Trimming the extras

Normally, putting Kinley down for a nap at 5:20 in the evening would be a no-go for me.  But today, it's a yes totally.

It's Thursday evening.  Time to kick back, relax, and enjoy my FOUR days off from school.  I guess they really aren't days off when they are bound to be filled with homework.  But at least I don't have to go anywhere.  Well, tha'ts a lie....errands are sometimes just as much of a pain as the commute to school.

So I'm going to enjoy my four days with my baby girl.  Now that she's in day care three days a week, I feel like I don't see her nearly enough.  I miss her.  She's changing so much and her attitude has been so sassy lately.  She's definately developed her diva personality.  And I'm not so sure that we are fans of it.  We've slowly been moving back into the groove of regaining control that we so willingly handed over to her just 13 months ago.  The terrible twos have hit our household.....several months too early.  She's getting very good at pushing our limits.  Not sleeping at night, throwing her food, laughing when we tell her no, eating the dog food, dumping the water bowl, not sleeping at night, fighting naps, not sleeping at night.

We're sleep deprived and cranky.  And that's no fun.

I feel like our life has done a major flip in the past two or so weeks.  Not only are we all working through the transition of me being back in school full time but we're dealing with a move.

Yes, we're moving.  Again.

You see, after having that "inspector" over last week that told me absolutley nothing about our mold problem, but instead decided to threaten our landlord over the CO2 detector and the "moisture problem", we decided to just bite the bullet and call our landlord.  Okay, so I'm a chicken and made my husband call.  Big shocker, huh.  (Dr. Laura even knows that my self confidence is zilch.)  Turns out, he agreed to just let us out of the lease at the end of February.  Which is exactly what we had hoped he would say.  He doesn't want a mold inspection done on the property.  Because if in fact there is mold found, then he would be stuck shelling out thousands of dollars to repair all of the affected areas.  No mold test, no mold "confirmed" and he can play ignorant about the whole situation when he sells the place.  So because of our concerns for Kinley's health, he said that we'll just cut our ties and move on.

Done and done.

The apartment that we fell in love with last Sunday ended up renting before we could get back there, but luckily, one just like it is open for a March 1 move in.  So..... we're going.

So now, we've got the life change of mom back in school, the move and then financial.

My husband's employer was bought out by a larger company (typical, isn't it?  no one keeps to themselves anymore) and since the "merge" they have gone from 50-60 hour work weeks to barely 40.  Good-bye OT.  So naturally, we've had to adjust our spending and living expenses.

This has brought on all sorts of life changes.  As if we didn't have enough already.  The Dave Ramsey classes have been a tremendous help in not only teaching us *how* to do things but also, how to talk about them without fighting.  And, the class leader has taken us under his wing and is helping us figure things out.   With his help, we're getting back on the right track, making the necessary cuts and re-learning how to spend and how to save. 

I guess that has been the biggest lesson of all. 

Today, I called and dropped our cable down to minimum, cancelled our DVR and home phone and *gulp* went with the slower internet service.  BUT, our bill went from $130 to $50.  Dang-o, dang-o.

That makes me feel good.  So on top of saving $300 on our monthly rent by moving, our utilities are going from about $300 to about $125 a month and we're cutting our cable, cell phone plan (my husband has a work phone, so we're cutting his personal cell) and we're just generally downsizing.

Instead of focusing our income on spending, we're now focusing on saving.  Getting our savings where it needs to be.  And while I think that missing all of my beloved shows on my DVR makes me want to cry, I would rather have that TV time as cuddling time with my family.  There is always streaming if I want to catch a show, but seriously, I have my DVR currently maxed at 99% capacity because we have zero time to watch what we record.  So why record?  I think we'll be happier without.  I hope we will.

I'm excited about the changes that we're making.  It feels like a fresh start....and that is exactly what we need right now.