Packing!

Yesterday, I decided to break my own rules, and start packing. ;) We are just waiting on the water test, and we *should* get that in the mail sometime this week. I am sure it will be fine, as there is a renter living there right now, and he is drinking the water.

I was going to wait until we had the water test back, and everything was official, before I started to pack, but I just couldn't wait any longer! lol! I am sure I will have some productive packing days, and some days where NO packing gets done, so I figure it doesn't hurt to start a bit early, and hopefully avoid cramming at the end! ;)

We have 6 weeks until we get possession, and just over 7 weeks until Moving Day! I have 13 boxes packed, and A LOT more to go!! :)

Time to Start Budgeting!

I am embarrassed to admit, that I have never really used a budget. It's stupid really, especially since I grew up with a mom who was always on a strict budget. Actually, maybe that's why I have always balked at the idea of using one! I remember my entire childhood, my mom having X number of dollars to spend on groceries every 2 weeks. We only bought food every 2 weeks. If we ran out of something before it was grocery day again, we simply did without. We never ate at a restaurant or ordered take-out. My mom baked almost everyday - we couldn't afford to waste money on store-bought treats. We never had new clothes, always hand-me-downs. I also remember my mom having X number of dollars for "spending money" every 2 weeks. And when I say "spending money", I mean anything that wasn't groceries had to be covered with this small amount of money. Did I have a deprived childhood?! Not at all!! So why, have I been so resistant to the idea of budgeting, and better managing our money?!

Since the triplets were born, all of my kids have always had brand new, usually name brand, clothing. If I see something at a store that I want, I buy it. When I am grocery shopping, I throw whatever I want into the cart, and don't worry about what the total is going to be until I get to the till. We eat out, or order take-out, several times a month. I want to bake, but I usually just end up buying over-priced packaged snacks, because it is easier.

Why? I think part of it has to do with wanting "better" for my kids. MY kids aren't going to wear hand-me-downs, WE can afford to buy them brand new clothes! And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have never really felt like we have needed to budget!

Just after we found out we were expecting the triplets, Gairod quit his job, and started up his own welding company. He made really good money that first year, and we pretty much just wrote ourselves another pay cheque whenever our personal bank account started to get low. We continued that trend, even when the company wasn't bringing in very much money - we had enough padding in the company account, why should we change our spending habits?!

Fast-forward to this past September, when Gairod's welding truck and tools were stolen, and Gairod started working for CFD. Suddenly, we had to wait for payday to get money, I couldn't just randomly write us a cheque if we were getting low on money in our personal account! It was definitely an adjustment, but to be honest, I actually started to enjoy feeling like I needed to start planning our spending better! lol!

Now that we are hopefully (just waiting to find out the results of the water test!!) going to be moving, we are going to have some different and additional expenses. There are a bunch of renovations we want to do on the new house, but they all take money!

I don't think we are really bad at managing our money, but there is definitely room for improvement!  We have some debt, but not a lot compared to a lot of people!

Over the past few weeks, I've started looking at a few blogs and websites about money management, budgeting, getting out of debt, and saving up to pay cash for things. It has motivated me to start looking at our finances, and see where we can cut back and start saving money, to pay for reno's, and start paying off some debt.

I realize that over the next few months, we are likely to get into a bit more debt, before we can start working our way out of it. But I want to start budgeting NOW, and once we are settled into our new place, I want to start really scrimping and saving, paying off debt, and saving up for things we want, instead of just putting them on a line of credit or a credit card.

Monthly Decluttering - Month #1 - Kitchen

Despite the crazy, unproductive last couple of weeks I've had, I was VERY productive at the beginning of the month, and I got my kitchen all done!! At the beginning of January I posted some "before" pictures, and now here are my "after" pictures:

You probably won't notice much of a change, but if you look closely, you will see in the first picture that all the craft stuff is cleared off the top of my storage cupboards! The biggest changes however, are inside my cupboards. I cleared out 2 big boxes and a bag of stuff, that we simply don't use! I also deep cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom! :) 

Now that my kitchen is done, I am kind of at a stand still. I was originally thinking of doing the little girls and boys bedrooms next, but now those plans are derailed, since we are most likely moving! There's no sense cleaning things out and organizing, if I am going to be packing it all up in a few weeks. I might as well wait and go through stuff as I'm packing. I definitely want to make sure I do this. Even though we will be moving to a house that is 3 times the size of our current house, I DO NOT want to move a bunch of crap with us!! I want to really make sure I go through everything as I pack, and sell or give away anything we won't need or want at our new house!

So February will be a month of packing. We got our possession date moved up to March 15th, so that our renters can be in this place for April 1st. We are still waiting on a few things to be finalized, and I am scared to start packing until those things are all done - I don't want to jinx us!! But I will start packing by February 1st, no matter what!! :)

Moving?!?! - Part 3

Soooooo, it looks like we are going to be getting the house!!! :)

Our mortgage broker worked on the numbers ALL day Monday, and submitted everything to the bank Monday evening. Tuesday afternoon, we found out that they approved our application!! We have a few more documents to get to them, and we need to get a water test, but it's looking like everything is going to work out, and we will be getting our acreage!!! :)

Moving?!?! - Part 2

So we went back out on Wednesday evening, and I was able to get another look at everything, and try to picture us actually living there! I was SO much happier after seeing it again! It's better then I remembered, and we would be totally fine to move in "as is", and slowly start renovating! :)

Both mine and Gairods parents came out and looked as well, and they all loved it!! (Well, my parents loved it at least, Gairod's parents seemed to like it, but were still skeptical about us moving "all the way out there".)

When we got home, I had two Facebook messages from people interested in renting our house! I was thrilled - things seemed to be falling into place! :)

On Thursday morning we got a call from our realtor. They had countered our offer, which we pretty much expected them to do, since our original offer was pretty low. So we countered back, and continued the waiting game! Meanwhile, I had lined up the first person interested, to come and look at our house on Friday evening. I was also starting to get excited. REALLY excited, and already planning moving and reno details in my head! lol!

Friday the 13th. Let me start by saying I have never put much stock into superstitions, until now. Friday started out great. I got a call from the realtor Friday morning, that they had accepted our offer!!! YAY! Now we just needed to firm up a renter, and we would be good to go!! :) Shortly after that call, I got a call from a friend, telling me that a mutual friend of ours had her house burn down that morning! I was shocked and sad, and now my mind was on a million more things!

Later in the afternoon, I got a another call from our realtor. She had mentioned to our banker that we would be coming in to sign financing papers soon. Our banker then told her that us having a renter for our house didn't necessarily guarantee that we would get the financing that we need. We would need to get someone to sign a lease, bring in the papers, and then see if that would work. This is NOT what our banker had told Gairod. I called Gairod at work right away, and he was PISSED!! We would NOT have put an offer in on a house if we didn't think that we were pre-approved for financing!

By now I just felt sick to my stomach. We had already decided that we would just rent out our house, since realistically there is no way it will sell before our deal closes. Now we're finding out that that won't necessarily work.

So the girl that was supposed to come look at the house Friday night ended up calling and cancelling at the last minute. Great. Another blow to the stomach. I had spent all day cleaning and getting the house ready to show, so I called up the second person, who had seemed REALLY interested, and asked if they would like to come over and take a look that night. They were thrilled, and came over about an hour later!

These people ended up loving our house, and wanted to sign a lease right away! We then had to explain to them our bank issues, and tell them that we might need them to sign a lease for the bank to see, but that we then might have to break it, if the bank doesn't end up giving us the money for the new house! They were very understanding, and willing to try to help us out! 

Later Friday evening, Gairod called a mortgage broker that his brother recently used. The way she was figuring it out, we wouldn't qualify for another mortgage, while keeping our existing mortgage. Our credit rating and everything is fine, it's just that our debt to income ratio will be too high. She said she would work on it over the weekend, and see if she could try to make it work. I went to bed Friday night feeling totally depressed. I didn't want to let myself get attached to the idea of moving, until I was sure it was actually going to happen. But I did let myself get attached, and now I was feeling disappointed and hopeless.

So now it is Sunday, and we are waiting. We have to wait until Monday, when the banks are open, to really know anything. Gairod has been texting back and forth with the mortgage broker all weekend, trying to come up with different ways to make it work. We are looking at the possibility of seeing if his parents can co-sign. We would rather not do this, as we prefer to do things on our own, but if it will work, and it's what we need to do, then we will do it.

Worst case scenario, we can't get financing, and we don't get the acreage. It won't be the end of the world, we will just be back at square one. It will just suck, because this is such a great opportunity for us, to get a bigger house and a piece of land, for a great price!! I am trying to stay positive, but also not get my hopes up.

I've said before that I am big believer in fate, and that everything happens for a reason, even if we don't understand that reason at the time. I have to give up my worries, and believe that if we are meant to get this house, then everything will work out, and we will get it. If we don't end up getting it, there is a reason. Maybe it's not the right house for us. Maybe this isn't the right time for us to make a big move. I don't know. Time will tell.

"Que sera sera,
What ever will be, will be,
The future's not ours to see,
Que sera sera." 

Moving?!?!

Wow. What a whirl-wind week it has been!!

For the last several months, Gairod has been talking about wanting to move out to an acreage, in a few years. He has been looking more and more online over the past few weeks, and found a few that we liked, that seemed like they might be in our price range. So we decided to just jump in, and get a realtor to show us a few places last Wednesday! We found one that we really liked, but it is a bit too expensive for us - we would be doubling our mortgage, and even if the bank would do it, I don't know if we could make it work.

One place we wanted to see, we ended up not being able to get into. Somehow our realtor didn't confirm with the other realtor, so we drove all the way out there (it's quite a ways out - a definite downfall in my opinion), but then couldn't go in it. From the outside, this place looked kind of dumpy, but I was really  intrigued to see the inside, as it is over 3000 sq ft, and the price is definitely more affordable for us! So we arranged to go back out on Monday, and picked out a few other places we wanted to look at as well.

So 2 days ago, we went back out and looked at this house. I honestly don't even know how to describe it!! The original house was built in 1960, then a 1000 sq ft, 2 story addition was built in 1999. There are also a few other little additions added on as well, for a total of 3000 sq ft! We first walked into the kitchen, and I have to admit, I was NOT impressed, and had already decided that this was NOT the place for us. The kitchen is older and small, and ugly. But as we started going through the rest of the house, it really started to grow on me! We kept opening door after door! There are a zillion different rooms, closets, little offices etc! It is seriously the most unique house I have ever seen!! The walls and carpet are UGLY, so you would definitely have to do a bit of work, but this house has SO MUCH potential!!

Gairod went to the bank on Monday afternoon, and they said that we could definitely do it, but we would need to sell or rent our current house. So we talked it over a bit, and yesterday (Tuesday), we put in an offer!!!

My stomach is in total knots right now! I have a million things running through my mind: Can we sell or rent this house? Do I want to move all the way out there? Do I want a house that big?! Can we come up with the down payment? Will we be able to afford the renovations in a timely manner?

I have SO many questions and worries, yet I am also trying not to get to excited or worried, since even if they accept our offer, if we can't sell or rent this place it time, it will all fall through anyways!

So that's what's been happening over the past week! We are going back out tonight, to look at it again, with my parents. Gairod doesn't care if we get anyone's approval (his parents and brothers have already said they think it would be dumb to move all the way out there), but I really value my parents opinion. My dad is really handy, and has a good eye for if things are easy/cheap to fix up. We would want to redo the kitchen, so I want my dad's opinion on that. Also, I just want to see it again! It is honestly like a maze, and I can't even remember where certain rooms were! I originally said I would want to do a bunch of reno's before moving in, but realistically it's looking like we would need to move in, and then do reno's, so I want to make sure that we could live there "as is", while we fixed it up!

ANYWAYS, now I am just rambling on! I will post again when we find out if they accept our offer or not. It's an estate sale, so we gave them until the 14th to accept or counter. Until then, I don't think I will be able to concentrate on much!

Starting out Strong!

I know we are only 3 days in, but I am already very pleased with my progress this month! :) I've been sticking to my diet (even though there are still WAY too many treats in this house!), and I have been getting LOTS of purging done!

I have started on my kitchen. I have cleaned out all but one of my top cupboards, all my drawers, and the drawer under my oven. That's about half of the cupboards/drawers in my kitchen. I already have a box and a bag of stuff to take to Goodwill! :) YAY! There was stuff that I still hadn't used since the last time I went through my kitchen, so I decided to just get rid of it!

Here is a 360 degree view of my kitchen. Please excuse the mess, I just wanted to give a better visual, and a "before" picture, as I am hoping that it won't look so cluttered when I am done! :)

As well as the kitchen, I have also been working on getting rid of baby stuff. Since I originally was hoping to have one more baby after Sage, I saved all of my baby clothes and baby stuff. Well, now that we have decided we are done, I am trying to get rid of it all! A lot of it was brand new for Sage, and I don't want to just give it all away, so I am trying to sell it on a swap and buy group on Facebook.

I know that my progress will slow down once we start back doing school next week (we decided to take 2 weeks off for Christmas break), but I am still confident that if I even just do a tiny bit each day, I can easily get through a whole area each month! :)

Weightloss Part 2 - Starting Now!

It's finally here, Monday January 2nd, and I am starting the second phase of my weightloss! :)

I have done really good since the middle of October, not eating great, but still managing to maintain my weight at around 185lbs. Until the last 2 weeks. For some reason, I felt the need to stuff my face over Christmas, and now I have paid for it. My starting weight this morning, is 191.5lbs. I can't believe I managed to gain 6.5lbs in 2 weeks! I can feel it though, I definitely feel bloated and yucky. I am looking forward to getting back on track, starting NOW! :) 

Resolution Review and Goals for 2012

Last New Years, I made 4 resolutions:

- Lose Weight
- Get Pregnant
- Be a Better Mother
- Continue to declutter/organize

I think I did pretty well with all of them, except for getting pregnant. But I am now content with my decision to be done having babies, and enjoy the next season of life! :)

Instead of "resolutions" this year, I am going to set "goals". In 2012, I want to:

- Lose another 40lbs. I am thrilled with the 40lbs I lost last year. Now I want to get back to eating healthy, and lose another 40lbs! I hope to get down to, and maintain, my goal weight of 145lbs.

- Continue to declutter my home. I feel like I did a fairly good job of this last year, but with a family of 7, it is a continual process! I hope to be more organized about it this year, and keep on top of the constant clutter coming in!

- Simplify. I talked about this a few times last year, but I never really did much about it. I want to dive deeper into simplifying my life this year. What do I mean by this? Less stuff, to start. This goes hand in hand with decluttering. Why do we, as a society, put so much value and importance on material possessions? At the end of your life, does it really matter if you had a big house and lots of stuff?? I also want to simplify my time commitments and emotional stress. We only get one life. I want to spend as much time and energy on people and activities that really matter to me!

So there you have it! My simple, yet life changing, goals for 2012! Happy New Year everyone! :)

A Year in Review!

I've decide to try something different this year, and recap my year, month by month.

January

I started out January strong, with lots of plans to lose weight, declutter, and be more productive in my day-to-day life. I did great for a few weeks, and then Gairod got offered a job in B.C. for a month. I really struggled with Gairod being away, and I got off track with my eating and exercising. I tried to distract myself with homeschool plans, and started looking into Year Round schooling.

February

 February was a depressing month. Gairod was still gone, and the weather was crappy. Sage took her first steps while Daddy was away, but at least I got them on video! Just before Valentines day, I slipped on some ice and hit my head. I ended up with a major concussion, and it was a very scary ordeal! Gairod finally came home, and we had to readjust after having him away for so long. Things finally started to get back to normal, and I started to pull out of the funk that was Jan/Feb!

March

Winter dragged on through March. We had our first experience with stitches, when Kadance fell and split open her chin! I didn't post a lot in March, as not much happened. We continued on with daily life, and not-so-patiently waited for Spring! :)

April

April was a fairly low-key month. Jade mostly finished up grade 3, and I continued doing preschool stuff with the triplets. We took the kids bowling for the first time, and they had a blast!

May

At the beginning of May, I revealed that in mid-April I had started a new workout routine. I also did more decluttering and organizing. Despite being vigilant with my exercise routine, I did NOT see the weightloss I was hoping for, due to my lack of dietary changes. It did show me however, that I AM capable of change! After a busy month, we looked forward to, and enjoyed a 4-day vacation at the lake!

June

In June I continued my quest towards "simple living" and decluttering. I also stepped up my exercising, and made some major dietary changes. Gairod had to go out of town for work again, but only for 2 weeks this time, and it didn't seem so bad. My dieting and exercising paid off, and I was able to actually lose some weight in June!

July

I only posted once in July, because the kids and I spent the month at the lake. I continued my exercising and dieting, and continued to lose weight. The triplets learned how to ride bikes without training wheels, and we had a very scary, very damaging, hail storm. We spent lots of time at the beach, hiking, and fishing. It was overall a great month! :)

August

August was another low-key month. As I started to become happier with my life, I decided that I was content to be done having babies, and start moving on and enjoying life with 5 kids. Gairod found out that he was accepted to start training in September, with the Calgary Fire Department, after a 6 month application process. We enjoyed the rest of our summer, and started gearing up to get back to homeschooling!

September

 September was a busy month. The kids and I started back to school, while Gairod took a quick vacation to Vancouver Island. While he was gone, his welding truck was stolen from a dealership in Airdrie, where it was supposed to be getting the hail damage fixed. They took ALL his welding stuff, and ruined the truck. Gairod started his CFD training, which turned out to be harder than we had anticipated. I had to quit running, as my leg started to bug me, and it just hurt too much. I continued to diet, and managed to reach my first weightloss goal, and my baby girl turned 2!

October

October was kind of hard. Gairod and I were both stressed over the intensity of his CFD training, and the loss of his truck and welding stuff (which we are STILL not settled on). I also came to the realization that a close friend and I weren't as close as we used to be. I did some more reorganizing, which always makes me feel better! :) Our hot tub was delivered, and I tried once again to refocus and simplify our life. I was able to get away for a weekend with a couple of close friends, and I came back feeling refreshed, and ready for some Halloween fun! :)

November

I decided to put up our Christmas tree very early this year, at the beginning of November! I was happy with that decision, especially since I spent the next few weeks busy with sick kids. I started thinking about next school year, and debated whether or not to start Kindergarten with the triplets in January, or wait until September. I ultimately decided we will wait until September.

December

Training started to get easier for Gairod, and I decided to take a break from my diet, and just try to maintain my weightloss until after Christmas. On December 15th, Gairod graduated from CFD training, and became a probationary firefighter! We continued to prepare for Christmas, and started trying to get used to our new life. I made more decluttering plans, and we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas!

So there you have it, my 2011 in a nutshell! It started off a bit rough, but ended quite well. I feel like I really grew as a person this year, and really started to find what truly makes me happy. I am looking forward to more personal growth in 2012, and will be back tomorrow to share some of my goals with you! :)