Time For a House Update, Don't Ya Think?

Cutter's Log - Stardate 2102.80.11
Current Song - Ladies Night (Kool and the Gang)

My last post was quite a while ago. I'm about 90% settled in at the moment.

There are still four boxes of journalism archive stuff remaining in my old bedroom, and that's it. Today I unpacked my office and set up the Internet connection, and can finally start writing from home.


HOUSE TOUR

I live in a neighborhood in Sterling that is historically called "Little Cicero." It is so named because at one point in time, it was the bad side of Sterling. I am one block from the Dillon Home and right along the bikepath in town that leads to the Pedestrian Bridge over the river and to the Canal. My grandparents have lived in the neighborhood for nearly 40 years, and are literally 50 feet away from me.

"Little Cicero" doesn't have much: The Palms tavern, Mr. Nifty Cleaners, a hair salon, a small recording studio and the State's Attorney's law office represent half of the business district that is otherwise empty. The train runs through about 100 feet from me, so I hear them each night. Speaking of night, I have windows that look out to the river and the pedestrian bridge, and at night the lights reflect across the water for a pretty sight. The neighborhood is home to 14th Avenue Park, so the kids have somewhere to play and go sledding at.

Off to the house. Starting with the porch, I have to worry about tracking in mud in the house. On my first laundry run (more on that later), I had to carry baskets to my car. The Water Company is doing work along the side, and I stepped in some mud and accidentally left a trail in my living room. I'm on the way to do laundry, and now I have to stop everything and get this carpet in order. While on my hands and knees, I said to myself that I was going to start taking my shoes off at the porch. Likewise, if anyone comes in the house I need their shoes off.

The porch itself has got my baseball/softball chair and my bike. That's it.

The living room was the first room to complete. I have the furniture arranged so that it circles around a corner, where my entertainment center sits. I have one of those "free tv's" I got at a rummage sale on it, plus my little jukebox radio on the top. An anniversary photo of my parents is next to the jukebox. So far, the radio is the only thing working at the moment.

My bedroom is a mess, and still has to be unpacked. Interesting story about the bedroom: when this house was first built, that was the dining room. Where closets are now was once an entry way to the kitchen. The porch is not original, and right when you enter the house, immediately to the left is my bedroom door. However, there is a window that leads into my bedroom from the front porch. Sounds scary, huh? But this is perfect for when people are at the door and I am sleeping, wanting to find out who it is. I have lately had trouble getting the blinds straight, and for one night I had open blinds looking in.

I have cut the living room in half, with the rear of it acting as a mini den. I have all of my books on a bookshelf there, as well as an old dresser drawer that I will be using as a "finance desk." I learned this tip from a book that if you have a seperate desk for strictly finances, you'll be more likely to tend to them and keep them up-to-date.

Go through the back of the living room (and pass the linen closet I also double as a laundry hamper) and you'll come upon a five-point hallway. What is that? It's like an upstairs landing, but is on the ground level and leads to five different rooms. Five? Spin around in the middle of this landing, and you'll hit five doors in succession. One leads to the living room, and going clockwise: the attic, kitchen, bathroom and office. On the tops of the doors are small flat spaces, and I put some of my signs, awards and such on the top of them.

The attic was going to be a bedroom at one time, and is unfinished. I'm using it for storage space, and when I moved I found out that I had a lot of stuff that I really didn't need in the living room.

My kitchen is small, but makes do. I have a glass table that sits next to a window (got it for $5 at Dalan's rummage sale), and I have all of my cabinets and shelves filled.

We'll skip the bathroom.

Finally, my favorite room in the house ... my office! This house was meant for two bedrooms, and I converted the smallest one into office space. My previous office space was on the upstairs landing in my parent's house (in order for Dan to get into his bedroom, he had to squeeze through my chair and straddle the wall). Going into my office from the hallway, you'll find my Sterling High School varsity football sign from 2001 on the top, with an NISB sign underneath it. My door is always open, and on the door I have a basketball hoop commemorating the 1999 Rock Falls Boys Basketball team (I try to be as diverse as possible here).

The office space is only 10' x 7', but does well. It's got a closet for all of my office and media accessories. My desk is set up in the center, computer and all. It's like going into someone's work office. After all, NISB is pretty much work, isn't it? How many sportswriters in northern Illinois have their own office room? When setting it all up, I had to fumble around all of the wires, which was tough work. I have yet to clean out my desk and file cabinets, so the office isn't entirely unpacked.

I plan on having pictures on my desk of people important to me, because I think I will be spending considerable time there. The first picture I have is that of the Rock Falls Softball girls, the supersectional team picture from 2004. Next to it is one of my grandparents, and next to that is one of my Uncle Scott and Great-grandpa Cutter (opposite sides of the family in the same picture!). The immediate family pics are in the living room and I'm working on space for additional pics.

Last, but not least, the basement. As mentioned before, it's my winter jogging course. That's all for now.

Moving everything was a pain in the butt! You don't realize it until you actually do it.


GROCERY SHOPPING

One of the first things I had to do was pick out groceries. I have rarely, if not ever, shopped for groceries in bulk for myself.

I was on a tight budget and wanted to try to balance quality with the wallet.

My plan of attack started two weeks ago when I went to the three 24-hour grocery stores in Sterling (County Market, Wal-Mart and Kroger) to compare prices. Then almost out of insistance, my mom took me out to Aldi and Dollar Tree to find grocery items. Mom basically stocked my pantries full.

Then it was time to clamp down on price comparisons and cutting coupons. This was where I was introduced to Wal-Mart's "Price Match Guarentee." I took this to the test when I took a Hy-Vee flyer from one of the QC Times papers I cut down at work. Hy-Vee sometimes has two-day sales, and I took that to Wal-Mart. I got 2-liters of Dr. Pepper for 69 cents and Banquet TV dinners for 78 cents, as well as bottles of Heet for $1.19 (from a Farm and Fleet flyer). The Price Match stuff works well for trying to consolidate shopping trips into one stop, rather than bouncing around from sale to sale.

So I keep a close eye on flyers from Hy-Vee, County Market, Kroger, Walgreens and CVS. I have had some really good deals from CVS lately. Three boxes of Cheerios, after coupons, came out to $1.33 each. I was finding darn good deals on cereal to the point where adding coupons beats the big box of Aldi corn flakes ($1.49). I finally had to tell myself that I have ENOUGH cereal. I have seven boxes of cereal in the kitchen, and they'll all run out by February I bet.

Another thing I keep my eye on are deals on Campbell's soup. Most coupon flyers have something for the soup. I decided to try something out, and live like a pauper. I bought one can of the soup, heated it, and put it in a bowl. One can filled me up. CVS had a deal recently where one can of chicken noodle came out to 56 cents after a coupon. This was before County Market had its' brand for 2/$1 (I decided on just two cans of these). I think I got carried away on the Campbells, and have maybe 20 cans of chicken noodle soup in my pantry.

You just have to be on the constant lookout, and dedicate time into it for it to work out. If you don't look at flyers like a hawk and don't cut out coupons, I urge you to try this. I think you'll save at least 35% (or more) of your grocery expenses, and without having to resort to generics in the process.

I can also give out another bit of advice: the longer you hold on to your coupons, the better. My Cheerios deal at CVS was advertised just three days before my Cheerios coupons were about to expire.

I thought grocery shopping was going to be a pain in the butt at first. But digging through flyers and cutting coupons was the fun challenge for me.

When it comes to coupons, please do follow the rules on them. Even the Dollar Tree accepts these manufacturer coupons. At places like Walgreens and Dollar General, you can use one of their coupons AND a "manu" for one item (like double coupons). And I think Kroger does Double Coupons up to $1.00. Plus, when you do any price matching at Wal-Mart, coupons work for that as well.

The Hy-Vee stuff works great for price matching at Wal-Mart, as the nearest stores are in Silvis, DeKalb and Peru. I have not, however, tried price matching on things from Best Buy and CompUSA (a suburban outlet whose closest store is Naperville).

If I find anything "brand name" that I can create a good deal out of, I'll try to post them on Facebook.


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This concludes the first Blog Entry I have written from my new house. I have to balance my finances, run to CVS, eat lunch, cash my paycheck, pack up for Normal this weekend and gas up --- all before going to work at 5 p.m. tonight.