In 2016, we reduced our debt from $86,114.78 to $78,256.52. That is $7,858.26 that we paid off. We started in June, so I am happy with that. We did miss a couple months of paying big payments on our debt, which was rather upsetting but necessary. We used up all of our emergency fund also.
So, I haven't updated in a LONG while. So, let me just review 2016's progress.
In 2016, we reduced our debt from $86,114.78 to $78,256.52. That is $7,858.26 that we paid off. We started in June, so I am happy with that. We did miss a couple months of paying big payments on our debt, which was rather upsetting but necessary. We used up all of our emergency fund also.
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Yes, lots of Happy Fall Y'all! I am SO sick of the heat so I am welcoming fall with open arms! I haven't been posting to the blog lately, because things happen in life and sometimes you just can't find the time and energy to do some things. That is okay with me, but I did want to post my expenses for this past pay period. As you know, we allow ourselves $250 each (My husband and I) every two weeks for food and all other expenses, with the exception of gas. This pay period is the first one in a long time for me to not spend more than my "allowance." We have just had so many unexpected expenses pop up lately and have needed to spend more than expected. When we started out we had a $2,000 emergency fund and an extra $1,000 in our checking account because we weren't comfortable with Dave Ramsey's recommendation to have a $1,000 emergency fund and that is all. So we essentially started with a $3,000 emergency fund and it's a good thing we did because we are down to $300 extra in checking now. We still haven't touched the $2,000 emergency fund in our savings account, but I feel like we will have to at the rate we've been going. :-( Here are MY expenses for 9/15-9/28. Yes...lots of fast food. I am totally aware of this. But I would have spent that money either way at the grocery. I have started to notice that it doesn't make a huge difference for me to buy all my food at the grocery store, as opposed to ordering fast food. So, I am not going to stress about it. You will also see how much I should have left to spend compared to how much I actually have left. This can be caused by forgetting an expense and/or from getting loose change back, which I don't count in my actual money left to spend, just the bills. Walmart Grocery is amazing!
I have never been a fan of shopping at Walmart for my groceries because of the crowds of people, the size of the store, the lines, etc. Their produce has never lasted as long as the produce I get from other stores either. However, I was told by a friend that it is great and hassle-free. Super easy plus I would get $10 off my first order. You know, that ruffled my feathers. Anytime I can save $10 on something I would buy anyways, I am game! I usually hate discounts/coupons because most of the time I have no intentions of going to Michael's, for example, but then I get an email saying "60% off one regular priced item" and I immediately think about what I "need" from there. It is such a joke! So, I am not saving money, I am spending money under the illusion that I am saving money. But, groceries, oh yeah! I have to buy groceries! And it's $10 off my total, not $10 off some weird grocery item I wouldn't normally buy, but because I have a coupon I feel the need to. So anyways, I put in my order on Thursday on my lunch break. Took me about 20 minutes. I had my meal plan with my list of ingredients all ready to go so it was pretty quick and easy. Then on Friday I picked them up right after work. They have special numbered parking spots and you just park in one and call the phone number listed on the sign with your parking spot number. You let them know you are there and ready for your groceries. To save even more time, they tell you to call them 10 minutes prior to arrival so they can be ready to go. I did this and still waited about 5 minutes before they got out to my car. No big deal! They help you pack up your car and have you sign. If they are out of an item that you ordered they will substitute with a bigger/better item. For example, they were out of the 40 count paper plates I ordered so I got 72 count paper plates instead. Pretty sweet! I was very excited about it! If you want to save $10 and try out Walmart Grocery, the coupon code can be found in the link below: r.wmt.co/d9WfB I am not pleased with myself this past pay period. My restaurant and fast food eating is still down, but it could have been more. My boss paid for my lunch one day, which kept it low. My mind just wasn't in the right place this pay period. My husband revealed to me that he is tired of me talking about money all the time and it kind of put me into a small depression. It hurt my feelings immensely because all I am trying to do is make our future great. I know that I could talk about it less, and he didn't say it in a mean way. I just have a hard time not understanding why other people don't care about things as intensely as I do. I discontinued talking to him about it and we agreed I will be paying all the bills moving forward to decrease the need to talk about money. He is 100% on board with getting out of debt, just isn't as gazelle intense as I would like for him to be and that can be very frustrating. Nonetheless, I am ready for my fresh start going into the next pay period!!! This past pay period I spent way too much on household items. Partially, it was necessary because we basically ran out of everything at home all at once, but then I also bought storage and decorative items that were wants, not needs! As far as our unexpected expenses go, my husband had to get all new tires on our Dave car. And then, we ran out of money and had to start spending money on our Debit card for groceries, a couple gifts for some family members with birthdays this month, and for my husband to eat lunch at work. Both of us spent money before our allowance this past pay period and so we each only got $200 instead of $250 and that really took its toll on us. Luckily, we were still able to put $700 onto our first credit card in our debt snowball, so it didn't set us back at all, it is just "annoying." BTW, we have tried to keep $1000 in our checking account since starting this process, and we have been successful up until now. We are now at $750. And, we do still have a $2000 emergency fund in a separate savings account, as opposed to a $1,000 starter emergency fund that Dave Ramsey recommends, because we just feel much safer with extra cushion and it really allows us to have no hesitations when we pay the $700 credit card bill each month.
We MUST do better about not overspending! Here is to a new fresh start. We will get the hang of this eventually. I hear it takes about 3 months to get your act together, so cheers to that! FINALLY! A pay period without going over my budget! I am so happy! I even met my goal of spending half as much on fast food as I spent last pay period. I only spent $21.79 this pay period, as opposed to spending $43.59 last pay period. I have gotten a rough start to the pay period starting today already, however. I took a day off yesterday to enjoy a girl's day with my sister-in-law and her friends. We took a trip to IKEA and the Cheesecake Factory. YIKES! I spent $70. So that is a solid chunk out of this new pay period's budget before it even began. I will be working with $200 for the new pay period, as a result. But, with meal planning like I did this past pay period I think it is very doable! I do have some household items to purchase this time around that I didn't last time (foundation, mascara, conditioner, hand soap, paper plates, baby bubble bath and wash) but I intend to scrounge up any coupon I can get my hands on and get my hand soap and baby bubble bath and wash from dollar tree, which should help a bit. This is going to be a tight budget this pay period, but I am up for the challenge. My goal for this new pay period is to spend only $50 between restaurants and fast food. I spent $67.79 on fast food & restaurants last pay period, so that should be a reasonable goal.
I am determined to meal plan this pay period. My food costs have just been ridiculous lately! So, I made a shopping list with approximate costs from each store and added a date to shop. Hoping this will make a difference in my pocket, but also my mind! I get really tense when I grocery shop and I worry about every little thing I buy, wondering if I actually need it or how I will actually incorporate it into my meals for the week. Now I have a real plan. I always try but I am never this specific! Wish me luck! Today is the last day of this pay period. THANK GOODNESS! I, once again, didn't do very well this past pay period and am ready for a fresh start. I am choosing not to feel discouraged by two bad pay periods in a row. Instead, I am choosing to learn from my mistakes and move forward. No matter what, my husband and I are doing better than we ever have with our money and I am so proud of us! More than anything, I am proud of him for sticking with it and even outperforming me! I truly admire his willpower. When he sets his mind to something he rarely makes excuses to steer away from his goals. It is awesome! And he finally seems to be getting as excited about this as I am. He mentioned the other day that he would like to take a couple days and spend $500 to take a little mini vacation to Gatlinburg, TN. That is where we got engaged and where we had our honeymoon. We love it there! I was very hesitant at first but then I started thinking about it. I don't want him to feel like he is too deprived and maybe it would make him feel rejuvinated enough to keep going and going on this long journey ahead of us. So, I said we could put whatever money we made from the yard sale we had this past weekend towards it and we could also take the money he is going to be getting from a refund for a medical bill and put that towards it so that it wouldn't delay our progress. And yesterday he said nevermind, that he wanted to put that money towards paying off our debt. A little reverse psychology may have had an effect, I'm not sure, lol! Either way I was pretty impressed by that statement.
So, this next pay period, my goal is to spend 1/2 what I spent on Fast Food this past pay period, so $21ish. Fast food is by far my biggest weakness, along with not meal planning. I go into the grocery store and just immediately get overwhelmed. I always say I am going to make a shopping list, and half the time I don't, but even when I do, I never stick to it. That is my 2nd goal this week. Make a shopping list and have a plan for every meal for at least one of the two weeks in the pay period. below is a graph of my expenses, I am looking forward to seeing a smaller piece of the pie for fast food next pay period. Well, I finally created an Etsy shop. This is something I have wanted to do for way too long, but I always let fear of failure rule over me. I never saw myself opening a shop for personal finance spreadsheets, however. I always dreamt of opening one for digital, printable invitations. I LOVE to design invitations! But, I no longer have access to the software I used to use to create them, so I will have to wait on that once I have some money to purchase it again.
So...I have put together an expense tracker like I use for myself and added some other cool features, such as a pie graph. It is only $2.50 and can be found on my Etsy shop, here. I created this for people who have glanced at my expenses spreadsheet and asked me to share it with them. I hope it is helpful to others. Had this been available to me I easily would have bought this (before I knew what I was doing in Excel). I actually put together a Debt Payment Calculator that is for sale on my Etsy page as well, here. I was very proud to have sold a few of them. Why wouldn't I want to help others and also make a little extra cash on the side to help my family out? No brainer! opefully it has been helpful to those who have purchased as well! So, I threw together a calculator that I could calculate the months it would take me to pay off each and every one of my debts. All of my debts are in separate spreadsheets, and based on my snowball, the amounts I will pay towards my debts will constantly change, so I culdn't find a product out there that would do what I wanted, so I made it myself. You can find this product that I have put together here.
Once I filled that all in, I added a new tab with the above information to calculate based on the data in each separate tab. So, it has been determined that it will take me 46 months to payoff all debt. Fun fact, it will take just 20 months to pay off all credit card debt and a small student loan thrown in! The following 26 months is student loans, a small mortgage, and car loans. These calculations don't include any of our bonuses that we plan to throw at debt or tax refunds, or christmas money we receive as gifts, or money we make from selling stuff. I am darn happy about 46 months. This process has been difficult so far, but it's getting easier. I have been told time and time again that I am not attacking with gazelle intensity, but I am attacking with what I am comfortable with and still making great process that I am proud of! Well, we had a rough 2 weeks. Pretty much everything fell apart. I had a business trip to Chicago so I had to fork out some of the costs up front for that trip and will be reimbursed on my next paycheck. Then, we had car problems. My husband tried to fix the problem himself but it didn't end up working so we had to take it in to the shop. We had to have our driver's side rear brakes replaced (pads, rotors, calipers). None of that makes any sense but that is what the mechanic said. We got an oil change and 2 new tires, as well. I have been airing up my tires every other day for months! I am so relieved to have that taken care of and hopefully we will be good for awhile on car repairs/maintenance. I have only taken 2 trips to the grocery and during one of my trips, I only got one food item (mac n cheese). I am so excited to have some money in my pocket again, as I got paid today and we are starting our next two weeks of allowance. We had a birthday party, celebrating 2 birthdays in our family. We celebrate everyone's birthday in our family, no matter how old you are. So, we usually just buy cards, but lately we have also been adding lottery tickets to the cards just for a little something. I have been finding that I need to buy clothes lately since it is summer and everything I own is winter clothing. But, I have been very frugal! Ross is becoming a go-to place for me. Their clothing is so CHEAP and cute! My husband is a team manager and he acquired a new team of employees. Our tradition is to make goodie bags for the team members to welcome them to the team. So, anything with "Team Bags" as the reason, is referring to those costs. I went way over budget on these but will show you that in a later post. My husband has been getting away with making vending machine purchases with his debit card, claiming he has no small bills. So, that has been kind of annoying, but he only did it twice, and I am hoping he won't continue to make this a habit. Gas for these last 2 weeks was surprisingly low, to the point that I think I must have missed a gas purchase! But, maybe since I was away in Chicago for a couple days that is why...? I am looking forward to staying within budget this next pay period. I have to after this past pay period. YIKES!
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Hello. I am a 30 year old mommy/wifey who is FED UP with DEBT! Join me as my family and I climb out of the hole one day/one paycheck/one month at a time. Archives
February 2017
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