Saving for the Future

Our electric bill is $20 less than last month! woohoo!!! I guess not having our AC on upstairs for 3 days and changing out some light bulbs for CFL ones saved us a few bucks! Even though it's only $20, I see it as God's way of looking out for us. We love our house and we don't want to move. We did some major cosmetic improvements inside and now we are trying to improve our yard so with all the time, sweat, and tears that we have put into making our house look better, I don't want to move. Nick has applied for 25 jobs so far. I am so proud of him for getting a jump start on the job hunt. We are really hopeful. Out of the two of us, I am the more positive one, I think Nick will have a job lined up before Thanksgiving, while Nick tends to think in terms of worse case scenario. We are really mindful of our financial situation and what it could be if Nick spends any time being unemployed. The secret behind saving money is making smart choices. We take our lunch to work every day, we don't go out to eat or to the movies, and we don't buy anything we don't need. We enjoy date nights at home with redbox rentals and $4 frozen pizza from Wal-Mart. Last Saturday and Sunday we spent the afternoon working in our backyard and then playing board games. We played Uno and Battleship. We are competitive when we play against each other so it's really fun! I share all this with you to point out that you don't have to spend a lot of money in order to enjoy life. To me saving money is fun! We could go to the movies and spend maybe $7 on gas to get there, $14 on tickets, and $12 on popcorn and drinks, but while we might enjoy the movie, we would spend $32. It's way more appealing to me to spend $2 on gas to drive to redbox, $1.11 on the movie, and $4 on pizza made in our oven, a grand total of $7.11. We also enjoy playing Wii games together. I kick Nick's butt when we play darts and bowling. I grew up watching my parents live pay check to pay check and it always made me sad. I'm hoping that by us saving money and pinching pennies now that our children will not have to see us struggle financially. I want to be able to afford annually family vacations and pay for college tuition without going in debit.