Good-Bye Casa, Hello Casa

I am getting really tired of thinking we are getting a house and loosing it. This one WE actually walked away from @ THE CLOSING TABLE! Yes, it was maybe one of the top worst days of my life. We loved this property. We couldn't wait for the land, the chickens, the garden. We were so close. Closing was August 24th. We found out days before that the seller, who remember is broke, has a 35K lien on the house from IRS! We were beginning to worry, panic may have been a better word. We thought the title company had worked teh kinks out, but it turns out the friendly seller advised us to walk or we would be stuck with the lien as he just had it removed from his personal credit NOT the house! They were willing to work it out and wait for the IRS to do their paperwork...and we can only imagine how much longer this may take, so we said enough....and terminated the contract with the seller.  I felt immediate relief. Sometimes you just know you made the choice and that everything happens for a reason. Later THAT day we decided to go see a few houses in East Dallas. It was that afternoon that we found our dream home and two days later have an executed contract.

This is not a Casa Not So Grande, it is actually a 2500sf, 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. It is a completely renovated 1910 Colonial/Craftsman yellow house with a beautiful front porch.  All it needs is a family, and a few trees, flowers and a little garden. I am so excited I could scream! We should be in it by mid to late September. The problem is we sold so much of our furniture thinking we were downsizing , so we will have some spacious empty rooms for awhile until we can save up for some furniture.

We fell off our projected plan a tad. We did however pay off all of our debt, both cars and started an emergency savings.  We also put away our annual money we will owe for our work taxes since we are self employed, and started our IRA mutual fund and maxed that out. So we are much better then where we were before June. We are maxed out on our mortgage at 55% down in cash and 45% owed.  We hope to pay the house off by 15 years allowing us to also save for retirement and college. The payment is low, much lower then anything we could rent! So we are in a good place, and have created a budget we will try hard to stick to! The hardest for me is always food. I am such a foodie and Whole Foods is minutes from our new house. We must learn to eat for less with out compromising organic, local, non processed food. We have been spending about $1000+ a month on food for our family of 5. My kids are all eating so much, and growing so fast. I tried to keep us at $700 a month this summer and have gone over every month. This is a big challenge for me. I just read a post on 100 days of Real Food blog and do not know HOW they ate on 125/week with a family of 4...although her kids look itty-bitty and their portions look so small. I would love to hear from you and how you do it? What do you spend on food each month on your family?

My birthday is in 3 days, and I will be 40! I do believe we are getting this house. Best gift EVER.

The Long Espera

It has been a long wait. We have been busy with summer fun, but the wait had just about stayed its welcome when we got notice that our offer had been accepted by the bank! YES. We got the house! My husband doesn't want me getting overly excited about it because our lender still has to do his magic in less then 3 weeks. If he can get it all together then it looks like we will be closing on August 24th and the seller will then have 7 days to vacate the home. OMG! We hope to be in the house mid to late September. We have to re-sand and stain the hardwood floors, prime and paint the inside walls, clean the duct work and reconfigure where the washer and dryer lives. And those things cost $$$ so we are trying to be extra frugal right now hoping that is all that HAS to be done before we move in. The crazy thing is we only have seen the house one time for about 20 minutes and now it is ours. We have been doing a lot of research on owning chickens. I am meeting with a friend who has over 15 chickens after the kids go back to school and getting a chicken 101. We are tempted to buy an igloo from omlet (I love the CUBE). Yes they are so ugly, and plastic but did you see the trays that pull out so easily to clean it and you can just hose it off! No cracks in the wood for mites to live. I love it, but they are again $$$ so we must save! We are researching used sitting mowers for the yard(another $$$). SO we are working hard here, putting as much money as we can away right now, enjoying being DEBT FREE and looking forward to having a place soon to call home. I am weirdly not excited to see our "stuff" in storage and looking forward to going through each item before it enters our new space asking myself 3 questions:
Does it have a purpose?
Is it something we could live without?
Could someone else use it more then us?

I lay in bed at night in visioning my new pantry full of beautiful glass containers full of simple raw foods and basic staples. This is my one chance to organize it right from the start ( I LOVE doing this kind of thing! Totally in my element).

We opened our first Roth IRA last week. This is a big deal considering we should have done this 11 years ago and I am turning 40 at the end of this month. It feels great just knowing that we got that ball rolling. Oh how we will teach our children differently.


I just finished reading a fabulous book called Parenting by the Book by John Rosemond. What a great read....maybe the best parenting book I have read!

I will keep you posted. please pray for us that the house sale goes through. This has been a long wait. But the best things we must wait for. It teaches us patients and so much more. I am so grateful for my family and our health and am anxiously awaiting a home to start new memories in.

Be back soon!