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Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Taking a leap of faith
Coming out to North Carolina, my husband had to quit his job in Arizona. He tried to get a job from Arizona, but in his field (construction) it's nearly impossible. Employers want to meet you face-to-face and usually want you available to start within a few days (in other words, they don't want to sit around and wait for you to sell your house and make the cross-country journey from AZ to NC...understandable).
Anyways...he got a job on our second day here. Woo hoo!! Unfortunately, that job didn't pan out AT ALL and he quit within two days. Two days later, he had landed what we thought was going to be a decent job. Though the pay was LOW ($32K a year to be exact), it seemed like it had potential to turn into something bigger.
Well, unfortunately again, we were wrong. My husband was working 11-hour days, doing hard labor, managing employees and closing jobs....for $32,000 a year. Being the emotional wife that I am, I broke down crying telling John how this just wasn't worth his time. If you broke it down to an hourly wage, he was making $12 an hour or less. Time is a valuable thing and I'm a BIG believer in only doing things that are worth your time. Being the good husband that he is, John quit.
So, that's where we're at now. Back in Arizona, John worked for himself for a good 5 years. He made a good living and supported me and our first daughter before I started freelancing. After much thought, we made the decision for John to go back to working for himself (!!!).
Say hello to: Brookstone Painting and Residential Services
The company name is ours and John is licensed to do business in the state of NC. Next on the list is coming up with a marketing plan, getting insured and getting some business going. I for one am so happy that John is self-employed. Being self-employed means freedom, it means being in control of your paycheck and, therefore, being in control of your life.
Hopefully, this will become one of our most profitable income streams. I will definitely track our growth, marketing plans and revenue here on the blog.
Stay tuned!!
Anyways...he got a job on our second day here. Woo hoo!! Unfortunately, that job didn't pan out AT ALL and he quit within two days. Two days later, he had landed what we thought was going to be a decent job. Though the pay was LOW ($32K a year to be exact), it seemed like it had potential to turn into something bigger.
Well, unfortunately again, we were wrong. My husband was working 11-hour days, doing hard labor, managing employees and closing jobs....for $32,000 a year. Being the emotional wife that I am, I broke down crying telling John how this just wasn't worth his time. If you broke it down to an hourly wage, he was making $12 an hour or less. Time is a valuable thing and I'm a BIG believer in only doing things that are worth your time. Being the good husband that he is, John quit.
So, that's where we're at now. Back in Arizona, John worked for himself for a good 5 years. He made a good living and supported me and our first daughter before I started freelancing. After much thought, we made the decision for John to go back to working for himself (!!!).
Say hello to: Brookstone Painting and Residential Services
The company name is ours and John is licensed to do business in the state of NC. Next on the list is coming up with a marketing plan, getting insured and getting some business going. I for one am so happy that John is self-employed. Being self-employed means freedom, it means being in control of your paycheck and, therefore, being in control of your life.
Hopefully, this will become one of our most profitable income streams. I will definitely track our growth, marketing plans and revenue here on the blog.
Stay tuned!!
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
An introduction to couponing
I am no expert at couponing, but I've heard it's a little easier in the South so it was something I wanted to give a try when we moved. My husband was job-hunting the first month we were here, so I had extra time to coupon and work while he entertained the girls. Now that he's back at work, I know couponing will be a bit harder...but from what I've experienced this far, it's totally worth it.
I'm the type of person that learns by doing. There are thousands of "couponing" tutorials on the web, and while I'm sure they all work GREAT, I knew that if this was really something I was going to stick to I needed to figure it out for myself and come up with a plan that would work for me.
That being said, I by no means want to be an "extreme" couponer. I don't feel the need to stock up on toothpaste, toilet paper, shampoo, frozen veggies and the like. I only want to save money on items that I normally buy.
So...here's what I've done so far:
Printed coupons from www.coupons.com. Easy as can be! Clip, print, shop! I check this site every few days and print off new coupons. I currently have a few different plastic bags to separate my coupons - General (manufacturer's coupons I can use anywhere), Target, Harris Teeter and Publix.
Both Harris Teeter and Publix offer e-coupons that are customized to your shopping habits. For example, just this past week at Harris Teeter we received half-gallon milks for $0.67, Kashi cereal for $0.97, 12-pack soda for $1.97, 8-pack paper towels for $5.00 and a few other items. I then combined those deals with some manufacturer's coupons - $0.70 off Kashi (which rings in as a dollar, so I made money on this cereal) and $0.25 off paper towels (again, rings in as a dollar). Ka-ching!
That particular trip to the store, we spent $25 and saved $15. Not bad at all, especially since I'm so new at this! Today, I spent $35 and saved another $15. Next up is a trip to Publix to hit all of their deals and combine with a few of my coupons!
So really all I'm doing is looking at the store deals, looking at my ecoupons from each store, then browsing coupons.com to mix and match. I probably spend 15 minutes here and there looking for coupons. I can definitely see how if you have the time to devote to couponing, you can get loads of free items!
I'm the type of person that learns by doing. There are thousands of "couponing" tutorials on the web, and while I'm sure they all work GREAT, I knew that if this was really something I was going to stick to I needed to figure it out for myself and come up with a plan that would work for me.
That being said, I by no means want to be an "extreme" couponer. I don't feel the need to stock up on toothpaste, toilet paper, shampoo, frozen veggies and the like. I only want to save money on items that I normally buy.
So...here's what I've done so far:
Printed coupons from www.coupons.com. Easy as can be! Clip, print, shop! I check this site every few days and print off new coupons. I currently have a few different plastic bags to separate my coupons - General (manufacturer's coupons I can use anywhere), Target, Harris Teeter and Publix.
Both Harris Teeter and Publix offer e-coupons that are customized to your shopping habits. For example, just this past week at Harris Teeter we received half-gallon milks for $0.67, Kashi cereal for $0.97, 12-pack soda for $1.97, 8-pack paper towels for $5.00 and a few other items. I then combined those deals with some manufacturer's coupons - $0.70 off Kashi (which rings in as a dollar, so I made money on this cereal) and $0.25 off paper towels (again, rings in as a dollar). Ka-ching!
That particular trip to the store, we spent $25 and saved $15. Not bad at all, especially since I'm so new at this! Today, I spent $35 and saved another $15. Next up is a trip to Publix to hit all of their deals and combine with a few of my coupons!
So really all I'm doing is looking at the store deals, looking at my ecoupons from each store, then browsing coupons.com to mix and match. I probably spend 15 minutes here and there looking for coupons. I can definitely see how if you have the time to devote to couponing, you can get loads of free items!
Saturday, September 13, 2014
An Introduction - From AZ to NC
I'm Sarah, a freelance writer and editor. My husband, John, works in construction. Over the past five years we've made anywhere from $50K per year combined to $75K per year combined. We're currently on the lower end of that spectrum.
We met in Arizona and started our life together there. We got married and brought two beautiful little girls into this world, currently ages 2 and 1 (yes, we've got our hands full!).
Itching for a change and wanting to escape the heat, we decided to move to North Carolina. We've only been here for three weeks, but so far we absolutely love it. The weather, the trees, the friendly people, the family activities, the jobs, the parks, the cute houses and more make this place the prettiest place in the world to live and the perfect place to raise a family (to us).
We sold our house in AZ and made a decent profit. Since this is a blog about finance, I'll be sharing most numbers here on the blog. Our profit was right around $40K.
Moving is expensive - especially when moving across the country. I'll go into detail in another post, but we spent less than $3K to move our family of four plus two dogs from AZ to NC. The average cross-country move can cost as much as 8K for a three-bedroom home, so we saved a pretty big chunk.
We're just like every other young couple out there - we love spending time with each other and our girls, we enjoy traveling and trying new restaurants, we watch way too much Netflix, we work really hard and we try to make the most of this life.
We don't want to be millionaires to live a luxurious life. We want to be comfortable and we're huge believers that you can achieve any goal you put your mind to. This is our biggest goal yet - and we don't expect to meet this goal any time soon. But you have to start somewhere, right?
I plan on sharing how we're going from average to millionaires in detail on this blog. I'll share how we save money, the journey of couponing (something I just started last week), investing tips, growing our assets and having more than one income stream (you can't put all your eggs in one basket if you want to be wealthy).
Alright, here goes nothing...
We met in Arizona and started our life together there. We got married and brought two beautiful little girls into this world, currently ages 2 and 1 (yes, we've got our hands full!).
Itching for a change and wanting to escape the heat, we decided to move to North Carolina. We've only been here for three weeks, but so far we absolutely love it. The weather, the trees, the friendly people, the family activities, the jobs, the parks, the cute houses and more make this place the prettiest place in the world to live and the perfect place to raise a family (to us).
We sold our house in AZ and made a decent profit. Since this is a blog about finance, I'll be sharing most numbers here on the blog. Our profit was right around $40K.
Moving is expensive - especially when moving across the country. I'll go into detail in another post, but we spent less than $3K to move our family of four plus two dogs from AZ to NC. The average cross-country move can cost as much as 8K for a three-bedroom home, so we saved a pretty big chunk.
We're just like every other young couple out there - we love spending time with each other and our girls, we enjoy traveling and trying new restaurants, we watch way too much Netflix, we work really hard and we try to make the most of this life.
We don't want to be millionaires to live a luxurious life. We want to be comfortable and we're huge believers that you can achieve any goal you put your mind to. This is our biggest goal yet - and we don't expect to meet this goal any time soon. But you have to start somewhere, right?
I plan on sharing how we're going from average to millionaires in detail on this blog. I'll share how we save money, the journey of couponing (something I just started last week), investing tips, growing our assets and having more than one income stream (you can't put all your eggs in one basket if you want to be wealthy).
Alright, here goes nothing...
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