Thanks to my friend's new blog called Molly on Money, I'm reminded that it's not about how much money one brings in, it's how wisely it's spent. They cut their income in half and are living better on their 2.5 acres in Santa Fe - growing more of their own vegetables, raising their own chickens and bees and having more quality family time. Buying less crap - I love it. Molly reminded me that the smartest way to save on food is to shop once a week and have all the meals figured out before going to the grocery store. I used to do this and have gotten lazy in the past year. No more. I know what I can spend in a week and once I spend it on my one visit to the store, there are no more quick stops to Natural Grocers or King Soopers. I'm also going through my budget and finding line items I can either shrink or delete all together. Yesterday, it was goodbye to farmer's milk that's been delivered to the house since Dax started drinking it a year ago. As much as I want to support this family business, they've raised their prices and I can buy cheaper organic milk at the market. Our big trip to the Caribbean this spring only comes after first throwing most of our tax refund at credit card debt. Now we can play with the rest. It's also been a lifesaver to only have one car payment for the past two years. We've made due with one nice car and a used Honda with 365,000 miles on it. Yes, it's still running. Talk about a savings. And if there's some kind of high-tech gear Tim must have, he first sells a gently used gear item on Ebay to off set the cost of the new item. It's worked well and we don't go in to debt to support this "habit" of his! And we have less crap in our garage and that makes me happy. And I'm a big fan of putting second hand clothes on Dax. My cousin Mindy has been incredibly generous to send us box loads of boy clothes and once he's worn them, our second baby boy will get mileage out of them. I will only buy Dax new clothes if they're on major sale - like the $1.23 I spend on a super soft cotton onesie from Target that had "Vermont" written across the front - priceless!
I have a mental image of my dream home sketched out in my mind - it's got about 5 acres of land and a small creek that runs most of the year. There's a barn with a horse, a cow, some chickens, barn cats and barn owls. It's a fixer upper that's already been fixed up. And it's located in either Montpelier, VT or maybe somewhere in Colorado. And I know with smart spending and decent earnings, we can get there.