Finances: Yours, Mine, Ours

Let's talk money.
Specifically, sharing it.

via

Most couples, upon moving in together and/or getting married, have that discussion about how to deal with the finances.

As a couple, do you throw it all in a pot?  Do you keep your accounts separate?  Or a mix of the two?

I've known for a while exactly how I wanted to handle this, and I am lucky that Ian completely shared the same philosophy.

We do what we call "Yours, Mine, Ours."

We decided to keep our own personal accounts separate, however we created a joint account to which we both have complete access and debit cards.  For us, this works incredibly well.  Each month, we both transfer a pre-determined amount from our individual accounts to the joint account.  (If we were really smart, we'd set it up as an automatic draft, but that's a step ahead.)  You may decide to put in equal amounts, or you may decide to put in an amount that is proportional to what you make, i.e. 50-70% of your take-home monthly pay.  That's incredibly helpful if you are his sugah mommah.

Here is what we use our joint account for:

• Mortgage
• Utilities
• House projects/repairs
• Home decor
• Cleaning service
• Cell phone bill; we are on a family plan together
• Drake expenses ... from rawhides to vet bills
• Groceries
• Meals we eat together
• Vacation expenses
• Gas, if we are on a road trip together

There are some exceptions -- say I go to the grocery store to stock up on work lunches and a bottle of wine.  I use my own money, since these are things for me and not for the "household." 

Now, I do have some girlfriends that chose the "throw it all in one pot" method, and that works well for them.  Even if one has debt and the other has a killer savings account, they buy more into the concept of sharing everything.  And I think that's cool too, if it works well for them.

I just know that with me?  I don't ever want to feel pangs of guilt for spending our joint money on an expensive spa service, pair of unnecessary shoes, or a $40 wine tab after a girls night. 

Because I can guarantee those will happen.  GUAR-AN-dang-TEE.

And on the flipside, I don't have to sit at my computer checking our online account, fuming because he just dropped $200 of our money on an Xbox. 

What's your philosophy on couples sharing money?  His/Hers, Yours/Mine/Ours, or Throw It All In A Pot And Don't Get Crazy Eyes When He Drops Major Money On New Golf Clubs?

Weekend Highlights

Is it me, or is this summer flying by?

I have plans for all of the upcoming weekends in June, so I was glad to be in town this weekend and just use the "play it by ear" method for making our plans.

Friday we met up for pre-dinner drinks at The Liberty with our honeymoon pals Allie and Jason (you know, the couple we totally stalked to make them our friends).  What a fantastic, fun, REAL couple.  We absolutely agreed that this kicked off our weekend on a great foot.

On Fridays we're typically whooped from the workweek, and this was no exception.  After drinks out, we picked up a frozen pizza and breadsticks from the grocery store and headed home to enjoy that cheesy goodness with our latest obsession, Hatfields & McCoys.  Oh my word -- did you watch that series?  We were blown away.

Saturday we did our various weekend chores and I enjoyed a trip to the King's Drive Farmers Market.  I loaded up on produce -- strawberries, a yellow tomato, squash, vidalia onions, okra, beets, pears.  It makes me happy to have such a selection of fresh produce to prepare for the weeks' dinners.

That evening we went to the wedding of Kim and Matt.  Kim is a fellow Recessionista. 

The Recessionistas

And Sunday I finally saw The Hunger Games!  I love a good Sunday matinee.  That evening, we grilled out at our friends' house and truly had a wonderful time.  It was the perfect send-off to the weekend.

This coming weekend I'll be leaving Ian in town as I escape to the mountains with some girlfriends, and I took Friday off.  Thank goodness for a short workweek!

I'll Take Mine With Mint, Please.

Today, June 10th, is National Iced Tea Day.

I personally think they should change the name to National Sweet Tea Day, because that's the only type of "real" tea in my book.

via

Cheers!

How do you take yours?

Did I Surprise You?

via

This is so much fun.  Good, semi-mindless Friday fun!

I was tagged by Erin of the Swanky Southern Yankee for a "You Might Be Surprised To Know That..." post.  (Read her answers here.)

Keeping this blog for over a year and a half now, there's probably a lot that you already know about me!  Let me see if I can color you shocked with a few of these facts.

So, without further ado --

{1} I'm highly superstitious, and if I hear of a new superstition, I add that to my "queue."  Did you know it's bad luck to exit out of a different door than the one you entered?

One thing I'm not superstitious about; they're cute.

{2} I secretly wish I'd become an elementary school teacher.

{3} A huge pet peeve for me is a fork with uneven tines.

{4} I love languages.  You already know that I was a Spanish major (from facts on this post) but I also took French in middle school, high school, and college, as well as Italian in college.

{5} Writing the words "love languages" above reminded me -- have you read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman?  If not, buy it buy it buy it.  My love language is gifts.  Whenever I want to show love to someone, I typically express it in this style.  And even the smallest gift -- like a little note left for me by Ian on the kitchen counter -- makes me feel so loved.

{6} That Italian class I took in college?  Was the 2nd most intense and rigorous class I took in college, with 1st place going to History of Fashion.  No lie.

Sophia Loren I am not.

{7} I still have my wisdom teeth, much to my dentist's chagrin.  I was only born with three.

{8} In high school, I was given the senior superlative of "Best Dressed."  I walked up to accept my award in a Walmart top.  Not dogging on Walmart, but we also know that it's not haute couture, either.  :)  I am a big believer in mixing high and low.  It's all in how you pair it and accessorize it!

{9} I once met Kevin Costner and invited him to a keg party.  For some reason, he was a no-show.

{10} I had a college professor who led a discussion on conforming and how nobody would ever show up to class in a bathing suit.  The next day, I walked into class in a bikini and Rainbows.

What?  That isn't normal?  :)

PS - Friday car dance party commences at 5pm sharp.  Be there.

Recovering (And Saving!) Our Office Chair

Several weeks back, I heard the following coming from Ian, who was in our office:

"NOOOOOO, no no no no no no no no no no no no no NO!"

Not a good sound.

Homeboy had just taken the fuschia ink cartridge out of the printer, and in an effort to lengthen its' life before getting it refilled, had shaken it.  Hard.  Without covering up the area that ink comes out of.

Fuschia ink drops were everywhere -- on him, on our glass table, on his iPad, on the bookshelves, and on our new-ish office chair.

Fortunately, the ink wiped off easily on everything minus the fabric office chair.  Thinking that I was a stain wizard (clearly I am not), I googled "printer ink removal from fabric" and quickly attacked it with hairspray.  And when that didn't work, we decided to take other actions - soap and water, Tide To Go pens, spray stain remover for carpets.  I tried it all.

What we awoke to the next day, which is tough to see in the photo below -- but trust me, it was BAD -- was a bleached-out area of the chair, with light pink spots still remaining.  Plus a gross watermark all around it.  (Hint: back up about a full foot from where you are currently sitting at your monitor/screen, and you'll see what it looks like)

I wish we were that couple that could just say "Eh, oh well, we won't notice it after a bit," but we're just not that way.  Ian wanted to just trash the chair immediately.  I wanted to find a way to fix it.  My smart mother-in-law suggested that we recover the seat portion of the chair.  DONE!

A quick trip to Hancock Fabrics, and I was the proud new owner of $4 worth of faux leather from their remnants table.

My project started by flipping the chair over and removing the black underside of the chair -- the cheap fabric that covered the "guts" of the chair.  I used a hammer and a flat-head screwdriver to lift the staples up, and then I removed the staples with needle-nosed pliers and a wrench.

With that removed, you can see the underbelly of the chair.  Sidenote: I had to go this route because there was piping at the base of the chair, so I couldn't just staple on the new fabric without covering that pretty piping.

So with the piping now exposed, I started to remove it.

I built up quite an assortment of staples on our coffee table.

Ta-da!  The piping was completely removed.

At that point, I covered the base of the chair in the faux leather, using my staple gun to attach it tightly.  Then I got ready to add the piping back on.

Staple gunning my entire way around, I finally finished that task.

The finished product!

Do I love it just as much as how it originally looked?  Well ... not necessarily.  BUT --

... did I save us $100+ in what it would have cost us to replace it?  Absolutely!  And that makes me a happy girl.

Banana Pudding HEAVEN

Back in my Dominican Republic honeymoon recap, I mentioned that we met a couple that we loved hanging out with. 

The story went like this:
Ian and I spotted them early on and thought they looked like a fun couple.  We also thought they looked Southern (this is really random, but for us it was a cool thing that we potentially already had in common).  We wanted to be their friends.  Yes, sounds cheesy, but it's true.

We were walking up to dinner one night at the sushi restaurant at our resort, and we saw this maybe-Southern-definitely-fun-looking duo sitting outside waiting for their table.  My sly and smart husband projected his voice up a few levels when he was telling me a story about when he lived in Charleston, SC -- totally in earshot of this couple.

Yep, we baited them, and they took it.  (Allie, did you know all of this??)  Allie's new husband Jason immediately spoke up and said "Excuse me, did you just say Charleston?  Are ya'll from that area?" and next thing you know, we were making friends.

Commonalities were quickly found -- we realized that we were both from Charlotte and only live about 10 minutes apart; we both got married on May 28th; we are the same ages (younger gal, older guy); we both had grey and yellow as our wedding colors; we both love the mountains and spend a lot of time in the Blowing Rock/Boone area; the boys both love to golf; the girls both love to cook. 

Well, all of this to tell you about banana pudding.

Allie keeps a great food & recipe blog, Key Ingredients.  She had a recipe for banana pudding that sounded wonderful, and I had a cookout to plan for this past weekend.

I put this together on Thursday evening.  YA'LL.  It was so delicious.

For Christmas, Mom gave me these cute little single-serve dessert cups that I used for serving this to us and our friends.  They are small but just the right size for a dessert that leaves you satisfied but not uncomfortably stuffed.

We have been enjoying this so much, and even our dog Drake loves getting in on the action.  Whenever he hears the trifle bowl come out of the fridge, he makes a mad dash to the kitchen.  Then he stands in front of you while you eat it and pants with his hot breath on your knee.  Finally, we concede and let him lick our bowls clean.  He's crazy about it.

You can find Allie's recipe for the banana pudding here.  I followed it to a tee but just decided to make it in a trifle bowl with three layers.  I know you'll love it! 

PS - Speaking of recipes, my sister Laura, the Reedy River Recessionista, has a great blog post today about  how she made butter using only heavy cream and a mason jar.

Easy Weeknight Salad

So, after watching the Miss USA pageant the other night (specifically the swimsuit portion), I thought to myself, "Hey! We need to eat more salads!"

With a beach vacation approaching, Ian and I have both made it our goal to really focus on our health.  I replaced the battery in our scale, which made for a slightly depressing Monday morning.  While meal-planning during the workweeks is generally filled with healthy choices, I'm going to really focus on adding in more salads as an entree and even eating healthier on the weekends.

Since I am married to a wing-lovin' husband, this salad suits us both to a tee!

Buffalo Chicken Salad
Chicken (I used Perdue Perfect Portions)
Buffalo sauce (I used the Texas Pete brand)
Light blue cheese or ranch dressing
Crumbled blue cheese
Romaine lettuce
Scallions, chopped
White onion, sliced

I started by marinating the chicken in buffalo sauce, and it sat there all day while I was at work.  Due to iffy weather, I cooked them on the grill pan, but you could easily put them on your outdoors grill.

For the salad, toss together the romaine lettuce, chopped scallions, onion slices, and dressing.  Divide between your bowls.  Top each salad with 1-3 tablespoons of blue cheese.  Slice your chicken, and if desired, give it one extra toss in buffalo sauce in a clean bowl.  Top your salad with the buffalo chicken slices.

We both love this salad, and according to the My Fitness Pal app on my phone, it had 428 calories.   

And on that note, congratulations to Miss Rhode Island.  I picked you out of the final 10 because you were the shortest, and I can relate to that.  ;)

And that photo confirms the fact that I will be ordering the veggie plate when Ian and I go out tonight.

Weekend Recap

This was one of those weekends that seemed relaxed and low-key, but if you wrote down all of the tasks we accomplished, it would be a mile long!

The weekend began at our house with a cookout.  Hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, chips, banana pudding (more on that later) ... we covered it all.

Saturday was filled with chores and errands, but we quit early in order to meet friends at Selwyn Pub at 5:00 for a late-afternoon drink.

Sunday, we took Drake for a long walk around the neighborhood and then each went to the gym.  I also did some planting of spring/summer flowers in the yard.

My mother-in-law was in town last week, and she brought for me the new piece of blue & white that you see to the left of the television.  I picked up this plant to go in it, and I love how it adds some more color to the room.

Only challenge is -- I have no idea what kind of flower this is!  It came with no tag or packaging and was the last one left.  I'd love to find out what it is so I can look up how to best care for it.  Does anyone have any ideas?