Deb's Dabbles

BEFORE pics of the old kitchen  Just about 14 months ago I was wrapping up a project that I had dreamed of since the moment I first walked into my kitchen when it was owned by someone else. That had been one of those "it has good bones" moments and I knew the features of the rest of the house more than made up for the awful blue countertops and outdated light oak cabinets that matched all the amazing built-ins and custom wood work in the home, so I overlooked the ugliness and never let the aspects I didn't love keep me from entertaining. The space has always been functional and for what it lacked in room, I made up for in creativity and basement storage. As I've posted the remodel pics in various forums over the last year, I've had a number of people ask the usual "how did you do that" and "what kind of paint did you use and did you sand it all down first" types of questions so I figured it was time to share the story of my kitchen.  Despite wh...

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I am no stranger to the whole process of budgeting. I have a solid 2 years under my belt of documenting every penny spent and, though I sucked at digging my family completely out of debt for the 20 years of my marriage, I was amazing at doing what it took to stay within our paychecks on a monthly basis and keep our credit scores around 800. But times are a changing and I'm no longer living in the "Every Dollar" or "Mint" realm... I've ventured into "You Need a Budget" (aka YNAB) territory.  To those of you not familiar with the subculture of budgeting that is YNAB, this is one of those applications that has a cult following.  As with most cults, whether real or follower-proclaimed, this one has quite the learning curve and throws a wrench into the life I had been happily, somewhat passively living.  Throw in my recent obsession with insisting that I hit my $6000 annual Roth IRA contribution limit and decid...