Family Finances

Fun Fact: Accountants are not generally encouraged to be creative.

In our accounting world, creativity sometimes = illegal.

We are usually a "by the book" type of people, at least when it comes to accounting for company funds.

But for my personal financial life?  

I'm in desperate need for some creativity.

Our lease on our tiny one bedroom apartment is finito as of 7/31.  We currently have three options:

1. Renew our lease

2. Convert to month to month

3. Find a new apartment.

We have decided to find a new apartment! 

Don't get too excited.  We're staying in the same complex, just moving to a bigger apartment (2 bedrooms instead of 1).

Of course with more space there is also more rent to pay and a higher security deposit.

Our issues?  I crunched the numbers and with the higher rent, we can afford this apartment (YAY!)

However, this apartment will most likely be further from our main street where the husband currently parks his car for free.  We may need to rent another parking stall.

Extra parking stall = Extra rent to pay

Without the extra stall, husband may have to walk at least a quarter mile up a hill carrying a 20+ baby in his carseat. Or push him up the hill in a stroller. Not bad unless it's raining. Then it's horrible.

We also need to put down a deposit.  The problem is we'll have to pay the new deposit before we get the deposit back from the old apartment.  We need money before we get money. uggggghhhhhhhh.

Solutions? We stay in the current apartment.  This idea lasted for about 30 minutes.

The hubbs and I discussed turning the living room into a bedroom/living room/office space.

Like a fancy but tiny city life apartment.

The master bedroom would become Phillip's nursery/storage.

We'd move our clothes into the storage closet in the hall, move our computer desk into the coat closet, bring our bed to the living room, and somehow fit a couch and TV stand in there, too.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

We decided that the extra money spent on extra space will be well worth it.

We'd rather have extra space and have tighter wallets than stay in a smaller cramped space with a slightly less tighter wallet (not by much!)

To make this happen I have looked to our bills and weeded out the luxuries vs. necessities.

I'm calling our cable company today to downgrade our cable to the most basic available.  If that doesn't give us an acceptable decrease in price, we'll cancel our cable all together and just keep the internet service.

We signed up for Netflix with this cancellation in mind but I just didn't get around to doing it.

Canceling cable will cut our bill in half.

We're also downgrading our cell phone plans. I'm trading in my smart phone for a FREE phone when I renew my contract.  The hubs also qualifies for a free phone.  YAY!

Since most of our friends/family are in the same network, we're also going to downgrade our plan to the lowest possible.  We don't use a lot of minutes (since we're in the same network) and we don't text that much, either.

Other creative solutions? Back to basic budgeting (see that alliteration there? LOL).  It's not easy, but we're making it work!

It's also inspired me to browse cheap but pretty apartment decorating ideas =)

Not What I Expected!

What is the book that almost every single mama-to-be has in her arsenal?

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Confession: I have not read this book cover to cover.

In fact, I only read the interesting parts that related to moi.

Of all the interesting things I learned, what's truly relatable now is that post-pregnancy, NOTHING FITS!

Seriously, friends.

My body has taken on a whole new shape.  

Remember from this post when I cleaned out my closet?

Nothing fit.  I was down to one pair of pants.  

And not even real pants. Freakin' capris!

No jeans, no slacks.  No zip up pencil skirts.

Just stretchy flowly skirts and dresses.

And one pair of capris.

My point? 

I knew that this would happen.  I think that's why I'm OK with purging out so much of my clothes.

I knew my body would change and that it could get difficult to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes right away.

So I'm working on it- watching what I eat and trying to be more active.

You want to know the one thing "they" don't tell you about?

Yeah, your body will change.  You know what else changes?

YOUR FEET!

I swear, all my favorite heels/wedges that I couldn't wear during pregnancy don't fit!

I stopped wearing them when I was pregnant because my balance was all off and I didn't feel comfortable wearing anything higher than 2 inches.

Now I'm all excited to bring out those cute shoes again and lo and behold, they don't fit like they used to fit!

Example? Today I wore these tan wedges that I got from Target.  I remember I loved these babies because the material wasn't stiff and I loved how it felt like it molded to my foot.  

I remember feeling like running in these shoes!

But it's noon. And I'm ready to dump them in the trash.

(Please excuse the fugliness.  I'm in desperate need of a pedicure)

You can't really see too well, but there are blisters forming on my big toes.  

I'm so irritated! I loved these shoes and they barely lasted me till lunch.

I knew my jeans wouldn't fit, maybe a few tops wouldn't fit either.

But shoes? Shoes? My FREAKING SHOES?!

Seriously.... when does the craziness end?