“I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and this version by The Mayries is absolutely my favorite version of all.
I discovered it through Apple Music several years ago sitting with the boys waiting for the bus to pick them up, early one morning.
It made it into the forever Christmas playlist.
Enjoy!
I have been on a rampage the last few months, trying to optimize our family budget as best we can.
First, it started last May, when I closed my original photography business. I sold my second Fujifilm GF50sII body, and 4 of my GF lenses when I no longer needed them for business purposes. I did purchase a Fuji X-S20 with its kit lens so that I would have a second camera, but we still cleared a significant amount with the transactions.
At the same time, I made a commitment, both internally to myself and also to my husband, to be entirely mindful of all of my spending. Historically, mindless spending when I am depressed or anxious has been a problem.
Between May and September, that was the primary focus of my energy.
In September, I decided we were done with the credit card rollercoaster. We’d previously had a personal loan that had a higher than optimal interest rate, at 11.25%, and we also had some minor credit card debt. We were offered and secured a different personal loan with a 7.99% interest rate, and rolled the minor credit card debt and the original personal loan into this 7.99% fixed personal loan.
At some point in October or November, I called and asked about better deals for our internet only at home– we don’t have a home phone or cable service, we pay for internet only. I lowered our monthly bill from $79.99 to $65 and at the same time, I also secured us a better tier of service.
Grocery-wise, we primarily shop at Aldi, Walmart, and Costco, with the bulk of our groceries coming from Costco. I have started paying attention to what is on sale weekly at Costco, and buying in bulk where it makes sense to do so. That has made a difference since I began doing this in October– last month we spent $400 less than the month prior, and we are on track to do the same thing this month as well.
Then in early November, I started wondering if we could refinance our second mortgage…..its interest rate was secured when our credit was not as good, and its interest rate was 10.36%. At the same time, we had a home improvement loan for crawlspace encapsulation that was not only a 9.99% loan, it was a 15-year loan with 13.5 years left. So I looked around, and I found us a 7.625% second mortgage to roll the original second mortgage plus the home improvement loan into, and it is a 10-year term. We will save $14,000 over the life of the loan over what we were paying on the original two loans. (Our primary mortgage rate is 2.875% and thankfully the second mortgage is very minor by comparison).
In deciding to open a new luxury photography business, I had to be extremely strategic in which expenses were non-negotiable. Ultimately, the LLC and occupational tax certificates were an “of course.” I also ensured my state sales and use tax certificate was put in place, and I re-opened a business checking account with Bluevine that has no monthly service fee at all. And finally, I secured a great deal on fairly comprehensive business insurance with Full Frame Insurance. The beautiful thing for my budget is that the photography gear I already had– and the fact that my primary Cinelux lens works on both of my existing cameras– is all I need to create beautiful luxury portraits.
And finally, in this last week, I have managed to secure loyalty discounts and upgrades of 3 of the 4 phone devices in our household such that the upgrade cost us $174.30 in taxes, but I got upgrade and trade in fees waived, new devices included with payment of the plans, and payoff on my old phone all included. And with the loyalty discount in place that I was offered, our monthly phone bill for 4 lines will go down from $238 a month to $137 a month.
So now, our highest interest rate on debt at all is 7.99% across all debt, and it truly does feel like our budget is as optimized as possible, given the circumstances we have created for ourselves.
And as I make a renewed commitment to my artistic photography, all of this budget optimization frees up considerable brain space for concentration on what I truly love: my art.
Read more about me here.
Jared and I got in a fight today. And the content or reason is not important, nor is how it resolved other than to say that it is over now.
In the process, though, I found out something that reminded me of why Jared is my hero:
Before my October meeting with the man-who-shall-not-be-named, Jared sent said person a message demanding respect for me during said meeting.
Jared never told me a word about it, until the heat of the moment today, when I accused him of never standing up for me against said individual.
And that specific knowledge goes a long way toward both healing last December, and also making me feel very, very, very safe with my husband. It also rather dramatically explains that while verbal harassment occurred in October, physical boundaries were observed.
I’ve long known that Jared will go to bat, at great length, for me.
But knowing that he warned this particular individual as to protecting my safety, regardless of what actually happened, I am certain went a long way toward ensuring at least physical boundaries were observed.
I love my husband. Emotional and physical safety and protection are just two more reasons why. Indeed, they are the whole reason I chose Jared 22 years ago, when presented between the choice of the two of them.
I am aware that most of the time in writing at least, I am the bringer of doom-and-gloom.
Today, though, I am grateful.
I have a gratitude practice that I do most days in my journal app. I just don’t publish it because most of the time it has things that I wouldn’t necessarily want the world to know.
Here’s today’s gratitude list:
And with that, I am going to focus on today, today.
I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Well, I don’t actually know that we have another Dawg. It’s not his top choice. But, Liam did get into the University of Georgia! Yay! So he does at least have one place to go next Fall.
I am so very, very, very proud of this young man. He has worked so, so hard these last two years in particular, doing the International Baccalaureate program at Carrollton High School. And he’s done it while doing marching band, and learning to play the bass trombone, and I can’t keep up with the number of clubs he is in (and an active part of).
Liam is a great friend to his friends, and he is just so very smart. His work ethic is the best of any individual I have ever known in my life. I worry about him quite a bit though, as he works himself too hard.
This kiddo of mine has had a job every summer since he was 14 years old. He has more common sense (and financial sense) than anybody else in our household.
He declared his prospective major as accounting at UGA but as we understand it he would have to apply to the Terry College of Business in his second year should he go.
It has been a good day. I got some household organization situated during the day.
And the Carrollton Trojans won! Next week is against Grayson at home.
I don’t normally go down where the band parents are waiting for the band to come into the stands….lots of them stand on the track by the football field. But tonight before the game as the band was walking onto the field for pregame I went down and snapped this, of Liam:
It’s not a great pic. I was in a hurry and frankly flustered to be on the sidelines and well. Whatever. I used Topaz to focus their faces.
This was the shot of the night, though:
It was nice to get out of the press box hallway for a little while. I snapped this shot of the band in the Amp before I went down to the sidelines to wait. The press box hallway is my hangout while Oliver does the instant replays and Jared helps with the broadcast kids on Friday nights.
I snapped the pictures, but the whole point of going down was to meet Liam and give him a giant Mama hug. He’d texted in a big group text to let us know he’d gotten into UGA but he’d stayed at school between school and the game tonight. So I’d said congratulations, but I didn’t want to wait until he got home from the game for the hug.
The hug was 100% worth it.
It was a good day.
