budget

Dec182010

Chocolate Favors!

OK, so favors. They’re not necessary, but I still think they’re adorable. No, i’m not talking about some little trinket our guests will throw in a drawer, stick on a shelf or throw away… I’m talking about food! More specifically, chocolate Kisses!

Yep, I decided on Kisses bc they’re a lot bigger than M&Ms and they come wrapped. I don’t really want to be touching food people are going to be eating.

Here’s my next choice… the packaging. Do I buy the 2x2x2 boxes and decorate them, or make boxes? Tonight at the bookstore, I was flipping through one of Martha Stewart’s big books of crafts and found a super cute origami candy dish.

So of course, I had to rip a piece of paper out of my little notebook and make one…

Background removed in PhotoShop

I was digging around online to find out the size of standard origami paper, which seems to come in a huge variety of sizes, and found the image below. It’s made of felt sewn together in 4 spots and might just be easier to make. If I find a rotary cutter and a thick mat, I can cut big felt pieces down to size.

Another option, made of felt

The thing with the paper dishes, is I’d buy a bunch of 12×12 scrapbook paper and cut them all down to 6×6. I’m fairly sure it could work.

The other option is to buy some 2x2x2 cardboard boxes and twine to tie them shut. The paper and felt boxes have that personal DIY touch, whereas the boxes have none. Hmm… What to do? What to do?

What would you do?

spacer
Nov212010

Productive Day & Opening a Business?

Today was very productive in my world.

* I created a logo for my friend Kelly’s church group’s event. It’s super cute and pending the next set of edits.

* I did loads of research for sheep farms. Yep, totally random! Hubby and I started talking about where we want to be in 5 years and what we wanted to have accomplished. Having a sheep farm would be pretty damn amazing for so many reasons, and also because…

* I registered the domain name for my YARN SHOP! While I may not be a really experienced knitter having only been crafting goodies since late 2006, it is still a passion of mine. Nothing would make me happier than having my own yarn shop.

One day, eventually, the Fletcher’s will be the proud owners of Sheep 2 Skein Yarn Shop in a state yet to be determined, but definitely somewhere up north.

Sure, owning our own business will certainly take a lot of capital, which is also why the sheep farm would be helpful. Shearing sheep for wool apparently makes a decent amount of money. Sure sure, a sheep farm costs a crapload of money too. We have quite a few things to sort out.

Also, owning a business will make my life super flexible for having kids once we find a really reliable manager and staff.

In a perfect world, right? Well, at least I bought the domain. LOL

spacer
Nov112010

Updatey Updaterson.. & Wanted: New Blog Look

I know, I’m terrible. I finally posted something but went and made it password protected. I’m having a pretty rough time at one of my jobs and just needed to vent the ever living hell out of things. My bad. Next time, I’ll just write write write and then email it out. I’m actually surprised at how many people hit up my blog on that day. Admit it, how many of you tried to guess the password? If you want to read it, please leave a comment with your email address and I’ll be more than happy to send you the password.

OK, well, things are’nt looking up on the job front. They’re getting worse actually. Also, my 6 month grace period on all my student loans is rapidly coming to an end. Next month. Yesterday I took charge and called my lenders. I got tired of the growing stack of “you owe us your first born” letters staring me down every day. Thank goodness for deferrals! That’s all I gotta say. I got a 6 month extension because I work part time and make peanuts. Funny, they didn’t ask if my job was good or not. Had they asked I might’ve gotten the whole 36 months granted then and there.

Let’s see… we’ve been talking a lot about having babies. And going back to Vegas for our anniversary. And getting our finances in order to be able to do the above 2 things.

Does anyone want to see wedding recaps? The majority of our pictures are around Vegas as only a few hours of the 6 days was the actual wedding. We’re getting our Inkubook of the pro wedding day pictures back in a few days and I’m posting pictures of the book! I finally picked out the pictures from our Day After/ Trash The Dress session and will be making a book out of those as well once they arrive.

Also, my lovely readers, do you know how difficult it is to create a whole new blog look? Right now I’m using one of the WordPress templates and it’s really bland. Sure, I created the header image from one of my Vegas pictures, but the page is just… blah.

I’m a designer, fully proficient in HTML. Well, not fully, but very comfortable with it.

spacer
Aug132010

Craigslist Makes Me Happy

I posted a few ads on Craigslist South Florida with a simple request and a decent pay range. I felt I would be fortunate to receive 2 or 3 responses to it. 9 hours after posting, I am up to 14 responses. Sure, not all of them are what I am looking for and some are way out of our price range, but they are all insanely talented. Sometimes I forget how talented people are. I think I take for granted that I live in (ok outside of) a bustling metropolis chock full of insanely talented and vibrant people.

Sure, I could have scoured CL for what I am looking for and taken a lot of time to muddle through it, contacting who I was interested in… but I took the easy way out and posted ads. And I couldn’t be happier with the outcome!

I’ll keep you posted on how these pan out.

spacer
Apr022010

Possible Budget Resolution

Yesterday’s April Fool’s post earned me the highest daily click thru’s on the blog since it began last July. Wow, that’s crazy. Apparently I disappointed a lot of people. And one person used it as a spin-off fooling to my poor best friend.

Anyhow, during my mass procrastination and crying fest last night (over homework, moving and not having time for either) I cracked open the wedding budget I started in the very early stages when we were still planning a cruise wedding. This was about 5 date/ location changes ago. =) So yeah, opened that sucker up, added a bunch more tabs, and feel pretty OK with it.

On the Vegas Only tab, I am including Vegas-specific items. If it can be used elsewhere or won’t be coming to Vegas, it’s not included. I have the flight/hotel estimate as $1200, though it might be a smidge less. Our huge suite for 4 nights/ 5 days with the major discount is $594, including all fees and taxes. From all estimates I’ve seen, flights should be about $550.

Other than that, I included tips to the hair dresser, limo driver, photographer, and officiant. The wedding package itself (duh!), the marriage license, the cupcakes and wine (reception), wedding hair, the favors (kick ass polycarbonate water bottles), and a handful of other items are in this list. I didn’t put food and entertainment on there cuz I don’t really know how to budget for those. Ideas?

Glaringly missing from that tab is the dress, veil, and his suit since we will be able to wear them again. Actually, we’ll wear them to the Miami reception. Also missing are our wedding rings, ketubah, the stamp I bought, cupcake wrapper pattern (totally reusable!), “something blue” necklace (I wear it 2-3 times a week already), fake flowers (future home décor), and a handful of other things that I’ll think of in the future.

The Miami reception tab is still relatively blank. Well, it does say “Publix cake” in large letters but is otherwise blank. Ha! I think only Southerners will get why that’s such a big deal.

spacer
Mar302010

March 16 TMW post

Check me out every Tuesday on TweetMyWedding!
++++

Tweet: @msrib our vegas budget is $1500, but flight & hotel is about $1100. methinks we need to rethink that budget. *sigh*

One of the biggest wedding-related things on my mind lately has been our budget. We picked Las Vegas to keep our budget low – as well as about a hundred other reasons. Being tight on funds, and unsure when Steve will find a job in Miami, our budget is even more precarious. That said, I have been trying to re-figure our Vegas budget. It’s basically come to my attention (due to crazy amounts of research) that a destination wedding can cost upwards of about $30,000.

Not ours!

We have the ceremony/ officiant, photographer/ videographer, limo, flowers, and I’m sure other things booked with Scenic Las Vegas Weddings for the grand total of $399. They came highly recommended by 2 different friends and have been amazing about responses via both email and their Facebook page.
Our hotel suite for 5 days/ 4 nights is roughly $600 at the Luxor. No, it’s not the classiest hotel on the strip, but it’s affordable and fun. We both love Egyptian things so it is perfect. Also, with their nearly weekly Twitter Tuesday specials, all our guests can stay in the same hotel if they choose.

Our airfare is the problem. Having never purchased 2 airline tickets anywhere, it’s baffling to me that they’re between $5-600. Sure, that’s 2 round trip tickets from Miami/ Ft Lauderdale to Vegas, but still.
Pretty much, as our budget stands, we’ve blown the entire thing on flights, hotel and wedding. This leaves no room for food, Grand Canyon day trip, souvenirs, food, food, food. Notice a small problem? We need to figure this out, and sort of soon.

How would you handle something like this? I’ve seen DW wedding budgets handled as adding what you’d spend on the honeymoon and what you’d spend on the wedding. Considering we’re having a reception sometime in 2011 in Miami, our budget is ridiculously low.

I think our “problem” is we’re both thinking of this as a one day event when the most amount of time, energy and money should be spent on our relationship and marriage. On the other hand, this is a vacation trip with a couple hours of wedding-related things shoved in there. Yes, we’re kinda weird that way. =)

Tweet: @msrib I am so happy that the gorgeous wedding dress i no longer love & adore will be sold today & go to a new home this week. thank you, @ebay

That’s right, it finally sold. For a whole lot less than I paid for it and after being posted on 5 wedding resale sites and on ebay 8-9 times since May. I will be getting a grossly lower price than I wanted, but at least it’s gone. I took a friends advice and dropped the price and voila! gone…

Tweet: @msrib i had the not-so-startling realization this morning that i only have 15 more working days at my wonderful job.

I am fortunate for having so much time until my wedding due to the fact that we are making a North Carolina to Florida move in just under a month. And I am graduating (read: loads of writing and studying and exams) with my MBA in about 6 weeks. I have no idea when I’ll be starting my new job, but there’s leeway on my start date.

spacer
Feb252010

Stinkin Budget

21:31 debating pro hair/makeup for the wedding. seems silly to only have for our day after photo shoot. suggestions? besides @ameliacartist 🙂


16:26 is $180 a lot for wedding day hair & make-up? i know i know, the pictures are priceless, but …..


16:31 & the $180 is including coming to our hotel room for me only. no one else. @seblagg @diybride @brideonbudget

So, in discussing Vegas nuptials with another bride on FB using the same company, I started thinking about getting pro work done for the wedding itself. I will be totally pro (for FREE) during our day after shoot (or rather 2 days after) and it seems kinda silly to not be made up similarly for the actual wedding. When I put the question out to my consultants on Twitter, by this I mean all the brides and wedding planners I’m friends with, they said $180 is damn cheap considering they come to your location. I’m still not sold on it.

Which bring me to another reason…

16:44 i wish i could remove our flight/hotel to vegas from our wedding budget. it’s so much prettier w/out them.


18:24 are you including travel & hotel in your wedding budget or is it an extra expense?

Considering our wedding is a destination wedding, I automatically including hotel and airfare in our budget. The hotel is deeply discounted (yay for @LuxorLV and they’re amazing deals), but still about $600. The airfare, when I last did estimates, is between $600-750 for 2 round trip flights. Now granted, that’s from Raleigh; Miami is about $60 less. Without including hotel and airfare, our budget/ actual spending is really low. The wedding is $400, marriage license is $60 and cake/ cupcakes are about $100. With a budget of $1500, that leaves plenty for tours, shows, dinner, rental van and gas out to the Grand Canyon, and so much more. Also, if this damn wedding dress does sell, that’s an extra $400 towards the purchase of the $125 dress I want. So obviously, now I’m reconsidering how to figure our budget.

Now onto a much more fun topic… graduation and bling!

18:57 have been looking at amethyst & citrine for grad rings. (school colors are purple & gold) just realized i can get any stone! #noclassring


19:13 i’m considering this: bit.ly/cFAeEA to wear with this: bit.ly/2SmvHm (already have) whatcha think?


19:19 the ring will be a “hooray i now have an MBA” gift to myself 🙂 @Tryphyna


19:24 oooooh another option: bit.ly/cWC5Jj


20:36 new options, graduation gift: bit.ly/bRYwgw, bit.ly/9Bfpnw, bit.ly/dCIFww, bit.ly/9XqiHm, bit.ly/9UxqRm


20:46 and bit.ly/bh4Kvp – yes, i’m indecisive!

23:00 big surprise, more choices: http://bit.ly/bjyh4Y, http://bit.ly/db4hvj, http://bit.ly/aOcBk8, http://bit.ly/b44uOH in order of pref.

I have been checking out different websites with gorgeous rings for my graduation gift. After graduation from UF, I bought myself an utterly gorgeous diamond and sapphire ring that was stolen a few years later. I loved that damn thing. So yeah, I started looking at other rings for my ECU graduation gift. So far my favorites, in order, are: http://bit.ly/bjyh4Y, http://bit.ly/db4hvj, bit.ly/9UxqRm

Did you buy yourself anything for graduation? It’s such a huge accomplishment and… why not?! Also, making payments is my friend. 😉

spacer