It's Autumn Time...

My Dad was kind enough to take some fall photos of us today. I'd say we're a pretty cute little family, wouldn't you?

Total Money Makeover!

For a couple of years now my sister Stacy has been begging Britton and I to listen to the Dave Ramsey CDs. We put it off and put it off because we were students and didn't have any money to budget anyways. And we didn't want to listen to him tell us not to get student loans, which was the only way to get out of Rexburg as fast as possible. Eventually we relented and listened to his course. Since Britton has gotten a job, we've "gone Dave Ramsey."

Because we're living with my gracious parents, we will be able to pay off our student loans in less than a year.

Let me tell you, this guy makes sense. Here's the baby steps to his program.

1) Save $1000 to start an Emergency Fund

2) Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball

3) 3-6 months of expenses in savings

4) Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement

5) College Funding for children

6) Pay off home Early

7) Build Wealth and give

We are on Baby Step #2! The only debt we have is student loans. Luckily we've never given in to credit cards.

I highly recommend checking out Dave Ramsey. Often times when you're coming up on finishing college the only thing going through your mind is buying your first house, buying a new car, and basically getting everything you've been doing without. That's exactly what I had in mind. But you know what the truth is? If you're lucky your husband will be making about $50,000 a year with his first job. That's about $4100 a month right? WRONG. More like $3,000 after taxes. $2600 after tithing. You want a new car? Subtract $400. You want a house? Subtract $800. Payment on new furniture? Subtract $100. That leaves you with $1300, not including home, auto, fire insurance or utilities. Oh and don't forget that $350 student loan payment. You've probably got about $700 bucks left for groceries, diapers, clothes, entertainment, gas, whatever. With zero in savings. Then what happens if he gets laid off?

We really are the "I want it now generation." But we don't need it now.

Figure out before your husband graduates what you're going to do with his paychecks.

Don't dig yourself into a hole just because you want it all right now.

We are all entering into the stage of life where what we do with our money really matters. Not just for us, but our kids and our grandkids.

Be smart!

a new play pen

Today Jake was helping me do some laundry, ie I was carrying him with one arm and doing laundry with the other. This kid weighs 24 pounds and he gets heavy fast. So after I emptied a basket I got the idea of putting him in the basket and scooting him around.

Then I gave him some toys to play with. I think he had fun...

On the crawling front, Jake's still not there yet. He's scooting backwards a little bit when we put him on his tummy, but he gets mad after only a few minutes on his tummy. He's progressively getting better though. I think his giant baby belly is giving him a tough time. My guess is he'll be crawling around before Thanksgiving!

I love this little guy and I have so much fun with him. It's been rough leaving him to go to school and probably even harder studying when I can hear him laughing downstairs with Daddy but I just know it's so important to have my education. I just hope he knows how much I love him!

We're bad parents

So a couple of weeks ago, in honor of Jakey turning 8 months old, we fed him some pureed turkey. It was his first experience with meat of any kind. The first bite created some hilarious facial expressions, so we ran upstairs to get the camera and forced him to take a second bite. We didn't make him eat anymore after that.

I probably should have mixed it with green beans or something. We felt pretty bad afterwards.