Drifting & thrifting {snow day}

All I see is snow swirling outside my window and I want a snow day. So guess what? I'm giving myself one. Yep, I'm taking off early today and enjoying the afternoon to myself. I can't wait. before I go any further I need to share some good news. Jay passed his last praxis test!! This is amazing news, because they are very difficult tests that require hours of studying, and lots of money to take them (I think each test is around $200 and he had to take several-but he also has several degrees) So I am planning something special for him tonight to celebrate. Way to go babo!I am also planning something fun for this weekend since hubby was gone last weekend. He is so easy to surprise and always so appreciative, which makes it fun. I love surprises. It will be fun to spend some quality silly time together. I've missed that.

I did, however make a lot of progress this weekend. I'm really excited with the creative ideas I came up with. I was able to work on several projects that I had been putting off and it felt good to get them done. We also posted our downsize sale blog on craigslist. To our surprise, we had many many responses and a number of people are coming on Thursday to purchase our items. We are thrilled. If any of you want to take a look at it, you'll find it here. We just can't wait to get our excess stuff out. Thank you, craigslist!

This afternoon I'm going thrifting. I think it's a perfect way to spend a snowy afternoon, don't you?

Baby steps.

Today is my Friday so I'm up a little late =) Tomorrow I'm going to focus part of my day on sorting/photographing items to sell. Once we make some progress we'll post a link to our "for sale" blog that we'll be linking to craigslist in case anyone wants to take a peek at our items. Our progress so far: we've finally switched entirely to paperless everything. It took us awhile because it's a hassle to get on each website and switch everything separately- but we got the job done. It's SO nice not receiving statements and papers in the mail that we don't know what to do with. Makes less recycling, less filing, less JUNK. Love it. We also found all of these old check book boxes (full of old checkbooks) below, a combination of numerous separate accounts pre-marriage. We had not gotten around to sorting them all out. All of these below are old and got shredded. 8 boxes of junk out the door! Seems small but sometimes it takes baby steps!

Tonight we spent some time going over our financial situation and figuring out how much we owe total for our student loans. My Dad just made the final payment on mine and that was really exciting for us. Now all we have left is Jay's. It's so amazing to know that his student loans and our home is the only debt we have. Like my Mom says, that's the "good" kind of debt. We still have a ways to go with his loans, but I'm encouraged by our saving habits and dedication to pay it off. We are sending in a check to pay off a little chunk of it and although it's a little like throwing money away, it still feels great. We are on our way to be free of debt! We are so strict with our budget and it totally pays off. If only we were taught the value and weight of debt before we went to college! We also went over our budget so we knew how much we needed to save and what we want to save for. It was overwhelming and exciting and scary and fun at the same time.

Anticipation

Megan said... seriously so inspiring, love this idea! what made you want to do this? (downsize)

We had been debating whether or not to prepare to sell our townhome. We were feeling cramped and like we needed more space, but really we just need to get rid of stuff and make more space! our townhome is amazing. We just needed to realize that. It was brand new when we moved into it. It's bigger than a lot of peoples homes that we know. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Sure, there is not a lot of storage, but it makes it cozy. So we decided to stay for a few years until we can make a good profit on it, and we will make an excellent one when the market turns around. We also LOVE that we don't have to mow, fertilize, landscape, pay for garbage, or shovel snow (especially now that it's winter!!) It's so nice. We decided that just because the market is really good for buyers, doesn't mean we need to buy. We don't want to purchase a home because the price is right. The time has to be right too. And the space. It's not a decision to rush, or jump into. The next place we move into we plan on staying for a loooong time. We hate moving ;) Right now we would only be able to afford an older home and we don't want to invest our time and money into upgrading, maintenance, or rennovating just now. We are hoping to purchase something that is not brand new, but built within a reasonable time frame. Thankfully, we haven't had any problems with anything in our home because it's new. So to make a short story long, that's where the downsize idea came to us!

Side note: Thank you for everyone sending us love and support about this idea! we've already received a few e-mails from people saying they are really interested in looking at our items/putting dibs on them before we put them up for sale!! amazing! Thank you!

Today is my Friday. I am bursting at the seams with excitement to get out of here and start our Holiday tonight!! Tomorrow we are going to see Beauty and the Beast and I can't wait. What a great way to kick-off Christmas. We are getting a little nervous about the snowstorm coming our way since we will be traveling on Christmas Eve, but nothing can damper our excitement. This is the best week of the year! I can't wait to get down to Bunny's and nest in her home for the week with my favorite people. I don't think I can wait..................

It's the perfect night.

I'm laying in bed after a great work out and a hot shower. Hubby's off with his best friends and I'm enjoying the quiet time and doing some blogging. Last night I made a quick trip to Bunny & Papa's to see Tangled Roots in concert & to help them prepare for Christmas. As always, Papa took me and Al out shopping and ridiculously spoiled us!! He's also helping me with a special project for Jay so we worked on that too. It was 2 full days of love and laughter. We even pulled out some old records and played them on the record player! It was so fun.

Now I'm home and starting to go through a few items for the downsize. I am getting so excited to do this. Our storage "areas" are a huge mess. Here are a few pictures to illustrate. This is the 4 shelves we want to get down to 2. Big project.

More stuff. ugh.

And a few closets like this:

This is our initial list. We thought it would be fun to share. We'll explain more about the wander list after we've made that. Hopefully we'll make some good progress on this list this year!

Ok I have to get some rest...big sessions tomorrow! Tomorrow night we are introducing one of Jay's friends to Jenni, so I'm kind of nervous about that. I hope it goes well!!!!

Drum roll please...

We've decided to name our little blog home 99th Street.

Short, sweet, and very meaningful to us.

We live on 99th Street-our first home together.

We liked the idea of the name of our blog "home" relating to our real home, as it also houses our thoughts, ideas, experiences, etc. We think it fits us well =)

We hope you like it and that you continue to visit often! Stay tuned for a new look coming soon in the next few days. We have some other news to share.

After much consideration, we've decided to considerably downsize the material items in our home. Our dream is to sell everything, including our house and take off for a year of travel around the world. Think backpacking in Europe, a safari in Africa, and sailing in New Zealand. Don't panic yet. This is something that will take more then a few weeks of planning and we'll need time to save up enough money. This is something we would love to do in the future when the time {and housing market!} is right. For now we plan on selling, donating, and throwing away a good amount of our "stuff" and traveling next summer. We are blessed with so much-and we LOVE our things. But they are exactly that-just things, and someone could use them or need them more than we could. We want to live a simple{r} life. We'll keep the necessities and items that are really meaningful, {Our tvs, larger furniture, some appliances, personal items, ect.} but the rest is going. This is going to be SO hard for me. I'm a very sentimental person and it's really hard for me to part with things I've been given. I'll never give up shopping, make no mistake, but I'm going to stick with the idea that if one thing comes in our home, 2 go out. I'm committed to my husband and our plan and I am going to follow through. We will post here and there and share our struggles, and progress along the way. We plan on using the money from items we sell to travel for a few consecutive months next summer {we'll also be setting up a special savings plan}. This summer we'll be in Spain, and the destination for next summer is still to be determined. The idea of this downsize is to not dwell on worldy material posesssions and to live in the moment. Traveling is our passion, so why not get up and go? We have nothing holding us back.

I read a blog where the couple could fit everything they own in a small storage space (10x10 room) They travel all over and don't have to worry about owning a home. What they would pay monthly for a mortgage they use towards travel expenses. Wow. This is amazing and so liberating to me. Now obviously we aren't going that extreme but it's a really neat story. I couldn't live like that forever, but it would be fun to be that carefree for awhile! Our downsize will be much more low key than that. We have so many things and have seen so many in need this Holiday season. There is so much more I want to share with you guys, but this post is exhausting me. Thinking about how much stuff we want to get rid of is overwhelming! Our goal is to cut our storage amount in half {we have 4 shelves of storage, so down to 2}. If you know someone in need of anything, please please send them my contact information. We would love to donate items to people that could use them {and we have a LOT of stuff, so any requests will likely be filled} I have a feeling Craigslist will be our new best friend ;)

Here's to a simpler, less cluttered 2010!