This last weekend has been really hectic. So busy that I didn’t even have time to put together a Weekend Edition. It was so busy because I had decided a week ago to take on a Do It Yourself project here at my house.

It started on Friday after work at about 5 o’clock. My wife and I pulled up all the carpet in the front room, which didn’t take too long until we got to the carpet pad underneath. Whoever put pad in went to town with the staple gun. We didn’t finish ripping everything out until about 10 o’clock the same evening, but at least it was all out for the next morning.

I started Saturday at about 7:30 a.m. pulling up a small section of linoleum. At this point everything was ready to start laying the new laminate flooring. Two of my friends from work came over to help which was fantastic because things went so much faster. We ended up getting almost the whole floor layed except for two very small hallways which shouldn’t take too much longer to finish. I’ll have a few pictures later once the project is finished, but the new floor looks really slick.

I will say that it was so nice to have people willing to come and help out. It makes such a huge difference to have multiple people able to work on multiple things at a time. I also had other people lend me some of their saws and other tools. I was very impressed again with the willingness of those people.

I’m also excited that it didn’t take as much flooring as I had originally anticipated. I ended up buying quite a bit more than what was needed so I will be able to take it back and get reimbursed. As you know, it’s always nice to get money coming back to you than going away. Hopefully the new floor will help with the sale of the house, since that’s more or less the intention of the whole project.

As you can tell if you’re a long time reader of Fiscal Musings, the site’s design is quite different. I’ve been waiting for about a week for the domain name to finally transfer over to my new hosting company so that I could install the new platform. There are still a few things to be worked out which I’ll be taking care of as quickly as possible. One of these things is the feed which is taking a while for me to switch over. When I transfered my other blog over to Wordpress, I had a similar issue with the feed, and I just had to wait overnight until Feedburner would let me change the original feed.

Hopefully I’ll have everything up and running shortly so I can get back to what’s really important, providing great content. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome especially about the new site layout and design. Thanks for your patience going forward.

Update: The feed should now be working properly. Hopefully no one will have to resubscribe, but their may be some duplicate content as Feedburner works everything out.

Since I’m going to be looking to sell our house when I go back to school, it’s more or less constantly on my mind. I’m always thinking of what could be done to make the sale go smoother and what potential buyers might have an issue with that I can fix now.

I’ve known for a long time that I need to do something about the carpet in the front room, but I didn’t know what exactly. I wasn’t sure whether I should put down new carpet or try to clean it and see what it would look like. Well, I’ve actually decided to go with something completely different. I had heard from some people at work that they were selling some laminate flooring for 69 cents per square foot over at Lowe’s. So while I was out the other day I stopped by to see if it was still that price. This is what I found:

I ended up buying 42 cases of the oak style laminate flooring and 10 rolls of the underlayment. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I figure I’ll learn how. I’m going to have to rip up all the carpet and a small area of linoleum and then put this down. Hopefully it’ll not only turn out well but also help sell the house easier. What do you think?

Being a Dallas Cowboys fan, I’m obviously pretty disappointed in the loss yesterday to the New York Giants. I thought the Cowboys were the better team going into the game, but they needed to play the entire game and not just the first half. And what does this have to do with anything financial? Nothing really, unless you had something riding on the game (which I didn’t). I guess there’s only one more thing to root for this season now, and that’s that the Patriots lose to somebody… anybody.

And now on to a few other things that I’ve been thinking about recently. I’ve seen a lot of people succumb to what I call financial peer pressure and I would urge you not to pay any attention to it. It doesn’t matter what you’re friends are doing or buying. You can’t let it affect your progress towards your goals. So if you’re being pressured to do or buy something that you otherwise wouldn’t, don’t feel like you have to. It won’t really matter in a day or two anyway.

I’ve also been thinking about all the little ways that we can save money that will really add up over time. The other night we were in the area of a Wal-Mart and needed to pick up some toiletry items and various other things. We found some pretty good prices on a few of the things we needed, and we stocked up so that we wouldn’t have to buy them again for a while. We also had some coupons with us so we got extra discounts. It didn’t really take any extra effort, but we were able to save quite a bit. And that’s what I’m getting at. It doesn’t require that much to save money and be frugal. It just needs to be a priority.

I’ve also been putting in extra hours at work in order to get paid the overtime. Since I’m looking to go back to school, every little bit extra will help. I’m hoping to be able to make it through school without taking on any more student loan debt, and the more that I can pay for myself, the better.

These are some of the things that have been on my mind lately. What’s been on yours?

While our trip to visit family this year was great, getting home was a bit of a different story. We had bought round-trip airline tickets to Denver from where we live in St Louis, Missouri. We also drove out to Utah to visit my parents, and getting home from there is where the problem started.

We left Utah at about 11 a.m. on the 30th expecting to arrive back in Denver at about 7 p.m. The first mountain pass we went through was a little snowy and slow going, but we got through it just fine. We got gas about half way and then headed into the mountains again to finish the drive.

As we went up and over the mountain pass, the snow was coming down harder than I’ve ever seen it and the roads were completely covered and snow packed. I was following a Ford Explorer who was following another truck. All I could see were the tail lights of the Explorer for quite some time. I have no idea how the truck ahead of us could see where he was going, but we just kept following the tail lights.

Before we could get all the way through the mountains however, they closed highway I-70 that we were on and we had to exit in Frisco. With the highway closed, all the hotels were full and there were thousands of people stranded. We promptly filled up with gas again just in case the gas stations would run out at some point. We got on the phone with our parents and found out that our church building in the area was being opened up because there were multiple families stranded in the storm. So we stayed the night in the church and slept on the very hard floor.

The next morning, the highway was still closed so we waited around for another couple of hours. We eventually decided to take a state road south and try to get into Denver by another route. Along the way we ran into another road closure and ended up having to drive to Colorado Springs and then up to Denver.

To make things more interesting, our flight out was at 3:55 p.m that same day. As we were driving up to Denver, our family met us at a gas station with the things we had left at their house and we quickly packed things and headed to the airport. We got there about 40 minutes before the flight and barely made it. Once we were finally home, we definitely appreciated our bed a lot more.

Now, if you’re wondering what this has to do with personal finance or anything financial, it doesn’t really. It definitely reminded me of a few things that I don’t usually think about too much. There are a lot of things that we take for granted and it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared for the unexpected.

I’ve been dealing with a cold recently, at first just a sore throat but then also some sinus congestion. It hasn’t really kept me from doing most things, but it’s been pretty irritating since I’m still visiting family and such. I’m sure I’ll be better though by the time I have to go back to work (that’s usually the way it works out).

Yesterday we went to see a movie in the morning at the matinee price of $5.50 per ticket. We saw the new National Treasure (after about a half hour of previews) which was entertaining, but not as good as the first one. My parents also paid for the tickets which was nice. After the movie we went and ate at Red Robin which was at the same mall as the movie theater. You might already know that I’m not too big on the restaurant lifestyle, but since my grandma was buying I figured it was alright.

I’m still out in Utah and will be driving back to Colorado on the 30th. We’ll then be flying back to St. Louis on the 31st, and I should be able to resume my usual daily posting schedule. I’m looking forward to a great 2008 and hopefully you are as well. So go ahead…

Well, now that Christmas is over we’ll all soon be returning to our normal activities. For most this will mean going back to work (be it soon or in a few days) and saying goodbye to family that doesn’t live nearby. Hopefully we all have learned a few things this Christmas season that will carry us into the new year.

Hopefully you’ve realized that the real important things in our lives are our relationships with those we care about. We obviously talk a lot about money and other such things here at Fiscal Musings, but we shouldn’t lose sight of what’s really important to us. Let us all remember this throughout 2008.

And now that the gift giving is past, let us also remember to be grateful. Let those around you know that you appreciate their gifts and kind thoughts this season. It will go a long way with most people. And for those of you that aren’t saying goodbye yet, be sure to enjoy the rest of your time this holiday season.