Resentment, Bills, and an Attitude of Gratitude - DIY

Matt and I bought this tiny house knowing that we didn't want to live in it for very long.

Sound silly?

That's a whole 'nuther blog post.

Anywho, that mentality has kept us living like renters.

Now, we are trying to sell and we haven't had a single person take a gander in 6 months.

SIX MONTHS!

What has developed is resentment.

I don't like that at all.

This past weekend we came to the conclusion that we need to stop living like we are

going to move soon.

I know that may sound backwards when we are trying to sell our house but here's the reasoning.

We work hard for this house.

We work hard to maintain it.

But we just sort of keep up with the daily messes.

The walls are in need of painting.

The siding needs power washing.

The trim on the doors need replacing.

Etc.

You get the idea.

We need to put love back into our home.

Basically, while we are waiting for our something better to come along,

we should love where we are right now.

Attitude of Gratitude.

So, we are in the beginning stages of making a list of all the big and small things

that we need or want to tackle around the house.

All those things we never dove into as homeowners because we wanted to keep this place

"move in ready".

I've mentioned many many times before that we have a very small house.

It is 1080 square ft.

No basement.

No garage.

We've chosen function over style many many times for convenience sake and our style

has gone to the dogs because of it.

But we are going to work to change that.

I'm going to start to post some of the progress.

We hope that this will pull us out of this resentment rut we are in.

***********************

First up...

A tiny bedroom project.

THE MONTHLY BUDGET.

Years ago we found this awesome calendar that had a huge envelope for each month to hold the bills.

 Matt and I are both "out of sight, out of mind" people so the bills need to be readily available for

us to view every day.

This is our system.

Functional?

Yes.

Ugly?

Y.E.S.

Just hanging there right in the middle of the old #2 pencil colored walls of our bedroom.

 We knew the system worked for us, we just needed to change it up a bit.

(For those of you who are wondering, I write down what needs to be paid on what day along with the amount. Matt is the bill payer. When he pays the bills, he puts a check mark. I track the account and I put the second check mark down when the bill comes out of the account.)

 Look how far it stood off the wall!

12 months worth of bills.

 Enter Target.

Total score.

 Plus a frame I already had around the house.

 And voila!

Same system, different style.

The monthly calender is just paper printed off the Internet and placed in the frame.

I put the glass of the frame behind the paper so I can still write down all that needs to be paid and when

and we can still check items off.

And there are pockets for 2 months. Current month and the next.

After those months are over with, the bills get filed away.

And look! We no longer have an enormous accordion sticking out of our wall!

Yippee!

And the cherry on top?

I popped on over to the Etsy shop of my favorite Organizing Guru, Jen.

I purchased a blank monthly calendar that I can use over and over each month.

Just print out and fill in.

(The calendar that you see in the frame right now is not from Jen. It's just something I found online to fill in for the picture. I will be getting mine from Jen soon and I'm so psyched!)

:)

Frame: Free. Had it around the house.

2 Pocket Organizer from Target: $14. (A splurge but it was too perfect to pass up.)

Printable Monthly Calendar: $3.

For a total of $17, I was able to ensure that we keep with the same bill paying system that always worked

for us but just make it look a little better.

Happy Tuesday!