Building our Savings...Post 1

Post one of the Building our Savings collection.

1 year ago (in three weeks) DH and I paid for a wedding. Our wonderful, delightful, exciting wedding. 95% of the cost of the wedding and honeymoon came from our joint savings account. Truth be told, most of it was from Dh's deployment in the early part of the year.

Then 6 months ago we started on a grand home remodel...creating double the amount of living space for ourselves, a second bathroom and a new laundry room, plus a wonderful new daycare space for the kidlets. These two endeavors wiped out most of our savings. At the last payment of the basement remodel we had a whopping $1000 in our savings. Keep in mind, we have plenty to live on...between my and Dh's incomes we have enough for our day to day expenses, our house and car debt and dc expenses. Then DH bought a new car in February...this means even less to go into our savings, and we just have kept right on spending. (don't get me wrong...DH needed a new car, his old trusty red Jeep was on her last legs, about to give out any minute. But she didn't have a car payment.) We got new draperies and hardware for the windows in the master, fabric and mulch for landscaping and many many plants for said landscaping. Clothes, shoes, toys, video games and trinkets top that list as well.

Now, I've paid off my credit card debt and am working on some late tax payments...a situation I should have rectified years ago, but was working under the misconception that ignoring it would make it go away...I have since learned my lesson and won't make that mistake again!


This summer we have a few big projects coming up that we MUST find inexpensive or DIY options for so we don't blow our budget.

First and foremost is our Patio projects. These SHOULD be relatively easy to complete, but we have absolutely no tools to use in completing these two items. Plus, with little to no help from DH's "best" friends (who really dislike doing anything that doesn't directly benefit them) and no prior experience with laying paver patios, Dh wants to hire someone to do the work. Unfortunately that is an expensive option...since most of the expense lies in the labor. I vote on doing it ourselves, but have learned that if that is the case, our lovely and needed patios will most likely not happen.

Next is the redecoration of the house. We were pretty lucky in the home department. The house we live in was Dh's Step-dad and Mother's house before they built their big one. They "rented" it to DH for years before officially selling it to him. This helped to create a large nest egg of equity that they took off the top of the sale price when he bought it. This means he paid much less than he would have buying it outright or from someone else, and we get more house for our money than we could otherwise possibly afford. That said, before MIL and SFIL moved, they decorated the house in their style and tastes and Dh being a single bachelor and frequent deployer never really made it into a home. When I moved in 5 yrs ago, I did so under the assumption that it was Dh's house and I never really did much either. However, once we were married, I had a complete thought reversal. Now, though, since we haven't really put much effort into decorating our home to reflect us and the destruction of two large and very energetic and active doggies we have much to do.
I've written posts regarding my designs for the three upstairs rooms: Master, Spare and Nursery. Also on the redecoration list is the upstairs bathroom, the office, the kitchen, the bar downstairs, and the daycare room. But, first among the house rooms to do are the breezeway (which will then be the formal entry to the house/mudroom/dog area) and the garage. Technically these are outside, but they are required to be completed to make the most logical completion of the others.

So, this year, we are most likely going to spend more than we save, but our plan is at least 10% of every paycheck (two weeks of my dc tuition fees - after taxes and expenses because Dh gets paid every two weeks) must go to joint savings. (15% of my daycare income automatically goes towards taxes and dc expenses.) This should help to build our savings even while we continually dip into the pot for fixing up our home.