Hit our first goal

We paid off our last credit card this week after payday.

Tonight, we took my family out to dinner on us. We toased Dave Ramsey, and I wore my Dave Ramsey shirt.

I paid for everyone, and I paid in cash.

My parents pay for so many meals and trips for us, it felt good to make a token reciprocation, and it was nice to go out for a bit and have a good time.

Now back to the grind... Looking ahead, we will pay off the little student loan in August, and then the rest will be more gruelling.

The credit cards were the important part for me, though.

This is gonna be one of those posts...

I did something bad, and now I am panicking about it. It is gonna be ok. It isn't That bad. I am just beating myself up for it.

Several years ago, I was in an ebay bidding war for an OOAK doll. While I have seen many dolls by this artist (and later did get another one), this is the most beautiful one I have seen. Even though the artist usually sells her dolls for around $400, this one ended up going for around $90. I dropped out, but if I had upped my bid one more time, I would have won. I know this because as it turned out, I knew the woman who won her. She said she had also entered her last bid and walked away, as had I (I was going out) and hers was just a bit higher than mine. I have kicked myself over that for years, but took comfort in knowing where the doll ended up.

Over the years, this woman seems to have lost interest in dolls. I don't know what the deal is exactly, but she fell out of the American Girl community, and sold off a lot of that collection. She got big into Ellowyne (which is what these dolls are) and worked so much with this Ellowyne artist that she even helped to design a line of clothing with her for them. She has become close friends with her. But, she slowly over the years sold off her Ellowynes as well. She got heavy into BJDs for a while, and sold those off too. I don't understand the part where you invest heavily in these collections, lose interest, and sell. I have a very hard time selling my collections.

Anyway, she had three Ellowynes left, and the doll I had wanted was one of them. She posted them all for sale a couple weeks ago. I inquired, and she remembered that I had been bidding on this doll. She wanted $200!! I had hoped that since she got a deal on the doll, she wouldn't be pricing her so high! I told her I couldn't afford that, and she told me she would let me know if she didn't sell.

Tonight, she emailed me to tell me she was about to list her on Ebay for $150 and would I like her for $140 (+shipping, it turns out)? I have $60 in my personal spending account. But of course, there are several things I want to buy. Including clearance Ellowyne things from the company. I went back and forth on it. I can't believe she didn't sell (The other two did) and I feel like she is meant to be mine. I told her I would take her. I guess I have to start rooting around for things to sell now too.

It is very very hard living on so tight a budget. This is exactly why I planned to give us another "raise" next month. It's like dieting. You can't completely deprive yourself for such long periods of time. We don't go out, we can't buy fun things... and every little thing we have to do is a stress about the cost and the budget. It's been 6 months of this. I believe you need to let up on the reigns from time to time. It is just hard to do when I want so badly to achieve my big goal. And when things like this happen which are once-in-a-lifetime, it is hard to pass up. It is not the end of the world, or even the end of the money. It just isn't wise use of money, and it means putting off other things I was planning to get. Again. And so I beat myself up.

We will be paying off the last credit card in 10 days. We are really psyched about that. I spent some time today "what-if"ing a best case scenerio on a baby, and it really throws off everything. It is shocking how much a baby (specifically daycare) is going to slow us down. I don't know how poor people do it. But - all fodder for a different post. The point is, things happen, life happens, and I guess you have to roll with it. I feel like if we aren't going to be debt free by April, the credit cards are the important part to me, and does it really matter beyond that?

I guess even in the face of accomplishing my first goal, I am having a rough time right now. I need to feel some success at something. I am scared. Of every possible outcome.

June's Budget

HAHA! Look at that! The budget up on the first day of the month! I do want to point out that I have the budgets done ... usually two months ahead of time *blush* they get tweaked a bit as time gets closer. So, its not that I am not doing them... It is that I am not getting them posted in a timely manner. Part of it is that a lot is going on at home. I have been working out after work so I get home late, and pretty much eat dinner and go to bed. The weekends have been crazy. Work no longer allows me to access blogs of any kind. And, as we got closer to the wedding, the less time I had for blogging. I am committed both to doing and posting, so it will get done. I just wish I could still do blogs from work.

Revenue

No surprises.

Fixed

My insurance installment is due again already. That surprised me. I thought I had til July. So, that took some reworking to fit that in. Power is going down, and I am really trying not to blast the AC til it gets brutally hot. Our trash may or may not be due. It normally would, so I put it in the budget, but they are saying they are going to change the trash system in our county so that it comes out of our property taxes. The bonus, though, is that there will be a ton more curbside recycling which will be amazing. So. I am hoping that is the case. But then I am not sure what, if anything, the trash bill will look like this month.

Debt

WE WILL PAY OFF THE LAST CREDIT CARD THIS MONTH!!!!!!!!!
That was my first and most important goal. I am so excited. And the first student loan should fall two months later in August, so this is really going to be an exciting few months coming up.

Variable

Expenses:

I have set aside extra money for an outing to celebrate being credit card debt free. I feel like everyone carries me a lot - We always get our dinners and stuff paid for by my family, because they know we can't/won't be able to participate in family events otherwise. It may just be a token, but I want to take them all out for dinner and drinks on me at my favorite restaurant when we pay off the credit cards. I believe we deserve a paid for in cash celebration! And it is important to me to make an effort to pay them back and a display of how responsible we are getting and turning our life around.

Funds:

Our lawn boy upped his rates this summer, and we have already burned through all the money we had saved up for him! So, I have to cash flow him. I lowered the travel and repairs funds to help cover some of the other higher expenses this month.

Don't worry too much about the notes on the side. For the most part, my fund jars were all off. I had too much in some, and not enough in others, and the bank accounts were running low because we were just paying with the debit card instead of with the cash we had set aside. So, I resorted all the money in the jars to match what should be in them, and didn't pull that money from the bank accounts in order to repay them what they were owed. Sort of. They are still going to be low, but not as.

May Budget

...better late than never? I am glad this month is over, that's all I can say.

Revenue: Includes my husband's raise, and my extra week paycheck for this quarter.

Fixed: Termite bill due.

Debt repay: Typical amounts all around.

Variable: I have split this section up into the categories we are actually spending each month and the categories we are funding, and may or may not actually be spending. It makes it easier for me to read, plan, and analyze.

We gave ourselves a small raise in our discretionary spending. This is financed by my husband's raise, but also well deserved after a full quarter of really having no spending money, and making good debt progress. As I have started to work out more, I had wanted to buy new sneakers, but that money ended up buying mother's day flowers :/ The rest of the expenses are the same as any month.

For the funds, my husband's raise allowed us to add a car fund category. My hope is that this will build toward a new car when needed, but may end up going to car repairs if necessary. All of my extra paycheck this month was earmarked for our wedding expenses, including our stay and parking.

April cash jars

Not a great month in the sinking fund front. We spent a good bit of a weekend cleaning out our basement, and had to get a lot of supplies for that. We had a few expensive grocery trips. I had a work outing. I had a friend obligaion in which I spent a lot of money. We got pizza once. My diet is causing us to cut back on the takeout, but I spent the rest of that money covering shortages in other areas. Lots of schlepping around this month, so I was desperate for gas. I am also doing most of the driving because my husband's tire is flat.

Jar~~~~Spent~~~~Left
Grocery~~388~~~~~~12
Supplies~~71~~~~~~~ -21
Misc~~~~40~~~~~~~~10
Takeout~~50~~~~~~~10
Gas~~~~~125~~~~~~~0

We had $10 left in the end. But I used that money to help cover one of the jars for May. So we ultimately had nothing left for the sinking fund. The upside is I am getting better at giving us just what we need. The downside is less for whatever we are saving it for.

Mid month update

Happy tax day!

We had to pay $2000. But we are also getting $800 back from the state. Had to dip into savings for this. I think this has something to do with our mortgage set up right now. If'n we refi soon, maybe it will straighten itself out. I have tabled the refi for now.

We have had an estimate for our roof, and another one coming next week. They think it was a bullet! I forget exactly, but it was around $850. The people coming next week can also do our siding repair (which is probably from settling), so I am waiting to see what that looks like. We have about $1000 saved for this, and I want it done already.

Counting down to my cousin's wedding. I get an extra paycheck this month, which should cover the hotel. We also have $200 in the travel fund, and the $400 in the sinking fund to cover any other expenses. I don't expect many, but we will have parking and miscellaneous spending. I still need to get a gift, too.

My husband needs new tires. Like, one if his tires is literally completely flat. I still haven't worked out how we are going to pay for this.

The good news is, my husband's boss called him last week and gave him a promotion and an 8% raise. It seems to amount to about $360 more take home a month. It was shocking how quickly I found places for that money to go. I had so many things I wanted to fund, and hadn't yet, that the whole thing is not going to debt repayment, as I might like. Starting in May, We will begin a car fund. Both our cars are old, and I am holding my breath that they will both make it another year (let alone long enough to save for another one). My husband's car is ten years old and has over 150,000 miles. I gave us each a raise in our personal money. I think we deserve it. We have had very little fun money. Now we are up to an amount we can actually use for something we want. I doubled what we are saving for our lawn boy - both because we are going to start needing him again, and because I expect his rates to increase again this year. The rest seems to be ironing out things that were getting ignored in the budget, such as the bills being charged on our cards and the quarterly bills. It doesn't last long. But it is good to have. I am just disappointed, because somehow I thought we could get our debt repayment up to 2900 a month, but I guess that was not a realistic figure. I was not accounting for things properly.

I am also struggling with the fact that I am "saving" about $500 a month into these funds. I could pay things off faster if I didn't. But I feel better knowing that we are building money towards these things, should they happen. Our travel and pet funds are about to take another hit. The repairs we have are outpacing what I am saving for them by far. I have decided to put caps on some of these things. If I manage to hit the cap, then I can cut back the saving there until I have to use the money.

March cash jars and memoriam

March was hard. That may have something to do with my lack of updates this month. Again, I hope to get everything caught up in the next few days. We don't have a lot of money left over, and it is actually more than I initially thought. I think in part, the fact that it was a five week month made it hard to get through. We also had some "lost" money, where we pulled money from whatever jar had it and we now don't know where it went.

The month started with my husband getting his crowns. Luckily, we were able to use our health flex card to pay for those. So, we don't feel the hit from that, but it used the most of our health allocation for the year.

Two of our cats got their shots. My husband forgot to get cash from the jar for that, so he used the debit card. He also spent more than I was expecting.

Then my husband flew off to Texas to take care of his family for two weeks. His mom came through her lung surgery and the biopsy said it isn't cancer.

We had someone out to look at our roof. The roof of the house is in good shape, but the porch roof needs to be replaced. The insurance won't cover it, but it will probably cost less than the deductible anyway.

Our house lost partial power last week while I was here on my own. I was freaking out, imagining walls getting knocked out and rewiring and cost and everything. I had an electrician out, and had to pay $120 for that. He determined it was a problem for the power company. They came right out, dug up my front yard, and did something to cause the power to come back, and I didn't have to pay anything further.

This was a "make it work" month.

Jar~~~~~Used~~~~~Left
Gas~~~~~~125~~~~~~~~0
Grocery~~~378~~~~~~~~20
Take out~~60~~~~~~~~~0
Misc~~~~~47~~~~~~~~~3
Supplies~~24~~~~~~~~~26
Unknown~~~~~~~~~~~~10

Add to sinking: 59

February cash jars

We did not cut it as close in February as I thought we would. It seems like we want to spend a lot of money the first weekend of the month, but then can hold off the rest of the month.

Miscellaneous: I got a haircut and waxed my eyebrows. I mailed some stuff at the post office. Last weekend we did a gaming event which was $5 entry fee each.

Takeout: We got pizza once and Chinese once.

Supplies: I am shocked that the only thing we got out of supplies this month was a lamp for my office, which I have been meaning to get for months. As I haven't been feeling well the last couple weeks, it has gotten a lot of use.

Gas: I got gas 4 times, my husband didn't get any.

Grocery: 4 trips, plus a rather cheap trip to Costco. We still had leftover, even though I slashed the amount by $100 this month.

We both ran into "forgetting to take money" problems this month. I forgot gas money and my husband forgot grocery money. The way I handled this was to use the debit card for the purchase, then carry the cash over to March. So, I got $x less out of the bank for March and reused the money that was "spent" but left in the jars in February.

Jar: Amount: Left:
Misc 57 4
Supplies 50 32
Gas 125 30
Grocery 400 54

Added to sinking (roof) fund: 120 Total in fund: 330

January Income Statement

Revenue: In addition to our income from our jobs, we also discovered we had an $1800+ balance in our bank accounts. We had gift money as well.

Fixed Expenses: Power skyrocketed to $300. Comcast raised our cable bill. We hadn't canceled the server.

Debt Repayment: I now own my computer, phone and work clothes! We paid off credit cards 1 and 2 and a huge amount of the balance on 3. The rest of the cards and loans got minimal amounts.

Variable: My husband's car is the main expense here. He had to register it, and before doing that, had $700 of work done on it. We did put that on the credit card, but I am sorry that we did. I feel we are having Karmic retribution now (see previous post). Travel is our plane tickets for the wedding in May, which we paid cash for. Bank fees include finance charges and a late fee incurred while I juggled around our new payment schedules. My "doll" budget includes the money I spent from my discretionary jar, an order made this summer that was sent off backorder, and some eyes and faceups (in cash) for my BJDs. I believe the rest of these expenses, including our sinking fund, were discussed in the Jan cash jar post.

We had a net income of almost $2500. Overall, a win. While we would not have come out positive just based on our income, I increased debt repayment and some other expenses upon learning we had more money to work with (as can be seen if you look back at the original budget). So, as the income increased, so I increased the outgo. This gave us a great starting momentum.

Challenges

The January income statement is done, I just haven't gotten around to scanning it. I am still tweaking the March budget, too.

Some things have come up. This is what Dave Ramsey calls Murphy.

The good: I got a dog this weekend. Um. I know I said I wouldn't. But I knew I would know the right one when I saw him (on the internet). I had let some others pass me by, but this one I couldn't. I hate going to pet organizations ~ I always want to take them all home, so I guess it is good I stuck with just one. He is a rescue - he was surrendered to animal control. He is a silky terrier, registered with AKC with papers. Blows my mind. He is house broken (YAY!) but we are having some problems with him chasing the cat. I hope this will settle itself some soon. The cat is staying upstairs, and sometimes under the bed. We have him confined downstairs. I paid for his adoption and his things at Petsmart in cash, though. In future budgets, I will raise my pet allocation and I also will have to board him in May for a few days, so will have to account for that as well.

The rest:

My mother in law was diagnosed with lung cancer. She has to have surgery to remove part of her lung. She has never smoked and is the healthiest, most in shape person I know. My father in law is a disabled vet, who just went through an amputation. My husband has to go out there to take care of his father while his mother goes through surgery, and then possibly both of them. Luckily, his parents have since offered to pay for his flight, and he can work remotely, so that takes the financial strain off of an already stressful and emotional situation. From what I understand, her prognosis is good.

Our roof. We have a leak which really appears to be a lost flashing. The water comes in down one of those silver pipes that sticks out of the roof, then drips down and there is some water damage in the ceiling of the bedroom below. We have gotten a ton of rain in the last year, and that is how we came to notice it, though there was previous damage in that spot. We put a bucket in the attic and went on about our lives. Meanwhile, we had our gutters cleaned a couple months ago, and the guy alerted us that there is damage on the roof of our porch. There is a huge crater in the roof (we can see it from a window) and the wood underneath is rotting - all the way down to where you can see the rot on the ceiling of the porch. On the one hand, it is just the porch and I don't feel it is an emergency. On the other, it could be an indicaiton of further problems we can't see over the main house. You just never know with insurance companies, and I have never had to deal with them before so I didn't know what to do. Roofs are always the huge scary expense. It turns out that while our deductable for most things is $1000, like we thought, it is $3800 for hail or wind damage. That is how most people have been getting their roofs replaced. This is a HUGE additional amount of money. The insurance company is sending someone out to look at it. I guess what we do from there depends... If they will cover it and redo the whole roof, I have to find $3800 somewhere. If they don't cover or won't do the whole roof, we will just fix the porch, and I have no idea what that will cost at this point. I have chosen not to pay off cc4 this month ($500 extra payment) and to pull $1000 from our debt repayment the next couple months to help cover. We will pull the money out of savings and pay it back. This really throws a wrench into my payoff plan, though.

Dentist: My husband needs two crowns. Luckily, insurance is going to pay for 80%, but that still leaves around $500 for us. We will use the med card for some of it. I guess when my husband finds out when he will be out of town, he will schedule around that and we can go from there.

Where's George

Excuse my head shadow in the shot :)

I just want to put out a plug for Where's George. I think it is a really cool idea, and somehow I have only come to it recently. Where's George allows you to enter and track your money. You enter your money on their website, then you mark your bill to tell other people who get it to go to the website and enter it again. If you are lucky, they will tell you where they got it or how they are spending it. But it shows you how far your money went in how many days.

I have been using WG about a year and a half. I was getting out 50 - 100 $1 bills from the bank every month - generally for my vending machine habit or when you have to pool for gifts at work and so forth. I entered, marked, and spent. In that time, I have gotten about 170 hits and entered 1500 bills. I am ranked in the top 100 for my state. I have had some interesting comments. I have had bills with repeated hits. I really enjoy it.

So, now going to cash only, and not just petty cash I am entering the bills in WG. I have a lot larger bills now, because I don't want to take out, enter, stamp or spend $1000 in ones a month. I am excited to have more entries in WG. At the same time, I don't mark up the big bills quite as much as my ones. I have a mystery stamp from stamp-connection.com which I use to mark the 100 and 50s on the back and the 20s and 10s on the front. 5s and 1s I mark all to hell (I also have a "signature"stamp I use on $20 and under). I just am not used to passing large bills like that, and it makes me nervous that they will think they are counterfeit. I've had people question my 1s in the past, and I am nervous enough just carrying and spending those big bills. Maybe I will get more comfortable. Stamp-connection has a lot of cool stamps and I have added to my collection as I have gotten more into it, but if you want to start up cheap, they have a stamp for $4 with free shipping. They have shocking fast shipping. Or, you can always just write on your bills.