OUR HOME // DINING ROOM (BEFORE)

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photo via

Time for another house post!!! Today, we're chatting the dining room. Oh the dining room. This room is an important one for me. When we were looking we had to say no to soooo many houses because of their lack of a dining room. I just can't do an eat in kitchen.
I love people and I love food and the combination of people and food gets this heart a sparkling! Dinner parties are my jam (remember when I had 15 family members over for Thanksgiving?) So obviously, a dining space was very critical!! 

The open living/dining concept really won me over in this house.

p.s. how awesome is that credenza china cabinet? So wish they left us that and not the junky desk to the left...

And there's a sneak peek into our kitchen! We will be getting some MAJOR work done later in the year.

Again, I'm so thankful for the huge window in the dining room...(yay for light for recipe post photos!!) And the dining room is actually pretty large. We moved our piano and our big table in and it still feels roomy. We also hung curtains tonight...booyah.

So what I'm hoping to do in the dining room is bring in some plants like the inspiring photo up top! Lighting is also a HUUUUUGGGEEE thing aka that fan has got to go.

Now here's what's inspiring me....

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We have a table, chairs and a beautiful bench that our friend, Benson made us. But we need to paint some chairs...I'm loving that pink chair above. 
We're on the hunt for an awesome chandelier/pendant and potentially a rug. How awesome are those rose gold pendants? 

Here's a photo I took of the dining space mid renos....

WHAT A DIFFERENCE WHITE PAINT MAKES HEEEEEEYYYY!!!!! 

So there you have it, the dining room before and inspiration.

Incase you missed it...

• Our Living Room Before

Happy Friday!

xo,
s.s.♥︎.

BUDGETING 101 + DEBT ATTACK PLAN

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So on Monday I shared with you why I started budgeting and how it got me outta debt and today I will share with you how exactly I got started on that budgeting. But I just wanted to give you a little disclaimer...I'm NO financial expert. I'm just a girl who was in a fickle and instead of continuing to bury my head in the sand, I surrendered my finances to Jesus, stopped overspending, worked my butt off and got out of debt.

I came across this verse a couple weeks back and it so has to do with my one word for the year (which I'm going to be sharing next week!!!) but this is why I'm being so open about my financial history.....

"He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us." -2 Corinthians 1 MSG

God set me free from financial stress and shame and I want to do what I can to come alongside you! 

So now on to the practical...

As I mentioned on Monday, my friend pointed me to Dave Ramsey. I heavily creeped his website and made a plan from his tips and wealth of knowledge. Here was what I took to heart.

•  Be accountable to every single dollar you make AKA you should know where every single dollar of your income goes to.
• Make a budget and stick to it no matter what!

• When it comes to paying off debt on credit cards, attack the card with the lowest balance first and pay the minimum payment on the higher one. Once your lower balance card is paid off, put all efforts into paying off the other one.

The thing I really loved about Dave Ramsey's advice is the whole being accountable to every dollar that you make. How often is it that we get our monthly statement and we're all like ughhhh, where did my money go??!!?

He has a free budget calculator that helps you work out your budget. Below is a screenshot of an example of someone who makes 3000/month.

James and I use a different budgeting system which I will share on the next budgeting post but this one definitely helped me out as a single girl.

Every time I got paid I would enter it into this budget calculator and then adjust the tabs as to what were my expenses for the next two weeks. I recorded how much I had allotted for each category into a mini moleskine and I carried that moleskine everywhere with me.

If I had any left over dollars, I would use it to pay off the credit card that I was attacking (ie. if I only used $80 for food and had allotted $100, I would make an extra credit card payment of $20). The whole point was to know where every single dollar was going. If I wanted to buy something but I didn't have enough in the category, I would figure out if I could move the money over from a different category (ie. say I wanted 10 more dollars for personal spending...I'd look through my categories and see if I could take it from something like gas $).

It was an intense method but it worked for me! What I like about budgeting is, it sets boundaries on where you're spending your money. It doesn't mean you can never buy shoes again, it means you can if you properly plan. If I wanted to buy something more expensive I would withdrawal my clothing money for that period and put it aside until the next period when I could combine it with my next month's clothing budget.

I followed this rigidly for 10 months and after the 10 months I was completely DEBT FREE! If you have any questions, let me know! Again, I'm no financial expert but I will try my best to answer your questions!

And for those of you who are asleep....tomorrow I'm sharing the plans for my dining room so get pumped!!!

stay gold,

s.s.♥︎.

WHY I STARTED BUDGETING AND HOW IT GOT ME OUTTA DEBT

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image via teen vogue

So I'm going to be all real talk with ya. It's time we talk about money on this blog. Money is an awkward subject but it doesn't have to be awkward. When I sent out my reader surveys one of you said they would love to see me talk about money/budgeting on here and I was like boooyah!

See I haven't always been good with money. There were times in my life when I was really, really bad with money.

I got a job at a young age (hello times colonist paper route!) and learned what it was to be making money. As soon as I was 16, I got a day job and soon after that I got another. I loved working and making money...what I didn't love was saving money. When I had money, I spent it because, duh, that's what money is for...right? (that's my 17 year old self speaking!)

I got my first credit card when I was 19....at first I was very good with it. But then I wanted to go to Europe and then Europe again and then New York and then many, many concerts and then many, many shopping trips to Vancouver...oh and I got a car loan somewhere in there. 

Let's just say I went on a five year shopping spree....it was bad, very bad. In those times I didn't like to think of my financial situation. It was just something that I would sweep under the rug and hope that one day in the distant future, I'd get my stuff together.

And then one day, I had a conversation. Don't you love it when conversations can change your life??? And I don't want to hype this at all...I didn't go to some seminar to learn how to get out of debt...and no offence to people who go to those seminars, but you really don't need to go to those seminars....actually you probably shouldn't pay for a course to get out of debt...you should just GET OUTTA DEBT...ok rant over....

Back to the conversation....

I had a friend over for dinner and she told me about budgeting. She shared with me how she wanted to get out of debt and how she needed to make some changes to her spending. She gave me the name of this Christian finance dude (Dave Ramsey). I looked at his site online and figured out his budgeting system (you don't need to pay for a program, it's pretty self explanatory).

And then I started budgeting (and working my butt off!!) and 10 months later I was OUT OF DEBT. Now that was a good feeling.

So I wanted to encourage you....if you are in debt, there is a way out!! But it's not some quick and easy solution. If you're serious about getting out, let me tell you, it's going to be hard BUT you got this. You so got this.

 In the next few posts I'm going to be talking about budgeting, breaking it down, showing you how to make a budget, and how James and I make a budget as a married couple. Yeeeehaw.

Happy Monday friends!

s.s.♥︎.

THE HUNT FOR THE BIG BLACK BAG

I'm a fan of massive bags. I have one that I got from H & M a year and a half ago but I'm on the hunt for a real leather one. I'm not the crazy impulsive shopper I once was (and my finances are thanking me, speaking of, soon I'm going to be sharing some posts on budgeting..yahoooo!) so I'm in NO rush....that's right sales girl, I won't cry if that bag sells out. If I won the bag lottery, I would choose this Celine bag in a second. But there's no such thing as a bag lottery, and I will never fathom spending that kinda $$$ on a bag. 

So here I am patiently stalking some online stores looking for my glass slipper of big black bags....I haven't found mine yet but these ones are kinda cute....

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Funny story...I was this close to buying the Aritzia one when it was on sale ($75 off regular price) but they were sold out everywhere and my only option was to order it online and get it in March...I was soooo close to doing it but the delay and the fact that it doesn't have a zipper (aka one big open bag) made me change my mind...good grief lol

Got any fun weekend plans?? I DO! We're heading to Van for the day tomorrow to go to West Elm and IKEA!! Soooooo stoked. One thing I'm not stoked about though is this stupid virus that I have...I got tested for strep, but the doctor thinks I just have a virus...but the worst thing of all is I have NO VOICE....it was going yesterday and today I could barely speak a sentence.. PTL for text messaging!

Happy Friday!

s.s.♥︎.

ONE WORD 2014 RECAP // KRISTY

Heya! Another one of my brave friends wrote a recap on her word for 2014! You can read Kristy's original post here! Thank you for sharing Kristy!!!

I love the idea of a flow up to the one word!

After reflecting over what I wrote and the word(s) for my 2014, I am amazed as to where God has brought me and what he has brought me through. 

A couple of months after the post went up, I experienced an amazing moment of healing. I believe that I was healed from depression. 

Now, it's not to say that I am happy go lucky all the time and I don't struggle. BUT God gave me the capability to see my choice of emotion/reaction/faith. And joy! Oh what JOY!

Every moment I was faced with giving into fear or choosing to trust, I was able to easily choose to trust him. It's amazing. HE is amazing. 

Oh ya, and not going to bethel was also a great decision! I was able to stay back and support and stand by another worship leader who took on the responsibility of leading for 3 weeks. And it was great! 

God gave me the gift of opportunity to step into leadership in different ways. Reshaping how I look and approach ministry in worship and reminding me of how much I was made for it---it's where my heart is.

So with this refreshed outlook-- new friendships came along, other friendships grew and old ones rekindled. 

He is so good, so so good. On top of that, with the challenge of writing, God even used my testimony of coming out of depression in a creative visual way for our opener video of our church's conference. (Which you should come to next year!)

Sometimes you just never know how one word can have so much weight. 

I have so much to be thankful for. And I can't wait to share what my one word for this year is. I'm so excited for what 2015 will be. 

Love to you all,

Kristy

Thanks Kristy for sharing!! It's so beautiful what God has done in your life!! Love you girl!!!

I'm actually going to be speaking at Dream Women this morning about choosing your one word for the year so come on out to GT at 9:30am if you want to hear and connect with awesome women!!

xo,

s.s.♥︎.