I spent about $10 but paid an extra extra $500 (on top of my usual extra) on the car. Our GoodWIll stores have half-price sales on the last weekends of the month, and my goal was to not spend except then. I did spend some money on a quilt back. Believe me, I didn’t want to! But at least I used my 1/2 price coupon!!

September Resolution is to track my calories and exercise EVERY DAY!!! I know this sounds cheaty, but starting Tomorrow LOL

I really agonized over whether to use ING or not, given their recent acquisition by Capital One. But yea, I need to make that money harder to get to. It was just TOO easy to transfer “just a little” over from that account into checking. It was the same fundamental behavior as using the cc “just a little” to cover some shortage. By having it, but not having it easily accessible, I’ll have to sharpen my planning and budgeting skills and get out of that habit once and for all.

I guess I have another big announcement. Some of you will recall that for most of our marriage, VB and I have kept our finances separate. Even after VB, we kept a lot of things things separate even as we started to plan things out together. It was one part functional, because of how the farm is set up, Steve’s job being the main breadwinner at the moment, and how we have the utilities set up in my name. But it was also habit, which we’re always reluctant to change. Worse, the thought of truly combining our finances really pushed hard on negative experiences we’d both had during previous relationships. We’ve been talking about how it would really make more sense to combine everything so that we have a better handle on our earning and spending. So this week we’ll be working on combining our parallel-but-didn’t-talk-well-with-each-other budgets. Then this coming weekend, we put the two budgets together into one unified zero-based budget for February. Given the farm biz, it’s going to be a fairly tangled process, but we’re strongly motivated to build on the improvements we made during 2015, and keep that train a-rolling during 2015. So, here’s to one master budget. Or at least our first best try at one.

I will tell you the most important part of our journey has been using ING and its subaccounts. We contribute weekly to 12 different subaccounts, and try to kick money into a number of others when we have a surplus of monies. Having the funds autodrafted out of our checking account a few days after they are deposited (just in case there is ever a glitch and our paychecks are not automatically deposited for some reason)has allowed us to build up nice subaccounts for when we actually need the money to pay specific bills or to cover emergencies. I think you’ll be very happy with your decision to use them for your savings, and will soon decide to branch out and add other subaccounts for future needs. The beauty is that once it’s gone, it’s not really gone. You simply can’t get your fingers on the money right away, and that has been key in our being accountable for our earnings and savings and not giving our selves a chance to blow what we make.

My spending of late has been over the top. I’m not happy to say that I’ve wasted money (nothing to show for it at the end of the day). The things I’ve purchased I’ve not regretted the experiences, but really looking back, I could have kept the money. I need to reign myself in so I will go on this fast with you.

To that point, Amazon has become my friend, I’ve made money recently on Amazon trading in my cell phones for Amazon gift cards which have applied to my account. I had an HTC Inspire – traded it for a 48.75 gift card. I had an iPhone 3gs 32GB which I’m hoping will bring in 79.00. I am most surprised at the trade in for an iphone several model years old. I have the original box and in it was my original receipt where I paid 1 dollar for it brand new on the day it was released, so a 78.00 profit is a total score for me!

My other problem is that I’m either ready to move or completely redo my home…. eek. Yeah, I just need to put the brakes on and stop!
I’m in!

per se, but I will add my own little (not so little) personal challenge. Ever since we attended FPU, I’ve had the mini BEF set up – $500. But it has repeatedly been ransacked over the months, for various emergencies which upon later reflection simply constitute poor planning on my part. I’ve replenished it, then drawn it down again, then replenished, then drawn down again. Now that I have supposedly been “on the DR path” for over a year, it’s high time I refine my budgeting such that I don’t draw it down anymore except for true emergencies. And let’s face it, the better we plan, the less often those moments come along.

So, my participation in this challenge will be to get my BEF back up to the $500 I originally started with (and no, that’s not nearly big enough, realistically, but that amount has eluded me since I first drew it down, so that’s my first goal). Furthermore, I have been shopping for a non-convenient savings account to put it in, and I’ve decided to go with ING’s online accounts so that I can’t just get my mitts on it quite so easily in the future. I will reach my $500, AND get it moved to a new ING account, by March 1st. Or face the consternation of y’all. That’ll be my accepting and meeting that challenge with you. Deal?

Ashley is fasting. A spending fast, that is (no food fasts.. I get too grumpy when I don’t eat). Will you join me? Starting today thru February, I will not spend one extra penny that does not go toward a “need”. No eating out, no extra spending on my hobbies, no clothes, etc. Just basic groceries, gas for the car and my bills.

I want to try it for a month now and see how it goes. Right now, I have $316.95 in my “blow money” account, with $20/week going into it. So I should be able to bump that up to almost $400 by the end of Feb.

For me, I don’t think it will be that difficult. I almost always take my lunch to work and when I do buy clothes, it’s always from a thrift store. The worst part is that we always eat out on Saturdays and it’s always around $30. If I could bank that… ohhh… that could be an additional $120 next month!

I’ll let my husband do the grocery shopping.. he’s very good at sticking to a list, whereas, I like to browse each aisle!

I need accountability, so I’ll be posting my progress! If you want to join me, that’d be super, but understandable if you laugh instead!!!! 🙂

Check the expiration date on your passport (don’t ask why I’m suggesting this. Believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise to find out a child’s passport had expired the weekend before an international flight). I’ve been thinking about you all day, and I’m just so happy for you. Incidentally, one of my long time girlfriends has been out of work for two years. She lost her home in a foreclosure and had to move in with her 23 year old daughter since her unemployment has run out. She just found out that she has been offered a terrific position and she starts this upcoming Monday. Everyone I’ve been hoping would be employed in wonderful positions seem to be finally finding great jobs this week. I’m sure this is a fantastic job for you since they are making an investment in you by flying you to Germany to expand your skills for their (and obviously, your) benefit. This has to be a wonderful opportunity for you! One more big hug from me! Yay!

Not that it has been used except to go to Canada.. I had gotten a voice mail from her, saying she wanted to talk to me. I’m thinking, “Uh oh…” But I just got off the phone with her. She wanted to make sure I knew that the position wouldn’t be at the location where I went to interview. That office is closing, and they’re moving and merging to a different location. I already knew that, so it wasn’t a problem. She says she had to get one more signature, then she’ll be sending an offer!
Sweet… Don’t know the salary range, but I can be a little flexible on that since I’m debt free except for the house.(yes, the Baby Steps work!)
And if I can pass a background investigate for Homeland Security, I don’t think I’ll have a problem with THIS one… 🙂

As long as you pass the background and physical, you have a job! Not only that, I remember you telling me that traveling to Europe is on your bucket list. What a way to go! Thank the good Lord! I know a lot of us have had you in our prayers, and this sounds WONDERFUL!!!! Yay!!! I don’t think any of us could be happier if it happened to one of us. Congratulations, and a great big hug from me to you! Now, get that passport asap!

That doesn’t imply….. No sir… That says you will have an offer AND. They will wait for you until your contract is over! Wild snoopy dancing over here!!!! Surely your dancing with me! I will be dancing for the next 6 weeks.

Remember the company that asked me if I was still interested, and I told them yes but I had just started a contract? Here’s the response from the HR lady: “Alvin, Thanks for the response. You will be contacted by our Director of HR very soon with an offer.
I spoke to the hiring team and waiting 6 weeks won’t be a problem. If you accept the offer we will work to get the background and physical done so you will be able to start with us as soon as you get done with your contract with KForce.
On another note – Do you have a passport? There will be some required training in Germany with the IT team.”

Now am I imagining things, or does that imply that I got the job if I want it???

how new cars were becoming harder to afford for many Americans. The gist of the story was that the payments were so high now that people couldn’t fit it in their budgets. So I had to post a comment:
“What’s wrong with saving up and paying cash? You’ll spend MUCH less that way than if you financed the thing…”

Which prompted a reply from someone else: “If someone would give you $30K for under 4% interest you’d be stupid to use your own money. You make more than that in the market.. It’s free money today.. Heck I even took out a mortgage on my house!! Free Money!!”

After marveling at that mindset (I guess I’ve officially become “weird”, I just sent this reply: “Paying cash instead of financing for 4% is guaranteed money. Speculating in the stock market ISN’T. I’ll stick with paying cash, thank you. :-)”

I dunno – even after SO many people run into problems with credit cards, loans, etc. – there are still those ready to run headlong into the storm. I don’t know whether to be amazed or saddened…

because both here in my own home and as a topic of discussion on all the lists many of us are cleaning out and organizing our pantries—dh is currently building me can rotators for my upstairs pantry and I am THRILLED to say the least. I’ve emptied the pantry and am anxiously waiting for the installation of the can rotators that will hopefully end the cluttered spot we laughingly call the pantry.
I have always wanted my food storage to be well organized, and inventoried so I’m not buying too many of one thing and not enough as another. I am a list maker, a coupon user, and a menu planner and a mainly scratch cook. But am often frustrated by one or the other of those. Which of course leads to waste of groceries and that of course means a waste of cash. I recently complained to dh there had to be an all in one program that would help me be more organized on this.
Being the electronics junkie dh is he went on a search mission and found an ap for my android phone. It’s called Grocery Tracker. I am in LOVE! This thing does everything but fly, it of course has a couple of cons to it, but they are so minor I can definitely live with them. Especially since it’s a free ap!
Anyway, I’ve been using it for a couple of months now and decided to write a review about it. I am in no way affiliated with Grocery tracker or its developers. If this sounds like something that might help simplify your life not only for groceries, but for anything you purchase on a regular basis you can read my review at the link below.

but to me in reading this, the best news is that your son won’t be in need of surgery or a back brace. Hopefully, this means whatever has been a medical concern for him (and for you) is resolving itself. I do hope he’s doing well!

1) I received my tax refund and knocked out one credit card balance on my debt snowball. My tax return was larger than I anticipated because I was able to claim my son this year. His father and I usually alternate years in who gets to claim him, but since he’s $11,000 behind in child support my attorney told me to claim him.

2)I took my son to a pediatric spinal specialist yesterday and he doesn’t need surgery or another back brace (expensive), just a few physical therapy visits and a follow up appointment in 6 months. That means I can keep him on a less expensive medical plan and save $200 per month in premiums. Not to mention not having the medical bills that would have racked up if he had to have surgery.

3) The courts started garnishing my son’s father for child support, so after a year of not receiving anything after he lost his job I might get some support. I’m not putting that into the working budget but anything that comes my way will go straight to whichever Baby Step I’m working through at the time.

I’ve been waiting for a long time on all of these things to wrap up and it’s not been easy to be patient. So glad that things are turning around for the positive. Happy to have this month put behind me and start moving forward!

I went to college at U.T (as did a couple of other people on this list)and lived in Austin for about 7 years. It was a blast. From there we moved to Atlanta and then kept on moving. I was widowed 7 years ago and thought about moving back to Austin from northern Ohio, but, by then, I loved the 4 seasons, and skiing in the winter, and swimming in the Great Lakes in the summer months. As much as I love Austin, I knew I’d miss many other things if I chose to move back there, so, I decided to stay rooted in the Midwest.

We own some land in Wills Point and my husband has a co-worker that lives about 2 miles from where we will be in Wills Point (east of Terrell). They work close to DFW airport and the co-workers commute time is only 10 minutes longer than my husbands and we are currently in Grand Prairie (we are only about 17 miles from his office). The distance is much further but the time is not. Right now my husband’s commute is around 1 hour on a good day!!

Welcome back home!!!! SWA is a great company to work for!!!

We’re from western ny where we were 5 minutes from a beautiful waterfall, 10 minutes from skiing in winter, 10 minutes from one lake, 15 from another, the creek running through our back yard, apple picking, pumpkin picking ($1 each), fall leaves, winter snow, etc. Here’s it’s pretty much the same year round. It’s just not for us.

But, hubby is going to be working at Love Field and I think that commute would kill him. Looks to be 60+ miles. We’ve actually found a place in Parker that we fell in love with. It’s about a 25 mile commute one-way, but he’s doing almost 40 one-way now.
Thanks for the link though!

The link for it is: http://www.realtor.com/news/trends/heres-do-it-yourself-on-steroids/?iid=rdc_news_hp_carousel_theLatest I don’t know what you’re looking for cost wise, but….It has a small front yard and a HUGE back yard. The flyer she has out front has MANY more pictures so there might be a link somewhere with more pics, I don’t know.

There are more popular areas of the metroplex, but Terrell is growing but still has a nice small town feel. And it’s not as expensive or “plastic?” LOL

Anyway, only house (other than mine which you can’t buy because you’re too smart to do that since you listen to DR and we didn’t know better) that I know of in DFW. I miss home a lot. But we are getting to really like it here (VA…it’s been 5 weeks).

But, one of the beautiful things about the move is that I won’t be doing any packing. YAY! The company movers will come in and pack everything up for me – they supply boxes, paper, tape, etc. Then, the moving guys come take it all and put it in their truck. They drive it to our new house and unload into the right rooms. I just have to unpack and put away. So, while the packing is going on, I’ll be sitting in a corner with my laptop. Gotta love that!

Hubby has accepted a job offer and we’re moving. Yes, that’s a good thing. We’re currently in a suburb of Seattle, Washington while all of our friends and family are in West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. Hubby’s new job is with Southwest Airlines in Dallas! YAY!!! We’re going home!!!
They’ve offered a very attractive package to get us down there – like we would have said no anyway. LOL They’re hiring movers to pack and move us, putting us up in a condo for 60 days until we find a house and giving us a moving allowance. Once we get down there, hubby’s salary is going to be quite a bit more than he’s making here (almost $20,000!!!!). Plus, cost of living is much cheaper there. We’ll be way ahead of where we are now.
We sold our home here last year for various reasons. Our debt is very low – some small medical bills that will be gone this month, my car (pre-DR stupidity), a small student load (another pre-DR stupidity) and bills for installment loans (long term) from Extloans lender. Our plan is to buy a house down there and get everything else paid off ASAP. We’ve been looking at houses and found one that we really like on-line. We’re going to make a trip down there in a couple weeks to look at several in person. All the ones we’re interested in would be about half the monthly payment we currently shell out for rent. We’re thinking we can do a 15 year mortgage and have it paid off in 7 to 10 years.
Sorry I’m babbling. We’re just very excited about all this. We left Texas ten years ago (three years in Ohio, seven years in Seattle). It’s time to go home. The plan right now is for us to move mid-Feb. I’m ready to go now!

A really great motivator for you would be to listen to Wallace’s radio program online. It’s free and you can listen to all 3 hours of his program absolutely free. Go to his website and click on listen to Wallace, and then go to his archives. I think this will help you get on the right track listening to other callers and their problems and Wallace’s answers to their concerns. You can also learn all kinds of great things about his program just from his website (such as the babysteps and learning to just take care of the 4 walls and letting everything else slide until you start taking care of the necessities). Another suggestion might be that you let your (miserly) sister do you and your mom’s shopping. It sounds as if you gave her your lists, she wouldn’t spend your funds (which will be cash now, of course!) on anything but what’s on your list and you’ll be able to resist the temptation of shopping for crap you don’t need. Lastly, there’s a book by a family called the Economides or something like that and they do really basic things such as buy a 2 liter of soda at the store and then get cups of ice and drink their sodas that way. I honestly haven’t read it because I know it’s a pretty basic “how to” book, but if you go to Amazon, check them out, read the reviews and then go to the library you should be able to glean some extra info. Someone suggested to you visiting the library is like shopping, only for free. I’m in complete agreement. Use that as a substitution for your shopping trips for entertainment. Lastly, I bet the librarian could turn you on to some good frugal living books to continue to keep you motivated. Mary Hart (the author), and the Tightwad Gazette series would all be good places to get you started.

Good luck and congratulations on starting to cut even more of those corners; you’re on your way to success!

There is a line in a hymn that we sang yesterday that fits here. The song is “Yield Not To Temptation” the line is “each victory will help you, some other to win” Big victories are won by overcoming the small things first. You are making some very important decisions and taking what feels like small steps but when you get past some of these things you will look back and see what giant strides they were.

Do you have a consignment shop in your town? If you have new, unworn or well taken care of clothes, you could sell them there and get more money for them than from a yard sale.

I get anymore help then mom’s 50 on the light bill, i’ll be out of loans by November. One a month every month between now and then but this month and next month i’ll have to borrow a little. This will allow me to get out of the big one in September, the next big one in October and the little one in November. I’ll hvae to borrow what I can’t get help paying on the light and phone bills this month and a little more next month but that’s it. NO MORE.
I know it’s not the way you were telling me but i’m determined to do this anyway I can without going to jail. Not a good place to be, trust me. It’ll be soo darn good to walk out of that place without taking a loan because that’s the one with the highest payback and interest. The other place is much cheaper so there’s less to give back in the long run saving me money. All yardsale profits go toward the big loan.
In september i’m gonna work out a deal with the phone company to get caught up on my bill so my bill won’t be over a hundred. I’m gonna tell them I can pay 75 a month ’til it’s paid off. I’m considering going on levelized billing on the electric too to see if it’ll save me any money or paying it off every month is better.
Between now and November, we’re gonna be eating a lot of beans, ric and pasta dishes but I don’t care. Think of all the weight i’m gonna lose!!! No more eating out unless mom buys and packing food to eat when we have to spend a lot of time in town as well as drinks. Paying nearly 1.50 per coke is crazy. I can buy a 2 liter for .65 and have saved up some 20 ounce bottles for that, water or something else I have at home. I taped all three month’s budgets to the table where i can see it everyday and all day while at the pc. ANd mom will see them too.
Oh, i’m really good someone suggested to get one of Kenneth’s books at the library because i’m enjoying reading it! Can’t remember who it was but Thank you! For the first time in a really long time, i’m actually excited and looking forward to writing down every dime I spend and what I spent it on. I’m gonna start with this month, bad or not.

It’s tough for me to find hope right now. I want to be out of debt, like someone said, YESTERDAY. But we can’t even get current or get our budget out of the red at this point. I’ll be starting my home party business in June and am hoping to at least be able to make my car payment out of it. Would love to bring in another $500 a month on top of that to get current and throw at our debts. I’ve got the plan, just hope the means come through.

I received more good news today. We have 2 furniture bills coming up in June and July and I really wanted to pay those off as they are finance free. Well, I will be receiving a big check for tutoring at our school and will only need about $240 more to pay the first one. I’ll just need to work on the second one. That’s a relief! Dh and I will continue to work on becoming current. It looks like we will manage that by the middle to end of June. Then, the extra pay at the end of June will be for the second furniture bill. We will still need about $1050 to finish that one out. I think I can manage that between e-bay and cake orders. I still hope to teach summer school in June, which will yield around $1200.

We are just being so blessed with many opportunities to drag ourselves out of this hole we’ve dug. God is amazing! I know that, but sometimes I have little faith, and for that I am ashamed!

I was in direct sales for about 1 ½ years and had a lot of fun, but it sure can be a lot of work too getting ready for all the parties and then the thought of having to unpack the entire order and get it ready to be delivered-YUCK! I always tried to treat my hostesses extra special so they never seemed to mind having the entire order shipped to them and being responsible for delivery. Hope that you find the same. Congrats on all the pre-booked parties too.

Dh got a job at Tractor Supply today. He did his drug test and she’ll call him in a day or two to get him on the schedule. He is going to work part-time, but we’re not sure of hours or pay yet until he talks to the shift manager again. This is so great! He works a couple of hours each evening at the school cleaning, but this is flexible so he can still do both. This will help out our budget extremely!

I also had a Tupperware party and she did great! It looks like I’ll make around $125 when all is said and done. I also booked 5 parties, one of which is next Tuesday night. Woohoo! I also started something new. I’ve always packed the orders and then delivered them to the hostess to save money on buying the actual Tupperware bags, but I decided that the money on bags is well spent so I’m sending the whole order directly to the hostess and having her pack her own order. I don’t have the time, and most companies now do it this way. Looks like my summer is going to be busy with parties (that and cake orders)! LOL!

I must say that this is all good news for us. We don’t have any wiggle room in the budget. We have trouble staying current each month. With the added income, hopefully, we can get the debt snowball rolling before the end of the summer. I never did post any summer goals, but I think that if we can save the $1000 BEF and get the snowball going, I’ll be happy. We also have 2 furniture bills coming in June and July that I would really like to pay off since they are finance charge free until then, but it looks like we may just have to suck it up and add it to the snowball. I’ll keep you posted on our progress!