Blog Changes

I have redesigned and moved my blog to WordPress.

You can visit the new blog Frugal & Simple Living at http://frugalandsimple.com/


If you want to keep up with our family, visit our family blog The Simple Life of the Boreings at http://blog.boreingfamily.com/

Maintenance

I'm going to be doing some blog maintenance and re-vamping. The site may be down some over the next few days! Thanks for your patience!! If you find this post head over HERE to get to the new site.

Our Wedding Reception and Honeymoon

I'm joining in again with Kelly for Show Us Your Life, this week is about your Wedding Reception and Honeymoon!

Our wedding reception was just lovely! We started it off with a receiving line! It was important to us to be able to speak to each of our guests who cared enough about us to join as witnesses to our special day! It did take quite a bit of time but it was wonderful getting to speak to everyone there!

Here we are cutting the cake! John David's Nana made our cake's for us!! It was beautiful and very special to us!

I think this picture is just lovely! The punch was wonderful...I only had 1 glass but remember that I wanted another glass of that great punch!!

The chocolate groom's cake with a tractor on it! You'll understand the tractor even more in a moment!

Leaving...I just love this shot with the bubbles in it!!

The getaway ride...a nice Case tractor!! I love that we left on a tractor...quite fitting since we met in the FFA!!

The tractor in all its glory!! (I suggested the tractor because I thought it would be fun & I didn't want to drive around on our honeymoon with "Just Married" written all over our car!!)

We didn't take many honeymoon pictures (we had a really bad camera that took horrible pics!) We honeymooned in Banner Elk, North Carolina and it was just lovely!! We went to the Banner Elk Cafe a few times for breakfast & dinner, we ate at this amazing barbeque place that I'd love to go back to and went to Grandfather Mountain. We went to the Mast General Store and Blowing Rock, NC and visited the little shops and got ice cream cones!! It was a lovely honeymoon!!

I Need Your Frugal Input!!

Next month I am going to be teaching a class at church on the frugal lifestyle. I am really excited about this but also somewhat overwhelmed because there is so much I want to share and time constraints won't allow everything! I need some input from you!!

If you are just beginning a frugal lifestyle, what questions do you have? (Questions about anything from groceries, to clothing, to making things yourself!) Please send me these questions!!

If you are already frugal, what are some basic things that beginners can incorporate on their way to a frugal lifestyle and what basics would you cover if you taught this class?

Thanks so much! Just e-mail me at rachel@lifefrugalandsimple.com or leave a comment!

Decluttering the Master

This week I am working on decluttering and finishing a few projects around the house. I started decluttering the master bedroom yesterday and went through all of our drawers, both night-stands and the closet.

All of this is leaving the master bedroom forever:

I have found that going through my house and evaluating our stuff about every 2 months really helps cut down on clutter. It is really amazing how much stuff 2 people living on a tight budget (& therefore not buying stuff "just because") can accumulate in a 2 month period! Our home is neat and organized and we are never overrun with stuff by doing this!

Financial Goals Update: July

1. Save 3 months living expenses by December 31.Yay!! We reached this goal 5 months early!! It's wonderful knowing that we have an emergency fund that is fully funded!!

2. Pay $3,000 towards our "small loan".We completely paid off this loan!! :)

3. Make an extra principal payment every month. This month we finally started doing this!! 60% of my last paycheck went towards it and the money from John David's paycheck that has been going towards the Emergency fund was used too! Yay!!

4. Keep all Miscellaneous spending (Medicine, Toiletries, Clothing, Gifts, everything but food) under $100 a month.We kept it under $100 again! Yay!

5. Sell $500 worth of stuff from around our home by July 31. We sold 1 item in July and made a couple dollars. This goal was not reached on July 31, however we are going to continue to try to sell as much unwanted stuff in hopes that by December 31 we can say we reached the goal of $500!!

Meal Plan

This week's meal plan is using food from the freezer and the garden!

Here's the plan:

Dinner:

Country Style Ribs with Grilled Veggies

Tomato Alfredo Pizza

Roast with Carrots, Potatoes & Onions

Mexican Chicken Salad (Lettuce, Green Pepper, Pico de Gallos, Cheese & Ranch Dressing)

Grilled Lemon Pepper Fish with Grilled Veggies

Chicken Pasta with Bread & Side Salad

Lunch:

Leftovers

Quesadillas

Breakfast:

Fruit

Oatmeal

Cream of Wheat

Cereal with Blueberries

1 Year Ago...

It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I graduated!! I haven't taken a test, studied/crammed for hours, went to a class or had to endure long lectures & group work in a year! Time really does go by faster the older you get!

Sourdough Rolls

A few weeks ago I began a sourdough starter and tonight I successfully made sourdough rolls!! They weren't pefect; they aren't big beautiful rolls but they tasted really good! In fact John David had 3 (that is success to me!!)

Nothin' Like Fresh Veggies

I just love walking outside and coming back in with a bucket full of veggies!