Money Matters

• Build up our EF again. -- $500 in our EF by 2012.  That means we need to save $42 a month (or about $9 a week)  to have about $500 in 12 months.  I think that's doable.  Easily trackable with a sidebar!
• Develop a realistic plan with regards to paying down our CC debt/loan debt.-- I want to think more about this still and run numbers.  A good place to start is by not accruing any more debt.  This is my first goal in regards to debt!
• Build up our Holiday Savings again. -- Up first is saving for our February Weekend Getaway for Husbands Birthday.  Details to follow.  This also calls for a sidebar!
• Go Back on the Jars -This has begun!  Took the money out yesterday.  The big thing with this is PERSEVERANCE for us.  Even if we fall of the cash bandwagon, I want to get right back on it ASAP.  None of this, "Oh well, we have fallen off...best to forget about it".  Nuh - uh.  We are going to perservere on this one!

Some updates for blogland...

We had our taxes done today. We went to H&R Block...and I know what everyone is thinking, "Why would you do that? They are so easy to do yourself...what a waste of money..." (I know because I got the earful from my father). But every time I have done taxes I have made mistakes and ended up owing myself or ended up making my spouse owe money. It's just not something I'm doing myself anymore.

Anyways...We got the return it's being distributed in this way:

We paid this months (and a little of next months) Hydro Bill. That was quite nice as it was large because of the dreadfully cold winter we've had. We each are getting $100 for spending money (clothes, Wii Games, lunches out, beer, that kind of thing), we threw $100 onto the LOC, and added $20 to our EF. I will also be paying for the mistake that I made last years taxes when we did them on our own (about $260 bucks). Anyways...taxes always stress me out and I'm glad that this years are done.

Adding the $20 bucks onto the EF today brings it to the grand total of.......(drum roll)....$473.05!!!! that is sweet! I am so pleased with our progress. :) We are 47% to our first goal of $1000 dollars! Our camping trip fund currently has $43 in it or 14.3% of our (liberal) $300 goal. I have plans to start saving for a general house fund too in the next few weeks. Starting small again and building slowly.

I have started participating in a Frugal Village Challenge. It's a spare change/penny challenge. So far I have $9.11 in my spare change jar. The money I save in this jar is going to go to wards Christmas Presents. I started taking part in this challenge about 2 weeks ago. Normally I used to scrounge all our change to pay for Tim Hortons...so I'm hoping this challenge helps me to curb the Timmies addiction.

Today is my 3rd week of being a smoke free human being. I am feeling very proud of myself for not smoking for 3 whole weeks. It hasn't been as hard as I imagined it would be. I've slowly eliminated the places I smoke at and the less I've smoked the more I've noticed how gross it really smells. I've stopped smoking before for months at a time...but I've always restarted. The key for this time is to recognize situations that would make me start again and find some kind of alternative to smoking.

On the weekend I did bake. I made mini-muffins & granola bars! I was quite the Martha Stewart on Saturday afternoon. The muffins are great (they are organic oatmeal with banana).
The granola bars were yummy...although they did not stick together. I don't know what I did but I ended up with granola instead of bars. That was OK though because they were heavenly! I loved them. S gobbled them all up on Sunday night. Andrew, however, would not eat them because he 'only likes granola bars with marshmallows and chocolate in them'. Spoiled little bugger. :P So, I did achieve one goal! The other goal...has not happened yet. I've got the mailer, the items, and labels all lined up...I just haven't found her address and mailed it. I'm getting there...slowly but surely. lol.

Tomorrow we are recommitting to doing the Money Jars. We are going to do CASH ONLY for 1 month and then re-evaluate. It should be interesting. I hope we don't crash and burn like we did last time.

The big thing I have to decide now is...what to spend my money on!

The Good - I've been on task and keeping up with my work load very well this week. Things are not piling up and less questions are being posed regarding stuff I've worked on.

The Bad - I've not been keeping up with my January 2009 goals at all this month. I think the only one I am really on top of is not purchasing any new crafty stuff. We are not going to have the Hydro bill paid off, I have not exercised 500 minutes, I have not created the bill paying system...however, I still have 11 days to pull everything all together.

The Ugly - The Ugly? Well, the Ugly has been Ugly. & yes, that is Ugly with a Capital U. The Ugly has been realizing how quickly debt has re-accumulated in the past year and realizing how easily I have ignored the state of our finances. I think we are going back to the jars STAT and we need to recommit ourselves to living frugally.

my perfect saturday morning consists of a little cleaning, a little surfing, a little crocheting, and some great tunes. it also helps that you go to bed at a reasonable hour and that your child sleeps until 7:30 AM (which is the latest he's slept in months)

i just finished an apple, i've got my water, the wyrd sisters CD is playing, dishwasher is running, the counters are clean and i'm thinking about tackling the living room next. the hardwood is in need of a vacuum.

father and son are upstairs playing video games. i can hear andrew squeal with delight every so often. they're plaing an old bowling game from the 80's on the computer and andrew seems to be better at it then steve (considering he's 3).

before steve goes to work this afternoon we're going to check out a large garage sale at a local church. andrew needs a new pair of sandals to finish out the summer but i don't want to spend a load of money.

which brings me to the jar update. this week we went back on the jars. there's enough allocated for gas (enough to fill up the car), enough for food (we went 1.94 over budget, i could have put something back but i didn't want to cause the line more grief), enough for clothes, enough for the LIFE stuff...except...there's never enough for entertainment. apparently we need to be entertained quite a bit. it seems that our downfall is eating out and eating in. is a large part of our relationship to go out for supper and enjoy appetizers, entrees, desert and drinks. it's hard to develop other aspects of what we can do together as a couple. it's tough but it's happening. sometimes it's as easy as going out side to sit for a few minutes. let the consumption urge pass. lol. we're going through withdrawal from our addiction.

the big test is tonight. my best friend is supposed to be coming over tonight. she wants to go for supper and i don't have any of my allowance left and i don't want to use the entertainment money from the jar b/c i want to save that for steve's day off. in the past i would have just put the meal on my credit card...but now i don't want to do that. i want to suggest that we just stay in. i have the fixin's for pizza and this way andrew can run around. but i know she likes to go out for supper. so we'll see.

i'm off to get ready for the garage sale now.

cheers!

we are back on the jars. i went today and got our cash out for the week. i've got the money in the jars and our allowances in our wallets. we're even going to put 10 dollars a week into an emergency fund (being caught like that last time really sucked big donkey balls)

i've got my ticker back and we are going to stay OUT OF THE OVERDRAFT!

I used to work in schools as a Teacher Assistant. One thing a lot of the younger grades would do is “This Week At School” or TWAS for short. It was always very cute. This week at school…I ate pancakes and played outside and X is no longer my friend. Priceless stuff. Good times. I was doing this on my old blog. It’s a nice tradition that I would like to keep up.

This week at life.

1. We’re going for sushi tonight. It’s all you can eat sushi and I’m EXCITED. My only goal is to stop eating before I feel sick though.

2. Tomorrow I’m giving blood, going to a used kids stuff sale, and going to the used book sale at St. Vital shopping centre. I’m going to be a busy bee.

3. Work has been…okay. I’m here. I do things. I went to another location yesterday and I’m going to be helping them out at least one half day a week…hopefully more.

4. Gails Magic Money Jars have been working for us. We are not following them exactly. There is niggling room in our budget right now for the odd lunch out or other fun things. But it has been over 1 week since we have gone into the overdraft. This alone is huge for us. We have also been making sizeable payments on our utility bills. By the end of this month the balances should be Zero. That is sweet.

5. I’ve been thinking of getting back on the weight loss bandwagon. For the past 6 months I have been weighing myself everyday & for the last 6 months I have maintained. I have fluctuated between 5 pounds down and 5 pounds up…but mostly hovering around the same weight. I’d like to see that number go down and stay there….without becoming obsessed about food and eating and dieting. Maybe lots of fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and good carbs—and NO JUNK FOOD. If I could exercise a little bit and not have chips and candy and cake and tacos then I could probably get somewhere (maybe?). I’ve got to do something about my weight. Really, I need to lose 100 pounds to be even ‘normal’…130 to be ‘thin’. My dream is to be able to shop at normal person stores and buy clothes at superstore.

I'm in love with Gail. She's changing our lives. She's changing the way we think. She's brought us the jars. She's become almost idyllic to me.


We just finished Week 1 of 'Changing Our Lives For The better'. It's been tough. It's been easy. It's required quite a bit of talking....about money. That's right. We talked about money (and not just how to spend it).


We've made some financial goals. They're pretty general. They include not using the credit cards, not going into the overdraft, increasing our saving, paying each utility bill in full each month, and increasing our debt repayment. They're doable. this first week went well. We stuck to the jars and didn't go over on groceries or entertainment.


I did get my tax return late last week. But instead of blowing it on food and booze and smokes I made large payments on our utility bills which had beco me quite large as I have this wonderful talent of only paying a portion each month so that we have more money for dining out, booze and smokes.

Being a Grown Up is quite hard.