Up and Down...and Back Up

As I suspected upon my last trip home, my friend ended up gaining weight. She's been on a roller coaster the last few years with her weight and it seems to have returned. It's hard to see her go through what she does because it's so out of her control. She has a few medical issues that cause her to change often and it's quite drastic when it does. I think in one aspect she doesn't mind it so much, because she gets to go shopping for clothes almost every time it does happen lol. She works in a hospital and this last binge of spending was on nursing uniforms. At least she doesn't have to go too far out there with a new wardrobe every time LOL.

Changes

It's really sad when things you know change sometimes. One of my friends, who has been married for a long time, is splitting with her husband. She lives in the LA area and I could swear they've been together forever. She decided to let him keep most everything and get a clean start, but since she's on a limited budget, she's found it's not as easy as she had thought. Lucky for her, there are lots of discount furniture stores in los angeles and the like for her to get great things at a lower price. I may be going out there at some point to help her out, but at least I know that she will be okay.

Just One More

As if our money troubles aren't tight enough, we've decided to go one step further and...have a baby! Yup, I'm pregnant and if all goes well, we will have another person in the family later this year. It's exciting, scary, and fun all at the same time. Of course we planned this as much as we possibly could, but knowing that our time was running out pushed things ahead a little bit. I can't wait to see how everything turns out!

Saving for the Holidays

I'm already contemplating how to go about saving for next Christmas and birthdays. It's not going to be at all easy this year with the things that we already know are coming up, but now is the time to start planning already. Luckily, we were able to give the kids some pretty nice things, most of the toys the little ones wanted and some money and wii games for the older one. We really need to save up so that we can get shopping done earlier next time, this one we cut pretty close and ended up having to substitute some things, which was rather disappointing for us at least.

Mom obsessed with saving

Contributed by Milford Woods

My mother has probably become the biggest cheapskate there is. There is nothing wrong with being cheap and saving money, but she takes it to an entirely new lever. She will not buy anything without a coupon or a deal of some sort. I think it all started when she found http://www.wildbluedeals.com/. She realized how much she could have saved over the years and it pained her. She then started researching other deal sites. Her favorite is southernsavers.com. This site gives her all the best deals around town on groceries and beauty supplies. I have to admit that she has saved a lot of money and gotten a lot of cheap shampoo, but the obsession is getting a little out of control. My dad had to clean out the garage because she wants to start a stockpile of all the extra items she is buying. Last week, she came home with sixty tubes of toothpaste. There is no way our family of four will go through sixty tubes of toothpaste. I’m not sure how to stop this new obsession.

Collections

We all have our fair share of collections in this family but one of them I never really understood is the coin collecting. One of my relatives likes to collect everything from military coins to the things you see on TV. I'm sure that they will be worth a lot of money one day but I've never really heard of anyone cashing in big on something like that. I'm sure it's worth it if it's something you really enjoy...it's kind of like all of the little things I stash away, although those aren't worth nearly as much money lol.

New Gift Giving

The one hard thing about having new people in your life is this time of year. I haven't quite known my BF that long, nor his parents, and I definitely don't know everything about them yet. This makes it difficult to get something thoughtful unless you are really paying attention. Being men, my BF and his dad tend to not vocalize what it is they'd ever like to have either, but at least I've picked up a few things. This year we are getting his dad some Rocky Patel cigars because that is one of his favorite brands and my BF...well, I'm not sure I will post that quite yet considering he may come across this at some point, but it's awesome LOL.