CF Wife

February 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

BoostYou know you’re a CF wife when you get this excited about Boost being on sale! Jesse drinks at least a couple of these nutrition drinks each day. They are perfect for getting him the extra calories he needs, especially when he has already eaten enough that he isn’t hungry anymore. The calories per dollar value is excellent, but they sure do add quite a bit on to our grocery bill each week. Since we buy the store brand, I really don’t find coupons for them either.

This week Publix had them on sale! We have been buying these for years, and I’m pretty sure they have never been on sale before. They had them for 25% off regular price. So, I bought a bunch of them. Then we stopped at the store again on the way home from church a couple days later, and one more time at another store on the way home from small group. I think we stocked up on about two months supply. That will save a lot of money.

This year, I am determined to make the most of every dollar we spend. I have been very diligent at watching for sale prices, cutting coupons, and buying extra when I know it will save us money. It’s not because we are that broke, but because we want to spend our money more wisely. Especially since both of us now have special diets that we have to follow. We buy a lot of fresh fruits and veggies because of my allergies, but we still have to buy the extra snacks and things for Jesse to get all of the millions of calories he needs each day. We used to love to have pasta dishes all the time. Cheap and fast meals like that are no longer an option for me. It can be very time consuming to plan out of meals so carefully, but we are saving a lot by taking the extra time.

We watched a show about crazy couponing, again on TLC, and were amazed at how much these people were able to save.  Granted, these people were just a little nut-so, but with all of their careful planning they were able to buy a whole cart full of groceries for under $6!  All by carefully coordinating store sales with the matching manufacturer coupons.  One of the guys on the show had his entire garage full of health and beauty products that he had gotten all for free.  They estimated that he had enough toothpaste and deodorant to last the average person about 150 years.  Obviously, I don’t need to take it to that extreme, but it definitely made me realize that we could be spending a lot less.

Filed Under: Cystic Fibrosis

New Beginnings

February 1, 2011 By 4 Comments

Yesterday was our first official day of working together.  We are still working out exactly what my role in the company will be.  So far, I’m now in charge of all the financial/accounting for both business and personal.  We were sharing that responsibility before.  That wasn’t working out so well as we were months behind on our personal finances, and I’ve been working the last couple months on catching up our records for the entire year of business income and expenses.  It sure is hard to remember what a charge was for that happened six months ago.  Our new system feels much more organized and efficient.

Obviously, I don’t have the skills at this point to do the actual site design and setup that Jesse does.  But there is a lot that I have learned from having my own blog that I can help with.  Yesterday I helped with a simple task that just would have taken time out of Jesse’s day.  It was just a matter of going in to each site of all the people on our maintenance plan and updating how their backups are being stored.  I also ordered and picked up a couple of prescriptions we needed that Jesse usually picks up for himself.  It was a super easy day compared to the work days that I’m used to, but it’s small things like that during the day that take up more time that you realize.  If I can take on enough small tasks that Jesse is able to complete one more site each month, then we will be all set.  That is our starting point for now, but hopefully I will also be able to pick up some virtual assistant work later on to help contribute a little extra.

We are very happy is our new office set up.  We (or maybe just me) are too cheap to go out and a but a new desk that would work to sit both of us.  So… we came up with a great solution to make our existing furniture work for what we need.

Office set up

Don’t you just love how office-y it all looks?  We took the hutch off of my desk so that we could store things that we both want to have access to.  And that way we each have that little bit of extra desk space without crowding each other too much.

Jesse's deskMy desk

Then we bought a project board (which is full right now…yay!) so that we can both be on the same page on what we are working on and what the priorities are.  Of course I still needed to have my scrapbooking supplies easily accessible, if I ever get a chance to work on it.

Project board

Lastly, I organized our bookshelf to look all pretty. Jesse does a lot of video conference calls with his clients when he is trying to get an idea of what they are looking for. So we positioned the bookshelf with pretty decorations on top to be his backdrop for the calls. Yep, we’re just smart and professional like that.

Bookshelf

That’s about it for our office. Now we just have to wait and see how much work we are able to produce from it.

Filed Under: General

Refreshed

January 31, 2011 By 5 Comments

This weekend was one of the most relaxed and productive weekends we’ve had in a long time, it was wonderful!  I would be happy if every weekend from now on was like this one.

Friday night got the weekend off to a great start as we had some friends over for dinner and a game.  We had a great time catching up with this fantastic and fun couple.  Our church started a marriage mentor program a couple of years ago, and this couple was “assigned” to us.  We knew nothing about them before then, and we have very much enjoyed getting to know them over the last couple of years.  They were such an encouragement to us after such a trying week.  It made us realize that our busy and exhaustive lifestyle had taken away our energy to spend much time with people lately.  We’ve set a new goal for ourselves that we need to have people over much more often.

Wits and Wagers

Saturday was a much needed catch up day.  We got a lot of little things done around the house.  Then ventured out for a couple last minute items we needed for us to be completely ready to get right to work on Monday morning.  After the complete mess we had made rearranging the office, it is finally getting all set up and organized.  We are both so excited for our first month working together… I think it will be our most profitable ever!

Sunday started out like every Sunday does, getting ready for church.  After church, Mom came over for a quick lunch and then we went out shopping.  Of course, we went to our new favorite store, Goodwill.  We both came home with several great finds, made even greater by knowing we got such a bargain on them.

Shopping trip

Both Jesse and I were well refreshed for Monday! 🙂

Filed Under: General