March Madness

March madness in this house wasn't being consumed by basketball for several weeks. It was the sad reality that when you DO NOT live on a ZERO BALANCE budget you spend, aka blow, money you wouldn't have otherwise, it is TOTAL MADNESS! We learned. I never claimed nor believed that we would do this journey and never screw up, have regrets, or even wake up calls. We had a minor stumble block and made some seriously stupid choices. WAY overspent at the grocery store. Did not take cash, killer one. We got selfish and got too much fast food. A dollar here and dollar there. Killer two (and not one nice sit down dinner in that mix) Not worth it! I am not even going to say how much in four weeks we blew. Hmmm! Maybe a huge part of the reason we are where we're at. Totally sucks! We cut cable BUT bought stuff to set up an antenna. Free tv now but money went out first to have it.

So enough complaining. The reality is we made some cruddy choices. SO much that for two paychecks we did no snowball growth. :( We sat down last night and wrote out our budget for the next two weeks. Here's the rundown:
*Vehicles just filled up, so we think $160 will get us till then.(2 fills ea.)
*$100 for food/groceries. I have plenty in the cupboards and freezer, we will have to make it work. We have lots of Mac and Cheese if needed. ;)
*We had several dr bills that were slightly overlooked previously due to insurance not having pd their part yet so we didn't get the bill. We are out $600 in just the deductibles. Of course it has taken a few months for them to get their end pd, now we are getting the bills.
* Along with deductibles, we had 2 visits to Urgent Care, and MANY visits to the dr in the month of March. A few pretty pennies went/going here.
*RJ has worked some major OT this last pay period which helped us be able to pay $800 towards a mattress we had on a no intrest no payments option. It is up in June. We have to have it pd, plus it's next on the list anyhow.
*I have not bought bread in 5 weeks, the kids and hubby (oh yeah, and myself too) are eating up the homemade like crazy.
This is a blessing.

So there is more I am sure but April is almost over. Sad, sad! I know. See you back here soon. (Not doing a meal plan this week since I am making some meals I didn't get to from last week and we have a graduation dinner for RJ (YAYYYYYY!!!!!!) this week as well. No need to rewrite what I already have written down just last week. Hope you enjoyed my monthly wrap up of March, in April. Owell. I am a mom of four. Is that good enough reason???? ;)

Have a wonderful last 11 days of April!!

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!!