31 days: an anticlimactic conclusion

So I finished the 31-day challenge.  YAAAY!!!!!!!!

Okay, so it wasn't actually that exciting.  In the introductory chapter of the book, Sarah Mae suggests reading through all the Martha challenges to make sure you have all the right supplies and whatnot.  If I had done that, I could have saved myself some really hard work in the middle of the challenge and kept my efforts a bit more constant.  As it turned out, I had kind of doubled up on some tasks.  When I cleaned/organized the bathrooms, I did ALL the bathrooms, including my utility room (yeah, my house is weird in that the utility room has a washer, dryer, sink, and toilet).  And when I deep-cleaned the bedrooms, I included the guest bedroom.  Our guest bedroom is also the home office, so I'd already done that when the book had it scheduled.

So I did it!  And it felt great, even with the anticlimactic nature of the way I finished up.  Next up, I'll be doing the Mary challenges.  These will, in some ways, be harder for me than the Martha challenges.  They require self-reflection and meditation.  They also (mostly) need to be done in a quiet place, sometimes while sitting and writing things down.  That means I'll need to do them during naptimes; baby is fine watching me work around the house but finds me incredibly boring when I just sit at the computer.

Sarah Mae has now put out new challenges that are more about maintenance, so I'll be doing those as well.  They aren't nearly as intense!  But a few times a year, I'll go through the original challenges again.  Deep cleaning is easier when there is less time that passes in between cycles!

All in all, I feel really good about my home now.  There were a few times during the challenge when I ended up having some impromptu guests, and it was so nice to be able to just spend a little bit of time tidying up in order to then sit back and enjoy my friends.  After all, that's what this was all about... at least, that was a big part of it for me.  Looking back on my mission statement and reasons for this project, I feel like I've been able to accomplish the goals I set out to achieve.  How?

1. I feel amazing when my home is clean.  I have felt amazing!  There have been times over the course of this challenge that I looked around and smiled.  What's more, I was able to put my feet up sometimes and just enjoy my home.
2. I want my husband to have a place of refuge.  Over the course of this challenge, he started traveling a bit more, and in addition to having a warm, inviting home, I wanted to make sure he had good meals when he was here.  Having a clean, organized house afforded me the chance to plan and make the home-cooked dinners that he enjoys -- and enjoy them with him!
3. I enjoy spending uninhibited time with my baby.  As the intensity of the challenge has tapered off, I have noticed how much more focused I am on baby when he needs me.  I think this has enhanced all his play time.  Even when he plays alone, he seems to enjoy it entirely -- because, when do I play with him, I am fully engaged instead of sending him the message that I am distracted by pressing obligations.
4. I want to be an impromptu hostess.  As above!  I don't think anyone who came over would describe my home as perfect, but I think they would agree that my house felt inviting and home-like.
5. I work better in a clean house.  The cleanliness and organization of my home has helped me to focus better on whatever project engages me.  I have done a lot of cooking and baking recently, which is something I haven't been able to say since my baby was born.  I know that part of this is the fact that he is more able to entertain himself, but it's also become much more apparent to me that, previously, I was too stretched thin to do any one thing well.

So is the challenge over?  Officially, yes.  I know I'll keep facing challenges in creating my ideal home.  This was just the first hurdle -- and over the course of 31 days, I cleared it!

plain jane giveaway

Check out this sweet giveaway!  I am all about making your own stuff whenever it's practical instead of buying products with tons of ingredients.  I'll admit I don't do as much of that as I'd like, but I'm getting better about it all the time!  This basket looks like a great sampler of homemade products.

back to dave

In January 2009, husband and I got fed up with our finances: not knowing where our paychecks were going, making monthly payments on various types of debt, and living in fear of some emergency that our meager savings account would not cover.  Don't get me wrong -- our debt was not as bad as many people's.  We paid off our credit cards every single month, only had a couple of cards, balanced our budget regularly, paid loans on time..... turns out, telling yourself that you're not as bad as everyone else is a pretty good way to live a mediocre life.

More than two years prior, in October 2006, my parents had given us the book The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  You've probably heard of him, but you may not entirely understand his mission and his plan.  I'm not going to outline that here; it would take too long.  (If you're interested, his book is a fantastic easy read that's full of success stories; most libraries carry it.  And there is some information here.)  But it boils down to this: don't borrow money.  If you owe money, pay it off ASAP, starting with the smallest debt and working up to the biggest.  His message is about financial security and peace, and in January 2009, we finally decided we were DONE living our lives like so much of America.  One of Dave's sayings is, "Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else."  He talks of sacrificing now in order to one day be able to afford to give extravagantly and afford expensive luxuries.  By starting our own Total Money Makeover, we were putting ourselves on the path to that kind of financial freedom.

And in January 2009, we started killing it.  As the "nerd" (Dave's term) of our relationship, I put together our budget spreadsheet, and husband and I worked together to trim the fat in our budget.  We cut back as much as possible, and at the end of the month, anything left over after our bare-bones expenses went to paying off our debts.  I'll never forget walking into our credit union (I always made our car payments in person since it was right up the street from my work and therefore saved me a stamp) and handing over a $2400 check.  Our loan amount at that time was around $266.  The teller looked at the check, looked at me in confusion, and said, "You want to pay... $2400?"  That was our surplus that month, and YES, that is what I wanted to pay!  Seeing the "amount owed" lines on our debts come down was immensely satisfying, the kind of high I used to get after finishing well in piano contests or winning a volleyball game.

Unfortunately, we had to stop our "debt snowball" in August 2009.  We had paid off four of our debts with only the three giants left to go, but we were planning a move -- the kind of event that Dave says qualifies for "piling up cash."  We were leaving our home, getting new jobs (and jobs as consultants, no less!), and starting out with a lot of uncertainties, so we were to make only the minimum payments on our debt while moving every extra penny into savings.

That plan, along with the $17,000 of debt we had eliminated up to that point, ended up being what saved us.  The first few months back in Missouri were not what we had expected.  Work was not as plentiful as the consulting firm had promised, and we dug into our savings over those first months.  When worked picked up, we still had what Dave considers a volatile situation because of the uncertain nature of consulting... and then we were expecting a baby.  Both of those things necessitated a continuation of our "piling up cash."

In 2010, we self-paid for our baby (our health insurance doesn't cover maternity), and we continued putting all the extra into savings as a Just In Case for the pregnancy and birth.  It was frustrating to me, not being able to knock out our debts, but I knew we were doing the right thing.  As we found out in our baby's early months, it was the only thing that would keep us above water.  Husband's work slowed down again (he has since gotten several more clients, which means all our eggs are no longer in one basket!), and our emergency savings fund carried us through January-April.

I suppose the title of this post is inaccurate.  We never left Dave's plan; we just had to shift gears a bit to compensate for some life events.  What we're getting back to is purely income-related, a difference of having a surplus instead of relying on what we had set aside.  This month, for the first time since our son was born, we are able to put money back into our emergency savings account instead of having to watch it trickle away to make ends meet.  Once we have it built up sufficiently to compensate for the volatility of a consultant's pay, we will be back to our debt snowball.  On our way to financial freedom.  And I can't wait.