CCE Update: A New Look & a BIG save!

Well I woke up to a fun surprise this morning. Jeff greeted me with a smile and said, “I made you a Christmas present! Go look at your computer!”  And look I did and found this fine looking new look for my blog!  I’d been wanting to update it for awhile, but of course I haven’t a clue how to do anything, so he surprised me and began working on it for my Christmas present.  It’s still under construction, because he’s still tweaking and making changes, but we’re brightening things up a bit, letting go of the “no-picture” rule (and yes, Jen I will post a pic of the mantel!), and finally easing the strain on your poor eyes by doing a white background (we heard your complaints!) 🙂  In all his work and tweaking he made an interesting observation. ALL my recent posts have ended with ellipses.  Guilty. It is true I am a gross abuser of that treasured grammatical tool that allows me to end without having a good ending.  Sad.

But on a brighter note, the CCE Update is that I LOVE the cash envelope system.  I am totally humbled and repentant of my resistance to using it.  Yes, it has drawbacks, but it’s so fun it’s almost like a game. And I love that I don’t have to keep track of my checkbook register all the time and balance and blah blah blah. It’s all right there in the envelopes!

And in terms of saving, I think this latest thing is a jackpot.  So I’d mentioned the wild and crazy idea of highlighting my own hair.  Well, I’m telling you this is such a fun adventure.  After posting that, I got a lot of advice/ideas and one friend who offered to do it with me, share the hair coloring stuff, and help do each other’s. Deal! Then, another friend generously  gave me her Sally’s Beauty Supply membership card (=discount), AND a coupon for the store.  Then, we hosted a College & Career game night on Friday night and I noticed one of the girls had freshly highlighted (and beautiful) hair. She mentioned that her mom did it and bought the stuff at Sally’s!  So she texted me the info of exactly what to buy. So I went there today and there was a sale, plus my discount, plus my coupon, and get this: I got all the stuff I need to do my own hair for THREE YEARS (maybe have to get a little bit more powder, but close), for $21!  My cash budget was $20, so I had to steal a dollar from my grocery envelope, but I think that’s allowable.   Now I hate to even admit this, but I have to for the sake of comparison.  The place I recently started going to for hair, here in West Linn, was$75, plus tip= $90/visit. Yikes!  So I would probably go there 3-4 times a year, let’s say 4 just so the numbers can be really shocking :).  That’s a total save, over 3 years of $1,060! That’s a LOT. That’s a Jesus-Well built in Asia for people to have clean drinking water.  That kind of puts things in perspective, huh?

Now I know what you’re thinking, “You haven’t actually done your hair yet, so how do you know that it’s all going to work out??”  Ok I don’t.  But the highlighting party is tomorrow night at 7pm, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for tagging along on this little CCE adventure!  Even though I don’t have a cool way to end this post I will not use ellipses!