Movin' On Up

Tuesday, September 17, 2013
   We aren't spontaneous people. At all. I usually hem and haw about whatever decision needs to be made and when I'm finally ready to make a decision whatever I was going to buy is gone and the whole process has to start over again. Perhaps this is why it took us 5 years to go from first date to wedding date.

  This week we made a pretty spontaneous decision. We're moving. I've been miserable in our apartment for quite awhile, being overrun by spiders and having a drunk and clumsy at 3am upstairs neighbor isn't really a picnic. We had been looking at rental houses but last Thursday we decided to just stick it out and for awhile. Friday a friend from church sent me a picture on Facebook "My friend has this house for rent if you guys are interested."

 Friday I called the number, Saturday we looked at it, Sunday we said yes, Monday we signed the lease and started moving in. Best part? I rode my bike to work this morning and it took me about 4 minutes to get here! It's in the area of town I've always said I wanted to live, we have trees now! I can put up bird feeders, have flowers, and the walls aren't drab and scratched up, the carpet isn't all stained and icky. I'm so stinkin' excited!!!
I've been kind of like that for the past 48 hours.

 The rent is a bit more than we were paying but we will definitely save on gas and we are closer to town. We had been driving out to the bike path which is about 15 minutes from the apartment and now we can ride to it.
 Here are some more happy gifs. Have a great Tuesday!


Grocery Day!

Saturday, September 14, 2013
  We did manage to stay on budget today! I also managed to lose my Kroger receipt so no recap for today. The only notable thing we purchased is a jar of Coconut Oil. It was on sale for $6.39 which is a pretty good deal. I also found Fage Greek Yogurt for $.35/container.

   Today I made tamales for lunch, they were not fabulous so I ended up eating the chicken with sour cream and some cheddar instead.

   Tonight I made Yogurt Banana Oat Muffins and they are awesome. I used a container of the Fage Greek Yogurt. They are made with oats ground into flour instead of regular flour. I have 2 more overly ripe bananas so I think I will make another batch and freeze them. I would take a picture but my kitchen is kind of a disaster. No need to share that with you folks.

    I'm really glad I stumbled upon this oat flour trick. A friend of mine has recently cut gluten from her diet so it's good to know that I can replace regular flour with oat flour in some baking things.

   Hope everyone is having an excellent weekend! Fall has arrived here in East Tennessee and I don't even have the words to express how amazing it feels! Get out there and enjoy it!

 ~Sunny

Clean Eating for 14 Days

Friday, September 13, 2013
  I have been MIA for awhile, sorry about that! Business from my Etsy shop has started picking up, this is super exciting! I did a craft fair last weekend so I made a few new items for that event so that took up a lot of time as well. My best seller, well in fact my only seller have been my cupcake toothpicks. I have to admit they are pretty darn cute! I may be a bit biased though.


 Also since this is supposed to be a get out of debt blog I feel guilty writing about things that don't pertain to that. Honestly we are now kind of on auto-pilot as far as that goes. I pay all of our bills on the 1st of each month, after that most of the following paychecks are getting moved into the savings account so we can buy a new-to-us car pretty soon. Pretty boring isn't it? There really isn't any magic in getting our student loans paid off, just lots of work and sticking to a budget *yawn*.

 One thing we do struggle with is our food budget and how to balance eating real, healthy foods without breaking the bank.

  I read this article yesterday and passed it along to Phillip. It discusses all of the different additives that go into our food, some of which are actually banned in other countries. Last night we talked about it and are setting up to do a 14 day clean eating plan. So basically for the next 2 weeks this blog will be new recipes and if they worked out or not!

 Here is a chart I found on Pinterest outlining what we'll be attempting to do:


   Basically our goal is to eliminate artificial flavorings, artificial colors, and preservatives. Whatever we eat we will try to get food in its most basic form and then prepare it accordingly.
   I will probably fudge on the avoiding white flour thing, I have never been able to successfully bake a loaf of bread with wheat flour.
   Our budget is going to be $75/week, this will not include meat.We bought a Groupon to a local butcher shop, more about that in another post. We'll also keep track of if we lose any weight and how we feel each day.

 If you'd like to read more about clean eating check out this article.

 Thanks for stopping by!



My First Guest Post!

Monday, September 2, 2013
 I came home to find a link in my inbox to my first guest post ever! It's over at Jennifer McKenna Says. Basically it's an overview of what we are trying to do to get out of debt.

 Now it's my turn to pass on the opportunity to be featured in a guest post here! If you would be interested in sharing your journey to get out of debt send me an e-mail.

 Enjoy your Labor Day!