Michaels JACKPOT

Man guys! I hit it big time at Michaels the other day...

I went to find supplies for a replacement wreath for our front door... embarrassingly enough we have had our 'Spring' wreath on the door since March... haha


Of course I made sure to bring a coupon with me... I don't know how I can possibly stress this enough... you can ALWAYS get a better deal - BRING.A.COUPON!!!

A lot of times things I am planning on getting are already on sale... so the coupon doesn't apply... which means I get to look around for more crafts! {please tell me I'm not alone here - craft stores are addicting}

Here is what I found:

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Apparently my local store carries glass bowls VERY similar to the ones I want to use for our centerpieces like I wrote about here. The exciting part is that these 10" bowls only cost $7.99 each!


Plus, I used my coupon and brought it down to only $3.99! AMAZING... plus I figure if I buy them one at a time at that price then I would save nearly $150 on my center pieces... If that's not hitting the crafting jackpot well I don't know what is!

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I even put a few of my sunflowers in the bowl to make sure that they're big enough - they totally are! We'll use floating lillies, but I did need to make sure this would work.

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And here is my receipt for proof of awesome prices!

Plus, they only had 6 in the store when I was there so I asked to see if they would be getting more... apparently starting the first week of October - Michaels will start taking special orders of items they normally carry... Check it out with your store if you are interested - might be a great way to get some wedding supplies...

P.s. Michaels is really close to my house... so multiple trips are not out of the question

Have you had any great craft finds lately??

Straight to the Bank

Image Via The One In Pink

When we got engaged back in November of 2010 we had enough money to get married right then... But that was because we had been saving for a house...

For me, having an asset, something physical to hold on to was more important than a big fancy party {at the time}.... We had been looking at homes and together decided to let the house be the priority....

Plus the more and more I read, it seemed like having over a year to plan would allow us to get all the top vendors we wanted.


So how did we save up $10,000 over the last 10 months?? Well here is our list of tips:

First, we opened an account in both of our names - JUST a savings account... no cards to allow quick withdrawals... but with both our names on it we could set up automatic payments from our personal accounts.

Second, EVERY check we got went into that account - EVERY SINGLE ONE!! Our tax refunds, my shopping rebates, birthday money, returned deposits... ALL of them!

Third, at the end of each month any extra money we had after paying the bills, less $200 for spending money, went straight into the wedding account.

Fourth, all extra money we've gotten like bonuses from work, have also gone to savings.

Saving isn't easy, but there are ways to make it go smoother...

What method of savings worked best for you?

Am I Really a Budget Bride?

Yes, I am a Bride...


Oh, and of course there IS a Budget...


But where is the cut-off that qualifies you for being a 'budget' bride per say?

We are paying for the wedding ourselves... and we aren't planning on having any other family members be able to contribute...

I know that 'tradition' says that the Bride's family is suppose to pay for the wedding, but to be honest I never expected that they would... we did well as a family growing up, but after my parents split up, and I got older, I started to understand that there wasn't a cushy bank account with my name on it... no, my parents were just average Joes and money doesn't grow on trees... at least not the ones in our backyard!!

Image via Diamond Wedding Band

I loved the series of Father of The Bride movies.... ultimately I am glad I don't have to put my parents through that stress!

My dad and stepmom will be flying to California from Alaska - the current ticket price is nearly $700... So with Lodging, Rental Cars, Attire, etc they will probably be spending at least $2000 just to be with us on our Big Day...

My madre and sister have to travel from New York - their tickets are running $520 right now, so probably $1500 for the trip....

Gas from Salt Lake to California is probably $300 to $500 so the rest of my will also be paying quite a bit to join us as well....

While it would be nice to have an additional $4000 to help with wedding costs I would MUCH rather have my family present.


Now.... we have been quite lucky that HIS parents have offered to cover the alcohol at the reception, which could easily be $500 to $1000, we will still be holding that money to the side in case they have a financial emergency or something...

Same goes for my mom - remember that $2,000 dress I fell in love with? Well... I may still be eyeing it.... And while she has offered to split it with me, I would rather her not have to shell out any more cash than she already has too....


And as far as being a "Budget Bride"... well since when is $10,000 SMALL price to pay...

I feel like it is a TON of money...

We have it.... in the bank... right now....

but that is because we waited an additional YEAR to get married.... The was the choice we made so that we could save up, but even now with the money waiting to be spent it is still quite hard to part with....

Do You Have A Budget? Are Your Family Members Planning on Helping You Out??

Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 3

Alright.... alright.... I will finish the story....

Sorry, a lot of drama = a lot of story to tell!

haha!

Well... now that we had the money - lost the money - resaved the money - we had to finally settle on a ring!


By this point we were fast approaching our yearly Thanksgiving trip to California to spend time with His family...

I typically take off the first half of that week since those are the days that He already has off anyways.... so when we were out there we had plenty of time to kill....


Since He had been pestering me for a new gun (yes, we are gun people) - he suggested that we might be able to benefit from the hard times that had hit the area by checking out their local pawn shops.


Enter : Olde West Gun & Loan

Image via Google Maps - Redding, CA

This place was a mega-jackpot of guns and ammo.... really, it was an impressive selection.... but personally we found their gun prices to be on the high side so we left with some ammo for a rare gun my Grandfather has... but no guns....

What we did find were FOUR.... count 'em FOUR Marquise Solitaire rings... FOUR!!!


Heaven!

Now, I know there is a lot of stigma attached to pawn shop rings.... but really, if you know what you want, why should it matter where you get it? Given the extensive searching we had been doing, we knew exactly what we had found - the perfect ring at a minimum of 50% off retail.... [of course we had the ring professionally checked out!]

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Look at that baby shine!

Finally we were engaged!!!

Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 2

So if you are following along with the story of my Bling you now know about the major road bump we hit that set us back a month or two...

After depleting our *Ring Fund* to pay off old debts I was pretty devastated to be completely up front with you.... but really, we did the responsible thing... as a team!

He is not the only one joining this relationship with a past of financial difficulty.... while I love my job, the degree I needed to pursue it was rather spendy... I mean, I got a good deal - say 80% off.... but I still owe FOUR times our initial wedding budget in student loans... so I'd say we are pretty much financially equal in the debts we bring together...

But - this post is about my bling... not our wallets... so let's continue with the story shall we....

While we started saving again, we also continued to look around at our local jewelry stores...

We stopped in Kays and Zales - neither had much of a selection of Marquise stones.... like I mentioned in the last post, what I was looking for is rare - unpopular - not a big seller - etc. So I understand that some stores cannot afford to carry stock that will not move. Both the Kays and Zales stores we visited had very friendly sales people... just nothing to offer *us*


One day while grocery shopping, we stopped into the in-store jewelry store. Not mentioning names here, since we have a bad experience to share, but this jewelry store (supported by their parent company grocery store) is suppose to be one of the larger jewelers in the country. While they did have a stone in the store that was close to what we were looking for it was slightly wider than I wanted. With Marquise stones the length to width ratio helps determine how aesthetically pleasing the stone is, and my preference was to get a ratio of more than 2:1


Well, darn! No Luck?

Actually, this store was planning on hosting a Diamond Event where they bring in Millions of dollars worth of stones and setting and you can make exactly what you want!!


How exciting!

We left our details, budget, preferences and such with the store - made an appointment for the event (three weeks later) and started saving like CRAZY!!

On the day of our appointment I woke Him up early (he works nights and doesn't usually wake up until 4pm - we were scheduled for 3pm) and we eagerly went off to the market!!

Unfortunately, when we got their we discovered that they had made NO attempt to bring ANY stones matching the information we had left - and no we did not ask for like a 3 carat stone for less than $1,000 or something equally ridiculous.... we knew the price we would have to pay for what we wanted and had left reasonable requests the last time we were in. Not only did this store not call us to let us know they we unable to find what we wanted - they had the audacity to suggest we buy the same stone we rejected THREE.WEEKS.AGO!!!!

*Que tears*

Picture from Newborn Baby Ideas

Well....

Fine....

Whatever....

We left of course... upset... I was sad... But hey, if nothing else we had been motivated to save back up again... that counts for something right?


And really... you will never guess where we found my ring...


O.M.G. Did anyone else has *THIS* much trouble in the ring department???

Bling Bling - Story of my Ring - Part 1

Image From Poll Boutique

So.... Boy Meets Girl.... yadda yadda yadda....


You get it, we're in love.... past the point of just saying "I love you" and doing nice things for each other... to be honest we were both adults and realized at about the same time that things were moving towards a more permanent arrangement and that we were both really comfortable with that.



We began talking about getting married - running through deal breaker questions like:


-Do we want kids?

-Where do we want to live / Where do we NOT want to live?

-How do we handle money together?

etc.



It began looking like it was time to start choosing ring styles!!!

I may or may not have some experience in the ring department - actually both of us have been engaged before and the last time for me I ended up with a ring that was not something I wanted to be wearing on a daily basis.

Don't Judge!

I'm not trying to be mean about the previous ring - just certain styles do not fit some people.


This time I wanted to help make sure this was a ring I could wear every day for the rest of my life! So here is what I knew I wanted:

-White gold
-Thin Band
-Solitaire
-Marquise or Emerald
-The ring had to be paid in full within 24 hours of acquisition

We started saving up for this purchase and stopping into jewelery stores when we were out shopping to get a better feel for the size and shapes of the different stones that were available. I decided fairly early on that I was in love with the Marquise style stone and unfortunately it is a fairly unpopular choice right now [read: no one is carrying them!!]


Before we really even got started we hit a huge wall.... An old medical bill of His from 2004-2006 resurfaced in the form of a judgement against him. Some bad-debt-collecting lawyer had filed to collect on this old bill and it basically worked out to Him owing $3,000 RIGHT.NOW.OR.ELSE!

For me, trying to move towards a more unified front meant that HE did not owe anything.... WE were on the hook for this $$$. Being fairly savvy in the ways of google I found that these debts can be settled for less, and often if paid immediately in cash could be legally taken care of. I called the lawyer's office and settled the $3,000 debt for $2,000 [paid immediately] in exchange for a letter stating the debt had been settled and they would surrender and legal rights to continue to come after us.


YAY- Done! - What a deal right?


Well, guess where that $2,000 had to come from?