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Forest Park and Weekly Update

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 44 Comments

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Forest Park and Weekly UpdateHello! I hope all of you had a great weekend. We didn’t do too much. We took advantage of the good weather and went to Forest Park one day with one of our dogs and then rode our bikes on Sunday.

It was still a little cold, but luckily it’s supposed to be around 75 degrees tomorrow and Tuesday. Don’t worry though because this awesome weather goes away and on Wednesday it is supposed to snow.

We plan on going to Elephant Rock (around 1.5 hours away) today, have you ever been? Do you know of any good hiking or outdoor spots in Missouri that we may be interested in?

We still have the squirrels. I’m sure everyone is annoyed of me talking about them, but it’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about lately. I think we are going to ask for a refund from the pest company, because we thought the squirrels would have been gone by now and I’m really nervous that there are going to be babies soon.

Wes talked to a new person the other day (he used to work with this person at a different job) and he said he could get the squirrels the first day, and it sounded like he had a much better plan. Plus, this guy is going to do it for around $300 cheaper since he’s just going to do it on the side.

They are starting to get louder, and birds have moved into the soffits as well because they have destroyed so many, so now we are in an extreme rush to get them out.

 

Spending

It was another expensive week. Our annual personal property taxes for one of our cars came in, and it was expensive! It was over $1,000 just for the Jeep, and it didn’t even have the Camaro on it (it will be on next year’s personal property tax).

I also bought a new pair of running pants and a new pair of running shoes, because I haven’t done so in FOREVER. It’s probably been years since I’ve bought a good pair of running shoes, mainly because I was always so cheap about it before because I was never really committed to working out. However, I have now been working out almost religiously so I figured it’s time to splurge on a nice pair of pants and shoes.

We also bought a Sam’s Club membership and stocked up on a lot of food there. We noticed that a lot of things that we were wanting were significantly cheaper at Sam’s Club (we looked at their prices online) than the grocery stores near where we live.

For example, Sam’s Club had chicken for around $2.50 per pound, whereas at the grocery store near me it is usually $5 or $6 per pound. We were also able to save on many other food items (granola bars, nuts, fruit, drinks, etc.).

The membership was $100 though because we bought the “Plus” membership. They said we could get it refunded and get the cheaper membership for $100 if we found that we didn’t use it enough within the first year.

Do any of you have a Sam’s Club (or CostCo) membership? Have you found it useful?

 

Business Income

Business has been really good in March so far, and I have a really good feeling about the rest of the month. I even have some short-term jobs (mainly short-term website management) already scheduled for April and May, which is awesome!

If anyone needs any help, check out my Hire Me page and let me know what services you are interested in.

 

Being healthy

I have been doing okay with being healthy, but I do think I could be doing a little bit better. I think I worked out two times last week, but that also doesn’t include the park walk (we walked our dog for over an hour) or the hour long bike ride over the weekend. I’m hoping to get back into the workout habit this week.

We also haven’t been doing the greatest with eating at home, which kind of stinks. If you have any delicious, but still healthy, recipes, please share them below! I just haven’t been in the cooking mood lately.

 

Wedding Planning

There are still so many things that we need to do. Our wedding is a little less than 3 months away now, and I can’t believe it. I still need to create a wedding website. If you were a wedding guest, what would you want to see?

I registered online at Target the other day, but we may head into Target to register for items that we know for a fact are in-store so that we don’t cause any problems for people who only like to shop in a store instead of online. I mainly registered for home office things because I couldn’t find anything else that we would need.

We are thinking about registering at REI (for camping supplies – tent, chairs, pots, pans) as well, but a few people have told us that it is tacky and that we should only be registering for kitchen stuff. WE HAVE KITCHEN STUFF THOUGH! 🙂

 

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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. Income Surfer says

    Glad the weather is warming up a bit. Our family in Kansas has complained about the weather for months…..then again, it is Kansas. I’ve done a fair bit of hiking in sw missouri, I don’t know how that relates to you. There seems to be several places on I70 west of Columbia also. Katy Trail and something along the Missouri River. Hope the weather is on an upswing now :o)
    -Bryan

    Reply

  2. John @ Frugal Rules says

    We have the same crazy weather – 70 yesterday and today and then snow on Tuesday night. I’d just like it to decide what it wants to do and stay that way for a week, lol. We have a Costco membership and buy a lot of our fruits and veggies from there when we’re not gardening. The prices are generally pretty good and you can’t beat the return policy.

    Reply

  3. DC @ Young Adult Money says

    I don’t think it’s tacky to register at REI if that’s the kind of stuff you guys want. I also can’t believe it’s supposed to be 75 for you guys and then it’s supposed to snow! Incredible. I just hope the melt goes slowly here because we have HUGE piles of snow everywhere and I’m paranoid about flooding ever since the huge storm last Summer that overwhelmed the drainage system in our city.

    Reply

  4. Liz says

    I agree with DC- I don’t really think it’s tacky either. Are you looking to get camping gear or anything particular? As long as it’s a hobby you enjoy then I say go for it!

    Reply

  5. Brian @ Luke1428 says

    We’ve been long time members at Costco but are thinking about switching our membership to Sam’s. The local Costco near us has switched to a new model more helpful to businesses than consumers. So much of what we used to buy their has been phased out and replaced with items a typical business would need.

    Reply

  6. Morgaine says

    After living together for 5 years (me and T) we really didn’t need much household things either so instead we did a honeymoon registry and it helped out a lot. Register where you want, if some people don’t like it then they can buy you something else (that happens too!)

    Reply

  8. Paige says

    We’ve lived together for over a year, getting married in October and most of our registry is kitchen stuff, simply because I love to cook and want to replace some things. We don’t need anything, but most of our families find honeymoon registries tacky, so we are “gently suggesting” Home Depot gift cards since I own the house we live in.

    Reply

    • Michelle S. says

      We’ve lived together for 7 years, so we’ve bought everything that we’ve needed. I know it’s the thought that counts, but if I received 100 plates I’m not sure what I would do with them! haha 🙂

      Reply

  9. Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies says

    What on earth is the $1000 bill for? Is this something you pay every year? That seems crazy!

    Reply

      • Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies says

        We pay annual registration renewal, but that’s always been in the order of $50-$75 depending on the type of car and if it has a specialty plate.

        Reply

        • Michelle S. says

          Jealous! We have to pay registration renewal on top of the car personal property tax. We still have to pay taxes when we buy a new car as well, so it adds up quickly!

          Reply

  10. Michelle S. says

    I hope it gets warmer where you live soon. I can’t stand this cold weather any longer!

    I hope your business income picks up. In fact, I think I’m about to email you so hopefully I can help 🙂

    Reply

  11. E.M. says

    I hope the new guy is able to get rid of the squirrels for you! Ouch, we don’t pay personal property taxes on our cars, but I know my parents do where they live now. I think it was maybe $100 for my mom’s car. Forest Park looks really nice! I can’t wait to start walking around more, hopefully it warms up consistently soon.

    Reply

  13. Jacki F says

    You can probably deduct your Sam’s Club membership as a business expense since you can use it to purchase office supplies and equipment. My accountant has no issues with me deducting my Amazon Prime membership or my Costco membership as I use both for business related expenses (as well as personal).

    Reply

  14. Candice says

    I gave up on wedding planning after 2 weeks lol. My fiance and I are going the super easy route because it was so stressful. Can’t wait to see how yours turns out.

    Reply

  15. Raquel@Practical Cents says

    I had never heard of this personal property tax either. Interesting and crazy at the same time. Nothing like that in Jersey but our home property taxes are ridiculous so that’s enough for us! I share a club membership to Sam’s club and BJs with my sister. I get some good deals there.

    Reply

  17. Jason B says

    My income has been doing pretty good. I sold some things on ebay. I also got a spike in adsense because of my blogging 1 year anniversary post. Hopefully things continue to go up.

    Reply

  18. Sara says

    SAMs is definitely better in some areas…the maplewood store has fresh chicken breasts in 5-6lb pkgs for $1.99/lb …just can’t beat it!

    Reply

  19. Jenna @ UpstartFinance says

    If you register at Target, you can return everything for cash or Target gift cards. I figure if I’m going to get something I don’t want/need, it’s nice to be able to get some actual value out of it when I return it.

    I found Amazon to be the worst for registries. Anything with an individual seller is a pain. And you can return up to only 30 days after the point of purchase. We received two sets of spoons and we almost couldn’t return it because it was so close to their cutoff. If there’s something you really want, then use Amazon. If you’re on the fence about it/ don’t know what the colors look like/ don’t know what the scale is like, I wouldn’t.

    Reply

  21. kat. says

    we registered at bed bath and beyond and pottery barn because we were recent (as in the weekend before) college grads and had never lived together. returning stuff for cash at bed bath and beyond was pretty awesome when i realized that some of the stuff i would register for i would never ever use! i always like when people register for “off the beaten path” things, like honeymoon registries and camping/hiking equipment. plus, if people don’t like what you register for , cross your fingers they’ll just write a check! 😉

    Reply

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