I Spend Money On ....

 
Sometimes when I'm reading blogs that talk about budgeting or frugality, I am left with the feeling that the author is obnoxious and self-righteous. Wohoo, look at me and all of the ways I save money and am totally awesome. I make my own crackers and purchased a new car from saving box tops. Blah blah blah. I hope that's not the feeling you get here - at least from reading about some of the things we do to try and cut down our expenses. If you think from some of my other posts that I'm obnoxious, well, it's probably because I am a little obnoxious. Sorry! But please love me in spite of that, okay? Let's just be friends :) 

Lance would tell you that I spend too much money. But he is bargain barrel frugal and I am, well, not. But the thing that about being frugal in some areas means that we do spend money in other areas. Frugal, for us, is about prioritizing what we're doling out our precious pennies towards. Here are some of things I'm spending my pennies on:

For example, I buy salon hair products - mostly Aveda. They are expensive so I buy them only once or twice a year when my local salon has their annual holiday open house and all products are 20% off. One year my mom bought Aveda AirSpray hair spray for me as a stocking stuffer. She said that was the most expensive hair spray she had ever purchased. Sorry mom. But I also try and take advantage of Beauty Brands Liter Sale in August and purchase mega bottles of shampoo and conditioner for cheap. Currently I'm using Sexy Healthy Hair Color Safe Soy Moisturizing Shampoo and Conditioner. I got told last fall by an Aveda student that I had the healthiest hair she had ever seen. So are pricey salon hair products worth it? Maybe ...


Two. I have expensive makeup. A long time ago I fell in love with a store called Sephora and the rest was history. Yes, I buy makeup at Sephora, no, I don't buy Chanel or Dior makeup. While it's not Covergirl, it's not the top end of the spectrum either. I mostly buy Clinique, but here's my trick. I save my credit card points and will redeem them for a gift card to Sephora or I buy what I need during Clinique Bonus Time. I also use expensive nail polish. I don't really have a good reason for that one, I think that I've just fallen for marketing ploys over the years.

Three. Oreos. Fake oreos are just that - fake. And gross. There goes any preconceived notion of you (Jessie) thinking I don't buy processed foods. I also think that generic Wheat Thins are gross.

Household/consumer appliances. Yep, we bought a monster expensive Vitamix blender. I have really nice Cuisinart food processor and a professional grade Kitchenaid mixer. I love my Pampered Chef kitchen tools. And my Tupperware modular mates. But the mixer and food processor were momma gifts (my mom loves me A LOT) and the Vitamix is a forever gift. Much of the Pampered Chef and Tupperware were bought at a discount or secondhand. Have you ever looked into someone's pantry who has everything labeled and organized into containers that fit together exactly? It's a sight that makes me weep :)

In fact I have no issue buying stuff secondhand. Stuff that either has no visible signs of wear and can be washed/sanitized or lasts forever (like my baking storage containers - they'll last forever). I regularly surf around facebook groups, craigslist and ebay for namebrand clothing for the whole family.

Car seats. We own two Britax car seats (a Marathon and a 70-G3) both of which were well over $200 a piece. We bought one on Black Friday and the other I bought using promo money. I hate doing event promos, but safety is safety. (For the second car seat I demoed Justin Beiber perfume. I had to remind myself why. CONTINUALLY.) One of the things I love about these particular car seats is that you can remove the liners and throw them in the washing machine. Poop-explosions anyone?

We have an iPad and I love it. Do we need it? No.

I have a nice DSLR Nikon camera. It was purchased with my congratulations-you-finished-grad-school money. It was also purchased pre-budget and pre-Dave.

I spend money. Being on a budget doesn't mean that I'm cheap. We track where our money goes, but we still spend money. I am a big believer in quality over quantity. Although if you ask Lance, my closet says something entirely different. My closet says I'm a big believer in sale shopping :)

31 Things I'm Thankful for in December

1.       Baby Jesus’ birthday

2.       Lu’s Little People nativity set. It was a good opportunity to talk about Jesus and for me to remind Lucan to “shhh… baby Jesus is sleepin’”

3.       Warm bed and blankets to snuggle in to.

4.       Self-imposed blogging break to take a step back and “try” and enjoy the holidays more. I think I just filled my time instead with baking.

5.       26 sticks of butter transformed into holiday baking. Yikes!

6.       Some sweet Christmas presents – a Vitamix blender and a new watch from my momma

7.       Seeing family over the holidays and having my uncle play and interact with Lucan

8.       Girls versus Guys Christmas parties

9.       Christmas cards –I love seeing pictures of everyone every year. Of course I love the occasional goofy Christmas letter too, as long as it isn’t a “brag” letter. I have a couple of families whose cards are notorious for this.

10.   Christmas card picture outtakes. These are hilarious!

11.   Receiving my annual cd from my high school friend Michael. He’s been expanding my musical horizons for as long as I remember.

12.    Secret Santa gift exchange at work. I was grumpy and had a bad attitude but it ended up being a lot of fun.

13.   Chance encounters with friends at Target.

14.   Twinkly Christmas lights.

15.   New daycare and new experiences. Lucan went to his first “real” movie at the movie theater and liked it. Apart from it being too loud. Too loud mommy, too loud.

16.   No oyster stew on Christmas Eve. Yes Mom, I am especially grateful for this.

17.   Our cousin’s new house with plenty of room for the kids to stretch out and play.

18.   Singing in Christmas church choir. It can be kind of a pain sometimes, but it’s a joyous time of year to do choir.

19.   Lucan only cried one out of the two times we had him sit on Santa’s lap. I think that’s a win.

20.   Selling old sweaters on craigslist. Yay for getting rid of old stuff!

21.   A sister-in-law who lives/works close enough to drop off the misc. stuff we leave at my in-laws.

22.   After being gone seven days in the month of December, I’m thankful for HOME.

23.   Wireless internet at my parents’ house!

24.   Warm days and daddy/son tractor rides.

25.   Convincing Lance that no one else has to tithe 10% off their Christmas gifts.

26.   Sweet friends who will feed Fire while we are gone for long stretches of time.

27.   Sweet friends who will watch Lucan in a pinch.

28.   Surprising parents-to-be with much needed baby items.

29.   Lucan loves time with his grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins.

30.   Gigantic towers made out of blocks.

31.   Little boys who are extremely ticklish and their adorable giggles.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!
(PS: the baby is Lu's cousin, Ean. We did not have another child and just fail to mention it)

30 Things I'm Thankful For in November

1. Nicole Forbes, Stacy Scholten, Rachael Thompson and Annalise Kitchen - aka the Hospers 5 :) We had a RA reunion the first weekend in November and it was fan-freakin-tastic. Laughter, chaos, scarf exchange, Starbucks, pedicures and cheesecake. What more could you want? (Maybe more time with them and seeing them more often. And perhaps Carrie so we could complete the Hospers 6.)
2. Jimmy Johns lunch with gal-pal Erika
3. Free grandparent babysitting for date night
4. DATE NIGHT consisting of Keith Urban/Little Big Town concert and Zombie Burger. Best date night in the history of date nights.
5. Lance's mom babysitting Lucan for three days while daycare was closed. SO grateful for her and Lucan got some cousin time in there too!
6. Winning a gorgeous pair of Stella and Dot earrings. Out of 1152 entries. I know Rae Rae, I win a lot of things!
7. Because I also won a smallish gift basket in a raffle. Much less exciting - soup mix, vitamins, lotion.
8. Is it lame to be thankful for modern medicine? I had my first UTI and I thought that it was going to kill me. Therefore, I'm super thankful for antibiotics.
9. Crockpot apple butter. I'm still canning. Going on month four of canning. Ridiculous. My basement looks like I'm preparing for a bomb shelter apocalypse.
10. We had customer service week at work and I entered into the popcorn art contest and made a turkey. It got me a 2nd place finish and a $20 gift card to Fong's Pizza.
11. I'm thankful for all of our family being within driving distance of each other. While two Thanksgivings makes for a ridiculous amount of food, it's nice that we're able to see each other.
12. Lance went to the last Iowa State football game. I'm thankful that I didn't have to go and got to stay inside instead.
13. Mornings in our house are hard. None of us are morning people and Lu doesn't really appreciate being woken up early either. One morning I came in after Lucan finished telling Lance to "shut the door." I asked Lu how he was doing and he told me very sweetly, with his blanket pulled over his head, "I sweepin' (sleeping) mommy." I told him that was fine but in a couple of minutes he was going to need to get up. And that was that. So I'm thankful for a little morning sweetness.
14. Chik-fil-A.
15. Fluffy duvet covers and extra warmth.
16. Our super-duper Dyson vacuum and the excellent job it does.
17. Christmas music all.day.long.
18. Yoga. The chance to unwind, sweat and breathe.
19. Sweet Saturday morning sleep-ins.
20. Mega Blocks par-tay!
21. Laughter and conversation with an impromptu girls dinner at Granite City - because it's Jessie's favorite and I think I've been there with her 3x now!
22. My parents anniversary - their 43rd!
23. Our military personnel. One of my co-workers was deployed this month for active service. We are also signing holiday cards at work and mailing them to soldiers overseas.
24. Gobble! Gobble! Lucan and I have been working on our gobbles in the car. He still thinks that turkeys go "bawk! bawk!" But I think that remnants of Halloween and dressing like a chicken :)
25. Our kind friend, Rose, who took some family pictures of us in October, recently had a health scare with her mom who was in a random accident while on vacation. The news did a cool story about how their small farming community banned together to get their crops in while her dad flew down to Mexico to be with Rose's mom in the hospital. Her mom is doing SO much better, but it makes me grateful for my own mom and makes me proud of the farmers in the area we grew up. This is a little side story about Rose's mom: when Rose lost her baby son, Trace, Lance and I wanted to bring food to Rose's family. Even though Rose lives in the "area" we didn't have a clear idea of how to get to her house. So we hoped for the best and only drove an extra 15 minutes out of our way. When we showed up on Rose's doorstep, we were relieved to be there. Rose's mom answered the door and said that Rose and Scott went out for dinner for Scott's birthday. She stared hard at us for a moment and then said, "Oh! I know who you two are! You're Lance and Kara!" I was really surprised that she recognized us, but I guess I shouldn't have been. Lance, Rose and I were all in 4-H together in high school and Lance and Rose were king and queen together at the Woodbury County Fair :) And I was the queen the year before Rose and encouraged her to give the contest another go. So we all have a bit of history together. (Sorry, that wasn't all that short) But I always recall Rose's mom for being really sweet and good at names/faces. There's not too many people who would be able to figure out who two strangers were who showed up unannounced on their daughter's doorstep after not seeing them for 9+ years!
26. I'm grateful to not work in retail on Black Friday. So grateful. I worked at Younkers during Christmas my senior year of college and it was awful. Like ending a shift at 10:30 pm and turning around and being back to work at 6 am the next morning.
27. Snow. I said it. I'm thankful for snow. (don't tell Lance. He's a scrooge when it comes to snow)
28. My handy husband. I know I was thankful for this last month too, but after 5 months of having no working windshield wiper fluid in the Traverse and him procrastinating taking it to a "real" place to have it fixed, he spent 20 minutes in the garage and replaced a small $1 fuse. I'm thankful, but I might have been more thankful 5 months ago.
29. BOGO Starbucks holiday drinks
30. Short work weeks!!