Side Effects of a Reno
Part 1
The woman who is altering my wedding dress is wonderful. She is a a tiny woman who runs her own dress shop/tailoring and is very skilled. She also has a good memory and knows my whole family and my sister-in-law's whole family. Every time I go in there she asks how everyone is. She doesn't let her rather strong accent get in the way of her conversations, and although I think I'm pretty good at discerning accents and what people are saying, sometimes I struggle to keep up with her.
I first took my dress to her in May, and she pinned it to fit. She asked if I was going to lose weight before the wedding, and I thought I should just be honest with myself right from the get-go and say 'no' - why set up ridiculous expectations for myself?
Well, when I went there a few weeks ago, I got quite a shock - it was too big! Everywhere! Here's the thing - I really have not lost even one pound. I weighed myself yesterday and I am the same as I was in January. No joke. But I have lost several inches everywhere - waist, hips, thighs. Surprising! Bonus! The only problem is now we aren't working as hard and I have to be careful not to put those inches back on in the next 2 months. It will probably help that we don't have a kitchen, so making food is a huge pain in the ass. Also, there is an open bag of chips downstairs that I HAVE NOT EATEN. I can't believe it either... I guess I must REALLY want that dress to fit.
Part 2
Not to get too into details here, but I do want to write about .... money. Prior to this insanity we set up a HUGE line of credit that is on our primary account. The way it works is our paycheques go into this account, and it's also where we pay our bills from. If we spend more than we make, the account goes into the negative, but since our paycheques go right into there, all we do is buy food and pay the bills and the rest pays down that debt. In other words, we have no 'savings'. The idea is that if you need money, it's there, but no sense in paying 3% interest on debt and earning 1% somewhere else - mayaswell just roll it all together. Right? I really like this model because in theory it should be much quicker to pay it off - won't be going out to dinner as often when you're staring at a negative balance on your account!
This week we went into the negative in a big way. And there are more cheques to write. I had prepared myself for this event, and I know cognitively that we are going to be fine - our jobs pay us well, and money is deposited every 2 weeks, and we are both fully capable of reigning in spending on non-essential items. However - it is still sobering to pay the Visa (something I do every few days now) and see that number getting ... smaller and smaller? More and more negative? Plus there won't be recovery time before it's time to start writing wedding cheques again. Gah!
But it's ok. We're ok. Yesterday I ordered a kitchen sink for $237 instead of $864, which is what it would have cost at the stores here. Score!
***
PS. The drywall guy downstairs is singing along to the radio. Awesome.
The woman who is altering my wedding dress is wonderful. She is a a tiny woman who runs her own dress shop/tailoring and is very skilled. She also has a good memory and knows my whole family and my sister-in-law's whole family. Every time I go in there she asks how everyone is. She doesn't let her rather strong accent get in the way of her conversations, and although I think I'm pretty good at discerning accents and what people are saying, sometimes I struggle to keep up with her.
I first took my dress to her in May, and she pinned it to fit. She asked if I was going to lose weight before the wedding, and I thought I should just be honest with myself right from the get-go and say 'no' - why set up ridiculous expectations for myself?
Well, when I went there a few weeks ago, I got quite a shock - it was too big! Everywhere! Here's the thing - I really have not lost even one pound. I weighed myself yesterday and I am the same as I was in January. No joke. But I have lost several inches everywhere - waist, hips, thighs. Surprising! Bonus! The only problem is now we aren't working as hard and I have to be careful not to put those inches back on in the next 2 months. It will probably help that we don't have a kitchen, so making food is a huge pain in the ass. Also, there is an open bag of chips downstairs that I HAVE NOT EATEN. I can't believe it either... I guess I must REALLY want that dress to fit.
Part 2
Not to get too into details here, but I do want to write about .... money. Prior to this insanity we set up a HUGE line of credit that is on our primary account. The way it works is our paycheques go into this account, and it's also where we pay our bills from. If we spend more than we make, the account goes into the negative, but since our paycheques go right into there, all we do is buy food and pay the bills and the rest pays down that debt. In other words, we have no 'savings'. The idea is that if you need money, it's there, but no sense in paying 3% interest on debt and earning 1% somewhere else - mayaswell just roll it all together. Right? I really like this model because in theory it should be much quicker to pay it off - won't be going out to dinner as often when you're staring at a negative balance on your account!
This week we went into the negative in a big way. And there are more cheques to write. I had prepared myself for this event, and I know cognitively that we are going to be fine - our jobs pay us well, and money is deposited every 2 weeks, and we are both fully capable of reigning in spending on non-essential items. However - it is still sobering to pay the Visa (something I do every few days now) and see that number getting ... smaller and smaller? More and more negative? Plus there won't be recovery time before it's time to start writing wedding cheques again. Gah!
But it's ok. We're ok. Yesterday I ordered a kitchen sink for $237 instead of $864, which is what it would have cost at the stores here. Score!
***
PS. The drywall guy downstairs is singing along to the radio. Awesome.
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