Sunday, January 18, 2009

Economical Effect

First, I did purchase my desk and cabinet last Friday. They will be delivered this weekend. I still have not broken the news to Yusuke. Ideally, I wanted to have it delivered on a weekday and get the whole thing set up before he got home, but I couldn't take any days off. Anyway, one piece of good news. When I was going through my old desk, I found a cup full of money. It was from sales of CM products, but I guess I forgot to deposit it into my bank account! So, all together, I have only had to contribute about $200 from my own savings for the furniture.

Anyway, I got some sad news over the weekend. I was looking at some other people's blogs and saw that Simple Scrapbooks magazines has announced that they will be discontinuing their publication from June. I guess that all subscriptions will be transferred to their mother magazine which is called Creative Keepsakes and they will try to integrate the Simple approach into this CK magazine. I am not really familiar with CK magazine, but I guess it will have to do. I am such a dork though. I have been reading SS for about 5 years now, and many of the staff members write books as well, so I have read several. I will really miss the staff! I know...totally geeky thing to say. Anyway, the downturn in the economy was supposedly their biggest reason for these changes. In reading more about it though, I noticed they also discontinued their magazine called Digital Scrapbooking. So, perhaps CK will be covering all these topics.

Another effect of the economy was that one of my favorite web sites babycenter.com will be discontinuing their shopping division. I have ordered several toys from them, and it was a great resource when searching for age appropriate toys because there were lots of customer reviews as well. Fortunately, they will be keeping the rest of their site in tact - bulletin boards, articles, chat groups, etc. I often found information I needed in their articles, so that is good news.

And, speaking of economy, in planning our budget for this year, I realized that we won't be able to save much due to my going on maternity leave again. From May, we will be scraping by on Yusuke's paycheck. We were able to do it in 2007 and we got through it, so I doubt it will be so bad. But, it explains why we bought so many materialistic things in 2008! We were totally playing catch up. This year, we'll have to tone down our desires, but one thing on our list is a new fridge, and another is a bigger car. This is why loans come in handy, as Yusuke reminded me yesterday while I was closely examining my excel spreadsheet. There is no other way around it.

I hope with all this talk of budgeting, Yusuke doesn't get upset when he sees my new scrapbooking furniture. I am not sure if he will give me a chance to explain my way of thinking. What is the best way to break it to him? Should I tell him before? OR, should I just wait til the delivery men come to the door?

3 comments:

illahee said...

hm, i thought you'd have some answer by now (by a commenter).

since i don't know your husband, i don't know how to answer. i would tell my husband, only because i can't stand the 'anticipation' of his reaction! for me, it's better to get it over with and deal with the 'fall out' the sooner the better. lol

for us, we have agreed to discuss purchases over a certain yen amount, but we don't always follow that agreement. *sigh*

Mande said...

Thank you for the advice. I still haven't gotten up the nerve to tell him. On weekends, he is usually much more interested in watching DVDs or sleeping or eating than in talking to me. Plus, the store called to postpone delivery by one week so that buys me more time anyway.
Today, when I was searching for something important that we had lost quite a long time ago, he commented that I take such good care of my scrapbooking stuff, but I can never find any household-related important papers. I thought....ooh, maybe I shouldn't tell him today.

illahee said...

oh no! ugh, my husband is always 'losing' papers, too, then getting pissed off because the house is a 'mess'. hey mister, you try taking care of three small, active children!

he usually finds it in an hour or two and comes to me with a sheepish apology--because he found it in some book or file he forgot about. men! at least he doesn't come at me with my organization skills on something (my cross stitch maybe?)

i hope he'll be understanding. especially since it sounds like you need the furniture to clean up space and be *more* organized!