Making Sense of Cents

Biggest Financial Mistake

2012-02-23T06:29:00.068-06:00

Hope everyone's having a good week! It's gone by pretty quick. I still don't have my voice back so I guess I need to go to the doctor soon because I haven't had my voice since around last Wednesday.

I'm sure you all have noticed the tagging game that's going on. I've been tagged by a lot of people (yes I'm bragging) but I just wanted to answer 2 questions right now from Live Simply-Live Well, because I feel like they directly relate to my blog and well, it's just what I feel like typing about right now.

The biggest financial mistake that I made:

There are definitely some things that I would've done differently. My 3 mistakes below all kind of tie in together and mainly relate to how much money I would've saved if my money situation was different.

If I could have, I would have lived at home after high school and during college. I would've saved so much money, but instead I moved out less than one month after my high school graduation and rented a house. Our bills weren't too high, but of course I could've saved money and applied house bills towards debt instead if I would've lived at home.
Waited to buy my house. We bought our house at the age of 20. YOUNG? Yes. We could've saved for a bigger down payment, but we got a really good deal on our house. We bought at the end of 2009, and yes while the housing market is still continually going down, we were able to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit (which we got to keep unlike those who bought houses after this expired). Our house still appraises for more than we bought it for, which is great as well.

However, if we would've bought our house now, we could have a bigger down payment, lower mortgage interest rate, and houses are SO CHEAP right now that we could've gotten a decent house for probably $20,000 to $30,000 less than what we bought our house for.

Not have so much student loan debt. This goes hand in hand with the two mistakes above. If I would've lived at home (which wasn't really an option though) then I could've saved thousands of dollars and put it all towards debt. I would've graduated without ANY debt.

I'm sure there are a ton of other mistakes that I have committed, but I can't think off the top of my head of any others that really stick out besides the one's above.

However, I very much love my life. I definitely don't dwell on these "mistakes" that I made. I still feel like I've definitely come very far in my life, especially for my age. I try not to live in regret and just make the best of everything that I have in my life. I love my life, my house, my friends, and my pups.

If someone gave you $1,000 and you had to spend it on something OTHER than paying down debt or investing it, what would you do?

I would probably go on a clothing spending spree. I would of course stop at JCrew first and I've really been wanting a nice watch. Then of course I need swimsuits, new work clothes and everything else. I really want new clothes obviously.

I know that I'm not the best when it comes to saving and paying down debt (instead of shopping), but I do think I'm getting better. I would really love to have a spending spree though. Who wouldn't?

What's the biggest financial mistake that you've made? Loans, credit cards, cars? Tell us now!

A LONG depressing post about my Dad

2012-02-22T08:07:00.001-06:00

I've had this post in my queue for quite some time now. I wasn't sure if I should post this, but it was nice typing it up because it relieved a lot of stress and I was able to get my feelings out. Maybe there's a ton of people that can relate to me and need a post like this, or they need a little push to get their feelings out.

I learned a lot of things from my dad. From money to life to traveling, I always wanted to be just like him. This post is going to be a little personal. I have an extremely hard time sharing this with people that I know.

I'm one of those people who can't talk about a parent who has passed. If you ask me anything about my dad, or even say anything about some fun event from the past, I will burst into tears.

And that is a fact. I have cried pretty much everywhere because of this. Since my dad worked at the airport, whenever I go to the airport I almost always have to run to the bathroom and cry.

It especially sucks when people come up to me and ask how he's doing. Or they ask how I'm doing after he passed. Or if they were one of his nurses. Or if they were one of his friends and they think he just dropped off the planet and then I have to tell them the truth.

He was my everything.

I basically have no other family. My sister and I just started talking again, just because she is going through the same things with my mom now that everyone else in my family has already gone through.

Now this will sound morbid and most likely make me sound like a really horrible and disgusting person, but sometimes I just don't think want to think about it, so when someone says something about my dad, I will talk about him in the present tense, without even thinking about it. So then of course this just keeps on going and sometimes I just get so sad and some people still believe that he is alive. My work is one of those people. The people at my work have asked me about my life and my dad always seems to be a topic. Maybe the know and they just want me to say it? I don't know. It started one day with the topic of what my dad does and I didn't want to hysterically cry in front of everyone at my work, so I just said he was retired from the airlines (which he was at the time that he passed). But now I just feel like it would be extremely weird if they found out the truth, so I just don't say anything. Is that really crazy? It's not like my dad is a daily topic though, we've maybe talked about him 10 times.

My friends say that I need to stop doing this though. Other people ask about my parents and one time the conversation got so weird that the person asked me if my dad "abandoned me or something", and I just still couldn't even mutter the words that he had passed. Does anyone understand what I'm saying? If there's anyone else out there like me, please tell me so that I can stop feeling crazy.

My dad and I literally did everything together. The last couple of months that he was alive, he literally came up to my work every single day, with his rolling breathing machine (which people actually made fun of him for that) and some lunch for me. And we had lunch everyday. I loved this time with him so much. I was a huge daddy's girl and he meant everything everything everything to me. He went shopping with me, made me huge dinners every night, tried to make my life seem normal even though my mother did everything to make it such, and he also made me the person who I am.

I'm also not making this post to entirely bash my mom, but that's another whole story. I do love my mother just so everyone knows, she was just not fit to be a mom. She knows this though, and has told me this, so I guess acceptance is the first step. I would love to tell everyone everything that happened between me and my mom starting from when I was little, but there are some things that I don't think I'll ever share with anyone, and this is them.

I have a friend whose mom passed at about the same time as my dad. She is the type of person who can talk about her mom for hours without crying, I wish I was like her. I can't even be around her anymore because she talks about her mom so much and then she always asks about my dad every time we hang out. And every time I will start busting out crying, which is horrible because we are always at a restaurant or a bar when we hang out. Lately she's been trying to stop, but it's hard for her just because we cope in such different ways.

I'm not the type of person who can be having a lot of fun and all of a sudden just start talking about how it reminds me of my dad or of the good times. I really wish I could, but it's just not possible.

I think some people think I should be over this by now, but I'm not. I know it's been almost 4 years, but it seriously still feels like it was just yesterday. Just the other day I had a dream/nightmare and in that dream I had woken up from a bad dream. That bad dream was that my dad passed. Then when I actually woke up, I was super depressed.

I'm also one of those people where if I see a dad and daughter out together, I will get sad and will pretty much have to run away. And I get extremely sad/angry when I see daughters being rude to their dads. I also find it a hard time when my friends talk about their dads. Usually I just have to zone out or I get really upset.

There won't be a father daughter dance at my wedding, he won't see me get married, he didn't see me graduate, he can't help me with my mom problems (he tried shielding me from them as long as he could) and he won't see me graduate from grad school. My future kids won't have anyone on my side of the family to meet that actually mean something to me.

Also, have any of you ever seen The Last Song? It's a Nicholas Sparks movie with Miley Cyrus. I know it's probably pathetic to compare my life to this but I went to see that with one of my friends at the movies, and it's basically a story of my life. My parents divorced, my mom always had boyfriends, my dad lived far away and we only visited in the summer time (until I moved out in 9th grade and moved in with him because I was so miserable). My dad got cancer (and tried hiding it from me at first until I had to rush him to the hospital because it got so bad) and passed soon after. When I watched this movie, the similarities to my life were scary. I cried the whole movie and I remember when I told people that I saw this, they were shocked that I chose to see it (because they knew that there were very close similarities to my life), but I didn't know what the movie was exactly about until I saw it.

My way of coping through this whole thing has basically been to stay busy. I'm sure some of you have added everything together and realize this now. Probably not the healthiest way to deal with my problem, but I feel like only time will help me heal. I have an extremely long list of everything that I regret that relates to my dad, but maybe that will be for another day if I'm ever ready to share that.

One thing I am happy for is how much my bf's family means to me. When my dad passed, surprisingly the first person I went to cry to was his mom. And she was very helpful. She lost her dad just a short couple of months beforehand, so she knew everything that I was going through. The bf's dad treats me like a daughter which is great too. He literally yells at my bf when he thinks he's not treating me good and my bf always says that his dad cares about me more. So at least I have that! Without his family, I honestly don't know where I would be.

What I learned from my dad:

Money. My dad was very careful with his money but he was not obsessive.

Save what you can.
Be frugal but not cheap.
Don't let money destroy your family. When my dad was younger, my aunt came across money from a relative. This relative only left money to her, and the rest of the family pretty much disowned her besides my dad. No one talked for decades and my dad was constantly the middleman. I think that's why I try not to let money bug me too too much, because I don't want to let it take over my life and destroy everything.

Life. You should live in the moment. Care about your family. One thing that was different from my mom was that if anything was wrong, he wouldn't tell us and make us feel bad about it. My mom on the other hand has been bringing me down since I was a toddler and this definitely made me grow up faster. But with my dad, I enjoyed that he wanted to shield me from things so that I wouldn't constantly worry. I think that's how parents should be. I'm not saying that parents should hide everything, but my mother literally has shared every bad thing (and never told me good things that have happened) and she has been telling me every detail of her money and life problems since I was very little. And then of course she would ask for help. But that's just her personality I guess so nevermind.
Traveling. Travel, travel, travel. If it wasn't for him and the fact that he worked at the airlines, it would make traveling much more difficult. But it is nice to know that I will have free airline tickets for pretty much forever. Hopefully I will be able to travel everywhere that he went.
Don't live with regret. This is something that I am definitely still working on. My dad was very strict but carefree at the same time. He never tried to let things bring him down. However, I do live with regret and there are so many things that I wish I would have done differently in the days leading up to when he passed. I'm trying to get over it, but it's still hard.

What lessons did you learn from your parents?

Also, leave a comment or e-mail, I would love to talk to people who know exactly what I've been through or can relate. Sorry for the extremely long post by the way.

Also, I should say that I am doing good. I don't want anyone worried about me or anything. I am a happy person and I do love life. I have great friends, a great bf, and the family that I do have I cherish. And I do cherish the moments that I did have with my dad.

New Car Costs

2012-02-21T06:31:00.045-06:00

His is similar, but with a black hardtop.via Google images

The BF bought a new (old) car on Friday. We paid $2,800 in cash for it. It's worth more than what he bought it for and as he was looking for Jeeps, he found that the same year and mileage usually went for around $5,000.

However, lots of maintenance was needed and the Jeep belonged to his friend, so he got a good deal. Him and his dad are going to do all of the maintenance for less then $100, so it's a pretty good deal.

We didn't want payments on a new car. So we opted for cash instead.

He also sold his old car just a couple of hours later. We kind of regret selling it though because it still had a lot of life in it, but oh well. It's gone and it would've just sat in our driveway, and we also don't need to have 4 cars for just the 2 of us.

He bought a white Jeep Wrangler that's in good condition. He's been doing maintenance this weekend and will continue doing the rest of the maintenance next weekend. The one thing I hate about the Jeep is that it gets HORRIBLE gas mileage. His last car got an average of 29 mpg, whereas the Jeep only gets 17 or 18. Luckily the BF's job is only around 5 miles away, so the increase in our gas budget won't be that much.

He's happy too, so I'm not upset either. He is so in love with his Jeep that it makes me laugh. We sold his old car for the EXACT same price that we bought it for 2.5 years ago. So that's quite a deal. We also didn't have any repair costs for the car for the whole 2 years, so it's like we had the car for free. So now I felt like he deserved something better, and he's also been pretty happy all weekend.

His insurance went up slightly, but not too much. His insurance is now around $76 a month instead of around $34, but that's only because we added a $500 deductible for it. We're only going to keep this deductible on it until he gets used to driving a stick shift, since this is something pretty new to him. But after that, his insurance will drop back down to around $40 because he will just have liability on the Jeep.

Yes I would have loved to buy a car that got better gas mileage and one that I could drive as well (stick shifts scare the heck out of me), but he loves it and it was super cheap.

So altogether I'm guessing this car will add a little less than $100 to our monthly budget. But in a couple of months it'll just be around $60 to $70 extra each month. Which I don't think is too bad considering that we don't have a car payment for it. What do you think? It was probably not a great idea to buy a gas guzzler, but oh well.

What car problems have you had lately? Any car costs added to your budget lately?

A couple of other questions. Does gas mileage play a big factor into what car you end up buying? What factors trump others: gas mileage, the miles on the car, value, luxury, 4 door or 2 door, etc?

Monday Meal Plan

2012-02-20T13:21:00.029-06:00

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I'm really excited for our menu this week, it literally has me drooling. The other day I noticed our pantry was a little bare, so I had to shop twice last week, but we should be good on groceries (except for fresh food) for awhile.

Here's what I plan on making as our main course for each dinner:

Monday - Cajun Chicken Pasta
Tuesday - Chicken Fajitas
Wednesday - Quiche
Thursday - Wings and Pizza crescent rolls
Friday - Steak Teriyaki
Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Steak

What's on your menu?

I'm also hoping to make this!

Spending, Life, Income and Food Updates... 2/20/2012

2012-02-20T06:37:00.085-06:00

Happy Monday everyone. I'm extremely jealous of those of you who have today off. I finished everything that I said I was going to do yesterday. I still have to prepare for my group project a little more that's due on Tuesday.

We went out on Saturday night and had a lot of fun. All of the girls went to a bar to dance and all of the guys stayed down the street at a sports bar. Lots of fun! Didn't end up doing anything for Mardi Gras because spending over $200 just did not appeal to me at all.

All weekend long, me and my friends were imagining our Vegas vacation in August. Anyone else going in August? It's so far away but I can't help to think about it ALL the time. I'm so excited.

My last update can be found here.

Here are my updates:
Getting rid of my work outfit laziness: I know I told you all that last week I failed at this, but guess what, I failed again. I definitely did not take a single picture. Which is probably good because last week I was kind of lazy with my outfits. I will change that this week! I promise.

School: Only 10 more weeks until the semester is over. My classes are going well but I'm starting to feel really overwhelmed with all of my homework. I'm in the process of making my summer schedule and it's making me super excited. I just need 6 credits in the summer and then I'm completely done. I don't think I'm going to walk when I graduate. Did anyone else walk for their MBA? I'm just not really feeling the need to and considering that the actual big commencement won't be until the following spring, it just seems a little long to wait for that.

My recent secret shop check

Extra Monthly Income: A lot of you have been asking me if the secret shop company that I use ia legitimate. So I posted a picture above of a check that I received on Saturday. This was for 1 week of mystery shopping. I mainly just do the phone call shops now as they are the easiest and don't require me to spend any money. Some of the above check was from one of my Estee Lauder secret shops though.

Budget Cutting: Definitely haven't took anything out of our budget, but have added to it. I'm making a post on our new car costs and you should see that tomorrow.

Shopping: I don't think I did any shopping this past week. It's kind of hard to shop now that I'm always busy when stores are open. But that's good! I want to buy some cute swimsuits and other vacation/spring clothes though.

The BF did buy a car on Friday night, and that will be in a post tomorrow as well. I don't want to make this post today super extremely long!

Food: We went grocery shopping last week (two times) and the second time I spent $83 I think. I needed to stock up on a ton of pantry items because I realized our pantry was SUPER empty. Literally nothing to eat in our house besides fruits and vegetables.

How's everything going for you?
P.S. check out this Tropical Traditions giveaway!

Oh Sunday

2012-02-19T11:08:00.027-06:00

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I hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Here are some interesting search keywords for my blog lately:

Girl slapped me
I don't want to save money
My student loans disappeared
I hate the snow
I really hate the cold
Bringing lunch to work does not save money

Obviously I talk about how much I hate the cold waaaaay too much. And I'm not sure why someone would think that bringing lunch to work would NOT save money, but hopefully they will read my blog and understand that it does.

I'm not sure how someone googled "girl slapped me" and it somehow brought them to my blog. Oh well! haha

I have a lot to do today. Unlike some of you who keep bragging that you have tomorrow off (I'm so jealous! AHHH), I have lots of homework to do and I still have work and classes. I have my first exam tomorrow in my banking class, and I also have a presentation on Tuesday that I need to prepare for.

Have a good day!

Health Motivation and the BF bought a car

2012-02-18T11:10:00.010-06:00

I hope everyone had a good Friday night.

I need to work out so bad! I keep telling the BF that I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to go on an all day hike, snorkel, kayak trip when we are on vacation, but he keeps telling me that I'm too week to kayak for a couple of hours at a time. I definitely don't want him to prove me wrong, I want to prove him wrong. I need to get more toned.

Also, the BF bought a car last night. It's a white Jeep Wrangler. He bought it from a friend and we paid for it with cash. It's pretty nice, but older. Hopefully I'll post a picture soon.

Have a good Saturday night!

Ways that we could continue to cut our budget

2012-02-17T06:53:00.098-06:00

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Thankfully it's Friday!

I'm starting to feel better, but still not the greatest. It's Mardi Gras weekend so I need to start feeling better so that I can celebrate. If it gives you any clue as to where I live (some of you already know), but where I live we have the second largest Mardi Gras in the U.S. (besides New Orleans of course). So everyone goes out and has fun, but I don't know if I feel like spending a ton of money (heated tents with unlimited beer and food is $100 a person) and freezing to death outside.

Anyways, recently I talked about how much we've cut our budget. I also said that I would post about other ways we could cut back, and it took a little longer than I thought, but here's the post! I know you all were hurting while waiting for this (I'm joking of course). These aren't all things that I would do, but it's nice to see the value of everything. And also if we ever had financial problems, then we could easily cut these things.

How we could further cut back:

Priceline. You all are always talking about it. I'm kind of excited to see how low I can get our hotel for our March vacation.
Bundle services. None of our bills are bundled, but we could bundle our cell phones, internet and cable. I'm guessing this would probably save us around $50 a month. I plan on doing this once our cable contract is over.
Coupons. I couponed for a little bit last year, but I haven't used any coupons in awhile. I've just been throwing my newspapers away, which has been a huge waste of money. I'm not a huge couponer, but I'm guessing that I could save around $25-$50 a month if I did this.
Smoking. I don't smoke, but the BF does. I really wish he wouldn't (because of my dad), but he still smokes. He doesn't smoke a ton because he's more of a social smoker. But still, it's probably around $10-$15 a week, which is A LOT.
Cancel our gym membership. Our membership together is around $32 a month. It's not high at all (especially for 2 people), but we could easily just workout at our house and around our neighborhood. This would also save us money in gas because our gym is around 10 miles away. Gas savings? Maybe $20-$25 a month?
Cut the cable. Our cable is now at $75 a month. Is that worth it? I do like watching TV, but I'm always thinking of cheaper ways that are possible.

These are pretty basic things that we could cut. Yes, yes I know that a lot of people either don't do these things or don't see these as necessary to begin with (such as having cable), but I enjoy these things. I've never been a huge couponer just because I don't have patience. Smoking is something that I really wish he could cut out. Anyways, if we did these things, I'm going to guess that we would save about:

$292 a month or $3,504 a year

How much we would save if we cut EVERYTHING besides just "needs"? These aren't all things that I would do, but these are things that are possible. We could use public transportation entirely and that would probably save around $500 a month after buying monthly passes, and we could also get rid of our cell phones, which would save another $100.

I don't think I could ever start taking public transportation where I live. It's not safe here and it would literally take FOREVER to get anywhere (probably 2 hours to get to my job which is only 10 miles away). I also don't think I could get rid of my cell phone. I know it's extremely materialistic, but I need that thing.

How far would you go so that you could pay your debt off faster and/or save faster?

How I plan on upping our curb appeal

2012-02-16T06:43:00.072-06:00

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I'm sick today. Everything hurts, help! I bought medicine last night but lets see how well that will work. I also had to leave class around 1.5 hours early last night because my body ached so bad. Why am I always sick lately!? My sister told me the other day that she had strep throat, and she then coughed all over me and took a sip of my drink, so I'm afraid that I might have that.

I really cannot get sick right now. I have no time for that.

Anyways, right now we have no curb appeal. If I showed you a picture of the front of my house, you would probably laugh. When the weather is nice, our grass still doesn't grow. We have branches and twigs all over our yard as well. We don't leave the branches and the twigs there, they seriously form over night. Hopefully our neighbors don't hate us.

Our house is also pushed a little further back than the rest of the houses on our block, so all the leaves also get pushed into our yard. Which makes us a little angry because we (ok the BF) rakes all the time.

We also have a big pile of branches on the side of our house that we have collected. We need to get rid of that. We asked our trash company to take it and paid extra money for them to take it as well, and when the day came, they didn't take it. I actually watched the trash-men look through our branch trash and they picked certain twigs out. They did this even though the trash company said they would already take it. Now our trash company has been switched 2 or 3 times since the past year, and we can never manage to talk to any sort of customer service. So it's still just sitting in the corner. Luckily no one can see this corner from the street.

What I want to do:

Add plants. We don't have any plants in our yard either (besides trees, dead grass and some dead bushes). I would like to add some nice plants and preferably plants that are natural in our area. We have a garden area already set up in front of our house, and sometimes things grow, and sometimes they don't. I would love to plan some pretty flowers there. Anyone have gardening tips?
I would also like some sort of lit walkway. Not an absurd amount of lights, but something nice.
Green grass. We threw grass seed on our grass last year and that worked great, but we still have bald spots that won't seem to grow. Help?
Red front door. Right now our front door is white. I really want to paint it red. I'm also kind of leaning towards yellow. Not sure yet, what do you think?
Put a fresh coat of white paint on our shutters. We would of course definitely have to power wash these, as they are super dirty.

If you recently did a bunch of things to redo your yard, how much did you spend? What did you do? I don't even really know where to begin. I know we'll most likely head to Lowes or Home Depot, but where can I find the best prices?

I'm not sure what we'll make the budget for all of this to be. Last year we spent around $75 on flower seeds (which did NOT grow), mulch and grass seed. For some reason I can never get flowers to grow, any tips? If you know of any amateur sites that describe any/some of the things that I had a question about, please share! Also, of course we know that the total this year will be over $75, but I would like to set some type of budget. Maybe $500? I'm not sure.

What do you plan on doing to make the outside of your house look nicer?

Below are some inspirations that I like:

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Newlywed Finances

2012-02-15T06:32:00.009-06:00

I hope everyone is having a great day! It's finally Wednesday, which means it's the last day of classes for the week for me. Feels great! Anyways...

Brittany from brittanydawn is guest posting for me today.

Hey! I’m Brittany! I’ve been married for almost 2 months now. I can’t believe it’s been that long! It seems like just yesterday I was worried about music and thinking about the menu amidst a million other wedding related things. I can’t say I miss that too much right now! I loved planning my wedding, but it’s so nice to not have all that stress anymore.

One thing I was super worried about before we got married was finances. We are both still in college so I knew things might be tight. How would we manage our money together? Would we be able to pay all of our bills and still have extra “fun money?” Would we be okay?

Simple answer: Yes. We are fine. Actually, we are more than fine. So far we have managed to pay everything and still have that “fun money.” We still do everything we did before; we go out to dinner, we go to the movies, etc. And don’t worry, we’re not starving ourselves to do that either. We’re still eating healthy and living quite comfortably.

How do we do it you ask? Well, we’re smart about it. We try not to waste a ton of money on things we know we don’t need or that we might use once. We don’t buy something for the sake of convenience or “cool” factor. For instance, I really want a Keurig coffee maker. BUT…I have a Mr. Coffee brand coffee maker that works just fine. Why go out and buy the fancy one that I can live without right now? Maybe someday when we’ve got more “fun money.” One thing we do that really helps us out is that right at pay day we take the time to pay the upcoming month’s bills and rent so we know that it’s taken care of. That gives us a better idea of how much extra income we have that month.

To my surprise, it’s been a lot easier than I thought it would be. The advice I would give to a newlywed couple is pretty much the same as I would give to a single person: just be smart about it. The only difference is one person or two. Don’t stress out about money too much, just make sure you know everything that needs to be paid and when. Also, have a savings account that you are consistently adding to for emergencies and any extras.

Trust me, sharing your finances as a married couple is less scary than it sounds. Plus, it’s fun to figure out how exactly you guys want to work together.

My comment: Thanks Brittany for guest posting for me! Managing finances as a couple can be difficult at first, but as time goes on, I think it just keeps getting more and more simple. Setting an "allowance" or a designated amount of fun money each month is a great start. The BF and I have had joint accounts for quite some time now (almost 5 years), and it's worked for us the entire time. However, it doesn't work for everyone, so I do realize that different people have different methods.

Do you have an allowance or a fun money system in your life?

How much is your "allowance"? Another topic that I've seen floating around in the blogosphere is how much money you tend to spend BEFORE you ask your significant other if it's alright that you buy the item. Me and the BF pretty much tell each other about every purchase unless it's just food because that's just a part of the monthly money that we each get anyways. Some people say anything over $50, $100 or some other amount that works for them. What's your amount?

What other finance rules have you learned in past relationships or your current relationship? Share any tips!

P.S. Go check out her blog!

How much my March vacation will cost me

2012-02-14T06:42:00.099-06:00

The boy on our vacation from last year

Happy Valentine's Day!

I posted the other day about things I want to do on vacation, and I thought I'd try adding up the costs of my whole vacation. We still haven't decided if we want to go to Hawaii or the St. Thomas, but I've looked and they both generally have the same costs for food, water sports, hotels, and so on.

This vacation continues to keep on creeping up in cost. We've done some of the things on my water sports list, but I would really like to go on an all day kayak-hiking-snorkeling trip. We decided that this trip will also be around 5 to 6 days, which also increases the cost of the trip.

We already asked my sister to watch our house and our dogs, and she agreed just to stay at our house while we're gone. This will definitely save a lot of money and will make me feel better about where the dogs go and if our house is safe. We've separated the dogs before and had separate people watch them, but I always feel horrible for doing this. It's just too much for us to bring both dogs over to someone's house because then the dog sitter's would most likely have way too many pets.

What do you usually do with pets on vacation?

Boarding, house sitter, drop them off somewhere?

I've been pricing a bunch of hotels and I've really taken into account what all of you said in my past hotel post. A lot of you said that you would never pay more than $200 for a hotel, and that you generally pay around $100. I've been looking at hotels and if I use Priceline (or if I call the hotel directly), then I can probably get a decent hotel for around $100. So this will most likely be $500 altogether because I'm definitely going to shoot for under $100 a night.

Food: I'm not sure how much we'll spend on food. If we find a hotel with a full kitchen, then I'm guessing that we will probably cook some and make some food in the room. I'm hoping to spend no more then $400 on food and alcohol over the 5 days, this includes while stuck at the airport and while also actually on vacation. I'm guessing that $400 might be a lot for 2 people, but I'd rather overestimate than underestimate. How much do you usually spend on food while on vacation?

Water sports and other activities we want to do:

Kayak-Hike-Snorkel all day trip - $160 person (includes food)
Kiteboarding - $200
Stand up paddleboard - $100
Jet Skiing - $50

I know some might think this is a little wasteful, but we usually don't spend a ton on vacations and I really want to enjoy this vacation. We most likely won't be doing all of the activities on the list above because of course I want to spend most of my time relaxing on the beach.

We've also thought about just buying a book and doing all of the wandering ourselves and renting the things that we need, so that we could save a ton of money. I've looked and we can rent a kayak for around $50 all day long and most hotels rent snorkeling things for free. And a paddle board costs around $40 to rent (without a tour guide). All of this would save a ton of money. We're hoping to spend no more than $400 on activities.

So far I have around $900 saved up from the extra income that I've been making. I also have a vacation fund and that will pay for the rest. Since I have all of it saved, I'm not too too worried about paying for the vacation. Also, I should remind everyone (just in case I have anyone who missed my other posts), but I get airfare for almost free through retirement benefits from my dad, and we also usually don't rent a car. We usually just walk everywhere or take a taxi. So that also saves money.

The estimated grand total of the vacation that we will be taking (with a little buffer):

$1,500

I would say that's not too bad for a 5-6 day vacation on the beach. Of course I'll do whatever else I can to lower my cost. And if we limited our activities then we would probably only be spending around $1,000 for the vacation. I think it really just depends on how much more extra income I'll make until the end of March. And there will most likely be other costs that come up also, but I haven't really thought about everything too too much.

And yes I have thought about how we will be buying a car for the BF within the next couple of weeks. This has all been factored in and he's just going to use his tax return refund for most of this, so we won't be seeing a huge dent in our goals because of this.

Of course we could spend this money on other things, and I know some people will probably not like my decision of going on a vacation when we I have student loan debt and a mortgage, but I do need to have fun. I have a set plan to pay off my debt and I save for my vacations separately, so it's not like I'm missing any payments. I'm paying extra on my debt every month and I need to have fun! This is a lot of money though, so of course I want to lower it as much as possible, but still have a good time.

What else would you recommend while we're on vacation? And how much do you usually spend on your vacations?

Monday Meal Plan

2012-02-13T13:15:00.000-06:00

Meal plans are still working for us. We haven't wasted as much food lately since we're only buying what we need and that's been great.

Here's what I plan on making as our main course for each dinner:

Monday - Steak and baked parmesan tomatoes
Tuesday - Tortellini and Garden Vegetable Bake
Wednesday - Breakfast for dinner. YUM!
Thursday - Enchiladas
Friday - Fajitas
Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Out for dinner

What's on your menu?

I'm also hoping to make this!

Spending, Life, Income and Food Updates... 2/13/2012

2012-02-13T06:36:00.106-06:00

Lunch

Did you notice a Texas Toast theme above? I was really craving it this past week obviously.

I say this every week, but this weekend went by way too fast. I had a lot of fun though! Luckily for me, work usually flies by, but classes drag on (so that's BAD). I didn't do too much this past weekend. I did a lot of cleaning because I knew people were coming over on Saturday night before we all went out. Spent too much money at the bars on Saturday night, but we had fun and won't be spending that much in awhile.

We didn't end up looking at wedding dresses with my friend because her and her fiance were going to look at houses across the state (so obviously she couldn't be in two places at once). But hopefully soon we can do this!

The BF's car is starting to act up so we've been talking about buying him a new car. He been powering through the past couple of years and has been driving a huge junker. He has the truck (which is a classic) but that's not really for daily driving (especially since the other day 10 cars were stolen from his work parking lot, so I definitely don't don't the truck stolen). So we have been looking at cars, and his friend is selling a car that the BF loves. The car is super cheap so we're thinking that right after the tax refund goes through, then we would just pay for the car in cash.

I think we're just going to buy something cheap and reliable. We definitely don't want something that would make us have payments again, but I want something extremely reliable, or something with cheap parts where him and his dad could easily fix it if something did happen. Him and his dad are going to go look at it sometime this weekend probably and decide.

What would you do? Would you buy something cheap like we did before, or opt for something newer and that's more reliable? We're definitely thinking of a Jeep Wrangler, but haven't decided how new or old we want to go.

And I asked this the other day, but not too many people answered, so I'm still indecisive.

"Usually on vacations, I just buy a cheap disposable waterproof camera, but this time I want a waterproof case for my actual camera. My actual camera right now is just a Nikon Coolpix (haven't gotten my DSLR yet). Does anyone recommend any housings? Do they tend to work well or no?"

What does everyone recommend? I'm thinking I'll just buy a cheap underwater case for my cheap camera that I have now, because I don't want to risk putting my future DSLR underwater. What does everyone recommend? Do they work?

Here are my updates:
Getting rid of my work outfit laziness: I failed at taking a picture everyday to get rid of my out laziness. I did try everyday last week, so you're just going to have to believe me. I was just feeling too lazy in the mornings to take pictures. But this week I will definitely take pictures in the mornings.

School: Only 11 more weeks until the semester is over. My classes are still going good. I'm kind of ahead when it comes to homework and that's been nice. I just can't wait until I'm done!

Extra Monthly Income: No extra monthly income this past week. But oh well! I haven't put anything on eBay this past week, but I need to do that soon. I've been a little lazy and I have too much of an attachment to most of my clothes.

This doesn't count as "income" because I should adjust my withholding and it's my money anyways, but I did our taxes last night and we're getting around $4,200 back!

WHOO HOO I am so happy.

Budget Cutting: I don't think we've cut anything out this past week. I just got our most recent gas/heat bill and it was only $90! Definitely an improvement over last year. Very, very nice.

Shopping: I didn't do too much shopping this past week. I did a secret shop on Thursday at Estee Lauder during my lunch break and didn't do any other shopping while there.

Food: We went grocery shopping last night and spent $60. Mainly bought fruit, bread, milk and a lot of soda. The BF usually gets a soda everyday before and after work, so we stocked up on drinks for him so that he could stop getting a drink everyday. We figured he probably spends around $20 a week on before and after work drinks, and we only spent around $8 on drinks for him, so definitely a savings.

How's everything going for you?

Sunday Funnies

2012-02-12T20:00:00.000-06:00

Today has definitely been a lazy day. I did our taxes (we're getting back $4,200 WHOO HOOO!), and now I'm trying to do my homework.

I thought I'd be lazy and procrastinate and just post a bunch of funny things that I've been loving on Pinterest.

Have a good night!

What I want to do when on Vacation

2012-02-11T11:35:00.027-06:00

Since it's the weekend, I thought I would get into the ultimate Spring/Summer mode and just post a bunch of pictures of things that I would love to do on our March vacation.

We're still trying to decide on a hotel, and how cheap or nice (expensive) we want to go. I want to use Priceline for this trip, but have never used it. A lot of you recommend it. I have a question though, how long does it usually take to see if your bid is approved? Any tips for using Priceline?

Also I have another question. Usually on vacations, I just buy a cheap disposable waterproof camera, but this time I want a waterproof case for my actual camera. My actual camera right now is just a Nikon Coolpix (haven't gotten my DSLR yet). Does anyone recommend any housings? Do they tend to work well or no?

I did some MAJOR MAJOR cleaning last night. It was horrible. It is nice knowing that I scrubbed the kitchen down and now it's pretty much shining. Tonight I'm going out with my friends, and my younger sister is coming out (we're going to a bar where they let 18 & up in when there's a band playing). So this will be interesting because I've never gone out with her. I think it'll be fun!

Hope your weekend continues to be great!

Oh Valentine's Day

2012-02-10T06:06:00.113-06:00

I'm so glad that it's Friday. What are your plans for the weekend? This post is Valentine's Day related. As some of you know, I'm not a huge Valentine's Day fan. I just don't see what's so special about it, mainly because the BF is always nice to me and I like to get surprises all the time (I'm joking, kind of...), and also Valentine's Day has just never excited me. I don't know why.

Yes I love chocolate, wine, romantic things, etc, but I just don't know. Hopefully I don't offend anyone! I know I'm one of the only ones who think this way because my friends always tell me that I'm crazy and weird for this. Anyways, I do like going out to a nice dinner and getting dressed up.

Confession for you all: I have never really gotten the BF anything for Valentine's Day. Usually I'll just have him pick something out and that's it. After being made fun of by my friends so much for not being romantic, I'm thinking that this year I should do something special for him. Usually we just go out for a nice dinner and he gets me something. I want to change that this year!

Anyone have any gift ideas?

I'm thinking I'll make some chocolate covered strawberries and just get him an REI gift card. Yes I know, not romantic, but this is truly what he would want. Maybe I'll find something on Pinterest to make as well. I want to do something else as well, but I don't know what. Maybe I'll attempt making some cupcakes also.

I've also been seeing lots of tasty Valentine's dinner ideas. So who wants to come over and cook all of this for us?

Avocado and Strawberries

Filet Mignon

Deep Chocolate Pudding

I also found a cute little link-up at From Mrs. to Mama and I noticed a lot of people are doing this also. I thought it was cute and it would help everyone see a little peak into my life! I didn't answer all of the questions (because I didn't want this post to be ridiculously long), but here's some!

How long have you and your significant other been together? We've been together for almost 6 years! Not as long as some, but a super long time for us. Some of you are probably wondering why we're not married. We are more focused on paying down debt, finishing school and everything else before we get married. We have talked about it though, and of course we want to get married. I'm just not too worried about it.
How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?} Nothing too special here. We both grew up in the same city within 2-3 miles from each other, so it was bound that we would run into each other.
Name 3 things you love most about your honey. I love so many things about him. He's extremely caring and has always been there for me. He was there during everything that happened with my dad and is there with me for all of the problems with my mom right now. He's always patient too. I am very forgetful and I'm happy that he doesn't hate me for forgetting everything. He takes care of me. I'm messy and I tend to get sick a lot, and he's always taking care of me.
Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals? Hmmm he is definitely strawberries, champagne and rose petals. Maybe just because he knows that I love food and a good drink.
Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch? Sunset dinner on the beach please. I will do anything if it involves the beach. Literally anything, not even joking.
Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere? I want to continue traveling everywhere with him! Skydiving, scuba diving and everything else. I would love to retire young with him and just travel forever.
Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day. Well I have work and then class until 10pm, so I will be doing nothing on actual Valentine's Day. But we will most likely go out to eat one of these days.

What are your plans for Valentine's Day? What are you getting your significant other? What are some frugal date ideas?

I want my student loans to be GONE

2012-02-09T06:39:00.009-06:00

I love her YouTube vlogs

Over at Girl with the Red Balloon, she announced that she just recently paid off the rest of her loans, and she's now completely debt free! Go over there and congratulate her. I honestly can't stop thinking about this, because I bet this is such a great feeling. I am extremely jealous, but I know I am close (ok I am not close when it comes to my mortgage though).

She talks about how she did some extreme things to save money and pay off debt faster, such as eating very cheaply. But she was also super determined in paying off all of her loans. I've always admired how determined she was with the whole process, and I wish I would buckle down more and do this.

I do wish I would've graduated without debt. I worked full-time in high school and while in college I worked full-time the entire time as well. I also had to live on my own due to my dad passing and this ate up a significant amount of the money that I made. I also had to (and I still am) support my mom and help her with bills. I did manage to pay off around half of my tuition bill each semester, so of course I would have more loans. The university I went to was around $30K a year (without room and board) and I also am attending an MBA program right now, so I'm not too down about being around $33K in debt for student loans when I have 2 business undergraduate degrees and I'm about to have my MBA as well.

I've talked about my goals related to my student loans a lot lately. I also talked about how I want my student loans to be decreased to around $20,000 by the end of this year. And I've talked about in my 5 year plan how I want them COMPLETELY gone by 2013.

Last time I said:

"Decrease my student loans to $20,000. I owe $27K right now, but I will probably take out about $5K for my 6 remaining classes (I'm going to pay the majority and then loans paying just a little bit). So that means that I will have to pay off around $12K in student loans this year.
I'm guessing that my student loans will be gone by the end of 2013, or the beginning of 2014. I do not want to be one of those people that pay their loans for 20 years."

I've also talked about my debt in this post and to summarize:

As of January 1, 2012, my debt was:
Student Loan Debt: $27,147.76

Car Loan: $2,200

Mortgage: $114,136 (this is an estimate)

Credit Card: $0

Total Debt: $143,483.76

However, I have added around $4,000 more in loans to my student loan debt total. No one hurt me please! It doesn't gain interest until 6 months after I get my MBA, so I'm not too upset by that because I plan on paying off my debt relatively fast, so too much interest should not build up. I could've used cash but I want to pay off my car first so that I could get rid of something that's gaining interest at the moment.

I'm not sure how realistic having all of my student loans paid off by 2013 is, but I am about 80% positive that I can do this. It will be about $1,500 a month until the end of 2013, but in 2013 I am pretty sure that I can contribute higher amounts towards my loans.

My grace period of no interest won't begin until the beginning of 2013, or if for some sad reason I cannot graduate until December of 2012, then I won't have to start paying interest until June of 2013. So I do not expect too much interest to be building up.

Right now I have one student loan that gains interest. The interest rate is around 4.5% and this is the only student loan I am paying off right now, and I'm hoping that it will be gone relatively soon.

I would like to do more frugal things to pay off my debt faster. But there are certain things in life that I can't help but spend my money on. Now I could do all of these things, but I honestly think that if I crossed the line of frugality and into cheapo land, that I would go insane. I'm not saying certain things don't work for everyone, different routines for different people! I know some of you are probably still thinking about my traveling budget and how I could eliminate this. But I don't think traveling is something I can give up.

Things I have thought about and could do:

Eat more cheaply. I could definitely limit this and then probably contribute around a couple hundred more towards my debt.
Restrict my clothing shopping. My shopping is definitely a lot better than what it used to be. I don't spend a ton. But I would like to start selling stuff in my closet and hopefully breaking even with my clothing spending for at least most of the months in 2012. I know I have enough in my closet to do this, so here's to hoping!
Decrease my entertainment budget. My budget for this is still a little high, but it's definitely not as bad before I started my blog. I didn't realize how much I was spending on having fun until I started telling all of you and when I put the numbers in front of me, it terrified me.

I can't wait until my student loans and all of my loans are gone. I'll be able to spend money on the things that I want and hopefully retire super young. I can't wait until I have that free feeling.

What things are you doing so that you can pay off your loans faster? How much in student loans do you have?

My Extra Monthly Income

2012-02-08T06:54:00.158-06:00

My extra monthly income goes towards traveling! - This is not me of course

Today is Wednesday, finally! Anyways, I thought I'd finally give you the details on my extra monthly income.

In my January Goals update, I said:

Make an extra $500 this month. PASS. I made over $600 from blog income and surveys!

After I posted that, I was literally flooded with e-mails from you guys!

I've told you guys in this post, my February Goals, and in my goal update post that I would tell you more information about my monthly income. I'm not going to lie, I have been pushing this off because I'm not too entirely sure what to say and I thought this post would be extremely boring. But then I reminded myself that before I was making this extra income, I LOVED (and I still do love) reading about others and how they made their extra income. It's nice to find out about new opportunities that you may not have thought about.

I am definitely not a blogging professional, so when you read this post, definitely remember that I don't know everything. This is all just my opinion! Also, I definitely didn't get into blogging to make money, I blog to share stuff with you guys and improve myself. I also didn't think I was ever going to ever make anything. I really hope the ads on my blog don't turn people away from my blog, but I don't think they are too noticeable. I usually don't even notice ads at all. Having ads on my blog are nice though, because making a little money from doing something that I love is very nice.

My main extra monthly income is from my blog. I didn't really have any ads on my blog until I started noticing that Erika from Newlyweds on a Budget started monetizing. Erika also uses her side income for similar reasons to me, for traveling. By the way, if you haven't checked out her blog, go over there now!

Traveling is something that I definitely value in my life. I'm always super busy and I need time to relax (by the beach), and with extra income, I won't feel as bad about spending money on vacations instead of strictly paying off debt.

This is how I made my extra monthly income for the month of January, after fees (these are all guesstimates as I can't really remember, I need to keep better track):

Ads on my blog -$270
Sponsored posts -$222
Surveys -$33
Mystery Shopping -$150

So I actually made around $675 last month!

For the ads on my blog, so far I've only gone through Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, and this has worked out great! She has been extremely helpful and does pretty much all of the work with the advertiser. I'm sure I'm not the only one who says this, but she is definitely an inspiration for all of those in the personal finance blogging community (wow that sounded cheesy!).
For my sponsored posts, I used Social Spark for one of them. I get leads sent to my e-mail and then I can say that I'm interested or negotiate the price. I'm still pretty new to the whole sponsored post thing, but it's not bad. I was also approached by 2 or 3 other advertisers for doing sponsored posts and did those too.
For my survey income, I mainly use Pinecone Research. A lot of you e-mailed me asking how you can join, but I looked it up and they aren't taking any new people right now. I'm sorry! But it does say that they occasionally have banner advertisements floating around places and if you click on one, then you can typically join through the banner ad. So I would definitely keep an eye out for those! I don't make a ton of money with the surveys, but the money does add up, and you occasionally get free stuff sent to you also! I've gotten many things that I've used and are great. If anyone knows of any other survey companies, let me know so that I can tell everyone else!
I've talked about mystery shopping a lot, and I mainly use Bestmark.com. This is kind of easy, but the surveys that you take at the end are extremely repetitive and boring. But it is nice to get things for free such as makeup (Estee Lauder), food, and so on.

And then of course I use Swagbucks for nice little Amazon gift cards! I'm trying to save these up for little things that I want to splurge on. These add up kind of quickly. I don't really use Swagbucks a ton anymore, but I probably make around $25 a month in gift cards from it.

I plan on making more money from eBay soon, but I'm not sure how much that will be. I haven't sold enough yet, but hopefully soon this starts adding up more quickly.

I plan to do more posts that are more detailed about all of this, so that I can better explain everything to you guys. My main tip is to have an "Advertise" or "Contact" tab on your blog. If they can't contact you, then how can they let you know about any offers? Do you have any specific questions that I should answer in my future posts? Please let me know! I don't know your questions if you don't ask.

What things do you do to make extra money? Please share! What do you use your extra income on?

I hope you all can increase your extra monthly income!

Analyzing My Job and What matters to you?

2012-02-07T07:14:00.028-06:00

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hopefully this week isn't going too slow for you. I don't have too much planned today except for the normal work and then boring classes.

I thought I'd join in with the others who have participated in From Shopping to Saving's How to Analyze Your Job. It's a very good way to look at your job and how you perceive it. Below I marked in red what I thought was important to me. I also thought this post would be interesting because I've noticed that a lot of readers and bloggers are currently looking for a new job. This might help steer you into the direction that you want to be in.

Here is a direct quote from her post:

"Here are the 7 factors that we like to take a look at to analyze our job as a whole. Work is not something that we all love to do but it's something that pays for what we really want to do. Some of us are fortunate to have work that we do enjoy wholeheartedly and would possibly do for free, but sadly I'm not one of those people. "

My Job:

Salary - What are all of the benefits of your job? This includes salary, insurance, pensions, etc.

My salary is pretty good, especially for the Midwest. Of course it would be on more average if I lived in an area such as LA or NYC, but it's pretty decent around here. I also get bonuses, a retirement plan, free health insurance and other benefits. I would say that I'm pretty good in this area.

Job Duties - What do you do? Is it difficult?

I enjoy what I do. Of course I would rather be laying on a beach and get paid for that, but I'm not a VS model, so that's not possible. My job can be difficult at times but it's something I enjoy doing and the time passes pretty quickly. I work mainly independently and I like that.

Location/Commute - How is the drive? Is it really long? Horrible? Are there other ways you can commute?

The location is good. It's in a nice suburb and only less than 15 miles from my house. I cannot take public transportation there (unless I want to spend around 2.5 hours on a bus). I don't pay for parking and it's located near a bunch of other places to eat and things to do.

Co-workers - Do you like the people you work with? How are your work relationships?

I enjoy the people that I work with. I work at a pretty small firm, and we all get along. This is much different than a retail environment, where everyone is really catty.

Atmosphere - How stressful is your job? How is your workplace?

The atmosphere is pretty nice at my work. Not too crazy. Pretty quiet and relaxing also.I listed to Pandora all day at work so that's pretty nice too.

Flexibility - Can you take a day off easily? Or is your boss/employer one of those people who denies all vacation requests?

I don't have to clock in. It's pretty easy to take off. I just have to put my name on the calendar. My boss pretty much lets me take off whenever unless it's during a busy time of the work season.

Advancement - Is it easy to get a promotion, or are you stuck?

There is definitely a path for advancement in my position. I was hired and told I was on a path for management/VP/President. So they flat out told me this in the interview.

If you couldn't tell, I like my job. My job is pretty stable and reliable. I work in a very specialized area in the financial services industry as well, and there will always be demand for what we do, so I'm not too worried about our services and business tanking.

How does your job compare?

A lot of people would say that money is the #1 motivator for when they look at a job. I would say that a combination of happiness, money, stability (especially stability), benefits and opportunity for advancement.

I know many people who work at a certain big billion dollar company in my city and they all hate their jobs. It all started out nice because the money was very attractive for them, but they are terrified everyday that they might lose their job and the environment is very hostile. Would you work in an environment where you would trade your sanity and happiness for money?

I don't think I could. I am a person who likes stability and I enjoy not having to worry everyday about whether or not I will have a job the next day. I try my hardest at my job and of course I expect at least not to lose my dignity everyday as with the example in the above.

I also have some friends who I think are being entirely too picky. Some graduated awhile ago and are still waiting for the perfect job and still haven't found anything. I believe you need to gain some sort of experience instead of just waiting around. Not many jobs are going to score a 100% for you. Yes yes I know, I'm probably a depressing person and I'm sure there are many people out there who love their jobs, but I'm just being realistic in my point of view.

Are you currently searching for a job? What are some things that you are looking for in a job? What's one thing you would not trade?

Sitting on the beach is my ultimate job of course

Monday Meal Plan

2012-02-06T12:48:00.022-06:00

I've been loving having a weekly meal plan. It's still working great. We don't follow it exactly, but we are still pretty much using the same ingredients for similar meals. However, we have been pretty boring with our ideas. I'm kind of running out of new things to make. Leave any recipes that you have for me here please!

Here's what I plan on making as our main course for each dinner:

Monday - Baked Parmesan Spaghetti
Tuesday - Tacos or Fajitas
Wednesday -Burgers
Thursday - Lemon chicken
Friday - Out for dinner
Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Most likely out for dinner again since it's a girls day and we're doing wedding things

What's on your menu?

I'm also hoping to make this!

Spending, Life, Income and Food Updates... 2/6/2012

2012-02-06T07:06:00.135-06:00

I won an awesome
giveaway from Lauren Darlings

Wow this weekend went by way too fast! I can't believe today is Monday. We ended up not going to the wedding that I told you all about on Saturday. The boy has/had the stomach flu and it keepts coming and going, so we stayed home on Saturday night.

We rented SIX movies this weekend. We were going to go to the movies, but as we were driving there we decided we were too lazy. So this weekend we rented and actually watched Contagion, 13 (not the movie with the girls, it's a killing movie), Apollo 18, Killing Fields, Drive and The Thing. They were for the most part decent movies (not The Thing though). Have you seen any good movies lately? We want to rent more!

Anyways, you can find my last update here and I was included in Yakezie Carnival - The Superbowl Clones Game.

Sorry for the major picture overload in this post. I cooked a TON this passed week. This is definitely obvious. I also when a giveaway and I love everything that I got!

Here are my updates:

Getting rid of my work outfit laziness: I posted the other day about how I want to try harder with my work outfits. The first day, I'm not going to lie, I was super lazy. I just wore a pretty lazy outfit, but the second day I tried harder. The picture above are some of the only pictures of myself that I have on my blog, so enjoy (yes I realize my head is chopped off). Hopefully I continue to post daily pictures because it definitely helped last week.

School: Only 12 more weeks until the semester is over. I'm still doing good. This semester is going kind of fast. I wish it was going faster. I talked to my adviser and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to graduate in the summer. YAY! Everyone can be happy now because I will stop freaking out and annoying everyone. My last class will end 2 days before we go to Vegas, how nice will that be?

Extra Monthly Income: My extra monthly income goal is going well. I've been kind of lazy with surveys though. They are just sitting in my inbox waiting for me to complete them. Swagbucks has also been going nicely. I still promise that I will be making that post about everything that I do to make blog income and other side income. That will come either tomorrow, or the next day. The latest is Friday though.

Budget Cutting:We haven't cut anything out this past week. But I did post last week about everything that we have cut out in the past week. Have you cut anything out lately? Post below! I would love to combine the ways that everyone has cut things out of their budget into a single post for other people to get new ideas.

Shopping: I went shopping on Saturday. I had a secret shop at an Estee Lauder and of course afterwards I went to Forever 21 because it's right next to the Department store and then I couldn't stop shopping. I bought stuff that I really like though so I'm sure it wasn't a mistake. And I bought everything from F21, so I didn't spend too too much. But this is the downfall of doing a secret shop, because I am forced to go into the mall.

Food: We went grocery shopping last night. I said "we." That means that it did not go well. The boy never goes grocery shopping and that's because he always spends way too much money. We spent $110 last night. Definitely over our weekly budget, but hopefully it will last awhile.

How's everything going for you?

Also, don't forget to follow me on Twitter!

Follow @SenseofCents

Lazy Day

2012-02-04T14:02:00.000-06:00

Today is a pretty lazy day. I found out last night that I won the $50 newsletter giveaway at Budgeting In The Fun Stuff, so I was pretty happy! We went out for the boy's birthday and had a lot of fun, and then had people over afterwards. Lots of fun!

I've noticed that I've had some weird/funny/sad top search keywords lately, so I thought I'd share. Do you guys ever look at this? I look at it almost everyday because sometimes they are pretty funny. I'm not sure why some of these show up. And surprisingly, with most of these, I've gotten over 10 referrals from each. I must be putting up weird pictures or something

Top Search Keywords:

I hate snow
I hate cold weather
girl slapped me dog driving car joke
Miserable couples
Mexican principals
Workout kitty

I don't know what else we're doing today, we were invited to a wedding at the very last second, so we might go to that. I feel a little weird about not actually getting an invite. The groom invited us LAST NIGHT. So I don't know.

Anyways though, hope everyone has a good weekend!

My Weekend and My February Goals

2012-02-03T07:10:00.061-06:00

Today is the boy's birthday! He's the big 23 today. We have a slightly busy weekend in front of us. I have work today (of course), then I have to do some grocery shopping and going out for his birthday. Then tomorrow we have a full day.

And then better news, his grandma must be doing better, because she was recently transferred to a rehab facility, so she is finally out of the ICU. Thanks everyone for your kind words! There is a party for her early on Sunday.

I also have a small Estee Lauder secret shop on Saturday. It's pretty easy, I've done a lot of these Estee Lauder shops. I just act like I'm buying a specific product that they tell me to, and I just need to buy anything Estee Lauder to prove that I was there. I actually need new foundation, so this is the perfect time for me to go. I will make $22 on this secret shop, so it's pretty easy! I also did an "online", super quick, secret shop nearly everyday this week, so it's not a ton of money, but around $20 this week. P.S. Check out Frugal Beautiful's giveaway!

On my first day of not being lazy with my outfits: I did good on my first day of trying harder with my outfits, hopefully this continues! I think I'm going to either post pictures on Saturdays or Sundays, haven't decided. My camera is horrible though, it's just a Nikon Coolpix, so I'm sorry for the not so pretty pictures (especially compared to most of you who have great cameras!).

Also, it's been wonderful out this whole past week. Around 65 to 70 degrees each day. We are having the weirdest winter, but I love it. I'm ready to break out my summery dresses, but I'll look crazy, so I guess I will wait. Even though I do want to start wearing cute spring-y heels :(

I posted my update for my January goals the other day, but I didn't have any time to post my February goals, so here they are!

February Goals

Save an extra $10 a day. This is for my DSLR fund. I still haven't decided for sure if I want a Canon or a Nikon, because I hear Nikons are easier for beginners. What does everyone think?
Reassess our budget and cut out $25. This will probably be hard even though it's a small amount. However, I do add an extra amount to the budget because of higher winter bills, and the weather has been WONDERFUL, so this will offset our budget in my mind. We're probably saving around $100 a month right now from cheaper heating bills.
Start and finish homework before it's due. I really need to start working on this. I would like to actually start working on some of my projects soon. Lets see if this actually happens.
Post about my side income. When I posted about my side income the other day in my January goals, A LOT of you either commented or emailed and asked me about the specifics of this. I loved all of the questions too. So if you have any other specific questions, leave a comment here or email me, and I'll make sure to make a whole post on it by sometime next week. Is there anything else you'd like me to post about?
Workout at least 2 times a week. I need to start working out more, or at least running with my pup more. I know I failed this miserably last month, but I have faith in myself.
Sell my stuff on Ebay. Finish selling the rest of my stuff on eBay.
Make an extra $500 this month. Last month I made around $600. I plan on making at least $500 through more blog income, secret shops, surveys and eBay selling. I have around $100 coming in this week from surveys, secret shops and stuff I've sold, so I'm well on my way. I'm also hoping to make a couple hundred more from selling stuff on eBay.
Watch our spending this month. I want to do lots of things on are next vacation, so I need to make this month pretty cheap.
FINISH MY CLOSET. I'm done with saying this. I need to start working on my closet this weekend.

What are your goals for the month?
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter! Follow @SenseofCents

Work Wear

2012-02-02T07:11:00.066-06:00

I've been a little lazy with what I wear to work lately. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the cold, the fact that I'm lazy or I don't know what. I really want to change this though, because I am a firm believer that when you dress well, you work well. Anyone else dressing a little lazier these days?

I also want to dress well because I feel like I'm also representing my firm when I'm in my classes. Almost everyone dresses very nice to my classes because they are all coming right after work. I want to be trying harder!

My work is kind of business semi-casual. When I say semi-casual, I mean anything besides jeans/shorts. I usually just try and wear some sort of button up or nice shirt with a blazer, and nice black or grey pants. But not this month, this month I've been super lazy. I always wear nice pants, but my choice for tops has been bad. Let's just say that I've been wearing my Northface sweaters a little too much this month already.

Usually I dress like the pictures above, but lately I've been lazy.

Also, I've been thinking about taking a picture of what I wear everyday and posting it on here in some kind of weekly round-up. I feel like this will help because of course I wouldn't want to take a picture of me when I'm having a lazy work day, so hopefully this will make me try harder. Also, of course since I blog anonymously, my pictures will have my head not included in everyone, so hopefully that's not too weird.

February Goal: Take a picture everyday that I work.

I work mainly independently in my office, so my outfits aren't a huge deal, but when I meet with clients, it's much different. When we have client meetings, we have to dress more business-formal corporate. Nice pants/skirt, button up, blazer, and the like. I work in the financial services industry, and that means that there aren't very many females or people my age in my line of work. So what I wear is definitely very important for how I want to be seen/portrayed.

There are also things that I would never wear. What are some things that you can't wear/do when at work?

This doesn't apply to every industry, but in mine (financial analysis services), it does:

Super short skirts - I think the standard is that it should be no shorter than 2 inches past your knee. I definitely break this rule a lot, but I never go too too short. I'm a short person, so kind-of short skirts don't look bad on me.
Shorts - I would never and could never wear shorts to work, not even on a super casual day. My work would look at me like I'm crazy.
Heels that I would wear to the club/bar - Stuff that I could wear out, I probably shouldn't wear to work. If I have to ask myself if it's too bar-like, then it probably is. Of course some heels serve a double purpose, but not all do.
Crazy nail polish - My nails are usually pretty plain (since I work full-time and would hate taking the polish off after 1 day on the weekend), so this usually doesn't bother me since I'm used to it by now. Green glitter probably wouldn't be good...
Tops that show cleavage - Since I work with mostly men, it would be extremely unprofessional if I did this. My boobs shouldn't be hanging out everywhere and look like they're going to knock someone out. I want to come across as mature and intelligent.
Tops that are so tight that it looks like one of the buttons will pop an eye out.

A lot of this also applies to interviews. For business interviews, usually the best outfit choice is something boring. I know, not fun. You don't want to distract the person who is interviewing you with something crazy that you have on. Of course different rules apply to different places. When I worked in retail, of course you had to dress cute and the only rule really was you couldn't wear something that you could possibly wear to the gym.

What's your work's dress code? Do you agree that when you dress well, you work/act well? Of course I'd love to wear pajamas to work everyday, but I'd probably fall asleep!

Excessive Amount of Goals Update and my DSLR/Travel savings fund

2012-02-01T07:08:00.011-06:00

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I hope everyone is having a great week! I'm glad it's Wednesday. This Friday is the BF's birthday, so I need to find him something. He's getting his CCW this weekend most likely, so that might just be his present. Also it was around 70 degrees again yesterday! This weather is really throwing me off, but I love it.

This post is going to be about the whole bunch of goals that I have. I'll be updating you on my monthly and 2012 goals. AHHH right? Just to recap, I talked about my January goals here, and my 2012 goals here. I didn't realize how many goals I had until I started typing up this post. Anything that was doubled, I just took out for the month.

Overall I'm doing pretty good I think. There's definitely some things that I can work on, but hey it's still early in the year so I have plenty of time to work on myself.

I've also decided that I want to try and save an extra $10 a day for a DSLR for my vacations. I'd like to buy one before our March vacation. That will give me around $600, but I'm sure I'll need more. I also want to buy a water proof casing for it. How much does a good one of those run?

What's a good model? How much? Someone help!

I also realized that I want to do a lot of stuff when we're on our March vacation. I've been looking at a bunch of water sports websites and I really want to go stand up paddle boarding and kayaking. This will be around $300 for the both of us (I priced it out).

I would also like to go scuba diving or snorkeling. I've never done this. How much does this usually cost? So I want to save a lot more money for this vacation. I might just move around the vacation money and put more into our March vacation fund.

Anyways, onto my lists:

2012 GOALS

Have lots of fun. PASS. Ha well I'm sure how to gauge this goal, but so far 2012 has been great!
Get toned. FAIL. I think I worked out once this month, and of course I have no abs. How sad is this.
Have a great year at work. PASS. Work has been great so far!
Get my MBA. Not yet, but soon! I'm going to sound like a dork, but I feel like I've learned so much from my classes this semester so far, I'm guessing it's because it all applies to my field, so I'm paying attention.
Pay off my car by March 2012. This will be paid off within the next couple of days! WHOO HOO
Decrease my student loans to $20,000. Haven't really touched this too much this past month. But I am still on track.
Save around $4,500 for vacations. Saved some!
Make $10,000 in side income. I'm on my way for this I've made around $600 this month in side income so far, and I've also gotten refunds of around $300 so far also from my mortgage overpayment.
Grow my blog. I'm definitely growing, thanks guys! My Alexa number is dropping a lot (it's still high because I bought a domain so I had to start over), so hopefully it keeps dropping!
Volunteer twice a month. FAIL, haven't volunteered yet, and most likely will not until the summer time.
Increase my net worth to $85,000. Obviously this hasn't been completed in 30 days, but I'm on my way!
Keep track of my goals. FAIL. Except for right now, I haven't looked at my goals since I made them,

January Goals

Make 2012 goals. PASS. Did this, DUH see above!
Reassess our budget and cut out $50. I posted yesterday about my budget. Up until yesterday, I hadn't cut anything out, but I got a letter the other day and my mortgage payment is going down $64 a month, so this is a PASS!
Start and finish homework before it's due. PASS. Yes I have been doing some of my homework during my lunch break at work on the same day, but I'm still doing it. I would like to put more effort into it though.
Workout at least 1 time a week. FAIL. See above. I want to start working out Thurs-Sun this week and forever... We shall see!
Sell my stuff on Ebay. FAIL. I've sold some stuff, but not as much as I'd like. On Thursday I'm hoping to get through more stuff and put it online.
Take down my Christmas tree. PASS. But I also failed, I hate to say this, but even though our main tree is down, we still have our "joke" Charlie Brown tree still up. It's so tiny that we've honestly forgot about it.
Make an extra $500 this month. PASS. I made over $600 from blog income and surveys!

How are your January and 2012 goals going?

Update: Lots of you have asked about my side income. A post on this should be up either this week or next! Look out.