Dollar Stretching

Since becoming a stay at home mom, we've had to find creative ways for saving money and keeping our monthly expenses down.  Here are a few things we've done to help keep money in our pockets:

1.  Cut the Cable About a year and a half ago we made the decision to kick Dish Network to the curb.  This was a thrilling occasion for us, as we've had numerous headache inducing customer service experiences with Dish and every time the smallest storm would pass by, our reception would completely disappear.  Since we live in thunderstorm country, we were without reception quite often.  After cancelling our contract with Dish, we purchased a digital antenna and hooked up our television to a computer with a TV tuner and Windows Media Center, which has a built in DVR feature.  We are able to record most of our shows using Windows Media Center and catch our other favorite shows over the internet on Hulu.  There are a few shows on the Food Network and HGTV that I do miss watching, but many can be found on Hulu, and PBS has a few good cooking shows to help fill the gap.  The best part of catching our television waves over the air, is never having to deal with customer "no" service ever again and freeing up $60 a month is pretty nice too!  Oh, and our reception has stayed intact in even the most severe thunderstorms.
Annual savings = $720

2.  Know Your Neighbors Getting to know our neighbors has helped us save money on several occasions each year.  The power of numbers can really help when negotiating pricing for home maintenance, general upkeep, and home improvement services.  Many companies are willing to drop their price if they can get multiple households to sign up at the same time and splitting the cost of lawn and tool rental equipment can also help stretch the almighty dollar.  We've used our neighbor connections to save money on our annual backflow prevention testing and lawn equipment rental each Fall.  The same principal could be used for larger and more expensive services for even bigger savings.  So get out there and make friends with your neighbor!     
Annual savings = $45   

3.  Shopping Insurance Companies As we are fast approaching our 3 year anniversary of living in North Carolina, it is, once again, time for us to renew our homeowner insurance policy.  I received quite the shocker a few weeks ago, when our new policy arrived in the mail.  Geico was increasing our premium by nearly $300!!!  Say what!?!  It was just the kick in the butt I needed to shop around and see if we could do better.  I tried Liberty Mutual first, and received a quote around the same price as our old premium; however, I was really turned off by the slimy salesman I spoke to on the phone.  I decided to check out Clark Howard's website to educate myself on consumer information pertaining to homeowner insurance.  Clark recommends two highly rated companies and offers a couple of suggestions to help keep your annual insurance premiums low without exposing yourself to undue risk.  Next up was to call Amica, one of the insurance companies Clark recommends, and get a quote.  Speaking to the insurance agent at Amica was a completely different experience from my encounter with Liberty Mutual.  The girl I spoke with exhibited excellent customer service and never tried to talk me into adding unnecessary items to the policy.  She didn't have any problem with me wanting to increase our deductible (Clark Howard suggests setting your deductible at $1000) or removing the refrigerated property coverage from the policy, plus she found out that we had been significantly over insured these last 3 years through Geico. Sign me up!
Annual savings = $669     


These are just a few simple ways we've found to help pay off our school loans and save for our upcoming Disney vacation.  Care to share your own money saving strategies?  


Images found here and here and here.

This Old House

When Chris and I originally planned on buying a house in North Carolina, we set our sights on hunting down an older home.  In the end, though, we choose to buy a brand new house, for it's move-in ready, maintenance free qualities.  Since we were first time homeowners, moving away from all our friends and family with a one year old little girl, buying a fixer upper didn't sound like such a smart idea.

Lately, in my obsession to read the entirety of Young House Love's archives, the desire to own an older home, chock full of character, has been forefront in my thoughts.  That is until today when I stumbled upon this story via The Consumerist:

 Every kid talks about how they're going to have a secret room in his house when they grow up... so imagine the delight of reader Jeannine to discover the house she bought actually came with one! And then imagine how that delight turned to revulsion as she and her partner opened it up and found countless piles of garbage covered with white puffy mold! 

Yeah, my never-been-lived-in-by-anyone-but-us house is looking pretty darn good to me right about now.  Many of the couple's complaints about the condition of the home they bought, are to be expected from an older home, but a secret room full of moldy garbage is like a scene straight out of an episode of Hoarders.  I think we'll stay put for the time being.

Modern Disappointment

I was anxiously awaiting to hit the next house on our short list of homes to see on the local 2010 Green Homes tour.  My personal architectural style tends to lien more traditional, but I was really looking forward to checking out this uber modern house designed and built by Anchorage Building Corp.  The house is built on an infill lot with a "sundial" siting, meaning that the front door sits square to the sun at noon everyday of the year.

This artist rendition of the house prominently posted in the Green Home Tour program should have clued me in that the house is still under construction, but after visiting the first house, in it's almost done condition, I had hoped we would find the modern house in similar fashion.  We arrived at the lot, located on a narrow street and precariously parked on the side of the road.  With kids in tow, we hiked up the muddy dirt driveway to find a slab and a few concrete walls.  Bummer!  Not a whole lot to see, especially with two little ones.  I had visions of Jackson walking straight out of a window frame from the top floor.  We decided not to chance a potential disaster and headed home with two tuckered out kids.

I look forward to checking out next years Green Home Tour and hope to add more homes to hit up next time.  Although, if I could make a helpful suggestion to the tour coordinators, it would be to include more information on the stage of construction the various homes will be in, as both homes on our list had artist renditions, but were found in completely different conditions.

Detour To The Dark Side

Yesterday we ended with our first stop on the 2010 Green Home Tour.  The southern charmer was located in Chapel Hill's new Winmore neighborhood.  As we were weaving through the neighborhood streets to find our way to the next house on our list, Chris noticed another open house.  We decided to take a quick detour from our environmentally friendly house tour and take a look at what the dark side had to offer.

Apparently, the "dark side" has less loop holes to jump through during the construction phase because this baby was D.O.N.E.  We had to put a short leash on each of the kids while peeking around the inside of the immaculately decorated house.  Below are a couple pictures of elements around the house that I found intriguing. 

Mini glass tiles around fireplace.

This fireplace, white mantel included, is reminiscent of our own, minus the shiny glass mosaic tiles.  I loved how the tiles added just the right amount of shimmer to make the fireplace really pop and would love to do something similar to add a little bling to the dull black slate that currently surrounds our fireplace.   

Covered porch with behemoth lantern.

The all brick porch was full of character with dark stained beadboard between think green beams and topped off with a large rustic lantern.  A perfect place to enjoy a glass of lemonade and a good book while rocking in one of those Cracker Barrel rockers!  

Next up, a modern disappointment!  

  

2010 Green Home Tour

These past two weekends, the Green Home Builders of the Triangle hosted their 2010 Green Home Tour, which took place in 5 surrounding triangle counties.  There were over 30 participating homes currently in the process of being certified green included in the free, self guided tour. I'm all for free weekend entertainment, so we grabbed our camera and gathered up the little ones for a Sunday afternoon of environmentally friendly home touring.  


The first home we stopped at was a real southern charmer with a double decker porch and two sets of french doors on the bottom level.  If I didn't loath two story homes, and I had a boat load of money, I'd move right into this place.  The home was still under construction with no flooring and most of the finishing touches still waiting to be installed.  I was a little worried about how the kids would do, running around fancy houses, but with no furniture or carpets to ruin, this was a great first stop.  

This home had a few elements I had to snap photos of to keep for possible future projects to Casa de Silvey.  Here are just a few:

Something like this would work great next to our coat closet by the front door.  

The stairwell is very similar to our own and although, I don't care for these particular light fixtures, I can appreciate the sentiment.  

Check back tomorrow for another installment of our Green Home Tour.  Spoiler Alert - we take a small detour!  

Curb Appeal

We'll continue with the outdoor theme for my second entry to Metamorphosis Monday.  Our house had been vacant and neglected for nearly a year before we bought the house and moved in.  Before signing the mountain of legal documents to make the house ours, we met with the KB Homes warranty team to make sure all repairs were done.  Chris, our realtor, and I were following the supervisor around the outside of the house, when the supervisor took a wrong step right into a huge sink hole in front of the planter.  If we only knew then, how much work this yard had cut out for us!  Here's what our pathetic yard looked like shortly before we received the keys to our new house.

Weeds and half dead plants riddled the front planter.  

We became first time homeowners during the middle of a very hot and dry summer in which we lost many a landscape battle.  Our first landscape triumph came that following spring when we installed a stone wall around the front planter.  Since then, we've planted rose trees with yellow blooms on either side of the walkway to the porch and replaced all other dead plants with Azalea and Japanese Spiraea.  The grass is finally starting to grow as well!  Oh, and the sink hole has since been filled by a KB Home landscaper!

Here's a close up of the new rose tree we planted this year.  

Unfortunately, it won't be long before these roses will be covered with Japanese Beetles.  Chris noticed a small swarm of them around these very roses a few days ago.  Ah, the joys of living in the south.  We'll continue to use the same plan of attack we took last year and stay on a steady schedule of systemic.  The beetles try feasting on the blooms only to be poisoned to death.  The only problem is, that once the beetles die, they stay on the bloom instead of falling off.

Do you live in the south and have found a better way of dealing with those pesky Japanese Beetles attacking your plants?  Please share your knowledge by leaving a comment!

Metamorphosis Monday

While blog hopping late last night, I ran across a weekly blog party over at Between Naps on the Porch.  Every week they host Metamorphosis Monday.  A party for people to show off all their great Before and After photos of recently completed home projects.

I thought I would join the fun this week with a huge project that Chris and I completed a few weeks ago.  Below is the Before picture of our drab backyard a few weeks prior to becoming first time homeowners.

And here is the After photo of our very own backyard playground! 

The grandparents purchased the playset from Costco last summer.  Chris and I built it, from start to finish, all on our own.  I even learned how to use a drill!  For the finishing touches we added a pallet full of rubber mulch and Frame It All border to keep the mulch out of the grass area.  The kids love having a "park" in their own backyard and I love sending Maya outside while preparing dinner in peace!  

Check back next Monday for another recently completed outdoor transformation.  This time on a smaller scale!