"Is My Fiance Abusive?"

This is a vlog to a question from a VERY dear reader. I give her insight from my own experience with an abusive relationship, plus excerpts from a book that really helped me turn my life around, Verbally Abusive Relationships by Patricia Evans.

WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE!!

Soooo excited. My vlog on how we got it.

WildTree - What You Get When You Become a Representative

Made for Jenn's tasting party. This is what you get when you become a WildTree representative. Let me answer questions you have regarding:
* purchasing products,
* joining the discount Culinary Club (20% off everything for life),
* receiving free samples to host a tasting party and receive free products
* or becoming a representative

My Cat Died pt.2

My Cat Died

I had to put down one of my cats

yesterday. I will write a post or do a video on her. I'm so upset. I had pets as a chld, but this was MY first pet. Rest in peace, my sweet little pretty kitty girl, Maya.

First Time Home Buyer's Blues

Was our offer really that 'insulting?' Or, are the owners unrealistic? We were pretty frustrated. We're over it now and ready to continue our search. A bit nervous that we may not close on something in enough time to take advantange of the $8k incentive.

Budget Bride Has Been Tagged

I was tagged on my YouTube Channel by Ladypradege with "21 Questions." It was fun to to and thought I'd post it on here as well.



here is Lady's Vid:

Our First Home?

We took a second look at the house last night. We brought my mom the first time a few weeks ago when we found this among six we were viewing that evening. This time we brought my in-laws who just returned from vacation. They liked it, too. They agreed that it seems like this was a solid, well-built and well-cared for home. We met the owners for the second time as well. They've lived there for over 40 years and now wish to permanently retire to their second home in Florida. The husband is a retired firemen, which further boosted our hopes that this is a well-constructed, well-wired, safe home

We like its character, too. Since it was built in 1930, it has lots of charm with old wood and leaded glass windows. There will have to be several cosmetic updates including the destruction of outdated wallpaper and carpet. These will be fun (hopefully) weekend projects in the future. I wish the kitchen was a little bigger, but it's definitely 'doable, and better than my 5x5 'kitchen closet' I cook in now at the apartment.

Our realtor is taking her kid to college this week, so we're meeting next week to write an offer. I'm getting pretty excited, and have alredy began my 'mental move-in.'

Our Wedding Photos

Finally, the professional photos arrived in the mail. We saved money and took advantage of a special deal our photographer and the website he publishes on extended to us. Our photographer (who is a friend of my brother so we got a good deal, more on that in a future post on budget wedding photography) publishes to a website that offered all the wedding guests a free duplicate offer for the first 10 days and the last 10 days of the 90 that they would be available to order online.

We would have gotten them earlier if our first order went through. For some reason, whether it was my fault and I didn't click on something, or an oversight on their part, our first order in the first 10 days did not go through. We realized this a week later, as I was stalking the mailman and received an email from the site saying that our cart was still full. We checked the card we used and (thank goodness) it was not charged and the site still had my order unprocessed. We called the company and told us there were two ways we could still get free duplicates:

1) Ask the photographer to re-submit the photos under a 'new event;' therefore, our order would qualify under the first 10 day offer.

2) Wait until days 80 - 90 to order them. We'd get an email from them reminding us of the last minute deal and we can submit our shopping cart then.

We contacted our photographer, and of course we was more than willing to set up another site for us. However, after discussing it with my husband, we thought that waiting a couple of months or so for them would cut on an immediate expense when we came back from the honeymoon (the photographer didn't publish them until we came back and approved them).

We told him that he didn't need to bother to set up a new site. We'd wait until the end of the 90 days to place our order. With that extra time, we were able to fit it into our budget and save for it for a couple of months. Yes, we were getting a little impatient and anxious at the end to get them, but happy that we were able to get a few things paid off on our card before we added something else to it.