Saving on a Shoestring Update Part 1: Big Changes!

It’s been a very long time since my last Saving on a Shoestring update.  And my, how things have changed since my last post…

As you may recall, I had three savings goals last year: Project Cruise 2012, Mission Mini Van, and my annual Cha-Ching! Christmas Club savings.

It was exciting to share with you all that Mission Mini Van was a success and we were able to check it off our list.  We are still enjoying the blessing of owning our very first mini van.  (Especially with baby #3 on the way!)

Which leads me to the next change in our Savings Journey.

As you know, we have been putting aside money monthly for about 2 years now so that we could celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a cruise.  (We took a cruise on our honeymoon and fell in love.  With cruises.  Not each other…in case you were confused. :))

One thing we did not take into consideration when making our plans is the possibility that we may have a newborn baby right around our 10 year anniversary date. {Life is funny sometimes, isn’t it?}

Needless to say, this has changed things up a bit for us.

So, Wes and I have spent some time considering how to navigate this change in plans.  Two things we know for sure:

1) We still want to take a cruise someday.

2) We want to use the money that’s been saved up for something FUN…even if it isn’t for a cruise yet.

So here is our Plan B: I used a little bit of the money that was set aside to reserve a get away for us to celebrate our anniversary (via a hot LivingSocial deal!).  We are actually heading away to Maryland for a few days next week (pre-baby!).  I’m very excited about this…and still have the cruise to look forward to down the road.

In the meantime, Wes and I decided that we would be happy to use the money that we set aside for a FUN home improvement project (no new gutters or roofs or driveways…thankyouverymuch.)

So here is Plan B Step 2: We’ve been wanting built-in bookshelves since we moved into our house a year and a half ago.  We are still waiting on an estimate, but it looks like we have enough money set aside to get this project done.

In the end, we are hoping to have two built-ins next to our fireplace that look a little something like this:

How fun is that?  (Even if it isn’t a cruise…)

I have one more exciting update to share with you all on our Saving on a Shoestring adventure.  However, this post is already about twice as long as I intended, so I will share with your Part 2 tomorrow night, how does that sound?

TO BE CONTINUED…