In The Interim

In the beginning of March we became a href=”http://www.daveramseyroad.com/2011/03/we-are-consumer-debt-free.html”debt free from all our consumer debt/a. nbsp;We still have a mortgage and a HELOC and will be paying down the HELOC as if we are still in Baby Step 2. br /br /Before we start all that we have taken a break from the gazelle intensity and have tried to catch up on all the things we have put off for the last two years. We also made a decision to invest in some things that will hopefully save us some money.br /br /ollibWe are in the process of fixing our yard. nbsp;/bFor the last two years we have just kept it mowed. nbsp;That is okay, but after a few years it’s a little tiring looking at all the crabgrass, weeds, and the diseased tree in our front yard. nbsp;We also have not put out any mulch ornbsp;pine strawnbsp;which we desperately need to stop the erosion from ALL.THE.RAIN i{Needing some sun here!}/i.nbsp;/lilibWe planted a small garden./bnbsp;Last year our neighbors planted a garden and were very generous to share their bounty, but we decided that we should try to supply our own fresh-grown produce.nbsp;Caprese salad is our favorite!! nbsp;Now if we could figure out how to grow freshnbsp;mozzarella, we’d be set!nbsp;img alt=”” border=”0″ height=”1″ src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=debtfree2010-20amp;l=bilamp;camp=213689amp;creative=392969amp;o=1amp;a=B002ECFFJ8″ style=”border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;” width=”1″ //lilibWe bought 1/4 of a cow. /bi’Scuze me? /iYes, you read that correctly. nbsp;We have a friend who buys grass-fed, organic beef from a farmer every 9 months or so. nbsp;She was looking for some families who wanted to go in together to by a cow and we decided to be one of them. nbsp;The upfront cost might seem pricey, but when we figured out the numbers over the amount of beef we will receive, the savings is incredible. nbsp;I’ll go into more detail about how this all works once we get our meat in a few days. i{No, we are not raising a farm animal in our backyard.}/inbsp;/lilibWe bought a freezer chest./bnbsp;If you just read #3 you will realize why we needed to invest in a freezer chest. We do have a 2nd refrigerator in our garage, but the freezer space is not enough for all the meat we will be getting. nbsp;We decided to get a small freezer chest to help us store the meat.img alt=”” border=”0″ height=”1″ src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=debtfree2010-20amp;l=bilamp;camp=213689amp;creative=392969amp;o=1amp;a=B0033QOY1Y” style=”border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;” width=”1″ //lilibWe purchased a HUGE shelving unit.img alt=”” border=”0″ height=”1″ src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=debtfree2010-20amp;l=bilamp;camp=213689amp;creative=392969amp;o=1amp;a=B001CDW4IK” style=”border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;” width=”1″ //bMy biggest pet peeve is a messy garage. nbsp;It didn’t matter how many times we cleaned it, it would be a disaster in a few days. nbsp;I finally realized that we needed a sturdy shelving unit to hold all the crap. nbsp;We had a small one that held a lot of stuff, but I wanted to convert that to just our food/paper bulk storage unit. Now it’s all neatly put away on the shelf. nbsp;The benefit of the shelving is that my toddler won’t get into all the fun tools and car wash supplies that formally lived on the floor./li/oldiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”/divdivThose are just a few things that we did in the last month. nbsp;Things that needed to get done over the last few years, but put off until we were out of debt. nbsp;It is quite a different feeling paying cash for the things we needed rather than putting it on a credit card. nbsp;img alt=”” border=”0″ height=”1″ src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=debtfree2010-20amp;l=bilamp;camp=213689amp;creative=392969amp;o=1amp;a=B00272N7HM” style=”border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;” width=”1″ /It’s nice to know that when the vegetables are ready to be picked from the garden we are not making payments on them./divdivbr //divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRATrg8EVsg/TZNrX-0hHHI/AAAAAAAAAX4/nE9HmTHurRM/s1600/garden.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”133″ src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRATrg8EVsg/TZNrX-0hHHI/AAAAAAAAAX4/nE9HmTHurRM/s200/garden.jpg” width=”200″ //a/divdivbr //divbr /a href=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” target=”_blank”img alt=”Anna” border=”0″ src=”http://www.aghdesigns.com/images/blogs/siggy4.png” //a