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How About Another Question and Answer?

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 45 Comments

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How About Another Question and Answer?

Family Christmas 2013

Hey everyone! I hope all of you are having a great week. If you haven’t read it yet, please read my post that was published on Monday – Do You Make Excuses For Why You’re Not Following Your Dream?

I really like Question and Answer type posts lately where I can just talk and talk and talk.

It’s also nice because hopefully readers can learn more about me and I can also learn more about all of you as well.

The other day I asked everyone on Twitter to send me any question that they want, and I said I would answer them.

Comment with your answers below! And if you would like me to answer a question of your own, you can always ask in the comments as well.

 

What is your best time management tip?

This is something that I am asked all the time. Recently I created a post on having a successful work-life balance.

My top tip would probably be to rank your tasks in order of importance, and then knock them out in that order. However, if you have a task that will take a short amount of time (such as 5 minutes), then just knock it out so that you don’t have to think about it.

Being able to cross things off my to do list always feels nice.

 

How much will your wedding end up costing you?

We are now deep into the wedding planning process, and boy there is a lot more work than I thought that there would be. I have been buying some little things every now and then, and now I really just have all of the big things (and the most expensive parts of the wedding) to look forward to.

I believe that we have around another $10,000 to spend, and that is with around $2,000 of cushion in the budget because I am sure that I will forget something. We have already negotiated and paid for around $4,000 to $5,000 as well.

In total, our wedding will probably be right under $15,000. It’s a little more than I wanted to spend since we do have to pay for everything ourselves, but that’s not a bad amount for the amount of people that we are having.

And, yes, I do realize that this is a personal finance blog but we have budgeted and saved for our wedding!

What I want you guys to answer is: a) How much you actually spent on your wedding; and  b) How much you planned/plan to spend.

 

What is your ideal sized home?

Our home right now is around 2,500 square feet if you include our finished basement. I would say that something around 2,000 to 2,500 square feet not including a basement would be my ideal home size for our next home when we have kids running wildly all over the place.

 

What’s your favorite movie?

The other day I went to the bank, and a bank teller had a little frame on her desk that stated her name and a little tidbit about herself. She said her favorite movie was The Town. If any of you have ever seen that movie then you will understand why that is just a tad funny…

Anyway, my favorite movie… I don’t even know. I like a lot of mafia, zombie, and some other weird movies. Oh yeah and I could watch any movie with Leonardo DiCaprio about 1,000,000 times and I have pretty much loved every movie that he has been in. I love a lot of the normal classics that everyone seems to like, but I also really like the movies Casino and Goodfellas.

Childhood movies that I love include ET (of course!) and Flight of the Navigator. If you know what Flight of the Navigator is then we will probably become best friends.

 

What is a weird dream of yours?

A definite farfetched dream of mine (Wes has the same dream), would be to sell all our stuff and buy a sailboat. I read a good amount of sailing blogs and sometimes I even stalk sailing forums like it’s my job.

I do think it sounds wonderful, but I have also read many sailing blogs where they talk about how much work it is so I do know that it’s not all just a fairytale.

 

Your turn!

 

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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. DC @ Young Adult Money says

    Oh I would love to have 2,500 square feet not counting a basement for our next home! We have almost 2,000 but we really only use the 1,000 on the first floor. Definitely will be looking for more space in our next home. I’ve never thought about living out of a sailboat but it sounds interesting.

    Reply

  2. Dave @ The New York Budget says

    I always loved Flight of the Navigator and not just because the main character’s name is David (although that did play a part).

    In terms of time management, I LOVE the service: followupthen.com

    I suppose it is a bit more email/productivity management, but it ends up saving me time and stress as well. Don’t let emails sit in your inbox – just forward them and other reminders to, for instance, 1week@followupthen.com and it will email you back in a week (change the first part of the email address for different timeframes).

    Reply

  3. John S @ Frugal Rules says

    I think that’s a good size for a house and one we want to move up to. We’re at about 1500-1600 square feet and is starting to get a bit small for us, especially now that I lost my office. 🙂 My favorite movie…that’s a tough one. I love Braveheart, Tombstone and any Star Wars flick, but I’m a sucker for mafia movies – which drives my wife nuts!

    Reply

  5. Allison says

    She had The Town as her favorite movie! That’s a little crazy for a banker!

    I don’t have a home size preference. I think if its laid out well, that is the difference maker.

    Reply

  6. Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies says

    Our first big savings focus was to buy a sailboat and leave for a couple of years =). That’s taken a back burner to some other goals, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we still do it someday. V

    Reply

  8. Raquel@Practical Cents says

    We spent around $5000 for our wedding. We had around 60 guests. Close family and friends only. We were able to splurge on food, drinks and a live band. I also enjoy Leo’s movies. I was just reading a review on “The Wolf of Wallstreet”, can’t wait to check that movie out.

    Reply

  9. Amanda @ Passionately Simple Life says

    I think for home size, it would definitely be around 1200 to 1500 sq ft. I’ve always loved small homes, and luckily I found someone who doesn’t like having a lot of stuff, however, he prefers just having space. And my favorite movie is O Brother Where Art Thou!

    Reply

  10. Alexa says

    My biggest time management tip is do the hardest thing on your to do list first – each and every day. You’ll have so much less stress if you do!

    I love Casino as well! Although right now I’m kinda of in love with Sons of Anarchy – Jax in particular 😉 I know it’s not a movie but I bought all the seasons and went on like a three week SOA binge 😉 Can’t wait for season six to come out on DVD!!

    Reply

  15. sara says

    Currently in a 1200 sq foot home and I feel like its too small for our family of 4. I would love a home at 2500 sq feet but more importantly a home with big closets.

    As for my wedding I budgeted 30k and I think we ended up spending at least 5k more. I should preface that my wedding costs were pretty average for NY.

    Reply

    • Michelle S. says

      Yeah, I want nice big closets as well. I have a decent sized one right now, but the location of it is just the weirdest thing – it’s smack dab in the middle of our house.

      Reply

  16. EL @ Moneywatch101 says

    Time management tip- Get done what’s on your mind immediately and do not wait.
    Home size- 2,000 sounds good
    Fav Movie- Dragon -Bruce Lee story
    Dream- To be free financially and travel on a whim
    Dream 2- To make my own wood furniture (Not IKEA)

    Reply

  20. Lindsey @ Cents & Sensibility says

    Hi Michelle, I’m glad to hear your new self-employed status is working out well and let’s you come out of the anonymous closet! It sounds like your wedding planning is coming along, building in a buffer is a good idea – I can’t tell you how many things I forgot when planning mine!

    Reply

  21. Laurie @thefrugalfarmer says

    LOL, we actually owned Flight of the Navigator at one time!!! Score one for the Frugal Farmer family. 🙂 I think you guys are doing great on wedding expenses. $15,000 is not unreasonable in this day and age, and you’ve saved the cash, so, great job! I think we paid roughly 10k for our wedding 18 years ago, which was not over our budget b/c we had no sense of a budget at that time – just spent whatever we wanted. Ugh!

    Reply

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