GMT

Adding hours at work—a little scary, but an important step in making some needed financial preparations.

We’ve all made a lot of changes to the way we do things financially and otherwise during this contest. Some of the biggest changes we’ve made have been from the very beginning and have become such ingrained habits by now, that the new way has now become our normal. Well, we are getting ready to make another change that feels big and scary to me.

Since September, our little Jacob has been attending preschool 3 days per week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. At the beginning of the school year I let my boss at my tutoring job know that I would be available for morning hours on those days, and would like to add hours if possible. Since she mostly needed more help on Tuesday and Thursday, it didn’t work out for me to add hours, but I did put Jacob on the waiting list for adding Tuesday and Thursday to his preschool schedule. Well, last week the preschool contacted me to let me know there was an opening for Jacob to add the 2 days, and so last Thursday he started his every day school experience. This Thursday, I will start working 3-4 mornings per week, adding 8-12 hours to my weekly commitment at work.

This is necessary for us right now, or at least very beneficial and wise since we have the opportunity, because we are preparing for a 4 month period next spring/summer where I will have no income at all, which will be followed by another 2-4 month period where I will have less of an income than what we have become accustomed to in the last 8 months. I figure that by almost doubling my hours for the next 5 months, we will be much better prepared than if we did nothing now to get ready. And as dumb as it sounds, we have been in this similar situation in the past and done absolutely no saving to prepare for me being without an income. This lack of preparation is probably the biggest reason we’ve been in debt in the past. Now, we (okay, I) have come out of denial and learned how to face certain and uncertain future financial events and plan for them. It feels good! Well, at least that part does anyway…

The scary part: Part of me knows this is going to sound whiney, because there are so many moms out there who would love to be in my situation because I have the option to just work part time and spend so much time with my children. I know I’m very blessed. And yet we embark on a change that I worry about how well my children will adjust. Gabriel I am not so worried about. He had his full year of 3 day preschool last year which created a smooth transition to his 5 days of preschool this year. My adding work hours in the morning will not change anything for Gabriel. But little Jacob—he is my “momma’s boy” and I had reserved our Tuesday and Thursday mornings for our special time together. Now he will be getting up, getting ready for school, coming home to nap, and then spending the afternoon with Daddy while I work my afternoon hours, 5 days a week. By the time I get home it is time for bath and bed, and I won’t even get to do that each night. Michael has teased me because I am so concerned about how Jacob is going to take this new schedule; he says I am the one with the Separation Anxiety. I am trying hard to keep an open mind—who knows? Maybe Jacob will become a little more independent (or at least let other people besides Mommy do things for him!) if he spends a little more time away from me. This would be a really good thing! I know he will enjoy playing with his new Tuesday Thursday friends at school. One thing I’ve already noticed about our interaction just as I mentally prepare for this change is that I am much more appreciative and focused during the time we have together—and that is definitely a positive change!

My Computer Died

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:07:36 GMT

Well, we’ve said we weren’t making decisions based on being in the contest, but on what was best for our family finances anyway, but…

Last week, of course while I was desperately working on an overdue project for my volunteer role at the boys’ preschool, my computer made this cute little “doink” noise and went totally dead. One great thing about having a mechanically minded spouse is that most things that can be fixed can be done with just a little time and the cost of a few parts. (Michael ran out for a new part and fixed our broken toilet this morning for $6, for example.) It is especially helpful when your mechanically minded spouse happens to also be a computer geek who specializes in fixing things for a profession. His skill has saved us lots of money over the years because he can build a new computer from scratch with just parts, defrag and decontaminate when we get stuck with a virus, rescue data from a computer that no longer works, reload software, even bring a computer back from the blue screen of death. (Or it has cost us more because he always has to have the newest and the best of everything…J)

So after a little playing around (meaning trying everything to get the thing to power up, unsuccessfully, then using a tiny screwdriver to take the laptop completely apart) Michael determined that the motherboard had died. A new motherboard for this computer would cost about $350. An entirely new laptop with similar features would cost about $600, so we decided it really wouldn’t be worth spending the $350 to fix that old one. But it really doesn’t make sense to spend $600 on a new laptop for me when we could probably get by with both of us using Michael’s computer for a few months until the end of the contest.

And so we start the list…first on the list of things we’ll be adding to our budget when we are done with the contest is a new laptop for me (unless of course we realize that it is working okay to just use one—I’m keeping an open mind…)

The Best Birthday Present Ever…

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:53:37 GMT

Is not necessarily a trip to Disney World.

The trip to Disney WAS awesome. The kids had a great time. No one got sick (well, not stomach flu sick, just a cough, thank goodness.) I enjoyed all the birthday wishes from the cast members and fellow guests. It was cheap, thanks to all our planning ahead for meals. We got to stay a little longer than last time. And I got a free gift card from WDW for my birthday gift! (But that’s still not the best one!)

The BEST gift I received for my birthday was from my awesome DH, Michael. We had plans to eat cheaply each night by combining a few kids meals at $4.99 each with some snacks or PBJ that we would pack into the park. But Michael surprised me with a real dinner at a real restaurant on the night of my birthday. We ate at the T-Rex Restaurant in Downtown Disney. If you’ve never been there, imagine Rainforest Café, with a prehistoric twist. The kids were amazed, especially when every 30 minutes or so it would “storm” with loud thunder and rain soundtrack, flashing lights, and the ice cave which was constantly changing from blue to pink and which turned orange and red during the storms. And then of course, all the dinosaurs in the place would move around and make noise. It was cute to see Jacob telling them, “It’s okay dinosaurs, the storm is almost over, okay, it’s all better now, see?”

The food was AWESOME!!! The kids’ meals were a little more expensive than in the parks ($7.99) but there were lots of good choices and they came with 2 sides and milk. I ordered a salad that sounded appealing. When the food (finally—but we enjoyed our wait) came, I was shocked at how huge this salad was and knew I would never be able to finish the whole thing. After the first bite, though…mmm. Michael and I dubbed it the Chicken Bryan of salads. (Remember Chicken Bryan is our most favorite meal at our most favorite restaurant. It’s REALLY good—better than you-know-what good!) Any way we ended up sitting there long enough that I DID finish it, thoroughly enjoying each bite. At the end of the meal, a few waiters even came and sang to me and brought a cookie with a scoop of ice cream and a candle, so we even got a free dessert to share. Overall a great night and wonderful experience. But you still haven’t heard the BEST part…

We did not pay for this meal from our gift budget or our trip budget. I wasn’t sure exactly where the money for this meal was going to come from, actually, until Michael let me in on the real gift. He had been secretly packing a lunch or eating free or really cheaply and saved the money from his own eating out for lunch budget to treat me to a special meal for my birthday. The fact that he sacrificed and gave up something that I know he really hates to do without (dining out at lunchtime) was the BEST GIFT OF ALL!!!! Love you, Sweetie!

Heading to Disney World

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:24:03 GMT

In about 10 hours we are heading out to Disney World.

I know a lot of people wonder, "How can you afford to spend money to go to Disney while in a contest like this?"

Well... it's due to what we have learned and are practicing every day that we can afford to go. Something that you HAVE to do when working hard at anything (going on a diet, setting a budget, learning something new) is set goals and rewards. If you don't, you will easily get burned out. Something else that has proved very useful in this contest is spend only on what is important to you. For us, we want to spend some time away with the kids and enjoy the parks, but don't care about nice resorts or dining out. We already purchased season passes to Disney last year so we don't need to spend anything on that. We're staying at a value park resort with the Florida rate. This is cheaper then staying at any nearby hotel and will save us on entry fees and driving to and from the parks each day. Eating at the parks can be really expensive. Therefore we are packing our own breakfests and lunches. For dinners we are eating out one night with family (but keeping our budget in mind). On Thursday, we will be buying kids meals for Gabriel and Jacob but bringing a lot of our own sides to save a little money. Last but not least we will not be budgeting for souvenirs. This might be a good opportunity to let Gabriel and Jacob look in their piggy banks to see if they want to spend any of their savings (and maybe teach them that saving has a purpose in the end).

Bad Habit

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:59:36 GMT

An old bad habit I had (or thought i HAD) creeped up on me this weekend. I got involved on a project (adding some holloween lights) and made a few trips to home depot for "necessary" supplies to finish the project. Now its Monday and i have 5 recipts infront of me for $36.24, $4.83, $5.58, $43.14 and $27.84 totalling $117.63. The major problem is that I didn't make a budget. In my head I am thinking... "This won't be too expensive and I 'need' to do this for the lights this year".

Luckly, what I am doing will serve a dual purpose of adding something for halloween and christmas this year. Last year I had draped lights onto our front bushes. My display makes use of 4 colors for most elements (red, blue, green and white). However, the lights on the bushes were only white. I could not add 4 times the amount of lights to the bushes this year with out crushing them. So i build PVC frames that I will attach the lights to which will sit infront of the bushes. This will make it easier to set up and take down and also save my bushes. I decided to do this now because I had enough Orange lights for halloween to add a 5th color to the frames to use for the trick-or-treaters. Most of the PVC i already owned, unused in the garage and was able to use it for this project, saving me alot of money. I know there is more I want to do for both halloween and christmas. I just don't want to keep spending money thinking "well, I need to buy this to finish this project". I really need to sit down and make a budget that I can spend. Especially for these semi-unexpected expenses and projects.

Going to Disney

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:15:44 GMT

So we are planning another Disney trip on Diana's birthday. This time we are staying an extra day. At $64 a night we are budgeting $130 for the room. $50 for gas and an additional $60 for food (we are splurging on eating out one night with some of our cousins that are flying in from Indiana). So for about $240 were going to visit the mouse to celebrate Diana’s birthday.

It's still hard to plan a trip like this and try to save money. The easiest thing to do is just pay for everything you need. I especially have a hard time convincing myself that it’s not better to just eat out for everything. We are planning on bringing meals for just about everything. Luckily the kids are not spoiled, yet, and they enjoy eating packed lunch in a new environment. I guess its helps Diana and myself in those situations to see the kids handle it so well. I want to do something special for Diana’s birthday but again, budgeting is getting in the way. If anyone has any ideas for me to do something special for Diana at Disneyworld (on the cheap) send them to mgrosh@thirdkind.com (so she doesn’t see) and ill post them here after the trip.

How NOT to spend $200 on a weekend.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:49:05 GMT

I'm sure all of us have had fantasies of how to blow $200 on a weekend.

Maybe a nice dinner...
A quick trip somewhere...
Maybe a bunch of clearance stuff from Target...

But, a snotty acorn???

So on sunday at 5:00 Jacob was showing mommy something. "dook mommy, my doze" A quick trip to Patients First and $50 copay we found that Jacob had stuck something up his nose. Also, that they were not able to take it out. They sent us to TMH ($150 copay) to have them try. We arrived around 6:30 and was told that the longest wait was about 2 hours.

7 hours later....

we saw the doctor. They tried a couple times to remove the acorn but decided that they would have to sedate Jacob to get the job done. They used Ketamine to sedate Jacob and remove the acorn. It was a little scary, but everyone survived the ordeal. Diana took the day off work to stay with Jacob. He is doing great but we are keeping a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't spend another $200 today. Luckly we didn't have to think twice if we had the money to afford the emergency. We have saved up our emergency fund and put it to good use today.

As stressfull as the whole situation was, Jacob cheered us up by singing "where is thumbkin" while still in his Ketamine induced stupor. Click here to watch

Exhaustion sets in

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:57:21 GMT

There are dishes piled up in my kitchen sink…my poor DH is wearing dirty socks…the toilets are growing fuzzy stuff…my desk has mountains of mail and general paper junk towering and threatening to avalanche…there are about 500 puzzle pieces (from 20 different puzzles) spread amongst the blocks, trains, and crayons littering the playroom floor…crumbs from dinner 3 weeks ago are mixed in with cereal and other bits on my kitchen floor…and I’m too exhausted to care!

We have been busy the last few weeks, getting into a new routine with school starting, and me going back to tutoring, trying to get the van running, kids getting sick (no wonder with the condition of my house, right, but I’m also clinging to the excuse that they just started school and picked up something), Michael traveling for work, football season back in full swing, Michael back to playing city league softball…

I need to get online and pay the utility bill that was due several days ago (FYI they don’t report to the credit bureau, thank goodness!) and the upcoming phone and cable bills (Not sure, but I think they DO report…)

Just hoping that this extreme fatigue goes away in a few weeks like it’s supposed to, and I can get back to feeling fairly normal, for a little while anyway. All the sick and tired feelings can’t get me down, though, because today, Charmin Ultra was on sale, and I had a coupon…I’ve been missing two-ply!

Back to school means--Football!

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:15:37 GMT

Michael has been giddy for weeks looking forward to tonight! Our football fan status has evolved quite a bit over the last 12 years…

I don’t know when Michael really got into football, because his dad isn’t really into it, but when he started attending FSU over 13 years ago, it became something he enjoyed. When we were newlyweds, I had just gotten my first teaching job and really needed a distraction from the stress of being a first year teacher, so a four hour break on the weekend was something I quickly learned to enjoy as well. At that time we would buy single game tickets if we needed to, or upgrade a student ticket to let me in, and Michael would use his free (well, already paid for in fees and tuition) student ticket. I think Michael enjoyed teaching me the rules of the game and did a great job tolerating and patiently answering my gazillion questions. (I probably said “what just happened?” about 59 times per game, but now I only ask once or twice per season—see girls can learn sports!) And I know he really enjoyed the games when his twin brother came home from Atlanta for the weekend and came with us.

At some point, maybe 10 year s ago, we started buying season tickets. We started off with 6, two for my BIL and his current SO, two for Michael and I, and two that we would give away or sell or just let 4 people have some extra space! We got 6 tickets for over 5 years, I think, and then it became much more practical for us to just have the 4 that we knew we would use.

Michael has attended every home game for a really long time. We would even order tickets to a few away games each year, and make a couple of road trips each fall. (BK, of course) Michael and his brother attended all the bowl games, too, often costing as much in travel, lodging and time off of work as we would spend on the tickets for the whole season. Of course we are also making booster contributions each year as well, in order to get the best seats possible through the point system.

Then there were the years that we had teeny babies at home, and I didn’t want to leave them, so I would miss many if not all the games in those years. And who can forget stadium food! We would easily drop $30 on snacks and a meal while at the stadium. I have continued to enjoy the games over the years, but I like away games just about as much because I like having friends over and offering the comforts of home and really yummy food to our friends and family who enjoy football, too. Last year was kind of a wake-up call though. (The wake-up call actually came when we were gathering information to submit to our weLiveFIT challenge coaches about our spending last year, and we actually paid attention to how much we were spending on this—ugh!) We spent plenty of money on our booster contribution and tickets, and since we didn’t have any teeny tinies at home, Mommy wanted to go to every game! We paid almost $500 just in babysitting for the home games last year!!! GASP!!!

When it came time this past spring to buy tickets, there was some serious “discussions” about football! I believed this was an extra that we couldn’t afford, but I also enjoy football and want to resume attending games when our financial situation is better and we are able to afford more luxuries. My (very creative—I thought) solution was to go ahead and buy the tickets (something about consecutive years of season ticket holding makes a big difference in the point system that can allow you to get better seats as they are available) to keep our points, but to resell the tickets. (Not for profit—I’m not into scalping—in fact I figured we might have to take a small loss, but a price I was willing to pay to save the cost of having and using the tickets, and to keep our points.) Anyway, Michael was not willing to give up attending football. Our compromise ended up being that we would drop the tickets we bought down to just the 2 for Michael and his brother (they have a new baby, so their second ticket wouldn’t have been used much either this year). I am staying home and inviting friends over or watching the game with my SIL and all the kids, which is saving us babysitting money. Michael is under strict orders to buy nothing at the stadium, and we will see what happens for next year. Though I have a very strong reason to believe that I will not be attending any football next year either—maybe I can come back in 2011, Doak, but until then…

I hope we win, but it is WAAAAY past my new early bedtime, so I'll just have to find out tomorrow...

The Van (The last part...... or is it???)

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:05:27 GMT

I finally got the used van back together last weekend. After almost 2 months of work I felt I had it working pretty well. I guess that we knew it was ready to start driving it instead of the Toyota when we moved the kid’s car seats over. They were completely excited to be riding in the “new” van. LoL. I thought they might be upset that it didn’t have any of the features that our current van does. No power doors, no cool sun shades, no widows that roll down for the kids, etc.. However, they both were happy just because it was different. I totally wish I could still appreciate things like kids do.

We drove it around all weekend and took it to super-lube to get a much needed oil change. Super-Lube told us it had been almost 3 years since its last oil change. Needless to say that getting a complete system flush and “special” oil was going to cost us more. There was some damage to the oil pan but nothing that seemed to be critical and lucky it was not leaking oil yet. I even splurged $5 to run the van through the car-wash. I think it was the first time the kids have been through and automatic car wash. Now every night I give them baths they want me to use the sprayer on them like the car-wash.

However, I guess this is the week for bad things to happen. I took a trip to the hardware store with the kids. When we went back to the van to drive home it would not start. Completely dead. I had to call Diana to come give us a jump. I drove it back home and charged the battery again and let it sit for 2 hours. When I tried to start it again it was completely dead again. Either I have a bad battery (which just happened to work the whole time I was repairing the van) or I have a short somewhere in the van (highly likely since many parts were corroded and worn).

So, our big plans on selling the van right away are on hold till I can find whats wrong and fix it. I am glad this happened now and not after we sell the van or we might have been in a pickle.

FCCU: Your Financial Education Institution

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:29:52 GMT

Don't most banking institutions want people to borrow money and pay interest and fees?

I love that Florida Commerce seems to be focusing on consumer education and truly helping people find personal financial stability. About 10 days ago, Michael and I attended FCCU's Financial Fitness Festival and feel even more informed and empowered than we already did just because of all the great coaching we are getting through the contest.

We especially wanted to take the Raising Money Smart Kids section and the Building a Better Budget. Those two courses weren’t available back to back (luckily) so we also took the Preparing for Retirement section. All the courses were really good!

In the Money Smart Kids section, FCCU provided some great forms for kids for budgeting, planning their income and expenses, goal setting, as well as keeping track of chores that are tied to regular allowance or those that are for extra pay. Some of the best tips we learned are: 1) Money smart behavior is taught through both your example and through explicit instruction. 2) Kids earn and spend money in a multitude of ways, learn your kids and be intentional about how you want them to earn and spend. 3) Teach children early and often that income is limited, spending should be controlled, and some income should be saved. 4) Let kids learn from their mistakes, rather than fixing every problem for them. 5) Watch commercials with the kids and teach them how to discriminate between valuable information and marketing messages. 6) Make activities, goals, etc age appropriate for your child.

We have now set Gabriel up with a chore chart, things like gathering the trash from around the house, clearing off the table after meals, putting the clean silverware away, and moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. He gets a daily allowance at the end of each day, and then when he has accrued a certain amount, we will let him divide it up into investing (never to be seen again—okay maybe to pay for his college or his retirement), saving up for something he wants to buy that is more expensive, spending on something small right now, and giving.

The Better Budgeting class was good in that it helped me identify some of the psychological obstacles I have keeping me from being very diligent about budgeting. Don’t get me wrong—we have a “budget,” but it’s just a general guideline based on what usually happens and we haven’t been very good at creating a new written plan for the things that come up or change from month to month. The course reminded us to revisit some things like our short term goals (we’ve met so many of them recently that we need some new ones!) and how much we will need for a 6 month emergency fund (about $15,000 by my calculations). We learned some more specifics of physically creating a budget, such as using a paper form vs. a spreadsheet, how to stay organized, and way s to stay motivated to keep up with budgeting. Overall another great course!

The Planning for Retirement segment was a gem of a course that I didn’t expect to get so much from. You know how when something seems really overwhelming, your brain just kind of shuts out more information than what you can handle at the moment? I think we are finally getting to the point (eliminating consumer debt and working on the emergency fund) that we can actually let the retirement stuff start to actually sink in. The best pieces to me were the formulas to figure out your retirement goals, for instance: how much will you need in retirement to live the way you want? These formulas take into consideration the number of years you will need retirement income, which of your expenses will lessen, go away, appear, or increase during retirement, inflation, and several other factors. Another set of formulas helped us determine how much we need to start saving per month now and what interest rates we’ll need in order to achieve that goal. Another big part of the course was about asset allocation and how to diversify your investments to meet your needs based on your goals, age, and risk tolerance—which I found out is more about how well you can sleep at night versus any other factors. Anyway, in order to maximize our contribution to a Roth IRA for each of us, we need to start saving $833 per month!!! That seems really high, but I suppose as we continue to eliminate debt and have more control of our income, that number becomes more doable.

Again I am continually impressed with Florida Commerce as a banking institution that seems really focused on supporting its members and everyone in the community to improve money management, decrease debt, and increase savings. I guess there will just always be an excessive number of people who are so influenced by commercialism and our consumer culture to continue to borrow money and pay plenty of interest and fees. At least Florida Commerce will have access to all of our (the financially educated ones’) deposits to loan them money!

Yard Sale This Weekend!

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:58:19 GMT

Saturday, August 22^nd from 8am-12noon. (Early Birds will be shot.) Come check out our goods! Tons of baby and toddler boy clothes, toys, books, speakers, a TV, a hot tub, and general household stuff!

We are located in the back side of Killearn Estates, near Celebration Baptist Church, on Tralee Road.

In other exciting news, Michael is SO CLOSE (I am holding my fingers very close together, and squinting one eye) to being done with the new/older van. He just drove it out to get gas, leaving me with strict instructions to stay close to the phone in case he ran out on the way, and we are planning to make a very short trip with the kids tonight (as in a brief visit to my MILs house, about 2 miles away.) So our next order of business (in between pricing things for the yard sale and getting ready for school—phew!) is to get the old/newer van vacuumed out and washed, so we can post it on Craigslist and SELL IT!!! YAY!!! We will let you know when it posts so you can go check it out!

See you this Saturday!

You have GOT to be kidding me!

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:05:12 GMT

Do people really buy this stuff?

I checked the mail today, (which is getting to be a lonelier experience than it used to be, since we are paying off bills and using electronic billing and paying—I’ve thought about getting a pen pal) and I found something new and interesting. It was a catalog with a beautiful 8 year old girl on the cover, dressed in sequins, organza, and genuine peacock feathers! You think back to school shopping has busted your budget—ha! Better start saving up for Halloween!

I really couldn’t believe as I started flipping through this catalog, first that a parent would think it was appropriate to dress a 3 year old as a vampire, and then that anyone would spend $185 to do it!!! How about $214 for a Ghostly Girl costume, which essentially consists of a tattered gray gown, wig, and hat? Can you say Goodwill? I’m pretty sure I could find a torn up dress (or one I wouldn’t mind “tattering” myself) for a few bucks. You could dress your little girl as an Enchanting Princess—and I quote: “She’ll be the belle of the ball in this ice-blue creation. Rich satin has ornate brocade accents, a tulle underskirt and comes with white glovelets. Adorn her with the tiara, faux pearl necklace and earrings, and heart wand. Don’t forget her glass slippers! Finally, an enchanting hooded velour cape trimmed with faux fur (that pumpkin coach is unheated). Polyester…” For the small price of only $260!!! OMG!!! The kid is going to wear it for what? Two hours, maybe? While she drags her “faux fur trimmed velour cape” through the neighborhood, picking up dirt and dead leaves? Not my kid (even if I did have a daughter)!

There is a Little Bo Peep costume that only costs $52, but you’ll have to get the incredibly life-like 36” sheep for her to stand next to, for $370. Better not let Michael see the Obi-Wan Kenobi costume—it’s only $103.

They do have few other things besides costumes in this catalog: Butterfly kiss—a 4” antique glass bottle containing a butterfly and a note, sealed with wax, for only $78. Personalized sandwitch plate for $35. Vintage official Harley-Davidson t-shirt, $64. Light up carousel letters—think circus or fair, and hope you have a short word to spell—they are $178 each.

Now babies, on the other hand, are a totally different story. I certainly wouldn’t mind spending $68 for the cutest little kangaroo costume you have ever seen! (JK) It comes with a pouch, tail, hood, booties, even a little baby kangaroo puppet to tuck inside the pouch. Too bad my kids are too big for that already—we’ll just have to dress them up in their super hero pajamas and call it a day!

The Van - Part 4 installing a headliner

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:30:31 GMT

For The Van - Part 1,2 & 3 click

http://www.welivefitchallenge.com/meet_the_families/grosh_family_blog/the_van_part_1

http://www.welivefitchallenge.com/meet_the_families/grosh_family_blog/the_van_part_2_cleaning_the_interior

http://www.welivefitchallenge.com/meet_the_families/grosh_family_blog/the_van_part_3_a_trip_to_the_junkyard

One of the worst parts of the interior of the van was that the mold and humidity had gotten to the headliner and caused it to fall down and deteriorate. There was not much I could do with the old one and the foam had started to fall apart and stick to everything inside the van. I knew a new headliner was needed. I decided to replace it myself to save money. I waited a couple weeks until I found a coupon for 40% off jo-anns fabrics and was able to buy $55 of headliner fabric for about $27. The glue used was a different story and cost about $50. Cheaper glue is available but you will have a headliner falling down within a year. Having never done one myself I consulted the second greatest resource available to me, the Internet. After reading a lot about how to replace one but still a little unsure about the details I consulted the greatest resource available to me, my dad. You can always ask my dad anything and he will always give you an answer. In some cases you might even understand the answer. Luckily he had replaced a couple headliners in his younger years. After vetoing a few of the crazier ideas we settled on one that only required 3 people, some marbles, bungee cords, 3 feet of rope and a couple wooden sticks. I wish I had taken some pictures of the contraption. With the imminent threat of rain we hurriedly applied the new headliner to the shell and installed it into the Van. Although it did not come out perfectly it is much nicer than before. The interior is almost completely reinstalled and cleaned. I know it smells a lot nicer now and will serve us for a long time.