Over Christmas we vacationed on Marco Island, Florida. I wish I could trade below-zero days for 70-degree days more often!

We enjoyed walks on the beach,

sunsets,

and climbing on the rocks at the south end of the beach.

Believe it or not, this is the moon over the Gulf at about 6 AM. The sunrise had just reached past the buildings inland and must have been strong enough for the moon to reflect this strongly. It looks more like the setting sun, doesn’t it?

Marco Island Series:
Marco Island Views
Kids as Cooks
Kids as Cooks Part II
Shelling 101
Key West Express

Florida Series:
Disney World
Sanibel Island
Fort Myers
Everglades

Affordable Family Travel Series:

Creativity and Flexibility
Renting Condos and Timeshares

Originally published December 2007.

A couple of years ago, we had just moved to the cabin. Our home was a disaster, and we’d barely finished the addition before the snow flew. As Christmas approached, I had little energy to even find the kitchen countertop, let alone decorate for the holidays. Let’s just say those weren’t the best months of my life.

I remember a weekend when I had a burst of Christmas spirit and I cleaned the kitchen just enough to make some cookies with the kids. When I finally located the hand mixer, I searched in a panic to find the rotary whisks that you insert into the mixer.

I could only find one.

We managed to bake the cookies, even with just the single whisk. And when six-year-old Craig wrote his annual email to Santa, he included a sweet and generous addendum:

“And could you please give my mom a mixer?”

On Christmas morning, we all experienced the excitement every young family anticipates — the rush up the stairs and the noisy rousing of Mom and Dad from their bed. But the first gift Craig looked for, and the first one that was opened, was the one marked, “Mom”.

If it’s possible to fall in love with your six-year-old, it may have happened for me that morning.

Merry Christmas everyone!

It’s been a great year – here are a few of our family’s 209 highlights:

Turning 40
Youth Leader for Literacy
ATV Trails in Utah
Locks of Love
Summer Homeschool
Making a Recycled Boat-Lift Cover
A Third Year for Bookworm Wednesday
Adventures in Budgeting:)
Passing Hunter Safety
Cincinnati Healthy Communities/Healthy Youth Conference

What were your highlights this year?

When we moved to our current school district two years ago, we bought a house there, without selling the previous one. This meant we ended up with two mortgages – one humongous and the other on a 10-year track to payoff. This necessitated the serious need for a budget.

We’ve always considered ourselves pretty frugal – almost always eating at home and buying our school clothes at high-end garage sales. We never carry credit-card debt – unless it’s a short-term, zero-percent offer at Menards. We’re big on getting a great deal – and usually that means buying pre-owned. But over the years expenses got away from us. When when we had low monthly expenses and almost no mortgage, our budget could handle the kind of discretionary purchases and travel we’d become accustomed to. But that’s all different now.

MAKING THE PLAN
A year ago, I started taking a careful look at our budget. I set up an Excel document and added the real charges we paid throughout the prior 12 months. This gave me a realistic look at utilities, seasonal expenses, gas, groceries, travel costs, and our sneaky credit card bill. The Excel program allowed me to create columns that automatically add themselves, so as I replace budgeted amounts with “real” figures, it recalculates it for me to see if we’re still on track.

It feels strange to talk about our family’s finances, and many of our “numbers” I won’t share, but I think it’s important to explain the areas in our life we’ve identified as “belts that could tighten.” If you’re from a similar middle-class life, you might find that cutting down on these areas in the budget could help you as well. I will add the disclaimer that we’re fortunate in that beyond the two mortgages, we don’t have any debt.

BELIEVING IT
Before setting these budget changes, our family had no idea we could pay the second mortgage down quickly. The act of making the pay-down a priority is what made the difference. Now 12 months after implementing our new monthly money goals, the progress we’ve made shows we could possibly pay off our second mortgage a year from now. It would take continued focus, but I truly believe it is possible.

In this series of articles, I’ll address the ways we changed our budget – and with any luck, in one year we’ll be celebrating the payoff of our second mortgage. Please read on in the weeks to come – I hope our efforts help others as well!

MORTGAGE PAYOFF 101 SERIES:
Getting Started
Monthly Charges
The Credit Card
Sell Your Stuff
Lessons Learned

This summer has been pretty uneventful for our family, but we accomplished one significant thing – we built a fort.

Our kids have been asking for a treehouse for years, and it never seemed to be the right time – or right place, since we kept moving. But our small parcel across from our cabin provided the perfect spot, and now our kids are old enough to help.

My husband was the brains of the operation, but he required help from the kids – and whenever they took a break, so did he. But they knew they’d better keep working or their prized fort would never get built. It was an effective arrangement.

With no electricity, they measured and cut as much as possible at the house, before taking it across the road. But much of the work had to be done by hand or with our rechargeable drill.

Both kids cleared the branches with hand tools.

Here you can see the floor start to take shape. Stud walls and roof would come next.

And with reclaimed siding from my brother-in-laws remodeling project, the fort begins to actually look like a fort. It even has $1 screens in the windows, scavenged from a scratch-and-dent pile at Menards.

The finished project is more of a bunkhouse than a fort, I suppose, complete with chairs, beanbags, a whiteboard and a scrap piece of carpet donated from Uncle Brian. The kids have logged many hours of play in it already.

What a memorable family effort!