Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Yeah Yeah, I know two posts in one day...but I'm just feeling bloggy today.  I have a lot to say for some reason.

Although J is doing his mountain warfare training this month and won't be back to his barracks until around June 21st, he got the chance to call me. Twice! His phone doesn't have service, but his friend's does. It was nice to hear from him after two weeks of nothing from him at all.  I loved hearing that he'd been thinking about me even though the whole point of this time apart is to not think about each other...ha...that's a laugh.

So far, this time not talking as been good for us. At least it has been good for me. I'm not worried about why he is or isn't talking to me and I can just enjoy myself and stay busy and do as much stuff as I can to have a good time. I don't know why I haven't been doing this all along. It makes everything so much easier.

I've been hiking, playing music, working in my garden, cleaing my house (ugh...not fun) and staying nice and busy and at the end of the day, I'm excited that I have things to tell J other than, "Today sucked, I miss you. Life sucks. I never do anything..." I can tell that it makes him happier to hear that I'm not so down in the dumps.

***

In other news, I've begun car shopping.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to go to the car lot, get a loan and buy whatever I want, so I've really got to shop.

I would like to have this lovely pearl white Subaru Impreza.

But, yeah, that's not going to happen. I've been shopping a little bit on KSL.com (it's like craig's list except it's just local). I need to find what my dad calls an "out-of-town" car that I can pretty much take anywhere, but then I find myself linger on things that really aren't practical.

Such as jeeps. I can't even describe to you how bad I want a jeep that I can take the top off and drive all over the mountains, but they really just aren't cars that you want to take all over the place, just into the mud.

Even more than a jeep, I'd be so very happy with one of these. No, it's not a Bronco! It's an International Scout...I don't know why I want one so bad, but it really doesn't matter, because they, like Jeeps and the car I currently have are not practical...damn practicaltiy...

Most likely, I will end up getting something like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla, something more in my price range and a bit more suitable for my situation. Currently, I'm driving a GMC Jimmy that guzzles gas faster than I can fill the tank...Anything with better fuel economy will do, even though I dream of bigger and better vehicles.  Hopefully I'll be getting something new very soon and all on my own!

What I Learned At Work Today [WEEK 1]

Welcome to my Weekly post, "What I Learned At Work Today"! (I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I ran out of time at work!  This will be a Sunday post after this!) If it looks like that photograph was taken on the floor of the the handicap stall in the bathroom, it wasn't... (okay, it was...) We're not allowed to have cell phones on the call floor in any way shape or form, including camera-form, so I had to do something! Don't worry, I threw that paper away.  I decided that due to the fact that we are fairly slow on Sundays and I tend to learn very interesting things while I'm at work, I would share with the blog-world.  Sometimes the things I learn are from Pinterest, sometimes they are from blogs (okay...via Pinterest most of the time...) and sometimes, I'm just awesome and I learn things for myself from my experiences or from the things that hear while on calls all day. Not all of my "What I Learned At Work Today" posts will be long and they won't all explain what this is, but I thought you might like a little bit of background behind the idea. I will do my best to credit everyone that I learn things from if it's possible!

Today, I leared a couple of things.  First I learned that...

Saving money starts in the kitchen!

     Because I'm about to become a Military Spouse, I know that I'm going to have to be good at handling our money. (Heaven knows J won't be the one doing that! He can't resist a good looking jacket...) It's not unlikely that if we're stationed somewhere that doesn't have a big city around for 50+ miles, I won't be able to find a job, so we're going to be living off of BAH (if we're off base) and his Lcpl. income... Having read a lot of Military Spouse blogs (and a lot of mommy blogs and couponing blogs and blogs where their money is kinda tight) I have noticed that the place everyone starts is the kitchen.

    Food is something that we use up, then just have to buy more. It's like...laundry. It never ends. You simply have to do it every week or else it piles up and then...you have to go out naked. Not a good situation. Well if you don't do something about food, you starve!  And we cannot have that!  So, what do we do? We learn ways to make our dollar go further when it comes to what we put in our bellies. So far, this is what I've got.

1. Couponing is very smart. You can read more about what I already know about couponing in my post, Couponing: Simplified.
2. Freeze stuff. I learned all about what you can freeze and how to freeze it here at Simple Organized Living. The cool thing about these types of sites is that other people comment with the things that they freeze and how to freeze them. This is cool because that way, you can buy in bulk when things are at rock-bottom prices and freeze it...if it's feezable that is. Which is where the list comes in!
3. Meal Plan!  This didn't really come from anywhere specific. A lot of people say it's a good idea.  It saves moneys because you can shop with a very specific list and you won't end up spending money on things that you don't need.
4. Don't buy prepared meals (TV dinners, boxed dinners, etc.) They are more expensive and there are a lot of things that you can cook yourself that will taste even better than the prepared meal.
5. Get a really extensive recipe book or create a recipe repetoire online. Having the tools to cook at home make it so you don' tjust decide to go out which will end up costing you a lot more money than monthly grocery shopping!

If I didn't credit someone, I decided that on my own. If I did, click the link. You can learn something today too!

Next, I learned that...

Computer animation is the Coke Zero of movies

You must be thinking...Whaaa?? Well, I have two sister that are diabetic and I drank diet soda most of my childhood (we're soda drinkers...I have a coke, like, every morning...don't judge, I'm tryna quit.) That means that when I started drinking regular Coke, it was like I had see the light...I realized what I had been missing all these years and it brought joy to my life knowing there was real sugar in my pop. Anyway...Later in my life, they came out with Coke Zero. I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll start drinking that. Zero Calories, Zero sugar, still tatest good...That's awesome." Well after one sip I was disgusted. It was sooo close to tasting just like Coke, but it didn't. It wasn't even like it was an off-brand like Shasta or something, it was just...still not that good old, coke in a red can taste. Needless to day, I didn't make the switch.

Anyway...Today, I was eating my Wendy's salad in the break room and a movie was on. I think it was Tin Tin? Honestly, I'm not really sure. But I couldn't really tell if it was animated or live-action. I had to ask the kid sitting on the couch. Now, computer animation is pretty cool. I love Pixar movies. Up! is truly a modern classic...But isn't the whole point of animation that it's not supposed to look real?  It was frustrating because it was so close to looking live-action, but it wasn't.  Do you understand the connection? Good :)



Getting Squared Away

Today at work, I decided to start a list. Due to the fact that I'm not going to school or really working towards anything, I'm kind of going stir-crazy, so I tend to create little worksheets for myself. Completely weird, but it helps pass the time.  My list of of groceries, household items, personal items, and other expenses you might have in your daily life.
My Fiance and I are constantly talking about what we're going to do to avoid being that typical struggling couple when it comes to money. Neither of us have grown up with a very strong example on how to handle our money, and being just barely out of the starting gates of our lives, we've never really had to handle our money at all. So I decided that if I'm going to be sitting around at work just trying to pass the time and make another dollar, I might as well be doing something useful.
On my list, I wrote little lines next to each item. Those lines were for the average prices of whatever item it was.
It looks like this:
Milk:$_____
Bread:$_____
Eggs$_____
And I think you get the idea.  When I got home, I compiled the adds that I had laying around my house and filled in the lines with the prices I might pay. Along with this, I've decided that tomorrow at work, I'm going to look up manufacturer coupons for all this stuff and teach myself a little something about couponing...

Yes. Couponing. (By the way, I happen to love nouns that have been turned into verbs i.e. Facebooking, or Googling)
Never fear, my blog is not about to turn into a place that only has ads and free advice on how to run your household. You can read that stuff somewhere else...But I think that it's going to be fun.
I've already been all over the web looking for tips on how to coupon REALISTICALLY and not be like those women with the gigantic binders of coupons in the Winco...hopefully...
best tools so far?:
http://www.couponing101.com/
http://www.redplum.com/
http://www.coupons.com/?pid=15744&nid=10&zid=uo74&bid=alk0325220313b2c1456832511
and
http://smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=MKRU3JAAR6CCY
Wish me luck on my quest to learn something epic.