Act a Fool

What do you do when you are going to meet your favorite bloggers and want to make an impression?  You dress as a dog... and a toddler... and them!  Three friends and I went to see Sherry and John from Young House Love last night in Charlotte, and we dressed foolishly in the name of fun.  Thankfully we came up with the idea the day before the book signing, so I didn't have enough time to get embarrassed.  We are all pretty normal: two teachers, a jewelry salesperson, and a real estate agent.  Three of us are moms of toddlers.  But most of the people in the audience with us didn't get the joke and thought we were insane.  Ha!  Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

I've been reading YHL since Oct 2008.  We closed on our 1970's brick ranch that month, and I typed "brick ranch renovation" in the images section of google.  A picture of their little house popped up, and the rest is history.  I've been reading faithfully for years, and watching the "comments" section grow from averaging 10 in 2008 to THOUSANDS these days.  I'm rarely ahead of the curve on things.  YHL and Ebates are my two wins.

The Petersiks fascinate me because they let readers so far into their lives. They are witty and creative and a little bit awkward- my favorite quality.  Though we only spoke with them for a minute, they were as kind and down-to-earth as I had imagined.  I wish that I would have said something about how much I have enjoyed reading their blog for the last four years, or thanked them for putting so much work and so much of themselves into something that they share with the world.  I wasn't that eloquent.  What did I say instead? 

I told them that we dressed up to get a pic with them on the blog (at the time it seemed like it would explain the crazy outfits?), and that my husband said my "Burger-eyed boobs" would do the trick.  Seriously, I kept covering the dog nose with the book and all you could see were dog eyes on my boobs.  Oops!  After looking at the pictures, I'm crazy embarrassed.  I wore dog ears, y'all.  See for yourself:

"Sherry", "Burger", "John", and "Clara"

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

... I mean less debt, less problems.  Money stuff makes me uncomfortable.  As a commissioned salesperson, I had to get over that, or at least push down the discomfort.  This is my first real money post.  I've seen tons of bloggers post them, and I find it fascinating.  Don't expect fascination with this one!  I know that many of my friends are very, very financially responsible.  Let's just say that we are working on building a solid foundation in the area of money.  This is a little bit about our journey as we strive for "financial peace."

When our little girl was born in 2010, we didn't have any credit card debt.  Over the next 18 months we went crazy with cards.  I was just getting started in real estate (a business in which it takes money... or at least credit... to make money) and our little girl had allergies and special (expensive) dietary needs.  We were sending out more than we were taking in each month and it was the most stressed I've ever been in my life.  Thankfully we were never forced to make a late payment on anything.

In early 2012, we were in a position to begin crawling out of the hole that we had created.  We made tithing from gross income our first priority.  My husband got a new job in May, and along with a pay increase, he began working mostly from home.  Going from an 88 mile daily commute to working from home is a job benefit in itself.  It was an answer to prayer.  We refinanced the house in June lowering our payment by $300/mo. Isn't it crazy that lowering our interest rate from 5.5% to 3.5% can save $300/mo??  As I closed sales, we paid down the car and worked on the credit cards and student loans.  Eventually we were in a position to put money into savings.  Now having more than an "emergency fund" in savings is something that we are proud of.  We aren't near the "6 months of expenses" mark yet, but we are on our way.   In 2013, we feel like we have a solid financial foundation for the first time in years.

We read Dave Ramsey's book, but we don't follow it perfectly.  Liquidity is important to us.  For that reason we paid off all of our credit cards except for one.  It is a federal credit union card with a 7% interest rate.  We don't want to dwindle our savings to pay it off, or we would end up using cards for emergencies and starting the vicious cycle all over again.  We also sold our 10 year old vehicle and financed a used car with a 1.99% interest rate instead of purchasing with cash.  We would rather have money in our savings account than a very small car payment and being cash-strapped.  We are paying the car down at an accelerated rate, making sure that we never owe more than it is worth. This approach may not work for everyone, but it is working well for us so far.  Living within our means has brought such a feeling of freedom!!

The success has carried over into my business.  On Tuesday at ERA's annual award's ceremony, I received a President's Award for a high volume of sales.  In the second month of 2013, I already have enough volume in closed and pending sales to qualify for the President's Award again next year.  WHAT?  Blessings overflowing.