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No New House For Now and $2,323 in Extra Income

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 60 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed St. Patty’s Day. I’ve decided to start combining my Saturday and Monday life posts together. I figure most of you probably don’t want to hear about my life twice a week. And I’m not that interesting… 😛 Anyways, it was a pretty relaxing and boring weekend, especially since W was sick the entire time.

I think we’ve decided to wait until next year to buy our next house. We’re not ready to sell just yet, and honestly, we still love our house. Getting rid of it so soon, especially when we haven’t found anything that we liked more to justify the cost, just seems stupid. Unless something 100% perfect comes along, then I don’t think we plan on buying this year at all. We really don’t want to buy something that we only kind of like and then end up buying another house quickly after again.

Next year is not out of the question though. It will most likely be next year when we buy, so hopefully something perfect comes up by then. I’m sure it will, but for now we’re just going to continue enjoying where we live. Lifestyle inflation has definitely been catching up with me, but we should be trying to save so that maybe we can buy the next house with cash or at least a majority of it with cash.

What made you decide to buy your second house? Was it lifestyle inflation, or you just grew out of your current house? For us it’s a mixture of both. Something with a bigger yard would be nice, and so would more than just a 1-car garage (check out my “Spending” section below for an idea about why).

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Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 5.30.57 PMSpending

Hmmm some major spending in the past week, that is for another post though. Lets just say we bought a new car but it hasn’t been delivered yet…

Target also had almost its WHOLE Home section on sale at two Targets near my house. Let’s just say that I went to Target a total of 3 times this weekend and spent a little over $300 redoing the home decor in our living and dining room. I bought tons of things and love it all! Now I just need a new side table in the living room and I think we’ll be done (except for the fact that we still need to install carpet in the living room).

As most of you know, me and W have lived together for nearly 6 years and up until recently, never really decorated our house. Yes we have furniture and things on the wall, but nothing matches and it just looks like a disaster. Now that we have time (and more money to spend), we have decided to start decorating more. There are TONS of things that we still want to do, and I have a whole post dedicated to that and it will be published in the near future.

Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 3.49.55 PM

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

I received approximately $2,323 in payments in the past week. It was a good week and I would love it if it just stayed this way forever. As most of you know, extra income does not include any salary or income that we make from our jobs (I’m an analyst and he’s a car salesman). A lot of you have wondered about my schedule and how I make time for everything. Were there any specifics you wanted to know or maybe I should just make a whole post on it? Such as with my daily schedule, everything that I do, etc. Please let me know if this sounds really boring or like something you would read.

Affiliate income is still going great and I’m glad I started working on this. I do have bigger plans for this and hope to see this area of my extra income to continually increase. I’m also starting to think more about passive income. What do you do for passive income?

Me and my friend are still stuck on a name for our business. Some of you said to just think of something and change it later, but with what we want to do, the name is an important part of the business. We can’t really do much else until we start thinking of our “brand” and the name.

Posts on my blog from last week

  1. $1,358 in Extra Income and Awesome Life Updates
  2. Buying a House Tips
  3. Budgeting to Pay off Debt
  4. Preparing Your Minimalist Wardrobe for Spring

 

Link Love

  1. Are Graduate Degrees Worth the Money? Eyes On The Dollar
  2. Divorce to Save Money Liquid Independence
  3. Traveling Without Blowing a Hole in Our Wallet Johnny Moneyseed
  4. 5 Reasons I’m Killing my Mortgage Club Thrifty
  5. Quarter Life Crisis L Bee and the Money Tree
  6. Remembering Leaner Times Frugal Portland
  7. No Wind in My Sail Budget & the Beach
  8. Money Saving Gardening Tips from a Frugal Mama Frugal Rules

 

Food

Yet another meal plan this week! We are still doing great with eating at home 5 days a week. I’m not sure how much we spent on food last week but it was minimal. We did go out to eat twice, but it was at two places right next to our house that are super cheap (but the best Mexican and Chinese we have ever had).

How are you doing with your food budget?! If you have any tasty looking recipes from last week, please share the blog post in the comments so that I can add it to my meal plan for future weeks 🙂

 

Being healthy

I’m still doing good with this. I could be eating a little more healthier though. I’ve been eating a lot of fruit for healthy snacks. My sister still yells at me all the time for being unhealthy and she is definitely a motivator!

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. plantingourpennies says

    If spending $300 to decorate makes you enjoy staying in your house, then it's definitely money well spent. Especially if you haven't found a place that you love. Closing costs are expensive! =)

    Reply

  2. My Money Design says

    Perhaps its best not to move just yet. The Mrs and me are getting antsy to move as well, but we know that we'd never make back what we paid + what we've put into our house. And so we also wait as well.

    You ask: What do I do for passive income? I write a whole blog about it! 🙂 I've got another niche site update coming up on Wednesday. Stop by to check it out. It should be entertaining at the least.
    My recent post Who is the Best IRA Provider When You Don’t Have Much Money to Open an Account?

    Reply

  3. Sara says

    $300.00 is a small investment if it makes staying in your current home more enjoyable. My husband and I think of moving all the time but he wants to move to a cheaper state where we could buy a house for at least 40% less than what we paid here in NY. From a financial standpoint it makes total sense but moving away from extended family is emotional.
    My recent post A St. Patrick's Day Brain Dump

    Reply

  5. FrugalRules says

    Thanks for the mention Michelle! I can relate to the name for your business, you do want it to be something good that you're happy with. It took my wife a while to come up with our name, though I know it depends on the type of business you're doing in terms of how important the name is.

    Reply

  13. @SavvyFinLatina says

    You never know, if you save to buy your new house with enough cash, maybe you won't even have to sell your current house and you could rent, and start making rental income! 🙂

    I spent some time this weekend switching my site to self host. I should have done it months ago, but I just kept procrastinating. It was so easy.

    We are not huge on decorating since we live in our apartment. Many of the decorations we have were given to us by my in laws and mom.

    My recent post Last Check for The Mitsubishi Car loan

    Reply

  14. Budget & the Beach says

    I'd love to know you daily schedule! 🙂 Seriously I have no idea how you do it all and if I can learn some better productivity all the better! I didn't receive any extra income via something other than video editing, but I did make more than triple my projected income (and March isn't done yet), so that helped with a lot of things like having to spend 3k on my car. I'm also spending $500 on a new (used) computer but that is coming out of future paychecks, which helps, and should cost $100 less since I'm selling my old monitor. Hopefully the new ebook will generate a little passive income. That would be nice. Thanks for the blog mention!

    Reply

  15. MyFIJourney says

    Congratulations on another great week of income. I wouldn't worry about buying a new house. So long as I live in my current region, I'm not even going to think about scaling up to a house unless I get married and start a family. The added costs just aren't worth it.
    My recent post Microsoft (MSFT) Dividend Stock Analysis

    Reply

  17. Brittany says

    I'd definitely be interested in hearing about your daily schedule!

    That stuff from Target all looks super cute :).

    Reply

  19. pilotsandpugs says

    Ha, the Target home clearance stole my money too! Those little red stickers are like money magnets. I like your meal planning idea, I need to start doing that again. It makes life so much less stressful and saves a ton of money.

    Reply

  21. Nick @ AYoungPro.com says

    We are building our second home right now. Prior to this we were living in a condo and it was starting to get a little cramped. Plus, our condo complex had become increasingly full of renters instead of owners and they are not as invested in keeping things looking nice. I won't lie though, there was a little bit of lifestyle inflation going on as well. 😉
    My recent post The Best Courses to Take in College

    Reply

  22. christie says

    I think it is great that you are considering want vs need for a new house. I know so many people that find out they are having a baby and then think they need a new house and/or a new car. Not true! We lived in an 800 sq foot house for about 10 years. It wasn't until the third baby that I thought… hey, we could really use more space! We got a "new to us" car also. Trying to fit three car seats in the back of a Camry is really hard! I did it for a year. Boy, was I ready for a bigger car !

    Here is a something to think about. Buying a house can eat up a huge amount of your time. You are doing so well with the extra income – how will this change if you don't have as much time ?
    ~ Christie

    Reply

    • MakingSenseofCents says

      Thanks Christie! Yeah, we like our house now, so we think it's stupid that we want something bigger. Our house now is a total 2,500 square feet, and we definitely don't need more room!

      Reply

  25. The Norwegian Girl says

    we`ve never really decorated our apartment either, it`s a random mix! Good for you, choosing to stay with your current house for now, I can understand the dangers of lifestyle inflation, so good for you for staying where you`re at!

    Reply

  27. Laurie says

    Another great week, Michelle – congrats! I would love to see a post that breaks down what your monthly extra income comes from and some tips on how you got to the point where you are earning so much. As far as the house selling stuff, go with your gut. When it's time to move, you'll know it. :-). Go to Mr. CBB's website and look for his Spinach and Ricotta Fettuccine recipe – it's one of our favorites!

    Reply

  28. Anne - Unique Gifter says

    You're doing the opposite from me regarding companies… I am pretty much designing mine completely backward! I highly recommend checking out marketingforhippies.com and the ebook that Tad has there. His stuff is amazing.

    Reply

  30. Canadianbudgetbinder says

    We've been talking about whether we should stay or move once we pay the mortgage off. I blogged about it last week as it really was something we have been tossing around for a while. I think we will stay though for a bit, fix up what we need around here and if the perfect house pops us then great if not we still love this house. It's more the land we were wanting but I guess we can't have it all> Great job with the income! Cheers
    My recent post The A-Z Of Saving Money E-Book-A to Zero Excuses!

    Reply

  31. Saved Penny says

    Food! I can't believe how much we're spending on food, not just dining out but on our grocery bill. We live abroad in a high-ish cost of living area, but we can still do much better than we do. April 1 we're starting a new cooking plan that I hope will reduce our grocery bill 30-40%.

    Oh, and on Target, we miss that place. Where we live, there is no Target. Every time we come back home, even if for a short trip, we try and squeeze in a Target run. It's funny, before moving abroad I despised Target, but now that I don't have access to it, I see it as a symbol of home. I guess it's turned into a comfort thing for us!
    My recent post REI Member Dividend

    Reply

  32. studentdebtsurvivor says

    That's a pretty great week. I'll have to stop by Target to see if there's anything on sale. Bf and I have done a little decorating, but we're too cheap to go crazy. Our household is a mixture of both of our stuff that we had prior to buying our place together. It's a little mix and match, but I like that. I'd be interested to see what your day looks like in terms of hours at work vs. working at home. I'm sure you must work 23 hours per day to fit in everything 🙂

    Reply

  34. Stacy says

    I would love to see an article about your seven day schedule. I am curious how you fit in a full-time job, blogging, a new business, cooking, and life! Also, I would love to see an article that details your monthly budget. Love this blog!

    Reply

  35. Liquid says

    Killing it again with your extra income 🙂 I currently make a small amount of passive income from stock dividends but looking to branch out into rental income in the future. Thanks for mentioning my post :0)

    Reply

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