Kitty Deschanel

It's a risky game I'm playing. With all the talk of the Mega Millions jackpot exceeding a billion dollars (and maybe even hitting two billion - crazy!), even my frugal-minded self couldn't resist the siren call of the lottery. I mean, how else am I ever going to have a shot at becoming a billionaire? (My husband was quick to point out that with hard work, anyone can become a billionaire and that it's still a possibility for us. Okay, Pollyanna. He sees the world through very rosy glasses indeed.) Like every American the last few days, I was instantly consumed with how I'll spend my theoretical winnings. I would take the annuity rather than a lump sum, which would be more than a million dollars per month for the next 29 years, after taxes. My future self, the billionaire, was going to use the money to hire someone to wallpaper our master bedroom . Heck, she was going to hire someone to wallpaper the entire house! She might even have replaced some of the tile on ...

When SN and I bought our first home in 2007, we loved that it had an open floor plan, a two car garage, and was on a large corner lot in a desirable part of Albuquerque. We also loved...well, that was about it. Ours was just another plain box in our cookie cutter neighborhood, featuring the same white walls and not much else as all our neighbors. We spent the next few years upgrading our home and, when we sold it last year, the result of our effort was a 4-way bidding war. We were just poor college kids back then. Here are a few of the affordable improvements we made. Budget Interior Design Idea #1 Swap out some of your mirrors. More photos of our Budget Master Bathroom Remodel See the fancy mirrors above? Everyone thinks they're from Ballard Designs. Ours are actually from Michaels, which marks all of their mirrors down 50% every few weeks. These were about $35 each. We followed this same design rule for the mirrors in our new luxury home , forgoing the exp...