Since I began my financial turnaround in 2009 and began focusing on paying off my debt, I found that it was really easy at first. I had no time and no money, and I was in a ton of debt so there was nothing else on my mind, every. single. day.
Since I’ve now paid off 3 credit cards, 2 student loans and taken out (and paid off) a vehicle loan, I dont feel like my back is up against the wall anymore. I’ve gotten married since then, and now H and I make a comfortable income compared to our expenses, and have been able to save quite a bit of money over the last couple years. We bought a house, spent a boatload fixing it up, and are now just trying to take care of the last little things (and build a new room, which is also almost finished). That being said, I’ve been feeling for quite a while that we probably should be saving more money. It’s not like we are going on a bunch of trips to far-flung locales, we arent buying a whole slug of new appliances, and we arent really buying anything big – just kind of wasting money because of our occasionally lack of preparation (mainly around mealtimes).
Though we would like to save more, it’s always difficult without a concrete reason. We arent going to alaska again this summer (which I think my wife is still broken hearted about – as am I), we dont have a wedding or a honeymoon to save for, and we arent making major upgrades on the house any longer. The compulsive urge to save has dwindled, so we are looking for ways to get it back on track.
Well, we didnt have to look for long. We found out that we are pregnant toward the end of august, which was very exciting. We had been trying for a few months, and both H and I were happy that it finally took (though I wouldnt mind still being in the trying phase). We went to the doctor to get everything confirmed at week 8, and we were not prepared for what happened there.
As we were getting the ultrasound done, the tech moved the little wand around and I thought I saw 2 black spots on the screen. All I thought to myself was Holy shit, there’s 2! and a few seconds later, the tech said “well, it looks like there’s 2 in there” and my wife looked pretty shocked. We both left the doctor pretty excited and a bit nervous.
(For those that were at fincon, this is why you didnt see much of my wife – she still was not feeling all that hot in october). For those that heard me talking about her, and were convinced that she didnt exist (Joel, Kevin) she’s very real.
Right now, mom and babies are feeling much better than they have, and are starting to enjoy life again. Officially, our due date is may 1, but that is for 40 weeks and twins almost never make it that long – we are expected to go 37 weeks, which will put us sometime around early to mid april. She’s starting to tell people at work, but a lot of them have not figured out quite yet – she’s showing, but not all that much, considering it’s twins.
Needless to say, there’s now a fire lit under us again (though we did buy a roomba, but that’s a subject for another post) and we’ve been doing pretty well at increasing our savings drastically. I’ll let you know more about exactly where we are at the end of the month, but I think we are doing pretty good so far.
Right now, I’m also searching for ways to lower our impact (cost, and waste) while raising twins – those things go through diapers and baby wipes like it’s going out of style! So soon, be on the look out for some of the things that my wife and I are learning in the process.
Readers: Do you have any kids? Got any helpful tips for us? Leave them in the comments (please!)