Budgets, Restaurants and a Picture

This post is going to be a hodge-podge of updates and ramblings. But I have the cutest picture to share so at least scroll to the bottom of the post. :)

So. Since MrHoppy started his new job last month we've been on a strict budget. No extra spending, just necessities. I'm also tracking our spending and bills on an Excel spreadsheet. The budget allows for more spending but we kind of decided we want to live very frugally right now while we're adjusting.

The good news? We have way more money than we thought we would after his slight pay cut. It's not even affecting us. This is mostly due to the fact that we've curbed our spending. You know what else this tells us? That we were spending WAY more than we thought we were before. On what? We have no idea. Mostly going out to dinner, drinks, random crap, etc. I think MrHoppy was the spender to be honest. He used to blame me but he's slowly coming around to the realization that HE was the one spending! Love you babe. :)

In other good news we are 2 months from having zero car payments. Woo Hoo! I've been looking forward to this all year and the time has almost come. We don't have much credit card debt but not having any car payments is going to allow us to be rid of that in several months. Hell to the yeah!

Yesterday was a long day for both of us. We were dead tired when we got home and neither of us felt like cooking. I don't think we've gone out to dinner once since he started his job. Maybe once? That's crazy for us, MrHoppy LOVES to go out to eat. So we headed to our local Chili's for dinner and a beer.

You know what? It wasn't that great. It was expensive, the food was just OK and I felt too full afterwards. Not to mention that my body HATES eating all that sodium. Hates it. We discussed it before going to bed and I came to the conclusion that I would much rather cook and eat at home. We enjoy preparing our healthy meals and our bodies thank us for it. I felt lethargic after dinner and I never feel that way when we cook at home.

Moral of this (long) story is that this job has taught us so much about our life already. I appreciate having him home in the evening SO much after dealing with so many nights alone. I realize how difficult it was to stay on top of everyday things together when we only saw each other a few nights a week. I can't believe we didn't fight more! I underestimated how nice it would feel to be on the same page about spending and planning our financial future. All in all, this move has been a good one so far. I just hope our good luck continues.

And now for a cuteness overload. My sister in law texted me the cutest picture of our niece last night. It was taken with her iPhone so it doesn't even do her justice! I'm so thankful for my nieces and nephew!