Gardenias: Pt 2

Two weeks ago, I posted about my flowers for the first time. You can read that post here. I've definitely babied my flowers these last two weeks, carefully pruning off dead leaves and branches as well as making sure they're receiving ample sunlight and enough water.

I'm proud to say that they are both doing great. Here's a look at the baby plant:

Before

After 2 weeks

I've taken off all the dead brown leaves and left everything very clear. As you can see, there are lots of leaves sprouting and slowly filling out the plant. Hard to believe this little guy was a $1 steal. I'm very excited for his future :) 

Before

After 2 weeks

This plant fared a lot better in the before picture than the little baby one. So the pictures don't quite do justice for how much this plant has actually thrived. Honestly, the plant looks to be about the same density in both the before and after, but if you'll notice, the brown leaves are gone. So actually it's more dense now with healthy growth. You can't tell from the picture, but there are multiple buds forming on this plant. In another 2 weeks or so, I might be seeing some Gardenias blossom. This $3 find is going to turn into a $15 bush in no time. I'm excited! 

Hope you stay tuned to see the first blooms. :) 

5 Ways to Save Money to Reach Your Goals

We ended up buying our first house before both of our quarter century birthdays for a multitude of reasons (timing, situation, market/economy, etc). But we also lived a lifestyle that enabled us with the means to do so. Also, I had set this goal for myself as a teenager in high school. My junior year English teacher shared with us about how her daughter was getting married and had bought her first house, paying for the whole down payment by herself. After hearing that, I made that my mental goal. Every choice I made, financially, was with this goal in mind - I am saving for a house. In college, it meant not lavishing my dorm room or apartment with decor. As an adult, it meant staying in Friday and Saturday nights instead of going out on the town. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my life or circumstances. I did, perhaps not as much as I could have, but well enough with my goals.

Buzzfeed posted an article earlier this week entitled "17 things Millennials Should Stop Wasting Money On So They Can Buy A House Instead." The article was pretty much just click-bait because it did not deliver what the title implied. So instead, I'm posting a counter article on not just things to buy but ideas to promote for a mindset of saving for big goals, not exclusive to house-buying.

5 Ways to Save Money to Reach Your Goals

1. Make Lemonade.

Literally, make homemade lemonade rather than buying it from the store. It's so easy and probably better for you, even with the sugar it contains. This also represents the bigger picture of making something yourself rather than buying it. Don't know how? Learn! Here's my lemonade recipe, described by one of my friends as "phenomenal" enough for her to miss while leaving the country for a short while :) If you make it yourself, tell me how you like it!

Ingredients:

- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup lemon juice (bottled is fine)
- 7 1/2 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a bottle and shake well to mix.

2. Mind > Eyes

See a beautiful dress in the window while shopping that you just have to have for your next wedding? See an aisle full of snacks on sale at the grocery store? Don't buy it! Let your mind be bigger than your eyes. Don't let your eyes control your spending. You'll thank yourself later once you're able to make that big purchase.

3. Treat Your Savings Account Right

Savings accounts at the bank are meant to do just that - be savings. Don't check your accounts and be fooled at how much you have. If you're saving for a big purchase, the number you see is not the amount of money you can spend.

4. Don't Get Discouraged

One of the biggest shortfalls of saving I hear is a version of "I don't have enough yet....it's going to take forever to get there...forget it, I'm going to get this instead now." Clearly those with this mindset would fail the marshmallow test as an adult. Something is always better than nothing. If your goal is truly your goal, keep going.

5. Eat Out Less

I love cooking, but I wasn't always good at it. I'm still not the greatest cook in the world, but I do it very often. In any given month, we can count the number of times we eat out on one hand. There are always exceptions, but we definitely do not casually eat out. In doing this as a frugality, it has also helped me to realize the privilege it truly is to dine out and be served by waiters and waitresses. It becomes an experience rather than simply a meal, and I'm not talking about going to the fancy Michelin star restaurants either. Going to any restaurant that involves wait staff can become an experience when valued. Food, in my opinion, is the easiest way to save on the budget. It's the perspective to do the cooking yourself that is hard to reach.

What I've shared here are ways that I personally have done to achieve my goal of buying a house early in life. Obviously, if you don't have a savings goal in mind, you probably won't view your money in the same way, and that's fine. If you have the luxury of being able to spend freely without thinking of a major purchase in your future, that's great.

Hopefully, if you are looking to make a major purchase, you found this much more helpful than the Buzzfeed article. I'm always advocating for friends as neighbors in our lovely neighborhood (that is SO difficult to get into because everyone who's in stays...)

Happy Saving!

Gardenias

My love of plants and nature started early. I am by no means a Master Gardener, but I do enjoy spending time outdoors, taking care of plants, and watching things grow. As a child, I enjoyed coming home after school and spending nearly an hour outside watering the yard by hand. We planted tomatoes for fun one year, and I would water them everyday. I did make the unfortunate mistake of sprinkling too much fertilizer on them because I didn't understand that fertilizer was essentially poison in massive amounts. So the tomato plants that grew did wonderfully. And the ones that got too much fertilizer...died. Of course, gardening and taking care of plants takes an immense amount of work, and that didn't last too long for a teenager.

I did also compost in a 5-gallon bucket as a child. I put dead leaves and grass and a bunch of random things in a bucket and filled it with water. And then I left it there for years and years and years in our backyard on the patio, filling it with water every now and then. I think my dad finally realized one day that he needed his bucket so he dumped everything out and took his bucket back. What he dumped out though was a nice hunk of composted soil, perhaps a little too dry from lack of care, but it was compost.

Last night, Jonathan and I went to Lowe's just to walk around and take a peek at their plants. We browsed the clearance shelves and came across some bargain finds. Of course, with bargain prices come brown leaves and "seemingly lifeless" plants. However, with my love of plants and growing nature, I committed to reviving some plants with great potential. Here's what we found.

This larger friend was $3. He's got some good
green leaves and great potential. You can't tell from the
picture but there's small buds coming
out of the bottom. He has so much potential.

This little friend was $1. I know he's not the prettiest
plant in the pack, but he has potential! I see it in the baby
branches emerging.

They're gardenia plants. I absolutely love gardenias. The smell brings me back to my childhood when we used to go to my grandparent's house and I would cut the flowers off when they bloomed and put them into vases. Right now they're chilling on our back patio because they need partial shade. I'm hoping they can still grow with slightly less sunlight because the location I want to plant them is almost full shade. Of course, different sources say different amounts of sunlight, and a variety of people have had success growing in different locations, so, I won't know until I put it in. But I want to freshen them up first before transplanting. 

Ideally, I wanted azaleas to plant in my shady location, but once again, the different websites and plant tags say different amounts of sunlight requirements. So rather than taking a $30 risk, I went with the $4 risk. I actually want to plant Japanese Astilbe, but nurseries don't have any in season right now so I will wait until spring for that one.

Jonathan also found a nice bargain find last night. He got himself a cute little $4 succulent basket for his office.

What a cutie.

Unlike me, his little succulent basket will be much easier to maintain than my gardenias that need to be revived. But we'll see.

Stay tuned for future pictures and updates on my gardenia plants!