Well, here it is, already March and I'm feeling myself begin to thaw from winter. After Christmas, Nate and I were able to get our stuff together enough to purchase a small vacation house up in Keene, NY. Its a small A-frame, just enough for us and the dogs to enjoy the High Peaks and rent it out for others to enjoy when we are not there.
It was completely stressful trying to get everything together for closing, but now that its done, I think we can both say that its so great to own a place up there. We got to XC ski in Mount Van Hoevenberg (http://www.whiteface.com/activities/xc.php), which was quite enjoyable, and just this past weekend I took the dogs to hike a trail around Marcy Field. We are looking forward to spring and doing some hiking and maybe doing some landscaping projects up there.
On another note, I did our taxes last weekend. Ouch. Turns out Fionna wasn't as big of a deduction as I had hoped and who knew that there was no Border Collie deduction? Either way, a large bill is looming in our future. So the impetus is to save money before April 15th. I'm from Worcester, MA where "frugal" (read: cheap) is pretty much a birth right so I think we can do this. Plus frugal living is green living which is something I try to do anyway, but this puts my money where my mouth is.
1) We disconnected DirecTV. This was hard for me, since I love TV, but its close to $100/mo. and Fionna doesn't need to watch it anyway. Internet TV from here on out. Luckily for me, Nate is really good at getting all that kind of stuff up and running.
2) We're not using our dryer. Yes folks - we bought a drying rack and as we speak it is set up by the fire quietly drying our clothes. I'm not sure how much money this will actually save, but I hear that the dryer is one of the largest energy hogs in the home. We shall see, I suppose.
3) Our "heat" is set at 57. Good-bye 60! See above - we're using our wood stove (mix of wood and envi blocks). Cold? Put on a sweater, grab a dog or a cat. At least we're moving out of heating season!
4) Smarter grocery shopping. We're pretty smart about grocery shopping as it is. And some things I will not sacrifice - eating meat from our local farm, buying local whenever I can (dairy, eggs, CSA veggies) that can be more expensive, but I would much rather give my money to other NYS businesses that employ people from NY and pay taxes in NY. For other things though - store brands (store brand cereal can save you almost $2.00 a box), eight o'clock coffee beans (it was good enough in grad school), no more soda, and coupons if I can use them. Even the dogs may not be getting the top shelf dog food anymore. I guess everyone has to sacrifice.
We already carpool (with the Jetta TDI which gets pretty awesome gas milage (38-40 mpg), and pretty much everything Fionna owns is from craigslist, but I'm sure we'll find other ways to save money so when the tax man cometh - we will be ready.
