Surprise Renovation! eek

We woke up yesterday morning and noticed that mold was growing under our bathroom sink (yeah, we didn't notice earlier) so we called the plumber, Jarron Jones, proprietor of TriJ Plumbing in Cape Coral, FL. In less than 30 minutes he had cut a large hole in our wall, torn out the sink and the vanity (which fell apart from rot pretty much) and in just over an hour he had fixed the problem...the valve in our guest bathroom shower had broken and was leaking into the wall! Now, we have to replace the sink (since the whole thing pretty much fell apart) and re-drywall the wall but not before treating the inside of the wall for mold (Bleach and water spray will work fine).

How is that for a surprise attack on the bank account?! So far, this renovation is up to $749.00! And we have not purchased dry wall, tape or paint yet. What is the good thing though? Well, we have a couple of good things, one being that we were able to replace our standard, boring white sink for a new, trendy-looking one. We went to Ebay this morning and purchased from seller Decorselections whose store can be located at www.stores.ebay.com/Concept-Baths-and-Interiors
Here is the sink that we purchased from them!
Their price was just right...it's a great deal and many of the items in their store are priced just right. You will not be disappointed with your purchase. You'll most likely not get a better deal anywhere.

I mentioned that I had a couple of good things to talk about this.

The second is that we were able to afford this surprise renovation because we used Dave Ramsey's get out of debt program called Financial Peace Univeristy. Go to www.daveramsey.com to learn in detail about Dave and his program. It's not a cheesy, boring get out of debt by having no life type of a deal. It's fun and entertaining...and DO-ABLE! We had over $10,000 in credit card debt, over $15,000 in car loans and next to $0 in savings.

By using his program we were inspired to get rid of one car, paying off the other and getting rid of all our credit card debt in a year! (We don't make much money either) Also, in June we bought our first house, $44,900 a foreclosure. Our mortgage is $350.00 per month...think about it...we were paying $750 in rent a year ago.
Also, Dave Ramsey teaches about having an emergency fund which is 3-6 months expenses in the bank. Not to be touched for anything except emergencies. Well, we had 3 months expenses saved and the $1000 or so dollars this whole project is going to cost us in the end...it'll be paid for using cash...finally, we had a plan for our emergencies and Visa, Mastercard or American Express did not have a better option!

So, you have two things to do. Check out the Ebay store owned by Decorselections and go to www.daveramsey.com

God bless you and happy shopping (and happy getting out of debt)

{The Husband}

The new job...

Carrabba's is going smoothly. Honestly, the training is grueling; five days of classrooms and memorization of the entire menu. The menu test was eight pages full of blank lines...yes, you had to read the menu item and then describe it to a "T." However, I passed with a "very well" from the trainers who were brought in from out of town. This is serious stuff.

My first three days on the floor by myself brought in enough to meet our weekly budget! I stressed a bit last night, but one of my wonderful coworkers said, "It's only food. It's only food." I calmed down a bit. I worked a twelve hour shift on Valentines day and the day after I worked an eleven hour shift. The next time your server looks or acts a little stressed out or "out of it" think of how long they may have been there. One of the cooks had only been AWAY from the restaurant 5 hours in 3 days! No joke.

Our Etsy business is going well. Sales are slow, but so is the economy. We're trying to keep our thinking caps on and are wondering what we should do in order to not only boost sales for our store, but help other people get more for their money. We'll keep you up to date on those types of things.

Now to our favorite part of this blog: FEATURING

My wife just purchased some beautiful hand made posies made from old post cards and I wanted to get on here and talk about them. I can't wait to see them decorate our house! Seller AUTUMNTOMAY located at www.autumntomay.etsy.com is a wonderful artist and must be featured on this small, yet growing blog of mine. Her stuff is absolutely beautiful and screams creativity. Great job Autumntomay and I can't wait to see the posies!

Alright, I promise it won't be so long as I am trying to blog every other day at the very least.

Peace!

Kyle
{The Husband}