Birthday Wish List

Gah, I love having a summer birthday!

Mine's a month out from now, so it would be a good idea to start looking for a birthday gift! Here's a good place to start: 

Maybe something QUIRKY 

like a carnivorous terrarium from Peperjack Home? 

Maybe something STUNNING

like a pear shaped ring or a gold statement

Maybe something USEFUL

like a ceramic knife or camera strap

Maybe something to ADMIRE

like a new print or pillow

Maybe something FANTASTIC

like raindrops or gypsy apparel

Maybe something SEXY

like a new pair of heels

Weekend Getaway: Walla Walla & the Tri-Cities

This past weekend, Ben and I took a short trip to Eastern Washington. We spent Saturday exploring West Richland/ Red Mountain Wineries and Sunday we saw a huge hot air balloon stampede, ate amazing gelato, and took a scenic bike ride down trails in Walla Walla.

Saturday:
we took a drive over to Red Mountain area for a quick visit to some wineries. We were so impressed with most of the wine offered - really fantastic & locally grown too.

   - Stops - 

1) Terra Blanca - stellar wines, ate delicious lunch. 

2) Cooper - good reds 

3) Kiona - tasted probably 15 wines, they were rather unremarkable, and the tastings were very small. I would have rather liked 5 tastings of the good wines, than 15+ sips. 

4) Fidelitas - quick stop, great decor (wood + industrial), tasty wines.

5) Tapteil - the lady behind the counter wasn't very interactive, always spoils the mood.

6) Hightower - My favorite stop - top to bottom great wines. With about 8 tastings, we bought 4 of them!

7) Hedges - Gorgeous estate and tasting room, i highly suggest walking around. oh, the wines were very nice too!

8) Finally, we found a fantastic dinner at Fox and Bear.

Sunday:
We started our day super early to get over to Walla Walla fairgrounds by 6am (the launch was set for 6:30). There was a little hesitation in the air as the wind was picking up, with a threat of a storm somewhere on the horizon. Luckily, it calmed down enough for 80% of the balloons to launch. It was amazing, and I highly recommend  seeing a hot air balloon rally or stampede if you get the chance.

We followed it up with a 6.5 mile trip through the fields, parks, and water in Walla Walla. I think we quoted it as a "nature-gasm." It was so beautiful!!

Friday Feel Good

Ben and I are off to Walla Walla for wine, bike rides, tacos, and hot air balloon rallies this weekend!

Andrew McMahon - Learn to Dance:

Feel Good Friday

taking another look at money

Again, one of our goals before we start to try for a baby is to get to a place of financial independence and freedom. 

FOUND HERE

What does that look like?

For us, two married mid-twenties Engineers, it looks like a beautiful color coded excel workbook. If Ben could find a way to program it into MatLab, I'm sure he would. But I'm the over-scheduler and controlling type, so I get to set the program and excel works great!

First off, kudos to those who have actually successfully been able to budget their money. We have tried, and tried, and revisited our budget and the only thing that worked or clicked for us was to make general "buckets" for where we spend our money. Using this book (please buy, it's amazing!!) we took a look at our monthly spending (joint and individual spending) and put them into either "Must haves," "Wants," or "Savings" using the "All your Worth" method. Again, buy the book. After looking at two months of spending we were at 50% Must Haves, 42% Wants, and 8% Savings. it should be a 50-30-20 ratio. Basically, it proved that we were overspending and not saving.  This awful revelation, led us to where we are today - and cemented the idea that you can't save money when you constantly owe it.

Back to the excel sheet. We keep track of 3 things: DEBT (every credit card gets a separate excel tab). STUDENT LOANS (I get a tab of all my loans and amounts, Ben gets one too). SAVINGS (a tab dedicated to the ways and specific amounts we need to deposit each month to get to our three months saved salary goal). That is also our ranking of what to work on first (credit card debt) and what to work on last (paying off student loans comes after building up our savings for us).

Then I get real nerdy and for each credit card (and really every loan/savings is tracked this way too) I put the starting month and the statement amount for that month. I then estimate that if we pay off $XXXX amount each and every month, when we should pay it off by. We started with our smallest credit card to work on first (yay small achievements!).

The biggest and only rule to follow is to  

STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARD. 

seriously. no amount of bonuses, miles, or cash back 

make up for carrying a balance and interest due.

So we started this journey of financial freedom March 1st, 2013, and as of May 2nd, 2013 we have successfully paid off our Bassett Furniture card, my Citi Credit Card, and are now working on our final beast - our joint Chase credit card. We have a solid, totally do-able plan for building our savings and have been really amazed at the amount we were able to pay towards these cards (like, 3 months ahead of schedule, amazed). 

Stay tuned for some specific tips we used 

to clean up our "Wants" spending 

as well as tackling the awkward joint vs individual 

bank accounts when married problem.