Adventures in Money Land

So, I've been away for a bit

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:28:00 +0000

My poor blog has been abandoned!

I kind of got sidetracked last year with the preoccupation of starting a small business last year, that any sort of regular posting on here was neglected.

I had 7 posts last year, the "Year of Savings". Now I'd like to touch on each of those to comment on where we are now.

Year of the Savings: We didn't save as much as we would have liked, and are actually in the process of rebuilding our emergency fund that we dipped into to pay for a conference that we attended at the end of the year. I know, it wasn't really an emergency, but we figured we rather do that than go into debt. Why not save up for it? Well, the conference was only allowing 300 people, and we wanted to make sure that our spots were reserved.

Year of the Savings Update: The biggest thing in this post was worrying/thinking about paying for my husband to travel to his 10 year high school reunion. Well, that didn't end up happening. We decided it wasn't worth it, for one thing, and ended up shooting a wedding on that date anyway.

New Car, New Debt: Last March, I blogged about finally having to bite the bullet, and get a used car. We are 11 months into a 60 month car loan. At first, we were thinking that we'd take out the 3 year loan, but I'm glad that we went with the 5 year, 'cuz that would have been rough on the budget. We definitely plan to pay the car off early.

Insurance? Sure, after you cough up the dough! At the end of March, I discussed our first time really having to use our insurance. At least we didn't have to go into debt to pay the bills. They just had a meeting at my husband's work about insurance, and the deductibles are going up once again from $3,800 from last year, to $5,600 this year. Our monthly premium is suppose to go down a few dollars, though. We are still contributing to our HSA (health savings account) each pay period, and put the bonus that my husband got this year directly into that account, tax free. His employer has yet to resume their monthly contributions, and we aren't banking on that to happen anytime soon. Gotta be grateful for any kind of insurance, right?

No Vacations: We didn't go on any real vacations in 2010. (But, oh boy, was there a lot of daydreaming and wishing about the places I wanted to go.) We did go to the aforementioned conference (in state) and stayed in a hotel, so in a way, we had a semi-vacation expense wise.

Not going anywhere this year made me realize the intrinsic value of going on a vacation, doing just that- vacating your life for a period of time. How important it is to get that change of scenery. Hmm, so I'll leave it at that. Who knows where, or if, we will go this year?

Entertainment fat : Well, we got rid of HBO ($13), but turned around and got Netflix (now $10.94). As far as Netflix is concerned, I could take it or leave it, but the hubs really likes it, so I guess we're keeping it for now.

At the start of this year, I was thisclose to cancelling our cable subscription. Not because I don't watch it enough to justify the expense (about $80/month), but that I watch too much, and I felt like it was interfering with my productivity with other ventures. The real reason I haven't pulled the plug on cable, because we really enjoy being able to follow are local sports teams, and events on channels like ESPN. It's still on my mind, though.

Snowflaking coupon savings: Last May, I wrote about snowflaking the savings from coupons. I am still doing that, every time I use coupons at the store, when I get home, I transfer that amount to my emergency fund. I also do that for cast back rewards, and monies from surveys, etc. A little bit here, a little bit there really adds up. The key is to send it straight there, and act like you never got it.

Goals for 2011:

-Get emergency fund back to "baby fund" status (e.g. $1,000) Currently at a little under $500.
-Pay extra to car loan. Currently at around $12,000.
- Look into possibly rolling over Sharebuilder Roth IRA to a Vanguard account.

I want to keep this year's list short and sweet; of the highest priority.

Here's to a great year!

Snowflaking my coupon savings

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:41:00 +0000

For the past couple of months, I've been snowflaking to our emergency fund any cash back from our credit card (1% of purchases), and any survey monies from Pinecone, and Inbox dollars.

Now I have another source to snowflake money to savings- coupon savings!

I've never really been a couponer, mainly because I wasn't receiving the newspaper, and I didn't really bother with online coupons. Now that I am getting the paper at home every week, I've been cutting the coupons for items that I go out to Walmart and buy anyway. Items like toothpaste, deodorant, razors, feminine hygiene products, cereals, etc.

It didn't occur to me that I could snowflake the savings until I read a recent blog post on The Simple Dollar site.

Yay for more snowflakes!

It's the small things in life.

Cutting the fat in the budget

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:14:00 +0000

A couple of nights ago, we made the call. We had to say goodbye to HBO.

It was time.

Wasn't worth the $14 a month to keep it. Plus, we've been busy trying to build our photography business in the evenings and on weekends, so we really haven't had the time (or desire really) to watch some movies on demand. Besides, we've got plenty on regular cable to watch whenever we want to sit down and watch something.

I thought about cutting down to just basic, but then I wouldn't get my local sports channel so I could watch the Hornets!

Our expenses have gone up lately, a car note to pay every month now, and with that a $50 increase to our monthly car insurance premium.

At least this is a (small) start to offset some of it.

No vacations this year, so how about a staycation? Hmm, maybe we should just stay home!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:38:00 +0000

I had said this year was the Year of the Savings in an earlier blog this year. Oh, but in my head, I've had several vacations planned out. Florida for our anniversary, to an outlet mall in Mississippi one weekend for a shopping trip, taking our new (to us) car to faraway lands on some grand adventure.... The bubble then bursts, and I'm brought back to reality. Hmm, just not in the budget this year.

But a girl still wants to have fun, go and do, and see!

Well, one of the things that I have been doing that is very frugal, is following the games of our local NBA team, the New Orleans Hornets. They televise the games on a local cable station, and I've watched almost every one since the beginning of the year, which is like a game every other day on average. We stay at home, watch the games, and don't spend money.

When we stay home.

What we've been doing that hasn't been that frugal is actually going to the games!

A staycation of sorts.

The actual ticket prices aren't bad, $11.25/per person (including taxes, etc). But, it's the gas -driving 1 hour and a half one way-the food there, meals out, parking, and any other miscellaneous thing is what adds up. We went to a game this past weekend, and walked around the city before hand, ate lunch there, then went to the game, and we calculated that it cost us about $80 for the day with parking, food, etc.

So, yeah, we've kind of been feeling a squeeze on our budget by our going to the games (3 times in 2 months).

Luckily for my wallet, the season is almost over, lol.

Feeling the pinch on our healthcare dollars

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:14:00 +0000

Let me just start this post by stating that I am very thankful for the insurance coverage that we do have, and that I know if we didn't have the insurance that we have now, we'd have to pay a whole lot more.

That being said, I'd just like to talk about our recent experience really using our PPO high deductible with a Health Savings Account (HSA) insurance.

We have a family deductible of $3800 for the year. So far this year, only a quarter of the way through the year, we'v spent over $1,000 towards our deductibles. My husband had to visit the doctors several times for a few different minor (thank goodness) issues. The bills for those things still keep coming in. I think we'll rack up close to $1,500 once the dust settles. Luckily, we've been able to bankroll, and dip into savings to cover these bills and haven't gone into debt because of them.

What about the HSA, which is suppose to help offset those costs by already having the amount of our yearly deductible saved in the account? Hmm, yeah...Well, that's the theory, anyway. (And by the way, all our dental and vision expenses have come out of the HSA as his company doesn't offer dental or vision coverage. I've looked a little bit into getting extra policies on our own, but I haven't crunched the numbers enough to decide if it's worth it. *sigh*)

So, yeah, it's mainly our fault for not having the $3800 saved up for times like these. Well, what happened was...my husband's employer was contributing $100/month to the HSA. At the time we weren't contributing anything (regret that now). Towards the end of last year, due to the economy, they couldn't afford those contributions, so they stopped. Around that time, my husband started visiting the doctors, and then we started contributing $100/month ourselves to the HSA. We haven't been able to get a good surplus up again, because as we put in money, here comes another bill.

I can't imagine the bills to have a child. We'll probably end up paying the whole $3,800. At least I know that ahead of time, so we can prepare and save.

Well, we've learned our lesson. We're going to continue to put in our $100 a month, and kick in more when we can, and hopefully his company will be able to resume contributing what they were soon.

March: New month, new debt

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:50:00 +0000

Yes, we've become slaves to the lender once again.

Well, my 19 year old Honda Civic, affectionately called "The Blue Bomb" was officially put into the unreliable category once it started needing to be jumped every time we wanted to drive it. Not good. So, I gave it to my dad who wants to tinker around with it.

I'd say the car served its purpose well for 18 months.

We had decided that our next vehicle was going to be a newer used car, which we were going to buy from Enterprise. We're all about that haggle free buying. Originally, we were looking at the Nissan Sentras, but once we got to the lot, we saw a Hyundai Sonata, for what we thought was a really good deal- $13,600 for a 2009 with 32,000 miles. Sold. We had wanted the Altima, but had decided on the Sentra because of the price, but with the Sonata, we got Altima size, with Sentra (well a little more) price. Sold.

We went with the conventional five year loan, and planned on paying it like a 3 year loan, but I think we just need to sock that money away in the car fund so we can have the option of paying a big chunk of the loan later, or using that money to help replace our second car down the road.

I have to say, with neither one of us ever having a car loan before, having this around our neck for (potentially) the next 5 years sucks. I don't like it one bit. You could say I have a little bit of buyers remorse. I go back and forth on it. Yeah, we could have waited a couple of more months and saved more, and went with a cheaper car, but who knows, by then we might have had 2 cars officially in the unreliable category (my 2000 Saturn is or about to be on its last leg). It was time to put the Saturn in retirement as a second, "around town" car. And the Blue Bomb decided that for us.

It IS actually nice to get in the new car and go, without one single worry about wear and tear of your car, and will today be the day when it lays down on us? So, from that perspective, it's given us peace of mind.

Did we make the right choice? I dunno, time will tell.

Year of the Savings, so far...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:15:00 +0000

In large part, 2008 was all about paying off consumer debt.
2009 was our lax year, we bought some photography equipment, and took a few trips.
In 2010, our goal is to save as much as we can for upcoming expenses, mainly a newer vehicle.

The other day, I got the itch of the travel bug. I had pretty much decided that we were going to take a weekend trip to visit a relative about 4 hours from where we live. We'd have to rent a car, and get a hotel, plus gas, food, etc. Then I got to thinking about it, and decided against that idea. We needed to recommit to our goal of cutting out all unnecessary trips, and just lay low for 2010, saving money.

The only trip that we might have to fund is my husband's 10 year high school reunion. He'd be the only one to go, and wouldn't have to pay for a place to stay. It's not 100% yet that he'll go, but we are preparing for the event that he does.

To help with our savings goals this year, I'm making an adjustment in my thinking in regards to our car fund. I am going to really treat our monthly "car payment" to our car fund as such- a payment that we HAVE to pay every month, just like a regular note to a bank. Last year, there were some months that I used that allocated money for other things. I want to adhere to this strictly each month this year. When we first thought of having to pay for my husband's airfare to his reunion, my first thought, was "oh, we'll just use the car fund money for that month to pay for the ticket." But, if that were a real bill, I realized, I wouldn't have that luxury of not paying. So, now, I'm just siphoning money into his travel fund, little by little, chunk by chunk. Even if that chunk is $5 or $10.

If I think about a whole year of just saving, that can seem pretty long and daunting, but hey, it's already February! I'm sure I'll get travel fever (or camera lens envy) another time or two (or three, or four) throughout 2010, but I'm keeping my eye on the prize.

The tortoise, not the hare, always wins the race.

2010: New Year, New Decade

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0000

The end of the year, the end of a decade!

In the 2009, we paid off the last of our consumer debt, and I'm glad to report we have not accumulated any additional consumer debt since then. That was at the beginning of the year, and after that, we kind of slacked off from debt repayment. Thus, the lack of posts as of late.

Since then, we've bought some equipment for our photography hobby (which we want to turn into a side business), and went on a couple of vacations.

Now that we've gotten some stuff out of our system, I was feeling renewed again to set another financial goal for the new year. I really would like to set the goal of paying off the first of the 3 remaining student loans that we have, $12,000 roughly.

But, I can't get overzealous here.

We have some potential medical bills coming down the pike that'd we need to save for (hello, high deductible health insurance).

Also in the mix is the inevitable replacement of one or both of our vehicles. I'd like to pay cash, but for right now aiming for a decent down payment. We want to get a good, reliable used car that is only a couple of years old. We're still nursing them along, and have decided not to put anymore major investment into either one of them.

I think the best bet for right now is to just set money aside that we allot each month into savings, so we'll be able to contend with these things as they come up, instead of socking all of it to the student loan each month- like I'd love to do.

The intent is to start eradicating that loan as soon as it is possible. I'd like to start keeping my $126/month instead of sending it to Sallie Mae!

I'm gonna put up a progress bar for reminder and encouragement- even if it's several months before we can start paying it down.

Here's to the start of a great year! Happy New Year!

Swagbucks

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:01:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, I signed up for Swagbucks after reading online about it for awhile. (By the way, this isn't a sponsored/paid post.)

I have to say, that I'm quite impressed. I've already earned enough points to redeem for a $5 Barnes and Nobles gift card, and $10 through PayPal through every day searches that I would do anyway. Right now for 70 Swagbucks, you can get $5 CASH through PayPal. Nice!

It doesn't take long at all to rack up those points.

Check out Swagbucks, if you haven't already!

Recyling attempt: FAIL

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:35:00 +0000

In April, I blogged about getting back into recycling again. Well, to clarify, not actually taking the time to put recyclables into recycling bins, instead of trash, but the act of hauling 4 or 5 bins of recyclables one Saturday of the month between the hours of 8am-12pm- 20 minutes from my house- to a drop off station.

I know, in the grand scheme of things, it's a small price to pay. I guess I'm just too darn lazy. And I'm not a morning person, especially on Saturdays.

Before moving to where we live now, I was the Recycle Queen.

I got my mom and sister to start recycling.

It didn't faze me one bit to have bin after bin, box after box of recycling stacked in our tiny studio apartment, because on Recycle Drop Off day, it was only a couple of minutes drive.

Is there good news on the horizon?

Last week, my Mom told me that she heard on the radio that our area might get a recycling program!

Oh, please do so! Cuz I want to be able to recycle from where we live now!

Half year update- better late than never

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:23:00 +0000

Hello! Long time, no blog. Over the last several months, I've taken up several hobbies (quilting, knitting, and photography) that have gotten me sidetracked from this blog. And honestly, ever since we've paid off our consumer debt, the momentum has been lost to post frequently. My main goal of this blog is for me to take time to pause and reflect on our current and future financial goals.

Here's where we are since we last checked in from the quarter year review (in blue are the updates):

Front burner goals:
These are goals that we would like to see happen first, and preferably in this order.

1. Pay off consumer debt ($1694.71). This was originally scheduled to be paid off by May 2009, but I'm anticipating sooner than that. (In the middle of that save about $1,000 for a trip to San Antonio in March for brother's graduation.) Yes. Paid off consumer debt in February. Paid for trip to San Antonio with cash. Same.

2. Get E-fund back up to $1,000. Yes. Got e-fund back up to $1,000 base. Same.

3. Save for and buy a DSLR camera. Yes, hubby bought his camera that he'd been waiting/saving for in cash in March. Same.

4. Get e-fund to $3,000. Not yet, but slowly. I've decided to put all extra monies here (cash back rewards, Pinecone, etc.)

5. Save for a trip to visit my good friend in California. This trip is in the works for September. Although we'd like to take this big grand adventure visiting different areas of the state, maybe a jaunt to Vegas- reality sets in- and we realize that that would be at the expense of our other savings goals, and it's just not in the cards at this point.

The plan is to see and explore around the LA area where my friend lives. This way we'll only have to pay for airfare, chipping in for gas, some food, any entrance fees, and souvenirs.
There are loads to see and do (many of them free) in that area. Overall, it'll be nice to visit with my friend, and get to see where she's been living the last several years.

Back burner goals:
These goals are listed as "back burner" but may later take precedence over any of those listed as "front burner".

1. Get e-fund to 6 months worth of expenses. Not yet. Same

2. Pay more than minimum payments to husband's student loan (current balance of 13,000). No. Same

3. Figure out what to do about husband's Roth contributions, which are currently on hold. I went ahead and resumed minimal contributions for his Roth. It'll probably be several years before we pay off the student loans/save for other things, so we felt that we should be contributing something in the meantime. Same.

4. Figure out what to do about our Automatic Savings Plans in ING. They're all on hold for right now, except HOA fees, which I scheduled to restart this month at $30. (So we'll be ready for the end of the year). I've started more ASPs in ING. Dog fund, Car fund, Travel fund, Household maintenance fund, and clothes fund. I know that I go back and forth with ASPs, but I think I'll stick to the plan with these. In the last couple of days I've had to go into the dog, car, and clothes funds. It was nice to have that set aside, and not worry about whether it would affect the budget.

**New goal** New to us car fund. This is really our next major goal, as we see this as prepaying a debt. Ideally, we'd like to pay for the car in cash, but that depends largely on how the two that we already have hold up. (10 and 18 year old cars). We're taking it day by day. After our trip, we'll funnel the money that we were putting towards travel fund each month to the car fund.

Hope you're having a great summer so far!

Somehow, I've managed to get another dog

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:42:00 +0000

The Universe really wanted me to get another dog. I mean, really. On a walk with our dog last week, a neighbor stops us to ask if we knew of anyone who might be interested in a little Chihuahua mix that she had rescued from roaming the streets. I did know someone- me! So, after meeting the little guy, we brought him home, and today we took him to the vet. They scan him... and he's got a microchip.

Oh nos! I've already gotten attached to the dog!

LONG story short, the dog ends up staying with us. The owner was working long hours; wasn't home a lot, and the dog kept escaping. So, we just asked if we could keep him, and they said yes!

Someone really wanted me to have him.

It was meant to be.

But, that, of course, means double the vet bills (eek!). Oh well, it's worth it.

Because of that, I really need to have my Vet funds account going again. I started putting away $50/month for their vet care. Just gotta do it- pay me now, or pay me later.

Earth Day Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Did anyone else see Oprah's Earth Day show yesterday? Heard about that garbage swirl in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas? Whoa.

I've definitely fallen off of the wagon as far as recycling. Before we moved to our house, we were so good about recycling everything we could. It wasn't a big deal to do so because we lived closer to the recycling drop off site. (Living in an apartment, we didn't have cubside pickup like the houses do.) Now that we've moved away from there, it's a little bit of a trek to drop off our recyclables (because our new city doesn't have curbside pickup), and we usually miss the 8am-12pm window of time to get over there to drop it off (that ONE Saturday out of the month.)

Those are all excuses, I need to get with the program here. (And so does the city where we live!)

So, I want to make a better, concerted effort to start back recycling. The planet will thank me.

No more mixer payments

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Remember when I blogged about getting talked into buying that Kitchen Aid mixer complete with 6 easy payments back in November? I'm glad to say this month was the final month that I had to budget a payment for the darn thing! Really glad about that.

I read somewhere, on a blog or something, that the road to hell is paved with easy payments (something to that effect), and I would have to agree.

We have been getting our money's worth out of it, though, and use it on a weekly basis, sometimes several times a week. It has it's own little corner of the kitchen that it hangs out in, mainly because it's too heavy to be putting it away constantly.

Goals: A quarterly update

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Now that we've started the new month of April, I wanted to sit down and see where we are with the goals that I posted in January. I feel really good with the progress we've made so far.

Front burner goals:
These are goals that we would like to see happen first, and preferably in this order.

1. Pay off consumer debt ($1694.71). This was originally scheduled to be paid off by May 2009, but I'm anticipating sooner than that. (In the middle of that save about $1,000 for a trip to San Antonio in March for brother's graduation.) Yes. Paid off consumer debt in February. Paid for trip to San Antonio with cash.

2. Get E-fund back up to $1,000. Yes. Got e-fund back up to $1,000 base.

3. Save for and buy a DSLR camera. Yes, hubby bought his camera that he'd been waiting/saving for in cash in March.

4. Get e-fund to $3,000. Nope, not yet.

5. Save for a trip to visit my good friend in California. Haven't started saving for this yet. We would like to go sometime early fall of this year. The situation will determine if we visit any additional places while there, or if it'll be just a bare bones kind of trip.

Back burner goals:
These goals are listed as "back burner" but may later take precedence over any of those listed as "front burner".

1. Get e-fund to 6 months worth of expenses. Not yet.

2. Pay more than minimum payments to husband's student loan (current balance of 13,000). No

3. Figure out what to do about husband's Roth contributions, which are currently on hold. I went ahead and resumed minimal contributions for his Roth. It'll probably be several years before we pay off the student loans/save for other things, so we felt that we should be contributing something in the meantime.

4. Figure out what to do about our Automatic Savings Plans in ING. They're all on hold for right now, except HOA fees, which I scheduled to restart this month at $30. (So we'll be ready for the end of the year). The only ASP that I've restarted is the Car Fund by making the car payment that we're "paying ourselves" each month automatic. Also, I'm putting all extras/found monies to the HOA fees fund until we reach the $360 that we need. Everything else is on hold as far as ASP. I might manually put away some each month for other things if I can/feel it's necessary.

A parting gift

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:32:00 +0000

I received an email earlier this week stating that we owed $4.31 to the last credit card that we had paid off. This was the accrued interest due from the last billing cycle.

Geez, leave me alone already.

I quickly scheduled the payment. That $4.31 felt like $43.31.

Well, finally, I can say, Areverderchi!

The slow cooker: my new best friend

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:10:00 +0000

I've had success this week making pulled pork sandwiches and ropa vieja with my new slow cooker. The recipes that I linked aren't the exact ones that I used (I just eye-balled the ingredients and put what I thought would taste good), so I can't vouch for those flavor combinations, but it gives you a basic idea.

It's nice to mix it up with different recipes; different ways of cooking meats every once in a while. Now I need to check online and at the library for more recipes!

Check out these posts by Squawkfox on 6 reasons to use a slow cooker, and slow cooker recipes, if you're interested.

Funding my new hobby

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:30:00 +0000

After making a couple of quilts in recent months, I've decided to pursue this hobby further and needed to get all my supplies in gear so I could work on my own projects at home (instead of driving to my parent's to use my Mom's stuff). It can be overwhelming when you first get started outfitting your sewing room/space and getting all your supplies in order. I've gotten some things for free, and try to buy the rest on sale, when possible.

Supplies/notions: My mom told me a while back that Hancock fabrics often had sales on their quilting notions (rotary cutter, rulers, thread, etc). We were able to catch a 50% off quilting notions sale a couple of weeks ago, so I was able to get all of my basic supplies for half the normal price-about $40.

Sewing machine: I had been doing some research on what kind of machine I was going to purchase, and had in mind to spend $300-$400. But, this past weekend, my mom's friend had an extra Kenmore sewing machine that she didn't need anymore because she upgraded, so she let me have her old one. I can use this one until I'm ready/need to purchase another one.

Fabric: As quilters know, getting your fabric stash built up is important. Good, quality fabrics can be quite costly. Luckily, the local quilt shops have days throughout the month, like the first Saturday of each month -Fat Quarter Saturday- where the fat quarter s are sold for half off. I'm planning on going with my Mom to the next Fat Quarter Saturday to start stocking up!

Patterns: There are scores and scores of free patterns online that you can download/view for free. So far, I've only bought one quilt pattern online for $4.00, half off from $8.00. I have several that I am borrowing from my Mom, so I have plenty of patterns on hand to start projects.

I'm excited to get started!

Resisting impulse purchases

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Last night I had a moment in Walmart, in which I almost bought half of the kitchen supply aisle. In the end, I was able to keep it in check, and not walk out of there with my budget blown.

About 90% of our kitchen is outfitted with things that were given to us, or stuff that I got from Goodwill when I was buying supplies for my first apartment in college. (I still use a mixing bowl and liquid measuring cup that I got from there.) We have several items that we need/want to buy for our kitchen. So, when we were in the store last night, we about lost our minds, browsing the aisle imagining ourselves using those items in our kitchen. In a matter of seconds we had 5 or 6 items-mixing bowls, bakeware, etc. in the shopping cart. I snapped out of it, and promptly put all but one item back (a bundt pan for a cake that I want to make) . Sure, it'd be nice to have those things, and we need some of them, but we can continue to make do with what we already have. Since we just bought the slow cooker this past weekend, we decided we could stand to hold off on other kitchen supplies for now.

We're paying a car payment now...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:21:00 +0000

To ourselves!

Now that we are out of credit card debt, we've decided that we need to start funneling some money towards the saving of our next vehicle. I've gone back and forth on how we should go about saving for this goal. Should we go "gazelle-like" intense, or little by little?

For now, what we've decided to do is, starting this month, pay ourselves a $300 "car payment" each month. We're going to treat it like a bill that we would have if we went out and bought a car now. Our intention is to buy our next vehicle outright. If the time came where we would need to purchase a newer vehicle, and didn't have enough funds to buy it outright, we'd concentrate all funds towards the car fund, and my husband would use our second car until we would have enough to purchase another vehicle. That's the plan anyway.

Paid Twice has a similar post on her blog about debt elimination vs. savings. I liked what one commenter said about looking at saving for the car as paying off a debt in advance. 'Cuz either way you're gonna end up paying for it, might as well start saving now.

Vacation recuperation

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:45:00 +0000

This week I have been all out of whack. Vacation will do that to you. For the past two weeks my husband and I have been traveling around together, first on assignment for my husband's work, and then 6 days in Texas for my brother's BMT graduation festivities. Being pretty frugal, and used to going a week, week and a half, without spending any money, it kind of rubs you the wrong way to be doling out money for food, gas, and entertainment sometimes several times a day while on vacation.

When we got back home, I did not want to go grocery shopping. I needed a spending moratorium. So, this was a food stretch; pantry clean out week for me. At first I didn't think I had enough supplies to last a couple of days, but I made it to Friday. I made a pot of beans on Monday that gave us a couple of meals- dinner, a lunch for my husband, and two lunches for me. Tuna sandwiches on Tuesday. Homemade pizza on Wednesday (a cup of wheat flour this time to make it a little healthier). Yesterday I was browsing websites and cookbooks to kind of meal plan meals for next week, and I came across a recipe for turkey meatloaf, and then I remembered that I had some ground turkey in the freezer. Score! So, turkey meatloaf, with mashed potatoes (I used up all my potatoes before they went bad!) and broccoli was Thursday's dinner.

I'm going to have to go grocery shopping tonight. We don't even have any milk for cereal, and have run out of some of my essential veggies that I need for cooking! *edit* I went to the store and forgot milk. Doh!

A while back, I went on a tangent, and made a big shopping list for several new recipes that I wanted to try. Well, needless to say, I only got around to making like 2 of them that week. I ended up having to throw some things out because I didn't get around to using them for the other recipes. So, what I'm starting to do now, is when I make a list of recipes that I want to prepare in the upcoming days, I'll choose 3 or 4 that I normally cook, and then 1 or 2 new ones to buy for- that way it's not so overwhelming. And of course, pick up some basic staples like beans and rice that I know can sit in the pantry for a while.

This week's new recipe is pulled pork sandwiches. I had one of these on vacation, and they were so good. Basically, it's slow cooked pork shoulder with some bbq sauce on a sandwich bun. There are different seasonings and flavors to the pulled pork that you can play around with. I want to invest in a slow cooker (I've seen that you can get a decent one for like $30), and hopefully find other slow cooker recipes that we enjoy. *edit* Tonight I got an electronic slow cooker that I liked at Target for $40.

Back from trip and under budget

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:15:00 +0000

We got back from our trip to my brother's basic training graduation Sunday evening. I've run the numbers, and we just made it under budget. Yay! We estimated that we would have spent about $1,000, and that was right on target. We stayed under budget, even with a little restaurant "mishap". We stopped over the first night at a friend of my husband's, and ended up going to a Brazilian steak house with them. The valet parking was a red flag (at least to me), but we still went in, and nearly fainted when we saw the bill- $221 for 4 people. (We split the bill). There weren't any prices on the menu, so we had no clue. The way the restaurant worked was there was an all you could eat salad bar, and then waiters would come to your table to cut and serve you different types of meat, which was also all you could eat. So, yeah, this was probably a ONCE in a lifetime dining experience for us. After the initial shock, we had lots of laughs and jokes about this the rest of the evening.

In other updates:

Baby e-fund: Back to being fully funded from tax refund.

Extras: Instead of funneling any found monies to the e-fund, like I have been doing, I'm putting it toward our Hoa fees fund. ($3 so far :))

Phone: I finally had to break down and buy another cell phone after my old flip phone broke in half after I dropped it. Had to pay an $18 upgrade fee, and $10 after rebate for the phone. I held out for as long as I could!

Next up: eye appointment for me tomorrow (and possibly new glasses), and hubby's camera. Left over tax return money will help fund these. I'm anxious to see how the whole glasses ordeal will go down. I'm tired of spending money!

$5 magazine subscriptions!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:59:00 +0000

I was just browsing through my Google reader, and came across this post from Tricia at Blogging Away Debt about a $5 magazine sale at Hearst Magazines.

As you know, I love reading magazines. I can't believe I got O, the Oprah Magazine for $5- now that's a bargain! I also got Smart Money. Nice!

And another one bites the dust.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:43:00 +0000

We did it. We're credit card debt free! Yesterday I sent in the last payment of $800 to finish off paying $8,000 in 8 months.

Although I'd like to keep the momentum going with the debt snowball for our next debts: student loans, I think we need to turn our attention to saving up for a new to us car. We'd like to pay cash for our next vehicle, so our goal is to save at least $10,000. We're also planning on taking a trip to California to visit my friend sometime in late summer/early fall. I go back and forth with the logistics of these plans on a daily basis. I'm just going to take it a day at a time, and see how it goes.

An update on filing state taxes: For some reason, we were going to get about $300 more refund through Turbotax than what the free e-file through the State said we were going to get back. My husband double, and triple checked everything. So, we went ahead and filed through Turbotax. The taxes are done! We should be receiving the federal refund this week, and state next week.

Taxes

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah F.) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:30:00 +0000

We finally filed our taxes this week, using Turbotax. We've used them for the past several years, and really like the service. While I tend to handle the everyday finances and budgeting, my husband really takes the reigns when it's comes to doing the taxes. I guess because it's a little more exciting? I dunno.

The cost to e-file was $32.80 for federal. Estimated time of delivery to our checking account is February 20. We decided to do free e-file (but haven't yet) through the state's website for state taxes, it would have cost $35 through Turbotax. No thanks. We're getting something back from state this year- last year we ended up owing.

Speaking of taxes, I ended up having to pay some "stupid tax" yesterday. I just now, this month, took care of paying the tax, title, and license fees for the $500 car that we bought back in August 2008. Having never bought a car or done any title transfer before this, I didn't know that I had only 40 days to pay it until I started racking up fees and interest. So, basically I had to pay double ($130) for the tax, title, and license than I would have if I would have gone to take care of it right away. Lesson learned! By the way, that little car has been holding up pretty good. I've been nursing it along as my little around town car. We've figured we've gotten our money's worth out of it already.