Just a little house-keeping post to let everyone know what’s going on.

I’ve done some thinking on my posting schedule, and in order to reduce the kind of interruptions that happens when things don’t go as planned…I’m going to start publishing my posts on a one week delay.  I think this will benefit me enough to help me maintain a nice flow here without causing any confusion being that the days of the week will still line up.  I just don’t like how a couple of days can negatively affect my routine that I was just getting comfortable with.

Daily Journal Posts

So, for those that were wondering, my daily posts will pick up this next week again, but will be reflective of what was going on this week.  This will be where I benefit from the schedule the most I think.  If I’m not able to get on the site for one day, I don’t want that post to not happen at all.  And if I line up the days of the week to be the same things will still seem normal.

Resource page updates

I’ll still get these pages updated on the weekends before Monday.  I may do updates more often than that if I feel it’s needed, but for the most part I’ll just keep my local copies up to date and sync up on the weekends.

Regular posts

I’m hoping to do 1-2 regular posts a week on whatever topic happens to be on my mind.  This is the part of the blog that will probably resemble what everyone else does with a blog, but the topics will mostly be related to things that pertain to our situation.

So there it is, my expectations for posts on this blog.  If there are any questions or thoughts, I’m open to critique here.  After all, the majority of the reason for me to do this is accountability.  I feel like I need this blog to help keep me on track, and if I start falling behind you’re likely to be the first to know.  I’m also doing this for anyone else out there that’s struggling with the same things we are.  This is where the community feeling really comes into play with encouragement and sharing what works and what doesn’t for each of us.

Now, off to being Mr. Mom for a day! 

During the last Friday after Thanksgiving I saw an ad for a 20" flat-panel monitor for $190.  I was super-proud of myself for having found the perfect display for the new computer I was going to buy with my tax return money for under $200 and it looks sharp.  One problem…it totally sucks when compared to anything else I’ve ever seen AND it seems to be really temperamental less than a year after I bought it.

I have one piece of advice for anyone considering spending a significant amount of time in front of their computer…buy a nice monitor.  Now I’m not talking size being the important factor.  I’m talking quality. 

The Problems

Quality.  I’m used to working on ultra-sharp flat-panel Dell displays at work.  Three of them side-by-side actually with the middle one being 20".  (yeah, you probably think I’m spoiled, but trust me when I say I’m far more productive at work than I am at home on this "measly" little 20" all by its lonesome)  Looking at an ultra-sharp, then looking at this no-name can’t display clearly at high resolutions that has faded lines floating up the screen when you stare at it monitor…it just hurts to even compare them.

Reliability.  So, fine.  The quality isn’t that great.  But now it’s flickering off at random forcing me to push the power button twice to get it to display anything again…only to randomly turn off again.  It was so bad a couple days ago that I couldn’t even hit save on everything I had open before closing windows.

Solution

Use another monitor.  I borrowed a buddy’s monitor to at least get my computer back on so I could at least get caught up with email.  Worst case scenario, I can sit on this spare monitor until I inherit another one.  (Which I happen to have lined up this January from my parents before any of this even happened…)  Super thanks to Emma who offered to send me one.  I’m simply amazed at the thoughtfulness of this offer and am just so grateful that I’m almost speechless.

Try to "fix" it.  Then thought I’d try a few things to get this thing working.  First attempt to turn it on and I got about 3-4 minutes out of it.  *poof*  There it went.  Flicked the power button a couple times and got about 10 seconds out of it.  *poof*  Again.  Ok, smack it around?  No.  That’s the last resort before we trash it.  :)  How about the vacuum cleaner?  I can get bonus points for using the vacuum in here anyway.  (We’ll just let the wife think we’re in the mood to clean…)  That’s a win-win, may as well.  ;) 

So I put do the floor real quick, couple spider-webs on the ceiling…then just suck the heck out of the back of this monitor.  I must have spent a good 2-3 minutes cramming the tube up to the vents on this thing to get the best suction I could on it.  Time to try it out…aaaaaand looks like we may be back in business.  Believe it or not, the monitor is actually working ok right now.

[Update: I’ve had it flick off a couple times since I cleaned it out, but blowing in the back of it a few times before turning it back on seems to work.  Talk about lame.]

The Lesson

Now, when I first plugged this thing in I realized just what I’d done.  I’d traded a measly $150 for the next three years of my life sitting in front of this low-quality knock-off.  Was it worth it?  Am I happy that I went with the super-cheap version of my window into the Internet?  I’ll just answer with a nice fat "NO" and go cheap on something else next time I’m in the market for a computer.  Something I stare at needs to be a little better than this.

I’m having some issues with my monitor, (thanks Murphy!) so I’m behind a couple days now.  I’ll update as soon as I can get a loaner from a friend.  I’ve got a lot to say too.  Good and bad.  :-/

Until then!

[Update:  I’ve got a spare to use for awhile, and looks like the trouble-maker may still have signs of life after smacking it around a little.  I’ll describe things in more detail tomorrow.  I have some catching up to do for now.]

Today’s spending sure seemed like it was just a few things from the store, but we quite easily spent over $100 again.  Half that being groceries and the other half filling up the car with some good ol’ near-$3 gas.

Something amazing has happened the last couple weeks though.  I’m now totally aware of what we’re buying, and I almost take each purchase as a personal slap in the face.  Some sort of transformation happened lately where I just take more notice of things even though much of this spending is very much the same as before.  (i.e. gas)

Have any of you gone though such a transformation?  I’m wondering if this is something that’s just happening because we’re kinda new to all this, or if it’s something that you continue to feel while living more frugally.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $104 (groceries & gas)
• Debt Reduced -$0

Yet another day where we didn’t actually spend any money!

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $0
• Debt Reduced -$0

On a side note, this is the first time I’ve ever tried participating in a blog carnival of any kind.  I’ll post more on those later, but it’s something I’ve always thought about doing and figured I may as well try it now with a couple of the posts on the site.  So welcome carnival readers!

I’ve also updated my resource pages with the latest budget, spend log, sacrifices and such.  I’m pretty sure I won’t have any trouble keeping those up to date on a weekly basis, but there’s just no way I’m going to be able to keep updated budget files on the site daily.  It’s just too much work.  I do manage everything locally on a daily basis though, or I’ll just get too far behind that I won’t be able to keep accurate progress.

Almost two weeks into the real hardcore get-out-of-debt effort, and we finally had to cave a little.  We simply ran out of time after a soccer game and ended up buying mom some lunch on the way to her work.  Frankly, I think we’ve done a really good job when stopping to get a burger makes us cringe so much.  I literally think she would have been willing to go without lunch to avoid hitting drive-thru.  I love my wife, but no way am I going to let her do that to herself.

As for the broken garbage disposal, well…that set us back just over $100 out of our emergency fund.  But that’s what it’s for right?  We’re running a tight ship here, and if the disposal is the worst thing that happens we’ll still be just fine.  Luckily I have absolutely no problem doing the work myself.  If I had to hire a plumber to do the work for me it may have cost me twice as much.  I was actually able to do it in just a couple of hours including the trip to the hardware store.

I could have gone with a lesser model on that and saved $30-40, but those were half the size of the one we had before.  I went with an equivalent sized model just because I know we’re going to use it plenty.  A large family that hardly ever eats out simply uses their kitchen appliances more than others.  I dare not skimp on the quality of them for fear that I’ll be replacing them annually.

Today’s Progress:

• Earned - $0
• Spent - $110 (Lunch for mom & disposal)
• Debt Reduced -$0