This is our home. Well, now there’s a privacy fence and some of the bushes have died, but that’s not the point. Our home is 1100 square feet…talk about living small! This isn’t by far the smallest home that Joey and I have lived in; our first apartment was less than 500 square feet, and our second was just at 1000. However, for a few years before we bought this house, we lived with Joey’s parents, and they have a considerably larger home, and we got accustomed to having room, and as a result, we collected waaaaaaaaaay too much stuff.

Stuff has been the bane of our existence for as long as we’ve known each other; we’re both packrats by nature, and together we’ve amassed piles and piles of useless junk (not to mention the piles of stuff I left at my parents’ house before I moved out).

So, a major “thrifty” focus for us over the next couple of months is getting rid of “stuff.” We began this process last year and started with a yard sale in April, which netted us almost $200. We held a second one at the beginning of November, and weren’t quite so successful, but we were able to get rid of a lot of unwanted items. We’ll be doing another one in April of this year, and we figure that we’ll continue the trend until we’ve pared down to things that are relatively essential to us.

Also, any money earned can go toward debt retirement, toward the car and toward tuition. Despite an unexpected setback (we’ll probably need to get a new roof this year), we still feel as though we can get the card paid off and handle my summer and fall tuition.