Oh hi there, Blog. It’s been a while, no?

This week has been… work. Lots and lots of work. I love my job and I love my position, but right now things are busy and I find myself drained at the end of the day. Thus no posts aside from the usual Monday check up.

But enough excuses — it’s Friday! That happy day that puts an end to work and starts a weekend of rest. (Or at least for some of us.:) What are you up to this weekend? J has to work Saturday so I am going to Greensboro to spend some time with my family and catch up some housekeeping items that have sadly been neglected lately.

Five happy things for your Friday:

1. Lasagna Rolls — What an ingenious way to make lasagna (and maybe you won’t overeat, a problem I always seem to have with lasagna).

2. I’d like to make this lovely window coffee table, via Oh! Glory Vintage

3. How pretty are these terrariums? I’m thinking about making one for a side table.

4. I love these Amy Butler towels, available at Bed Bath & Beyond.

5. Last night at Target, I bought a bag of these. I suggest you do the same.

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I hope all of you have a very good weekend. I promise to post more next week. :)

Weekly Money Check-Up is a weekly series on My Pretty Pennies. To participate, fill in the blanks in the comments section, or post it on your blog and link below. If you do post it on your blog, please credit MPP and link it back here. Thank you for participating!

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on buying expansions for the game Dominion.

2. Today I am thankful for the laziest Sunday ever. We stayed in our pajamas until the early afternoon (don’t judge), crocheted (me), watched sitcoms, overate Chinese food for lunch, and talked about how gross it was outside.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was host my father in-law’s Carolina-Hurricanes-themed birthday.

4. I will consider this week a success if I survive jury duty. Yes, tomorrow I have been summoned to serve in jury duty. I’m hoping it will just be a one-day thing this week….

5. The craft I am currently interested in right now is crocheting. I just finished my first granny square blanket this week and am working on my second.

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1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on _____.
2. Today I am thankful ___________.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was_____________.
4. I will consider this week a success if I _____________.
5. The craft I am currently interested in right now________.

(photo credit)

Happy Friday my friends! What are you up to this weekend? I feel like I’m getting sick (not again!) so I plan to keep this weekend low-key and very casual.  Here are five happy things to end your week on:

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1. Check out the 10 Things You Do to Save Money that End Up Costing You More article on Life Hacker. Have you done any of those ten things? I confess I have gone out of my way to find cheap gas before. But haven’t we all?

2. This chart made me laugh, by GraphJam found via Cup of Jo.

3. I am hoping to finish this book this weekend. Has anyone seen the movie? I am curious to see how they manage to tell this story — it’s hard to imagine such a mind-thinking book as a screenplay.

4. Oh Jordan. Every time I visit her blog I find something awesome and fun. This week: DIY Surprise Lanterns!

5. Another funny find this week via Etsy:

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Have a happy weekend! xo

I’ve always loved snow. I love light flurries, I love heavy blizzards. I love when you have nowhere to go and can watch the snow fall from your window. Growing up, my dad would wake me up in the middle of the night so we could be the first ones to experience the white untouched grounds. I loved snow so much I decided to spend four years of college with it in the NC mountains.

My love for snow, however, ended in 2010.

Some of you may remember the Mid-Atlantic snow attack in the winter of 2009-2010. In fact, some of you experienced those unsettling few weeks. The weeks where snow billowed from the sky for days, wind was fierce, and a couple of feet of snow remained on the dirty streets months afterwards. These three storms were affectionately called Snowpocalypse, Snowmaggedon, and Snowverkill. The very last one, Snowverkill, was one of the worst weeks of my life: I was home alone, out of power, got food poisoning, and was severely dehydrated. I had never felt so alone and helpful. I hated snow after that miserable experience.

But, just like any relationship, a little time can do wonders for hurt feelings.

After two years, I am finally ready to love snow again. But where is it this year? I have yet to see one flurry this winter, and it seems to be a trend across America.

Dear Snow,

Please don’t stay away too long. Can you visit at least once before spring’s arrival?

Much Love, Ginna

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(photo: of my apartment parking lot)

Sorry this is a day late! I took a break for MLK day. :)

Weekly Money Check-Up is a weekly series on My Pretty Pennies. To participate, fill in the blanks in the comments section, or post it on your blog and link below. If you do post it on your blog, please credit MPP and link it back here. Thank you for participating!

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on groceries.

2. Today I am thankful for out of town friends that came to visit this past weekend. They brought their dog Poncho and it was so much fun having a puppy around the house!

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was play Dominion with our friends. Has anyone played that game before? It’s our new favorite game.

4. I will consider this week a success if I blog four times this week!

5. My purse contains my wallet, tic tacks, small bottle of aspirin, Tide to-go pen, a pen, sunglasses, checkbook, BC, crumbled tissues (just being honest), sunglasses, and a little change purse where I keep gift cards and discount membership cards.

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1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on _____.
2. Today I am thankful ___________.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was_____________.
4. I will consider this week a success if I _____________.
5. My purse contains ___________.

(photo credit)

Happy Weekend my friends! What are you up these next few days? We have some friends coming into town and I’m so excited to spend the long weekend together. J and I tend to stay in our little neighborhood bubble, so I am looking forward to exploring new restaurants and fun things in Raleigh.

Five things to end your week on:

1. My new favorite fashion blogger.

2.  I found this post very helpful, from the Nesting Place.

3. Target’s new spring line! I’ve already found some items I can’t wait to purchase. :)

4. How to make gym cardio bearable.

5. I’d like to own at least one painting from Janet Hill’s Etsy shop. This one will do:

I hope all of you have a wonderful MLK weekend! :)

Alright folks. I have found a way to share our budget… without sharing our budget.

Since I am no longer anonymous and my coworkers, friends and family read my blog (hi guys!), I had to forgo the luxury of sharing all the nitty-gritty numbers sitting in my bank account. Personal finance was the initial purpose for starting this blog, so it’s been hard not sharing these details.

So I decided to share what our budget looks like on a percentage basis. That’s okay, right? :) Here is a chart that shows what we pay each month and some details on how we decided on these allocations:

Categories explained, from largest to smallest:

Savings/Pay off debt: 30.18%
I am so happy that this is our largest category! It hasn’t always been the biggest, but thankfully we are able to save or pay off debt with 30% of our budget. Right now this amount includes paying down debt (we are working through J’s student loans, which should be paid off in a few months!), beefing up our emergency fund, and a portion goes to save for our car insurance and renter’s insurance, which is paid every six months. This is the only category that really changes our net worth for the positive, so we try to keep this category as high as possible.

Rent: 23.13%
Unfortunately our rent takes a huge chunk of our budget each month, but I doubt that will change anytime soon as we plan to live in this same location until we save for a house. This amount also includes water, charged by the rental company.

Food & Dining: 13.93%
This category is for any food or drinks we buy – whether it’s groceries, coffee, alcohol, restaurants, or fast food. Most people separate this category into two: Groceries and Dining Out. We started out our marriage separating them too, but we found that we constantly needed to adjust our budget amounts based on what kind of month we were having. For example, May of last year we were out of town almost every weekend, so we ended up being waaaay over in our Dining Out budget and under budget on our Groceries. And in June, the opposite was true – we hosted friends and spent more of our money on groceries rather than eating out.  It was getting to be discouraging to always be over budget in one category, so we decided to call the whole thing off and keep a simple one-budget amount and live our lives in peace. Our only goal is to not exceed the overall Food & Dining amount.

Everything Else: 11.61%
This is another category where we probably differ from many people! We started our first married budget micromanaging every single thing we spent. We had a budget for haircuts, entertainment, clothing, office supplies, home décor/improvement, travel, gifts, parking, etc. But the thing is, we don’t get our haircut every month. We don’t pay for parking or go to the movies on a regular basis Some months I spend a lot on makeup and personal care, and other months we have healthcare co-pays. It’s always different and we’ve never had a consistent month with any of these smaller categories.

So that’s where the “Everything Else” category came up. Every month is different, so we always talk about what kinds of things we’ll be buying from this category. Like last month I got a haircut, and next month we’ll buy a wedding gift. Communicating these things to each other and making sure we’re on board with our goals is key in making this category work.

I don’t recommend this for everyone. When you first start making a budget I think it’s good to micromanage the little things so you know where you’re spending and where you can afford to cut back on. I also think this category is the very last one you should make. The amount we have in this category is basically leftover after we save, tithe, and pay our bills.

Charity: 10.45%
Each month we give away roughly 10% of our income to charity, which includes tithing to our church and a few missionaries that we support. Sometimes this amount will increase if there is a one-off charity or fundraiser we want to give to.

Gasoline: 4.64%
Our gasoline budget fluctuates by month, but we steadily spend about 5% on gas. We add to this category (from Everything Else) if we go on big or many road trips.

Mobile Phone: 3.3%
We have fancy phones with a set fee, so they have their own category. We also pay for roadside assistance through our cell phone company (a service I highly recommend! We’ve used it maybe four times since getting married — remember those old unreliable cars we had to replace?:)

Bills & Utilities: 2.65%
Bills & Utilities includes all monthly bills that we receive, including electric, cable  and Internet. This category increases in the summer when air conditioning cools down our hot Raleigh apartment.

Bank Fee: 0.12%
To protect our money, we have an identity theft protection placed on our bank accounts and a small bank fee to our credit union. This amount is so small (.12%!) but it’s still something that is a guaranteed expense each month so that’s why it’s in our budget.

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Whew! Lots of information, eh? Any questions? Comments? :)

I got some awesome gifts for Christmas. Some books, a necklace, tickets to the Performing Arts theater… it was truly a wonderful Christmas. But there are two gifts in particular  that have become instant loves in my life.

1. Keurig Coffee Maker
Have you ever used one of these? I unexpectedly got one for Christmas from my in-laws and it’s amazing. This fabulous little machine has simplified my morning coffee routine: instead of using my huge pot of coffee to make one cup in the morning, this genius machine will give me the perfect serving size. I love it!

^That New York mug was also a gift. Since J and I gave each other the trip for Christmas, we decided to wrap up a mug we bought in the Columbus Circle Starbucks so we’d have something to open. The package said “To Jeff & Ginna, From Jeff & Ginna.” Yeah, we’re nerds.

2. A Beautiful Bike!
I feel like a little kid when I say I got a bike for Christmas, but it truly was such a wonderful surprise from my parents. Long time readers may remember when I had a bike in DC, but I gave it away when I moved to Raleigh because my first apartment didn’t have a good spot to keep it dry. So finally I have a bike back in my life! I cannot wait for spring’s arrival so I can take more frequent rides. Look how pretty she is. :)

What were some of your favorite Christmas gifts this year?

Weekly Money Check-Up is a weekly series on My Pretty Pennies. To participate, fill in the blanks in the comments section, or post it on your blog and link below. If you do post it on your blog, please credit MPP and link it back here. Thank you for participating!

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a whole bunch of stuff. Rent, tithing, cell phone, internet/cable, and some groceries. We spend about 75% of our monthly budget in the first week on bills. Is that the case for you?

2. Today I am thankful for a relaxing weekend. Honestly, last week was pretty crummy, so a low-key weekend was just what I needed.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was absolutely nothing on Saturday. And by nothing, I mean I woke up late, had two cups of coffee, went for a long bike ride, organized the house, and crocheted while watching a movie with J. It was perfect.

4. I will consider this week a success if I get ready for some friends in town this weekend! I love having visitors. :)

5. If I could change one thing about my home I’d add a fireplace. All I want to do on chilly nights is make a cozy fire, snuggle on the couch and listen to it crackle while reading a good book. So, dear friends, if you have this luxury, please use your fireplace for me this week!

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1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on _____.
2. Today I am thankful ___________.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was_____________.
4. I will consider this week a success if I _____________.
5. If I could change one thing about my home __________.

(photo credit)

Am I the last blogger to post on their Christmas? Pretty sure I am. Well, even though Christmas seems to be ages ago (was it really just a week and a half ago?) I can’t skip over it because I don’t want to forget all of the blessings from this year’s holiday. And that’s what my Christmas was: a blessing. To be completely honest, I’ve kind of been dreading our first holiday as a married couple. It would mean picking and choosing which family we’d have to celebrate with, and I hated to think of either of our families without us there to celebrate.

As the holidays approached, we decided to remedy that fear by celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas together. J’s parents hosted Thanksgiving and my parents and sister came along. My parents hosted Christmas and invited J’s family for our traditional dinner with our extended family. Plus I got two Christmases! Who is that lucky to have two?! (Although apparently this is a regular occurrence for married folks? My friend Catherine had six!)

Christmas with J’s Family:

Our “Christmas Eve” with J’s family started on Dec 23. The whole family helped J’s best friend propose to his (now) fiance and we got to celebrate with them right after she said yes. That evening we had a large, delicious dinner with some of their family friends and then hosted an impromptu surprise engagement party for the happy engaged couple. We went to sleep giddy like it was Christmas Eve, and woke up to celebrate Christmas.  We opened gifts (more on that later!) and then ate a yummy breakfast casserole.

Christmas with My Family:

On Christmas Eve we headed to my parents’ to celebrate with my family. We affectionately call our parents’ home “Mardo” as a combination of their two first names, so my dad surprised us with a corn hole board and added the name to all the details. That evening we went to the candlelight service at church, came home and shared memories from the year over dinner, and then my mom gave us an early gift of home videos on DVD to watch that evening. Christmas morning we opened gifts, stayed in our pajamas until noon, then got ready for our dinner. That afternoon a few aunts, uncles, cousins and J’s family came over for dinner, hosted a corn hole competition (my sister in-law Katie won!), and ended the evening with a bonfire outside.

It worked out perfectly, and I feel so blessed to have in-laws that get along with my family so well. And now I have that sad holiday hangover feeling since the tree is down, decorations are put away, and I’m back to real life. It’s just not as fun as the magical holiday season! But it’s good to be in a routine again. And just to rebel, I kept a strand of lights on my balcony for when I want to revisit the twinkling season. ;)