An early birthday present.

I have received my first birthday present of the year from my lovely mother-in-law. I have had my eyes on this coverlet from Target for a while and when I told her I wanted it, she got it for me! It's beautiful. Thanks, mom!

Finished.

I finished reading the Deathly Hallows today. I was blown away by the book. I don't even want to go into detail, I just think everyone should read it. It was amazing. So intense, so happy, so sad. I loved it. That's all I will say about it.
SMB

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So, last night Ryan and I waited with the rest of the Harry Potter fans to get our copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As much as I wanted to stay up all night reading it, I decided to wait until I'm more able to enjoy it. I'll start reading it today.

We arrived at Borders at around 9:00pm, got my wristband to tell me when I can get in line for my book. I was surprised that I was the 3rd group out of about 6 to be able to get in line, so I wore my blue wristband proudly. We waited until midnight, started to get in line and when my color was called, I had my book in less than 10 minutes. I was happy to get out of line and walk passed all the people still in line, get in the car and go home with my book. It was about 12:45 when I got it. Yay!

I hope everyone enjoys it.. I'm staying away from any blogs or websites that will spoil the ending for me. I'll come out of my cave when I'm done. Happy reading all.
SMB

free credit reports

In the last couple of weeks I've gotten 2 free credit reports. I wanted to share how and where I got them. A lot of you may already know how to get a free credit report, but for those who don't, this is how I got them:

1. I've found out by doing research and reading other smart people's blogs/articles that the only one of the three credit bureaus with an actual FICO credit score included in the report is Equifax. I did a google search for "Free Equifax credit report" and came up with this website: www.CreditReport.com/Equifax. This one was the most detailed free report I've ever gotten. Just make sure you call and cancel your free trial so that you don't get charged after 30 days. I signed up, got my report, printed a PDF of it, and then called and canceled about 30 minutes later. They will of course try to keep you, but if you insist that you definitely want to cancel, they will do it rather quickly.


2. The second place is http://www.experian.com/. When you go to thier website, there's an add for a free credit report and score. Go through the steps, you'll get your report, save it somewhere so that you can always look at it again when you want, then make sure you call and cancel.

3. The final way that I have obtained a free copy of my credit report is by going to https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Federal law requires the 3 credit bureaus to provide 1 free credit report a year to everyone. So, if you haven't already done this in the past 12 months, you can go get your free annual credit report. When I did it, I only got results from Equifax for some reason, so don't be shocked if your TransUnion and Experian results don't show up. Not sure why that is.

There are a few other websites that provide a free trial for a credit report, but the above are ones that I've personally used and know to be trustworthy. Hope this helps someone. Happy credit checking!
SMB

ING Direct Savings Account Referral

We recently opened an Orange Savings Account with ING Direct. It gains a 4.50% APY, which isn't the highest out there, but ING has a great reputation according to a lot of research I've done online. We also opened an Electric Orange account so that we could get check cards and make transfers from the savings to checking and have access to the account when we need it.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that if you're considering opening an account with ING, I can send you a referral so that you will get $25 when you open an account, and we'll get $10. You can email me at: stephanie at brionesandco dot com.

SMB

restaurant.com

I just came across this great website while looking at a blog I found tonight called Bank Bonuses, which is also very cool. Restaurant.com is a site that you can purchase gift certificates for a ton of different restaurants for less than half of what their worth, (like a $25 gift certificate for $10) which I find amazing. I wish I had found out about this site sooner.

SMB

kate spade wallpaper..

..and a printable book cover at Kate Spade.

(Then "Downloads"). I love vintage book covers. Thank you, Craft blog.
SMB

Almost moving time again.

Living in apartments gives you the ability to switch homes a least once a year. I love and hate this time of year. Our lease expires in just over 2 months from now so it's time to figure things out. Our situation this year is more difficult than usual. We're torn between moving back home (our GA home) and staying where we are because it costs a lot less than the first option. Moving across 3 states is no easy task. Not only do we face the usual costs of getting into a new apartment, but there's also the moving truck and gas to consider. The last few months we've really started buckling down on our finances and have finally gotten to the point where we have a savings. To move 3 states away would be using up the savings that we've worked so hard to get. Enough about that for now.

I just thought it would be fun to review all of the places we've lived. Our friends and families probably can't keep track of how many times we've moved in 3 and a half years of marriage. So here it goes:

1st Apartment: January 2004 - November 2004
1bdrm Studio Duplex Apartment, $375/mo (FL)

2nd Apartment: November 2004 - February 2005
2bdrm/2ba Apartment, $550/mo (GA)

3rd Apartment: February 2005 - March 2006
2bdrm/1ba Loft Apartment, $750/mo (GA)

4th Apartment: April 2006 - September 2006
1bdrm/1ba New Construction, $695/mo (GA)

5th Apartment: September 2006 - Current (Lease expires September 30th)
2bdrm/2ba Apartment, $855 (KY)

Now we're looking for a newer 1bdrm/1ba with enough room for an office area, or a 2/2 to use the 2nd room as an office. We would also like to keep rent between $650 and $750, (of course lower would be fine, but you usually can't find anything livable for less than $650). The hard part is figuring out where we're supposed to be looking :)

I like reading money saving articles and tips, so if you see anything interesting, send it my way!

SMB

Apartments and Saving Money

Good article on saving money on an apartment.
http://www.coddleshell.com/7-tips-to-saving-more-on-apartments/

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I have been putting off writing about the movie for a couple of reasons. I would rather everyone watch it before hearing someone else's opinion, and therefore be able to form their own raw opinion AND I just don't know where to start. I personally loved it. There were some things I would change of course, but I was very pleased overall with the movie and the director's (David Yates) ability to fit that much of the story in such a short period of time. It was by far the best movie yet. The acting has improved so much. I was impressed with the overall feel of the movie. It felt completely different than the others. It felt more real and was definitely darker and more emotional than any of the others.

I like this review of the movie, so I'll link you to it: http://buzzsugar.com/386951

If you haven't seen it for yourself, go see it right now. The only thing is, if you haven't read the book, some things may not make sense. I recommend you read it first.
SMB

Our 4th of July

Yesterday we got groceries for the rest of the week and watched "The Holiday". Ryan grilled some steaks and I baked some potatoes. We were pretty sure that all the fireworks would be canceled because of rain (according to the news) so we didn't really make any plans to go watch them anywhere. It did indeed rain off and on all day. It was really good for the grass and plants around here, but it didn't really seem like the 4th of July without fireworks. So, when the sun starting to go down, I started hearing some bigger louder fireworks being set off, (louder and bigger than the ones that had been going off all week and day on the 4th). So I got Ryan and we went out on the balcony to see if anything good was happening. It was almost 9:00pm and the sky wasn't quite dark yet, but fireworks were going off from everywhere around us. (From our balcony we can see pretty far out, we can see several different towns being on top of a big hill [or small mountain?].) Just as we went out, our neighbors come out and we spent the night watching the fireworks with them and our Daisy (she really liked the fireworks, surprisingly) until 11:00pm. It was a lot of fun. We couldn't have enjoyed the fireworks more. That's the great thing about our apartment. The view. Although it was raining lightly off and on, it didn't stop these Kentuckians from enjoying their Independence Day. Plus, the rain isn't bad when it gives us a good cold front! I hope you all had a great 4th of July.

SMB

New Coffee Maker

I am so excited. We just got this new coffee maker last weekend. We've been really addicted to going to Starbucks for coffee so we needed to get something for home. We had a Mr. Coffee Home Cafe single cup brewer, but the coffee pods that are available just aren't very good tasting. So we barely used it. So, it was time to invest in a real grown-up coffee maker. We've been using it quite a bit since we got it and so far we have no complaints. It makes great coffee and it makes me happy every time I walk passed it. It's retro 70's design combined with modern technology makes it one beautiful machine. The photo above really doesn't do it justice. You have to see it in person to really appreciate it. Anyway, I love it, but I'll let you know if it disappoints in any way.Here are just some of the specs (from Target.com):

• Water filtration makes this coffeemaker brew fresher-tasting coffee


• Permanent filter means you never need paper filters


• Pause n' serve lets you pour a cup even if coffee is still brewing


• 2-hr. auto-off helps keep your coffee from staying on the heat too long


• Decanter is dishwasher safe