Rustchic Living

Lifestyle

7 Things To Do Before The Clock Falls Back

By

It is that time of the year here in California when we roll the clock back one hour. This is the perfect occasion to use the bi-annual time change as a reminder to do the following seven chores.

1. Change Batteries in Your Home Detectors

Change the batteries in your home’s smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. As the days get cooler, it is especially important to have fresh batteries in your detectors when running heat sources and gas appliances.

2. Replace Furnace Air Filter

Keeping the air filter in your furnace clean will help it run more efficiently, save you money, and cut down on allergies.

3. Reset Candle Timers

Reset the timers on your battery operated candles so they come on earlier. Now that it gets dark an hour earlier, enjoy their warm cozy glow as you settle in for the winter.

emergency kit checklist4. Check Your Emergency Kit

You may have used your kit’s flashlight for camping this summer or borrowed a few water jugs for a picnic. Use my Basic Emergency Kit Checklist and go through your emergency kit to make sure you are ready when the time arises. Some of my favorite emergency kit items are listed in the below time change items.

5. Oil Change and Rotate Tires

If you have been putting off regular car maintenance, wait no longer. Make sure your vehicle is in good working order and ready to respond on wet, slippery roads.

6. Replace Burnt out Light Bulbs

You probably have at least one bulb out somewhere (I have one out in my bathroom right now.) Grab the step ladder and replace any burnt out light bulbs to brighten up the dark afternoons. Also, while you are up on the ladder, dust the cobwebs!

7. Get a New Toothbrush

Most of us get a new toothbrush every six months when we visit the dentist for a cleaning. However, dental professionals recommend changing your toothbrush every three months. With cold and flu season approaching, make sure your toothbrush is fresh and new.

Did I miss anything? What things do you make sure to get done when the time changes?

Shop My Time Change Items

This post includes some affiliate links. If you click on these and make a purchase, I earn an itsy bitsy commission but it doesn’t cost you any extra.

↓ Pin It ↓

kitchen clock

 

Paperless Bill Paying Checklist

By

Getting rid of piles of paperwork when you live in a small space is one of the easiest ways to declutter. Signing up for paperless bill paying and automating will save you time, eliminate stress, and most importantly declutter your desk.

When you use a monthly budget checklist, you make sure everything gets paid when it is supposed to and you stay on budget with your paperless bill paying.

We all get paid at different times of the month. The most common ways paydays land is monthly, twice a month, bi-weekly, and weekly. No matter how you get paid, you’ll want to use my easy free monthly budget checklist.

This article isn’t about how to budget. It is about how to move to paperless bill paying and how to easily keep track of your budget with a checklist based on how often you get paid.

As an example, let’s pretend you get paid on the first and the fifteenth of the month. If you get paid every week or bi-weekly then you have a bit more of a challenge and I have some helpful tips at the end of this article.

This article includes affiliate links for a couple of books I recommend. If you click on and purchase through my link, it does not cost you any extra. I do earn a small commission which helps me continue to live a big life in a small house.

Gather supplies

 Sign up for paperless bill paying

Sign up for paperless bill paying and auto pay with all the bills that give you the option. After you log into the bill’s website, you will want to make note of the day of the month the bill will be paid and the amount. You sometimes have the option when you sign up for paperless bill paying to pay the bill on the day it posts or the day the bill is due. You can choose which way works best for you and make a note of it.

Make note of the amount of the bill. Some bills are the same amount each month and some, like utilities, fluctuate each month. For the inconsistent monthly bills, look up the last 12 months amount due. Decide if you want to use the average amount in your budget or the highest month. I like to use the highest month for my monthly budget. This gives me more wiggle room in the bank account on lower months and ensures I don’t fall short on the high months.

Make a list of non-automated expenses

Now, make a list of all non-automated monthly expenses. This would include things like groceries, gasoline, dining out, entertainment, gifts, and car maintenance. Think about the things you use your debit card for.

Assign a pay period to each bill

Figure out what pay period each bill will get paid from. Using the example of the first and the fifteenth, here is how you tackle this step.

Grab a stack of post-it notes and on each individual note; write down the bill name, date paid, and the amount due. Stick them all in one place. I like to stick them on the table or countertop. However, you can stick them to the wall, the door, or the fridge.

The objective of this step is to divide your bills into two paydays. You are going to make two columns for your post-it notes. One column is for your payday on the first of the month and the other column is for your payday on the fifteenth of the month.

Start placing your post-it notes into columns using the bills with the higher amounts. Pay attention to the due dates. For most of you, your mortgage or rent as it is traditionally due on the first of the month. Place that post-it note in the first column.

Continue adding your post-it notes to the first column working most expensive bill to least expensive keeping in mind the due dates. You probably won’t be able to make your columns add up exactly to your pay periods, but you can get close. Keep moving your post-it notes back and forth until you get the amounts close to matching that of your payday.

Remember to pay attention to the automatic payment date. You’ll notice in my example below, the gym membership automatically drafts on the first of the month. However, this bill worked into my checklist for the payday on the fifteenth of the month. In this case, the funds for that bill are set aside two weeks ahead of time so it can be paid on the first of the month.

If your columns don’t add up perfectly, you need to make sure that the two columns added together do not exceed your actual monthly income. For example, if your payday on the first goes over by $20, then make sure your payday on the fifteenth is $20 less to make up for it.

Keep extra funds in your bank account

When you live paycheck to paycheck this is hard to do. However, some of the reasons you want to use the paperless bill paying system are to save time, eliminate stress, and to declutter your desk. Eliminating worry that you don’t have enough funds in your bank account to cover your bills each pay period defeats the time and stress goals, so work hard to build up the extra funds.

Dave Ramsey, financial expert and author of The Total Money Makeover and creator of Financial Peace University, recommends having $1000 emergency fund as baby step number one in achieving financial peace. If you don’t have funds to keep any extra in your bank account, keep your emergency fund there. Don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t for you to spend. It’s just sort of an invisible insurance policy if an automatic bill drafts a day or two before a payday.

You will want to work your way up in your paperless bill paying system to be one paycheck ahead and then one month ahead in your bank account. Reaching this spot in your paperless bill paying, it really does become stress-free.

Organize your checklist

Download your free monthly budget checklist. You will find a budget checklist in the Urban Cottage Resource library for getting paid monthly, twice a month, weekly, or bi-weekly. No matter how you get paid, there is a budget checklist for you.

Your budget checklist is a fillable PDF so you can do this all digitally. A paperless desk is a clutter-free desk! If you like a pen and paper, print it out, you can do that too.

After you download your list, rename it with the word “master” attached to it. For example, you may want to name it “2018 Monthly Budget Checklist Master.” Each month make a copy of the budget checklist master and name it for that month. An example would be “August Budget Checklist.”Track your spending

Choose a time each week, to check in on your bank account and track your spending. Access your bank account and compare your budgeted amount to the actual amount. Make sure you are staying on track and that your automatic payments draft when they are supposed to.

Tips for weekly, bi-weekly paydays

Because our calendar months aren’t perfectly four weeks, monthly budgeting becomes more of a puzzle when you are paid weekly or bi-weekly. If this is the case for you, you will want to make your budget as if the month is only four weeks.

My husband gets paid bi-weekly which is every two weeks. Our monthly budget is based on him getting paid twice a month. I use the pay period latest in the month as his “payday #1” and then two weeks later that pay period is “payday #2.” Twice per year, he ends up with an extra payday.

Similarly, when you are paid weekly, then four times per year you will have an extra payday.

Using these extra pay periods is a really easy way to build savings to reach the goal of keeping extra funds in your bank account. Once you are a month ahead in your bank account, then use your extra pay periods to build up your savings.

Here is an example of how to fill out your monthly budget checklist.

 

 

 

 

How To Be Content With Your Home Right Now

By

We live in an HGTV world filled with perfect pins and incredible instagrams. Does this ever make you feel like your home just isn’t good enough? If you aren’t content with the little things, you won’t be content with the big things and vice versa.

A couple years ago I was attending a conference for creatives in Chicago with my husband. The format was similar to a Ted conference and all kinds of arts were represented and presented. Each new presentation was like candy for the senses. To this day I could not tell you who the musicians were. I can only remember two visual presentations but I could not tell you who presented them.

The biggest take away from that conference for me was one sentence. I think it had something to do with the place I was at in my life. Isn’t it interesting how we can read something, hear something, even know something at its core but not really comprehend it until we are ready?

Actor Tony Hale of “Arrested Development” fame was speaking about his journey to success. This is all I remember of his talk, but I have not forgotten it. “If you aren’t going to be content with the little things, you won’t be content with the big things.” That is probably paraphrased, but he was referring to the success in his career. Someone once told him he would never be satisfied or content with the next big thing until he was satisfied and content with where he was at in his career.

This is so much how I feel about my home. We didn’t buy our first house until we were thirty years old. Many of our friends were already settled in their houses or even moving on to their second one by then. All I wanted was a house of my own to paint, decorate, and nest in.  Once I achieved that, then I wanted a bigger one, and then a bigger one.

I thought I had arrived when we purchased our “dream home.” It was a brand-new house and it was seven bedrooms big. It was a perfect slate and all new. I could paint and decorate to my heart’s content without having to worry about repairs. But something still wasn’t right. I still wasn’t content with it.

I had everything I always thought I wanted. Then started becoming obsessed with tiny house living and simplifying my life. I had too much stuff. The house was costly to heat and cool. It was expensive to maintain. Remember when I thought I wouldn’t have to do repairs. Well, things break even in new houses.

Okay so wait. Let’s recap here. I wasn’t content in the small house and now I wasn’t content in the big house. Hmm. Maybe the house wasn’t the problem.

Timing is a weird thing. It just so happened that while we were attending this conference in Chicago, my husband was offered a new job that would include a relocation. One year later, we moved and began looking for our new home. Shopping for a house this time, I had a whole new perspective.

After nine months of house hunting and missing out on six different houses, we ended up in our urban cottage. This house is not perfect and we are committed to fixing it up with cash. So that means I need to be content with it just how it is.

Don’t get me wrong. There are SO many things that literally bug me about the current state of my house. As an interior designer, many days its imperfections make me antsy. I see the five different kinds of window trim. My bare feet turn on the chunky Saltillo tile. The light sockets are in the weirdest spots. My kitchen countertop needs to be vacuumed because it is too hard to just wipe off. I have a cobalt blue sink!

So here is the reality. Most of the people that I have into my home don’t notice the trim or the light sockets. Everyone says our floor is adorable and thinks we should keep it. As for the blue sink, it will be replaced one day. In the meantime, I am embracing it and throwing in pops of blue here and there to help it feel not alone.

If you are finding yourself not content in your current home, I would take a good hard look at why. Maybe your reasons are completely justified. However, in this HGTV world filled with perfect pins and incredible instagrams, you may just be longing for the wrong thing.

Here is an exercise to help reframe your perspective on being content with your home.

House Contentment Exercise

  • Write down all the things that bother you or make you discontent in your home.
  • Cross off the things that only you notice.
  • Star next to the things that you don’t like but other’s seem to rave about.
  • Underline the items that you could do something about but just haven’t done them yet.
  • Circle one thing that you can’t change right now, but if you thought outside the box you could make it work for the time being. (Like my blue sink.)

After you have done the exercise, I want to hear from you. Tell me if a little perspective tweak helped take the pressure off or what out-of-the-box design shift you made to help you live it. Comment below or pop on over to this article on the facebook page and join the conversation.

I am content with my blue sink. Because, I know if I’m not content with my blue sink, I won’t be content with any sink and so on.

The Celebration Table

By

“Nonnie, are we going we going to be eating at the outside table or at the celebration table?” This was the question from my oldest granddaughter when she was just four. It had never been called the celebration table before, but that describes it perfectly. And so, it would be called forever more.

You see, since becoming a mother, I always dreamed of the big family table. A table that would seat my children, their spouses, and their children around it. When we purchased our big house 12 years ago, we had a large formal dining room and I was on the hunt for the perfect table. The big family dining table of my dreams.

I fell in love with a 60-inch square table that had two leaves and extended out to be five by thirteen feet. This table would be big enough for everyone to fit around. They all fit and we used the big family table a lot!

Many memories were made around that table. Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas breakfasts, Easter brunches, and birthdays were all celebrated there.  The most memorable celebration was my oldest daughter’s wedding.

My daughter and son-in-law were married in our living room with 50 of their closest friends and family. The celebration table served as the wedding party table for the reception. At the table, my daughter and her brand-new husband were toasted, given blessings, and laughed right after tying the knot.

A few short years later, the seats around the celebration table started to fill up. My first granddaughter (the one who named it the celebration table) joined us. She was followed by her sister and her brother. A couple years after that a daughter-in-law filled a seat. That made 10 of us around the table. My family had doubled!

The dream I envisioned when I was a young mom had come true. My children with their children all sitting around the table. I loved that table so much. Not because it was a nice piece of furniture, but because of what it represented. Family, a dream come true, and love.

 

When we relocated to California, I brought the celebration table with me. Because we were not able to buy a house before the move, it came along. I knew my house would be drastically smaller. But, I didn’t know if it would have a dining room or not. Maybe I would get to keep it.

When we have purchased our little 920 square-foot urban cottage, the celebration table was going to have to leave me. This was THE hardest thing I had to let go of when we downsized our home. It still makes my heart ache writing this.

I can tell myself it is just a table. Material things don’t matter. New memories will be made around different tables. However, my heart isn’t following and I miss my celebration table.

↓ Pin the Love ↓

Why I Chose A Small House

By

The Big House

I chased the American dream of the big house and got exactly what I wished for and worked hard to achieve – over 4000 square feet of an American dream.

Right away, deep down, I knew it was too much house. My husband, John, and I tried selling it just a year after we bought it. We had a sign in our yard for two years and then the housing crisis hit. We decided to hunker down and make the best of it. We did for 11 years.

I did love my big house. We raised three kids in it, hosted oodles of parties, always had room for guests to stay and even had my daughter’s wedding in the living room. But, it takes a lot to live in a big house. It uses a lot of utilities, it is a lot to keep clean, it is more to maintain, and it is a lot to fill up – and fill it up we did – with lots and lots of stuff.

Tiny Houses

Somewhere along the way John and I became obsessed with the tiny house movement and the ideals that come with it. Fewer bills, less stuff, more time, and more freedom appealed to us. We seriously considered going that route. We purchased books, I started a Pinterest board, and I subscribed to tiny house YouTube videos.

In 2009 we purchased a used motorhome to tour the United States for a month and then ended up keeping it for six years because we enjoyed the freedom and relaxation that travel provided. It had everything we needed but was basic and simple. We loved that. Could we really live tiny?

Small Houses

Why did I feel like I had to live either big or tiny? Somewhere in the middle between 400 and 1000 square feet is small. Small house living offers the best of both worlds. This seemed to be the answer for us. There were a few factors that lead us toward small.

The child. I watch all of the tiny house shows so I know you can live in them with children. It can be done. We are still raising our youngest, who is in her teens. She is an artist. Canvases, paint, knitting needles cover her bedroom floor. And, of course, she produces laundry. That stuff needs to be kept somewhere. In a small house, she can have a room of her own.

The parties. Cooking and throwing parties is my way of showing love. Spending time with family, friends, and neighbors is a major part of living. My knack for design spills over into my cooking and entertaining. In a small house, I can have a full-size kitchen with (some) room for guests to roam.

The garden. I am passionate about growing my own food. Moving dirt, pulling weeds, planning how much I need for preserving, and dreaming about the meals I will make with the harvest grounds me and makes me happy. In a small house, I can have my own plot of dirt to garden and plant fruit trees.

The Move

Sometimes, life ends up shoving you into a decision before you are actually ready for it. In late 2014, John was offered a job in the same California town we had left 10 years prior.

Many late night talks, early morning walks, and notebooks full of pro and con lists were made.  Nine months later we broke the news of our relocation and a year later we moved. This was a really good time to downsize.

We were going to buy smaller. And we did. It took us 6 months of hunting, bidding, and patience to land in our 920 square-foot urban cottage.

I would like to inspire others who want to downsize or who already live small. Having a full satisfied life doesn’t have to be restricted by the size of your house. Do you live small? Do you want to live small? Share with me why in the comments. I would love to hear from you.