Saturday, May 17, 2008

Garage Sale

Yesterday and today I had my first garage sale w/o my mom. She was seriously THE garage sale queen. When her and my step dad moved from the house I grew up in she had a week long, entire house "garage" sale. She made almost $5000!! Off of a bunch of J-U-N-K. She must have been smiling down on me b/c everytime I would say "5 more minutes" another group of people would come and buy more. I made enough to get a new kitchen table! And still have some to put towards our snowball. I know, I should have put it ALL to the snowball but our table was falling apart and if I have to stick to a menu plan, we need a place to eat. It was a super deal, as far as tables go. I spent $199 for the table and 4 chairs. Solid wood, with a dark cherry finish. I am in love! I also got a protection plan for when my children scratch, ding, dent, burn, marker, crayon, and stab my new table they will bring me a shiny new one for 5 years. tThey just don't know how destructive my kids can be!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Gas Prices!?!

I know I haven't posted since everything with my mom. I came and just haven't been inspired to share anything. I feel like we have strayed from Dave's teaching a bit. No credit card usage and our emergency fund is still in tact but we could have put much more in savings this month. Instead we have been sort of careless. Hopefully May will be the month to get our focus back.
I was over at one of my fave blogs, www.thriftyfloridamama.net, and was inspired to write a post. (thanks angie!) I noticed that she only spent $304 on gas last month. Then I realized that I said "only". How depressing. Our gas budget was $360 but it was stretching too tight by the end of our month (10th-10th). So we bumped it last month to $400. That seemed to be the magic number.
We have 2 cars, a small mini van and a 4 door sedan. We used to have a Tahoe and the price of gas was more than our payment. That was last summer. I can only imagine how much it would be now!
Gas prices here are 3.50-ish/per gallon. I can just about fill up my van on $40. That lasts almost a week. I drive about 20 min to work, not sure how many miles. Plus all the household errands. I do try to plan my route so I'm not driving in circles.
How are gas prices in your area and what is everyone's monthly gas budget? FYI- when I started writing this post on Saturday morning, gas was around 3.40. What a difference 3 days make!