The dress was in “oatmeal” when I tried it on but will be white when it arrives.
Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a great weekend, and if you have today off (I do!) I hope you are having a great Monday off as well. I can’t believe it’s September, this year is flying by so quickly. Halloween stores are already open and I’ve heard that stores already have Christmas decorations out.
Today, I decided to post a picture of my wedding dress. It looks so much better in person, and I can’t wait until I can show all of you a picture of the one that I actually bought.
Hopefully W doesn’t look at this post. I was inspired to share my dress by this girl, and her dress is beautiful! There are additional pictures of my dress on my Twitter.
My dress will be white though, and in the picture included in this post, it is pink. Yes, that means I tried it on and bought it when I only tried it on in pink.
For some reason that’s all that the bridal store had! I fell in love regardless, and some of my bridesmaids and even W’s mom wanted me to buy it in pink. I just couldn’t though!
This whole summer has been great, and we have had great weather. However, the past couple of weeks have been filled with 100 to 105 degree heat each day, and it is definitely no fun when paired with the high humidity.
August was a great month. We went on vacation to New Orleans and that was a lot of fun.
Also, August was great for our budget even though we did a little bit of spending. September will be a fun month as well – my wedding dress is supposed to arrive this month, and my best friend gets married this FRIDAY.
This was our first full month without paying a crazy amount to student loans, and it felt great. August was a little slower than usual for side income as well, so I’m glad we were able to save that money instead of having to put all of it towards student loans. WOOHOO for my student loans being gone!
Since August was slower for side income, I would really like to find additional freelancing gigs. Once I make the switch, I will have more time available (at least 60 hours each week will be freed up), so I will want something to fill in at least some of that gap.
I do have a question about switching to self-employment. What is a tip that you would give to someone making the switch? It can be anything about making money, budgeting, saving money, taking a vacation and so on! Also, what do you think a person MUST do before they leave their job? I just want to hear what everyone has to say 🙂
Once I make the switch, I definitely want to save money as much as I can. Now, this doesn’t mean that I will be cutting everything fun out of our lives, it just means that I want to save money on food, save money on personal items, and save money on pretty much everything. We will be frugal – not cheap. Most of the things that we do will focus on having fun, being healthy, and enjoying life, and not revolve around money. We want to be smart with our money. However, I will say that I don’t see us getting rid of our cell phones, cars, cable, etc.
We are also very close to the amount that we would like to have in our emergency fund before I make the self-employment switch. See below for further information!
We are still thinking about our dream house, but once I make the switch that will be on hold. We haven’t fallen in love with anything yet, and the area that we want to live in doesn’t have a single house for sale…
My August extra income post will be live tomorrow, so make sure to come back!
August Goals Update
Run 20 miles per week and lose weight. PASS. I did pretty well with eating healthy and working out.
Make an extra $10,000 (after expenses) this month. FAIL. I was slightly under this because of expenses. I also forgot to account for the fact that I took a week-long vacation in August and didn’t have reliable internet access. If I didn’t take a vacation, then I’m sure I would have beat this goal, however, almost $10K with a vacation included? I’ll take it! August was also a little slow for extra income, but September will be better.
Replace the garage door. FAIL. Haha I don’t even know why I have this on the list because it will obviously never get done!
Make an actual plan for my switch date. PASS. You will find out soon!
September Goals
Keep our food budget under $450. We have been doing very well with our food spending, but I would like to limit both our grocery and restaurant spending to less than $500 this month.
Create a meal plan. I haven’t made a meal plan in forever, and our food budget has definitely been hurting because of it.
Do more free activities. We have been doing a lot of free and cheap things lately, but we would both like to attend more free events such as festivals and so on. Usually we blame the heat or our laziness for not getting out more, and we would like to change that.
Fully fund our emergency fund. I would like to have around a full year of expenses in our emergency fund just in case something were to happen to my freelancing. I used a lot of out EF in order to pay down my student loans, and I would like to fully fund it again. We are almost there, and just need a little bit more income to finish this goal.
Run 20 miles each week and lose weight. COME ON MICHELLE!
Make an extra $10,000 this month. Same as last month – I definitely think this is possible. I have been doing very good with my extra income lately. I still do want to diversify my extra income methods a little more though because I want to be ready for anything that happens once I make the freelancing switch. So much of this extra income goes to taxes, and you also have to factor in benefits that I am losing when I am 100% self-employed.
How did you do in August? What is your main goal for September?
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