You know you’ve become an adult when you get excited about new windows!  Ever since Andrew and I purchased our home almost 2 1/2 years ago we knew that new windows were at the top of the home improvement list.  Although we always knew that it’s a pricey investment, we were sick of holding windows open with a piece of wood, chipping paint and rotting window sills.  It was worth being patient and saving up.  And we were finally ready and excited to go for it! The problem came when we invited a sales rep into our home for an estimate.  You see, at some point in our...

After a recent trip to the grocery store, Julie brought up a really important point: we have no credit cards, rarely carry much cash, and do most of our business with our credit union debit card.  What would happen if that account was somehow compromised, and she was in the middle of checking out at Meijer with a full cart of groceries?  Or, what if I was out on a recruiting trip for Hope and needed to make a personal purchase?  We would have no way of quickly accessing those funds. We quickly decided that we needed to have some kind of backup account for just such an occasion, sort of...

Yesterday we took a day off from posting after a crazy week of activities! Monday night was Hope’s annual Musical Showcase at DeVos Performance Hall in Grand Rapids.  It’s become an annual date night for us, with a nice dinner out (using Restaurant.com, of course) and then the concert.  It was great! On Wednesday night, Andrew and Hope student bloggers hosted the first ever live video chat for students considering Hope College for this fall. Thursday night was the beginning of our major home improvement project for 2010 — more on that to come in a post in the near...

Back before the cable cutting of early 2010, we were blessed to have a channel that we guiltily watched just once a week.  Drumroll, please… Yup, you guessed it, QVC.  So, here’s the deal: we’re big Food Network fans (yeah, we’re in a little bit of remorse about not having that, too) and QVC has a great show on Sunday afternoons called “In the Kitchen with David.”  They basically feature kitchen gadgets, recipes, and other cooking-related gear.  Nearly every week that we watched they featured one item that continually caught our eye: the Keurig coffee...

Wow, February just flew right on by, didn’t it? Sure did.  And as we look to the outside, we see snow melting on the sidewalk, a sure sign that March has come, and that spring is [supposedly] just several weeks away.  Even so, let us take a look back at the month that was February 2010: We started the month by taking a look at how Jules and I close our budget at the end of each month, including a new feature whereby we have been planning for major purchases in the future using a savings scoreboard.  Apple had recently announced a new product, and we digressed briefly to share...