money Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Slipcovers by Shelley

Linen Couch and Chair

January 10, 2015 by Shelley

My designer client wanted to have me slipcover this couch for her clients master bedroom. She wanted a tan linen couch and chair done. It was a chocolate velour fabric and had finials screwed in on the top back corners. We removed the fancy finials and filled holes with batting. She also wanted batting to cover the nailhead trim on the arms. I simply staple gunned batting in those areas before putting slipcover on.

Couch–BEFORE

Couch–AFTER! She chose a heavyweight linen look fabric that had a backing on it. She wanted to add some extra detail, hence the extra skirt pleat. We also made all the pillows with pleat ruffle detail. The pillow in the very center was a double flange mitered pillow–she saw a pic of one at some fancy hotel and took a pic of it to show me. I thought about it for a few days and figured out how to make one.

Here’s a close up of the double flange mitered pillow! I love the way it turned out! Definitely time consuming, but kind of fun to do something different that I hadn’t done before. I am thinking of possibly doing a video tutorial for it, if I have enough interest to warrant the effort. Let me know if you are interested.

In the same master bedroom my client wanted to slipcover this traditional dark chenille fancy chair to make it more casual. We used the same cream linen as the pillows on the couch. She wanted to make it super feminine with ties closures and a box pleat skirt.

SIDE NOTES— I took the second half of December off with my family. We skied a few times and spent a few nights at the cabin for Christmas. The kids were so excited—it finally snowed on Christmas day, so they had some fresh powder on the driveway to snowboard down. Then the day after Christmas we drove from Utah to LA to catch flights to Oahu!

Carter helped me make a homemade gift for his auntie Sarah out of his Great Grandmas old table cloth linens. It was super easy. Curved out the top by the arm pits, added ties and a pocket out of ticking stripe fabric.

Luke was all about getting a tree set up at the cabin and had it decorated in 3 min. flat before anyone else could help him! I love spending Christmas at the cabin! It’s a bit of an adventure hiking up the driveway with sleds of food and snow clothes, and it was 20 degrees inside when we got there. It takes a few hours to get the fire going and warm the place up. Then it took another day to get the kitchen sink to work (space heaters trying to warm up the pipes). No worries I just filled pots of water from the shower to dump in the sink to wash dishes. I love an adventure and a good story!

My sisters came up Christmas eve for some driveway sledding! The cousins loved it!

Next we headed to OAHU!! or as Luke says it…AWAHOO!

This pic was taken on the top of Chinaman’s hat!

We boogie boarded/waded to Chinaman’s hat (small island right of the coast) then hiked to the top! That was my favorite adventure for the trip. It took us 25 minutes to paddle over.

We found a turtle as big as Luke!

We also love our beach time!

Here’s how we kept our trip affordable—cause you know I am all about traveling for cheap!

1.Bought tickets on Allegiant Air for $440 roundtrip out of LAX and only paid for 1 checked bag.

Allegiant charges for carry on bags –but personal items are free. All the boys packed in a drawstring backpack (personal item) saving us $240! Tickets out of SLC, UT (where we live) were $900 each! We decided to drive to LAX to catch flights and save $2250. Since gas prices took a huge drop in the past month it only cost us $100 in gas to get to LA and back. We drove Hebers subaru impreza instead of my pilot. Less space, but better gas mileage.

2.Used Chase Sapphire credit card miles to book our rental car in Oahu–saving us $200!

3. Used Chase Sapphire credit card miles to pay for our Condo stay–saving us $750!

I had just gotten a new credit card offer in the mail 4months before our trip offering me 70,000 miles if I spent $5,000 in the first 3 months. WE put all our expenses on this card for 3 months, then used the cash back option and paid for the condo we f0und on VRBO.

4. Used Chase Sapphire credit card miles to book one hotel night in Barstow, Ca for the way home–saving us $100

Our flight came in at 8pm and we knew we wouldn’t want to drive 10 hours to get home that night. We opted for a 2 hour drive, and a quick hotel stay that included free breakfast.

5. I packed food for the drive to LA and made sandwiches for the plane ride. No way I wanted to pay $12/sandwich for 5 of us! Heber thought my hard vintage suitcase packed to the brim with bread, PB, honey, crackers, oranges, etc for the drive was hilarious–but he put up with my crazy idea anyhow! What a great man!

6. We shopped at Costco in Oahu for our groceries. We spent $200 for the week. We made all our meals in the condo, except for the buffet dinner we had at the Polynesian Cultural Center (which ended up being free–our friends parents volunteer there and hooked us up!)

7.We got discount tickets to the Polynesian cultural center from our friends parents that work there one night a week. —saving us $425!

8. We borrowed boogie boards and snorkeling gear from my friends parents in Oahu–saving us $150 in rentals

8. I shopped around for airport parking before we left and paid online–saving us $50! Parking our car for the week only cost $52 instead of over $100!

9. We made an approximate spending budget before we left and brought cash in an envelope–that way we could monitor more easily where we were at. From the time we left our house to the time we returned we spent $800 total! This included gas to LA, groceries, food, activities, souvenirs, etc.), which was way less than I thought we would. I had brought $1200.

10. Total for trip to Oahu for a family of five was $3,100!

Belize Trip Booked for less

September 4, 2014 by Shelley

I love planning trips just as much as I love going on them! So if you’ve ever complained that you don’t have enough money to take a trip…here are some inspiring ideas and ways you can make it happen and LIVE your life! Here’s my number one rule…”Don’t take no for an answer”–there’s always another way, a cheaper way, another alternative and my other favorite saying… “so you’re saying there’s a chance”! This comes from the Dumb and Dumber movie…where one guy says there’s a 1 in a million chance, and the other guy gets SUPER excited, and says “SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE!!”

My sister went to Belize last year and I fell in love with her amazing photos…of course it’s hard not to when she’s an amazing photographer! Before this I didn’t even know about Belize or where it was or what there was to do there. Then earlier this summer, I got my weekly Travelzoo email with their top 20 travel specials for the week. There was one for BELIZE…beach front cabanas on a living social deal for $600 for 6 nights. I quickly researched and found out it’s on the Caribbean side of South America, english speaking, central time zone, mayan ruins, amazing snorkeling, jungle, etc.

I was also excited that the resort offers free kayaks, snorkel gear, and bikes for their guests to borrow. Also across the street you can rent golf carts and drive to the nearby villages and explore. Also there are mini fridges in the rooms to help save on going out to eat.

Mayan Ruins

There are 3 of us couples that traveled to Costa Rica together last year, and we were all planning on another trip together. Everyone was excited about Belize, so we booked and found a 10% off Living Social promo code and saved another $50. Another rule on Living Social is if you buy and then 3 of your friends buy you get yours free. This includes travel as well! You just have to make sure your friends purchase off your link.

Costa Rica Trip

Now to find airfare. I got on www.kayak.com (my favorite) and searched flights and set up a price alert. You can choose to get daily or weekly alert. I chose daily. After 3 months, the flights still haven’t come down below $860/ticket! I was randomly searching for activities to do in Belize and came across a blog post that talked about flying into Cancun and taking a bus or driving down to Belize to save $. I hurried and searched my options to fly into Cancun from SLC, UT. $455!!! Then I mapquested to see how far the drive was…7.5hrs to our accommodations (not ideal, but not too bad to save $900/couple!).

Bonus–nonstop flight into Cancun is only 4.5 hrs compared to the 8 hr duration flight into Belize. Plus flying into Belize we were going to have to drive 2.5 hrs south anyways to our accommodations. So really all in all it’s only 1.5 hr longer in travel time to fly into Cancun. Rental car prices were about the same. So we decided this was a great option. FYI–only 2 rental car companies let you take their cars over the Mexican border into Belize.

I then googled to see how safe it is to drive from Cancun into Belize, I found a few blog posts and things on trip advisor where everyone said it was fine as long as you traveled during the day. They also explained the border crossing process and what to expect. So our plan is to fly nonstop into Cancun arriving about 3:30pm, get our rental car and drive 2 hours south to Tulum and stay the night at a hotel ($55/couple). The next morning we want to check out the Mayan ruins in Tulum and drive the remaining 5.5hrs to Hopkins, Belize while we explore the country side.

Heber and I both have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card for sky miles. I received 45,000 bonus miles just for signing up and spending $3,000 in the first 3 months. When you book travel through their site you get 20% off (Normally a $455 flight requires 45,500 miles). Because I booked through the Chase site, my flight only required 36,500 miles! We were able to book both of our flights on sky miles! Which means we paid $0! Then we also had enough miles left over to book our rental car for Hawaii in December (we are taking the kids to Oahu)…saving us $215!

Chase Sapphire also gives you the option of applying your miles to your statement balance or opting for cash back (changing soon). I just received an application in the mail for 70,000 bonus miles if I sign up and get a business credit card. Catch is I have to spend $5,000 in 1st 3 months. I’m planning on getting the cash back ($700) to pay for most of our Oahu Condo in December. That way we will only be paying $140 for the condo and $0 for the rental car! Granted our flights cost $2,100 ($440/roundtrip ticket on Allegiant Air out of LAX), but all in all for a family of 5 it’s a great price!

Run down on what I got for Belize

6 nights accommodations for two–$480

2 roundtrip flights from SLC to CUN–$0

1 week Rental Car–$242 for our part

Hotel in Tulum–$55

$772 total plus activities and food.

Our Debt Free ride

April 11, 2014 by Shelley

In 2007, I decided to focus on paying off our home. That goal became a reality in June 2009! We enjoyed the debt free thing for 6 months…when we decided to purchase a cabin in Decemeber 2009. I had a hard time committing and jumping into another mortgage, but ultimately we decided we couldn’t pass up a once in a life time price ($65,000).

Our cabin

I then spent the next 2 years and 3 months paying off the cabin, and we became debt free again in March of 2012. Which at this point my husbands car had 230,000 miles on it with the hood zip tied shut, cracked windshield, and no shocks left.

Heber’s new car

At this point we knew we were living on borrowed time, and started stocking away $ to pay cash for a new car. In 6 months we saved up $15,000 and added that to the $7,000 we had saved in a car account over the past several years and Heber flew to Jackson Hole, WY in October 2012 to purchase a 2012 subaru imprezza with 3,000 miles on it.

Yay! We made it, we paid cash for the car and were still debt free… for 2 months that is–until I got my best idea ever! I had been watching “Love it or List it”, which is a design show on TV, where they remodel houses to fit the families growing needs. My wheels started turning, and I called Heber at work and told him all about it. “Sounds good, lets do it!” was his reply. I couldn’t wait till my morning run to tell my running partners.

My new “Work Studio”

My idea was to convert our garage to my new “work studio“–I called it my “work studio” instead of “work room”, because it was going to be amazing with 10 ft ceilings, bold curtains, a chandelier hanging over my cutting table, and french doors that opened to the driveway for easy loading of furniture. With this fabulous idea, we would need to build a new garage to replace the old one. Our new garage ($15,000) went up about a month later in December 2012 and we started the garage conversion process ($10,000) in the dead of winter. We got a loan for the new garage and paid for the conversion as we went.

My goal to pay off the new garage was 6 months. My plan was to pay it off by June 2013. At this point my car was struggling, it had $180,000 miles on it and we’d replaced the transmission at 160,000 miles (we broke down driving home from Thanksgiving at 2am in Wendover) and we kept dumping $ into it trying to make it last one more year, so we could save up and pay cash for a new car. Needless to say my car died the end of May 2013–it was going to need $3,000 of transmission work! At this point we decided to call it quits and purchase a new car.

We were almost home free, I was a little bummed, we had one more payment to make to pay off the garage. I went ahead and made my final payment and the next month without skipping a beat started paying off my new car.

We bought a new Honda Pilot for $35,000 in June 2013 and got .89% financing through the dealer which worked out to about $20/ month interest. So I know it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to get a loan. It had just felt like a long ride. When we first paid off the house, I thought “Oh my gosh this is it, we’ve done it! We are debt free, how awesome is this?!” Then we bought the cabin, Heber’s car, built a new garage and converted my work studio, and then bought me a new car…in a 5 yr period! WHEW!

With that being said, my pretend goal to pay off the Pilot was 18 months…because I didn’t want to be neurotic about it. I didn’t want to think about it all the time running numbers in my head–by my deep down goal was 12 months. Well here I am 4 months out from my neurotic goal, and it’s feasible! I can make it happen!

After I pay off the Pilot and we are debt free again, I promise we are just going to enjoy it and maybe stash some extra away for retirement. We first became debt free 5 years ago and have come full circle again. I think being debt free is like losing weight, you have to consciously make an effort to keep your needs and wants in check. Just because you make your goal weight, doesn’t mean it’s over…you have to maintain! My famous last words, “So I was thinking….” Heber knows to hold his breath when those words come out of my mouth–usually it means a remodel, a project, or something crazy!

I feel truly blessed that Heavenly Father has blessed me with my talents and skills. I LOVE fabric and decorating! I love what I do! I am amazed at what my business has turned into over the past 14 yrs. I always remember opportunity looks like hard work. Don’t be afraid to work hard for what you want and love. I thrive on feeling productive and creating something out of nothing. I don’t like wasting things and try to reuse and repurpose as much as possible…my sister calls me scrappy. I also like to be efficient, I like to make the most out of my gas, money, time, etc.

I like to share about financial stuff, because it’s always so hush, hush and no one really shares openly. I wish more people would’ve talked to me about it when I was growing up and first married. I had no idea a 12% interest rate on a car wasn’t a good deal. Once I realized $900 of our $1035 house payment went to interest, I couldn’t understand how that was legal! Then I became motivated to pay it off in 10 yrs instead of 30yrs. How is 30 yrs standard?? You pay 2 1/2 times what your house is worth if you stick to the 30 yr plan! How is that an investment??? IF you make an extra payment a year on your house you cut 7 yrs off the loan! Finding out we had a credit card with 28% interest rate when we were first married, because of a few accidental late payments was INSANE! I have learned a lot over the past 16 years and have made many goals, written many lists, and scratched numbers on lots of scrap papers all over the house.

We always pay off our cards every month and have different saving accounts set up for the house, cars, vacations, kids, etc. that way when repairs come up the $ is there and we don’t have to put emergencies on the credit cards. We know we are going to take trips, we know things are going to break, we know the kids want to go to college…so we plan for those things.

We try to talk openly with our kids about what things cost and what we are paying off and what our financial goals are. They love shopping at second hand stores. Just the other day I took my son to the thrift store because he needed new jeans (he grew 5″ this past year), I got him 4 pairs of “cool” jeans, 2 belts, a jacket, and a fleece liner for $26! How can you beat that? He loves what he got, and was just as excited as me about the price. They know they can get a lot more for their money if they buy second hand.