Life On A Budget

I know I have mentioned once or a million times that we are building a house.

Or, I say we are building a house. Mostly, we just have a big dirt pile.

Okay, okay. We are actually working on foundation right now. But, oh. my. gosh. It is definitely not going fast enough for my impatient self. Thankfully the rain has held off for a couple of days, so at least they have been able to be out there working some.

But back to my point...

Because we are building a house, Brad has me on a very strict budget. I am the one who takes care of the finances in our house. I pay the bills, I handle the money, I deposit the paychecks. So, up until now, I have pretty much had free reign of the money, too. I have been able to, you know, sneak in a couple more purchases than I would if, say, Brad were looking at the finances all the time. Shame on me, maybe, but it's true.

And now Brad has all this interest in how much money we have and how much money we are saving. And, yes, I know that he should -- and I should, too. And I do. But living on a budget is not the most fun. Especially because there isn't that much room in our budget for new clothes.

All of the trunk shows that I love to frequent have come and gone without me this year. I have to avert my eyes when I walk by all of the stores that I love. I have to actually just look when I do my internet shopping.

However, luckily for me, I got a gift certificate to J.Crew for Christmas, so I got to pick out some cute new stuff recently. I got their minnie pants, and after a lot of mailing back and forth, I finally found a good fit (has anyone else tried these and had this problem?):

I also got a cute black and off-white striped boatneck sweater that I can't find a picture of online, so they must already be sold out -- very popular choice, I guess!

Then, I was recently reading a new-to-me blog, Glamorous Newlywed, and I was looking at one of her What To Wear posts and found these jeans from American Eagle (although imagine in a darker wash and a little less distressed -- those must also be sold out):

I thought these were really cute, and even though we are on a strict budget, I thought I could swing them since they were on sale. (Actually I ordered a couple of pairs since I had never ordered anything from American Eagle before and didn't know how their sizes ran -- and that way I spent enough to get free shipping (I will be sending some back)! So, see, I am saving money!!)

Anyway, I love my new jeans. I wore them to work the other day, and I knew I would get a comment about them. I was just waiting...

Sure enough, my dad said "Christie! Your pants have holes in them! They aren't going to rip anymore are they? I would hate for you to be naked!" And then when he realized that I actually liked my jeans distressed like that he said "Please tell me that you didn't buy your pants to look like that!"

Have I ever mentioned that my dad is the king of fashion?

So, the moral of this long, all-over-the-place story is that this whole budget thing is taking some getting used to for me. But I'm learning -- kicking and screaming. In case you're counting, that's two lessons that this whole home building thing is teaching me -- kicking and screaming -- patience and budgeting.

I wonder what else I will learn?