My oldest is the KING of sigh-ers. His sigh’s seem to completely deflate his whole body. He’s quite dramatic in the sigh arena.

I feel like I could outdo him today!

I had put away 100 dollars for our New Mexico trip, then forgot to take it…so I dug into other funds, and this morning when I went to replace the dug-into funds, I seem to have lost the original 100 dollars. It just flat out up and walked away.

Also, we received the appraisal on the house we are under contract with, and other than cosmetic changes, it states “No adverse conditions or necessary repairs were noted at the time of inspection. The subject does not appear to have any physical deficiencies that affect the livability, soundness or structural integrity of the home.” Great, right? We thought so! Especially since Maine State Housing is so strict on their housing standards when it comes to safety, and because this is a foreclosure, the bank won’t make changes.

Well, we received word that we might actually have to make the cosmetic changes before the loan is approved. What?! I know! Replace the carpet, add light fixtures, get rid of the boxes in the basement that the owners left behind, add and paint drywall. All before the loan is approved. Which means we could make the changes, and the loan could still, for some reason or another, fall through…and we would be out all of the money we put into it. OH, but then our realtor said that the bank might not even let us make those changes for liability reasons. So if ya’ll could send a prayer or two our way, that the incredibly generous underwriters for our loan would change their mind about all of these pre-cosmetic changes, we’d certainly appreciate it.

Sigh.

All in all, you know, something will work out. I’m just ready for an answer one way or another.

And sorry for shocking so many of you with the new blog format! I was incredibly tired of the drab, dark gray background of my last one, and wanted something springy and fresh. I’m not quite finished with it, but getting closer. I spent all day yesterday working on the new blog header and a new header for my etsy store. Honestly, I don’t have so much of a problem making up my mind…I just tire of things rather easily. Makes life interesting.

Have you seen the Feed the Pig commercials? Truth be told, they give me the willies. Not to swift on a life-size-human-pig-thing being my conscience. The message is good, though; it’s all about thinking before spending and keeping “saving” a priority (hence the pig, aka freaky piggie bank).

When Erick and I first moved to Virginia, I often thought of putting money in savings but didn’t figure 5 bucks a check would add up to much. We were paycheck-to-paycheck for the most part anyhow. We’ve never been big spenders and didn’t purchase needlessly, so I thought we were on the right track. What is that they say about hindsight?!

If we had put 5 dollars a paycheck away for the 5 years we were living in VA, we could have amassed 600 dollars by the time we left. Might not be much for some, but that’s no chump change for us!

Luckily (better late than never, right?) we were introduced to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace course at our church. It was such a life changer. Let me tell you our first step-what really got us on the right track.

If you are anything like us, you have been planning what to do with your income tax return since, well, your last income tax return. Although recently we had to change things up since we need the money to live on day to day, for the longest time we had them take the max out so we could get a lump sum come the first part of the year (not the smartest thing financially, but we enjoyed it). Actually, we didn’t really get to put it to fun use-it always went to pay off credit card debt. And our credit card debt was never anything but car repairs. Those blasted car repairs!

A couple of years ago, the light clicked on when we heard Dave mention the first step in achieving financial peace was coming up with an emergency fund. Fortunately that tidbit of info coincided with receiving our tax return, so we plopped the money straight into the fund. Best decision we ever made! If a mini financial crises arises, we have the money available instead of falling back on credit cards.

We learned so much through DR…he’s been such an encouragement to us, and has really changed our thinking. I might post a money tip from time to time, but in the meantime head over to his site to gather some fantastic information.