Elephant in the room...

The phrase "elephant in the room" always reminds me of Michael Scott from the office.  It's just one of the things he's said completely out of context.

There's something I am sure you're dying to know, but being the polite blog friends that you are, you'd never ever ask.  It would be weird to ask...like asking me how old I am or how much I weigh.

I have had 27 birthdays

and today the doctor said I weigh 156.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, the only thing I have left to tell you (the question you'll never ask) is how much this whole adventure is going to cost to get going and exactly how much we will be cutting our expenses...

So here it is...

Originally we'd budgeted about $12,000 to get started...around $6k each for the trailer and the truck to tow it.  I don't know WHY that was the amount we budgeted...we had NO idea where it would come from.  At the time we made this plan, we had about $0.50 in the bank.  In fact, I feel kind of selfish for not seeing and recognizing this miracle before.  Everything has fallen into place, which makes me believe deeper and deeper that this is the right thing for our family to do right now.  I am grateful for the Heavenly Hand that has held us up.

Anyway, we ended up getting a surprisingly big tax return and spent most of it on our new little home (the little house on the driveway, as my mom once put it...hehe).

1989 King of the Road - 38' 5th Wheel........$4,700

As far as expenses go, there is NO comparison...at least on paper. :)  I'll let you know how it actually pans out in a month or two. :)  Before we made this decision, our expenses were:

OLD EXPENSES:

Mortgage: $1080

Gas: $75

Electricity: $75

Trash/Water/Sewer: $50

TOTAL: $1,280

So you can understand where the following numbers are coming from, we plan to live on my mom and dad's property for the summer.  They have an acreage in the country.  One set-up fee there...we did pay $250 for a sewer line to be put in so we wouldn't have to go dump the gray water tanks every 3-4 days.  SO for the summer, we won't have any rent, electricity or water expenses.  At the beginning of September we plan to move back to Utah, where Jeff coaches wrestling.  We'll be there until wrestling season is over in February and they sky is the limit from there! :)  In Utah, we have scoped out a KOA with a monthly parking fee of $350 (I've seen them as low as $250ish) which is where we plan to stay.  SO that's where the numbers are coming from.

NEW EXPENSES:

Rent: $350 max

Gas: included

Electricity: included

Trash/Water/Sewer: included

TOTAL: $350

That's just including the basics...food will stay about the same, so will the gas expense for the car and stuff like that.  There are other expenses too...phone, internet and insurance for example, but those won't change much either.  But really...paying 3 times more than we have to just to keep a warm home with hot water and have the garbage picked up...

I think I've said it before, but having super high expenses (or maybe not super high, but out of your reach) is kind of like having a big, heavy something coming down on your head every month.  And you can either let it hit you on the head every month or you can get out from underneath it...and it feels SOOO good to be out! :)

The [much] smaller house feels enormous when I look at the much smaller bills it comes with.  I feel peaceful and happy knowing that all the energy Jeff and I used to put into worrying about how to pay for everything every month, we can now put into each other...into loving and supporting one another.

This is gonna be good.  I feel it more and more every day.