Archive results for “September 2007f 2007”

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Our Living Area Shrunk from 1,100 to 1,000 Square Feet

A few days ago, I shared that we were going to downsize our home to save some money this winter. Today we switched bedrooms with my son and moved my office into our bedroom. My old office now has a few things I plan on selling on eBay as well as some exercise equipment which will be moved somewhere else shortly. None of that needs heat, so the door is now closed off from the rest of the house. We’ve successfully trimmed our home down to around 1,000 square feet of living area.

My son was against the move at first. He had the biggest bedroom, after all. Before long, he was super excited about it because we told him he could have his bunk beds (the bed he was using was just the top bunk – we tried the bunk beds earlier, but he was a little too young and scared of them at the time). That’s all we had to say. Tucking him in tonight in the bottom bunk which he made into a fort, he gave me a huge hug and said that he loves his new room. That made my day.

Mom and Dad’s new room is pretty cool too. Everything fit beautifully and it doesn’t seem crowded at all. Part of me wonders why we didn’t do this last year!

I’m very excited because I know doing this move will save on our heating costs. Like I did with showing how we saved money on electricity, I’ll have to graph out our gas usage to see how we do.

We’re not done yet, though!

I’m currently working on a huge list of everything did or are doing to save some money on heating costs this winter, so stay tuned!

Posted by Tricia on September 29, 2007 at 9:47 PM in Saving Money | 14 Comments »
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Feel Good Friday

I haven’t had a chance to catch up what is going on in the blog-o-sphere this week. Between looking for a title and working around my home to get ready for a long winter, I haven’t had much time.

So this week, I’d like to share with you a story that you may or may not have heard about. It’s one of those stories where it makes you feel so good. Why? Because there is a humble person with a wonderful talent who now can share his talent with the whole world.

This man is none other than Paul Potts. He was salesman at Carphone Warehouse who surprised Simon Cowell and the rest of the judges on the Britain’s Got Talent show.

Here’s a link to the YouTube video of his first appearance: Paul Potts Sings Nessun Dorma

Here’s a link to his next appearance: Paul Potts Sings Time to Say Goodbye

I used to say that I love all types of music except for opera. I listen to country, heavy metal, new age, rap, etc. For some reason, though, I’ve never cared for opera music. But Paul here with his beautiful voice sends chills up my spine and down my arms. He has a wonderful gift and I am so grateful this opportunity came his way so that he could share it with us all.

Since this is a debt blog, there’s also a debt story here as well. Paul had some medical problems in his life when he was struck again with another blow. He cracked his collar bone when he was hit by a car while cycling. He couldn’t work, and his debt grew to Â£30,000 (about $61,000 USD). All the while, he never fully gave up on his dream of singing and auditioned a few years later for Britain’s Got Talent [via Paul Potts Fan Site]

Here’s another interesting tidbit about Paul. Even though he’s fairly popular right now and just came out with a CD, he’s still technically an employee of Carphone Warehouse. As shown in this nice piece about Paul’s story, he is on a six-month leave from his job. He hopes he sells enough albums so he doesn’t have to go back, but it’s there if he needs it.

Anyways, I felt like sharing. Paul’s story and his voice make me feel good and hopeful all around.

Posted by Tricia on September 28, 2007 at 11:57 AM in Keeping Motivated | 5 Comments »
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Why Don’t We Pack Up and Move?

A few people have commented asking why we don’t move to find better jobs. I’ve tried quite a few times writing the story of why we don’t move. It’s a long story, and I start balling every time I try to write it. It’s one of those weak spots for me.

It’s a weak spot because I do love the area where we live. I don’t necessarily like the current town we live in, but I love the area as a whole. I fought pretty hard to be able to live here, and packing up would be like we were admitting defeat…like we failed at making it work. We overcame so many obstacles. Great, there go the tears again…gotta get off this particular topic.

Anyways…lately, some talk has occured about moving. My husband is currently looking at jobs around the state and beyond. Perhaps come summer we will make the leap and move away. I suppose if my husband can’t find a job here by then, it’s time to move on.

I learned of a neat website not too long ago. I decided to give it a whirl to perhaps find somewhere in the US that would fit the ideal place that I would like to live. It’s called Find Your Spot. You go through a series of questions and then you are given a list of the best areas for you to live.

Wouldn’t you know it. My number one match is right where I am living now. I was a bit surprised my area was even an option on the site. But I’m not so surprised it was my number one match.

A few of the other matches on the list were interesting as well. Both of them are in Michigan and both are places we had discussed as possible places to relocate. It’s hard, though, because we prefer the rural life and there are often few jobs in rural areas. There is the option of living in the city, but I did it for 6 months and it was the toughest period of my life.

Right now we are in limbo. My husband had an interview for a job and if he were to get it we could be almost doubling our income and we can stay where we are now. It’s a matter of waiting to see if anything comes of it.

The waiting game is nervewracking, to say the least!

Posted by Tricia on September 28, 2007 at 9:53 AM in Life Experiences | 11 Comments »
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Where, Oh Where, Can The Title Be…

I used to be so organized. Every utility company had their own separate file in a filing cabinet and they were even organized with the newest bills towards the front. Not anymore. I lost count how many “tornadoes” went through my house and scattered my papers all over the place.

There’s some in a box in the kitchen. There’s some on a desk in my husband’s office. There’s some in my bedroom. There’s some in my home office. The one room where I know there isn’t any paperwork is the basement because I cleaned that out beyond recognition when we prepared for our garage sales.

It’s no wonder that I cannot find the one piece of paperwork that I am needing right now. That one piece of paper has the ability to get us some money and get a hunk of junk out of our garage. It’s the title to the old non-running truck that is parked in our garage. That’s the truck we purchased with a credit card cash advance check two years ago, so it’s one of those constant reminders of our past indiscretions with credit card spending.

I want that truck gone like you wouldn’t believe. With recently ridding our lives of the unnecessary stuff, it is the last huge piece to get rid of. Today while in the garage, I looked at that truck and the flat rear tire gave it a sort of tilt that made it look like it’s smirking at me. It knows that I have no idea where the title went.

I’ve searched every pile I can think of. I even pulled out the box in the kitchen that holds 2006 items that I gave up on filing and just piled them all in a box. I found other things of interest (like paperwork for a credit card we have to cancel), but I didn’t find the title.

The funny thing is that my husband and I both remember where it used to be. It was in one of those letter holders we had on the wall. Not so funny is that the letter holder is gone and I have no idea what happened to the title. Wow, that letter holder has been gone for at least a year now and we both looked for the title there. It’s amazing sometimes what your mind does and doesn’t remember.

I’m hoping that by writing this down right before I go to bed, my subconscious mind will think about that title through the night and when I wake up I will know where to look to find it. I sure hope the garbage didn’t eat it

Posted by Tricia on September 26, 2007 at 11:36 PM in Life Experiences | 20 Comments »
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Downsizing Your Home to Save Money

I’ve heard of people selling their larger home and moving into a smaller home. In the process, they save a lot of money and time. There’s less house to heat/cool and less to clean!

There’s no way that we would be able to go through a move right now. The real estate market in my area is over saturated and selling our home would be very tough. Although buying a home would be pretty easy because there are so many available, there’s no way we could afford two mortgages and our home would need more repair before we could think of renting it out.

So what do you do?

What we are going to do is maximize the current use of our home. That means closing up some rooms and moving things around.

Our home is around 1,100 square feet and has three bedrooms. My husband and I have a bedroom as does my son. The third bedroom is my home office. I need a space where I can close the door and avoid household noises (for telephone calls). The bedroom that my office is in is not heated. For some reason, no one ran heat up to that room. I used a space heater a little bit last year, but I learned how much electricity those things take. It’s a lot.

My son’s room is the biggest bedroom in the house and it gets the morning sun. Mom and dad’s room is on the other side of the house and gets the evening sun. We are going to do a switcheroo. Then, my home office is moving into our bedroom since there is enough room to have a desk as well as our full size bed.

With doing this, I will now have the sun in my office/bedroom in the morning (I didn’t have that before) and that will help keep me warm upstairs so the heat can be set lower during the day. Soon after my son gets home from school, the sun will be shining into his bedroom so that will help heat his room for when he is playing in it. My old home office can be closed off completely.

We are still thinking of ways we can maximize the downstairs use of our home. It doesn’t have the best layout, but we could possibly move my husband’s office (which is technically a dining room) to our living room. When someone built the addition where our living room is located, they didn’t think about insulating it well. The room gets very cold in the winter. Moving my hubby into the living room will help him keep warmer and he will not have to use a space heater. But our living room is small so it will take some creativity to make it work.

It’s sort of fun trying to do this…trying to purposefully shrink what you have now to see what you can comfortably live with. In the process, we’ll save some money on our heating bill this winter

Posted by Tricia on September 25, 2007 at 11:01 PM in Saving Money | 13 Comments »
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Debtors Anonymous and Debt-Anon

In response to my post asking for resources for those who are at odds with their spouse about debt, a reader sent me a link to Debtors Anonymous.

You’ve probably heard of Alcoholics Anonymous and the work they do to try to help people with alcohol problems. Debtors Anonymous works to help you recover from debt.

They have meetings that they hold. Most are in larger cities. However, there is a page dedicted to online and telephone meetings. Unfortunately, from what I read, it looks like the numbers are not toll-free.

If you need someone to talk to or a support group for guidance, perhaps there is a resource in there that can help you. For those suffering from problems with debt and their spouses, I didn’t see anything right off-hand that would pertain to you. I contacted the Debtors Anonymous organization and they were unaware of any active Debt-Anon groups. However, they mentioned that some people find literature from Al-Anon or Gam-Anon helpful.

I did do a quick Blingo search on Debt-Anon and found a website: Debt-Anon.org. It doesn’t look very active and you cannot tell when it has last been updated. However, I did find a Yahoo group that has 172 members:

Debt-Anon Yahoo Group

I’ll keep my eyes peeled, and report back with any other resources I can find for those who have loved ones affected by debt and overspending.

Posted by Tricia on September 24, 2007 at 1:23 PM in General Debt | 3 Comments »
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Bustin’ Over 80 Financial Myths

I’m busy catching up on some blog admin stuff this weekend, and catching up on what’s happening in the blog-o-sphere. I came across this tidbit that I thought you may be interested in.

Ispf over at Grad Money Matters was pretty busy lately, and wrote up one heck of an article that goes through 82 financial myths and busts them all. Definitely worth a read if you got a moment.

Campaign Against Financial Myths: 82 Myths Busted!

If you are short on time, here’s a direct link to the debt myth section.

Posted by Tricia on September 23, 2007 at 9:36 PM in General Debt | 2 Comments »
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