blog sale

It's a blog sale, y'all!

It's that time again! I impulsively started pulling things out of my closet today in an effort to claim some space back. I've got lots of great gently used (many things I've only worn once!) items that I want to share with you guys! I've done this once before and I was surprised at how much of my 'trash' was someone else's 'treasure'. (None of this is trash - if it was, it is already in the garbage!)

Here's how it works - comment with your name and what you'd like to purchase. Shipping is $5 for your first item and $1 for each additional item. If you live in the area, you can pick it up from me sometime in the next two weeks either at my home in Richardson or near my office in Dallas. 

Please leave a comment or send an email if you have any questions! Anything not purchased by Friday, January 30th is going to Goodwill and the resale shops! 

Happy shopping! :)

Forever21 black sequin tank 

size M, fits true to size

$5

Enfocus studio geometric dress - worn once

size 8 - runs small

$7

Pink swiss dot peasant top

size medium - runs large

$5

Old Navy black scoop neck peasant top

size medium - fits to size

$5

Old Navy striped sheer tank

Size M - fits to size

$3

THML striped mint and red sweater

Size S - runs large

$8

Gibson Latimer faux leather top with sheer detail

Size M - runs large

$8

Oldies but goodies!

Abercrombie & Fitch distressed boyfriend jeans

size 8 - runs small

$10

Moda International (Victoria's Secret) red hi/lo shawl neck sweater

size M - fits true to size

$8

H&M tan crochet tunic sweater

size L - fits true to size

$5

Red bow-back shift top

(cut the size off because it was itchy but it's a medium) - fits to size

$8

H&M black and white dot ruched collar peasant top

Size 8 - runs small

$5

J. Crew jade cardigan

Size S - fits true to size

$5

Banana Republic white dress pants - slight boot cut - worn once and realized they were too short for me :(

Size 6 - runs large

$15

Gap always skinny blue velvet pants

size 29tall - fit to size

$10

Calvin Klein coral wedges

size 8.5

$10

BCBG black patent leather heels - barely worn - too tall for me!

Size 8.5

$15

Thanks for shopping! Y'all let me know if you have any questions. 

A man's dream gift

Mark is one of those lucky people that has a birthday close to Christmas. His is the 23^rd and I always try to make it extra special (my mom’s is the 28^th so I grew up knowing that it had to be separate from Christmas!). Of course, I never have the day off work and Mark always does because he has more vacation then me, so we usually have to celebrate a little early.

This year, I arranged lunch with my family in Arlington on Sunday the 21^st. The lunch was a normal occurrence but it had to take place in Arlington in order for my plan to go perfectly…

I had seen this groupon from exotic skittles (odd name, I know) a few months before and bought it on an impulse. Mark’s gift from me this year (other than boxers and socks on the actual day-of) was a test drive of a Lamborghini Gallardo. I’ve seen these types of test drives but for just $50, I thought that was a pretty cool experience. After Mark complained a bit about having to go to Arlington to meet my family, I drove us home to ‘watch the Cowboys game’. I took our normal route home and as I started exiting earlier than usual, I said to Mark “I’m really sorry, but I didn’t check the Cowboys schedule when I bought your birthday present. You’re going to miss the first quarter”. I mean, how bad of a wife am I?! I told him we were going to get his birthday present and he was super confused and tried to guess where we were going for the 10 minutes it took to get there after I exited.

Mark’s main guess was that we were picking something up for me from craigslist and/or getting him a desk chair. This place was in kind of an industrial area so that definitely threw him off.

Once we got inside the building, it turned out that they were closed on Sundays, but I guess they were honoring my schedule request. The office was dark and there was no indication of where we were. Mark was SO confused. He went back to the bathroom and saw the warehouse FILLED with trucks and SUV’s and started to get a little bit closer to what we were really doing. Finally, I told him that he was going to test drive a car. He said “what kind?” and I said “a Lamborghini Gallardo” and his face was priceless. He was so surprised! The first thing he said was “what?! Seriously?” and the second thing he said was “I’m so nervous!” haha!

It took him a while to let it all sink in but luckily he had time while we filled out a little bit of paperwork. Since it was a 'test drive', typically an employee would have ridden with Mark. Instead, we opted to pay $25 extra so I could ride with Mark. The employee ended up driving the OTHER Lamborghini and we had a little caravan through Dallas. 

People stared, the car went fast, Mark was giddy, and it was super fun! It sounded like we were on a video game with the engine so loud and powerful behind us. I think Mark enjoyed himself and I was happy I got to share it with him.

If you're looking for a valentine's day, birthday, or other gift for the man in your life, I highly suggest checking it out!

Five on Friday

I'm back and excited for Five on Friday in 2015! I'm linking up with April here. Happy Friday!

-one-

This week was HARD, y’all. Real hard. It’s the first 5 day work week in a lonnnggg time and I just happened to catch some sort of semi-cold on Monday. I’ve been struggling to get through each day but you guys, it’s FRIDAY! I feel like lots of people have been sick lately…

-two-

At the risk of seeming too braggy, be sure to check out my post from Tuesday about how we paid of over $22k in debt last year. It was a big task and a burden shared by millions of Americans, but we hunkered down and got the job done and I love being debt-free! I love encouraging people and passing on tips so please read it if you’re feeling discouraged by debt and email me if you have any questions! I’d love to chat!

-three-

I’m all about Netflix recently and after finishing Gilmore Girls, I’ve hopped around a bit but finally started in on Friends. It’s not a super deep series and the episodes are really short, but I’ve never watched it from beginning to end and I’m enjoying the light-hearted show right now! Any Friends fanatics out there?

-four-

I’ve gotten into the (bad) habit of buying Motley a new collar every year around Christmas. I dropped the ball this year and didn’t order it in time but I did get this sweet collar from puddle jumper pups on Etsy! I love supporting my fellow Etsy sellers and the print is really cute. For now I’m just re-using the bow I found at Target last year but I’ll probably make her a new one or find another one pretty soon because it’s on it’s last leg.

-five-

I’m gritting my teeth and getting my hair cut this weekend….ugh. I have notoriously slow-growing hair and I’ve been growing it out for about 5 years. I’m pretty sure it’s at it’s longest right now but I have the WORST split ends and it just looks gross so I’m getting a little trim-trim. Hopefully the inch I’m getting cut off grows back soon! If I weren’t so afraid of the scissors, I’d totally do something like this:

...and the ultimate risk:

Too bad I'm boring and just getting a trim! Maybe next time...

Have a great weekend!

How we paid off over $22k in less than one year

One highlight of December that got me super excited was reaching a big goal of ours - paying off our debt!

I've shared some money tips here before like how to travel on a budget and using mint.com to track your finances. Mark and I made the easy (and 'duh') decision early last year to reduce our debt. We are so thankful that we both have great jobs and the means to put our plan in action, as debt is a lifetime struggle for many people. I am still amazed at the pace we kept up and the ease of paying off our debt. Once you get started, you'll feel so great about your progress that it will keep you going. Here's what we did:

-took stock of all of our debts in April 2014

        -mark's car

        -my car

        -mark's two school loans

-borrowed from our savings account (lowered it to a manageable 'emergency' amount just in case anything were to happen and put the rest towards debt)

-came up with an order of paying each loan off as well as a snowball plan

-budgeted a set amount to contribute monthly, no matter what

-put all additional (unexpected) earnings into debts

We started out with $22,277 in May of 2014 and planned to be done in one year, by May 2015. Thankfully, we were able to contribute Mark's Christmas bonus and a little extra each month and reached our goal at the end of December 2014. It was such a sigh of relief and a feeling of accomplishment to know that we were able to budget and reach our goal ahead of schedule.

We used Dave Ramsey's method of paying down debt, which he calls 'snowballing'. We didn't take his class or buy his book or study up, we just used this simple principle: whatever amount of money we would put in savings monthly, we will put toward one loan. We would continue to pay the minimums on the other loans until that one loan was paid off. Once paid, we would put that large 'savings amount' plus the minimum fee of the paid off loan toward the second loan and so on. Our total budget per month was about $2,000, but our average per month was $3,067 because of Mark's bonus as well as a little extra we were able to put towards it from time to time. 

Here's an example of how snowballing works:

Luckily, we didn't really have to scrimp to pay this off. We have been budgeting with mint.com for a few years and we just paid attention to our shopping, food, entertainment, etc. budgets while we went. We were even able to put down our new floors and go on a vacation during this time - so this just shows that you can reach a debt-free goal without sacrificing your life!

I think the smartest thing we did was simply to transfer the money from our checking to the loans on the day we got paid. It was quick and painless to immediately subtract it from our bank account and to plug in the numbers on our spreadsheet to see our goal get smaller and closer. 

Of note - we do still have a mortgage and we plan to pay the monthly minimums as usual. Building equity is a good thing and right now we want to focus on building our savings. Plus - all of that money that was going towards paying off debt is going straight into our savings now. Cha-ching!

I'll be sharing more on how we handle our money in another post but now we can do the scream:

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!

Back and better than ever!

Hey friends!!! I've missed you! 

We ended 2014 with a bang. I took a few weeks off of blogging and ended up squeezing tons of fun into the end of the year. Here's what we were up to for the last half of December:

I had a feel-good casual Friday outfit

I reorganized our office and my Etsy headquarters

Christmas decorations happened at our house

I tried a tasty new recipe

Christmas cards had a new spot in the kitchen

Motley tried to charm food away from Mark

Mark got a sweet ride for his birthday

SnapChats of lazy Sundays abounded

I spent 4 hours in the ER

We got to visit with family on Christmas Eve

My hair grew longer so duh, selfies

Motley helped me cook and got a little messy

Work, work, work

The cabin fire was perfected

Motley loved her time in Oklahoma

I added more to my Etsy shop!

Check out my Instagram for this 2014 recap and more:

A video posted by Diana (@buchanandiana) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:55am PST

I'm back to blogging this year and I can't wait to check in on all of my blog friends and to see what 2015 has in store. Happy new year!

Merry Christmas!

...just checking in!

Hey friends! I've been totally absent for the past couple of weeks. Sorry! I keep wanting to post but I can't find the strength or focus (or time) to do so!

I just wanted to check in and say hello and Merry Christmas! Life has gotten way hectic lately and since I only like to blog when I want to blog, I'm going to take the rest of December off to focus on family, my house, my etsy shop, and enjoying the last few weeks of 2014! I'll be back in January with LOTS of fun posts and recaps from December - including the reveal of our new floors!

While I'm out, keep up with me here, here, and here! :)

Merry Christmas!