2016!

Welcome to 2016! I’m a little behind the 8 ball given that it is already the 17^th of January! But I have been enjoying some much needed holiday time with my little family. This week I’m getting back into it and sharing some of my goals and plans for this year. I love the idea of a new year. It feels like a fresh start, a clean slate to try and do better than you did the year before. The reality is that we actually get that every day. If you have had a bad day for whatever reason, you can wake up in the morning and start over, try harder. For me, trying harder actually means doing less. Last year I took on too many commitments outside of the house, which then had a negative impact on my family. The things that I was involved in were all fantastic to be part of but it’s not fantastic when your home life suffers as a result of them. So this year, although I am still involved in as many committees or activities, I have lessened my responsibilities within them. One of my goals this year is to run a Stress less household and cutting down on responsibilities outside the house goes a long way to contribute to this.

I have some personal goals around health & fitness and I am also working on being more organised with life, the house and budgeting! Speaking of budgeting, we are actually going to be trying to pay off a significant amount of debt that sits outside of our home loan. This is part of our plan to become completely debt free! We have been living in survival mode for the past few years and with some changes this year, we want to be wise with the money that we have to get us back to a better financial situation. We will see how we go!!

We have so many plans for around the house. So many projects, all done on a budget of course. Here are some photos of what we will be working on.

First, this door is not going to be pink...yes that’s right PINK, for much longer friends. I am so excited. As soon as the kids go back to school (in 10 days, but whose counting. Actually I’m loving having them home!), It’s getting done. As in that day! I can’t wait!!!

 These kitchen cupboards (which can only be described as Salmon!) are getting a makeover. Clearly this house was built in an era when pink was in! Did that exist??!

The blinds and flooring makeovers will be finished!

This door into our ensuite will be going....stay tuned for what we do in this area!

                                                  

There are many other projects, including a lot of painting but they are just the major ones.

And last but certainly not least...actually it’s the most important and my number 1 goal for this year (and life)! I want to love & serve God in all that I do. I want to spend more time reading God’s word and learning how to better honour Him in my marriage, with my kids, in relationships and just generally in the way I act & speak. I would not be here if it wasn’t for our great God and he deserves my best!

Thanks for following along in my journey. This month has just ticked over the 1 year mark of blogging @ A Happy Frugal Life! Wowzers that year went fast. Thanks for listening to all my ramblings! And putting up with all my exclamation marks!!!!

Until next time,

Kylie xx

How we got to where we are now

My hubby Pete and I got married in 2003.In the middle of 2005, we bought our 1^st home. We had to wait for the house that fitted our price range. So when a little 3 bedroom house in town (when I say town, I mean the centre of Nowra!) came up at the right price and we jumped on it straight away. It had a lot of work to do but it was totally liveable and most of all it was ours. Over the next 8 years, we gradually renovated it, extending our mortgage to do the majority of it. This was fine at the time as we had the finances to back it up. During this time, we also had 2 gorgeous little people, Katie & Jack.

Towards the end of 2013, an unexpected tragedy happened which would result in me making a massive financial decision for our family. At this time I was working 4 long days a week in a job that I no longer enjoyed and found incredibly stressful. On top of that, I was travelling between 1.5-2 hours per day for work. At the time hubby was working 5 days a week & studying fulltime. We had a fairly decent income at the time but needless to say our family life was not fantastic. When our tragedy happened, I made the decision immediately (literally) that I would not be returning to work. Taking my wage out of the equation was a very big deal for us, especially given that only half hubby’s income was permanent, the rest was casual. Financially our life become harder, but in every other way, it become so much better. We had planned to finish our house, as we wanted to sell it and buy a bigger one in a suburb 5 minutes away. So we used everything we had and we completed the last few things on the house. At the start of 2014 it up for sale. It took 5 months for someone to make an offer and we accepted it that day. We bought the house that we had had our eye on in the suburb that we wanted. We got it for a steal because it had been rented to terrible tenants and let’s just say it wasn't very appealing to walk thru, so it had been on the market for over 6 months(at an already good price).  In August 2014, we moved into our new home. We sold our 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, no garage home and bought a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, double garage home. After paying out the $25K in fees (so much money straight down the loo), we still came out $20K less in debt. How awesome is that?!!! Bigger house in the area that we wanted and less debt! 

Due to studying and different work arrangements, there had never been a time that we had been on 2 full time incomes, so we had to often been on a small budget. Last year was definitely our hardest year and we would not have gotten thru in the way that we did, had it not been for the help of our beautiful family and friends. 

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When things are tough, there is normally light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of last year, Pete graduated from University as a teacher. We also welcomed our precious little rainbow baby Mia to our family. She is seriously Beautiful (Just like her older brother & sister)!!!

For now, we are still on a fairly small budget. However over the last year, i have come to realise how much you can do on a small budget. I’ve been forced to become more money savvy than I have ever been and I actually now enjoy trying to do things on a budget.  I love a good bargain, DIY reno’s & projects and trying to keep my grocery bill to $100 a week.  I had wanted to start blogging but hadn’t quite found my niche, but now here it is, the birthing of “A Happy Frugal life”(Thanks to my big sis for coming up with the name), doing life on a budget. Seeing as I’m really keen on making my house homely, there will probably be alot on the blog revolving around renovations and DIY house projects, but there will still be other things too. If you want to follow along with me, hit like on the Facebook page and subscribe at the bottom of the blog page.

Promise the next blog won’t be an essay (I know one friend who will be really happy about that!)

Kylie xx