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by Adam Dawson

What?!  They’re going on a cruise?!

We are extremely lucky this year that Emily’s grandmother has paid for the whole family to go on a 4-day cruise to Mexico!  She is so generous with her family and we all love to spend time together.  We’re also blessed because this is not a luxury we would indulge in ourselves while we’re in debt.  I know that if we end up in a comfortable financial position in time, we will want to follow her example of generosity with our loved ones.

Emily’s been on a cruise with her family before, but it was before we met.  This is my first cruise and I’ve always wanted to go.  I’ve heard the horror stories of bedbugs, seasickness, and of course the horrible things that happened earlier this year, but I’m excited nonetheless.  However, we are trying to figure out what activities we’ll want to do that are somewhat budget-friendly.  The activities sponsored by the cruise line seem pretty expensive.  Do you have any tips for having maximum cruise fun on minimum dollars?

Emily’s family are all on the way to Texas to spend Christmas with us before the cruise. The house is modestly, yet beautifully decorated and we’re running around doing last-minute shopping and preparing.  All of my family’s gifts are in the mail and I think we might actually be ready on time this year!  It beats paying Amazon 4x as much for overnight shipping on Dec 23!

I hope everyone is getting some time with family and friends, and reflecting on a rich 2013. We’ve had a great year with lots of changes and I think this will put a wonderful finishing touch on an exciting and adventurous 2013 for us!

by Emmily Schulze

We are almost ready to host our first christmas! I really doubted our ability to come up with a tree and decorations on such a tight budget, but it happened! My mom visited last week and brought stockings, garland, stocking hangers, extra ornaments and christmas books. Then Adam, my mom and I collaborated to make a few decorations that we’ll be able to keep for at least a few years, and they were mostly made out of things we already had in the house. Yay! We were also able to find a lot of decorations and ornaments cheaply at goodwill and at a local craft fair. I didn’t buy anything I didn’t really like, and that policy seemed to keep the price down.

The real christmas miracle was the tree. My niece is allergic to live trees in the house, so we had to go with a fake tree. After some research, I was finding not a lot of options in our price range and I was starting to wonder if it was going to be a treeless christmas. On a whim, my mom and I stopped in to goodwill in our neighborhood about a half hour before they were supposed to close. Right in the entryway was this life-like 9 foot CHRISTMAS TREE. One saleswoman said she had sold the tree 2 days ago, but we were not about to give up that easily, so we went and got another salesperson. He couldn’t find a sold or claimed tag OR a price tag so they had it priced for us. $39.99!!!!! Later when we were setting it up at home we found a hidden tag for $49.99! My mom was telling me they bought a very similar tree 5 years ago half off for $299. That was about the price I kept coming up with online, even used. So this was our christmas miracle. 🙂

Here’s some pictures of our christmas decorations and DIY projects. Thank you all for encouraging me to try and decorate on a budget and try to be creative! I think it’s working!