Under Construction

Mom, I know, I know.  I missed another Toddler Tips Tuesday post.  Forgive me.  I'll aim to get back on track next week.  But for now, I'm knee deep in a construction zone, which just happens to be my house.

Remember the water leak zoloft day?  Well that little air conditioner hiccup has turned into a serious repair job.  The A/C was fixed, only to have the engine go out the very next weekend. (Money, money, MO-NEY!)  The water damage from the A/C leak is covered by our homeowners insurance so we forked over our $500 deductible and then then USAA took over.  (Sidenote: USAA is the BEST insurance company in the world.  If you're eligible to join, do it.  NOW.)

So, the USAA selected contractor came out to the house to assess the damage.  The next thing you know, we're having the following done:

1. New dry-wall in the walls and ceiling of the living room.
2. Leading to a new coat of  paint in the living room (I went with the same yellow, since I love it)
3. Followed by some new dry wall in the guest room.
5. Leading to a new coat of paint in the guest room (Went with blue this time!  I'd actually bought the blue paint last November and never got around to painting it, so there's a plus).
6. Followed by new paint in the laundry room (because I wasn't prepared to answer the question of what color paint I wanted, I told them to just use the same blue as the guest room).
7. Topped off with replacing the floor (laminate tiles) in the laundry room (we spent hours last night going over samples - who knew there were so many laminate tile options?  Here are our top 5 - which do you like?  We already selected the color, so hope you don't hate it!)

You can also see the blue paint - it's very pale blue - I love it!

8. With the cherry on top of repairing the water damaged warped hardwood floors and refinishing the hardwoods in all four adjoining rooms so that all the hardwood matches.  (We are going with a darker stain - check out the minwax colors - can you guess what we selected)?

This all means that our house looks like this right now.

So we'll be moving into my parents house for a few days while the sanding and fun continues!  And oh what fun it has been.  There may or may not have been an incident involving the POD delivery guy hitting our gutters/house.  

Stay tuned for an update...

UPDATE:

The floor guy just showed me what he's done so far and I've now change direction completely!  No dark stain for this girl.  We're going natural all the way!

Living room

Look at the difference of our current stain against the natural wood.  And I was thinking about going a lot darker!?!

Oh, and the tile we picked is out of stock, so we're going with a different tile too.  Changes all around!

Update #2.  So.... turns out the fabulous folks who flipped our house did yet another silly thing.  They put red oak NEXT to white oak.  In the SAME room.  So, my new love affair with light natural hardwood floors has come to an end.  This does not look good, right?

So back to dark stain it is!

Serious Stuff Aside

If my blog had any sort of theme then this post would make no sense.  But it's not that sort of blog.  So I'm going to not talk about depression or Lukas or being a laywer or my mom-life or anything of any sort of substance for a second.  Because I have some breaking news to share.  Seriously, it's big.

Do you want to guess?

Go ahead, I'll wait.

I bet you didn't guess.

No, I'm not knocked up.

No, I am not the Weakest Link.

Ok, are you ready?

Here it is:  I have not washed my hair the last two days.  Today is day 3 of unwashed hair.

And yes, this is news.

I'm a wash your hair every day sort of girl. It is painfully obvious if I skip a day.

Or it was.

Until I found Suave Keratin Infusion Dry Shampoo.  A.mazing.  Seriously.  Go buy it.  You'll love it.  You'll be able to get ready for work in half the time without having to blow dry your hair every day.  Which is huge if you're trying to get a toddler dressed and ready for school or handling a little problem like your A/C backing up and stealthily seeping water down your walls.

Oh yeah, that.  Our A/C had a little hiccup.  Our house now sounds like a wind tunnel and is housing 5 industrial sized fans, two dehumidifiers and is missing part of the laundry room floor and door frame.  Thank goodness for homeowners insurance.

And dry shampoo.

Some days it's the little things.

And let's be honest.  I was glad to have the antidepressant prescription today too.

Dry shampoo and zoloft.  A winning combination for life's curveballs.

I Do Struggle

Ok.  I'm ready to talk about it.

I've been hiding behind pictures of my insanely cute little guy for a week or so now.  The truth is that I've been having a rough time the past few weeks with the whole working mom gig.  So much so that I had a mental breakdown last week and found myself in a puddle of tears at the kitchen table.  I feel like I am failing at everything.  My son doesn't get enough of my time.  He says a new word every hour it seems and I'm missing it.  The teachers at daycare are there hearing him speak.  Not me.  Not his mom.  I'm worried I am going to look back on this time years from now and regret choosing to work rather than stay home and raise my son.  (Here I go again with the mom guilt.  I know.  I need to let it go, but I can't.  That's been the struggle.)  Why did I decide to have a child if I'm not the one with him 24/7? The guilt is slowly choking me to death.  I hate the mom guilt.  But I fear its real and the constant nagging feeling in my stomach is finally taking over.  I think I've made the wrong decision.

I've also been in a lawyer rut. That statement alone starts to go against my "don't blog about work policy", so I'll stop with saying this: I just don't love the law some days.  But there's that whole 12 years of schooling plus 4 years of college and then additional 3 years of law school.  And the diplomas sit on my wall staring at me.  And the student loans haunt my nightmares.  Should I really just throw away my career, my education and stick my husband with all MY student loan debt so I can stay home with Lukas and "raise" him, which let's be honest, I might hate. 

Then two weeks ago it finally hit me over the head.  It is time to quit.  It is time to sell my briefcase and pencil skirts and trade them in for jeans and an apron.  I was done.

I quickly looked at the numbers and realized that financially we could survive on Mr. Cob's income alone.  And by survive, I mean have about $750 every month for food, gas, diapers, haircuts, toiletries, the dog and cat and any additional "life" costs that arise.  Fine, whatever.  We can do it.  A lot of people make it work on a lot less. I can give up shopping completely.  I can give up going out to lunch or dinner with friends.  I don't need to drink coffee or get bikini waxes.  All that matters is that I am home with Lukas.  Mommy will be raising him and all will be right in the world.  All he needs is me and all I need is him.

So I took my budget in hand as ammo and told Mr. Cob, I need to quit my job.  Now.

I probably should've approached him with more of a plan, or more sobbing.  Let's just say I surprised him and his initial response was not "ok love, whatever you need".  And at that moment, I knew what I needed without a question or doubt in my mind.  I'm a mother who needs to be with her child.  At any cost.

Or so I thought.

Mr. Cob and I agreed that we'd need to try out this new budget for a while and see how it works in reality.

And then I let it all sink in and started imagining this "new life." 

This new life would have Mr. Cob as the sole breadwinner and his career would take the spotlight.  Right now, we share the spotlight.  We make career choices together, but if I stop working, then I started to worry that I'd lose a bargaining chip.  Hum, I realized I'm not sure I'm prepared for that.  My dad's job took us all across the country when I was growing up.  I know my mom wasn't happy about some of the moves over the years and I don't want that to be me.  I don't want to be stuck following my husband wherever his job my lead us.  And I'm not implying that Mr. Cob wouldn't consult with me or that we wouldn't make future decisions together.  It's just that if my job is still in play, then I'm assured a spot at the table.

Then we met some friends out for dinner.  And then we talked about how that'd have to stop if I quit working.

And the brunch out the next day would be a thing of the past as well.

And Lukas' excitement about going to school to see his little friends would go away too since school would be out of the budget.

And then I spent the day with a dear friend who works part time and spends two days a week home with her toddler.  And we talked honestly about how staying home with kids is hard and doing it day in and day out can be exhausting, especially if you no longer have the money to do the fun things you enjoy doing with them.  And then I read some more blogs from moms who stay home with their kids. (Interesting that there are many lawyer turned stay at home mommies out there...) One told me to get ready to embrace McDonalds and having your kids watching Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer and any other cartoon that will give you a break.  The blog also said to embrace drinking wine and ignoring your kids.  Because apparently that's what you have to do to make it through the day as a stay at home mom.

Maybe this is not what I want.  Maybe it's not even what's best for Lukas.

I realized if I quit working then there's no money left for vacations or flying to visit relatives who live a plane ride away.  That wouldn't be better for Lukas.  That wouldn't be better for me.

And Lukas, he is THRIVING right now.  He is a happy kid with an infectious laugh and huge smile.  All. The. Time.  Am I really going to risk screwing that up by changing his whole world so that I can stay home with him.  (Because of course, his staying at home with me is the best thing for him.  Period.  End of story.  I can teach him better than any school.  Right?  Maybe it's not).  He seems to be doing just awesome with the power combination we currently have going of school-mommy-daddy rearing. Why mess with something that is clearly working?

And then we went and spent thousands of dollars renovating our backyard and driveway.  Nope, we wouldn't be able to do any more house improvements if I stopped working. 

There was more to think about than just my emotions.

So after talking to Mr. Cob about the ins and outs of what this "new life" would look like and talking to my amazing working mom friends and my own mom, I've made the decision to continue on as a working mom.  I think it's best for Lukas.  I think it's best for me.  I just needed Mr. Cob to agree that if I need to be a stay at home mom, then we could make it work.  I think I needed to know it was an option if I really really wanted it.  And I needed to take some time to evaluate how life would change if I did stay at home and I don't think the grass would be greener.

But I also don't want to have the mom guilt for another 18 plus years.  So I'm letting it go.  I'm not going to allow myself to get bogged down in the guilt any more.

I'm a working mom.  I love my kiddo.  And it's OK that he's at daycare 8 hours a day.

I know this won't be the last time I go through this exercise.  I know there will be other days where I cry and question my decision.  And maybe in the future the outcome will be different.  But for now, I'm going to hold on to my high heels and keep going with this juggling act.

So now you know what's been on my mind lately.  Nothing big.  Just life.

2011 Resolutions

Happy New Year!  2010 was a pretty great year for the Swans, but we're excited to see what 2011 will bring.

Each year I always make a list of resolutions.  I have a hard time paring the list down and it usually ends up way too long and I stick to them for a week or two and then everything falls to the wayside.  But I always make resolutions.  I can't help myself.  It's something about a new year and a clean slate.  So, inevitably I've been thinking all morning about my resolutions for this year.  I usually do pretty generic resolutions - e.g. lose weight, save money, etc.  But this year I decided that I needed to think about my general goal and then pick a specific action to resolve to follow in hopes of actually following through with the resolutions for more than a few weeks.

Here are my resolutions for 2011:

#1 (GOAL: cook more meals at home/eat out less) - RESOLUTION: To prepare a weekly meal plan each Saturday and follow said meal plan.  Good thing I already created this handy dandy meal planner sheet.  I now just need to use it and STICK WITH IT.  I have a really bad habit of planning something for dinner and then deciding that I'd rather order in or go out to dinner.  Lukas has curbed our going out to dinner, but we've still jumped ship on our good plans to cook dinner to order pizza or pick up Mexican.  And it's usually me, not Mr. Cob that wants to veer off course.  It ends now.  I'm going to become a better cook and save money in the process by eating at home.

#2 (GOAL: get in shape and lose the baby weight) - RESOLUTION: Do some sort of physical activity for 10 minutes 6 days per week.  We now have a treadmill, so the least I can do is walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes each day.  Or do sit ups and push ups for ten minutes over the course of the day.  And hopefully most days, once I get started and do the initial 10 minutes I'll feel good and continue for a longer work out.

#3 (GOAL: keep a cleaner house) - RESOLUTION: Clean/organize the house for 10 minutes each day and clean the bathrooms each Tuesday.  I once read in a magazine that a good way to keep your house tidy is to set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes each day and devote at least those 10 minutes each day to picking up/cleaning/organizing around the house.  Be it folding laundry, doing the dishes, picking up toys, etc., this small task of cleaning 10 minutes a day can go a long way to keeping the house more orderly.  And I hate cleaning the bathrooms, but I figure that if I just decide to always clean them one day a week, then perhaps I'll stick with it and each cleaning won't be so bad.

#4 (GOAL: save money) - RESOLUTION: Put a little more thought into purchases before they are made; pay off any credit card balance each month; use mint.com to see where our money is going and change our habits where necessary; and set up a monthly automatic savings payment into our savings account.  Now that we have finally paid off the credit cards, I do not want us to carry a balance on them again.  This is definitely doable (assuming we both keep our jobs, etc.), but I'll admit that I don't always think about what I'm spending my money on, so I just need to be a little more aware of where our money is going - which is where mint.com comes in.  I've signed up for an account but don't spend time using it wisely.

#5 (GOAL: stay happy/positive) - RESOLUTION: Meditate 10 minutes each day.  When I was pregnant I listened to a relaxation CD each day and found that this quiet time really made me feel good and refreshed.  Since Lukas' arrival I've stopped taking this time each day to just relax and be quiet, but I think it would benefit everyone in the family if I took just 10 minutes a day for myself to turn inward and reflect/relax/recharge.

Here's to a happy and productive year!

Waste Not

As I've mentioned before, I waste food.  It's not something I'm proud of and I've consciously tried to cut down on the amount of food wasted at the Swans' nest.  But it seems that we always have something in the fridge that goes bad before we get around to eating it.  So when I ran across an article on http://www.slate.com/ this morning about 10 Tips to Reduce Your Food Waste, I was intrigued.

The article had these ten suggestions (followed by my commentary and thoughts):

1. Create—and then stick to—a shopping list.   I have a hard time with this one.  I even created a convenient little shopping list organization sheet (found here), and I used it  for a while but then fell off the wagon.  I think the real tip behind this tip is - PLAN AHEAD.  You can't create a grocery list if you don't know what you'll be eating for the week.

2. Shop a few times a week.  I think this can be a good tip, especially if you have a grocery store on your way home from work. By shopping a few times a week (as opposed to one massive shopping trip), you only shop for a few things at once and can reevaluate your grocery stock more often.  Thus, you're less likely to overbuy and can take your actual eating for the week into account. (i.e. if you plan to cook on Tuesday but end up going out for pizza, your whole week isn't totally derailed, whereas if you had bought 7 nights of meals at your one weekly shopping trip, you'll end up with extra food after that one night out.) The problem with this tip is actually taking the extra time to go to the store a few times a week.

3. Stick to a single cuisine, to maximize efficiency.  This would never have occurred to me, but I think its a fabulous idea.  For instance, I made stir fry last week and bought some water chestnuts to throw in for some added crunch.  But I only used half of the can.  A week later, the chestnuts are still sitting in the fridge.  But if I'd planned another pan-Asian meal the next night, less food would've been wasted.  This would also help my pasta sauce dilemma.  With two people, we always have leftover pasta sauce and the jar ends up sitting in the fridge for days/weeks and then I forget if we have any, buy more and before long we end up with three half empty jars in the back of the fridge.  But if we had pasta Monday night, Tuesday we could make pizza and then our whole can of pasta sauce might actually get used.  I think I'll try this tip out next week.  Italian week here we come!

4. Buy food with cash.  Sound tip, but for us, its never going to happen.  The Swans are not a cash based family and I don't see that changing any time soon.  I understand the rationale behind the tip - if you actually see your money in hand, you're more likely to make conscious decisions about spending it and won't overbuy at the store. 

5. Hit the supermarket salad bar.  This sounds ridiculous to me.  The thought behind this tip was that two people have a difficult time getting through a bag of celery or carrots before the food goes bad, so just buy what you need off the salad bar.  I guess it could work, but I don't trust supermarket salad bars, so I think I'll just stick with big bags and hope for the best.

6. Rein it in at the farmers market.  I'm guilty here.  I am easily lured in by kiwis and strawberries and exotic vegetables and never eat them all before they go bad.  Or I buy them and think I'll find a recipe to make using my fun new ingredient and never do.  So for me, this tip could read: just be realistic.

 

7. Wash and prep fruit and vegetables right away.  This is a great idea and one I've occasionally followed myself.  Especially good for carrots and other snacks that you can cut and divide into individual portions for easy grab and go access.  The only concern here is that veggies and fruit spoil quicker once they're cut, so you may not want to cut everything right away - instead maybe cut what you need for the next three days and then have another prep session on the fourth day.

8. Keep track of what's in your fridge and pantry, with expiration dates.  Again this is not something I would ever think of, but its a brilliant idea.  Do you know what you actually have in your fridge and freezer?  I don't.  The other day Mr. Cob found some frozen chicken that I'd planned to use to make chicken stock months ago.  And we honestly have about 7 different kinds of mustard, but realized we were out of ketchup Saturday night when friends were over for burgers.  Inventorying would initially take some time to put together, but once completed, it'd be easy to keep up with on a white board, chalk board or computer.

9. Use the freezer—and use it wisely.  I try to use the freezer wisely, but often I fail.  Lately I've been good about throwing browning bananas in the freezer to use at some later date for banana bread.  And if I buy too much chicken or meat at the grocery store I tend to throw half of it in the freezer.  What I'm not good about is packing up the leftovers from a big meal and freezing them - instead they're more likely to end up at the back of our fridge, lost forever.

10. Schedule in your leftovers.  If I've planned my weekly meals, I am pretty good about scheduling in leftover nights.  Or we'll scheduled to eat them for lunches during the week.  Sometimes I just forget what we have though.  But this is a great tip, especially if you're just a family of two and always have leftovers after cooking.

So those were some great tips!  And in an effort to put them into action, I'm going to start using my grocery chart lists again and here's my plan for the rest of this week.

Wednesday - use leftover grilled pork loin (from Sunday's dinner) and extra slider buns (from Saturday night's chicken sliders) to make pork sliders with a side of leftover grilled veggies. (tip #10)

Thursday  - pasta with grilled chicken (that is currently frozen in the freezer - TIP #9) and frozen veggies (TIP #9)

Friday - omelets (with eggs that are set to expire June 30th - tip#8) with leftover chicken from Thursday's meal (TIP #10) - side note, am I stretching here?  Is a chicken omelet just gross?  Can you really cook these two together considering the egg comes from the chicken?  Ok, now I've grossed myself out.  Maybe we'll rethink Friday's meal and just have egg and cheese sandwiches.

And we will not go back to the grocery store until we use the food in the fridge!  I'll let you know how it goes...

You're Fired

No, no, its not what you think. I did not get fired or laid off, nor did Mr. Cob. On the contrary,  I fired someone.  And it was rough.

Back in August when Mr. Cob broke his ankle, I convinced him that we needed to hire a housekeeper. I’d been bugging him for some time and once he physically could not help me around the house, he gave in. I hate cleaning toilets. I don’t find any therapy in moping the floors. And vacuuming just gives me a headache.

I rationalized our decision to hire a housekeeper in many ways. I told myself: We’re both lawyers who work hard and can afford the luxury of having a housekeeper. Lots of our friends have people that clean their houses, so why shouldn’t we? It’s really not that much money. We deserve it. We have a dog now and there’s no way I can keep up with all the pet hair and muddy paw prints. I really had myself convinced that we couldn't go on without some help.

That is until I started my mint.com obsession and started really seeing where all our money is going. And it didn’t help that the last time she was here she “waxed” our hardwood floors so much that I fell not once, not twice, but THREE different times (not to mention the fact that poor Wrigley couldn't run in the house without falling over! Admittedly this provided some good comic relief, but I was worried one of us was going to get seriously hurt)! Also, our housekeeper would “organize” our stuff along with cleaning. But organize was really just another word for “hide things in random places so that we could never find them easily.” (Mr. Cob especially hated the “organizing.”)

After some discussion and some mutual promises to each other to help maintain the cleanliness of our home, Mr. Cob and I decided to let go of our housekeeper. And I was the one who had to tell her. It was a very difficult and awkward conversation. I found myself stumbling and rationalizing our decision to her, when I really should’ve just said, “Thank you for all your hard work but we’ll no longer be needing your services.” Why did I feel the need to give her 5 different reasons for our decision? I suppose its partly because our decision affects her livelihood and financial situation. Regardless, I’m not sure how HR people do it – letting go of people – its an unpleasant experience.

So we’re officially back to being responsible for the cleanliness of our home. I’m proud of us for realizing ways we could save some money – these student loans aren’t going to pay themselves off! But please don’t judge me if the next time you come to my house its not spotless, or even close…I wish I was a neat freak, but it’s just not who I am. The fact is, I’m a messy person at heart.

My New Obsession

As if I really needed something else to distract me online, I've recently become a fan of a certain website.  A money-management website.  As you may recall, I'm often thinking about money, specifically the Swans money situation and how we're handling it.  I never did jump on the Dave Ramsey band wagon and I've really just had this vague idea in my head as to how we're going to navigate our financial future.  But I have a new plan.  I have a budget thanks to mint.com.

Mint.com is similar to Quicken, which we have on our home computer, but for some reason, I love mint.com so much more. For one thing, you can log on to it from any computer and you’re emailed weekly updates. Here's the skinny - you enter all your bank accounts (savings, checking, credit cards, 401Ks, IRAs, etc.) and then mint.com lays out your complete financial picture. You can even add any cars you own, your mortgage, and the like. Mint.com clearly sets out how much cash is in your pocket versus the amount of debt you're carrying.

The most eye-opening aspect for me is seeing exactly where our money is going. Mint.com categorizes all of your transactions so that you can view how much you spend in each category each month. For example, my $70 trip to Kroger goes under "groceries" and my $2 coffee goes under "coffee shop", and both "groceries" and "coffee shop" are under the bigger umbrella of "Food & Dining." You have to manually fix some of the categorizations, but then going forward mint.com remembers the categories for a particular merchant. So step one for me was making sure all the categorizations were correct and then viewing our spending habits over the past three months. I will only say that I am utterly amazed and quite embarrassed about the amount of money we spend on Food & Dining. It is not right. I would tell you, but you really don’t want to know. And I thought I did a good job cooking at home a lot! Well our $60 dinner here, $12 Saturday coffee shop run there and $5 subway lunches all adds up to a HUGE chunk of change. I also spend a lot of money on groceries. Mr. Cob has been saying for a while that I overspend at the grocery store and we end up throwing out maybe 20-30% of the things we buy because they go bad before we can eat them. Well after seeing the proof in the numbers, I fear he's right.

So mint.com is here to help. It assisted me in creating a budget and we're going to try to stick to it. I think it will take a few months to get the hang of it, but the first step is knowing you have a problem and taking the necessary action to fix it! And now that I've set up our budget, I get an email from mint.com if we've gone over budget in any category. For example, we're already $47 over on Bills & Utilities for the month, so in order to defray that overage, I'm going to cut down in another category - perhaps Food & Dining. My goal is to use mint.com to help us reduce some of our spending so that we can (1) pay off our roof/credit cards ASAP and (2) build up at least 6 months of living expenses in our savings account. Here’s to money management!

The Attorney version of Crack

I don’t advocate taking stimulants to keep you awake or sleeping pills to help you sleep. If you’re eating right, exercising and getting to bed at a reasonable hour, “enhancers” aren’t needed. And your body should regulate on its own.

But not today. And not any Monday. Monday’s have their own set of rules. Today is a coffee kind of day.

Mr. Cob and I wanted to spend as much quality time together as possible yesterday for Valentine’s Day, so I didn’t go to bed until close to midnight. Then I tossed and turned trying to fall asleep for another half hour only to be woken up by Miss Wrigley romping around the room at 4am. She whined and barked a little, but not seriously so we thought she was just bored in the middle of the night (no, this is not her typical behavior, but I was groggy and not thinking clearly). Interruption #2 came a little later when she hurdled herself over the “baby/dog gate” that keeps her in our room at night, causing a loud bang as it knocked to the ground. We still didn’t get the hint. Finally at 6am, I woke up to the smell of poo. Not a good smell. Wrigley was sick. In our room. So I had to deal with that. (Side note: I know it’s our fault for not taking her out. She tried to tell us she didn’t feel good. But it was raining. And did I mention it was 4 in the morning? This is why we need a fence – if we had a fence we could’ve just let her out. But we were both too lazy and sleepy to get dressed and take her out on a leash. And then we paid for it. We’re in trouble whenever we have a baby and have to feed in the middle of the night. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. This is exactly why we got a dog first. We need to work out the kinks. And clearly, there are kinks. Don’t judge.) Needless to say I didn’t get any REM sleep between the hours of 4 and 8 am.

Today is definitely a coffee kind of day. But I held strong until 2:05 pm, convincing myself I would eventually “wake up”. But then I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a jolt. Lucky for me (not so lucky for my wallet or hips…) there is a food court beneath my building. That’s right, I said beneath it.

First thing every morning I’m smacked with the delicious aroma of chicken biscuits from Chik-fil-A. But I resist. Then all day I sit here knowing that I’m just one elevator ride and 20 stories away from Moe’s, Subway, Checkers (a new addition), sushi, Chinese food, Great Wraps, etc. etc. Did I mention that there’s a Great American Cookie Company down there taunting me with their gigantic icing filled cookies? Most days I resist.

One thing that helps me fight off temptation is seeing the lunch food already sitting out at 9:00 in the morning when I stroll into work. The food is just warming under those bright florescent lights. For hours. It’s disturbing if you think about it.

But I also know there’s coffee down there. Caribou was calling my name. It was also calling my name from our break room down the hall. But that’s beside the point. Office coffee isn’t the same – even if we do brew the same Caribou blend that I pay to drink downstairs. It’s different. The taste is richer. Or something.

Luckily for me (and my wallet), Caribou understands what Mondays are all about. Caribou feels my plight. They know times are tough and people are cutting out “frivolous” items, like coffee. (Though I could make a strong argument for the non-frivolousness of coffee, especially on Mondays, but I digress). Thankfully for me, Caribou has Dollar Mondays. My medium coffee only cost $1.08. So I feel a little less guilty paying for coffee that I could drink for free if I just walked down the hall.

So now I’m content. And caffeinated. Which equates to alert and ready to get down to reading some statutes. At least until the caffeine rush crashes. Then I’ll be back to square one. But I’ll deal with that when it comes. Perhaps with a cookie. There’s nothing like chasing a caffeine high with a sugar high.

Money Matters

Money is always a touchy subject.  People don't really talk about it.  I'd like to think its because we don't want to risk hurting someone else's feelings or put them in an awkward position, because the fact of the matter is, you really don't ever know someone else's money situation, unless they offer to tell you.  But I have questions and I need answers.  So where to turn?

I have a few friends that are following Dave Ramsey's "Seven Baby Steps" and it seems to be working well for them.  I've looked at the steps and considered following that route, but I always opt out because we've accomplished some of the steps but not others and I feel confused if we've done them out of order - I think part of his plan revolves around "the order" of the steps.

Step 1 - Save $1000 in an Emergency Fund - check

Step 2 - Pay off all your debt using the debt snowball - um, yea.  Where do we start?  The debt snowball says to start with your smallest debt first and then work your way up, but I just can't agree with this approach.  My favored approach is to look at all the interest rates and start paying off the highest one first.  Also, not all our debt is "bad debt" - i.e. law school loans.  Although, we have enough of them, that I feel like they're BAD!

Step 3 - 3 to 6 months of living expenses - not exactly.  We're working on month 2...

Step 4 - Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement - check.  Been doing this for 2 years now.  Though we did empty Mr. Cob's IRA to help with the purchase of our home.  But I've got a pretty good chunk in my 401K.  But if I'm following "The Baby Steps" should we stop putting money into the IRA and 401K and instead use the money to pay off the debt or save for the living expense?  I don't know.  There's no *footnote* telling me what to do if my steps are out of whack.

Step 5 - College funding for children - no kids yet, so is this really necessary?

Step 6 - Pay off home early - R-I-G-H-T....lets work on those law school loans first.

Step 7 - Build Wealth and Give - this is the ultimate goal.

So, ok, this is a good blueprint and I keep it in the back of my mind - maybe we'll officially jump on board here soon.  But here's my question, assuming we're not following the Baby Steps (or even when we are): What money should I use for what?  For example, we have a family wedding to go to in April that will cost roughly $500 just to get to.  Do we take this $500 out of our monthly expenses or take it out of our "savings account"?  Or does it qualify for use of the "emergency fund money" [sidenote: it is really just semantics that we are talking about here since our emergency fund money is just the first $1000 in out savings account].

I'm really making a concerted effort to watch my/our spending in 2010.  I vowed not to buy any clothes in January and I succeeded until Friday, January 29th - I just bought a $20 dress, so it's not that bad.  Still, did I need the dress, no.  I did feel pretty wearing it though!  And both Mr. Cob and I are brining our lunch to work most days and cooking dinners at home = saves money on eating out, which is our biggest offender.

I do feel like I'm really hard on us, because we would be doing really well if we hadn't had to drop thousands of dollars on a new roof.  But there are always going to be "life" expenses that get in the way of saving money and paying off debt - you just have to keep going.  My goal is to be credit card free by June 1st, 2010.  (We put the roof on our credit card...)  And then I think we'll reevaluate.

I did make one big change this month - the day we got our paychecks I immediately put a huge chunk towards our credit card.  I typically wait until the end of the month and just use whatever money is left in our checking account to pay our cc.  This is not the most proactive approach.  Let's just hope there's enough money left over at the end of the month for food.  I'm not really in a Top Ramen sort of mood.

Did I mention that I was a finance major in college?  I should have this money thing figured out.  Don't judge.

Who Me????

According to my husband, I can't be trusted. Well, it's not that he doesn't trust me in the overall sense of trust (at least I think). You see, we have a solid marriage...an open forum for discussion...mutual respect for one another. Love, lots of love. And until this morning, I thought we had mutual trust in one another.

But apparently it is only one-sided. He even admits that he thinks I can't be trusted. And you know what? He's right. It's true. At least not at this time of year. Not with the holidays and gift buying in the works.

But let me back up, its his fault, really. When we got married I took a stand for having separate checking accounts. But as he can't trust me (or my love for buying shoes and purses), he convinced me that we just needed one joint checking account. (It would be easier to pay the bills...how would we determine whose money to spend on what? Etc. etc. etc.) So I gave in and we have one joint checking account. But I maintained my independence by keeping my very own credit card, which he doesn't have access to. (Ok, he really does have access to it, but he doesn't care to look. I think...) And he has his very own credit card. Only his is linked to our checking account. So I can see when the balance creeps up, cent by cent. And I'll admit, I often peruse the credit card statement - but just to make sure everything is correct. I'm not looking to see what he buys. Honestly, I'm not. It's just that I'm in charge of our bills and finances, so I need to look at these things.

Well being the diligent bill-payer that I am, I went to go check out our banking situation this morning. I pulled up the Bank of America site. Entered our user name. Hit enter. Everything was normal. I was next prompted to enter our password. First try: FAIL. Ok, I must have entered it incorrectly. Second try: Access denied. Ok, I must have had cap lock on. Third try: INCORRECT PASSWORD. It was at this point I knew something was up. So I called Mr. Cob.

Me: Did you change our bank account password.
Mr. Cob: [Chuckling] Yes.
Me: Why on earth would you do that?
Mr. Cob: So you can't snoop around and see what I've bought you for Christmas.
Me: Who Me? NEVER!

You see. My own husband. He doesn't trust me. Sigh.

Then again, he probably has a point - I did call him the other day asking why he spent $40 at Jimmy Johns. I thought perhaps someone had stolen his card and gone on a sandwich buying spree. I was concerned, that's all. I'm not a snooper. I swear.

Zoom-Zoom, Ruff-Ruff and Roof-Roof

The Swans have been quite busy lately, hence the lack of blog posts. In one week we have acquired a new car, a new dog and will soon have a new roof!

The beamer served me well for nine & a half years, but it was time to part ways. She is now in a better place, and I'm in a safer car! In her place I got a candy apple red Mazda 3 5-Door! And she's a beauty! Mr. Cob has named her "Ruby Vroom". Aside from safely being able to get from point A to point B, I love that the car smiles at you and says ZOOM-ZOOM when you turn her on.



We also expanded our family this month! We added a four-legged furry friend: WRIGLEY! She's a year old Australian-Shepherd mix and is the sweetest pup you'll ever meet. She and Bailey Ann are learning to get along, but are not exactly "friends" yet. We're very excited about our new family member...if only we can get her to stop pooping in the office :) I think obedience school is in our future! I have much better pics on my camera, but for now, here's a preview from my phone - isn't she a doll!


I'm sure Wrigley will be a recurring blog subject!

And while we're adding new things, we decided to (well, decided isn't exactly the word...I should say we "must") replace our roof. As you may remember, the recent influx of rain in the Atlanta area has not treated our house well...we've been dealing with a flooded basement and a leak in the dining room. After getting quotes on replacing versus repairing our roof, we learned that in the end it would be cheaper and better to just replace the entire roof. Our two year old roof. Sigh. Deep breathe. Lots of money down the drain. Sigh.

Moral of our story: if you buy a "flipped" house, make sure you get a roof inspection and have a second inspection after the buyer claims they fixed the problems the first inspector found (don't rely on the receipts they provide for you).

The husband of a woman I work with is a general contractor and doing the roof for us, so we feel good that we're in good hands. And we're just crossing our fingers that there aren't many/any rotten boards that need to be replaced once they pull up the shingles. And once the roof is replaced, we'll then have to fix the problems in the inside of the house - the cosmetic repairs.

The silver lining is that we're getting architectural shingles and a decorative chimney cap, which will give the house a facelift. A nice early-Christmas present...

127,000 Miles Might be All She Can Take

Well after nine and a half years with my little car, she is finally dying. I've tried to save her. New spark plugs, new tubes, new tires and lots of love. But sometimes, love and new parts just aren't enough. And my old girl needs to be laid to rest - or at least traded in to a dealership who can give her a major facelift and perhaps a boob job and some lypo.

So Mr. Cob and I are car-shopping. And we have no idea what to do. The budget/economical side of me says to just buy a cheap, reliable car. But my luxurious side is telling me that I work hard and desrve a nice car. I'm thinking/hoping the smart side wins over the expensive taste side.

But car shopping is very overwhelming. Where do we start? The one thing we know is we need something bigger than a 2 door. So first criteria: 4 doors. But then do we get a sedan or an SUV? Sedans are better on gas mileage, but SUV's would be good for our one-day-growing family (no, our family is not growing yet, but you have to think about these things). And then there's the domestic vs. foreign? I'm really just lost.

We're thinking we're going to lease a car because we're not ready to commit to something for more than a few years and leasing will most likely result in a lower monthly payment.

So I made a spreadsheet of lease costs for various cars. Economically I should get a Civic. But I really want the Volvo XC90...it's just not budget friendly.

What's a driver to do? Maybe I should start biking and riding MARTA. Sigh.

An Instant Wardrobe Update

I did a little Fall shopping this weekend. It started out innocently enough. I agreed to go yard sale-ing with the girls. I spent a mere fifty cents on a super cute picture frame. I was doing a great job minding my wallet and sticking to my self-imposed "no frivolous shopping" month of October.

But then I was blinded by love. All sense and reason left me. I blame my friends for dragging me to the mall and forcing me to look at shoes. It's their fault, really.

In my defense, I have been looking for new work shoes for a few months now. But nothing has been "just right". Everything I tried on was either too matronly, too tall, too uncomfortable or just plain wrong.

But that all changed on Saturday. I spotted the most beautiful red heels. And it was love at first sight. I had to have them. My feet are now happy. How couldn't they be in these lovely things?????







I have to wear shoes to work, so one could argue that shoes aren't frivolous. So "technically" I didn't break my own rule. Yea, I like that rationale.