Since We've Been Home

I forget how traveling for a long period of time makes it so hard to get back into the groove of things when you get home. It has taken me a few weeks to get back into the routine, but I think I have finally got it. We've been quite busy since we got home, or at least I feel like we have. Here are a few things that we have done. We still don't have a camera, so pictures from this post are compliments of Google Image Search :)


First we turned this:
(This actually looks way better than the chair we had.  Ours was in worse condition and much older)

Into this:

Thanks to Wray Family Santa Clause!  We LOVE it and are so thankful for it.  Josh is still a little sad to give up the pink chair for some reason that I just don't understand.  It still hasn't made it's way down to the street, but I assure you that it will this Tuesday on Trash Day!

Second, we have decided that we NEED a strict budget.  After looking and talking we finally found something that works for us!  We never have cash and use different cards/bank accounts for certain things based on reward programs and needed something that would track all of our accounts.  We found MINT.COM!  Oh my gosh, we LOVE it.  It tracks all of our accounts and allows us to categorize each transaction.  We also have a budget set up and it will tell you how much you have left to spend for the month in each category.  If you are an online banker and need a new budget system, this is the way to go!  And it's FREE!  I love it!  It makes me happy :)

Third, we filed our taxes and got a nice tax return already!  We used TurboTax and it was so easy!  It was/is in our bank account already!  YIPEE!  The only good thing about paying taxes...getting a hug lump sum of money!

Fourth and probably the most exciting thing that we have done since we have been home is that we bought a camera!  I am sooo stoked and cannot wait to get it!  We bought it on Amazon and should be getting it this week.  After much researching, talking and debating, we decided to go with the Nikon D3100.  I can't wait!  I'm soo excited.  It's Nikon's most basic DSLR, but I can't wait to start using it...not that I am going to know how to use it for a while though.  I'm hoping to catch on quickly though...fingers are crossed.

The best part about it is that we had to pay hardly anything out of our own pocket.  How you ask?  Well, it's mainly thanks to Swagbuck.com!  You can click here to get more info and to sign up!  (Oh and please do click the link if you decide to sign up; that way I can earn swagbucks when you earn them.)  We have been using Swagbucks as our search engine for a little over a year.  We use it to search everything, even sites that we already know, like gmail or facebook.  We also did a few surveys, daily polls and swag codes.  But we ended up earning about $400 in Amazon gift cards!  Then used our tax return to cover the rest!  We were going to wait a little longer; but now that our camera doesn't work anymore, I just couldn't....Just wish I had it right now :)  We are now going to start saving our swagbucks to buys a XBox 360/Kinect.  I never wanted to have a gaming system in my house (I never had one growing up), but we played the Kinect at our friends house and fell in love.  I believe it's way better than the Wii; although I do still love the Wii.  Hopefully we will have enough swagbucks to get it soon!

Ok..so now that I have advertised Mint.com, TurboTax, Nikon, Amazon, Swagbucks and XBox Kinect; I think I better stop before this post turns into a huge advertisement :)