Quick update on my 31 Things challenge. Last week I did Jillian Michaels' water detox. To be fair, I only did 5 days instead of 7. I lost a few pounds of water weight, but I'm sure I have promptly gained it back :) I wasn't thrilled with the detox, mainly because it made me feel sick to my stomach. I imagine it was the dandelion root tea (which Wes described as tasting like "hot dog water"), since the other ingredients in the detox are just cranberry juice and lemon juice. And water. I give the detox an overall rating of "meh."
I think for now I'll just stick to drinking regular water and "enjoying" my yearly medically-required cleanse. Jealous? :)
Where I stand:
Monday, September 24, 2012
Couponing
Ok, so I admit that I'm a little behind the curve with the whole couponing thing. I'm pretty sure most of my friends on here have gone through a couponing phase and are kind of over it. Like most things, I've picked up on the craze a little later than most. Back in Dallas, I will admit that I didn't bother with coupons because I didn't concern myself with my grocery bill. I'm not proud of that truth, but it is what it is. And although Wes and I have lived together since 2007 (side note: seriously? where has the time gone?) we did not combine finances until we were married. We split the bills, but he worried about his money and I worried about mine. Now he worries about all of our money (a benefit of marrying an accountant!)
So here we are, one year into our marriage and we've made some amazing progress. We are blessed to both have good jobs and we make a good living, but we have a lot of student loan debt. Like, more than a house's worth of student loan debt. <shudders> Since our wedding, we have paid off all of our credit card debt and are 2 months away from having 2 paid for cars. (Don't tell Wes I want a new car). And, since we no longer have the house in Dallas (hooray!), we are saving like mad men to buy a house in Atlanta next summer. And I can't wait, frankly, apartment living is for the birds. And by birds, I mean incredibly rude neighbors who never sleep and have terrible taste in music.
I decided to start couponing to see if I could cut our grocery budget in order to speed up the savings process. And I think I did - in September, I saved $235 and spent about $350. I do think that the savings will spread out more over time because I definitely bought more items that I usually do, and if I can manage to spread out what we have and plan our meals wisely, our bills should be lower next month. I mean, our cabinets are seriously full. The problem that I find with couponing, however, is while we need to eat down the food that we have, I cannot miss shopping a sale! The one thing keeping me reigned in right now is that we don't have a pantry or an extra freezer, so I'm quite limited in storage. Also, my fear of becoming one of "those people" on TLC helps me pump the brakes when necessary.
I do have glimpses of life as one of "those" people. For example, I shopped on Sunday, and I was really tempted to buy some Palmolive dish soap with a final price of 25 cents. It was a big bottle! But I didn't buy it because we truly don't need any dish soap (one bottle in use and one back up bottle at the moment). Two weeks ago, Truvia was on sale for $2.99 and I had a $2 coupon. I forgot to buy it over the weekend, so I definitely made a special trip to get my 99 cent Truvia. Man was that satisfying! And, I think we have seven boxes of cereal right now. I eat cereal almost every morning, but I seriously can't let myself buy any more boxes until I eat the ones we have! We also have a pretty ridiculous cracker supply and 4 back up bags of cat food for the lazy ones. Don't judge...
My strategy is pretty simple. I clip coupons from the Sunday paper, and enter them into a sortable Excel spreadsheet (nerd alert!) I also print coupons from coupons.com, target.com, and publix.com. Then I check the sale ads from Publix & Target, cross-reference with my coupon spreadsheet, and buy accordingly. If we need something that isn't on sale, then I'll pick a couple of coupons and see what brand is the best deal when I get to the store. And that's it. I don't go to multiple stores, seriously ya'll, that is too intense.
I also have a health & beauty supply closet that is ridiculous.
So here we are, one year into our marriage and we've made some amazing progress. We are blessed to both have good jobs and we make a good living, but we have a lot of student loan debt. Like, more than a house's worth of student loan debt. <shudders> Since our wedding, we have paid off all of our credit card debt and are 2 months away from having 2 paid for cars. (Don't tell Wes I want a new car). And, since we no longer have the house in Dallas (hooray!), we are saving like mad men to buy a house in Atlanta next summer. And I can't wait, frankly, apartment living is for the birds. And by birds, I mean incredibly rude neighbors who never sleep and have terrible taste in music.
I decided to start couponing to see if I could cut our grocery budget in order to speed up the savings process. And I think I did - in September, I saved $235 and spent about $350. I do think that the savings will spread out more over time because I definitely bought more items that I usually do, and if I can manage to spread out what we have and plan our meals wisely, our bills should be lower next month. I mean, our cabinets are seriously full. The problem that I find with couponing, however, is while we need to eat down the food that we have, I cannot miss shopping a sale! The one thing keeping me reigned in right now is that we don't have a pantry or an extra freezer, so I'm quite limited in storage. Also, my fear of becoming one of "those people" on TLC helps me pump the brakes when necessary.
I do have glimpses of life as one of "those" people. For example, I shopped on Sunday, and I was really tempted to buy some Palmolive dish soap with a final price of 25 cents. It was a big bottle! But I didn't buy it because we truly don't need any dish soap (one bottle in use and one back up bottle at the moment). Two weeks ago, Truvia was on sale for $2.99 and I had a $2 coupon. I forgot to buy it over the weekend, so I definitely made a special trip to get my 99 cent Truvia. Man was that satisfying! And, I think we have seven boxes of cereal right now. I eat cereal almost every morning, but I seriously can't let myself buy any more boxes until I eat the ones we have! We also have a pretty ridiculous cracker supply and 4 back up bags of cat food for the lazy ones. Don't judge...
My strategy is pretty simple. I clip coupons from the Sunday paper, and enter them into a sortable Excel spreadsheet (nerd alert!) I also print coupons from coupons.com, target.com, and publix.com. Then I check the sale ads from Publix & Target, cross-reference with my coupon spreadsheet, and buy accordingly. If we need something that isn't on sale, then I'll pick a couple of coupons and see what brand is the best deal when I get to the store. And that's it. I don't go to multiple stores, seriously ya'll, that is too intense.
I also have a health & beauty supply closet that is ridiculous.
Friday, September 14, 2012
31 Things
In an effort to reignite the old blog and make it about more than running, I decided to make a new list of random goals to accomplish over the next year. Once upon a time I did the 1001 things in 1001 days challenge, but that was on my old blog and I have no idea how I did on that. Probably not very well! Since I will be 31 in a little over a month, this list will be a list of 31 Things. Stay tuned to see the progress!
1. Complete wedding scrapbook.
2. Run a half-marathon.
3. Buy a house.
4. Pay off my car.
5. Take Wes to a UGA game in Athens.
6. Take a golf lesson.
7. Buy a nice camera.
8. Host a family holiday at our house.
9. Frame a shadowbox of wedding items.
10. Do a detox/cleanse.
11. Color my hair.
12. Lose 20 lbs.
13. Exceed my billable hour requirement at work.
14. Write a short story.
15. Train Ollie to not poop on the floor.
16. Beat Super Mario Galaxy.
17. Complete 2010-2011 scrapbook.
18. Give at least one homemade Christmas gift.
19. Find a signature scent and start wearing it.
20. Seriously clean out closet.
21. Go to the North Georgia Mountains with Wes.
22. Visit Nashville.
23. Get a customized stamp once we have a house.
24. Select and print canvas prints from wedding photos.
25. Make some Pinterest Christmas decorations.
26. Get my calves small enough that I can wear knee-high boots.
27. Create a jewelry display/storage system.
28. Have wedding rings appraised.
29. Buy a new car (preferably a small SUV!).
30. Go rock climbing (indoor, obviously).
31. Climb Stone Mountain with Wes.
1. Complete wedding scrapbook.
2. Run a half-marathon.
3. Buy a house.
4. Pay off my car.
5. Take Wes to a UGA game in Athens.
6. Take a golf lesson.
7. Buy a nice camera.
8. Host a family holiday at our house.
9. Frame a shadowbox of wedding items.
10. Do a detox/cleanse.
11. Color my hair.
12. Lose 20 lbs.
13. Exceed my billable hour requirement at work.
14. Write a short story.
15. Train Ollie to not poop on the floor.
16. Beat Super Mario Galaxy.
17. Complete 2010-2011 scrapbook.
18. Give at least one homemade Christmas gift.
19. Find a signature scent and start wearing it.
20. Seriously clean out closet.
21. Go to the North Georgia Mountains with Wes.
22. Visit Nashville.
23. Get a customized stamp once we have a house.
24. Select and print canvas prints from wedding photos.
25. Make some Pinterest Christmas decorations.
26. Get my calves small enough that I can wear knee-high boots.
27. Create a jewelry display/storage system.
28. Have wedding rings appraised.
29. Buy a new car (preferably a small SUV!).
30. Go rock climbing (indoor, obviously).
31. Climb Stone Mountain with Wes.
Oh, hey there blog.
Well, it's been a while. Over two months, to be exact! Training for the half has been a very tough and eye-opening experience. I have mentioned several times about how my feet go numb after I have been running or walking for a few miles. As you can imagine, this is very annoying. After time, new shoes, stretching, and voodoo did nothing to make the numbness better, I went to see an orthopedic doctor. He basically said "hmmm, this is weird, not really sure how to fix it." He sent me to physical therapy, which I've been doing for a few months.
I ran a 10k in mid-August and it was like my feet were worse than ever. I went back to the doctor. Frustratingly, no one can give me an explanation of why this happens. My doctor advised me to stop running and to continue with physical therapy and other non-running exercises to strengthen my leg muscles. The educated guess of various doctors and therapists is that I just have very tight, knotted up leg muscles.
So, I'm not running right now. I'm so disappointed. I know I'm awfully naive, but I thought if I just put the time in with this I could accomplish it. Turns out my body needs some more work. It's no secret that I carry a few extra pounds, but I'm finding now how incredibly difficult it is to become an athlete in your 30s. Wow. It's hard.
Team Spina Bifida is letting me push my race date out to another half, so now I'm working towards running the Publix half marathon in Atlanta in March 2013. My fundraising will just continue until then (I've raised over $1300!!). Hopefully if I spend several months working on leg strength and low-impact cardio, I will be able to complete the half training without my feet betraying me.
I ran a 10k in mid-August and it was like my feet were worse than ever. I went back to the doctor. Frustratingly, no one can give me an explanation of why this happens. My doctor advised me to stop running and to continue with physical therapy and other non-running exercises to strengthen my leg muscles. The educated guess of various doctors and therapists is that I just have very tight, knotted up leg muscles.
So, I'm not running right now. I'm so disappointed. I know I'm awfully naive, but I thought if I just put the time in with this I could accomplish it. Turns out my body needs some more work. It's no secret that I carry a few extra pounds, but I'm finding now how incredibly difficult it is to become an athlete in your 30s. Wow. It's hard.
Team Spina Bifida is letting me push my race date out to another half, so now I'm working towards running the Publix half marathon in Atlanta in March 2013. My fundraising will just continue until then (I've raised over $1300!!). Hopefully if I spend several months working on leg strength and low-impact cardio, I will be able to complete the half training without my feet betraying me.
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