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Sep 26, 2007    |       20 comments

Where, Oh Where, Can The Title Be…

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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 😛

Sep 25, 2007    |       13 comments

Downsizing Your Home to Save Money

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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 😉

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