Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Downsizing and other randoms for the week

1.


This is what our nights look like. Although the husband usually gets about half the bed and the baby and I share a quarter of the space. So last night I decided it was time to start putting her in her crib. She went down about 7 and slept until 12.
Our split bedroom floor plan which I loved when I moved in, I hate now! I felt so far away from my baby. And it makes me so nervous because when Gianna sleeps she prefers to lay on her stomach. Face flat in the mattress. No matter how much you move her or prop her to lay on her back that's how she ends up. So needless to say when she woke up at 1230 I pulled her into bed with me. But what the cutest thing of the night was walking into her room and finding my dog guarding her crib. Made my heart melt

2. I have a love hate relationship with the army. I hate then when they make my husband leave all the time but I love them for their solid paycheck and occasional perks. Like our first family vacation will be to New Orleans thanks to a marriage retreat the army is putting on. Score! I've never been to New Orleans and can't wait to go spend the weekend there!

3. Budgeting- I have been trying to really budget and save money these past few months. I only use cash and have envelopes for everything. It's hard to budget when your husband doesn't get the concept. We each get a amount for spending money. He blows his the first day of payday instead of stretching it out two weeks. And since he knows I have envelopes of money for other things he thinks he can just use that. The other day he's texting me about transferring money so he can go to breakfast with the guys. I said there was none so instead if not going like a normal person would do I get a text saying I owe his friend 20 bucks. Sigh. Maybe one day he will understand the budget concept

4. And on to my last point. Downsizing. Lately I've been feeling the need to downsize. Growing up I never had cable. Ever. I didn't get cable until the hubs and I were married and living in our own place. Here in Fl the price of cable is insane. Back in nc with Time Warner I had home phone, high speed Internet and cable with hvo, dvr and show time. Here in fl I only have Internet plus cable with hvo and dvr and I pay more than double what I paid in nc. So I've debated about getting rid of cable. Or just switching to basic. But then I hesitate. Can I survive without my trashy reality tv shows. We have been making a point to then off the tv at 9 every night and read. It's been so nice. But could I always do that. Give up cable. And isn't it horrible that I don't know if I can give it up lol. Yet every month I complain about the cable bill. So I'm giving myself to the end of the month to decide

How about any of you. Have you gotten rid of cable or downsized anything in your lives?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

11 comments:

  1. We are about to start using the envelope system now but Mr Soldier seems into the idea so fingers crossed he won't move money around on me! When we moved up here we got everything, HBO, soccer, DVR and we have cut it all and just have basic cable and internet, it wasn't worth the money but when we want to watch a movie we order it at home $4.99 is sooo much better than the price of a cinema ticket these days!

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  2. I had this same battle. So I called other companies and got a better price. So when I called Directv with the intent of canceling they lowered my bill by a ton. They can do it, they just choose not to. I would say call around and see if you can't get a better deal. I did, and now I am still enjoying my tv without feeling like I am wasting money!

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  3. We got rid of cable not too long ago...DON'T DO IT! We have Hulu, but the shows I like to watch (trashy shows) are not available on there. We get a few local channels, but I mostly want E! and MTV! Haha. We got rid of it because we don't really watch it, but we realized how nice it is to have when we do want to watch! ...we'll probably be adding it back to our list of bills soon =)

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  4. We're going to get rid of it when we move next month...our shows are all on the networks anyway, so we're just going to use a $30 digital receiver to get all the basic channels. Then we have Hulu and Netflix Streaming for anything else.

    How is the envelope budgeting going? Is it hard to maintain? We were thinking of digital envelopes with mvelope.com or mint.com...

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  5. I'm not sure my husband completely understands the idea of only using his cash either... He's frequently using his debit card or telling me later that he took out cash. SIGH.

    When we got married, we only had basic cable. Then when we moved to GA, we didn't have cable at all. Now we have Time Warner {run by a local Hawaiian company} with HDTV and a DVR. It's expensive and we've been really considering ditching it. Between Hulu and Netflix, we can pretty much keep up with all the shows we watch. The only thing I'd be missing would be my TLC shows that aren't online or on Netflix... That would bother me, but I'm sure I'd learn to deal...eventually. ;-)

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  6. I am counting down the days until I can call Directv to cancel. We have about 6 weeks left on our contract. We plan to add the Netflix DVD option and we should be fine with that. I just don't like how I always feel like I should be watching it.

    We need to start the envelope system too.

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  7. You can totally get rid of cable. I was a TV ADDICT & married a guy w/ no TV at all. I convinced him to let us get a TV w/ all the walmart gift cards we got, but it was just DVD's after that. Now, we watch shows on Netflix. Or go to Redbox for movies. I do have the digital antenna to pick up certain channels. But i do not miss cable, at all. You get used to it!

    I'm excited to hear you get to visit New Orleans! I'm from Baton Rouge & have lived here my whole life, so I've been to NOLA a lot. It's about 2 hours away. I love it! The crazy mardi gras stories you hear are TRUE, but it's also a place FULL of arts & culture. It's a neat place. I hope you enjoy!!

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  8. i LOVE that you turn off the tv at 9 to read. what a great idea!! i need to incorporate that. i have to agree though... it would be hard for me to give up my trashy tv.

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  9. Yes!! We pay an insane amount for satellite TV in the UK and we only ever end up watching reruns of the Simpsons and Futurama. We decided to get AppleTV so we can download/rent movies & TV shows we want to watch as soon as they're available (ultimately spending way less), and also have the new streaming Netflix for the UK.

    And I totally hear you about the husband not getting the whole "budgeting" concept. Why don't they get it?

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  10. New follower here! :) We were wanting to ditch DirecTV this year, but when I called yesterday to see when our contract expired (expecting to hear Feb or March), he told me it would expire in March... of 2013!?!??! It would cost us more to disconnect than to keep it for another year, so it looks like we're stuck. You can definitely negotiate a better rate though if your account is in good standing. Our current promo rate ends this May, so I'm going to go to work haggling them for a better price- otherwise I will disconnect! :)

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  11. Hilarious cartoon. Except we usually have two dogs thrown in the mix in there too. Love that yours was guarding the crib. I often find one of mine hiding under there - I think she'd sleep in the nursery every night if I let her :)

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