Nesting – The meal planning and diaper stocking edition

I didn’t have too many meals made in advance the last time around, but am trying to be a little more prepared in that area this time around.  So far, we have a few meals stocked up in our freezer, including spaghetti & meatballs, a great new Turkish ground beef and eggplant dish, banana crunch [...]

Beauty for free

Yesterday (Monday) morning didn’t get off to a great start.  I won’t go into details . . . let’s just say it involved a last-minute heated discussion over clothing choices as my husband headed off to the oh-so-fun experience of jury duty.  I want to be the supportive wife, but especially in the midst of [...]

Gnawing down to the bones

When I lived overseas the first year of my time in Uzbekistan, the family I stayed with struggled to make ends meet in a way most Americans will never know.  It was a treat to get a piece of meat in your rice or soup dish, and regardless of how tough it might me, the [...]

When it’s time to spend

Before
We have been in a pretty focused saving mode for several months now.  We’re trying to save up a 6 month emergency fund, and hopefully we’ll have that in place by the time the baby arrives in September.  Some say that having too strict of a budget is just a recipe for a spending binge [...]

Cash Only

As we’ve attempted to bring our budget under more control over the past year, we’ve slowly weaned ourselves from using the credit card (except for gasoline purchases, which are just easier for my husband to make with his credit card – especially where we live here).  During this time, I also instituted a “cash only” [...]