Wow, summer seemed to fly by. We planned to go to my family reunion by motorcycle, however a few days prior to leaving, my Suzuki Intruder, Jessie, decided she was going to put a kink into those plans and told us she just wasn't up for the trip. Her carburetors were dirty and she had a fuel line leak. So much was going on at the time, there just wasn't ANY time to get repairs done prior to the trip. So, we reconfigured the trip to omit the motorcycles take Sara; Kelly's Jeep Wrangler. Three weeks cross country; to Indiana and back to Montana. I have to say, we did have a lot of fun; even if we were in a Jeep!
So, getting back to the purpose for our blog; we are moving forward with our plan to reduce our cost of living, and minimize our belongings to the bare minimum. We are two more steps closer to our goal! Since our last blog, buying Bob and me getting used to him by riding him around the neighborhood, we finally decreased our living expenses by moving from a larger home to a small two bedroom duplex - with a garage of course for Bob and the girls. From here, we continue to go through our belongings, getting rid of things that we don't need and for my family hand=me=downs, I am building piles that I have labeled for the kids. Next year we are planning a trip to Virginia where my daughter lives and a lot of the family relics will go to her for safe keeping so that we can further reduce our living expenses by clearing the need for a storage unit or bigger home to house all our unnecessary necessities.
The other goal that has been met - I lost the extra weight that would hinder my ability to ride tough trails that we undoubtedly will encounter on our world wide adventure. To date I have lost 164 lbs and even though I have 25-30 more lbs to go, I consider this an obtained goal. Check out the pictures! :)
BEFORE
(with our daughter Shalayna)
AND AFTER!!
(164lbs later)
Woohoo! I'm ready to go!
So, now!.... We are working on the budget. We are focusing on paying off the remainder of our bills and minimize our living expenses. We are determined to live month to month on my salary while we stash his paycheck in order to build our funds to an amount that will keep us out on our world wide adventures for at least four to five years. :) Stay tuned for our next blog... can we stay on our tight budget?? Just how 'spoiled' are we?? And just how much do you think it costs to support a family of four these days? Do you really think ANYBODY can live on just a Social Workers Salary??? .. :) Stay Tuned!!!
