Update

Things have been busy for me. Mostly with the jewelry business. Had a really good Craft Show this past weekend and earned $300! Whoo-hoo!

On line sales have been picking up as well, so I'm really happy with how that's going.

I've done a lot of Christmas shopping already. I am doing well staying within the budget for everyone except my oldest DD. Most the things she wants are really expensive. I had planned to stay under $200 for each of my 3 daughters, but I have decided to spend a little more on the oldest. Two of the items I want to get for her are a new winter coat and a pair of boots. Both things she needs. Of course, I'm sure I could get her ones cheaper than from Hollister and Uggs, but those are the ones she will like. So, I'm glad I have earned a little extra money to be able to get her a little extra. She's such a good kid (and hasn't even asked for these things though I know she will like them) and she got straight A's on her report card!

I did have a scare with having my cash envelopes this weekend. I have all of my usual cash envelopes funded (grocery, clothing, auto gas, spending $, dining out) but this month I also have my Christmas $ envelope - and it has over $1,000 in it. And while I was at the cast party of DD2's play, I left it unattended on my chair for a while, and then couldn't find it! I was in such a panic! I don't know what we would have done for Christmas if that had been taken. Luckily it was just underneath a bunch of coats. But it did make me realize that I shouldn't have all that cash with me all the time!

Other good news is that I noticed on our mortgage bill that our balance is down to $219,000. That's not terribly low I realize but in all my calculations I had us owing $240,000 - so we are in a little better shape than I thought. And I'm pretty sure that we refinanced to our 20 year mortgage in 2003, so that was almost 6 years ago, so I think we'll only have 14 years left on our mortgage. (I know 14 years is a long time, but it is a lot better than 30 years - and in our last house every time we refinanced we started over on a 30 year mortgage!) Hopefully we will follow Dave Ramsey's plan and get it paid off even earlier. Ideally we will have it paid off before my oldest daughter goes to college in 2015, although that's only 6 years away so it might be pretty tough to accomplish, but you never know.

The bad news is that there are rumors of layoffs at my husband's job. He doesn't think he would be affected - but you never know. The rumors are they will start on Dec. 15th. This had put a bit of a knot in my stomach but I am doing my best not to focus on that. We are doing everything we can to improve our financial situation, so we'll just hope for the best.