2011: The Year of Controlled Expenditures

Within the last few months, Ryan and I have been working very hard on assessing our spending habits and to work towards building up our savings account.  Ultimately, we are hoping to save up a hearty amount of money to put towards the down payment of our future home.  

We have purchased Quicken to help us map out where exactly our money is going.  Although we are recently married and the vast amount of our extra money over the past year has went towards our wedding and then towards our honeymoon in January, it is still shocking to us to log into our Quicken software and to see where exactly we have been spending our money.

After we picked ourselves off the floor after seeing our first Quicken pie-chart of our categorized spending, we decided that 2011 was to be the year of Controlled Expenditures.  Meaning, we were to minimize the amount of wasteful spending and try to do certain things ourselves.  We both made sacrifices, such as, I gave up tanning while Ryan has cut back on his Fantasy teams.  And by cutting back I mean, I will tan at work (where it is free) and Ryan will limit his Fantasy teams to under 10 per sport!  We are also limiting the amount of eating out that we do, as that is our biggest bad habit!  Home cooked meals might be half as good, but they are also half the price! :o)

Buying a home is something that we have both been dreaming of for many years.  We are in the ideal scenario for saving a lot of money and there is no reason why we cannot have a large down payment in a few years.  Basically, our living expenses are zero as much of our rent is paid for by my work and the only utilities we have is our gas/electric bill.  Obviously, we still have other expenses that are uncontrollable such as our car payments, student loans and cell phone bills.  But knowing those amounts each month make it easier to save!

Each Sunday we spend the morning watching the Iowa Home Show and seeing the houses that are for sale in the Des Moines Metro Area.  This gives us a little extra motivation to know that the small amount of sacrifices that we are making, are worth it!  And although, many people say that "now is the time to buy" we are confident that in three years or so we will be glad that we waited and know that it is worth it to have the home that we want for the monthly price that we want!

It does take quite a bit of self control to monitor our savings and to make sure that our money is being spent the way that we want, and in no way do we want to live like hermits just to have our home.  But with Ryan's recent promotion, we are getting very eager to see what will unfold in the upcoming years!!

Hopefully, we are able to meet our goal in the next few years and everyone can come to our housewarming party!!!!!!