I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  I can’t believe we’re a week away from a new year and for us that means we’ll be able to place our house on the market sooner than I originally believed.  Our contract will be up with February’s payment and we will be able to move forward with selling when we make the final payment February 1st, which is essentially only a month away!

Since we’ve been in Nevada, we have gone through many income changes.  My husband is THE bread-winner.  He had obtained a position before he made the big move southwest.  (I followed a few months after our house sold in Washington) and he was laid off just months later before 2011’s end.  He obtained another position within a few months in the same industry, but was laid off again also before the following year’s end.  He then found the graphic artist position a few months later, but was also shortly laid off again and with each new position, there was significant salary reduction, with no room to negotiate.  That’s been the biggest challenge for my husband as he equates his self-worth with his income level.  As the situation was what it was, we adjusted expenses.  For example, we cancelled our gym memberships, pool maintenance and pest services, which we learned to do ourselves and we rarely go out to eat and I also learned to color my own hair.  We really had to reassess needs versus wants.  Thankfully, my rig was paid-off several years ago shortly after purchasing so there’s no vehicle payment coming out of our limited budget.  However, our rig is a full-size SUV so when my husband obtained another job on the other side of town, the cost of fuel to commute was requiring almost as much in gas as his paychecks.  But we survived and even saved a little.

A lot of discipline was required in order for us to save any money, but we did and a few months ago we paid cash for a second more fuel efficient vehicle.  With each reduction in income, we were forced to recognize how carelessly frivolous we’d become in our spending habits.  I’m embarrassed that we used credit so carelessly.  It’s been a process, but I believe we’re still getting to where God wants us to be fully dependent on him.  God could have opened the proper channels to allow my husband to get another job with the same level of income, but since that did not occur, it made us do what we never bothered to.  Implement a reasonable budget.  I’m sharing all of this to explain that we’ve become price conscious and do a lot of product research before buying anything expensive because any non-grocery item that costs more than $0.00 is expensive.  So when a few weeks ago we received an unexpected Christmas gift of a Keurig from my folks, we were thankful, but surprised because that type of item is expensive to operate and it was not on any wish list for us to purchase any time soon.  We made a decision to use the brewer only on the weekends because the K-cups are costly.  Although the Keurig brews a fantastic cup of coffee, it failed to pump water from the full reservoir after only a week, which equated to only 8 uses.  I went through the trouble shooting steps and nothing changed.  Meanwhile, my husband did a ton of research on sites like Costco and Amazon and discovered the Keurig has issues with consistently low ratings, where customers and members share their experiences over and over with failed water pumps.

My Mom is the spearhead for practicality in buying appliances as gifts in past years and has blessed us with other devices and thankfully, there were never problems with these items.  When the Keurig failed, I avoided saying anything because it wasn’t my Mom’s fault, but she tends to take things personally and I didn’t want to go through the explanation of the way we assess cost, dependability and value.  My husband researched and we returned the Keurig to Costco and when the customer service agent saw the Keurig in the cart, he immediately said, “The pump must have failed.”  I realize we could have exchanged it for a new Keurig, but considering the hundreds of negative product reviews during recent weeks, our practicality asked why exchange for a repeat of the same faulty product?  So when we returned it, we’d already determined we’d find another K-cup brewer with higher ratings.  We didn’t find another brand at the Costco warehouse or at Costco on-line, but found a high-rated brewer on Amazon that was surprisingly cheaper through a commercial restaurant supplier.  When I spoke with my parents Christmas Eve, they asked how we liked our Keurig, although I had hoped and prayed it wouldn’t be a topic of conversation, so I smiled and mentioned it made a fantastic cup of coffee.  Don’t judge.  That wasn’t a lie.  I swear, my Mom plays Jedi mind-tricks and in only a few minutes of our weekly Skype call, I somehow spilled how it failed.

All this is to provide an example and explanation of how and why we became so price and budget conscious.  We were forced to change spending habits and the biggest realization for both of us now is that even if we had that same level of income that we had in years past or won a substantial amount of money, we would maintain our current positive saving and spending habits.  We have never had a “keeping up with the Jones” problem because we have never cared or compared ourselves to what our peers have, but what we did have was a if we wanted something problem, instead of saving, we had to have it now problem.  Patience really is a virtue, my friends.

Jenn