Hoarders

I like to keep my money.

I've been holding on to my allowance for a month and a half now.

I'm also enjoying watching the balance of our savings account go up and up.

We are living off very little of our money, and saving everything we can. The plan is to pay off the student loan as quickly as possible. But we've been putting the money in savings so that in case a house comes up, we will have a down payment ready. We figured we could put it toward the student loan if no houses come up.

I've felt really uncomfortable with this idea. Well, I love the idea of storing up cash. Hoarding money sounds fantastic! I just don't think it's what we should do right now. Where's the faith in that? It's like saying we believe God will take care of us, but we've got a savings account built up in case he doesn't.

I think we're going to just throw everything into the loan and see what happens. It feels like God's getting ready to do something big, and I can't wait to see what it is!

Now, where's my checkbook?

It's Elementary

I'm pretty technical about some things. My checkbook is one of them. I balance it at least every two weeks and make sure it is reconciled. I have a certain system for how I keep track of all our money. I've used computer programs, the kind that tell you where your money is going and all that, but they never do exactly what I want, so back to my notebook I go.

The only problem with this is that I seem to have a small problem doing math. Actually, sometimes it's a big problem. Even when I use a calculator and pay close attention, I inevitably make simple math errors. Seriously, like at least once a month.

My latest error was last payday, two weeks ago. I was so excited to pay someone who had just done something for us. It had only been a week and a half, but it was a significant amount and it meant we owed someone money, which I hate. So when I balanced the checkbook and paid the bills last payday, I was bummed to find that we were still $200 short of paying them. Drat. Kris was level headed and told me to relax. In two weeks we'd have it, no big deal. It's true, payday was today, and we had plenty to cover it.

When I reconciled the checkbook today though, it came up $1000 off. It didn't take long for me to find the error. At one point two weeks ago I was supposed to subtract $180 and apparently I subtracted $1180. So all along I had an extra $1000 just sitting there! Not a bad problem to have really, but I couldn't believe we had the money for two weeks and didn't realize it!

At least it was an error to our benefit, they aren't always.

There was that one time when I apparently made up a $500 deposit that didn't actually exist. But I'll save that story for another day.

Maybe.

Insurance Day

I spent a lot of the day in bed today. After 11 days, I'm still sick.

Kris spent a lot of the day figuring out our life insurance policy plus our health, dental, and vision insurance for the next year.

I'd rather be in bed than try to figure all that stuff out. He kept asking me questions, and I kept returning blank stares. Poor guy, I am not any help at all.

We did figure out how much we need to take out in our life insurance policies. We had to pull out the Dave Ramsey dvd and watch that one again since all our stuff is still packed away. Now we're just figuring out who to buy it through. It looks like we may do a combination of Kris' work and an outside company.

I'm so relieved to be finally getting life insurance though. Before Kris got the job on the helicopter, it didn't seem to bother me much. His job is so much more dangerous now though, and I've had a hard time with the fact that we hadn't gotten around to it yet.

We're still going to keep the hefty health insurance this year. Around here you never know what might happen.

(no, this is not current, it's from last year)

I wonder if Kris is still open for suggestions, we may need to raise the amount in our FSA...

The Power of Change

For a couple of years now, this guy right here

is a common sight in our kitchen. This simple jelly bean jar has funded a whole lot of fun for our family. Because I use cash for most day to day purchases, I try to make it a habit to not use any of the change. I throw it all in a pocket and it ends up in this jar. It doesn't take much time for it to start adding up!

The first time we filled it up we used it for vacation!

When we went to California in 2009, we used the money from the jar as "mad" money. It ended up being over $200! We cashed it out in five dollar bills and there was enough for each of us to spend $5 a day for all nine days of the trip. It was so great having that money for whatever we wanted!

The jelly bean jar also paid for one of these:

As soon as we got back from California, we started throwing our change in the jar again. We didn't really know what our goal was at first, but then the news started coming out about the Xbox Kinect. We knew we wanted one, so everyone decided that was what our change jar would be for this time. When it came time to pre-buy, we had enough in the jar to pay the $150 for the Kinect, plus 2 games (at $50 each). All with our pocket change!

So, we've been working on the jar again, and everyone's been trying to decide what our new goal should be. I think we figured it out today. Until we get more of our financial goals accomplished, we won't be taking any vacations, so we thought it would be great to put the money toward a family trip to Lagoon later this year. It may not pay for the whole trip, but I figure it will at least pay for most of it.


I can't wait to find out!

Lesson Learned

My husband is going dirt bike riding with a friend tomorrow, so he was outside getting everything ready this afternoon. When he came back in and told me his battery was dead I immediately started to worry. He's been needing a battery tender to keep it charged, but we were afraid of how much they might be. Plus, we haven't had a lot of spare cash hanging around, if you know what I mean.

I was thinking about our dwindling misc. fund and how much it still needs to cover.

I was thinking that the entertainment fund was just enough for the other plans we had for the weekend.

I was worrying.

When I realized I was worrying, I tried prayer instead. God knows we're trying to honor Him with our money. Kris made a phone call to the bike shop. The battery tender wasn't nearly as expensive as we'd imagined, about $35.
He had allowance set aside for no particular reason, and a gift card left from Christmas still. How much?

You guessed it....

$35

What's on your list today?

Fred Meyer I think I love you!

Apparently a little too much.
$20.13! That's the biggest reward I've ever gotten. Not that it breaks my heart or anything. The funny thing is I think they have very high prices in general, and I don't do my main grocery shopping there. There are a few staples I buy regularly.

Their organic milk is the best price I have found. I also buy kefir, yogurt, soup, and canned beans just about every time I do my grocery shopping. It's also pretty common for me to search through the markdowns in the dairy case. Whenever it is marked down I buy every box of Stonyfield farm kids yogurt. At $4.89 a box, 8 yogurts in a box, and 3 hungry kids, it's not something I can afford! Several times I have bought it for as low as $.99 a box! I love it when that happens! Because it is about to be outdated we just put it in the freezer (it's the tube kind) and the kids love it that way.

Quite often they also have good deals on produce. I LOVE their produce department. I don't generally buy a lot, with the exception of their generic baby carrots (for some reason they are the yummiest), but will pick up a couple things when they are on a good sale. Like today, the grape tomatoes were a pretty good buy. Too bad my kids think these boxes are a single serving. I bought two today and we're down by one already.

Then there are the treats we get sometimes. These are the things that cost way too much to get very often, but Fred Meyer is the only place to find them around here. Things like these macaroons. Yum. The other two things are from the bulk bins. One is black pepper cashews, the other is carob energy nuggets.

I think it's interesting how the good deals always seem to find me at this store. Often times the things I need will be on sale. There is always something awesome like that. Sometimes the sale never seems to end. That happened with the coconut water. For months it was "on sale" for $1 and I would buy one whenever I shopped (soo good). Just two weeks ago it went off sale. Lame. That was the end of my coconut water habit.

I won't even start on the clothes, shoes, and house stuff we've gotten super good deals on.

What's on your list today?

I'm gonna go make mine right now...

Plans

We had plans for the weekend.

Plans to go swimming on Saturday.

Plans to go grocery shopping.

Plans to go to church Sunday morning.

Plans to go to a Super Bowl party with our fun new friends.

Insert the FLU. Cancel all of the above.

(I feel your pain, Buddy!)

Here's what we really did this weekend...

Cold day. Hot soup.

We were stuck home for much of they day today, a sick boy put our swimming plans on hold. Not that I minded too much, the wind was crazy and it was so cold! We did venture out for a quick trip to the store, we were running low on a few things, and Marley has been begging to use my coupon for Stonyfield Farm yogurt. Silly girl!

This morning I found a great recipe for pinto bean and sweet potato stew, and it looked so perfect for a cold, stuck-in-the-house kind of day. While I was making it for dinner I realized that I make meatless meals a lot of the time when Kris is gone at work. I prefer to eat that way but I think it saves me a decent amount of money too. Tonight's soup didn't cost much at all, and it made quite a bit.

I figured it up and it cost around $5 for this pot of soup. Not bad when you consider it's almost all organic, which is more expensive. I think if you added beef it would add at least another $4. So, for half the price we got a veggie-full dinner that was warm and filling and so delicious. Now I can look forward to the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

$3.38

Recycling in Twin Falls is pretty different from what we were used to in Meridian. Part of that is because we live in the country. They have unsorted recycle pickup in city limits, but we are stuck sorting and taking ours in. A few months ago I bought some bins and put them in the kitchen (sorry, Joy!) so we could sort the recyclables. The place here wants everything sorted, even down to separating newspapers from magazines from white and dark paper. Food cans also have to be separated from soda cans. Sheesh. So instead of having 10 large bins, we chose to have 3 and do soda cans, white/light colored office paper, and plastic bottles. These are the things we use the most.

I took the cans and bottles in today, not having any idea what to expect. Well, they don't pay anything for the bottles but they pay $.40 for each pound of cans. I didn't think our little bin held that much, but we ended up earning $3.38! What a nice surprise! I know it doesn't sound like much, but I remember a time when we had $20 to buy groceries for four people every two weeks, and every dollar counted. I hope I don't ever forget the value of a single dollar again.

Plus, now I can brag to my husband who thought I would end up with a nickel!

Tightening our belts

Now that the house is sold, we've got some decisions to make. The only debt we have left is Kris' student loans. It would be so wonderful to pay that off and save a hefty down payment for a house. We could then buy with a 15 year note and have no other debt. Ever. The downside to that would be the long wait before getting a new house. Our living situation is a little cramped but working out fine right now, and is saving us a lot of money, so we are thinking we will dump as much as we can into the student loans and get moving that direction.

After doing our new cash flow plan, we aren't very happy with how much we can send each month. I want this done as fast as possible, so I am adjusting our spending habits again to allow for more money to pay down that debt. We were already doing pretty good, but had a bad habit of dipping into our bank account here and there instead of using only our cash system. We decided last payday that we are putting a stop to that. We increased our miscellaneous fund to compensate, but it was still a little difficult. We went to the store yesterday and totally blew our misc. and grocery fund. Not too crazy, we stuck to cash, but it was hard to see. We are also getting the boys into scouts and it was weird to stand in the scout office and say we would have to wait until payday to buy the rest of their stuff. The lady was very understanding, but it was humbling to say. I did laugh though when we got out to the car because we actually have that much money, it is just set aside for other things. This will take a little practice but it will be so worth it.

On the plus side, it's easier to not rush into buying a house right now because there aren't any on the market around here that we even like. Maybe that's God's grace in helping this impatient Mama wait to have a house again!

There's No Place Like Home

So 2010 was a big year of fixing up and selling our house. We were pretty proud of all the work we accomplished! It was a crash course on home repair that's for sure. After a year and a half of trying to get our finances in order, our house was in serious need of work. Praise God the money just kept coming in for us to do all we needed. All in all, it cost us about $12,000 to fix everything up. God provided and we paid cash for all of it!

Oh that yellow on the bathroom walls was frightening. I thought so when I painted it, but never got around to fixing it!

 This was the hideous wallpaper that was in the master bedroom when we moved in. I tried a few times to take it down and it was very difficult...so I just ignored it. Not a good plan. I don't think I have an after pic, but we got all the wallpaper down and painted a crisp off-white. It looked amazing!

I loved how this bathroom turned out! No more yellow!

This was my kitchen, just the way I want to remember it...busy!

New carpet in the whole house!

New floor in the main bathroom. We put the same floor in the kitchen and laundry room too.

Ok, so here's the biggest project of all...the Master Bathroom...yikes!

But it turned out beautifully! I did the tile work and Kris did everything else.

The house sold in 4 months, which is amazing in this market. We ended up having to pay another $17,000 to finish the sale. It could have been a lot worse. Praise God for His provision and that we did not have to go into debt to do it. I miss our house, but I'm so glad all this is over. We can look to the future now!

Long Story Short...

We used to:

-have $13,000 credit card debt
-be afraid to get the mail every day
-make terrible decisions about money
-get collection calls daily
-carry around a load of embarrassement and guilt
-spend more than we made
-pay our utilities on a credit card
-live in fear


Now we:

-live on a fixed budget
-use the cash system
-have money to do fun things
-enjoy getting the mail
-have a savings account
-have NO credit card debt
-are a good example to our children
-spend less than we bring home
-feel free!