Photo of the day: road trip

Today I got to go on a little road trip to Carbondale with my coworker/friend Anna for a continuing education course. We had a good time and the course was very good and informative. 

Photo of the day: apple tree

So this picture is supposed to be of an apple tree...but let's face it, the last time I saw an actual apple tree was the kindergarten field trip (I think). So, I took a picture of some apples. 

Photo of the day: community group

On Wednesday nights we have community (small) group for church. We get together and share life in community with others on mission for Chirst. Our community group has become our close group of friends and people we can truly share life with. It's refreshing to have a group of ladies, for me (guys for Alex) who I can talk to and share my life with and know that there is no judgement or gossip. Group has given me the opportunity to have strong, confident, bold Christian women to have as role models and close friends. I love our group and I love that God has blessed Alex and I to be a part of this group. 

Photo of the day: something I love

I have a love hate relationship with budgeting. I really enjoy knowing exactly what we spend and where our money goes. But, after making our monthly  budget, we have to stick to it. Unfortunately it rarely includes shopping sprees at Target.

We use the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University method to budget. Alex and I both have commission based jobs, which makes planning very difficult (our paychecks are rarely the same month to month). Which means we have to update and change our budget monthly- yes, the mortgage and typical bills stay the same, but we allow for fluctuations in our envelopes. We have cash envelopes that we use for all of our day to day spending and we budget down to the last penny. We've been doing it for about 8 months and we've paid off Alex's student loan (woohoo!!) and are working on the car now.

That being said, we have made sacrifices and have to be pretty creative. We have given up Direct TV and replaced it with Hulu and Netflix which saves a lot. We don't eat out often and we (try) to plan everything (weekends, holidays, gifts, etc.) down to the last detail. There are still some surprises we can't plan for and that's part of life, but this budget has been really great for us. There are a lot of different programs and ways to budget and this may not be the best way to budget and plan for everyone, but it works really well for us.  

Today's picture is our table on budget day, "Something I love."