Author Archives: Sheila

Back to the Basics!

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I have been living on a budget for many years, at least that I what I thought in my head.  I can’t even begin to count the number of articles, blogs, books etc that I have read over the years about reducing debt and living on less, at one point we even DVR Dave Rasmey so I should have this budgeting and getting out of debt thing down right? WRONG!! Oh boy is that WRONG!

First of all, living paycheck to paycheck and living on a budget are two very different things.  I have tried and mostly succeeded living paycheck to paycheck. The easy part for me if we don’t have it then we don’t get it. I am a master at juggling money. This month I am learing that living on a budget is a different beast, yes I have the money to cover this but that will put me over budget which  means I have to move the money from something else or simply make the choice to say no! The case in point here is that I still have $17 in my grocery budget for the month but I will not be adding to the grocery budget until February 14th due to my pay schedule, that leave 4 and 1/2 weeks for $17 to last, in addition to still wanting to buy some chips and drinks for our Super Bowl party! Next up is gas, I was excited to think that I only need to place $80 in the gas fund this week until I realized that mean I would have no gas money until February 14th as well. So I had to redo the budget for my 3rd January check to add in gas money to be used in February.

Next on the list of things I should know about money management but don’t/have forgotten is that if you know about an expense in advance, it is not an emergency and needs to be planned for. The mess up that I have corrected in this area is pool dues. They are currently not due till April but  I must make a plan to pay for them rather than just   “finding” money when they are due.

Finally, the one thing that I learned this weekend that is most upsetting and frustrating. Check each bill especially credit card statements to make sure the amount of interest you are paying. After working on a debt reduction plan and actually starting the plan in December, I was again revisiting some numbers and decided to check the amount due on our Chase Card. This account has been closed for several years, I receive the online statement and make payments on-line. I usually look at the statement’s first page when paying. As I was checking the statement for a pay off amount this time, and started looking for the interest rate. I almost feel out of  my chair 29.99%!!! I was so upset, how and why had I not seen this before. GRRR! So instead of paying off interest free medical bills my focus is eliminating Chase from our lives.  I am almost sick at the idea that for the past year I have been paying this outrageous interest rate!! My new debt goal is to get rid of Chase this month!

What’s Up 1/10/13

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  • It has been a sad week at our house. One of our neighbors passed away on Monday after a battle with cancer. We are closer to this neighbor than most as they have a son who is Haley’s age. We actually carpool for several years, the wife made our wedding cake and Haley’s dress for the wedding as well. Haley and I attended the visitation last night. It was hard and of course I didn’t know what to say but that is okay because I realize it was not about me! Another family that could use some prayer is Elizabeth and her son Jacob at http://trenchesofmommyhood.blogspot.com/ .  I have never met her but read her blog and know she would appreciate it!
  • I am finding that by using the envelope system on my Iphone I am keeping much better track of my spending especially in regards to groceries. I made a huge trip today to Food Lion to stock up on some items. But that will be the last one of the month because I only have $18 left in the budget for the month. I am determined that I will not go over, even if I have to end up missing a couple of deals over the next several weeks. I am also thinking toward making February “eat out of the pantry month”. This will mean I can reduce my budget to $100 and use the extra to pay off some more debt? Not quite sure if that will work or not but I will  make that decision after the next 3 week with less than $5 a week to spend on groceries!
  • Matt has a really good job in the works! This is awesome and a definite answer to prayer. I also am starting to pick up a couple of hours at the nursing home so I am excited to see how much we will pay off in debt/outstanding medical bills by the end of January.
  • Lily has a cheerleading competition this weekend. It is only an hour away so I am excited to see them perform!

 

Decluttering/How I spent my Saturday

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Last summer, we spent $1000 and did alot of updating to our house. One of the first changes was to move Zach to his own bedroom, giving Matt his office. Since then, I have been noticing how little storage room, is actually in the office and how much “stuff” ends up on the desk. Last week, I came up with the idea to move the server up high above one window to give us some more space it worked!photo (13)

So while completing this task, we came up with several more ideas for shelves and moving items around.  We did end up spending around $60 total for all the new items but I think the results are well worth it. It feels like we have twice the space, we now have all the records in the office, instead of the playroom and everything has a space.  Here is a peak:

the back wall

the back wall

over the desk

over the desk

front wall with a better view of the new shelves. Matt plans to paint these this week.

front wall with a better view of the new shelves. Matt plans to paint these this week.

 

 

 

 

Day In the Life- Eating Like You Are Rich While Shopping Like You Are Poor

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Today is the first Thursday of the month, this was good news for us in several areas. First it was my first paycheck of the year, which I was really unsure about because of taxes and some major changes I made this year during open benefit enrollment. I was pleasantly surprised today. Next the news keeps getting better, I will be receiving one of my “extra” paychecks this month as well. Because I am paid every 2 weeks, 2 months during the year we receive this “extra” check. Our budget is based on the 2 checks a month so it makes this an extra” check. Matt and I sat and looked at our budget this morning and currently the plan is to pay off 4 of our outstanding debts with this check. I will definitely let you know when this happens. After paying bills and getting excited that we actually are ahead this month, it was off to the grocery store. Thank you, Matt for the second part of the title.

I have mentioned before that currently we have quite a bit stockpiled but that I felt our stockpile lacked meat. One of the stops that I have been wanting to explore was our local meat processing plant. We decided to head there first today. I am so glad we did. We were able to purchase 18 “meals” of meat for $115.00. WOW! Last stop of the morning, Food Lion. They are currently having their house brand sale for each “house brand” item you buy you earn 0.25 toward your next order. I have spent probably an hour collecting coupons and working out the 2 transaction. We ended up spending  $43 and saving $49 or 54%. I used most of the Catalina that I collect over the past week. I also added 4 additional meals of frozen shrimp to the list. So all together today, we have spent around $165 of our grocery budget but really have enough meat for an entire month!!!

I do have to add a final shopping trip in it was on Wednesday to CVS. I needed make up removal wipes. I expected to receive 5ECB due to the beauty club purchases I made on Sunday. I was not expecting to receive 8.50 in quarterly ECB or a $4 of 20 facial care purchase. I was able to grab enough wipes for probably 3 months and spent $1.35, 94% savings!!!

Saving at Food Lion

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Last Thursday, a friend let me know that Food Lion (our only grocery store in town) had put out a gift. A coupon $5 off $5 purchase, this coupon was available from their website in a pdf file. So I took advantage of this and print some to use. The expiration date on the coupon was 12/29/2013, I realized that this was probably a mistake. After a day the company corrected the date to read 1/1/2013.  I knew that it would take a few days for the company to stop excepting these. But also thought I will use as long as they let me, the gravy train stopped tonight.  I am sad but not surprised. I have been able to treat the family with items like potato chips, cookies and ice cream over the past week.

I/We stopped a total of 10 times to use this coupon, spending a total of $9.23, saving 67.99 or 88%. I could qualify for extreme couponing with this one!  Most of the transactions ended up costing less than $1 except for the one I completed on Sunday afternoon. In the process of using these coupons, Catalina have been printing at the end of each trip. I wanted to know if they would limit the number of these I could use so I tried. I purchased a roast $6.54(using a $1.50 off $6 meat purchase), a bag of shredded lettuce $1.99 and 3 tomatoes $1.48(using a $1 off $3 of produce), 4 2L drinks of store brand $0.83 each(coupons for $0.75 off three, the fourth was to raise my total), 2L Diet Coke$1.66 (Free with minimum $10 purchase). I had a $1.50 off $15 and the $5 off 5. My total came to $3.83. The current plan is to go for one more trip to Food Lion on Thursday, they are having their brand sale that basically gives you $0.25 off each of their brand items you buy. I will be stocking up on mustard and ketchup as well as using the rest of my Catalinas.

On a very personal note, I have been able to do something with everyone of my 2013 goals today!

 

Year in Review 2012

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Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month

December this is the 12th post this month. After reviewing the year, I am still averaging around 12 post a month. I will continue this goal for 2013.

 

Devotions: Goal is 3 a week.

December; I  have manage to keep up with this goal again this month.!! So for the year this is achieved as well. The plan for next year is to increase to 5x a week. My mother gave me a devotional book for Christmas. It has a link that allows you to read on your phone as well as the printed version. This should make this goal very doable. The only issue I see is that it is a morning devotional book and we all know how much I like mornings but maybe this is just what I need to get in a routine.

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.

Total utter failure.. So I will try again in 2013.

 

As you can see after reading the last couple of post. I have made significant progress and achieved a couple of the goals but there is still room for improvement. I am going to continue the same areas for goals in the next year.   Do you want to share your goals?

Financial Update- 2012

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Goal: To be Debt free except for mortgage by the end of the year. This was established prior to our learning of the significant financial changes that are occurring so I am trusting God to provide direction in this area. Currently we are focused on meeting budget each month!

When establishing this goal last year there were two major problems. The first was that I honestly has no clue what amount that we had in debts. I was afraid to look at it. I did have to look in order to pay off the debt. The beginning number was close to 15,000.  The second problem was that I knew we would be losing the steady income. I was not sure exactly when but I knew it would happen. We did have some significant financial changes this year, the biggest of which is that Matt is no longer receiving a steady income. He has built several websites, with a couple more in the works so this has and is probably going to change more for the positive this year. So  this is not a goal we have been able to meet this year but we have made significant progress toward it. Currently we have around 7500 in outstanding debt other than our mortgage.  We have established a budget, started an emergency fund and are working steadily on playing off this remaining debt.

I am going to keep and update this goal for 2013. Our financial goal will contain 3 parts for 2013. First to pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June, second to increase our Emergency fund to $2000 by December 2013 and most importantly to maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system where all events are planned for and we don’t end up “borrowing” to cover these expenses.  All envelopes will start at 0 at the beginning of the year because my first paycheck is Jan 3rd so this is an easy time to put this in motion.

Groceries- Year End Update

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Over the final few days of 2012, I am going to review each of the goals that I set this year  as well as update and establish new goals for 2013. I am excited to be able to see in black and white some of the huge steps and reaching of goals that we have been able to achieve.

Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

First I want to report on December, currently we are sitting right at the $800 mark for the month. This includes items for Lily’s birthday, a dinner for 20 people last Sunday, newspaper subscription for the year and a purchase of chicken tenders from Zaycon foods. The local store Food Lion, has this awesome coupon out for $5 off $5. The limit is set at one per day. So we have been using it every day since I discovered on Thursday. I am not sure how long they will continue to allow its use, I am sure the expiration date is a misprint of 12/29/13. So I am plan to stop by each time we pass a store, which is at least once day. I have printed enough coupons for Matt and I both to use on a daily basis. So far we are having fun buying some items that we normal would not splurge on as tight as the grocery budget it. Checking the stockpile, we could honest eat from our fridge and freezer for a month with purchasing only diary, bread and meat. However I know this will not be happening in January as I have already heard that both Food Lion will run a special promotion the first 2 weeks of January as well as my favorite store to shop Harris Teeter.    GOAL MET FOR DECEMBER!

For the year we have spent $8617 or approximately $715 a month on groceries. This is a significant drop from last year where we spent $9900 or $825  a month. Some of the changes this year include Zaycon Foods, more careful couponing on my part, Amanda living on her own and the fact that we are no longer buying diapers!!!!!  GOAL MET for 2012!!

So what is next?  My goal for 2013 is to spend $600 a month on groceries. I am going to be using the envelope system as well, which will increase the accuracy of all the totals.   I don’t think this will be an easy goal. As I have mentioned earlier my stockpile is really full at this point so I am only buying items at stock up prices except for meat, and with the coupons that Food Lion is currently releasing I am positive that at least for January this goal will be met!

Grocery Goal for 2013 $600 a month this includes cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.   This will also include supplies for our square foot garden and the purchase of any coupons.