My husband I have decided to join "The compact" for 2012. I am interested in reducing our impact on our earth and my husband is interested in fattening up our bank account. We have decided on a few exceptions. One, we have a cottage that has a moisture issue and we are not there all the time so we want to purchase a new de-humidifier for it. Underthings for everyone in the family. New parts for the cars. Gifts for the most part. And new clothing for a business trip to Boston in May/June. Other than that we have to discuss any other exceptions based on effort put in, chances of finding it used and if we can make due without.
Some background on our family. I am a stay at home Mom who substitute teaches in our district one or two days a week and does mystery shopping a few days a month as well. My background is in banking. I Love to cook/bake from scratch, budget and manage money, I am a Christian, and am a political junkie who has a Social Liberal/fiscal responsibility bend that will sometimes come out in my blog. My husband works for an insurance company and manages sales for the Great State of Michigan, in which we live. He is a huge sports fan. Together we enjoy working out, golfing, travel, skiing and spending time as a family. We have Two kids, A son who is 10 and a Daughter, who is 7. We have a dog and a cat.
My husband used to have a company car until about a month ago and we, thankfully, had an extra car. It was to be our fun convertible, never driven in the snow, but it got called up to duty and last week it made is maiden voyage into the snow. It's an 8 year old Chrysler Sebring purchased from my Father in Law a little over a year ago. It's paid off. I drive a 12 year old Ford Windstar. It was purchased in 2002 and has been paid for for about 8 years. It is not pretty and one of the sliders will no longer open because the lock is jammed and it would cost around $700 to fix. We have the money to fix it, but not the inclination. It runs really well right now and I am anal retentive about routine maintenance, but at some point in the next few years it will need replacing. We are hoping that we can pay cash for our next vehicle and get the used vehicle that we will be happy driving for another decade so we are looking at a rather large investment.
Here is where we vary from many frugal families. In 2002, a few months after we purchased the van, we purchased a cottage on a lake that was, at the time, 40 minutes from our home. I had gotten a rather sizeable bonus from work at the bank and we knew we would. little by little, piss it away if we didn't invest it. We decided to invest it in something we could actually enjoy. It needed a lot of work, which we have done most of and in the summer it is the best place on earth for our family. We have an older boat, some kayaks, a paddle boat and a tube that the boat pulls. We moved across the state in 2006 and we kept the cottage because it's close to all our family so summer is a time for our kids get to reconnect with Grandparents, Aunt's, Uncles and cousins and my husband and I get to reconnect with some of our old friends and each other. We close it down in the winter. Both our home and our cottage are financed on 15 year mortgages.
We also own a timeshare in the Orlando area. We get two weeks a year and my husband and I bought it before we were even married. It is where we honeymooned, we have taken our kids there year after year, we have been able to take other families with us and we have been able to gift the weeks we didn't use when the kids were very little. We also traded it for a trip to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary a few years back. While it was not the best investment in terms of money, it is paid off and if we didn't have it we would not vacation very often because of the cottage and because we are cheap. Our place has a full kitchen and we only eat out if we are away from our condo during a meal time and I don't pack a lunch ahead of time. It saves us lots of money on vacation expenses. We typically drive, though last month we flew for the first time. We make many, many family memories using it so we have never regretted the decision...even at this time of year when we have to pay maintenance and taxes for 2012.
Lastly we purchased ski passes for the winter to a ski hill that is about 2 and half hours from our house and we purchased used equipment at a ski swap for our kids. We have friends with a cottage close by who are gracious hosts if we want to spend the night. It is a great thing to do as a family to get us off the couch in the long winter months. Everyone has everything they need for a cold winter on the hill (snowpants/nice coats/ good gloves/head covers/boots) most of it purchased on ebay used.
So I am looking at the compact (since in our house, I am operations, my husband is income so he can focus on building his career...this has served us very well since 2006) and starting it in January. Then I start to think of the things we kind of "need" for next year and I start to get panicky. For example I just purchased new sheets for our bed, but they are flannel and I threw out the non-flannel sheets because they were full of holes. We need new sheets. I lost my curling iron on vacation (and I didn't even use it!) so I need a new one. I am thinking that I want to buy both these things before the new year starts...then I start to think of things that are on their last legs and I wonder, should I stockpile a bit or just really have faith? Then I start to wonder what I am forgetting that we might need. This is going to take more work on my part, but I am interested in the challenge and frightened by it at the same time.
I worry about the times in the year (probably about once a quarter) when I am shopping/new things oriented. I will troll the internet or head to shopping centers near by and spend. I consider myself a budget bulimic in this sense. I squirrel away and squirrel away and blow in it a couple of days. I am not a fan of this about myself and hope that this compact will help in that I can go shopping, but only to Goodwill or consignment shopping so i will limit the damage.
I will probably not post every day. There are days when I am busy sun up to sun down and I don't get on line. There are other days I just don't have any interest in the internet. Then there are days I may post several times. I will post about applying the compact, simplifying our lives, how I deal with my purge feelings as well as my adventures in Substitute teaching, parenting, married life and life in general.
Hope you enjoy!
Ann-Marie
No comments:
Post a Comment