JUNE’S 10 THINGS

I almost forgot to do June’s 10 things! I guess technically it’s now July but we’ll still call it June’s. My 10 Things posts are just 10 things that have been on my mind for the month, some personal finance related and some not. See past 10 Thing’s here.

(1) We snuck away to Sedona this month to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We’d been saving up for a big anniversary trip to go to Costa Rica or Europe or somewhere grand and exciting but then we bought a dental practice in March and thought it would be a little irresponsible to spend the money on a big trip right now. It all works out too though because since we bought the practice, we were able to get a business credit card for the dental practice’s expenses (which are mannnny) and have already earned enough reward points to fly somewhere exciting for free, (which we also do with our personal credit card) and a few nights worth of a hotel. Anyway, Sedona was AMAZING and I have a feeling we’ll make trips there pretty regular. We took our mountain bikes and biked some sun up til sun down, ate tons of naughty food, swam, and just generally felt like we were 18 again. Sedona is a 10/10 would recommend.

(2) As previously mentioned, Danny’s dad came to visit in June. Danny’s dad likes to have a good time and likes to go out to eat a TON. Even though it is always SO fun when he comes to town, I’m usually a little nervous that we’ll destroy our budget (he’s so nice and tries to pay for everything but we try not to let him). We tried to share meals when we went out to eat and not buy soda which helps us keep the cost of going out to eat down. I also routinely get gift cards to places like Olive Garden by doing surveys on SurveyMini or Capterra so those help too! One thing really fun we did while he was here was float down the Salt River. It’s $17 per person to rent a tube and take a shuttle ride back to your car afterwards. So instead, we went to Costco and grabbed our own tubes for $12 and took two cars and parked one at the top and one at the bottom of the river. Cheaper, and now we can tube the river anytime we want ha.

(3) Danny’s Grandpa Pete died this month. It was totally unexpected. I didn’t get to know either of my grandpas really well growing up and I always felt really connected to Pete. We had a mutual love of Johnny Cash and June Carter and would play their songs on guitar sometimes at family dinners. Pete sang the cutest song ever at our wedding. And he was just a really happy, fun guy that helped me remember that a simple life is the best life. We miss him. We got to go up to Utah to celebrate his life and see lots of family. We flew Allegiant and our flights were under $150 round trip. (Read my Allegiant Airlines review here).

(4) For Father’s Day, we got Danny a smoker. He’s been wanting one forever, so I’ve been stealthily saving up for it. I bought it from Costco and when I bought it, it’s obviously heavy, so the workers loaded it into my car with a fork lift. And that was great and then I drove home and pulled into my driveway and my stomach sank because… well I don’t have a fork lift! How was I supposed to get the dang thing out of my car?? I had not thought that through very well. I thought about texting a few neighbors to have their husbands come help but most wouldn’t be around until the evening when Danny was home, and I really wanted this to be a surprise. So I had M go inside and get literally every single pillow and blanket we owned and we put them under neath the tail end of the jeep. And then we pushed as hard as we could from inside the jeep and pushed the smoker out so it landed on all the pillows and blankets! We were sweating SO much. Then we had to push it a few inches at a time all the way inside into a closet where Danny wouldn’t find it. It was truly a labor of love. But Danny’s been making us all kinds of delicious meats so it was totally worth it.

(5) We took M to the movies this month to see Toy Story since on Tuesdays it’s only $5! It was the best day of his life.

(6) Arizona is officially hot hot hot for the summer so I decided to take our pup and M to go on a hike in the mountains, about an hour and a half away. It was such a cute hike! We walked up next to a river with some waterfalls and had to cross the river at one point. Our dog is the biggest chicken ever and hates getting wet– he’s basically a 60 pound cat. So I had to pull him and carry him across this raging river, meanwhile my four year old is screaming his head off because he also doesn’t want to get wet and he is certain our dog is going to die. I’m laugh crying because I’m carrying over 100 pounds of weight and trying not to fall and smash my head or anyone else’s on the rocks. So maybe bit off a little more than I could chew there but it was really empowering once we all got through it. Haha.

(7) I run a few aspects of our dental practice and obviously deal with the legal/business side of things, but one of my favorite things I do is take bank deposits every couple of days. M has made really good friends with the bank teller, they know each other by name. She always gives him a sucker when we come and one time he told her that he wished she had a cupcake for him. This week when we went, she told him she had something special for him and went to the back and brought him out a cupcake! He was so excited and I was so touched that she remembered that and went out of her way to do that for him.

(8) We’ve been trying to get M a baby brother or sister for a few years now. We haven’t felt ready to 100% share our journey yet, but since it is starting to impact our finances with all of the infertility testing, etc, we’ll probably start sharing more. For now, I’ll just say it’s been a hard, wild, very unexpected ride.

(9) We got to take our first paycheck from the dental practice this month which felt really good! So, now we’ll be able to start making aggressive student loan payments which we’re of course really excited about since that’s why we started this blog in the first place. We held off on making aggressive student loan payments for almost a year so that we could save up to buy this practice. Our minimum student loan payment is $4246 each month, which is still a fat payment, but we’re excited to double/triple up on those payments to pay off our student loans even faster.

(10) We’re looking into buying rental property to help us pay off our student loans even faster. When you have as much debt as we have, you have to get creative if you want to pay it off fast. We can only work so many hours but with things that help us generate passive income (like rental income properties) we can earn more money without having to work too much more. The only thing (and it’s a big thing) is that it requires money up front (obviously– to buy the rental house). We’ll of course keep you posted on this process! We bought our first home with the thought that we’d move out after a couple of years and use it as a rental. But home values sky rocketed in our neighborhood while we lived there and it made good sense (cents) to sell instead of rent it out.

How was your June? Drop a comment, I’d love to hear from you! 

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