Finally!!!!
We have a closing date on our house,
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
ALL smiles here :-D
Initially, it was going to be for Friday but stupid title company messed it up.
Oh well.
Only 4 more days and that beauty of a house will be ours!
ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
This past weekend I went and helped my brother and his wife start painting their family room.
and by helped I mean...
Just helped with the primer.
It's starting to look good guys!
Brandt painting away...
Primer going up in their family room
Me RELAXING on their couch after a whole 20 minutes of painting.
(I will have enough painting myself soon enough) ;-)
Dan and I really haven't been up to anything fun at all. We have just been anxiously awaiting the close date on our house and now that it's next Tuesday the end is near! I will tell you that we are SICK of living with boxes all over. I am a pretty organized person and Dan is kinda a "neat freak" so these past few weeks have been a challenge for us both. We feel like we have been at a standstill since January when we found out our offer was accepted.
Tips for Saving up a down payment on your 1st home:
* **
Live below your income:
This should be happening no matter who you are or how much money you make. But if you're trying to save up for a down payment on a house it will happen a lot faster if you live below your means.
Dan and I sacrificed by renting a 1 bed 1 bath apt instead of a 2 bath 2 bedroom or a townhouse. By doing this we saved an extra $200-$400 a month!!
We also have skipped out on vacations. While friends of ours took off to tropical warm climates we hung back and just went on a nice date or had a fun weekend.
*I told Dan it's our turn to FINALLY go on our honeymoon this next year!
You can also cut out things like cable, going out to eat, shopping for cleaning supplies & things like shampoo/conditioner @ the dollar store.
We saved every cent of our tax return last year! Just put it right into savings so we never even saw it. We also took money out of each paycheck and immediately transferred it to savings. We have it built into our budget that we are saving $600 a month at least.
Instead of going out to the movies we did a lot of ON DEMAND this past year. It only costs about $5 a movie, you have it for 24-48 hrs, and you can eat your own goodies and stay in your pj's in the comfort of your own home!
There are a lot of things you can do to save money. Those are just some of the things we did- besides the cutting the cable. Heaven forbid Dan live without ESPN. :-)
