What $35 Means To Me

$35

It’s not much.

For my birthday, back in May, my grandma gave me $35. And I still have it.

I don’t know what to do with it.

I know that sounds silly, but in my head, it represents so much more than just $35.

My grandma and I aren’t close. In my entire life, I think that’s only the second gift she has ever given me, so I feel like I should do something special with the money. But I don’t know what.

I could always get a pedicure, buy a new pair of shoes, or go to the movies, but I haven’t. I don’t know exactly what I’m saving that $35 for.

I’ve thought a lot about saving it until I am nearly credit card debt free and using it to pay off the rest of my credit card debt. I still think that’s a good idea, but it’s so far into the future.

I don’t know. I guess my thoughts here are, when is $35 more than $35?

To me, the value of the money is more than $35. And I don’t know why that is. Cash is not something I receive very often so I want to make sure and spend it wisely, I guess.

I want that $35 to mean something.

I want that $35 to be used for something tangible.

I want to be able to look back on that $35 and say, “I got ________________ with that”, or “I used that $35 for __________________”.

I want that $35 to matter.

And since I don’t know what to do with it, there it sits, on the bookshelf in my bedroom, underneath a stack of magazines.  I often forget about the money until I move the magazines and a $5, or $10, or $20 flutters out reminding me that it’s there.

Reminding me I haven’t made a decision.

Reminding me that sometimes $35 is more than $35.

Kitchen Update

We are hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. Our credit card bill closes in the middle of December and it is over $10,000. This will be the first time in over 5 years that we have to carry a balance. We just can’t come up with all the money to pay the bill.

In fact, we have to borrow from our kids, use all of our savings, and then some to pay off what we can.

Our kitchen is very close to completion. Hopefully today our plumber, AKA my brother, is coming over to hook up all of our plumbing and our gas line. Once that’s done we will actually have a functioning kitchen. As it stands right now, we have moved everything out of the office and into the kitchen, but we can’t actually cook in there because there’s no water or stove.

This process has been longer and more arduous than we expected. We never imagined we would be heading into the Christmas season and still trying to complete our kitchen; but that’s exactly what has happened. Now, in addition to finishing up the kitchen, we are trying to get ready and decorate for Christmas and host a huge party on Saturday… good times. With the kitchen not yet fully put away and Christmas boxes everywhere, our house needs a lot of love but we are hoping we can pull it off, without spending too much more money.

Our current bill has two of our priciest purchases for the kitchen: granite counter tops and new appliances. Those two things alone account for over half of our current credit card bill. I was very sad that they had to be on the same bill, but that’s just the way it worked out.

Our granite is beautiful and I’m very excited to be able to use and cook in the kitchen. Although we didn’t add any square footage in our kitchen, by reconfiguring things we added both counter and cabinet space. I love the new layout and think our kitchen is going to be imminently functional!

We decided to go with stainless steel appliances; we had a very difficult time picking those out. All stainless steels do not match so we decided to by a “suite” and get all the same brand.  As we checked reviews, the range would be rated super highly but the fridge would have terrible reviews. Finally, we stopped looking at reviews altogether and just went with what we liked.  It remains to be seen whether or not that was a good decision, but they sure do look good.

In addition to all the kitchen expenses on the bill, we also have normal daily life and Christmas. On Saturday we will be hosting our annual Christmas party.  I have yet to buy the food for the party. I will probably add another $400-$500 to our credit card bill before it closes.  However, I only have a few things left to buy for Christmas and I am trying to wait until after our bill closes to make things a little more affordable. Wish me luck.

Once our plumbing and gas lines are hooked up, we are pretty much done working on the kitchen until after Christmas and even then we only have a few small things to finish up. We still need crown molding on the cupboards, baseboards, windowsills, and door handles and drawer pulls. We would have loved to have everything done before our party and Christmas, but we just couldn’t make it happen.

In the coming new year, our goal is to cut back so we can quickly pay off the remaining balance on our credit card and pay our kids back. We do have some trips planned that we will need to pay for, but other than that, we should be able to quickly recover from our kitchen money pit!

I’m very sad that once again, we are needing to borrow money from our kids. We really don’t want them to be our emergency fund, but that is our current reality…  We will get caught up on our credit card and then our next priority will be to pay back our kids.

Left Over Money

I’ve talked a lot about how we budget, like here, here, and here. What I really haven’t talked about, other than peripherally, is what we do with any “left over” money. I know that’s a funny term to use, “left over” money, because when you are in debt, there’s really no such thing; when you are in debt, there is a need or a purpose for every dollar that goes through your hands. What I really mean by “left over” money, is the money still sitting in a particular budget envelope at the end of a pay period or budgeting cycle.

The Husband gets paid every other Friday, so our budget runs for two weeks. Every two weeks our budgets for gas and food start over. Sometimes we have nothing left in those envelopes and sometimes we have a few hundred dollars left. It just depends on how hectic of a month it was or how planned and prepared we were or how many places we went during that time. Many different factors play into our budget.

Generally, we take that extra money and collect it until the end of the month when our credit card 1 bill is due; the one we are trying to pay off, and we add that money to however much we budgeted for our payment that month. Usually we budget $300 for our payment.  So, in a normal month, we would pay $300 plus any “left over” money from our gas and food envelopes.

Gas and food are our only two envelopes that don’t carry over a balance. We start those two over every two weeks and use the left over to help fund our debt pay-off.

Prior to having to pay for our kitchen, we were paying between $600 - $700 a month trying to pay off that credit card. Now, we are barely able to scrape together an additional $100 per month.  As our remodel drags on, our debt repayment lags. We still have “left over” money each budget period, but we are having to divert the money towards paying off the credit card that we pay off monthly.  The balances on that credit card have been astronomical since we started paying for the kitchen, always over $4000, and sometimes higher.

Our goal, once we get the kitchen finished and paid for, is to get back to paying more towards our credit card debt. Our hope is to once again be able to send all our “left over” money at the end of each month to our credit card debt.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving.!

I am thankful for so much in my life: my family, our home, our jobs, our reliable vehicles, the experiences we get to have. The list could go on and on.

I'm even thankful for our debt. I'm not happy we have debt; but our debt has helped to shape our choices and our opportunities. Our debt is a big part of why we are becoming fiscally responsible.

If we didn't have debt, we wouldn't have learned to budget.

If we didn't have debt, we wouldn't have learned to prioritize.

Essentially, if we didn't have debt, we wouldn't have the life we have.

Although we are working very hard to get out of debt, it is part of our family's past. A big part. A part of our history that helped to shape the life we live today.

So today, instead of whining and complaining about our debt, instead of thinking about what we could do with all the money we send to debt payment each month, I'm going to be thankful for my debt and remember that, in part, it led me to the life I have today.

I'm still going to work as hard as I can to get out of debt, but I'm going to take the lessons I've learned from it with me for the rest of my life and be thankful that I learned them early enough to make a change!

Be thankful!

November Debt Update

I still haven’t decided exactly how I want to share my debt totals every month, so for now, I’m going to stick with a middle of the month recap. 

As of last month, we owed $19439.77. Holy cow that’s a lot of money to owe to other nameless, faceless people!

Over the course of the last 4 and ½ weeks, we have made a payment to our credit card and towards our car loan.  For now, any extra money we have (which isn’t much because of the kitchen remodel) goes towards our credit card that carries a balance. Last month, I was able to make a payment that was about 2 times the minimum payment.  

Okay, here goes. The numbers for this month:

Credit Card 1: $4994.38 at 9.24% interest ~ the current minimum payment is $150

Car Loan 1: $13780.25 at 0% interest ~ payment is $345

                _______________ 

If you’re keeping track, (I know I am!) that’s a grand total of $18774.63

This month's debt payment saw a lot of psychological milestones. We changed the first digit on credit card 1. We now owe less on that card than we have available! To me, that in and of itself is exciting! Not to mention that our debt keeps going down! We also went from $14000+ on our car loan to $13000+. I noticed on the statement this month that we have made 20 payments and have 40 more to go. We are 1/3 of the way done paying off this debt! Lastly, we went from over $19000 in debt to under $19000 in total debt.

Next month's numbers aren't going to be anywhere near as impressive, but I'll take the win while I've got it. 

Last month we paid $705 towards debt, or 3.4% of our total debt. Stupid tax, (more commonly referred to as interest) ate up some of that; only $665.14 went towards paying off the principle. As always, I wish it was more, but the takeaway here is that our total debt decreased.  We did not add any more debt and we were able to pay more than the minimum payment.

The kitchen has really complicated our debt payoff. Any extra money at the end of the month is being diverted to pay for the kitchen. (The current balance on the card that we pay off monthly is $5600!!!) 

(This is copied and pasted directly from my last debt totals update from October 18, 2016.) I’m trying to keep my head up and remember that our total debt load decreases every month, if only by a little. I try to remember that we haven’t added to our debt total in 10 months and that we are better off now than when we started 2016. I try to remember that we choose to not let debt dictate our life or to punish our kids for our poor financial habits/choices.  That’s it in a nutshell, I’m trying.

We aren’t debt free, but we have a plan and are working it.  If we keep at it, we will be debt free.

Seasons

Sorry I fell off the face of the earth... Work has been crazy busy, as has life, not too mention we are entering the holiday season.

Anyhoo, let's get on with it!

I read an interesting blog post from Dream Beyond Debt today. It was all about seasons to spend and seasons to save. She explained the she is currently in a season of spending. I am right there with her. As much as I wish I wasn't.

We are in a season of spending for many reasons. We are remodeling our kitchen (and I think finally in the home stretch), we have two tweens, life happens, and the holidays are fast approaching.

This season is killing me financially! No matter how hard we try, we are outspending our budget. Our kitchen has been a huge expense causing our credit card bills to be over $5000 every month for the last several month. We have a couple of big expenses left there and then, hopefully, spending will slow down.

We also have two wonderful children. However, they often bleed us dry. They each do extracurricular activities that nickle-and-dime us with a $5 purchase here and a $10 fee there. They are constantly bringing home forms for fundraisers at school. They are also getting to the age where they are doing things with their friends: movies, shopping, ice cream, etc. I understand we could tell them no, and believe me, we sometimes do, but as I've said a million times before, we also don't want to punish them for our financial mistakes. Having said that, there are times we just tell them we can't afford it; and I'm sad about that - not that we are telling them no, but that we are telling them no because we can't afford something.

Let's be real, life happens: dryer's break,, Keurig's need to be replaced, and cars need repairs.  Knowing these things happen, doesn't make them any cheaper.

The last major reason we are in a season of spending right now is, quite literally, because the season of spending is upon us. In addition to Christmas shopping for friends and family, we host a huge Christmas open-house every year. It's the one time of the year where we buy prepared (read expensive) foods and all the finger foods you see at the grocery story. And those aren't cheap. But we love having our party and we love visiting with friends and family, many of which we only see once a year at our gathering. I know I could consider not hosting it one year, but I don't want to. I enjoy it.

This has been a tough season, but so far we have been able to weather it. I'm looking forward to a season of saving and relaxing.

I Was Able to Pay that Monster Credit Card Bill

I have an update to report: I was able to pay that monster credit card bill without moving any money from savings!!!

We purchased tickets for several other people on that card and all of them paid me back. That added $800 to what I already had to pay the card and that was enough to put me over the edge! I'm so happy!

The only snafu came when I went to schedule the payment with my bank. I use bill pay through my bank and in order for a payment to post for the next day, you must schedule it by 2:00 PM the previous day. I went to schedule my payment on Wednesday evening, the 9th. The bill was due the 12th so I thought I had plenty of time. When I went to schedule  it, the earliest I could sent the bill for was the 14th. That was a problem. I haven't paid interest on this card in over 5 years and I don't want to start now.

I called the number on the back of my card and had them debit the necessary amount out of my checking account; that way I didn't have to pay interest. It was a pain, but totally worth it.

I'm very happy we were able to pay this bill off but very sad that the whole dance starts over again next month. Our bill doesn't close for a few days and it's already higher than last month's bill. Oh well, we will do our best. We have some savings and our annual spending account we can dip into if necessary.

Just keep paying. Just keep paying.

Trying to Remember the Good

I’ve talked about this a couple of times before, but as humans, we are so quick to point out all the bad things that happen to us, and all the seemingly great things that happen to other people.

Lately, I’ve made a conscious effort to try to notice all the good and “lucky” things that happen to me.

Last night is a great example.

Last December, we bought a new Keurig coffee maker from Costco.  Our old one died the week before our Christmas party (where we serve coffee, tea, and hot chocolate) and we immediately replaced it. We had had our old Keurig for 5 years and felt it was well worth the money so we didn’t think twice about buying a new one.  Well, last night, after only having it for 10 months, the touchscreen on our new Keurig died, effectively making the whole machine useless.

We were not happy. Because we currently have no kitchen, the Keurig was our only source of hot water for coffee, tea, instant mashed potatoes, etc. I was devastated. Not to mention, fewer than 10 days prior, I had to buy an unplanned for and unfunded new dryer. As my brother-in-law so succinctly put it, “you guys are burning through appliances like crazy!”.

At this point, I decided we would try to take it back to Costco. They have a fabulous return policy and we had only had it for 10 or 11 months.

At Costco, I explained the problem was that the screen went out. She asked me if we had any of the accoutrements that went with it. I was honest and told her we didn’t know where any of them were and that we were in the middle of a complete kitchen remodel. She was very understanding and allowed us to do the return without having any of them.  She gave me a store credit for the price of a new Keurig.

I immediately went and bought a new Keurig so we were never without coffee or hot water.

I’m very thankful that it was such an easy process and we had no problems with the return. I’m so glad that Costco’s return policy is so generous and that it really hadn’t been that long since our initial purchase of our Keurig. I’m sure that helped.

It’s so easy to only look at and reflect on all the negative things that happen; I really want to be thankful and remember the good things that happen to me. It’s so easy to play the victim card and think I’m so unlucky and only bad things happen for me while everybody else is just lucky. This is one of those things and it happens to be finance related, but they aren’t always. It’s nice to look on the bright side and recognize that God blesses me in so many ways every day.

What We Teach Our Kids About Money

We are in debt and we hate it. I’m not talking about our mortgage. I’m talking about consumer debt, credit card debt that we fell into because we were living beyond our means. Due to this, we are trying very hard to teach our children about money and good money habits.

When The Kids were very little, they had a weekly chore chart.  We paid them $1 a day if they did all the tasks we asked them to do.  Essentially, each task ended up being worth 12 and ½ cents. We paid them out weekly and then divided their money up into three categories: save, spend, and tithe. When they were very little, they put 50% into savings, 40% into spending, and 10% into tithing.  Savings was, and is, considered long term. Spending can be for whatever they want; they might be saving their spending money to buy an expensive something or they can spend it on books and candy if they want. Their tithing money is also spent how they want. They have donated the whole amount to church. They have gone shopping for groceries to donate for a canned food drive at school. It’s really up to them. We want their tithing to be meaningful so they get to decided how to spend it.

As The Kids have gotten older we have moved away from the chore chart and started paying them to work.  They earn $5 per hour that they work.  That’s not to say they don’t have chores they are expected to do as part of our family, because they do; but we pay them $5 an hour for extras, things like cleaning the bathroom, washing the cars, dusting, or generally anything we need at any given time. They also have gone to both sets of grand-parents’ houses and helped them. There they have weeded, wrapped Christmas presents, and un-packed boxes.

Once they get paid out the money they are owed, it is still divided into three categories: save, spend, and tithe, though our percentages have changed a little. Now they put 50% into savings, 40% into savings, and still 10% into tithing.  As they get older, we might revisit our breakdown again, but this works for us for now.

The Husband and I fell into poor financial habits, so we are doing our best to teach The Kids good habits.  First among them is savings.  In addition to long term savings, The Kids have to save for certain items they want to buy.  They are not allowed to buy on credit. They need to save for any large purchases they want to make, or have enough money for any smaller purchase.  This past summer, The Kids saved their spending money to buy themselves iPods. To encourage good saving and spending habits, we offered to buy them a case for their iPod once they reached their goal.

In our home, we often talk about money. We talk about how expensive something is or how we can’t afford something or why something is a good deal. We don’t want talk about money to be taboo.  We do, however, tell the kids to be discreet. We also explain that they shouldn’t flash money around or constantly tell people how much money they have. We talk about how much money The Husband and I make per year, how much money we bring home, as well as how much we have to pay for bills.  Our goal is to raise financially literate adults.

As The Kids have grown, we also talk about the use of credit, especially as we make most of our purchases using a credit card. They used to think that “things just cost a card”. We have worked very hard to dispel that theory and explain to them that we use the card, but that we have to pay money for everything we buy. Each purchase costs money and we have to pay for it even if we use “a card”. This is another way we are trying to teach them to be responsible users of credit.

We are also trying to teach them to save. We want them to save for both long term goals (car or college), and short term goals (iPod, video games, books).  We want them to save so they pay themselves first. We want them to save for their wants so they don’t go into debt for them. We want them to see saving for your wants as a way of life so they don’t always expect instant gratification. We want them to tithe, or give, so they see there is a world beyond themselves that they can help.  Our hope is that by learning good money habits early and young, they will become lifelong good money handlers.

If you stuck around this long, thanks.  I think kids and money is an important topic and it’s one I’m sure I will write more about in the future.

Playing the Odds

I'm playing a major numbers game right now!

I have a monster credit card bill due in the middle of November and I'm trying to pay it without having to dip into my savings or borrow money from The Kids. We paid a lot for the kitchen on this bill: plywood for the sub floor, hardy backer for the floor, floor tile, and the sheetrock for the kitchen. We also bought some tickets to some upcoming shows in our area. We purchased all the tickets, for two shows, for 5 couples.  We have a lot of money coming our way, but we haven't received it yet, because of this, I don't know if I'll be able to pay the bill with borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

I'm stressing out!

I was able to scrape together enough extra money to pay $360 to our credit card that carries a balance, so our next statement should show that we are under the half way mark.  I don't know if this was wise or not, because that took extra money away from paying the monster bill on our other card.

Sometimes I wonder if anybody else plays the games I have to to pay all our bills on time and in full? I'm so sick of living this way and I can't wait to be out of debt so I don't have to anymore.

I'll keep you posted on whether or not I have to rob money from any other accounts to pay for this credit card.

We have another couple large expenses to pay for for the kitchen and then things should slow down moneywise. We need to buy the granite and pay for all our plumbing supplies.  We have the cash for the plumbing supplies, but will be putting the granite on our credit card, (yes we are paying for our granite with future income). After those purchases, we will have our Christmas party and Christmas to pay for and then, hopefully, we can start to rebuild our savings.

Wish us luck!

Laundry Woes

We had a tough weekend this past weekend, both financially and because of that, emotionally. In truth, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to post here on the blog, but I want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of our journey to being debt free.

Financially it wasn’t a huge setback, (though it wasn’t good), but emotionally it really threw us for a loop.

For several months now (I’m so OVER. IT.) we have been remodeling our kitchen. Because we are doing it ourselves, after work and in between kids’ activities, it has been a slow process. The weekends are when we get the most time to work on it.

This particular weekend, on Sunday, we thought we would have a the whole, solid day. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

Let me give you a little backstory first. Our laundry room is right off of our kitchen and is also getting remodeled. Due to this we were without laundry for about 10 days because we were having plumbing lines moved. Needless to say, I was unable to do laundry and it piled up. Once it was hooked back up, I only had it for one day because it had to be taken out again to prepare our floors for tile. All told, I was about 12 days without laundry services in our home.

On Sunday, it was finally hooked up again and I started laundry. First I washed a load of delicates because we needed them and they have a shorter cycle than towels, for example. Within about 3 minutes of starting the washer, water was pouring out of the door of our front loading washer.  We were able to stop the cycle, but to keep any more water from pouring out, we had to push the door to make the seal tighter. We then had to hand-bail 15 gallons of water 2 cups at a time. It took 2 hours. (We looked on-line to figure out how to force drain the washer and the way it said didn’t work. We found out later, after hand-bailing, that the drain was clogged.) Once we were able to drain the washer, The Husband was able to clean out the filter and the drain.

I ran the load again with no mishaps. Then I switched the laundry; delicates into the dryer, a load of towels into the washer. Once the delicates were done in the dryer, I set them for 20 more minutes and realized after I pushed start, our dryer wasn’t tumbling. I opened the door and tried to spin the drum: nothing. It wouldn’t move. I found a shirt had gotten caught in the dryer and wasn’t allowing the drum to move.

The Husband went to work. He was able to get the shirt out (relatively unscathed) but what he discovered was so depressing. He found a crack in the dryer drum and that’s why the shirt got stuck.

In the morning it was problems with our washer and in the afternoon a broken dryer. I cried.

For months we had felt our dryer was on its last legs, so rather than just replacing the drum, we opted to purchase a new dryer. I cried again.

We first checked out Home Depot for a dryer, but this was Sunday and the soonest they would be able to deliver was the following Saturday. After almost 2 weeks without laundry, I couldn’t wait another week. We then checked Best Buy. Best Buy had the same dryer I had picked out at Home Depot, for the same price, but we were able to get it on Monday, the next day.

We bought the dryer on Sunday; it was $719.99 plus tax. We paid about $777.

I cried.

And mostly not about the money.

Mostly.

It was an emotionally exhausting day. On top of that, I really didn’t want to have spend $700+ on a dryer when I am trying to pay cash for an entire kitchen remodel. The kitchen remodel is bleeding us dry. It’s just so expensive and we have some of the most expensive expenses left to pay for: granite and our fixtures (sink, hot water dispenser, faucet, utility sink, utility faucet, water filter). Needing a new dryer could not have come at a worse time.

I’m trying to be positive about it and remember that it could be worse and at least we were able to go buy one, but right now that feels like little consolation.

I’m also afraid we are going to have to draw money from some other accounts to finish paying for the kitchen. Currently we have money in our annual expenses account and in the kids’ bank accounts. If we have to use either of those, the first priority will be to pay them back, but I’m sad it might come down to that.

Stupid $777 dryer.

I know this is a long post, thanks for sticking around and reading it.

Have you ever had any budget busters that just made you cry?

New Debt Update

I still haven’t decided exactly how I want to share my debt totals every month, so for now, I’m going to stick with a middle of the month recap.

As of last month, we owed $20180.17. Holy cow that’s a lot of money to owe to other nameless, faceless people!

Over the course of the last 4 and ½ weeks, we have made a payment to our credit card and towards our car loan.  For now, any extra money we have (which isn’t much because of the kitchen remodel) goes towards our credit card that carries a balance. Last month, I was able to make a payment that was about 2 and ½ times the minimum payment. 

Okay, here goes. The numbers for this month:

Credit Card 1: $5314.52 at 9.24% interest ~ the current minimum payment is $160

Car Loan 1: $14125.25 at 0% interest ~ payment is $345

                _______________

If you’re keeping track, that’s a grand total of $19439.77

On the plus side, we are down below the $20000 mark and that’s a nice barrier to break. I much prefer seeing a 1 as the first number as opposed to a 2! Last month we paid off 3.6% of our total debt. We paid a total of $780, but stupid tax, (more commonly referred to as interest) ate up some of that.  Only $740.40 went towards paying off the principle. As always, I wish it was more, but the takeaway here is that our total debt decreased.  We did not add any more debt and we were able to pay more than the minimum payment.

My goal for next month is to bring our credit card down under the $5000 mark, after interest.  In order to do that, I will have to pay about $356.  In my budget, I included $300 towards our credit card, so we only need to come up with an extra $56.

The kitchen has really complicated our debt payoff. Any extra money at the end of the month is being diverted to pay for the kitchen. (The current balance on the card that we pay off monthly is $4800!!!) I’m hoping that we will be able to increase the payment amount on our credit card 1 balance to bring it under $5000. If we can, that would be another psychological boost.  Once we are under $5000, we will have paid off half of a maxed out card. I know it’s not much, but we need to start somewhere and baby steps are all we have right now.

(This is copied and pasted directly from my last debt totals update from September 16, 2016.) I’m trying to keep my head up and remember that our total debt load decreases every month, if only by a little. I try to remember that we haven’t added to our debt total in 10 months and that we are better off now than when we started 2016. I try to remember that we choose to not let debt dictate our life or to punish our kids for our poor financial habits/choices.  That’s it in a nutshell, I’m trying.

We aren’t debt free, but we have a plan and are working it.  If we keep at it, we will be debt free.

You can see my last update here.

How We Save For Annual Expenses

I read it all the time in PF blogs, annual expenses aren’t surprises, you know they are coming.  Every year we have to pay homeowner’s insurance, car insurance, property taxes, etc. So why don’t we plan for them?

The Husband and I have developed a system that works pretty well for us.  It began the first time we bought a new car.  We set up a direct deposit of $300 for every paycheck to go into a credit union to make the car payment.  We bought that car in 2001 and we have still kept up the practice of depositing money every pay period. 

For many years, the money had no purpose so it was squandered in many different ways.  But several years ago, we started using that money to pay for our annual expenses. For us, these include our home owner’s insurance, property taxes, car registration for four vehicles, and our car insurance, which we pay twice a year.  We also try to pay baseball and soccer registration fees out of this account and, if there is enough money, some competition fees for our daughter’s dance studio.

Over the course of the year, these bills can really add up. It has really helped us to have at least most of the money readily available

. 

Our homeowner’s insurance is due in October, so we just paid it.  We had plenty of money in the account so it was paid in full and the account continues to grow.  Coming up in the near future, we will have to pay the first installment on our property taxes as well as our car insurance for the next six months.  These are both hefty bills, well over $1000 for each of them and I’m so happy we will have the money to pay for both of them.

In our household, we have to pay for a car registration once a month from January to April.  Again, these aren’t surprises, but as the old adage says, failing to plan is planning to fail. For many years, every time a car registration was due, it became a pitfall for our budget. In the past, many times, we actually paid our car registrations late because we just didn’t have the money.  Now, we always have the money to pay our car registration, on time and in full.

The reason we are able to do this, is because we automate the deposits.  On our own, we would never set aside $300 per paycheck into a separate account, even though we know we have these expenses due every year. We would still be acting as if these annual (which means yearly y’all) expenses came out of nowhere. We would still be falling farther and farther into debt each month instead of slowing clawing our way out.

This account also acts as a mini-safety net for us.  In a sense, it acts like another emergency fund. The amount of money in this account is always fluctuating, but there is usually at least a few hundred dollars. In a real and true emergency, we have another small cushion to fall back on because of this account.  We haven’t had to use it in such a way, but it gives me some peace of mind just knowing that it is there.

This is actually the only account we automate. We make it work, but we can’t seem to save any more than that a month. Almost all financial advice you get starts with “pay yourself first”. With this account, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

How We Use our the Cash System to Pay our Credit Cards

I talk often about “the card we pay off monthly” so I decided maybe I should talk about how we do that.

We have two credit cards: one that we have carried a balance on for over 4 years and one that had a balance for about 10 years, but we have paid off monthly for the last (about) 5 years.

My last post about how we budget was all about how we use Dave Ramsey’s envelope system and cash; so I get that using credit and paying cash doesn’t really reconcile. I’m going to explain to you how we do that. (PS the say we do it is part of why we can’t get out of debt faster.)

Each pay period, I go to the bank and take out however much cash we have budgeted for the next two weeks.  And then I proceed to charge everything. WHAT? It doesn’t make sense, I know, but let me explain.  We still aren’t disciplined enough to use credit exclusively, so right now, I physically take the cash out of the bank and then when I buy something out of that category, like gas or food, I take that amount of money out of the designated envelope and put it in a jar with a post-it note on it with the date the credit card bill is due.

Pretty complicated sounding, I know. But it keeps us from overspending too much.

Any time there is a shortfall in any category, we make that up with our credit card, hence the reason we can’t get out of debt. Instead of taking any leftover money at the end of the month and putting it towards debt, we are taking any leftover money and paying off the credit card that we pay off monthly.

We don’t budget enough money each month to actually cover many of our costs so we have to make up the difference using credit*; and because we aren’t gazelles we aren’t willing to sacrifice our lifestyle in order to get out of debt faster.  It is a vicious, never ending cycle, but one that is wholly created by us. (*This isn't intentional. We budget in good faith every month and then spend more money than we budgeted."

Clearly the way we budget and use credit is not the most efficient way, but it keeps us from getting too far out of control and has allowed us to slowly decrease our total debt load since we started budgeting this way in December of 2015, nine months ago.

By taking cash out, then putting it in a jar to use to pay a credit card bill, I’m drastically increasing my trips to the bank. I know it doesn’t make the most sense; but we are not responsible enough, yet, to solely use credit cards.  On the flip side we don’t want to throw away all the points we could be gaining if we used credit.  Although not the most practical way to budget, right now, it works for us.

Today, for example, I am heading to the bank to deposit $960 that we “collected” over the course of our last credit card billing dates.  The bill is due soon and I need the money to pay for it.  That is not the whole amount of the bill, but will definitely help towards paying it off.

In an ideal world, we would budget enough money to fund every budget category, every month and we would never exceed our budget. We are in debt so clearly this is not how we have operated in the past.  This one change has helped us to get more of a handle on our finances; and allows us to earn some credit card points without totally blowing our budget out of the water.

How We Budget (Part 2)

In How We Budget Part 1, I laid out how we budget our money each month and break it up into different categories. In this post, I'll explain about the different things each of our envelopes pay for.

Our car repair envelope pays for any necessary (and sometimes unexpected) car repairs, tires, and oil changes. Lately it has been one thing after another with our cars so the envelope only has $50 in it, but we are trying to bulk it back up so there will be enough money to pay for needed repairs in the future. Many times, although there hasn't been enough money in the envelope to cover the entire bill, it's been helpful to have the extra couple or few hundred dollars cash ready to pay for at least part of the repair.

The essentials/miscellaneous category could just as easily be labeled Target/Walmart. We buy toilet paper, dish detergent, laundry detergent, shampoo, face soap, body wash, dog food, cleaning supplies and the like with that envelope. Although I try, I never budget enough money towards this category to fully fund what we need.

Clothes is pretty self explanatory; we buy clothes and shoes with that envelope; this includes undergarments, socks, swimsuits, and pajamas. This envelope mostly funds clothes for the kids but occasionally clothes for The Husband and me come out of this envelope too.  With this envelope especially there's never quite enough money as there is need, so we charge the rest on the card we pay off monthly.

Hair care is specifically for hair cuts. This pays for haircuts for me (I go bi-monthly) and The Kids (The Boy goes about once a month and The Girl only goes about twice a year), The Husband uses clippers and cuts his own hair.

The school envelope pays for all the miscellaneous items we have to pay for throughout the school year. These are things like school pictures, field trips, dance entrance fees, and fundraisers.  This also paid for all The Kids new school supplies (to the tune of $200) this year.  It was depleted and is slowly being built back up.

Our final budget category is kid's activities.  This pays for things for like dance competition fees, things needed for baseball or soccer as well as dance.  I realized that just because I paid registration fees for an activity, it didn't keep hidden fees from popping up.  I felt like I was being nickeled-and-dimed out of all my "extra cash" laying around so we started funding this activity. It's been very helpful, though again, it never covers everything and gets depleted often.

To many people, this is too many categories or too much cash to carry around, but we've found it really works for us.  I mainly handle the finances for our family and by having this many envelopes and funding them, we have slowly begun to dig ourselves out of debt.  We have decreased our debt load every month since December 2015, (when we recommitted to Dave Ramsey and the envelope system) and our envelope system is a big part of why.

No-spend September Final Update

This was by far our biggest No-spend September fail!

The kitchen remodel we are in the middle of threw a wrench in our plans that we were not prepared enough to tackle as far as our no-spend month went.

Our goal is to spend less than $400 on groceries and we far exceeded that. Probably by more than we have ever before in any of our no-spend months.  I was so depressed I stopped actually keeping track. And the worst part of it all, is that it all happened in the last week of our challenge. I think we spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $430 - $445. I'm sad.

In addition to overspending on out grocery budget. we spent money in other areas too.  We ran out of slow-cooker liners about 10 days ago and the store was out of them when we went to buy them. (Because we have no kitchen, we are very dependent upon our slow-cooker, but because we also have no kitchen sink (and therefor no garbage disposal) we are using the liners.) We were unable to make dinner at home a for a few nights and we ran out of frozen meals, so we went out to eat.

If nothing else, I'm going to remember that we did our best. We didn't buy Starbucks (without a gift card) this month. We didn't buy any new clothes or shoes. I didn't get a manicure or pedicure (even though I so badly wanted to). Neither The Husband nor I got a massage this month; and the vast majority of our purchases were either for or because of the kitchen. (I'm not trying to offer an excuse, but rather an explanation.)

This year's no-spend challenge was such an epic fail that it definitely gives us a goal to shoot for next year.

There were some positives that came from the challenge.  Our total debt load during this time decreased and we did increase the number in our savings account.  My goal next year, will continue to be keeping our grocery budget in check, to grow our savings account, and to stay under budget and NOT spend over $1000 at Home Depot during our no-spend challenge.

I'm still proud of us for trying to meet the challenge amid the chaos that is our home and life right now. Isn't there some saying that failure builds character?

Although this post was painful to write, I also wanted to be honest.  There's no point in publishing a blog if I'm not going to tell the truth.

How We Budget (Part 1)

Many years ago The Husband and I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, FPU, through our church. It was life changing, although for us it didn't stick right away.  Remember, we got out of debt just to get back into debt.  We are doing much better now: still in debt, but working a plan to get out of it; and NOT adding to our debt each month.  I'm not always able to attack our debt with as much vigor as I'd like, because we aren't gazelles, but our debt load decreases (at least a little) every month.

Now that we are back on the payoff-debt-wagon, we have gone back to Dave Ramsey's envelope system; in fact, I actually use the Dave Ramsey FPU wallet. (PS I love it! It has 6 envelopes, a coin pouch, and several extra tracking sheets for when the envelopes run out of room.) It's actually this one! And I love it! It works great for my purposes and is small and light enough to fit in my small purse, but plenty big enough to hold everything I need. (PPS This is not an affiliate link. I just really like the wallet!)

As a public school teacher, I get paid once a month on the last working day of the month. The Husband gets paid every other Friday.  My paycheck pays our mortgage, usually our cable bill (yes, I'm into personal finance and we still have cable,) my daughter's dance tuition, and anything left over usually goes towards the credit card that we pay off monthly.

The Husband's paychecks cover everything else: internet service, utilities, cell phones, (at least) the minimum due on our credit card that still has a balance, and it funds all of our budget categories.

Our budget categories are: food/groceries, gas, car repair, essentials/miscellaneous, clothes, hair care, school, and kid's activities.  For many people, that's too many, but for us it works.  Some of these are sinking funds where the money continues to add up and others start over every pay period. (I'll write a later post about what we do with that money. Also, you might have noticed, there is nothing there about home repair, home owner's insurance, or car insurance, we handle these a little differently too. Again, another post for another time.)

We only have a couple of budget categories that start over every pay period, those are food and gas. We budget $250 for food every two weeks and $300 for gas for the same amount of time.  Sometimes we use it all, sometimes we go way over and charge the difference, and sometimes we have "left over money". The rest of our budget categories are sinking funds. Their balances continue to grow. None of these envelopes ever get too full because, in all honesty, I don't fund all of the categories with enough money they need over the course of the year, but usually it's enough to get us through.

Many people think we have "too many" budget categories, but they work for us.  Each category we have, except maybe with the exception of food and gas, was created because when I looked at what was really busting our budget every month I realized it was something we were always having to pay for.  The most recently added categories are school and kids activities.  One way or another we were always having to pay money towards those things. Now that we have them in our budget, we are more prepared each month to pay for the things we need.

As I was writing this post, it became more and more long winded so I decided to break it up into two posts.  This being part 1 where I explain a little bit about how we budget. In my next post, I will explain exactly what we pay for out of each envelope.

Debt Payment

September 23, 2016

Today I am going to the bank to pay my credit card.  The minimum payment on the card this month is $172. I am going to pay $435 on a balance of $5706.  I am paying about 7.5% of the balance today.  Originally, I had hoped to pay more, $585 or just over 10% of the total balance, but because the credit card we pay off monthly was so high this month (stupid kitchen) I had to allocate some of the money there. (Actually, it wasn’t all the kitchen. We bought tickets to some shows for ourselves and 4 other couples and they owe us the money for those to the tune of over $600! YIKES!)

Although the minimum payment on the card keeps decreasing, going forward I’m hoping to pay a minimum of $300, but hopefully more each month.  According to the chart on my statement, if I pay only the minimum payment, I will be paying this card off for the next TEN YEARS!!!! That’s crazy, folks!!!! Ten years to pay off purchases I made 1, 2, 3, or 4 years ago! I don’t want to still be paying off my Hawaii trip from the summer of 2012 in ten years. It was a great trip, but no trip could be that great! In fact, I don’t want to still be paying my Hawaii trip off now!

I will be very excited to get the balance of that card under $5000. Right now, I’m just trying to keep my head up and remember that with every payment I make, more and more of it is going to the principle balance and less and less of it is going to pay interest. I can’t wait until I have more space left on the card than I owe. That’s a milestone I haven’t crossed in over four years. I’m hoping that will give me a little boost to keep our debt payoff momentum going.

My original goal was to have this credit card paid off by the end of the year, but now it’s really looking like a stretch goal.  We only have 3 months left in the year and I have over $5000 left to pay.  As far as debt payoff goes, the kitchen has really put a cramp in my style.  Instead of sending any extra money each month towards debt, I’m socking it away to help pay for things in the kitchen. Most importantly, the balance keeps going down. And I haven’t charged on the card since December of last year.  With Christmas coming up, I definitely want to continue that trend.

I am a little discouraged by the credit card bill of the card we pay off monthly because only 8 days into our new billing cycle and our balance is already at $1000, and that’s in the middle of No-spend September. We have about $200 cash towards that, but that’s still a much larger balance than I want.  The kitchen is killing us. It’s very expensive and we haven’t even gotten to the finishes yet. 

Generally, any money we have left over in our food or gas envelope at the end of a budget period, goes towards paying off extra debt, but lately, we haven’t been able to do that. All extra money is going to pay off our credit card that we pay off monthly. I guess the bonus here is that we can still afford to pay it off monthly; but the negative is we aren’t able to throw any extra money at debt.

I know I’m not a gazelle, but I can’t wait to be credit card debt free! 

No-spend September Updates 4 and 5

September 19, 2016

This was another spendy weekend for No-spend September.

Tracy had an antique fair which I attended with my mom.  I only bought one thing. It was $32.  Because it was an antique fair, and generally not available, I felt it was okay to attend. I bought a vintage credit register. I’m going to use it in my kitchen to hold pictures and recipes. 

The next day, I attended the Harvest Festival with my mom and sister.  I only bought one non-food item. It was an old Gone with the Wind movie cell. It’s for my mom for Christmas. It cost $90, and my dad is actually going to pay for it.  Both The Husband and I agree that gift buying is an exception to our No-spend rules. Other than that, I only bought food items. I bought 5 different loaves of breakfast breads. (The Kids are sick of only having cereal, toast, and fruit for breakfast, so I wanted to get them something different.) The breads were $4 each, leaving me $178.04. I also bought 11 different crock-pot spice mixes which will be great since our kitchen is still under major construction. Those were $4 each and well worth the money. (They are delicious! I bought them last year and loved them!) 11 times $4 equals $44, so for the rest of the month, we are down to $134.04.

There are only 10 days left in the month so that’s not too bad.  We do need another Costco trip. We need bread, milk, sliced cheese, and some fruits and vegetables.  I also need to buy meat.  We have chicken but I need to buy a pork loin (and have The Husband butcher it), a couple roasts, and a brisket. I will get the meat at both Costco and Winco. Also at Winco I need to buy instant mashed potatoes. By the time I’m done with all of this, I will probably be very close to our $400 budget.  We’ll have to wait and see.

In some ways, I’m ready for September to be over! I want a pedicure so badly… my poor feet are awful. I have lost 3 toe nails since the first weekend in August and now that they are starting to grow back I’m ready to have someone make my feet look pretty! On the flip side, I haven’t missed Starbucks this month.  I won a $5 gift card through The Husband’s insurance last month to Starbucks and I saved it for September. I also had a free drink from using my Starbucks gold card that I saved to use until September.  My best friend also bought me a drink one day because she knows about my No-spend months, so I haven’t had a chance to really miss Starbucks.

As I read personal finance blogs, many of them “bash” No-spend months.  They talk about that because you are paying for things: bills, gas, food, it’s not really a No-spend month or because you buy things, in October, that you ran out of in September, it’s not really a No-spend month. I disagree.  Though I may buy things in October, that I ran out of in September, having a No-spend month forces me to make do. This month, we have run out of liquid hand soap (except we found some later, but it forced me to figure something out) so I used a bar of soap I had.  I also ran out of a hair product I use. I had planned to buy some product in August, but I never got to the store so for the month of September, I have been using some product I have.  It’s not my favorite product, but I have it and it has been sitting under my bathroom sink for over a year.  Now, I’m using it up. I also ran out of soap this week. Instead of going out to buy my favorite shower gel, I opened up another soap we had in the cupboard. I also ran out of lotion this month. I went to the bathroom cabinet to see what I could find. I found a pot of lotion and started using it… and I love it! It was buried in the back of a drawer and I don’t even know where it came from, but I pulled it out and started to use it and it’s one of the best lotions I have used in a long time! If it weren’t for a No-spend month I wouldn’t have used products I already had, I would have made a list and gone to Target to buy what was on it (and probably $100 more worth of stuff). So although it’s not technically a No-spend month, it’s forcing me to use what I have on hand; and that is worthwhile!

September 22, 2016

I went shopping last night at Save Mart (I never shop there, it was very expensive so I only bought what I needed) and spent $26.37, that leaves me $107.67 for the rest of the month.  On my way to pick up The Girl from her dance class, I stopped at Save Mart and bought what I would need for tonight’s dinner (which is already in the crock-pot) and some things we needed and weren’t sure when we would be able to get them.

I picked up some pasta sauce, instant mashed potatoes, sliced cheese, biscuits, and bananas just because we needed them.  For tonight’s dinner, I picked up some shredded cheese, a head of lettuce, and some salsa. For dinner tonight, I am making Tex-Mex Chicken. It’s one of the slow cooker meals I purchased over the weekend.

Tonight, I will go to Costco to buy milk, bread, more sliced cheese, lunch meat, and meat (pork loin and 2 roasts). The whole trip will probably run me right around $100, which means I will be right at my goal for the month of September. It will be interesting to see if I can refrain from buying anything else for the rest of the month.

Remodeling the kitchen has made this a very interesting No-spend September.  We have had to be very planned with our food, and for the most part, have done a really good job, but it’s been hard and expensive. For the remaining 8 days of the month, we only $107 to spend to spend on food. Wish us luck!

No Side Hustle For Me

In the personal finance world, "side hustle" is a major buzz word... and I don't have one.

I've mentioned many times before that both The Husband and I are college graduates and have good paying jobs. I've also talked about the fact that we are in debt. Our debt is solely the cause of living beyond our means. Our debt has nothing to do with job loss, financial hardship, difficult circumstances, student loans, or medical bills... just plain stupidity. Most people in the PF community or who are debt bloggers talk all the time about their side hustle or what they are doing to make extra money, and honestly, I'm doing exactly nothing.

I choose not to have a side hustle. Although it would enable us to get out of debt so much faster, I'm not willing to give up the time with my family. In fact, I don't have the time.  For many years, 12 to be exact, I worked at a shoe store. It was a job I loved.  When I began teaching, I even kept my retail job for the first couple of years. I would only work at the shoe store one night a week and a weekend day here or there. Once the kids got older I had to quit my second job to become a full time chauffeur to my kids. This is also a way we are keeping ourselves in debt longer: we allow are kids to play sports and do extracurricular activities.

Having a side hustle, while definitely financially worthwhile, isn't worth the time away from my family or the strain it would put on my family. And while many hustles get to the point of where they are passive, they usually take massive work to reach that point, work I'm just not willing to put in.

I read all these blogs where the author has quit their day job to become a full-time freelancer, but for a long time they were working 40 hours a week at their day job and another 25+ hours per week developing their brand or padding their portfolio. I just don't have time for that.

I could get a second job but with soccer two nights a week and dance three nights a week, plus comps and games on the weekend, my free time is very limited and I don't want to give up my free time to a side hustle. As much as I want to get out of debt, I don't want it badly enough; that's why we are still in debt.

I admire people who give up everything to get out of debt. I admire people who have a garage sale every other month, who scour thrift stores for clothes, who work two jobs, who turn down invitations because they can't afford something, who clip coupons. But mostly, I admire people who have created a side hustle that works for them and works for their lifestyle. I'm just not that person.

Side hustles are by far the best tool to help you get out of debt faster. As long as you are able to meet all your financial obligations on your day job salary, any extra money you make can be thrown 100% at debt. That works out to be an awesome return on your investment. But do I want to invest my time just to gain financial freedom a couple months earlier? To me it's not worth it so for now I have no hustle.

Debt Totals

Okay, here goes… I’m going to let the world (even though nobody reads this) in on my debt totals.

Each month, I’m going to do a debt update, obviously starting with September. I will have to decide if I will do 
this at the beginning of the month, the end of the month, the middle of the month, or just when I feel like it 
each month, but it’s going to happen!

I have been hemming and hawing on putting my actual debt on the blog, but only because I’m ashamed 
and embarrassed. Putting it out here, on the world wide web, makes it real. (I know it’s real, but now I can’t 
take it back. It will always be here.) I am embarrassed that we have debt! No one really knows we have credit 
card debt and one of my biggest fears is that someone I know will find out. I really don’t want that to happen!

At least for right now, I’m only going to include my credit card debt and my car loan. I’m not at the point where 
I’mre ady to put my mortgage on my debt totals. Baby steps. I’m also not going to include the credit card we
pay off monthly. Because it’s paid off monthly, we haven’t carried a balance over on that credit card in going 
on 5 years so we don’t consider it “debt”.

Here are the numbers:

Credit Card 1:     $5709.92 at 9.24% interest ~ the current minimum payment is $177

Car Loan 1:          $14470.25 at 0% interest ~ payment = $345

                                _______________________

                                $20180.17 Total

That’s depressing.  :(

Knowing I have debt is one thing. Actually seeing the numbers in black and white is quite another. Seeing the
number, $20000+ is very daunting.  I’ve known I had debt, but I never sat down and actually added those two
numbers up, but they hurt!

Right now, because of the kitchen remodel, paying down our debt at any significant rate is hard, so I just keep
plodding along.  On our credit card, we are paying more than the minimum, but not by much. A few months 
ago, we were paying between $600-700 a month; that number has dropped to only about $300 a month now. 
Currently, any extra money we have is going towards paying off the credit card we pay off monthly or towards 
paying for something for the kitchen remodel… needless to say, progress has been S.L.O.W.

But I guess the takeaway here is that there has been progress. I’m already looking ahead to my next month’s
debt update because I know I will be under the $20000 mark – so there’s my first psychological boost!

The worst thing about our debt, particularly our credit card debt, is that if we would curb our spending for just a
short period of time, we could be credit card debt free. But we don’t. The balance on Credit Card 1 is very close
to the balance I pay off monthly on our other credit card, yet we still have a balance.  For just one month, if we 
could truly have a no-spend month, we could be credit card debt free, but we aren’t.  I guess that’s because 
we aren’t gazelles.  I say we want to be debt free, but I don’t pursue that freedom with intensity.  We still buy 
stuff and go places so we are still in debt.

I’m trying to keep my head up and remember that our total debt load decreases every month, if only by a little. 
I try to remember that we haven’t added to our debt total in 9 months and that we are better off now than when
we started 2016. I try to remember that we choose to not let debt dictate our life or to punish our kids for our 
poor financial habits/choices.  That’s it in a nutshell, I’m trying.

Someday, I might start doing net worth updates, too.  We do have a home, in which we have some equity. We 
do have 3 fully paid for cars. We do have retirement savings. We do have some (not much) cash money in the 
bank. It’s not all bad.

No-spend September Update 3

September 15, 2016

Yesterday I went to Costco and spent about $45, but that was including cups, plates, and spoons; because of the kitchen remodel, I’m not counting them in my no-spend September budget. Of that $45, however, I also bought grapes and strawberries to the tune of $13 leaving us with right about $200  to spend for the rest of the month.

This No-spend month is killing us! We have spent tons of money at Home Depot so far! And tomorrow night is The Husband’s 20 year high school, which we are attending. First we will attend our high school’s Homecoming game (for which we will have to pay an entrance fee), then we will go to a local bar for the reunion part. I’m anticipating tomorrow night costing us around $100 for everything: entrance, food, and drinks.

Our credit card bill (that we pay off monthly) has been around $5000 every month for the last six months… and it’s killing me! We are able to pay it off monthly, but we are not able to get ahead.  Our current billing cycle ends today and the balance is at $4500. I was hoping we could use No-spend September to get ahead but unless we are able to really curtail our spending for the last half of the month, that’s not going to happen.

Our gas budget is doing well for the month.  I’m hoping to have a few hundred dollars left over at the end of the month to help us pay our monstrous credit card bill that we are currently accruing! We’ll see. Right now, any “extra” money we have is going to pay our credit card (that we pay off monthly) or towards our kitchen and not towards our debt total.  We are still deceasing our debt… some, but not at the pace I want.

No-spend September Update 2

9/10

Well, we are only a third of the way into the month and I have already spent about half of my grocery budget… EEEEK!

Yesterday I went to both Costco and Winco.  I had already spent $46.50 at the Farmer’s Market this past weekend, leaving $353.50. At Costco I spent $116.83, all on food, leaving $236.67. Next, I went to Winco and spent another $22.79, leaving me with just $213.88 for the rest of the month!

At Costco, I only bought food, however, for half of my shopping trip I had some boots in my cart I was going to buy for The Girl, but then it occurred to me that it was No-spend September so I took them out of my cart and continued on my merry way. At Costco, I bought a case of canned green beans (12 cans), 2 packages of bread (2 loaves each), 8 gallons of milk, 8 pounds of butter, 2 boxes of yogurt, a bag of clementine oranges, baby-bel cheese, Cheeze-Its, trail mix, Pirates Booty, and Pub Mix. Other than perishables, we shouldn’t have to go grocery shopping for the next two weeks or so, so I hope our budget makes it!

I only had to buy a few things at Winco. I bought 4 boxes of tea, 2 for school and 2 for home, hamburger buns, Ritz crackers, bananas, and 4 boxes of Lil’ Debbie Nutty Bars.

We were running low on snacks that could be used for school lunches so that’s where a lot of the money went.  Snacks aren’t cheap.  Because Costco now takes Visa, I charged our purchase there for points and then took the money and put it in a jar to use to pay off the credit card bill when it comes due.  Winco only accepts cash or debit so I paid cash there.

Yesterday I also had to give The Boy $15 out of our house “petty cash” to pay for a Leadership shirt for school. He is in Leadership and expected to participate in all of the activities so we needed to buy the shirt. Unfortunately, our school budget envelope is currently depleted so I had to take that money from somewhere else.  (I also have to pay $60 for a field trip for The Boy, $40 for him, $20 for a parent chaperone, and I’m not quite sure where that money is going to come from.)

I’m a little nervous… only $213 to last over 3 weeks. That leaves me with about $71 per week.  I need to get to Walmart and buy The Girl conditioner. She is all out. She has 3 bottles of shampoo yet so at one point I must have bought 4 shampoos instead of 2 and 2 like I had intended. Normally, this would come out of our essentials envelope, but in September we pay for toiletries with our grocery budget. Other than that, I can’t think of too much more I would need to buy that isn’t food related.  I should be able to stretch $71… wish me luck.

No-spend September Update

This has already been a very challenging no-spend month for us.

First of all, we did buy our kids' school pictures, which we choose to do every year even though many people think they are a waste of money. In the days of film cameras many people didn't have their pictures taken and printed often. Many people would argue that today, in the days of digital cameras, that's not the case. I would argue, however, that it's the opposite. Because of digital cameras, a lot of people take pictures, but very few print them out.  Anyway, long story short, this cost us $93. Of that $93, we had $50 in cash in our school budget envelope and we will just pay the rest.

On Saturday, we went to our local Farmer's Market and spent $41.50 of our $400 food budget for the month. At the Farmer's Market, we allowed each kid to pick out a small treat to eat.  That is included in the $41.50.The Boy picked out a piece of alligator jerky and The Girl chose some homemade salted caramel marshmallows.  Soon we need to make a trip to Costco to get milk, bread, and some snacks.

On Saturday we had to make multiple trips "out of town", about 30 minutes away and so got gas in my car beforehand.  We put $37 of gas into my car and that is also included in our gas budget for the month.

The above are all normal spending during our No-spend September, however with our kitchen situation, we have already had to eat out twice this month... That makes me sad.  The first time was after church Saturday evening. We had to go to my sister's and brother-in-law's house to pick up some to more kitchen cabinets that he has completed.  By the time we would have been done, we wouldn't have gotten home until about 8:00 pm and since we had planned to grill that night, we wouldn't have been able to eat until 8:30. We did choose a cheap option and ate at Taco Bell.  The next night we were invited to a friend's house to barbecue, but we opted to stay home and spend more time working on the kitchen. We dropped The Kids off at our friend's house and we went over later. Cooking for two is no fun so we opted to grab Taco Bell on the way to our friend's house later that night.

These aren't excuses, just explanations. I do think this is going to be the most challenging No-spend September we have ever had. Having no kitchen definitely puts a cramp in our style and takes the importance of planning to a whole new level.

I'm hoping that going forward, we will do a better job of planning and not eating out. We have plenty of food and for the remaining 3 weeks of the month I want to make sure that we are honoring our goals for our no-spend month.

Off hand, I can't think of anymore unplanned spending we will have for the month and I hope we are able to save money to help pay for the kitchen and to make sure we aren't spending any money unnecessarily.