Did you pay your bills this month?

Enjoying the freezer meals of my labor

2008-08-23T11:59:00.002-04:00

Last Friday and Saturday was my first attempt at creating freezer meals for a few weeks. I'm happy to report that I am reaping those just rewards! I had created the following meals last weekend, which are our favorites and tend to freeze well for future use:

3 batches of Porcupine Meatballs
3 batches of chili
2 batches of Honey Mustard Pork Loin
2 pie pans of chicken and stuffing
2 batches of meatloaf (made later this week)
1 batch of diced chicken breast for Chicken Alfredo
1 batch of BBQ chicken breast
----------------------------------------------------
14 meals total!

Now, some of the meals will be large enough to have leftovers so it is at least 3 weeks of meals right there. I also used my foodsealer to seal the rest of the chicken breasts raw and froze them for future use. I just didn't have the time to create other meals with them right away last weekend. I should only go to the grocery store for staples over the next few weeks. I may have to get more veggies but as for main courses I'm set! It's been great this week not having to figure out what I am going to make for dinner, I just look in the freezer! This week we had the porcupine meatballs and chili. The chili is so versatile and a very large portion so we ate off of that for 3 days. I also had a rotisserie turkey breast in my freezer that I took out last weekend to thaw and that provided us with two meals: turkey with sweet potatoes AND turkey paninis (yum!). I will definately do a freezer meal round-up again in the future. It was very busy and tiring that weekend but now I'm reaping the rewards!

Preparing for freezer meals

2008-08-15T23:25:00.004-04:00

My sister and I went to the Hartville Market today. I spent $70 on food ($55 for chicken and ground beef and the remainder on fresh fruits and veggies). I allot myself $40 a week for food so that means between now and next week's budgeted food money, I have $10 for staples. Unless I go ahead and use Aug 29th food money to make it $50 and just get some other items I need. I will be going back to school on Monday and would like to have what I need for the next 2 weeks, at least. I need to remember to transfer $70 from the checking to the savings as it was savings money I used to buy the groceries this week. Most of the time the budget feels more like a juggling act. I'm always afraid I will drop a ball somewhere and then all the balls in the air will follow suit.

I'm hoping to get a few freezer meals out of today's shopping adventure. I already got a great deal on pork loin this week and today I crock potted some rosemary pork and froze two sets of honey mustard pork loin for two future meals. Tomorrow I want to make a big pot of chili and freeze most of it. Chili is very versatile around our house. We not only eat it straight as chili but also make other meals, such as tacos, taco salad, and chili cheese chips. We lurve chili around here! I also need to freeze the chicken breast I got today. I need to figure out how I want to separate them and prepare them for future meals for the freezer. Maybe I'll peruse my cookbooks tomorrow as it is so late already.

As for snowflaking, I've been using dh overtime to pay off one credit card that now has over $700 on it. I would like to just knock that one out over the next month. I hope his overtime continues so that we can take advantage of putting it all into debt. I can then get down to business with snowballing the heck out of the van payments, as that plan is on hold until the $700 is off the books.

Pay off van first, not the car

2008-08-04T10:36:00.003-04:00

I'm awaiting a call from the dealership about the van. I had to take it into the dealership because last week I had it at 2 regular car repair shops and both told me they couldn't fix the AC because of contaminated fluid. What!? Never heard of contaminated fluid. I was told that it would take other equipment to extract the contaminated fluid and put in new. Hence, the dealership. I'm not excited about what they will tell me as I assume the worst bill for this service or any service at a dealership. I also need the wiring with the brake lights replaced. Two major estimates I am awaiting.

The Honda has been good to us. Probably the better of the two purchases concerning the van. We expect to have the Honda a long time, but not the van. Change in plan...we will pay off the van first before paying off the Honda. For the longest time we wanted to pay off one of the car payments so as to only have one and we thought the lowest payoff was best to focus on. Now we want to pay off the van first. That will take us a little longer but we would hate to roll over the van amount into another car payment if it decided to die on us.

Here are the figures (as of August 2008):

SNOWBALL extra $200.00/mo.
Early payoff of van = 22 months
Early payoff of Honda = 17 months

Early payoff (van payment snowballed into Honda) = 26 months (saving $619)
Early payoff (Honda payment snowballed into van) = 26 months (saving $612)

Interesting! Paying off the van first will save us $7.00! I could buy my honey at least two shirts from the thrift store with that!

Budgeting, spreadsheets...

2008-03-27T12:59:00.001-04:00

Well, I found a ton of great budgeting spreadsheets online. I was excited. I already use the computer so why not make budgeting more interesting using these spreadsheets! Well, maybe more interesting isn't the exact phrase to be used here...interesting can have positive and negative connotations.

Getting Finances Done has a How to create a zero-based budget post as well as 3 reasons most budgets don’t work and how to fix them (a.k.a. How to create a budget that works). If you are into the Dave Ramsey idea of budgeting, RateState.com claims to have a "zero based budgeting tool". This seems promising.

Friendster has some ideas on How to budget effectively and also, how to stick to it. This has some short explanations of formulas. I like her following idea:

2. Still got that budget sheet? Keep your goal in sight. Select the whole
thing and change the font size to 8 pts. Then move the fields around so
it'd fit on a nice little card about the size of your wallet. Take all
your bank cards out - you'd only need one, and that only on occasion -
and tape the card over the inside of your wallet. Now every time you
pull it out to buy coffee (bad girl!) you'd be reminded to not spend
that money.

Lifehacker readers give their own ideas on their Best budgeting software and methods. Savingadvice.com has A Simple Way To Budget? (Your Advice). Commenter, Andy, makes sense when saying that there is a difference between writing a budget and using spreadsheets to record expense.

Tracking your spending through a computer program or notebook is not budgeting.
That can help you understand where your money is going, but budgeting is
telling your money where to go. This means spending your money on paper
before you get it in hand. This paycheck I get X dollars. This much goes to
rent, this much for entertainment, this much for groceries, etc.

Andy, brilliant. Plain and simple. Even still, seems as if quite a few people would like to see more samples/examples of spreadsheet use...I would too.

There is a nice large post in one of the forums called Beating the Blues found at Essential Baby. I already do what is mentioned in step three:

Once you have your budget template set up, start going through every single
bank statement, line by line, and putting the income or expense in the right
section of the budget (this is why having your own budget in excel is good
because you can do the 15+50+14 thing).

If you didn't catch the "15+50+14 thing", this is where you could write down how your money is split up instead of just inserting a total. For example, I designate about $60 per week on groceries per month but may divide it up differently week by week, depending on our spending needs. Instead of just typing $240 for the entire month, I will set up a formula where it may look more like the sum of $240 (80+80+40+40). The cell says "240.00" but the sum for that particular cell is set up "80+80+40+40".

Sandro Santos at TechNews has Excel: Tips for making magic… The intro states:

Are you working with Excel and want take your Excel skills to the next level? Or
do you want to learn Excel and don’t know where to start? Check out these 70+
tips and shortcuts that will help you make Excel Magic.

The above link has so many resources: online tutorials, videos, templates, blog lists, helps, book titles, experts.

Sound Money Tips has Tips on Free Budgeting Tools and Software.

The Dollar Stretcher Blog discusses envelope budgeting, but also look to the comments at the bottom of the post for ideas from readers on some spreadsheet use.

Queercents has an excellent and reader-friendly post Almost Debt Free: Expense Tracking with the Queercents Free Expense Tracker. Finally some examples!

My Money Blog has How Do YOU Budget? More commenters sharing how they budget.

Mint has A Minty Way to Keep Track of Your Daily Spending. This takes your perfect, or not, spreadsheet info and turns it into graphic analysis. So, how much did you spend on fast food last month? A graphic analysis of your spreadsheet would give you a visual viewpoint.

Snowflake buddies!

2008-03-20T23:18:00.002-04:00

This week's snowflake=$48.50

Deal of the day: Walgreen's Playtex Sport Tampons (16 count)
Sale 2/$6.00-(cp $2.50+$1.00)=2/$2.50+tx!

I'm so excited! I have a snowflaking buddy! (waving) Hiya, buddy! You know, they say that if you have a buddy to lose weight with then you lose better, faster. Well, we are going on a money diet together! We are so motivated to shed those unwanted debt pounds! We are boning up on our snowflaking and paidtwice has a great post on developing a snowflake mentality. I'm developing an excel sheet for budget and snowflaking. We have challenges that we would like to do and share with others. I have so much to tell in the next post! Gotta get all my thoughts together first.

Blizzard aids organization...yay! Paying for my own gifts...ugh!

2008-03-08T22:56:00.000-05:00

We had a blizzard in NE Ohio and surrounding areas. Wow! I haven't seen anything like this since I was a kid and we got walluped. DH and I shoveled out the driveway. We were spinning our tires trying to get the Honda moving. Finally when DH drove and I pushed we moved it, and I was almost rewarded with a faceful of snow and gravel as I almost fell into the ground. I recovered well, so no snow-eating for me today.

Being that we couldn't go anywhere as places were closed and there was a driving/parking ban I got quite a bit accomplished today. First, after reading blogs and forums about high-interest savings accounts I decided to open an ING Direct savings. I'll share this saga as I await to see if the first deposit worked alright and whatever else they need me to do in order to finalize this account. I'm pretty excited about earning 3.50%! So much better than our brick and mortar credit union, which I still love for other reasons. I would never go back to a bank again! The fees are outrageous! The credit union is definately customer-friendly when it comes to fees.

The other item on the list was to sort my coupons and cut the most recent ones from their packets. I had so many...a fistful for sure! I've already spent most of our grocery money this week (because of the oncoming blizzard that was forecasted for this weekend) so I will just have to plan my grocery shopping for free or almost free items this week.

On a sour note, I get to pay for my Valentine's Day gift! Yeah, it's true. My DH decided to put my gift on the store's credit card at 23% interest! I now have the bill staring me in the face sitting on my computer desk. I'm choosing to pay it off with savings just so I do not have to pay any more interest and lose more money to the credit muncher.

I really need to not only make sure we stay on board for debt reduction but now figure out how to convince DH to save for future gifts for me! hmmm...

DH work expenses = tax deductions for 2008 and "gazelle intensity"

2008-03-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

I've been more conscious of trying to save receipts, especially for DH's work related expenses. We had to buy him some new work boots (@ $200.00) and then we bought him a rolling toolbox for work tonight (@ $100.00). This blue-collar job is expensive! Ugh!

Well, since I am not to start paying on one of my educational loans until next month, but budgeted it in this month anyway, I figure we could use that for his toolbox with a snowflake of $20.00 to spare! Not bad.

Speaking of tax deductions, we are going to get a nice chunk this year that we must plan what we are going to do with it!

Endurance...no, gazelle intensity! (Yep, told you I'd let you know what I learned from Dave Ramsey's book!)

Graduated Level A, snowflakes and Dave Ramsey

2008-03-03T23:07:00.000-05:00

So, I talked with a loan officer for my educational loan (1 of 'em) to change my standard payment plan to a graduated plan. That brought down my monthly payment to give me a chance to make better snowballs ;) ! Again, endurance needed to snowball that payment! I also found out that my first payment isn't due this month, it is next month! That means I can snowflake that payment onto the Honda loan! Yay!

Speaking of the Honda loan, I made my snowflake payment today. Remember the two checks I spoke of yesterday...it's in there! That felt great! Then the teller told me that my next scheduled payment isn't until May! May! That is two months away! Ah, but renew thy thinking. Remember to forget that my next payment isn't until May.

The Plan says that the minimum payment is due monthly, no matter what! The snowball is included in that...every month! And of course, remember to snowflake whenever I can.

So many things accomplished today! Oh, and my bank (I love my credit union!) said that any extra payment--after daily interest charges have been paid up to date--will go toward the principle. No penalties! Also, no penalties or minimums for transfering payments online to pay off the loan! I can snowflake all I want and not be penalized! Again, yay!

Then, after reading all the wonderfulness that Dave Ramsey brings to debt reduction, I got his book from the library today. I'll let you know what I learn. I'm quite excited to read it.

A good day it has been.

Snowballing and snowflaking the Honda

2008-03-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

So, in The Plan I have that I will pay extra toward a bill. Well, we (DH and I) are starting with the Honda Accord. Why? Well, it is the smallest loan/debt that we have. That's where we want to begin. Being that DH began a new job after being layed off since the beginning of December, we've finally caught up on our late bills. Whew! Relief. So, here is the deal...

Snowball the Honda
$225 minimum monthly payment + $345 extra cash to snowball with = $570

Problem--this month, the beginning of the snowballing effect, I had to pay not only this month's minimum payment but also last month's. That means our big snowball of $345 has, temporarily, turned into $345-$225 = $120. Ok, so $120 isn't chump change but it is definately less of a snowball for our first, true month of reducing our debt. None to worry! We will fix it! And this is how...snowflaking:

Snowflake $67 First, I have 2 checks that I need to cash. One is from the insurance and the other from a rebate check I received for purchases from Rite Aid. Here are two snowflakes I can add to the $120 snowball which now equals $187.
Snowflake $190+ DH has assured me that he will be doing more overtime this month. From the sounds of it we will not only pick up the $173 we need to make our complete $345 snowball--which DH will get about $190 net snowflake of overtime on next week's paycheck--he ought to continue making more overtime as this month rolls on! YES! Adding the $190+ snowflake will be at least $377+

Now, on to endurance!

In the beginning...

2008-03-01T22:59:00.000-05:00

Ah! A new endeavor! A clean slate! Well, eventually, I hope. At this moment the slate needs organizing and I can't wait to use that eraser! I'm talking the "D" word--debt. No exclamation point at the end of that last sentence, as we can handle it. We can handle this debt, period. Now all I need are two things: my plan and endurance. Ah, the rub. Endurance. There in lies the key. One can plan all one wants but is one able to endure and strive forward to the end to meet the goal? Well, that's why I'm here. So here I go. The plan.

Ultimate Goals for Debt-Free Living:

$1,000 emergency fund in savings
Snowball depts until paid (exclude mortgage)
3-6 months living expenses in savings
Contribute maximum amount to retirement
Child college funding (529 plans or Education Savings Accounts)
Pay off mortgage
Give more, invest more, live debt-free! (See baby steps)

Here is the beginning. Stay tuned for financial goals for 2008 and my snowball plan as well as how to prepare for a baby!