We finally got a new roommate in the master bedroom and have two different people asking about the second bedroom. This will help us get caught up on some bills. Also looking brighter that one stepchild will be turning 18 this weekend. She still gets child support till the end of the school year but it's nice to know we get to stop supporting the ex wife soon. We will still give money to his child when she needs it but it will go to her and not her mom. This will also help with budgeting and getting ahead, climbing out of the debt hole we are in. The second step child turns 18 next year so we will probably continue to pay the same amount until then since we got behind when my husband got hurt on the job.
I had so much fun decorating the front bedroom with thrift store and yard sale finds that I'm now trying to talk my husband into letting me decorate the back bedroom also. It's a smaller room so I was thinking of putting a full size bed in there. There are also built in shelves in the closet so instead of taking up room with a dresser I was thinking of putting some nice storage boxes or baskets on the shelves instead. The biggest cost would be the bed so I'm on the look out. I can't decorate while it's rented out but I can store the items I find in the outbuilding. By furnishing the bedroom and can get an additional $100 in rent so it will pay for itself in the long run. The only problem I see is if someone brings in bed bugs. That would be a nightmare. Thankfully we don't have carpet so they shouldn't travel to the other rooms as easy but it's still a nightmare. It's part of the reason we are being picky about who we rent to.
The garden idea is coming together. I'm not going to have a lot of extra money for canning jars this year but thankfully the freezer is empty so I'll use that this year and can what I can. We've pretty much decided on what to plant and my husband found a local place with fruit trees on sale so this will be nice. He also discovered that Home Depot rents a tiller! We would really like to put out an orange and grapefruit tree and so many in the neighborhood have them here. We would also like to put out a few blueberry bushes. My husband's favorite fruit. My husband is also thinking very hard about getting two stands of honey bees.
As far as produce that we will plant we've decided on green beans, tomatoes (of course), carrots, onion, squash, two types of pepper, and potatoes. Just looking at it listed here makes me want to go make some vegetable soup. I've still got a lot to learn because people here also have winter crops. Something that strange to me coming from where nothing grows in the winter but it's all coming together nicely.
Hopefully if we can keep the rooms rented for the next year then we will be able to replace the pickup that my husband lost and pay off the cheap car that I bought also. Then maybe we can look at replacing some of the things we lost last years when we lost our home and had to pawn everything not glued down.
I've also started a wishlist of things I would like but when you living with such limited income I feel greedy just thinking about it. However in the grand scheme of things the items on my list are for the betterment of the house in general. I want to replace the dishwasher that I'm currently using for Tupperware storage. I would like storage shelves in the laundry room for all the items I plan to can. I would also love some new curtains in the living room. The ones my husband found in the trash are nice but they don't split up the middle so they can't be opened to let light in and they are way to long. I know sew them right? These things are so thick and heavy I couldn't do it on my sewing machine and if I have to pay to have them altered then I rather just replace them.
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