"Ballas on a budget" as my husband would say

Minus the fact that ballas we are not, a budget we are on. We've decided to go the typical route--less eating out, less splurging on nothing-specials, and more budget spreadsheets and crunching numbers. We've opened a second checking account so that we can pay our bills out of one and take care of gas, food, and other variable expenses from another. We've also set up an automatic withdrawal to our savings...hopefully all these things will help us to pay off our credit cards so that we can buy some new furniture and someday maybe get a full time nanny for Gabriel. 

Now, I love finding great budget-friendly knick-knacks and this weekend was no exception. It started with a trip to Henry's Market, which has become my new favorite grocery store. I have been wanting to go organic and local for a while and Henry's is perfect for that. The previous week, I took a trip to Fresh and Easy, whose promise is to provide lower prices by keeping their operating costs low. I liked the mission so I decided to shop there; true, their prices were low and I was sufficiently pleased with my purchases. However, not just a few days later, after planning a menu including the asparagus I had just purchased, I opened the fridge to find that they had a slightly fishy stink and were already quite slimy. I decided to try Henry's next, as they have a similar promise, to bring you locally grown, natural, sometimes- depending on the product-organic foods. I fell in love with store! They let you buy all sorts of things in bulk like pretzels, flour, sugar, granola, etc. There are fresh fruits and vegetables galore and plenty of fresh, organic, low-cost meats and cheeses. It's like a little slice of heaven in there. Adrian and I walked out with about 10 grocery bags full of food, 4 bottles of wine, and a 6 pack of beer for the low price of $135.48. I would say it was quite the success!

On Saturday morning, Adrian and I decided to go garage-sale-ing and then to Ikea, another huge success. We found a large wine cabinet with a marble top, an ironing board, some books for Gabriel and other little things for about $300. Ikea was more expensive obviously, but we were able to find rods and curtains for all of the windows in our house, a cabinet to house our cable box and dvd player, and a large mirror for the living room. It was a great day although now my house is littered with tons of tools, empty boxes, and plastic wrappings from the work we've been putting in. Today will be dedicated to looooots of cleaning. Happy 5th of July!