OurWanderingAdventures : Moving Up and Moving On...

Hello everyone!!! I promise I have not abandoned you! Just the opposite in fact, I have been swimming with so much going on that I have not had any time to share all our news. Today has marked 1 year of a HUGE decision in our lives, the one we made to homeschool our children! My family has had some amazing stuff happen during this time and we have only grown closer.

Though homeschooling is not a decision to come to lightly, it is one that we made quickly when time was of the essence and because of that, this entire year has just been a whirlwind of getting our feet under us and trying to get organized to an entirely different way of life. I am a better person for it, but I will not lie and say it's all good times! There are many trying times and some days that we just take a day off because mommy needs some time on her own! This past year has also seen us settle into our home we bought 18 months ago along with the remodeling being done to it (almost all DIY!), it has also seen us take on a new challenge.

We have a HUGE itch to travel and it takes us away from our house almost every weekend. We visit small towns, big cities, other states and even other countries! We've driven, flown and cruised but we also want to RV soon too and hit the rails of course! All of this takes money and with remodeling, one income and countless things popping up with home ownership....well our milk jug is almost always empty!

Buying our house obliterated our savings as well as making it move in ready. It was time for a plan that was going to take some serious overhaul to our life. Budgeting has been pretty big in getting us to where we are today, but it was time to kick it up a notch. We have a BIG desire to be debt free and it's time to work toward that, but also build that savings account up (Retirement? RV!) to the cushion we may need if my husband is ever laid off again (We went over a year one time). In order to do this, we wanted to be extreme. We hold zero credit cards, own our home and our cars so while that sounds great and yes, it is debt free, if my husband were to get laid off right now, it would be crippling. We literally took our last penny out of savings and have spent so much fixing up the house and keeping the cars in order that our life changed a bit. Our weekends were spent at home and just hanging out, which has been AWESOME as new home owners, but the travel bug started biting us and it was time to scratch that itch!

We decided to garage one of our cars (in our own garage) and let go of the insurance as well as ALL of our cable and our internet! We are forgoing these for 1 year to build up our savings. That means one less car for insurance, gas and small mechanical problems, no monthly cable or internet bill...this is giving us around an extra 260.00 a month to throw into savings. Our food budget is still higher than normal, due to all our produce but we cut it by 100.00 a month, just eliminating our last minute runs to the store that always add up to more than what we went for (if we don't have it, we make something else). On top of all that, we are also keeping tabs on our one car that we do have left. My husband carpools to work most days with someone that lives in the neighborhood and we only use the car if it's school related, no need to just go out for coffee or run to see what's new at the store. Along those same lines, our evening entertainment is usually movies from the library or reading together as a family. We sock away our normal money for weekend trips, daytrips or even fun experiences. We are finally able to start getting serious about our savings account again and hopefully get our feet under us in CEMENT, so that we don't drown!

So now you have seen where I have been! My internet usage is sporadic to the 2 days a week that I am at the library and I am getting better at the blogger app, that I can type my posts ahead of time and have them post when I go to the library! I can even set up my facebook posts to be the same. I have not abandoned you, I am just in the process of saving money! Please share how you built up your savings!