Money Makeovers

I’m sorry I haven’t been more diligent in posting. I have about two hours to myself on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when I plan on doing most of my postings, but I have found those hours have been filled with other things these past two weeks. One thing I have been doing a lot of is reading

A lot of you know that I enjoy personal finance. I just finished reading a book by Dave Ramsey called The Total Money Makeover. When I read books like these and they talk about debt elimination programs, I kind of wish we were in debt so I could follow through with one (totally crazy, I know). If you don’t know what a debt elimination schedule is, it is organizing all your debts from the smallest to largest amounts and then paying the minimum on all except the first (the smallest). You use all your discretionary income to pay that debt down as quickly as possible. Once that one is paid off, you move to the next one with all the money you were paying along with the minimum payment until that one is paid off and you keep moving down the line until they are all paid in full. I once spent two hours working on a debt elimination schedule for a stranger I met in a personal finance forum on the internet. If any of you want one, just give me the word.

Since John and I don’t have any debt beside our mortgage, I decided that I could use the principle of a debt elimination program to create a savings program that implements the idea of intense focus. John’s yearly raise kicks in the first of October and so I was re-evaluating our budget and making some changes. John and I spent some time discussing it the other night and are really excited to follow through with our plan in order to reach some of our goals.

For anyone who would like the abbreviated version of the Total Money Makeover (which I thought was really good), just read the Church’s free pamphlet, One For the Money. If you would like any one-on-one help with budgeting or debt elimination, I would be happy to help.

Jenni

Trip to the Farm

This past Saturday, we took a trip to my sister's house to see her new baby horses. Her husband and sons went back to Nebraska or some place and got four one-year old colts.

My sister also has a couple of miniature mules, or hennies. These two mules are named John and Jenni. It so happens that male hennies are called johns and females are called jennies, so they thought they would go ahead and name them in our honor (at least, I think its an honor).



TJ and Seth thought they were monkeys and kept climbing the fence (with dad behind ready to catch any missteps).

All about gardening

This summer has been a year of learning for me in the area of gardening. Things I've learned:
--Don't plant tomatoes too close together
--Birds love strawberries
--Tomatoes ripen on their own time
--Children love to pick things whether they're ripe or not
Here are some photos of my garden:


This is a good view of my tomatoes. John made this cute fence to keep the kiddos from walking on the garden and picking too soon. We didn't count on the tomatoes growing up and out.

This is a view of my strawberry and raspberry patch. I only had one of the four raspberry plants I planted last year come back, but five of the six I planted this year seem to be doing great.

This is just a cluster of tomatoes - still very green.


These raspberries are on one of the shoots from the plant I planted last year. I have about 8 shoots that are loaded with berries - I can hardly wait until they are ripe!!!



This is one of the first of my large tomatoes to ripen. Abby says it looks like a heart. John says it looks like a butt... what do you think? Take the poll at the end of my blog roll to voice your opinion.