My Issue With Home Decorating Recources

I love to read home decorating blogs but I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with them. First off, home bloggers and magazine editors must think that everyone lives in an architecturally stunning home. I do not have twelve foot ceilings. I do not have 100 year old wood floors. I to not have a patio that overlooks hills and mountains, nor do I have columns or archways.

I have this:




This is a home. This is what the vast majority of Americans live in. Houses. Average, everyday, affordable to the other 95% of us, houses. Of course I wish I was living in something Frank Lloyd Wright designed or a townhouse on Park Avenue, but let's get real. I'm 25, recently married, and a first-time home owner. I do not have the resources to afford such a home.

This lady knows what I'm talking about.

Which brings me to my second issue. Money. I want to have a great, personal looking house but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on furnishings. If I had thousands of dollars to spend I'd make major home renovations, not buy some crazy ass sofa that my dog or morning coffee spills are going to ruin. I love good deals and cheap crap. I think it's possible to make a lovely home with next to no budget but it's hard to find the resources sometimes. And yes, that $300 lamp on sale for $99 might be a steal, but it's still $99. I want to make my own lamp with fabric scraps and $4 in supplies. But I need someone to show me how!!!

You know one person who really gets what I'm talking about? Martha Stewart. Martha gets it sometimes. I just read on her website how to create a faux wood looking table using paint and some weird roller brush. YES! Cheap! Awesome! Creative! Leave it to one of the richest women in the world to show us how to pinch pennies in style.

That's why she's Martha.

I'm trying to come up with some of my own ideas and plans for cheapo home decorating. I bought all the furniture and big stuff I can afford and now I want to make the room look full and cheery and personal without spending an arm and a leg that I don't currently have. This is a recession people. And I am certainly recessing with the frivolous spending in my life. Starting with this. I will not buy that. Even though it's on sale for $199, it's still $199. Maybe Martha can show me how to weave my own peace sign rug with old unraveled sweaters.

Creative Ways To Save

Matt and I have been making an effort lately to spend less money. Focusing on food alone is helping out a lot. We only go out to eat maybe twice a week now. Usually once a week for lunch at Jimmy Johns (at $14 it's an expense that is well worth it) and once out to dinner on the weekends. Spending less on eating out of course means that our grocery bills are going to be higher. Now the challenge comes to reduce our grocery bills.

We've started buying some items in bulk with our Sam's Club card and we make sure we eat our leftovers, but I still think the grocery bills are high. I've subscribed to coupon emails and I clip out of the newspaper. Did you know that Target has coupons online? They do! It took me a while to find them but they're right there! Target is probably one of the most expensive places you could possibly buy groceries, but sometimes they'll run a really good coupon for like, 50 cents off Silk Soy Milk which Matt drinks like it's going out of style.

Still seems too high though. What's another way to cut costs? How about making pantry staples from scratch? I just read a great article about how to save over $100 a year on spaghetti sauce. We buy a lot of spaghetti sauce in our house. We've always wondered how to make it ourselves but never really tried to figure it out. It's a pretty genius plan. Make one giant pot of it and then freeze it? Duh. Easy.

Now I just need to learn how to brew my own Leiney and we'll be set.

What other grocery staples are easy to make at home?

Brain Freeze

On Saturday, I went to a Digital SLR class at Rockbrook Camera. My brain got stuffed with sooooo much information. We went over apertures, focus settings, white balances, the A-S-P-M settings, flash tricks... Thank goodness we got a handout and I took notes. I think I retained about 10% of what was covered. It was like taking a 12 week photography course in one afternoon.

I need to review, review, review this weekend. I learned lots of valuable things, now I need to practice using what I know before it's gone for forever.

The only downside to taking the class is that now I want to run out and buy a bunch of equipment. I want to get a flash and a bracket, a flash diffuser, a macro lens, a polarizer, a backdrop stand, lights, a new camera body... And then if I have any money left a $2000 high speed lens for when I take pictures of my rock star hubs and his bands.

Hey, those things are all tax-deductible. It's an investment.

I think it's outrageous when Matt talks about a $2500 bass that he needs, and then I turn around and tell him about a $2000 lens that I must have. One of us clearly needs to become rich in this decade so we can support our dreams. I'm pointing to him - unless I start charging $500 an hour for design consultations, which I don't think is going to fly.

My Unsolicited Opinion on Things

Here are a couple of really great stories I found about people making the most out of today's circumstances. They're both very inspiring. Just because we're in the middle of a massive economic struggle doesn't mean that our lives have to stop progressing. This should be a time of self discovery and a time to for all of us to reevaluate what is truly important in this lifetime.

CNN - 'Found money' is frugal family's hobby

CNN - Fired exec: 'Starbucks saved my life'

That second story is about a big time CEO who literally lost everything he owned, but he came out on the other side happier and more successful than he had ever been. I've been thinking a lot about that story since I read it yesterday. For the last few years (up until very recently) I've noticed this alarming trend of more, more, more. I'm sure you have too. Reality TV shows are centered around selfish "Sweet 16ers" and "Real Housewives" spending money, acting like brats and complaining that they aren't being given enough. Shows like SATC brought high-end designer shoes and handbags to the attention of the masses, and now women all over suburban America are walking around with Prada and Manolo. People everywhere are ignoring sticker prices and buying the biggest cars and houses they can find so they can keep up with the neighbors. It's disgusting!

I don't deny that I have a materialistic side. Everyone does. I like buying clothes and nice things for my house. But we (Matt and I) are living within our means and being realistic about it. Not only do you have to know when to say when - but you have to stick to it when people try to oversell you with the temptation of "bigger and better." We luckily were approved for a home loan prior to the huge real estate bubble burst in Omaha and found a modest home in a modest neighborhood. We spent less than what we asked the bank for, which was $130K. To me, $130K is a staggering amount of money, especially when you wrap it up into a mortgage. We felt that it was the most we could comfortably afford to pay back at this time in our lives. But you know what the bank did? They gave us the $130K and then told us that with my credit score we could basically have as much as we wanted (within reason), we just had to ask for it. Not once did they ask us what we thought we could afford. They just told us what they thought we were qualified to pay back on paper.

And this boys and girls is how we as a nation got into this mess.

It's the same story with cars and credit cards. Everyone stopped thinking "What can I afford to pay back?" and started thinking "What's the most that they'll give me?" It's good old American greed. I respect anyone's decision to buy a $30,000 car or drop $5000 on their credit card, if they can afford to pay it back. Can I afford the payments on such debt? No. Of course I can't. Neither could millions of people out there who assumed it. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we can blame the banks and credit companies for shelling out irresponsible loans to people who ultimately couldn't afford it, but shouldn't we also blame the people who accepted the debt? Isn't it the responsibility of the borrowing individual to assess their own ability to pay something back before they accept it?

As much as this recession may suck right now, I'm cherishing the opportunity to finally have a clear view of what I need versus what I want in life. There are some Americans who are really hurting and struggling right now. But for most of us, this is just a time of inconvenience. The days of "buy, buy, buy" are coming to an end and the days of "stop and think" are upon us. It's refreshing. We should all see it as a fresh start. We are being given a chance to break away from the consumerism that has swallowed up our souls. It's a chance to purge our lives of the excessive and unnecessary crap that weighs us down. It's a chance to finally see what we have become as a nation and what we need to do to mend ourselves from the inside out.

Love, family, happiness, karma, contentment, spirituality, nature, exercise, laughing. Those things are always free.

Addictions

2008 was officially the year that I kicked my clothing addiction. The success of my sartorial rehab was the result of growing older and wiser and not getting the same thrill out of shopping anymore.

Okay, that's completely untrue.

What really ended up happening was that I bought a house and I longed to fill it up with stuff. (Dear Ford, please do not let them open an Ikea in Omaha. Amen.) So, my clothing addition was parlayed into a home decorating addiction. I'd like to think that buying furniture is less selfish than buying shoes since I'm sharing everything in the house with Matt. And I don't have to worry about my butt getting too fat to enjoy an end table for the next ten years.

For instance, it's absolutely fine that I bought this lamp yesterday because we are both going to enjoy the light it will bring our living room.

A Few Goals for 2009

Some things I'm going to work on in 2009:

1. Save money for a new car and a nice vacation. Possibly to Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. (Vacation idea stolen from Jeff and Brandon.)

2. Run another 1/2 marathon (beating my previous time) and generally shape up. Ultimately, I'd like to run a half every year. I've done it for the last two. It's really one of the easier goals to stick to - barring any unforeseen baby making accidents. Working out in general though, like sit-ups and toning, I have little patience for. I've always had freakishly toned arms (medical professionals have even told me so) but the rest of me is a little on the squishy side. I know that I am a rather thin girl, but there is no muscle in there. It's all jelly. I'd like to even that out a bit.

3.a. Finish a nice variety of portfolio sittings and start charging for photo sessions by March. This is one of the most important goals for me. I really have high hopes about starting a photography career. I'm tired of being unhappy with my professional life. I've had a recent surge in my desire to make this happen. I think it's where my life is taking me.

3.b. Take at least two photography courses. Obviously, this is something that is important and will come in handy. I have no real photography education. Everything I know about taking good photographs I learned from art composition classes. I have no real training when it comes to the technical aspects of photography like aperture settings and white balances. A prodigy I am not, so I should probably get on this one ASAP.

3.c. Photograph a wedding. I need to find some very understanding couple who will let me photograph their wedding knowing full well that I might completely eff it up. Are you that guy or girl? Give me a call! Honestly though, I want to be able to do this by the end of 2009. I'd love to find an OBB girl on a budget in the Omaha area and be able to give her a virtually free wedding photo session. Then it would warm my brain and my heart!

4. Fix up the outside of the house. Replace the windows, paint, white wash, landscape, buy a rake. All that kind of stuff.

5. Release myself from the evil clutches of hair dye. This may or may not work out. I'm sort of hooked on being a red head. However I'm very much not hooked on giving some girl $60 every 10 weeks to color my hair. Yes, 10 weeks. I make that shit last.

Disposable Income Goes Where?

I think it's time to devise an honest to goodness savings plan. We share a bank account so we have the habit of paying all our bills first and then buying/spending whatever we want after that. It's not very conducive to *saving* anything. At all. I have a percent being pulled into a 401K and I save my freelance money, but nothing out of our paychecks gets saved.

I really have no idea where our money even goes! I did the budget calculator on The Nest and according to them we should have $1100 a month left to save after bills and going out to eat/drink. Huh? What? Are you serious?

That is a very depressing revelation. I wanted to set a goal to save $200 a month and they're telling me I should be saving $1100? I must have missed a major bill or something in there because that just seems outrageous on our part. There's no way we spend that much a month on miscellaneous crap. Oh god, do we? I think I severely underestimated the amount of money we spend at the grocery store. And I didn't budget in my Target addiction. In all honesty, we could probably save nearly $400 a month if we just kept a better eye on what we buy and where we go. Yet we don't...

That is a sad, sad slice of reality on a Monday morning.

**UPDATE

Ok, so some of the fields I filled in ended up blank and didn't get included in the monthly expenses. The total to save should have been $618, not $1300. That is not nearly as gut wrenchingly awful. It's still not good though.