Monthly Wrap Up

This month flew by now that I look back on it. It seems that we wait impatiently for those paychecks. As I mentioned before we are not impatiently waiting due to needing the money because we are strapped but to use the money to be good stewards. We are giving more than ever before to our church. Sad reality but it was the truth. We were inconsistent, undisciplined and selfish. We thought we didn't have any extra. Ugh! What a sickening thought. We had it so wrong. Our tithe is the first check that is written on payday. Not a second thought about it. It is Gods money to begin with. He has blessed us with enough to live and give and to pay down debt.
I am still in total shock at what we are doing. We have officially been on our TMM challenge for 1 whole month. In the month of February we have paid over $6000 off of our debt. It is awesome.

You may be wondering how. Well, I will tell you. First we did our taxes and due to the number of kids we have, the write offs we had and the amount of clothes donated from all the kids we have, we had a nice return. On top of that we have managed to "come up with" much extra. We even had a few set backs. New to us, but very old truck, needed new tires, difficult built car needed wheel barrings, and not to mention the Tahoe deductible to get repaired.....

We continue to try and sell items on our local Craig's List. We have had spectacular success in this. We have made easily over $1200 (a guess at this point, but I'm sure it's a bit more) in just 6 weeks. We have sold things in and around the house and garage that we either, do not use, have not used, or know we will not use. We have sold things that we can do without. We use digression in our sales and what we sell but we try selling before donating. We are stocking up for a huge garage sale.

As of today we have NO MORE TV. It is cancelled. We are off to reading more, talking more yeah, yeah, it can be done with even me...., and blogging more. ;) Yay for you, right?

Finally, we get the paycheck, estimate our gas for the vehicles, food for the next two week according to my meal planning, and then pay the bills. Minimum on all but the one small one. After seeing how much money is left in the checkbook we take that amount and pay the next little thing/s off/down. That is how we are electing to take care of it. February brought a lot of Dr bills that were left over from 2 kiddos surgeries and a record high of visits, not to mention that darn deductible. Those are gone, paid, adios forever! (Well, I guess till the next dr visit comes along.... )

If anyone is reading this I urge you, beg, whatever it is, to sit down and write all your spending out. (Of course if you are as sick and tired as we were of being controlled by our money and debt). We all "think" we have a budget but really getting a bill and paying it, even if you know what money you have on debts and where it is going, isn't a budget. A budget is taking control of your money. Telling it where to go each and every pay period. Give it a try.

Again, we are on a zero balance budget. We have very few dollars in our checking for the next 9 days. What if something comes up and we need money? Well, we have the cash for gas, a little for misc food items to complete a meal, and grabbing a quick bite from McDonald's doesn't quite fall in to the emergency category. IF something does come up then that is why we have our emergency fund. We can walk into the bank and borrow from that. But only in an emergency. Car repair, unexpected medical bill, household repair, etc... That's an emergency.

Have a super first week of March. And by the way, we managed to celebrate our DD 5th bday on a small amount of money. We bought 3 boxes of cake mix, 2 cans of frosting, marshmallows, candy drops to make/decorate cupcakes (for 3 different "parties"), and three books as her gift for a total of $25.00. The books alone were almost $21. I spent 4 bucks on cupcakes, and a few hours to make and decorate. But this was all she got and she was FINE with it. Cutting back on the bday parties is A-OK with us. She has had just as much fun too.

LITTLE changes produce BIG rewards!!

Monday Madness and Meal Planning

Mondays are always a mad dash around this part. I have decided that part of saving money is to plan meals and try to go as cheap as possible. I am not good at this shopping stuff and especially coupon cutting but vow to work on it.
We do a huge amount of grocery shopping every 4 weeks and the other weeks is little trips for misc things. We are really trying to keep our monthly (or 4 wk) grocery bill at about $250. (Including bath/toiletries cleaning etc..) This is hard work, for we are feeding ourselves and 4 kiddos. Not only do I have to plan dinner I have 2 home for lunch. I have to really try and change things up. We are no longer going thru the drive-thru so it has made me more creative. Along with 2 home for lunch I must make sure I get lunch for the older two and daddy made. I will blog on healthy, simple lunch ideas another time since my kids only get hot lunch once a week.

For the next week our main dinners will be as planned. Tentative of course:

Monday- Pulled Pork Sandwiches and carrots ($12 max total, leftovers for 6+) This made at least 17 sandwich rolls. Rolls were about the size of the palm of my hand.

Tuesday- Dino nuggets/mini corndogs for the kids, apples with PB and baby carrots & Leftovers for us. (Daddy has class so we are on our own) ($2-3, only fed 3 kids)

Wednesday- Vegetarian Baked Spaghetti, french bread and fruit salad (apples/banana's w/cinnamon) ($6 total and have so much leftovers I'm trying to give to family)

Thursday- Leftovers for sure. MIL and FIL will help eat the baked spaghetti (DH has meeting/dinner we are going to) . (free) ;)

Friday- Bagel Pizza's ($4 total for all of us)

Sat/Sun- up in the air due to schedules and Bdays coming up. Leftovers it is though for sure!

You may be wondering "why all the leftovers?" Well, we have bird eaters here and I cook enough for about 2 meals worth when using the crock pot or making cassarole dishes. I will either freeze unused portion when using crock pot or we eat another night that week. (sometimes I even give my family leftovers when I'm not feeling selfish) :) When we are very busy we do "quick" like dino nuggets or mini corndogs. This is a huge treat now for the kids.

So this is my menu for this week. It helps tremendously to have it and have my shopping done for it. It keeps us from not having anything and going "out". (Which we all know how much that costs). And if you don't realize how much it costs go thru your receipts and bank staements to see where and how much of that money has gone. We were in complete SHOCK when we realized how much we blew on eating out. (nickle and diming might I remind you).

If you are interested in any of the meals I am making let me know and I will post the recipe's. When I get a little more organized I plan on getting the costs up here too for each meal/serving. I will learn right along with you which is cost effective and what is not.

Hurdles

Of course I am sitting here with hesitation to even writing. Yesterday was the day we were going to finally be able to meet the buyer of our vehicle, hand over those keys and wohoo, be a step closer to our goal. As we all know, God sometimes has other plans. A lot of times I think I have it planned out, worked out and went over all the details in between. Yesterday on my way home from doing childcare at a local Bible study, I got into an accident. In the car we were about to sell. It WAS sold. It had been sold for four days. We had tried to get it all transferred over on Saturday but time didn't permit. Unbelievable! Of course after the adrenaline past it was a very emotional day. Once I realized that both parties were involved were okay, I was devastated. I instantly said, Okay God. I am not sure where this is going but I KNOW that you had a reason. Maybe it was a lesson, maybe it was in his plan to have us in the large vehicle and not the small car that day. Maybe it is Satan's way of trying to discourage us in our journey. I choose to look at the positive. I know that there will be many things that will come up. Ron and I are calling them "hurdles". We have had some little ones already but this was a big one. For the time being it is big.

We have also learned over the past week that we are going to need to budget more or something into that extra fund. We have had a few things come up that were not scheduled and have taken some cash. So that is something that we get to reevaluate. We are patiently waiting for the next paycheck so we can pay down debt.

~Trying to be good stewards!~

~Patience~

I think that will be a word I will remind myself of many times through this journey. Patience as it will seem like forever between paychecks. Patience as it will not happen over night. Patience as I am criticized for putting our personal finances out there. Patience as we make tough decisions that only WE understand. Patience as we follow God's voice. And patience to discern between all that it takes to be debt free.

We also are learning to be patient as we did not get to hand over our vehicle to the man who bought it. The bank was closed before we could both get there to get all the nitty gritty done. So, we are looking at tomorrow as being the day that we give up our beautiful family vehicle and pick up our "new" truck. I am dying to post picture of it. I will share the story behind knowing that God brought us that truck over the minivans we were looking at and test drove.

We have gone from desperately waiting for the next paycheck so we can pay a bill, to anxiously waiting for the next paycheck so we know exactly how much we get to pay towards a bill.

Thank you for reading but more importantly thank you for supporting us on our journey!

Baby Steps or Crazy Steps

As I sat here at home with a sort of empty feeling I felt I ought to just spill my thoughts and feelings. Part of this whole journey is to document how we are doing this debt reduction. I mean, debt FREEDOM. We are not reducing debt, we are getting rid of it. It is by far the hardest thing my most favorite man and I have ever done. We love our kids and our future too much to just throw our money away in interest and on unnecessary things.

As I write I am overwhelmed, yet relieved. We have been selling many things as I stated before. As of today, we have gone as extreme as selling our main, nice vehicle. I have just a few hours before we hand over the keys and title. I feel so good and excited, yet sad all in one. I did bring two of my babies home from the hospital in the car. We have gone camping packing the car to the rim with stuff. We have gone to the snow and had our first family trip to get a Christmas tree in this car. It is nice, it runs great, it looks good too. You may be asking, "why sell it then?" Because we are doing everything that we can to get debt free. And as quickly as possible. That car payment each month will now be gone. That $430 will be used and carried over to the next thing we are working on. We did take a hit however, on selling it. We will owe a couple thousand more but we did just eliminate our debt by $9,000. WOW! When you look at that it makes it all worth it. Plus the previous monthly payment we had on it goes ALL towards things owed. We will see a pretty big snowball going on really quick! I truly believe that we will see and exceed our $14,000 goal for 2009. And we ahve only been on this plan since January 30 THIS YEAR. I honestly think we may get to reevaluate it really soon.

There is one bad thing though. We now are in need of a vehicle and fast. We have been looking but it is hard to find what will work for us and in the price range we have. We are now going from "looking" to "extreme need". Now is not the time to be picky. If it runs well and gets us where we need to go, then it will be just fine. I may be a little embarrassed to drive it but it is temporary. Few years right? I sure hope so.

Many people that have done this program continue to live very simple after becoming debt free. They just add to that savings. They save for a small amount of time and pay cash for their things. What a beautiful thing. That is where my thoughts need to be as I say good-bye to a silly ole material item.

I will leave with one last thought. It has carried me through this past three weeks and will be one of the only things to keep me going some days.....

When people start questioning what you are doing in this plan, you know that you are doing the right thing! So keep on doing!!!!

I am going to attempt to make homemeade laundry soap sometime in the near future. This should be good, and interesting. So stay tuned.

Getting Started

The main reason why I am choosing to blog about this is so that I can document and be reminded of all that we are doing to better our future. At some point to look back and think, "Wow! Can you believe we were once here?" Right where we are today. It is unreal to think that I will look back and read these first entries someday praising God for the chance we had. I cannot wait until that day of course. I wish I could snap my fingers and be there. I suppose that nothing good would come out of that. Can you imagine how life would be for all of us. No accountability, just a snap of your fingers and all trouble goes away. The other reason for putting this out here is to open readers eyes to the financial lifestyles we are living and how to be accountable to them and be debt free. "Our greatest financial investment is our own income", states Dave Ramsey. The average American will make around or over 1 million dollars, if not more, in their lifetime.



The MOST IMPORTANT thing before having a budget and starting on the road to being free from debt is that we MUST be in TOTAL agreement with one another to tackle this together. It will not work if only one of the partners wants it and the other isn't involved or doesn't want to do it.



The very first thing we did was call all of our credit card companies to get the exact current balances and to try and lower the interest rates. Then we wrote everything down. We elected to start off by having 4 categories: Debt, Monthly, Food/Gas, and misc. We then wrote down each and every debt.
*First was debt like credit card, line of credit, large dr balances, vehicle, department store, family, secod mortgage etc...
*Second, we wrote down all our monthly bills and musts like tithes, house, electricity, water/sewer, school tuition, phone, cell, internet, tv, etc.. (NOTE: Dave Ramsey does not count the home mortgage as a snowball debt at first. A second mortgage YES, but not the original. So we count it as monthly and not debt.)
*Third is food/gas. How many times to we each fill up a wk, multiplied by 4 wks. We gave ourselves a little breathing room for any extra driving ($25). We came up with a number for groceries and household products, (TP, cleaning supplies etc), We elected $250 for our family of 6 a month. I know that isn't much but I am mainly providing breakfast, box lunches and dinner. (will let you know how this works). We will adjust accordingly or as needed.
*Lastly we added misc for things like co-pays, and any dr bills from here. We elect this since we pay our dr bills as they come in. Unless it is a monthly bill due to a lg amount owed you would have it as debt. Also in this section is anything extra that may come up. Extracurricular activities for kids cost money, bdays, date night, allowance etc... (We have no set number yet. But it will be small.)



Once writing out our debts and bills, we did a lot of math. How much money goes where and what is left after all of this. We made any adjustments that were needed. We also know that we will have to adjust as time goes on. We sit down every two weeks when gets paid and we TELL our money where to go. Different months call for different budgeting. This is why it is crucial to sit down each and every paycheck and discuss and agree so we both know exactly where the money is going.



Another thing to do once you get your numbers all on paper is decide what works for your family. We have elected NOT to eat out for the time being. We do have reserve for a few things that are coming up but eating out doesn't seem worth it yet. If you elect to have an allowance then that must be written down as well. All money must be accounted for. Every last dollar!! Why? It's too easy to nickle and dime. Isn't that how we all got into debt in the first place. Little here and a little there. Before you know it you've spend $500 or a $1000. And we all know where it goes after that.



Then comes the hard part.... We CUT those credit cards. No need to "save" one for an emergency. We will not need it. We have not closed any accounts just cut the convenience of having a card for easy escape. From this point on we will be using our hard earned cash and not borrowing from anyone anymore!!!! (We do, and have kept our debit card. That is the only card and we ONLY use it for gas which we discuss the day before or morning of needing filled.)



Establish and Build an Emergency Fund
Save $1000 for emergencies.
After plugging the numbers we began to save for our emergency fund. We sold things that were no longer used, needed or wanted. If we can live without it we sold and are selling it. I love the quote from Dave Ramsey where he says "Sell so much that the kids think they are next." I thought that was humorous. Of course our children do not think they are next nor would we want them to be. We put every dollar that was earned and wasn't going to bills and debts to this fund. We have an account that is separate from all others. We have access to this account one way and one way only; Driving all the way to the bank (not real close to our home) and walking in and pulling it out. The more inconvenient it is to get it the less likely we are to be tempted to use or borrow from it. (which we shouldn't anyway. It is an emergency fund not a I spent money we didn't have and now need some to pay it back.)



Now that we have our $1000 in our fund we get to start rolling our snowball. This is where we are at now. All money in accounted for. Every last dollar. Whichever is the smallest balance (debt) is what we are attacking first. It is where the remainder of our paycheck goes. After the first month you will know and see where and how it will work for you. Whatever money is left over isn't a spending spree money or we have a hundred dollars to go get a pair of shoes I really wanted, it must go to the making of your snowball. So if I paid all my bills, debts, have my grocery cash and gas money put aside, I take the rest of the money and put it towards that first debt that I am attacking. Every penny counts for something. An individual snowflake will do nothing but with hundreds and thousands of them we can have a small snowball. The more we put towards debt the larger the snowball and the closer we are to freeing ourselves from the bondage on our debts.



Getting out of debt takes a lot of discipline, hard work, saying no to things you used to not even think twice about. For us personally, we have completely given up going out to eat, canceling our tv service, it can be watched on the Internet anyway, our land line, unnecessary driving, looking for coupons on the products I use, selling whatever isn't needed or used, downgrading vehicles (hopefully soon). When we need diapers we walk into the store and ONLY get diapers. No nick knack here and M&M's there. We have gone as far not purchasing gifts for extended family and friends this year. Our children will have small simple bdays that will not require money to be spent. Are people going to criticize us? Yes! Be upset with us? Yes! Not understand us? Yes! Is this extreme? Yes! Is it worth it? You bet! Is this sort of living temporary? Yes! To a point. We can have nicer cars later. We can buy gifts for family and friends with cash later. We are willing to live drastically now so that we can become free from the lenders that are sucking the life out of us. So we can live like we dream of living. So our children can have the option of a private school education, college fund, and even the weddings they dream of. All without refinancing, borrowing, and owing more and more and more and more! We are mad and ready for the life we have always dreamed of and wanted!

Our Story

After ten years of marriage and eleven years with accumulating debt, we have had enough! We have chosen a different way of living so we can free ourselves from the bondage of this debt. Our debt has controlled us long enough! Now we control our money!

I am not exactly sure what was different this time. This time the stress was overwhelming. Living from "paycheck to paycheck" with "too much month left after the money is gone" was becoming unbearable.

I got talking to someone a while back about money and debt. I got overwhelmed at the thought of our debt. She told me her story, then I told her ours. She had SO much information. She gave me so much encouragement and pushed us to purchase the book we had been poking around at for a few weeks. She swore that even WE could become debt free.

Long story short, we got online and ordered "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey.

The reason I blog is to share our story. I am not afraid of where we are anymore. Do I like the numbers we see? Not one bit, but I am convinced that we will see those numbers shrink. And rather quickly. I am also convinced, and trust me when I say, that if we can do this, anyone can.

We lie to ourselves in order to not have to hold ourselves accountable for our irresponsible spending. We are deceived into believing lies that are told to us regarding credit. But no more! Our journey has begun and it is going to be a great one.