It's my Birthday!!!

Today is my 28th birthday.  No matter how old I get I can always expect a $50 check from my Granny on my b-day :)  Well until the day she's not around, but I don't want to think about that for a long time!  I've been wondering if when I get that money if I should add it to an extra car payment or buy myself something new, like a new outfit for a wedding in April.

Murphy strikes again!

Again when I think things are going along smoothly something hits!  It started tonight when I picked up a picture frame and the glass fell out of it right onto my little toe, had I not looked down at my foot I never would have even known it was bleeding.  I tried applying pressure and wrapping it up and even thought about super gluing it, but I ended up in the ER for 3 measly little stitches!  I think my Emergency co-pay is $100.  Then tonight my husband found a dead brown recluse in our daughters bedroom!  He had already talked to pest control once about our rental house b/c he saw some in the garage (which is not attached to the house, nor used by the renter).  He thinks having them come spray is going to cost about $160 for the initial trip.

To sell or not to sell???

I know if I called Dave Ramsey up today he'd tell me I need to get RID of my car!  It's really more of a toy than anything, it's not exactly a family car and this weeks the first time it left the garage since November!  I keep thinking I'm ready to let it go and then when the possibility of selling it gets near I have doubts.  My husband is finally starting to be agreeable to selling it.  If I sell it I'll have enough money for my Fully Funded Emergency fund, plus my monthly expenses will be way down!

Insurance stinks!

As Dave always says Murphy hit!  Soon as we were getting started taking off with our budget, both kids got influenza and I had to spend $300 on Tamiflu.  Luckily we had the money in our emergency fund to use.  This means that I have to get that money put back in the emergency fund, so I won't be able to put both my EMS check and rent check towards the car payment.  I was expecting to get some of that back from insurance when I turned it in, but I don't think the 1.57 check I got back from them was worth sending in for!  We apparently have a crappy prescription plan.  This will hopefully change soon, as my husband's place of employment is looking into insurance coverage!  I was pretty excited when he handed me the envelope to fill out the info!  I thought it might be a big bonus check like he's received in the past when business is going really good, but I was WAY more excited about health insurance!

Payday Friday!

It's payday and I have my budget planned.  I get paid every other Friday and my husband gets paid on the 15th and 30th of every month.  I plan my budget around my paycheck.  My husband has always just put a set amount of money into the account and kept cash for spending during the week.    I used google docs to create a spreadsheet of my budget, I like that since I created it in google I can access it from home and work.

This 2 weeks budget includes:
Groceries:  $150.00 (includes food & other necessities, such as toiletries)
Fuel: $75.00
Church: $120.00
Daycare:  $272.00 (every 2 weeks)
Dance Class: $30 (monthly)
Trash: $48 (quarterly)
Verizon: $120
Home Improvement: $30 (ING Direct Savings Account)
Health Insurance: $233.00
Mortgage: $554.00
Property Tax: $100.00 (ING Direct Savings Account, for auto and house property taxes)
Gas: $115.00

If I stay on budget and planned correctly from the previous pay period I should be able to use the rent check that will be coming the beginning of April to make an extra car payment.

Menu Planning!

Last pay period I planned a menu and made a grocery list and made it through the store without picking up anything extra.  I get my paper on Tuesday and look through the ads to find what's on sale before I go shopping on Friday.  I really like this printable page  from Organized Home.  Here is our menu for the next 2 weeks: 

 

I spent an extra $6 last week to buy a movie ticket to see "The Hunger Games," tonight at midnight! 

Goals

I need goals to keep myself on track and motivated!  I've got a few steps to get there, but baby step #7 is Build Wealth and Give!  I want to be able to give and generously!

I not only want to be able to give money but my time also!  A couple weeks ago after church, my husband said to me, "I'd love to be able to just jump on a bus and go help with mission work."  (I apparently was either spacing off or in the middle of taking the 2 y/o to the nursery when the minister was talking about this.)  One of my goals is to be able to do this without having any financial worries.

I want to call Dave Ramsey and yell, "I'm debt free!!!" on the radio.

I want to teach my kids to be wise with money and I want to begin saving for their college so that they don't start out their adult lives in debt.  My daughter always says she's going to be a doctor, I don't want her to feel like she can't go to med school b/c it costs so much.  She's only 4 so I'm sure she'll change her mind a few times before that. 

And one more slightly selfish goal, I wanna take my kids on a Disney Cruise!  This may be partially for me too.  As soon as I get baby step #2 complete AND have baby step #3 (a fully funded emergency fund) done I plan to save for vacation, so that we can pay for it without incurring any kind of debt!  

Baby Steps

We are working to be debt free!  We are using the Dave Ramsey plan and working through the baby steps.  We have accomplished Baby Step #1-Set up a $1000 emergency fund.  We opened a new savings account in a bank other than the one where our checking account is.  This makes it more of a hassle to get to it.

Now we are working on Baby Step #2-Pay off all debt, other than the mortgage using the debt snowball.  We've never had a whole lot of credit card debt.  I did pay off the one card I had a balance on recently.  I need to get that thing cut up!  That leaves us with only ONE debt to get paid off, my car.  I had the bank increase my auto payment by $150 last month.  I was gonna save as much as I could every month and just make extra payments, but I don't trust myself to do it!