Hey everyone! Happy Monday. This past weekend was a very relaxing one, but I did get a good amount of work done. The weather was also fantastic. It was almost a little too cold for windows to be open at night!
The picture to the left is from yesterday when we went for a long drive. We live in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and drove around in Illinois along the river. There were tons of boats out yesterday! Perfect weather for it. Definitely makes us want a sailboat.
I have been thinking about travel a lot lately. I am thinking about a road trip to the Pacific Northwest.
There are a lot of outdoorsy activities that I want to do there. I also want to go to Colorado in the winter time, go to Chicago to visit family, and hopefully go somewhere warm with a nice beach and good drinks.
An Alaskan cruise has been on my mind also. Can you tell that my mind is just all over the place? 🙂
This is what will be great about self-employment, the freedom to do things that I want. However, until I know how self-employment will be for at least a little while, travel will wait until I am certain that some long-term travel won’t kill our budget and savings.
Spending
Spending has been fairly low the past couple of weeks. I can’t really think of too many things that we have bought lately. I did go to a thrift store the other day and found some aviator Ray Bans for only $35 (yes, they are real), and I had to get those immediately as I was thinking about buying a pair, but at $150 I am not interested.
We did find out that we need to buy new tires for the Camaro already. AH! The car only has 8,000 miles on it which hurts even more, but oh well.
Food spending has been lower than ever, and we are doing great with eating in more often. It does help that we have been too lazy to go to restaurants and prefer the comfort of eating in our own home. We are wanting to start our own garden as well. Does anyone know of any good intro to gardening blogs?
Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)
Extra income was good in the past two weeks. September seems like it will turn out to be a strong month. I’m hoping that it will be better than August.
If anyone needs any help, check out my Hire Me page and let me know what services you are interested in. Lately, a few other website owners have asked me to help run their website while they are gone for just a month or two, so this is a new service that I am also offering. If you are starting a new job, about to have a baby, want to do some long-term travel or something else, please let me know.
I do need to start ramping up my side hustles, as lately I haven’t been trying to get myself out there as much and contact potential new clients. I’m really just focusing on providing high quality work to my current clients. However, soon I will have plenty more time and I want to fill up these time slots with other work of course.
I have started making some major steps towards my self-employment switch date. I will be making an announcement once everything is said and done so that I can protect myself. Stay tuned… 🙂
Being healthy
This section has been a complete fail lately. I must be doing something right because my wedding dress was a little too big when I picked it up, and I need to get it taken in (I ordered it to perfectly match me). I have been doing well with eating a little more healthy, and I have been going on a couple of long walks every week.
I have been thinking about joining that Diet Bet thing that everyone is talking about. You put something like $30 into a group pot and if you lose a certain amount of weight then you get to split the pot. Sounds interesting to me. I know that the dollar amount isn’t something that would kill me to lose, but I definitely do think that it would be a good motivator to be more healthy.
Have any of you done this Diet Bet program? Tell me about it!
Wedding Planning
My wedding dress arrived last week! I picked it up on Saturday, and all of my dress regret is gone. I am so in love with it. Some of you are probably thinking that I’m overreacting, but I tried the dress on in pink (they didn’t have it in white), so I was afraid that when it arrived in white that I wouldn’t like it anymore.
I still have not decided on wedding colors. I’m stuck between cream, blush and peach. All very similar but still hard for me to decide. We also need to send out our save the dates soon. And find a caterer. And a DJ. And find a tent, chair, and table rental company. The other things can wait a little bit longer.
I do have a post about how I’m churning credit cards to help pay for my bachelorette party in Vegas. Should be live either Tuesday or Wednesday. I know, I know, some people think that it’s tacky that I am helping plan my own bachelorette party, but I really do not care. I always plan our girls’ vacations, so why would this be any different? I also don’t want my girls to spend a lot of money on the trip, so I’m working on racking up points to help pay for the trip.
Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?
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The Pacific NW is so beautiful! But you have to go fast or winter will come in. I am in France right now, feasting on all the foods I miss in Guatemala, not good for the waist but so good for the soul.
I can’t wait! And yes, we definitely want to go there when the weather is nice.
Just a heads up, you probably have like 1 or 2 sunny weekends left. It’s blustery up here today, and getting colder every night. But fall in the Northwest is FRIGGIN BEAUTIFUL, so don’t fret if you miss out on summer 🙂
Good to know! Thanks 🙂
That’s some nice extra income, just like always! The weather is really cold here already and we were just talking the other day that this must’ve been the coldest year we’ve ever seen with the shortest summer. I don’t like cold weather so I am a bit depressed now that the fall is really here.
Thank you C!
The weather here has been hopping back and forth. I believe it was 90 degrees at the beginning of last week and then by Friday it was in the 50s/60s.
Wow, your incomes figures are usually quite encouraging. September has been an awesome month for me in terms of my goals for more side income, health and happiness 🙂 definitely looking forward to ratchet up my hustle efforts.
Secondly, seems like you have your plate full in terms of planning for your wedding and all. Wish you the very best.
Thank you Simon 🙂
That is great that September has been good for you. It’s been a good September overall for me as well.
Awesome job on the income as usual!!!
We went to the Pacific Northwest in our honey moon and loved it. But, I don’t know if I would want to live there. A bit to mellow and a bit to rainy for me. But going for a week was fun!
Good to know! I can’t wait 🙂
Brilliant work offering website management while people are away on vacation or taking some time off. You just keep on coming up with different ways to keep that side income figure growing!
Thank you! 🙂
Hooray for your wedding dress being too big without even trying. And I don’t think its tacky to help plan your bachelorette party – especially since it’s a destination party. It would be kind of hard not to be involved.
I’m glad that you don’t think it’s tacky. I was reading something online and people were practically yelling at the bride on a forum and calling her tacky. It was ruthless!
Great to hear all the updates, Michelle. It sounds like you are definitely going to have a strong September income-wise. I will have to check out that Frugal Beautiful post. I really want to partner with brands more in the future and hopefully diversify my blog income more through that.
Thanks! And yes, you should definitely check out that post on FB 🙂
Way to go again! Glad September is going well for you! Yeah, I need to work on the being healthy too!
Thank you Kelly!
Great job on your awesome extra income! I’m glad you love your wedding dress!
Thank you!
Aww!! So glad you still love your wedding dress! 🙂 When I got married I even got mine in the same color I tried it on in and I was still SO nervous for it to arrive!
Haha yes, it is very nerve-wracking!
Great work on the income as usual Michelle. It’s looking like it’s going to be another good month for me as well. I hear you on the travel, we really want to do some more, but having little ones makes it a little more prohibitive for us. We’re going to Vegas in January and I am so looking forward to it as it’ll be our first kid free trip in a year or two and it’s all on rewards points. 🙂
That’s great that September will be good for you as well. Vegas will be fun! What hotel are you staying at?
You are doing amazing and I am so glad you’re making the switch. If I get bored during the day maybe we can chat on Twitter lol. But seriously, so excited for you!!
Thank you Alexa! I can’t wait until we both make the switch!
Thanks!
I’ve been suffering from travel fantasizing as well. I’m thinking Cali road trip or a cruise sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas (when it’s still off-season) , but I really need to be thinking about saving. It’s so hard 😉
Glad I’m not alone 🙂
I love the Pacific NW! I lived there for a little while when I was interning for school. It is the most beautiful place I have been. I definitely agree that you should go there in the summer when the weather will be nicer. The most gorgeous views in Seattle when Mt. Rainier is “out”. And the weather has to be perfectly clear for that.
I am definitely feeling the urge to plan a trip as well….just haven’t decided where yet. Maybe Bermuda or St. Thomas?