Decisions Decisions

I still have a backroom full of furniture, you may remember I post awhile back talking about how my back room looked like a Furniture Store. Well it still does. I have not been able to get the stuff moved so that I can show it and every time I try to have a yard sale someone gets sick or something happens. This weekend it rained and I had tons of work to do for school since everyone was sick. I sat here for 14 hours straight Sunday doing school work trying to get it all done.

Now I am trying to decide what to do with the money. I was going to put it back in the pot to pay things, but have done without it this long and will be getting money again in about a week and I should be okay. I was thinking about selling my couch and love seat and putting like $100 from the money I have coming in a week or two with it to get a new one. I don’t need a brand new one but the new to me ones are just as much as a brand new one and they are nasty.

I was thinking about taking the money from the stuff I sell and getting me the bedroom set I have been wanting. I would probably get enough to pay for most of it. If I just get what I can now then the rest later would be ok. I just want the dresser, mirror, chest of draw and two night stands. I do not like the bed most places have with it so I would wait to get the bed that I want to go with it later or find a cheaper one later. Right now I have a basic black headboard so it would look find with it. Even if I just got the dresser, mirror and one night stand and got the other one and chest later would be ok. Then like me and my oldest were talking earlier when we finally move in a year or so we will all take our bedroom stuff with us because we will have nice new stuff, we won’t get there and have to sleep on the floor and worry about finding decent mattresses. We can still get rid of the couches, table, desk and the rest of the furniture in the house so we aren’t paying to haul extra stuff we don’t need. If we all have our beds to sit and sleep on we can take a little time to look for a couch. I could even take one of the beds and set up in the living room to sit on for a little bit until we found one if I needed to. We have two sets of bunks so we could put one of the single beds out there. They agreed it as long as we don’t have to sleep on the floor we aren’t worried about living room stuff. I would sell my couch and things before I left so I should have enough to get one when we get there no problem. It’s just finding some thing that we like.

Then I thought of doing something else with it the other day but I can’t even remember what it was now. Not surprising really.

Tonight I have been thinking about trying to sign my three older kids up for 4 H. I seen they had a meeting the other day when I had sick kids and could not have went anyway. I am going to call tomorrow and see what all they are offering and how much it is. From my understanding I think there are a few fee’s when you get in but after that it is mostly free. I could be 100% wrong because again it wasn’t something I was allowed to do when I was a kid. I would put all three in it but they only take kids ages 5 to 18. She has another year and a half or so to wait. But I want her to do something as well, so I thought maybe I could put her in a dance class if it was cheap enough. I looked at my friends studio tonight and emailed her to see what they had for her age and if it was to late for her to start since they started about three weeks ago when school started. I wasn’t planing to do anything then just thought of this today when I seen the 4 h thing. I had looked into 4 h before but then forgot about them. She said they have ballet and jazz and acro/jazz. I think she would like the acro/jazz because she likes to tumble and flip and things like that. She said we could stop by this week or next and she could try both classes out for free and see what one she liked. It is $50 a month for 2 hours. I guess that isn’t to horrible but it’s a lot when I am on such a tight budget. I know they have scholarships or use to so I am going to ask them about that and see if there is one she can get or if we can try when they come up. Because we have costume fee’s and things as well.

So now I am thinking maybe I should just put that money away and use it to do stuff like this for the kids. I could pay her dance stuff out of it and their fee’s for 4h or stuff at school if they needed something. Or if they wanted to take something else that didn’t cost to much then maybe I could pay for classes for them as well. Now I have to decide and see what is out there if 4 h don’t work and see what the studio has to offer. I may see if my Little Guy wants to do dance as well but I don’t think he will. I know my oldest don’t and my Big Boy will probably tell me it is for girls. Thing is if they all take something that cost all that much a month then the money won’t last long at all. I am trying to come up with a happy balance where they all can do something. Oh I could even pay and get our gym member ship back and we all could take karate plus use the gym when we wanted to for about $45 a month. But I really want to get them into a club of some kind that hey will do something they really like.

I know my oldest wants to ride and work with the horses again. I know 4 h does a lot with horses but I don’t know if she would need her own horse or if they have some, some way that they can use. She would love to do the horse shows but I know she would probably need her own for that for sure. I am just going to have to look into it more tomorrow then decide.

Oh I was thinking about using the money and doing a couple weekend trips away with just me and them the next few months. There is a little town about 75 miles north of us we would like to check out and they do a lot of stuff at Christmas time it’s supposed to be really pretty. There are a few other places we may decide to go or even decide to drive to Georgia for the weekend and check some places out see if they are anywhere we may want to move to. I have a friend in South Carolina we could drive up and see. Check some places out around her. I would probably go on a three day weekend or take them out of school for Friday. Do our driving on Thursday nights so we would be in town by Friday to look around. I could sleep why they were at school they could sleep in the truck on the way. Their schools are so easy and flexible. I will have to look into triple A if I do that too.

It’s so hard to decide. I really don’t have to get a bedroom set, I have a dresser with the mirror now and a night stand that matches. I have a headboard but it don’t match and I don’t have the other night stand or the chest that I want. It’s just the dresser and stand the people across the street gave me a while back. I could sell that and put toward the stuff for my room. But I could do without and just wait since I did buy a new to me mattress that was like new a while back. That is the main thing that I could not do without mine was beyond shot and had o be replaced.

My living room set the couch and love seat I HATE I am almost to the point of I would rather get rid of it and have none than keep this one. It was a temporary fix because we had none had people coming to the house and needed somewhere they could sit. I just never took the time to sell it or get anything different. The back are a bunch of pillows that come off and with 4 kids that just don’t work. They are always in the floor or tossed all over the couches and laying around on it. It isn’t comfortable to sit on because of the way it is made either really. I figure I can sell it get $250 to $300 out of it easy. The stuff I am looking at on there for that price and more looks like the people have had it for about 10 years and two or three other families have had it besides them for about 5 or so years before they have decided to sell it. It isn’t out dated that isn’t the problem at all. The problem with it is it is dirty and wore out. The leather and fake leather ones the stuff is peeling off or it’s rubbed off in places. The fabric ones are faded and look like they have dirt and who knows what grown into them. They look like they have never been cleaned and like they didn’t even try to clean it to sell it. Some of them have holes in them. Mine has a spot on the front arm that was tore when I got it but that is really it other than that it is nice, it is clean and it isn’t faded. I don’t let the dogs up there and for a while now I have had a blanket folded up on it and we have been sitting on it because I don’t want to get anything on it now that I know I want rid of it for sure. I took it apart and cleaned the couch tonight going to clean the love seat tomorrow. But we have a place here about 30 minutes away that I can get a brand new set for $400. If I get $300 for mine then I just need $128 to put with it to get a new one. I found a few at the rental stores for cash and carry between $300 and $400. But I figured if I was going to pay that I may as well buy it new rather than used. The rental places probably has better quality than the ones I am looking at new but they don’t have anything I really like that is in much better shape than what I see other places used. I stopped at one and they had a camo set for $400 said it would probably be cheaper if I come back over the weekend for their big holiday sale. Then they will probably drop it down another $100 or more. I told the kids and Father of the Year tonight when he was here if they dropped under $300 I would probably buy it just to get rid of mine and not spend a ton. They looked at me like I was crazy but that is how bad I want rid of mine. I just want something that is going to last me until we move then I am going to sell it and get something else. I keep telling myself just live with what I have not to spend the time or money on something else if I am going to get rid of it anyway. But I really hate this one and hate it more and more every day. If I can sell it for the $300 and that will pretty much pay for something else in there why not. I paid less than $280 for it when I bought it almost 3 years ago. So I am not out any money there.

The other thought I had was to sell everything I have in the back and my living room set, take all the money I get from it all and buy me a nice set that will last me a while. A set that will last me at least the next 5 years or more. Most of the time if I buy a living room set I expect to get 5 years out of it. I figure by then I will be ready for something new and even if I can’t resell it or I don’t get much for it I have gotten my money’s worth out of it. But then if I do that I have to keep it and move it with me when I go and have the cost of moving it and hoping it don’t get damaged in the move. But I would then go to where ever we decide to go with everything ready to set up house. because I have seen some really nice well made sets that I like. But they were more than I wanted to pay to just get rid of it in a year. I wouldn’t get close to my money back for it probably so I would lose money on it. The sets I am looking at for $400 I don’t feel I would be out any money really since I am selling my other set to get it and I already don’t expect to make much back on it since I am buying it so cheap and it probably isn’t as good of quality I buy most the time. That is one reason I go to the rental places is because I know where their stuff comes from and I know it is better quality, I also know that it has been cleaned really good and I can get good deals. Like the set I have now was brand new the people got it had paid it way all most paid off and then turned it in for some reason. They wanted more for it but I have bought a lot of stuff there and my friend runs the place so he gave me an even better deal on it than what they were asking. He knows most the time I buy new I don’t want used because I want it in good shape and clean. He knew the people who had it before and things like he said it wasn’t like a lot of places they have to pick stuff up from it was a clean decent nice house. I have seen them get so much back and have to just toss it in the dumpster it was so bad. He is like me if it is to bad he will find a way to get rid of it instead of selling it. He wants to keep a good rep and don’t want to be known as the store that has trash all the time. There is another store by a different name in the plaza they are in and they look like they are selling trash a lot of times.

I had one set I really liked when I had my Little Bitty that I wasn’t able to keep when Father of The Year pulled his stuff and we lost our house. The store I got it from said when I got it they had it and one more like it but they would not be getting anymore. I wanted them to order me a new set then. But tonight I looked the set up online and found the company that made it. They have it on their site for sell. I am going to call them in the morning and see how much it is from them. I am not even sure if they sell to the public but I think they do. I may just take my money and get it. It isn’t a huge set so it wouldn’t take up a lot of room on a truck. I guess I will wait and see how much it is and then decide what to do about everything. I may pay the extra if it isn’t way to much since I really like it. It most likely won’t be more than $500 or $600 so it would still leave me a good chunk of money to do something else with.