In the Here and Now.

[redrose85]

Awwe one of my gifts from Alex was a “Happily Ever After” picture.. cream coloured with antiqued black script. I melted. He got me 2 other pieces of wall art, and I am still blown away at how well he knows me and my style! He got me a super sweet coffee maker too (thank goodness for coffee!) that lets you choose between 1-4 cups of coffee, so I can brew up a little or a lot, and it lets you select the strength of the brew. Shawn got me a big ol' Kitchenaid knife set I’ve been wanting to replace my crappy Walmart knives for some time now but could never justify it. Now I have 18 knives to choose from LOL. I’ll post pictures later

[hers]

Aw! Weren't you just talking about how you couldn't get a decent cup of coffee out of what you had?

 

Your gifts sound awesome. Have a nice Christmas!!

[redrose85]

Yeah haha. Apparently Shawn had gotten me a coffeemaker too, but Alex told him he had to take it back and get me something else We ended up being up till 3, drinking and farting around but I still woke up at 9. Old Christmas morning habits die hard, I guess. Alex’s Mom sent them each a digital photo frame with a huge stash of photos so I will be stalking those pretty hard I think. Baby Alex pictures!

 

Hope you’re having a good day! I have come to realize that I like the lead-in to Christmas better. I like the whole season (from Dec 10 onwards) However, I am SO looking forward to a nice turkey dinner tonight. Yum yum!

[OptomisticGirl]

The gifts sound AWESOME Sherry!

[redrose85]

Christmas dinner was so good! I went for seconds but no one else did, so I flaked out and gave the plate to my stepdad. Despite his protests about getting him a gift, my older brother grinned pretty big when he saw the Guinness glasses I got for him. It was a really nice night and everyone had fun. My niece did come to dinner after all (the poor thing was shuttled between three different families all day.)

 

I love how much she adores Alex. Since we got engaged, she calls him uncle Alex. The other day, the first thing she asked when she saw me was “where’s Uncle Alex?” Then tonight when she got to my mom’s house, the first thing she did was tumble into his arms. They’re so sweet together, always playing and joking around. I kept joking about being chopped liver. She wrote me a story about fairies and drew a picture to match. She’s getting really artistic and creative. My brother says she loves creative writing (yay!)

[redrose85]

Wishing that Alex wasn’t on call. A mountain resort a couple of hours from here is doing a fireworks show tonight but no one can go, and he can’t go because he has to stay in town. We can’t even go to the pool or anything because then he can’t keep his phone with him. I’ll be so glad when the new guys are all trained up next Christmas and THEY can handle it. I’m debating going to the mall and blowing some cash or picking up a new toy. First, I think I need to take care of this paper and cardboard covered living room!

[redrose85]

Cleaned the house today and did some shopping. I got Office for Mac for way cheaper than it usually is (hooray!) the Black Keys’ newest cd, a memory foam pillow, and a laptop bag for $5! My current laptop case is just a sleeve, no handles or anything, and this one has handles and a strap.

[hers]

Score! I love awesome finds like that

[OptomisticGirl]

I LOVE memory foam pillows! The one thing I want us to invest in before anything is a memory foam mattress topper. I have one on this old crap piece of bed and it feels like I sleep on a cloud.

[hers]

Leeluu had a memory foam dog bed that one of my clients gave me, leftover from his dogs bed. Her damn bed was more comfortable than mine.

[OptomisticGirl]

Leeluu had a memory foam dog bed that one of my clients gave me, leftover from his dogs bed. Her damn bed was more comfortable than mine.

 

How have I not spread the love enough to rep you again?! Geez. They make them for pets? Hm. I would buy one for Jasper but the little devil probably would never sleep on it!

[hers]

No it was a piEce of memory foam he had leftover from a bed in his house and he cut it in two. One for his dog, one for mine.

[OptomisticGirl]

...that's actually pretty genius. Must keep that stored away in the mind.

[redrose85]

Moe is acting so strange. He keeps disappearing for days. We’re pretty sure he has a second family who also feeds him, because while he’s not fat, he’s gotten really big, even for a maine coon. We’re keeping him inside for a few days so these other people will get the hint. I’d put a collar on him, but he just loses them right away. He does have an ear tag, but if he is shacking up with other people, they don’t seem to care.

 

I just had a tooth pain attack and it made me realize that I need to get this root canal done. I went and talked to Alex about it, said we may just have to spend our wedding savings on it, and he refused to do that. He said tomorrow he’ll call student loans and we’ll get me a student loan for this semester. I’m relieved. I think I’d cry if I had to deplete our hard earned savings! When he put his paycheque in the bank, he switched our chequing account from the movie points system to a money back system, so now we’ll be earning savings even quicker than with just the money back savings account. I thought it was really sweet that he thought to do that.

[hers]

I have our checking account set up to "keep the change". Ie, when we use our debit cards, it rounds the coins up to the nearest dollar and puts them into our savings. We've got over $100 in there right now from that alone! I've also started doing that with cash. If I go somewhere and spend $3.17 in cash, I give them $4, even if I have the $0.17, and put the $0.83 in a jar at home. We've racked up a lot doing that too. It paid for part of our wedding!

 

How do you guys handle household bills and money? Do you have one joint account? Or 2 separate accounts? How do y'all handle it? If it's too nosey, you dont have to answer. I only ask bc I hear a lot of people say they have one household account and then keep a separate account each. I found it was too difficult for me and Jared to do that so we just have one joint account and I handle the actual bill paying. It's easier for us that way. Just curious how others do it.

[OptomisticGirl]

For us (when we get in the same household, lol) we'll do the one join, 2 separate accounts only so with extra spending money I don't have to call him first or check the bank before I use the card to see if he's used the card - we'll both still have access to each other's accounts.

[redrose85]

Not nosey at all!

 

Ours is keep the change too, basically. It’s set up to round up to the nearest $5. We have over $1000 now, and started saving in mid Oct. I love it! Neither of us use cash, but we do have a very full change jar. I think I’ll go to the dollar store tomorrow and get some coin rollers and deposit that into savings.

 

Our finances are all joint, except for the credit card because I still have lousy credit. I use the credit card occasionally. I can’t really remember how long it’s been... I think it’s been about two and a half years since we created a joint account. I was extremely poor and Alex felt that I shouldn’t have to be struggling because we’re partners and everything should be equal, and he wanted to take care of me without me getting all “independent and defensive." It took me a while to come around to the idea, but it’s really worked out great. He keeps track of the bills and pays them online.

[hers]

That's basically what happened when we combined everything. I was always struggling and he always had more than enough for himself, but we both wanted it to be equal. So now it's "our money", even the money I put away each shift I work. If we need to buy something, we just use the one account or cash. I usually give him cash to have in his pocket and he'll use that sometimes. I check the account 2-3 times daily ( call me obsessed) and he always asks me before the day gets started if it's ok to use tha account. But he looks at it too from his phone. He'll ask just bc he doesn't know if I've paid a bill or have a check out there that hasn't cleared. We are really good about communicating about it all. Il make sure to tell him if he can't use the account or I'll just give him cash until the account clears everything. It's working out well for us.

 

I realize how I wrote it it sounds like he has to ask permission but it's not that way at all. I'm just the one who keeps up with it all and he never ever does (even when we had separate accounts...he would overdraft just simply from not watching it al all). I'm ridiculously anal about it and cheap to boot so it works better this way

[hers]

Also, alex sounds so sweet and supportive.

[OptomisticGirl]

I'm anal about my bank as well, which is one reason I'm big on us having one account for household bill and then our own separate accounts. We still view it as our money - even 4,000 miles way if I needed some L would send it and vice versa - we just keep the extra separate to make spending it easier.

[redrose85]

He is very sweet and supportive, for sure. Just a good person all around. My credit is bad because of my ex, but I was also really bad with money and keeping track of things. I’ve gotten better... I buy most major things used (except for our couches, but I bought the love-seat really cheap because it was a floor model) and I really watch what I’m spending. I don’t give in to wants very often anymore. If I did, I’d also have bought a shiny new blender yesterday. The wedding is a huge motivator, but I also don’t want to disappoint him or make him feel like I can’t be trusted.

He really is a great man. I just wish he didn’t love video games so much!

[hers]

Even the greatest ones have their faults, as I learned the hard way!

[redrose85]

I have my faults too, for sure. Today I am inexplicably grouchy. I should probably brush my teeth and go to the gym... Maybe endorphins will help.

[redrose85]

Yeah. Neither of those things happened. Talked to future mother in law for a bit, ate an orange (healthy!) ate some crackers and dip (not healthy!) and am sitting here thinking how crazy it is that we’re approaching our sixth anniversary. I know it’s a little ways away yet, but I want it to be really special. Last years’ was kind of a bust LOL

[hers]

Yeah, last night, apparently when he came to bed, I kept yelling at him for even breathing. We are both sick right now and I was already asleep when he came to bed. I guess he kept sniffling and at one point sneeze, and I kept going "God, Jared! Shut up!" I don't even remember doing htat.

 

He told me everything was his fault last night apparently...I don't remember a thing! That's definitely a fault I have haha